Two Minutes Silence

by catsvrsdogscatswin

When Yang falls, its quiet. Calm. She did what she had to do. When Ruby and Blake fall, it's a jolt, a cold shock of horror that they didn't quite make it. When Weiss falls, it's almost with relief. Living or dead, she'll see them again. When Jaune falls, he thinks of his team, of one more letter knocked off of Team JNPR. When they wake up, they're at Beacon. Fix-it fic after V8.

13. Parting the Veil 2

You ever just wanna shoot your own chapter with a twelve-gauge shotgun? I got that feeling right now.

DIE, THOU FOUL BEAST! FOR HOUR UPON HOUR I HAVE SOUGHT TO VANQUISH THEE AND NOW, AT LONG LAST, YOU LIE DEAD AT MY FEET! *deranged cackling*

In plainer speech, it took me the better part of eight hours just to format (italicize, center, etc.) the RECAP portions of this chapter, never mind the stuff after Jinn finished and there was a general debate. I am NEVER doing this again. Good fucking riddance, you nightmare beast of two leviathan-sized chapters.

And if any of y'all saw any errors in either chapter, no the fuck you did not. I don't care if I spelled Ironwood as Ironwoof or formatted some lines upside-down at some point, you saw nothing and everything is fine, so help me god.

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"No, you listen!" Ironwood barked, starting to step forward again as Oscar backed away from him, onto the empty platform that stuck out from the wider area. "I am done letting others' inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what's right! Robyn, the council, this Kingdom… even you."

Oscar stopped at the edge of the platform, sorrow and defeat showing in his eyes.

"Then you're as dangerous as she is, James." he said reluctantly.

"James… is what my friends call me." Ironwood said after a moment. He looked down, before looking back up, his eyes cold and hard. "To you? It's General."

He drew his gun and shot Oscar in a single movement, and Jaune cried out as he saw Oscar's Aura flicker green and break as he was sent flying over the edge of the platform, Ozpin's cane coming loose as he plunged down into the dark.

"OSCAR!" Jaune cried as he ran to the edge, reaching out, but the blue fog was already rising.

"Maria Calavera and Pietro Polendina managed to retrieve Teams RWBY and JNR, but Oscar was nowhere to be found, and they had to leave behind Winter Schnee, injured and still loyal to James Ironwood. Cinder was forced to flee, though Penny Polendina accompanied her friends on their escape to Atlas."

Pyrrha watched in horror as the mist sculpted new forms, showing Ruby's uncle as he sat in a transport ship, hands bound with those same handcuffs that had been on Tyrian Callows, the handcuffs that had been on Team RWBY upon their entry into Atlas. He was staring listlessly at the green pin in his hand, smeared with blood. Beside him, a similarly-bound Robyn Hill reached out to put her hands on his shoulder, her face sympathetic.

"Qrow Branwen and Robyn Hill were arrested for the presumed murder of Clover Ebi as Ruby and her friends escaped into the city. Oscar Pine managed to save himself with a burst of magic, landing in Mantle as he was finally rejoined by the mind and spirit of Ozpin. All eyes, enemy and friend, captured and free, turned to the skies as they became dark with Tempests."

Pyrrha didn't know or care to think on how she found herself hovering in midair as though suspended by a string, looking out across the ice fields and tundra of Atlas, looking past the ships that swarmed like bees around the floating island of the city. Her eyes were drawn out farther, and her mouth dropped open in horror as she saw the nigh-apocalyptic storm bearing down on Atlas, the sky tinted a sickly purple-red, dark as the worst of thunderstorms but glowing as if lit from within by an ominous crimson light.

She felt herself being drawn towards it, or perhaps the images were drawn forwards, and hysterical fear climbed in Pyrrha's throat as she saw the massive shape looming through the clouds, the jagged teeth and glowing hump, the huge Dust crystals shining like spines along its back. She'd never seen a Grimm this huge, not even the Leviathan Ruby and the others had killed in Argus, not even the thing that had been there on the tower as she was… killed.

She'd never seen a Grimm this huge, and around it flew legions of other, lesser Grimm, Manticores and Beringels (with wings!?) and Teryxes and a host of others she couldn't and didn't want to name, not this many, not this much. Gods, there were so many of them, she'd never even heard of a Grimm horde half this large, not in the darkest legends of ruined kingdoms or the most fantastic tales of improbable victory.

Her heels dug against the nothingness and open air she was carried in as she was pulled yet closer, and Pyrrha saw Salem standing atop the massive whale-like Grimm as the clouds spread out to cover the sky around her, shrouding Atlas in a blood-tinged darkness.

"Salem herself had arrived on the battlefield, and with her came dread. Ruby and her friends managed to collect Oscar and find shelter with Robyn's Happy Huntresses, but there was much work to do, and little time to do it in. Opinions varied on which step to take forward, and doubt crept like poison into their minds."

Ren watched as the smoke faded away, weaving into the shape of a restaurant –the back part of it, he recognized, much dingier than what would be shown to customers– with all the images of himself and his friends there. A large, dark-skinned woman with a tattoo bridging her nose and several more framing her face and eyes was standing before them, holding a weapon that looked to be some kind of staff-crossbow combo over her shoulder.

"The largest Grimm horde ever seen is hovering over the tundra, and out there is a city full of people with no heat and, from what you told us, no more military protection." she said gruffly, turning to pick through what meager supplies her people had apparently gathered. "And while we're happy to give you guys a place to lie low for a while…"

She held up a wrench and inspected it, turning the tool from one side to the other.

"It's time to get those people some help."

"How?" Ren heard his other self ask, turning to see a solemn frown on his face as he sat at a dusty table. "Ironwood is stopping all evacuations to Atlas. And we can't get them out of the city with Salem's forces surrounding us."

"The crater." the woman answered, turning to face them. "Beneath Atlas. It's not safe, but it's warm, and with everyone in one place, we can do a better job protecting them."

There was a slight pause as everyone looked at each other.

"May can send you where you're needed most. We've got to get everyone down into that crater before nightfall. In the slums, we might have a chance." the woman finished, before turning and walking back out.

"We're never going to sleep again, I just know it." the image of Weiss sighed to herself, shaking her head slightly.

The woman paused with her hand on the door, staring at Weiss with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Either you're helping, or you're baggage." she said ominously, before she left. There was another moment of silence, before Yang got up from her seat and moved to stand in front of everyone, turning to face them.

"We need to get out there and do what we can for Mantle." she said.

"We need to do what we can for everyone." Ruby shot back. "What about Amity? A-and telling the world about Salem? We can't do this alone. We need help."

"Ruby's right." Blake agreed immediately. "The Happy Huntresses are handling the evacuation better than we could. And there's a bigger picture!"

"But Amity isn't even finished." Yang said, unimpressed, as she gestured slightly with one hand. "It was still under construction."

Ruby exhaled slightly, then turned to Pietro. "Doctor? What would you need to launch Amity now?"

"Uh… We've made decent progress on construction and fuel collection." Pietro said, sending his chair forward a few steps. "All potentially manageable, but uh… hm… Amity was designed so it couldn't launch itself without… first being granted clearance from General Ironwood's terminal."

Yang crossed her arms with finality, turning to look at her sister.

"Ruby, there is no way Ironwood will cooperate with us." she said.

"But… he doesn't have to." Ruby said, her eyes darting around minutely in thought as she stared at the ground. "We just need the green light from his terminal, right?"

"You want to go back to the academy?" Yang asked incredulously, spreading her arms.

"Eh, uh, actually…" Pietro cut in. "There is more than one terminal. The one in his office and uh… one in the main Atlesian Military Compound, at the base of the city. You'd have to get into the compound somehow, then, uh, get inside the operations room, and then… hoo boy…" He scratched under his hat. "I might need to think about this some more."

Oscar looked from him to Ruby.

"And just to clarify, this is the easy option?" he asked wincingly.

"What you're saying is it can't be done. It's pointless." Yang said, making Ruby frown. "And even if you got the message out, there's no guarantee help would come."

"It's not pointless!" Ruby snapped, whirling around to face her sister. "Atlas is only Salem's current target. She's not hiding anymore, and once she's done here, she'll move on to the rest of Remnant. We need to warn them!"

Yang was silent for a moment, before she exhaled quietly and softened her stance.

"Ruby…" she said. "When we came here, we said we'd follow your lead… but… things haven't exactly worked out."

Ruby took a step back, a complex mix of emotions on her face –hurt foremost among them.

"I just-" Yang tried, but she was interrupted by Ren, stepping forward to stand beside her.

"There are people here who need us right now." he said, stabbing a finger at the ground. "That's something we can actually do."

"But this isn't about just Atlas." Nora shot back. "Ruby's right. It's about all of Remnant. They need to know in Vacuo, in Mistral, in Vale, what's coming –so they can prepare."

Jaune stepped between the two arguing sides, holding out his hands to keep them apart.

"O-okay. Okay…" he said, placating, before he took a deep breath and lowered his hands. "Then let's go for both. Get Amity up and running and evacuate Mantle."

"But that's how Salem got this far, by dividing us." Ruby protested. "We have to stick together."

"No." Oscar said, making Ruby look to him. Oscar gestured at the arguing pairs. "What Salem wants is to turn us against each other… just like this." He looked to the other boy and gave him a sharp nod. "Jaune has a point. We can work separately and still be united."

"Or… let me take the Relic to Salem." Penny said from her place standing in the corner, facing the wanted notice flickering on the screen that showed all her friends. "And maybe she will call off her attack on the kingdom."

"I don't think we can trust Salem to actually do that." Oscar said. "And the moment she uses the Staff to create anything else, Atlas falls onto Mantle."

"Nobody's turning you over to anybody." Yang told Penny gently, before looking to her sister and Nora. "I think that's the one thing we could all agree on."

Ruby gave a short sigh, before looking back up at her sister. "Okay. Then I guess we're going to Atlas." She glanced to Pietro. "Can you help us get to that terminal?"

"I…" He hesitated. "-suppose someone needs to help you bypass security…"

"I'll go." Penny murmured.

"Penny," her father began. "-we can't risk-"

Penny turned sharply, her eyes flaring with green flames.

"I'll go." she said.

"Do what you've gotta do." Yang said with a sigh, flinging her hand out, before turning away, heading for the door. "I'm going out there to see what I could do."

"Yang." Pietro said as she reached the door, tossing her some keys. "Go by the pharmacy. I was developing some new tools for you all before… this happened. You're gonna need 'em."

"Nora?" the image of Ren asked as he turned to join Yang.

"I'm going with Ruby." she answered, and a shadow crossed Ren's face.

"But… what about Mantle?" he said.

"Oh, I'm saving Mantle!" Nora scoffed. "Because I actually believe we can do this."

Blue smoke rose up around them all, dissolving them into nothingness like chalk in water, before Ren found himself with the images of Blake, Ruby, Weiss, and Nora on a rooftop under Atlas. Blake was putting a comforting hand on Ruby's shoulder as she moved through the settling smoke.

"Hey, we're still united." she said.

"I hope so." Ruby said gloomily. Weiss touched her earpiece as Maria's voice came through.

"I can get Pietro out to Amity to prepare, but that doesn't answer how we're getting all of you up to Atlas."

Weiss perked up. "I might actually have an idea f-"

She was interrupted by the beeping of a Scroll call, and everyone turned to check their Scrolls, seeing one by one that it wasn't meant for them. When they turned towards Penny, they saw that it was General Ironwood calling her Scroll, and Ren's jaw tightened. The image of Penny hesitated for a moment, her finger hovering over the expanded screen, before she hesitantly pressed the Accept option.

"Hello, Penny." Ironwood said, his voice deceptively calm. "I'm worried for your safety. Tell me where you are and I'll have you picked up right away. Atlas needs you, Penny. Salem is here."

Ren's shoulders relaxed a little as Ruby walked over to take the Scroll from Penny, one hand on her friend's shoulder.

"She's not going anywhere until you change your mind about Mantle." Ruby said firmly. "There's still a chance for Remnant to be-"

"Mantle? You're still worried about Mantle?!" Ironwood asked, the calm vanishing immediately from his voice. "Remnant is doomed, Ruby! Unless we leave, Salem will destroy Atlas and with it, any hope humanity has left. We need to think about the future. If she makes it through our defenses, everything that follows will be on your hands."

Ren scoffed as the fog rose again, his friends' images wavering in the smoke as they faded away –or maybe he did. So Atlas was so important, was it, that its destruction would doom the whole entire world? There was no chance at all of survival, if Atlas and Atlas alone did not make it out intact?

What a travesty. If Atlas was so important, so vital to Remnant's defense against Salem, then why hadn't they used whatever tool, whatever person, whatever technology that made them so important? Why had it not even been mentioned before now?

As far as Ren was concerned, something like that didn't exist. This was just arrogance, sheer arrogance, Ironwood assuming that if he and all his military couldn't come up with a solution, then there was none to be had. Consequently, they were the most important ones to save, because even if they couldn't come up with any ideas yet, they and they alone would inevitably be the ones who would figure out how to take down Salem.

"But what Ironwood had forgotten, once again and always, was that it does not take an army to infiltrate a castle's walls. Grimm already ran and flew and crawled through the city of Mantle, and while Yang and her team worked to stymie them and rescue the citizens… a far greater danger stalked them in turn."

Nora was focused on taking deep, calming breaths, and she didn't give a fuck if none of this was real, she had Magnhild out as the blue fog Jinn used to sculpt this dimension flowed away again, revealing a snowy Mantle street. Stress after stress after stress had piled high in her mind, and she had to have her weapon in hand, damnit, or she would snap.

Riding Atlas hoverbikes, she saw Yang fleeing from a Teryx as Oscar sat backwards on Ren's bike. He threw a Dust grenade, sending a pulse of Wind up as it shot the Teryx up into a bridge, which crumpled and crushed it to the ground. Ren and Yang looped around, making room for Jaune, shield expanded with Hard Light and riding his bike while standing as he gave a ferocious cry and decapitated the Teryx. He wobbled a little as the hoverbike went past the crumbling Grimm, before taking his seat again as it eased to a stop.

"Okay, Fiona." Yang sighed in satisfaction, taping her intercom. "That's one more problem taken care of."

"Good, cause we're getting reports of more Grimm coming in from the west. The Huntsmen there could really use some backup."

The image of Yang sighed and slumped in her seat as Jaune similarly wilted, moving to sheathe his sword.

"Okay. We're on our way." Yang groaned into the com, before tapping it off.

"It's all the negativity." Oscar said. "Salem's forces aren't moving in, but it's enough to start attracting the stragglers."

Ren looked over his and Oscar's shoulders, and his stare flattened.

"Guys…" he said wearily, jerking his chin at a spot further down the street. "We're not finished."

The others looked as well as three Sabyrs charged them from around the corner, and Yang gestured back at Jaune as he quickly looped around, speeding back to them.

"All right." she said, bending over her own bike. "We need to hurry this up and take-"

The image of Yang paused as the Grimm suddenly looked to one side, skittering and skidding to a halt before they reached the group. They then immediately whipped around, scampering away from the humans, and the hairs rose on the back of Nora's neck. Was this the "far greater danger" that Jinn had been talking about? Was this something that linked back to all of this being in some weird future, that she didn't have memory of?

"W-what… just happened?" the image of Ren faltered nervously, leaning forwards a little on the bike as Oscar looked from him to the street and back again.

"They ran." Jaune murmured as he came even with the others, looking from Ren to Yang as though searching for an explanation. "I-I've never seen Grimm act that way before."

"But what were they running fro-" Oscar began before something huge and black came plunging out of the sky, knocking him and Ren off the bike. Oscar barely had time to react before the thing snarled and seized his arm in a fang-filled maw, thrashing and throwing him farther away from the others as Oscar cried out in fear.

"Oscar!" the image of Ren shouted from the ground as Nora joined him, because fuck her knowing this kid or not, he was in trouble and he was friends with some form of her. But she was just as helpless as the others as the massive canine-like Grimm literally pounced on Oscar, driving its slick black paws into his body with all its force as his Aura shimmered, weakening. Oscar tried to kick it away from himself, whimpering in terror, before the Grimm slammed its jaws down on his leg and picked him up, bodily thrashing and throwing him to the ground again and slamming its paws down as his Aura finally broke.

The Grimm snarled in satisfaction as the glowing green motes of Oscar's Aura fluttered away, and to Nora's unmitigated horror, it stretched. That was the only way to describe it, the inky blackness of the creature shifting and settling in new ways as it reared up onto its hind paws, bones bending and almost jutting through its tar-like, oily skin with gruesome crunching noises. At last, it finished its horrible work, now seeming more like a Beowolf than anything else –though still slick, not furry– as it grabbed the limp, unconscious Oscar with one paw-hand and lifted him.

"Oscar!" the image of Yang shouted, finally coming out of her shock, and she gunned her bike, shooting towards them and bringing her arms back for a punch. The Grimm whipped Oscar around, making Yang falter and move to dodge, grabbing the handles of her bike to steer herself sideways and leaving herself open as the Grimm seized her by the face –its hand was large enough to cover almost her whole skull– and flung her to the side, hard enough to crack the concrete wall she was thrown against.

Green gunshots rippled over the Grimm's massive shoulder, and it turned just in time to catch Ren's sickles to the chest as Nora took an involuntary step forward, wanting to help but knowing that she couldn't. It was just so hard to stay still though, to see Ren and the others running into danger while she –didn't. She couldn't just stand here, and yet, even if she ran to help, she rippled through these images like mist.

Ren jumped, using the retraction on his sickles to send himself flying towards the Grimm, but it curled one of those horrible gooey arms back, stretching and extending it like an Imp's as it swatted the image of Ren to the side. Jaune drew his sword, his expression fierce, but before he could move the Grimm whipped around and held Oscar up between them.

"Wait!" Yang called from her place on the ground, raising her hand frantically towards Jaune. "It's using Oscar as a shield!"

"But… Grimm aren't that smart." he muttered, perplexed, as he lowered his sword slightly.

Ren grabbed his discarded weapons and pulled them up towards the Grimm, which proved Yang's guess as it whirled around again, holding Oscar in front of itself as Ren growled in frustration.

"Give him back!" he shouted.

The Grimm squirmed its shoulders for a moment, and Nora saw something in its oozing throat shift and crackle, the neck twisting and… lengthening slightly. The Grimm's maw parted, and something came out that shocked Nora –and the others– to the core.

"No…" it rasped, then turned away as Ren gaped.

"Did it just…?" Jaune whispered, horrified. The Grimm paused some distance away from them, going onto all fours again as its back bubbled and writhed like a boiling cauldron. The sounds it made were beyond description, a cross between groans of pain and bass growls as its hand-paws rasped on the ground, before two veined red wings burst from the Grimm's back in a shower of black ooze. It howl-screamed its triumph to the skies, wings still dripping that black muck as they flapped experimentally a few times, before it seized Oscar in its mouth and bolted, rapidly jumping from wall to roof to sky as it soared away.

The image of Ren ran after it in vain for a few steps as Jaune and Yang stared in shock.

"Kids, what's your status?" the same voice came through the intercoms suddenly. "West side's taking damage."

"What do we do?" the image of Ren cried, turning to Yang. They both looked to Jaune, whose expression firmed over as he nodded back at them. Yang and Ren scrambled for their hoverbikes, and they all looped around to follow the Grimm.

"Kids. What's your status?"

The image of Yang tapped her earpiece. "We've got an emergency, we're not going to make it." she replied hastily.

"What?! What kind of emergency?"

Yang hesitated for a moment, looking up at the sky where the black figure was seen receding up into the air.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Nora's heart was in her throat as blue smoke whirled around her, shaping new images, and part of her relaxed a little as she saw the three hoverbikes speeding through the snow outside Mantle, still in hot pursuit, still with their eyes firmly on the prize. The Grimm-thing hadn't gotten away yet… if it even was a Grimm. No matter how smart they got, no matter how old they were, Grimm didn't talk.

A chill slid down her spine as she suddenly remembered a far-off conversation in Beacon's training rooms, a conversation that they'd had just after their very first sparring session together. "A Grimm that's a lot smarter than even Alpha Grimm," Jaune had said when she'd asked what was smarter than Grimm and dumber than people, and here he was, speeding through the Atlas mountains in pursuit of something exactly like that.

That was a further proof and a validation that all this was true that Nora could have really done without.

"It's going to lose us in these mountains!" the image of Jaune shouted to the others as they shot up a slope. "We can't keep up!"

As if to prove this, Ren's hoverbike rattled and shook, and he glanced down to see frost creeping across the display.

"I don't know how much longer these bikes can stand the cold." he called back worriedly.

"I'm really wishing one of us could fly right now." Yang quipped. Jaune looked towards the sky, and then stiffened, deploying his shield and looking aside to Ren.

"Wait, hold on!"

Before Nora could be alarmed, Jaune hit the brakes and swerved so that he was riding parallel with her partner, holding up his shield arm in demonstration.

"Ren, going to get you up there."

Ren stood without question, leaping from and abandoning his hoverbike as he landed in a crouch on Jaune's shield. Jaune activated the Gravity pulse at the same time he swung with all his might, flinging Ren up towards the sky as Ren aimed and shot one of his cabled sickles at the Grimm, latching onto its leg. Nora watched, half-wincing in sympathy and half-terrified that he would fall, as the Grimm swooped and dipped, flinging and slamming Ren against the walls of the cliffs that were starting to pen them in.

"He's slowing him down." Jaune said, and tapped his earpiece, staring in fear at the sky. "Hold on, Ren!"

"I don't have much of a chooooice!" Ren called back, briefly managing to run along a wall before he was yanked into the air again. He shot down with StormFlower's other cable, trying to ground himself with a boulder and slow the Grimm to a stop, but it looked behind itself and swooped up, tugging the cable loose as it bashed Ren against several more walls and peaks. As Yang zipped up an incline to find a path parallel to the Grimm, firing pot shots at it, the Grimm finally had enough, and roared loud enough to make the chasm ring.

Or maybe that was just the sound of a horde of Centinels tunneling through the stone and dirt.

"Did it just call for backup?" the image of Yang gawked, looking at the sky as several Teryxes swooped down towards them.

Nora watched in horror as her team leader and her friend fought their way frantically to clear and continue their path on the ground, before Jaune's engine was hit and he had to leap and use his shield pulse to launch himself onto a stone bridge at Yang's level, and she pulled him onto her bike a few seconds later. They swerved frantically around Teryxes and Centinels as Ren began to pull himself hand over hand up towards the Grimm and Oscar.

Nora's eyes were drawn downwards as the path of the hoverbike began to wobble, Yang and Jaune being hit too many times, and then she gasped as she saw them rocketing towards a cliff. Yang swerved, trying to brake, but they must've hit a rock in the snow as the hoverbike suddenly bucked and threw them both, the two Hunters tumbling headlong alongside their bike as it crashed to a halt on a boulder –and they fell off the cliff, Jaune stabbing his sword down to break their fall too late as he clasped Yang's hand.

StormFlower's guns sounded, and Ren shot his sickle around Jaune's sword and ankle respectively, bringing them all to a dangling halt. Ren looked aside as a Teryx swooped at them, and quickly used his Semblance as they all greyed out and it passed by.

With Oscar, the Grimm flew off into the sky, heading towards the ominous bank of Tempest-created clouds, and the blue fog of Jinn's storyscape moved in.

"They failed to retrieve their friend, and tempers began to fray once again. Lie Ren believed himself and his friends underage, unqualified, a fact that only seemed proven by their repeated failure to make or maintain any progress in their goals."

The sun was westering when Jinn's blue smoke faded away, and Blake saw the images of Ren and Yang standing face to face in the snow, Yang with hands on her hips as she glared at him.

"Well, I'm sorry things aren't going smoothly enough for you." she scoffed, folding her arms.

"Guys." Jaune said wearily from several meters back, coming to a halt from where he was pushing a broken hoverbike.

"They're not going 'smoothly' at all." Ren shot back, ignoring him.

"I hate to break it to you, but that's part of being a Huntsman." Yang told him.

"Are you kidding?!" Ren snapped. "We don't know the first thing about being Huntsmen! We clearly weren't ready."

"Guys, stop it." Jaune said a little more sharply, stepping forwards a few paces.

"Were we not ready when we saved Haven? When we took down a Leviathan?" Yang demanded, spreading her arms. "We got the Lamp to Atlas!"

"And then we lost it!" Ren pointed out, gesturing sharply with both hands. "And after that, when we had to make real decisions, we got every single one wrong."

"I'm not going to pretend like we did everything perfectly," Yang said. "-but if we'd done nothing, things would be even worse than they are now."

"How could they possibly be worse?" Ren asked. "We are stuck out here while Salem has the Lamp and Oscar. We've got no plan, no army."

"We've got the Maiden." Yang said, gesturing towards the floating shape of Atlas in the distance.

"And by keeping her from opening the Vault for Ironwood, we're just trapping the whooole city for Salem." Ren snapped, walking towards that distant image and raising his arms up towards it, before he lowered them both and stood stiffly. "People are going to die. Because of us."

"So what, we should just give Ironwood what he wants? Abandon Mantle?" Yang scoffed. "You think Atlas is still gonna be able to float to safety now that she's here?"

"I don't know!" Ren barked, turning to her and almost stomping back to his previous position. "But these aren't the kinds of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!"

"Okay, both of you." Jaune said sternly. "Cut it out."

"I'm just saying what nobody else wants to." Ren huffed, gesturing slightly before he walked closer, standing nose to nose with Yang. "We're in way over our heads: Ruby is barely more than a kid, I'm just an orphan from the middle of nowhere-"

"Ren, I-" Jaune began, still trying to mediate, before Ren whipped around and spat at him with venom:

"You cheated your way into Beacon!"

There was a stunned silence from Yang. Blake was equally surprised –oh, Jaune had been a little bit of a crap fighter when he'd first entered Beacon, but she'd thought…well, he was partners with Pyrrha Nikos. Anyone would be outshined a little, and look more than usually abysmal by comparison. Blake herself was an ex-guerilla fighter and had no real frame of judgment for newbie Huntsmen: for all she knew, Jaune had been average rather than sub-par.

Back in the vision, Ren's expression slowly changed as the silence stretched on, anger turning into guilt and remorse. Jaune's expression of shock and hurt smoothed over into cold professionalism as he looked down slightly, thinking.

"You don't think we should be Huntsmen, fine." he said quietly after a moment, glancing back up at Ren with a frown. "But I'm getting out of the cold."

He started forward, still pushing the hoverbike.

"We've still got a job to do." he muttered as he passed by Ren and Yang, the latter of whom had his face lowered, looking at the ground as his bangs hung over most of his face. Yang waited until Jaune had passed before looking at Ren with a scowl.

"Seriously, is your goal just to push everyone away?" she asked in disgust, before turning to follow Jaune. Ren clenched his fists and didn't speak as the blue smoke rose around them all.

"Meanwhile, Ruby's group had managed to infiltrate the Atlas Military Compound, and while Pietro managed to copy the imprint of General Ironwood's credentials onto his daughter's robotic frame, their presence was noticed. Arthur Watts, who was captured by Ironwood before his ties with Ruby and her friends were shattered, had been put to use, and one of his uses was the discovery of Pietro Polendina's credentials where none should be. General Ironwood deployed the Ace Ops."

Blake scowled as the blue smoke faded away again to show Marrow and the others trying to convince Penny that not abandoning Mantle was selfish, that her acquiring the powers was wrong, and any casualties due to Ironwood's flawed chain of command –and reasoning– were in fact laid at Penny's feet.

"But it won't save Atlas." the image of Ruby was saying. "Salem will find her way to the Relic no matter where you go. Once Ironwood opens the Vault, the Relic is as good as-"

"One more word," Harriet growled, raising a finger. "-and I'm throwing you in jail right next to your uncle, runt."

Ruby bared her teeth in a snarl, about to move forward, but Penny held an arm out in front of her friend.

"Leave. Her. Alone." she said.

"And what are you gonna do about it, tin can?" Harriet drawled, raising her fists. Blake winced as Penny unknowingly stepped forward, winced as the Ace Ops activated the door that would block Penny off from her friends. She watched as Penny's eyes flared bright green with her Maiden flames, watched her summon a horizontal cyclone that sent the Ace Ops flying. They managed to regroup, Harriet darting past Penny several times and striking her, but Penny managed to track and then clothesline the running woman with one arm, deflecting Marrow's strikes and kicking Harriet's returning attacks away.

Penny then spread her arms, hail starting to sprinkle down as the makeshift storm worsened, and Blake watched as only then, belatedly, did the Ace Ops actually start working together using team attacks, Harriet leaping onto Elm's weapon for added boost in speed and force.

Eventually, as Penny flared her power and ducked around the uncoordinated attacks of the Ace Ops, Marrow knocked her off the bridge, and as Penny rose into the air, he snapped his fingers and activated his Semblance.

"Stay!"

Frozen, Penny could do nothing as Vine reached out with his Aura-arms and plucked her from the air, tossing her onto the ground.

"Be strong, and hit stuff." Blake murmured, knowing that behind the door, Nora was doing the same thing. Sure enough, behind her she heard the half-agonized, half-ecstatic cries of Nora as she siphoned the power of the electrified bay door into herself and her Semblance.

"Hurry up, Elm." Marrow grunted as the other woman knelt atop Penny, maneuvering the Gravity cuffs around her wrists. "I can't-"

The door exploded off its hinges, whooshing through Blake in blue fog and sending the Ace Ops flying as it hit them solidly. As the dust and smoke settled, Nora was left standing groggily in the wreckage of the doorframe as she gripped her hammer in both hands, her hair standing on end and her body flickering with pinkish bolts of lightning. The glow faded, but the marks did not, etched into her skin in angry, branching red lines as Nora grinned.

"That was… pretty awesome." she said loopily, and then collapsed as her Aura broke.

"Nora!" Penny cried, running towards her and cradling her limp friend. Ruby, Blake, and Weiss stepped past her, holding out their weapons towards the regrouping Ace Ops, and Penny quickly rose into the air as a storm brewed above the hall, shot with flickers of green lightning.

Standing closer to the Ace Ops than she had been able to afford the first when this fight went down, Blake heard what they were saying as they received a call. Harriet stiffened, putting a finger to her ear.

"But General, we-"

"We understand, sir." Marrow said firmly, doing the same and glancing at her. They shared a look, but they didn't have time to do more as Penny shot forwards and the rest of her friends soon followed. The Ace Ops ducked out of the way, and Blake saw herself and the others knocked off the edge with Vine's Semblance. Her eyes narrowed. This was it –the moment where it had begun to go wrong.

She watched as Penny spun and slashed with Floating Array, focusing on Harriet as the biggest threat, and Blake's mouth dropped open as Harriet used her Semblance to duck and slide under Penny's attack –and then grab one of her swords.

She wasn't.

She couldn't.

Blake's hand rose to her throat as Harriet yanked, the near-invisible string connecting the sword to Penny twanging as if in protest as it was pulled taunt. The harsh tug jerked Penny back just a little by where it was anchored near her shoulders, and she cried out. Was it pain? Surprise?

A Huntress's weapon was sacred. You didn't just –grab it like that. Your weapon was an extension of who you were, a mark of your personality and your Semblance and your fighting style, everything. You molded it to yourself with the years, you put everything you had into it. Blake could count on the fingers of her hand –on one hand– how many times someone else had used Gambol Shroud.

Adam had done it a few times, back very early on when they were partners who trusted each other implicitly, when she had not yet begun to doubt, and he had lost his sword. Yang had done it once when they were fighting Adam and he had knocked it back in kusarigama form, when she had caught it to prevent the rebound hitting Blake, and yanked swiftly to send Blake flying in a reversal of their usual Bumblebee attack. Yang had done it for the second and last time during their final attack, when Yang had seized one half of the broken blade and Blake had seized the other, and they had run Adam through from opposing sides. Weiss, apparently, had picked up Gambol Shroud after Blake had fallen through the void with Ruby and dual-wielded it against Cinder, before it too was knocked aside and fell with them.

That was it. That was all. Three people, Blake had trusted with her weapon, two of them her partner –former and current. She hadn't even been there to give Weiss her blessing to use Gambol Shroud after she was gone, but Blake would not begrudge it. It was life or death, Weiss was her teammate, and more than that, she was family. Blake could allow it.

But she would only allow it, never condone it, never encourage it. Only your closest friends and family even knew the name of your weapon, so to see it ripped away like this, brutal and without a care-

Blake clenched her hands into fists as she watched Penny stagger and groan as if in pain as one of her swords were ripped away from her, watched the red blur that was Ruby pulling her past self and Weiss back up onto the bridge where they had been knocked away. She watched the Ace Ops retreat, satisfied with their thievery. Only Marrow hesitated, looking at them with something almost like guilt, before he vaulted off the edge to join them.

"Uh, that was…" Weiss said after a moment, looking to the others as Penny flew to join them.

"Very suspicious?" the past image of Blake supplied dryly, finishing the sentence for her as Penny landed beside Nora, who was still semiconscious. She groaned as Penny pulled her into her lap, cradling Nora gently, but when Penny reached for Nora's hammer to retrieve it with them, it sparked, making her jerk her hand away.

The world washed over in blue fog.

"Unbeknownst to Penny and her friends, this thievery of her sword would prove far more troublesome than they could imagine. Penny controlled her swords through the medium of a microchip transmitter, and once this was in the hands of Arthur Watts, he had a direct link to Penny. But they did not know this, and as they fled Atlas, their only thoughts were of moving their plan forward and tending to their injured comrade. Amity was launched, and yet, its launch was thwarted. Cinder Fall and her allies, Emerald Sustrai and Neopolitan, had moved against Salem's orders to check on the supposedly-abandoned tower, and Cinder did much damage to it before they reached broadcasting range."

Neo sighed, and yawned a little, waving a hand in front of her mouth, as she saw the interior of Amity. She knew how this whole song and dance went –she'd been here for the fight, after all.

Still…

"Nonetheless, through Penny Polendina's bravery, Cinder was knocked unconscious, and her allies fled with her. After a tearful separation, Penny returned to the exterior of Amity, and used the powers of the Winter Maiden to help hold the damaged structure aloft, boosting it for as long as she could in order to relay their desperate message."

Neo perked up a little as the fog wisped away and changed the world again, finding herself standing in front of a holographic screen in –Atlas, she thought. She didn't particularly care, instead staring with interest at the message she had not been originally able to view. The screen showed that same restaurant Ruby and her friends had been planning in, and she heard the Faunus's –Blake's– voice prompt her as Ruby took a few deep breaths, visibly psyching herself up.

"Okay, go ahead."

Ruby stiffened like a deer in headlights, making Neo grin, before she moved to lock eyes with the camera.

"Um, uh. Hi." she squeaked, rubbing the back of her head and raising her other hand in a nervous wave. She then took a deep breath and relaxed, staring more seriously at the camera. "My name is Ruby Rose. I'm a Huntress. And if we've done everything right, then… I'm talking to all of Remnant right now. Dr. Polendina can explain more later, but right now you all need to know is that the Kingdom of Atlas is under attack. Things are dire, and we need help. But please, try not to panic. This isn't some new enemy or invading kingdom. This is a force we've faced before, for centuries… Salem."

Ruby looked down sadly.

"The White Fang, Atlesian drones, even the Grimm themselves have all been controlled and manipulated by her, in order to tear down the Huntsman Academies. I know the idea of the Maidens and Relics seems… well… crazy,"

She spread her arms with a sheepish grin, before retracting them to clasp her hands before her heart.

"-but I promise Professor Goodwitch of Beacon and Headmaster Theodore of Shade can verify all of this. They might even be able to help organize a way to fight back! But…"

Her eyes lowered, and her voice darkened.

"Sadly, General Ironwood can no longer be trusted."

Ruby swallowed and looked at the camera again.

"We didn't have time to prepare for Salem. But now you do! Just because she can't be destroyed, doesn't mean she can't be beaten. If she really was unstoppable, she wouldn't have acted with such caution until now. She knows we're a threat! So even if we- even if Atlas falls, you can't give up. I hope Amity Tower will help bring us all together. Because in the end, that's how we'll win-"

The video cut off, and Neo wondered, just for a second, if maybe she might have acted differently, if she had heard this before listening in on Hazel's discussion with Oscar, before his defection.

"Unfortunately, it was at this very moment that Arthur Watts struck. Using Penny Polendina's own swords against her, he seized control of the young Maiden's body, implanting a virus that would force her to seek out the Vault of Creation, open it, and self-terminate. But one thing Arthur Watts did not reckon on was the resilience –and even the existence– of Penny's mind and soul."

Weiss found herself hovering in midair again, watching Penny with her back braced against one of Amity's stabilizers, using the jets on her feet and her Maiden powers in order to boost the tower's height and keep them in signal range for as long as possible.

Penny gasped, suddenly, blinking as her eyes flared and flickered with that hateful red and her Maiden flames extinguished themselves. She cried out in what seemed to be pain, lurching and clutching her head as her jets failed and she started to tumble through the air.

"Penny!" Weiss cried in anguish, but her friend caught herself with a grunt and ignited her booster jets again, flying back to the stabilizer, slamming herself against it and pushing with both arms.

"Penny!" she heard Pietro's voice. "What's going on out there?!"

"I…" Penny gasped, and heaved again as her eyes flickered, her voice filled with fear. "I do not know!"

"Penny, you've done enough, sweetheart." Pietro said worriedly. "Get back inside! We can ride out on Amity together."

"No!" Penny blurted, her eyes flickering back and forth as she struggled to push on the tower. "Ah! I –I have to go… the Vault!"

She groaned, ducking her head down.

"No!" Penny hissed, resisting with all of her might, before she regained control of herself and looked up in panic. "Dad!"

Her eyes flickered a few more times, green-red, red-green, before her pupils widened and lost focus, and she began to fall.

"Penny! What is happening!?" Pietro shouted frantically as his daughter plummeted through the air. "Please, baby, say something!"

Weiss watched, a lump in her throat, as Penny streaked through the sky, gaining a burning cloak as she plunged rapidly through the atmosphere. So far as she knew, this was the last time Penny and her father had ever seen or heard from each other.

"I love you." Penny managed, before the com faded to static.

Tears blurred Weiss's vision even before the world dissolved in blue fog.

"And yet not all was lost. Though Ironwood sent his forces to collect Penny's newly-controlled shell, though Watts planned for her to go straight to the Vault and perish, Penny Polendina had a stronger soul than any of them expected. Many times as she fell, she managed to wrest control of her mechanical body, and always flew towards a place that she perhaps knew, on a level beyond instinct, that she would find help."

Weiss found herself in the front hallway of the Schnee manor again, with Blake and Ruby and May, with the image of her past self embracing Whitley as he squeaked and almost flinched. The ground suddenly rocked, and everyone tensed as Weiss looked away from her brother.

"Did you call anyone else?" she asked, still holding him, and Whitley mutely shook his head. The image of Ruby moved to the door and threw it open, and seeing a smoking crater in the paved walkway, she ran out, quickly followed by Blake and Weiss. At the bottom of the crater, crackling with electricity and covered with the green coolant that served for her blood, was Penny. She weakly reached up as she caught sight of her friends.

"I'm… I'm sorry…" she managed to whisper –perhaps for her failure to protect Amity until the full signal was sent out– before she collapsed.

"Ruby Rose and her friends carried Penny into the Schnee home, called for the faithful servant that Whitley had brought in to serve as a doctor, and yet she did not awaken. More troubling still, though unbeknown to them, was the condition of Oscar, held captive by Salem herself and tortured for the knowledge of how to activate my Relic, amongst many other things. And yet, here too did something else awaken, something small and insignificant, almost to be overlooked. Though the old man merged with each new mind he found himself hosted within, it was not the punishment he had begun to think of it as. With each host he gained a new perspective, new thoughts. Oscar Pine was not just a new body: he was a fresh mind to consider the problem, and he had ideas that the wizard did not."

Ruby blinked, and then cringed as the smoke faded away and she was shown what the inside of that giant whale had looked like, all glowing red and Grimm flesh. Her cringe turned into a shudder as she saw Oscar propped up against a spike of bone, or perhaps an enormous tooth, sitting on the ground with an arm draped over his raised knee.

She blinked again, though, as she heard Professor Ozpin's voice, as she had not heard for –well, years, until she had fallen from the paths and come back to Beacon.

'I'd like to express again that this is my burden to bear, not yours. His grudge is with me.'

"No, it'll be even worse." Oscar said in a wheezy voice that made Ruby wonder if he'd popped a rib and was trying not to breathe too hard and jar it. "He's holding back with me, I can tell."

'I understand. I do.' Ozpin said as Oscar wearily swiped his wrist under his nose, wiping away the smear of blood there and pausing to consider it before he lowered his arm to his side again. 'But you've done so much already. The least I can do is give you a break, and try to get us out of here.'

"We can't leave yet." Oscar wheezed, wincing a little as he spoke too hard. "This is our chance."

'Hmm. Maybe you've taken one too many hits.'

"Salem, she knows she can't take on the whole world at once." Oscar said, flattening his leg and propping himself up a little more horizontally to ease his breathing. His eyes flicked around as he addressed the voice in his mind, Oscar's head bobbing and jerking slightly as he spoke. "So she doesn't. She has her followers work their way in, sabotaging us from the inside out."

"Maybe we should do the same." Oscar and Ozpin said in unison.

'We certainly are similar, you and I.' Ozpin chuckled a moment later. 'Maybe we have been presented with an opportunity.'

The door to the small room squelched open, ripping and tearing like a membrane as Ruby cringed away from it, moving to stand by her friend. The huge man she recognized as Hazel Rainart stepped into the room, and Ruby caught Oscar's expression as it flattened.

"Great." he muttered.

'Oscar, please.'

Ruby glared as Hazel picked Oscar up and slammed him against the bony spur he'd been leaning against, making Oscar gasp in pain. But when Hazel spoke, his voice was calm and even.

"You don't need to fight this war, kid." he said, hand clenched in Oscar's collar. "Tell me what I need and we can be done."

Oscar's eyes flashed with a brief golden glow as they opened, looking up at the much-larger man with a slight smile.

"Hello… Hazel."

"Coward!" Hazel snarled, recognizing the switch that had taken place. "All this time, it could have been you, but you let him suffer."

He bodily tossed Oscar-Ozpin –Oscarpin?– aside with a grunt as Oscar's body thudded, bounced, and rolled on the ground, curling in around himself as he came to a halt.

"Now, tell us how this damned Lamp works." Hazel growled, stepping over to him and cracking his knuckles. "The boy has suffered enough."

"Why do you follow her?" Ozpin asked as he stood, one arm clutching Oscar's side. He cried out as Hazel kicked him, hard enough to knock Oscar's smaller body down again with a yelp of pain as he spun across the dismal floor of the room.

"I know…" Ozpin began as he propped himself up a little on the ground, before gagging and coughing out a spatter of blood. He looked up, swallowing the rest as he did. "I know how you see me. But her? Look at what she does, how is she the answer? Why not stop her!?"

Hazel stopped as Ozpin shouted the last, managed to prop Oscar's body up on his hands and knees. Hazel looked down and turned away, walking across the room.

"Salem can't be stopped." he said quietly, grasping the long, jagged curve of a bone spike. "She's a force of nature. I've seen it firsthand. But you…"

Ruby's hand covered her mouth as Hazel broke the very tip of the tooth-like projection off, his voice darkening. He turned to Ozpin and rasped it once against the metal plate on the back of his hand, sharpening the spike as his face and voice filled with rage.

"You send children to their deaths for a cause that you know has no victory –no end!"

"Someone has to try!" Ozpin gasped, kneeling upright to gesture with both hands. "Salem isn't a force of nature because Salem can be fought! Unless she brings the Relics together."

Hazel slowed.

"If that happens-"

"Ozma." Salem's low, silky voice came from the doorway, making Hazel come to a complete stop. "You have wonderful timing. The show is about to begin."

"As Ozma's latest reincarnation was taken to the bridge of Salem's living ship, calamity fell. The monstrous Grimm that she had raised in the shape of a whale flew high towards the city in the clouds, and landed upon its outer rim. It opened its mouth, and belched forth Grimm beyond counting, as the army that had accompanied it swarmed both cities. Ironwood's forces attempted to drive it off, but the river of Grimm liquid from below had destroyed the Hard Light shields that Atlas relied upon, and they had not fought a battle of this scale in living memory, never mind at their very doorstep. As Oscar and the old man were taken back to their prison, they continued their desperate attempts to sow the seeds of dissent amongst Salem's followers, knowing that time was running short."

"That stunt you pulled." Hazel growled as the room swirled and reformed again, he and Oscar's images vanishing and sculpting themselves into new places as Salem's image puffed away in a column of bright blue mist. Oscar's body now swung gently in the air, suspended by a hook with his arms tied together at the wrists. Oscar's boots swayed a few inches above the ground as blood dripped down and puddled between his toes. "She'd have killed you if you didn't just pop up somewhere else. Still, you can make things easier on yourself if you start telling the truth."

"You've never wondered why she recruited you?" Ozpin murmured as he opened his weary eyes, not bringing up Oscar's head. "You, specifically, to help her find the Relics."

Ruby watched as Hazel paused, as though gathering his thoughts or judging whether or not he should even speak at all.

"We share a vision." he said at last. "She's gonna create a new world order. No kingdoms…"

He stepped closer, leaning almost nose-to-nose with Oscar.

"…and no Huntsmen Academies."

Bruised and beaten as he was, Ozpin still chuckled.

"New world order." he repeated, as though tasting the words, feeling out the lie like a loose tooth. "No. When Salem gets all four Relics, there will be no world left at all."

Ruby watched as Hazel turned away, perking up slightly as she saw his expression changing. He was getting angry, which was bad for Oscar, but… but it meant that what Ozpin was saying was striking a nerve. That at some level, it was believed.

"Don't you get it?" Ozpin rasped. "She's been alive longer than you can comprehend. All she craves now is release… death."

Hazel growled, and Ruby jumped as he whirled and took several quick steps closer, punching Oscar hard enough to make him swing violently back and forth through the air.

"Stop lying!" Hazel snarled as Ruby watched Ozpin blink blearily, clearly trying to focus enough to listen and hear as Hazel ranted at his swaying body. "Salem can't be killed! When she came for me, I killed her over and over again. The longest she was gone was only a few hours –before she put herself back together."

He turned away, looking at his hands as Oscar swayed to a halt.

"When I couldn't lift my arms anymore, she showed me that, through her, I could have the vengeance I needed." Hazel finished as he clenched his hands into fists, lowering his arms a bit.

"Oh, Hazel, don't you see? That is why she came for you." Ozpin breathed sadly, raising his head and jerking his chin around them –at the whale, at Atlas, at the situation. "Because she could make you believe that this is what you needed."

"This is what you deserve!" Hazel spat, turning to glare at him again.

"Yes!" Ozpin agreed desperately, and Ruby's heart broke at the complete lack of refusal. "But Oscar? The people of Atlas? Remnant? You haven't done what you've done for justice. You've done it for yourself. Because she pushed you to think it would help you."

Ozpin took a deep, pained breath and looked Hazel in the eyes.

"Well… has it?"

"Although Ozma and his host did not know it at the time, they spoke to more than one man as their audience. Emerald Sustrai, disciple of Cinder Fall, had been feeling growing strains of unease as the plan progressed. When Cinder had fallen in the Haven vault, Emerald had been left alone, and she found herself questioning the actions that she and her allies took, the suffering that they caused. But she clung to the belief that Cinder still cared for her, that she was valued as a person and not just a tool. Upon her return to Atlas, when Cinder continued to brush her off, Emerald's loyalty was shaken… and she began to doubt. What she heard from the old man did not soothe her fears."

"'So long as this world turns, you shall walk its face'. That was the curse cast upon her." Ozpin said as Yang winced, looking at him. She knew all this, but gods… seeing Oscar being beaten up like this, it made her itch to punch somebody, punch Hazel, even if he had helped them all escape. "But if Salem can divide humanity beyond repair, and bring all four Relics together… she believes that maybe, her curse will be broken. The gods will rule against us… and destroy Remnant, once and for all."

"Nice story." Hazel said, his arms folded across his brawny chest. "But if Gretchen's death taught me one thing, it was never to trust you."

He unfolded his arms and started to walk towards Yang and the image of her friend as Oscar's eyes widened. Yang heard his voice, echoing faintly like Ozpin's did.

'Please, let me.'

'But, Oscar-' Ozpin tried as he looked down and aside slightly, eyes unfocused, before darting back to glance at Hazel.

'You want him to trust us? Then trust me.'

Ozpin closed his eyes, hair fluffing slightly as an almost-invisible exchange of energy took place.

"Her name is Jinn." Oscar said, looking up. Hazel came to a stop with a startled exhale. "You want her to come out of the Lamp? Just say her name… she can still answer one more question."

"After all that," Hazel said, before his voice abruptly rose in anger and he grabbed Oscar by the collar, shoving him up in the air. "-you're just going to give Salem the password?!"

"No…" Oscar said, swallowing and licking his lips. "I'm giving you the password…and hoping, you'll find the truth for yourself."

Hazel slowly let him go, looking stunned.

"This revelation shook Emerald yet further, and she sought advice… from the only member of Salem's cohort that she could still trust. But her seeking came, alas, too late."

"He's a prisoner, Em, he'll say what he thinks will get him out." Yang heard Mercury scoff, blinking some of the bluish smoke away from her eyes as she watched it sculpt the image of him packing some clothes into a duffel back. His outfit had changed since they'd last crossed paths, but his abrasive mannerisms didn't seem much different.

"So you're still going to Vacuo… after what I just told you?" Emerald asked, spreading her arms in disbelief.

"Those are Salem's new orders." Mercury said, crisply zipping his bag and slinging it over one shoulder as he turned to her. "And I know better than to disobey Salem."

"But-" Emerald began as he walked past her, heading for the door. Mercury sighed and turned to face his partner, gesturing with one hand.

"Look, even if what he said was true," he said, before hushing his voice and stepping towards her, glancing over his shoulder a little as he did. "-we can't stop Salem. You told me yourself, Hazel tried: he failed, and he got in line."

Mercury jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, face darkening.

"Big guy's not going to pick fights he can't win, and neither should we."

Emerald hesitated a moment, before she glared at him, leaning forward aggressively, as if to challenge the idea of her being a coward. Mercury turned away in disgust, raising his voice again.

"And all of this is pointless, anyway!" he scoffed, walking out into the corridor and waving his hand. "Salem's not ending the world."

"Ohoho, of course she is!" came Tyrian's deranged cackle from further down the hall, making Yang jump a little as she followed the image of Emerald out after her partner. Tyrian clasped his face in mock dismay as the two younger minions stared at him. "You're surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate!"

He giggled with manic excitement, stepping forward to wrap an arm around Mercury's shoulders and tug him in. As much of an asshole as he was, Yang had to pity Mercury a little as Tyrian's tail curled around him to the assassin's visible discomfort.

"Our mistress wishes to see the end of it all!" Tyrian rhapsodized. "There is no ideal more beautiful!"

He shoved Mercury away just as suddenly as he had pulled him in, Tyrian grinning at the other two and curling his tail behind himself as he put both hands behind his back.

"If you couldn't see that from the start…" He hummed thoughtfully, before grinning again. "You must be out of your mind."

He cackled once more, then wrapped his tail back around a discomfited Mercury, whirling him around and shoving him further along the hallway. "Now come along, Mr. Black. You and I have a date with the desert."

Yang frowned thoughtfully as she watched Tyrian all but manhandle Mercury into a Manta aircraft, the assassin snarling briefly at Tyrian as the Faunus climbed in as well, before looking back at Emerald, alone, on the landing pad. To Yang's surprise, there was something almost… worried, in Mercury's eyes. He certainly didn't look sarcastic, angry, or annoyed, which were just about the only three expressions Yang had seen on him. She glanced beside herself at Emerald's image, and the other young woman was easier to read. She looked… sad. Worried, certainly.

When Yang looked back, Mercury's face softened even more, and she saw his eyes flicker up and then down before he caught Emerald's gaze and gave her a meaningful nod.

"The seeds of dissent that Ozpin and his host had sown were bearing ripe fruit. Emerald was but a whisper away from defecting… but to Oscar's friends and allies on the ground, time was running out for their friend. The whale was spawning more and more Grimm by the moment as Atlas's beleaguered forces sought to defend their city. Yang, Jaune, and Ren had been captured by the Ace Ops, sent to retrieve Penny, and thus they heard as Ironwood ordered the Ace Ops to hold a landing point, and then deliver a bomb into the heart of the monster."

As the blue fog shaped a scene in cool grey and blue rather than black and red, Jaune recognized exactly where they were. He knew this scene, this moment, with him and the rest of his friends bound in the back of the ship as they flew ever-closer to the dropoff point.

"You can't blow it up with Oscar still in there." the image of Yang hissed, coming to her feet as Elm and Vine moved to hold her back.

"That creature causes more damage every minute." Vine said. "We cannot wait."

"Please, Winter –g-give us a chance to try to rescue him first!" Jaune heard himself pleading as his past self got to his feet, desperately searching for ideas. "We… w-we could be your test run!"

There was a moment of silence, and the air inside the ship changed.

"Y-you don't know what'll be waiting for you inside, right?" the past image of Jaune continued, encouraged. "So we can go ahead to check it out. And… look for Oscar while we're inside."

Marrow looked at them from the pilot's seat.

"You want to go inside that thing alone?" he asked incredulously. Yang swung around to look at him.

"Wouldn't you do it for Elm? Harriet? Vine?" she asked, just as shocked.

The Ace Ops traded looks.

"We don't let feelings get in the way of making the right call." Elm said as she turned back to Yang, speaking gently, like she was trying to teach a life lesson to them. "Trading three lives for one is stupid."

"No, it's not." Ren said from his hitherto-silent corner. He raised his head, defiance burning in magenta eyes as he glared at the Ace Ops. "He's our friend. We will do whatever it takes to find him, because we care about him."

Yang and Jaune's past self exchanged looks. Jaune remembered how much of a surprise it had been, to hear Ren suddenly so adamant about his feelings. They weren't given time to savor it, though, as Harriet scoffed and pushed back from her pilot's seat, swiveling it around.

"I really had you pegged as the most level-headed of the bunch, but I guess you're just as naive." she drawled as she got to her feet, putting her hands on her hips. "Feelings don't matter, the job matters. When you lose someone on your team, you move on. Replace them. Like Marrow replaced Tortuga and Winter replaced-"

"No!" Ren snarled, shooting to his feet. "No one is replaceable."

Jaune felt exactly the same, and if Ren hadn't shouted this the first time around, he would've done it himself, word for word. You never replaced team members. Maybe you got a fifth member of your team to make it four again, maybe they had accepted Oscar as an unconscious member of their group –but they never forgot Pyrrha. Oscar was not her replacement. There was no replacing the person that had been Pyrrha Nikos, not on their team, not in their hearts. Neither she nor Oscar was a box that they had checked so that they could neatly fill in their four-person roster.

When you lose someone on your team, you move on. Replace them. The very words curdled on Jaune's tongue: to say that to his face, to Ren's face, was an insult to the memory of Team JNPR. It was a disrespect to Pyrrha's memory that could not be endured.

The world darkened a little at the corners, and Jaune realized with sudden interest that this must've been the moment when Ren's Semblance started to evolve –when he started seeing emotions as well as feeling Auras and cloaking them.

A cascade of shimmering, flame-like red petals cascaded upwards around Harriet.

"You don't really believe that." Ren said in wonder, peering closer at her. "You are furious about losing Clover. And you… you miss him."

Harriet faltered for a second, before she gritted her teeth and snarled.

"You don't know anything about me!" she shouted. Jaune looked, guided by the flashes of color that showed up in this greyed-out world, and saw a cascade of deep, dark blue petals fluttering slowly downwards around Marrow, orange-red fluttering upwards in specks around Elm, healthy green swirling in a gentle circle around Vine. When Ren looked at his feet, dull magenta petals fluttered around him.

"That's why you lost against Team RWBY." he said in a tone of realization. "You, you try to fight how you feel about each other, so you'll never truly work as a team."

"Shut up!" Elm shouted, and Jaune blinked as the orange and red petals around her flared, shooting up faster as a few more red petals flickered in to join the mix. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

She drew her fist back to hit him, but Winter quickly stepped between the two.

"Everyone, calm down." she snapped. Elm lowered her arm, and Winter looked between their prisoners, judging their expressions and stances.

"Fine." she said at last. "We will drop you as close as we can to the monster."

"You can't be serious." Harriet breathed in shock, before shouting "They're fugitives –and traitors!"

"I outrank you." Winter said simply, turning to glance at Harriet with a cold look on her face. Harriet hesitated, before subsiding with a frustrated growl. Winter turned to Jaune and his friends. "If you aren't out in time, we drop the payload. No matter what."

Marrow cringed a little, closing his eyes and turning back to the front of the ship.

"We understand." Jaune's past self said quietly. He and the others stood ready to jump out the moment they landed, and Jaune moved to stand by the bay door as the ship swooped down, wondering what Ren had said to Marrow before he'd left.

They landed hastily, the door crashing open to the shrieks and screams of Grimm and soldiers alike, though none were attacking the ship –yet. Winter moved to undo their cuffs, and Ren immediately headed for the guard at the door.

"You don't like this either." he said simply as he walked over, making Marrow turn. "In fact, you don't want to be a part of it at all anymore."

"I…" Marrow said, looking stricken, before his eyes flicked around at the other Ace Ops in the ship. His stance firmed, his voice becoming brisk –almost performatively so. "I have a job to do, and I'm going to do it."

Jaune hung back for just a little bit longer as his image and Yang's jumped, catching Ren's last words to Winter.

"I know you don't, either." he said quietly, before leaping after his friends as he plunged into a bank of blue mist.

"Their hearts filled with unwavering devotion and loyalty, Yang, Jaune, and Ren plunged headlong into the belly of the beast, ready to save their friend. Using Lie Ren's evolved Semblance and Jaune Arc's ability to boost his Aura, they worked their way ever-deeper, hidden from the Grimm and casting about to find the emotions given off by Salem, her cohort, and –they hoped– Oscar Pine. However… the events stirred by Oscar's decision were moving quickly."

The blue fog sculpted the interior of the Grimm whale again, and Jaune shuddered as another door-membrane squelched open, seeing Hazel dragging Oscar to the center of the room he stood in. Aside from the pathway leading up to the podium, above which the Lamp of Knowledge floated, the entire room was filled with tarry pits of Grimm essence, and Jaune shuddered harder, stepping away from it and closer to the central podium.

He winced in sympathy as Hazel let go of Oscar's arm, all but flinging him to the ground.

"Why did you bring me here?" Oscar asked, sounding uncertain but thankfully not too afraid. For a moment, Hazel was silent, staring at the Lamp as it pulsed in a soft but quick rhythm, like a scared heartbeat.

"I've been thinking about what you said." he said at last, stepping around to start circling the podium. Jaune hastily backed away, down to where Oscar was, so that the prowling man wouldn't walk right through him. Intangible or not, it was unsettling to see someone blur into mist like that as they moved through you. "If it's a lie, and I took that lie to Salem, the punishment would fall on my head before yours."

There was an ominous pause before Hazel continued, turning his head slightly to give Oscar a suspicious glare.

"If what you said is true and I used the password myself, well… I don't know what happens when this thing activates."

He paused in his circle, facing Oscar and looking down at him with narrowed eyes.

"So let's see if you're bluffing."

"You… want me to summon her?" Oscar asked as understanding dawned on him.

"Either way, it'll tell me what I need to know." Hazel grunted by way of reply.

"What are you doing?"

The words could have been accusing, could have been shocked or incredulous, but instead they were just –words. Turning with the other two, Jaune watched as Emerald walked towards him and Oscar, an almost-hesitant expression of fear on her face as she looked up at Hazel and the Lamp. Her voice was questioning, true, but it was… there was almost no emotion under it at all, except a trace of uncertainty.

What is this that's happening, Jaune heard, instead of Are you a traitor, what's going on here, this isn't allowed, all the normal things you'd expect out of a minion of evil seeing something like this.

It was like Emerald had already made her choice to defect, and was simply wondering what was going on with her fellow traitors.

"Let's find out." Hazel replied, walking over to stand beside her.

Holding his side where Jaune was pretty sure he broke a rib, Oscar slowly climbed to his feet, then sucked in a deep breath.

"Jinn." he said, and Jaune watched as the familiar blue smoke cascaded outwards to form the Spirit of Knowledge. Glancing back, Jaune saw Hazel and Emerald standing awestruck, with Hazel putting out his arm in front of Emerald almost… protectively as she took a startled step back.

"Why, hello again, old man." Jinn said, stretching, before she swooped down low, laying over the air as she propped her head up on one hand. "Did you have a question for me?"

Oscar gave a huff-laugh, lifting his hand in a tiny wave before looking excitedly to Hazel. The giant's eyes lowered to the ground as Jaune felt a twinge of excitement.

"Actually… I think all my questions are answered now." Hazel said, his voice almost respectful as he addressed the Lamp.

"What are you going to do?" Oscar asked, turning away from her.

"What Gretchen would have done." Hazel said, closing his eyes for a moment before turning to Emerald. "And that starts with getting you away from here. Both of you."

Emerald blinked –but didn't say a word of protest.

"Though Oscar wished to bring me with them in their escape, Hazel would not countenance it, for moving my Lamp would put the entire whale on its highest alert. Alas, for though my knowledge was infinite and included the exact number of presences within that room, I could not warn them as they turned to leave, for that would involve the bestowing of my gift, which in turn required a question. And so there was no one to stop Neopolitan, who had seen and heard all of this, as she uncloaked herself and approached me. Oscar and Emerald had time to meet and rejoin their friends, had time even to get themselves to the brink of the whale, but they could not escape before Neopolitan moved my Lamp and Salem homed in on their position."

Pyrrha watched in horror as the smoke settled just as an explosion of purple energy scattered her friends like leaves, left the image of Emerald staggering back alone on a bony spur like a landing pad. Salem stood in the gap, her eyes darting to and fro, and Pyrrha watched as she surged forward and seized Emerald with inhuman speed, watched as the images of her friends and teammates reacted, watched as Salem shot a coruscating beam of magic towards them that sent Ren and Jaune flying as the latter leapt to cover the former, breaking their Auras as they both slammed against the wall.

The image of Yang shot herself up and leaped down, punching a series of sticky grenades into Salem's chest and detonating them as she fled to a safe distance, but grotesquely, the woman kept ahold of Emerald as she was blown almost in half. Salem simply let her torn-open upper body dangle as she reached out and shot something like sticky black webbing at Yang, dragging her closer by the gauntlets as Yang struggled for every step –a marked counterpoint to Emerald, who was dangling in Salem's grasp and almost hyperventilating with fear as Salem rapidly healed.

"Let them go!"

Oscar flung a burst of radiant green magic at Salem's chest, which at least brought her to her knees before she snarled and bodily threw Yang at the incarnation of her former love, sending them both flying. She straightened, smirking thinly in satisfaction as red sigils swirled to life under all of Pyrrha's friends, and Grimm-like hands reached out of the glowing red designs, grabbing and pinning them like living ropes.

Salem then dragged Emerald to the wall and thrust her against it as more hands grew to seize her, bringing up a hand that swirled with ominously-glowing purple-black magic.

"What did you do with the Lamp?" she asked, her voice calm but eyes furious.

"N…nothing." Emerald managed, her face alight with fear.

"It's missing." Salem said, bringing her hand close and holding it within a whisper of Emerald's cheek as Emerald leaned back as far as she could manage, turning her face aside. "Where is it?"

"I didn't do anything with it." Emerald said, her voice defiant even as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

"Where is it?" Salem hissed, and turned to Oscar. Pyrrha watched in horror as the hands shot up, extending into long, thin arms that pushed the terrified boy up into a diagonal position, as though he were standing stiff as a board and caught mid-fall. Salem drew in a long, slow breath, as though calming herself, before she approached.

"Look how you've diminished." she murmured, her voice almost sad, pitying. "How you've lessened yourself –and for what? These children? This ruined world?"

She paused before him for a moment, and then with a suddenness and violence that startled even Pyrrha –prepared for all manners of horrors as she was– lunged forwards, seizing the sides of Oscar's face as her eyes flared a monstrous glowing red, her thumbnails hovering threateningly above his shining eyeballs as Oscar made a strangled noise of pain at the strength of her grip.

"Why… do… you… keep… coming… back?!" Salem hissed to him, every word a malediction, every syllable laden with a poisonous frustration.

"Why do you?!" Yang cried, making both Pyrrha and the image of Salem pause and turn.

"All of this endless death," the blonde gasped defiantly from where she was pinned to the floor by tightening Grimm hands around her back, legs, and arms. "-because something bad happened to you once upon a time?! Nobody gets a fairy-tale ending!"

Salem took a silent breath and let go of Oscar, the hellish glow fading from her eyes.

"Everything I've lost –every person I've lost–" Yang spat, her voice choked with pain, fury, and scorn. "-is because of you!"

"And who is it I've taken from you, girl?" Salem asked, disdainfully.

"Summer Rose." Yang said, her voice almost breaking, before it strengthened back into an accusation. "My mom."

"Hm." Salem hummed, seemingly almost intrigued, as she leaned forward to look at Yang. "Her again?"

"Your grace."

Pyrrha turned at the sound of Hazel's rough voice, a tingle of fear running through her. He was- this was- hadn't he betrayed Salem, wasn't he on their side?

"Ah, Hazel." Salem hummed, turning away from Yang and gesturing to both her and Oscar. "I found our guests."

More of those shadowy hands shot up from the ground as Pyrrha lurched away in horror and disgust, seizing and wrapping around Yang's face and mouth.

"No!" Yang managed to shout before she was pulled down to the ground.

Pyrrha swung Miló instinctively as she saw her friend yanked to the disgusting Grimm-flesh floor, trying to free her, but the edge of her gold-and-crimson blade just wisped through the branchlike arms, making the cut ripple with a blue mist before it reformed. None of this was real, none of it was something she could help with.

"This one was helping them." she heard Salem say at a distance, looking up to see her near Emerald and Hazel with another of those bruise-black balls of magic in her hand. Beside her, Oscar was unceremoniously dropped as the shadowy hands withdrew, and Pyrrha shuddered as she saw Salem caress Emerald's cheek with the back of her hand, trailing that magic in her palm. "Take the boy back to his chamber. I have work to do with this one."

Even from here, Pyrrha could see how the image of Emerald was almost sobbing with fear, tears streaming down her face. Hazel saw it too, and hope leaped in Pyrrha's chest as he hesitated.

"Yes… of course."

Yang grunted, trying to struggle and surge up as Hazel reached them even when her head and her body was practically swathed in the thin arms, and Pyrrha found herself backing away, towards her team, Jaune pinned on his stomach and snarling in frustration or rage and Ren clasped in an awkward sitting position against the sticky wall, his eyes glaring murderous despair at Salem.

Oscar yelped as he was seized by the collar and lifted, and Pyrrha's fists tightened on her weapon as Hazel pulled him close.

"No more Gretchens, boy."

Pyrrha found her mouth gaping in incredulous joy as Oscar was dropped, and he lifted his hand to find Professor Ozpin's cane in one hand as Hazel turned back to Salem. He was doing it, he hadn't betrayed them, it was all a front, and her friends would be saved! There was a chance that they would all be able to make it out of here!

"I really don't know!" Emerald was choking, and Salem brought her hand back to blast her with magic –only for Hazel to plant his fist solidly in Salem's cheek, sending her flying off into the air twenty yards away. She recovered herself with a miniature cyclone swirling under her feet, lifting her up into the air like some harbinger of doom… but all the hands holding Pyrrha's friends disappeared.

Hazel ripped off his vest, disclosing a muscular torso covered with past scars, and pulled a large Ice Dust crystal from his belt.

"Go! Now!" he shouted, starting to embed Dust into his body as power flooded through his veins, his eyes starting to glow.

"Hazel." Emerald said softly, and he turned to her. Emerald shook her head, subtly, like she didn't even realize she was doing it, her eyes glimmering with pleading.

"Go." Hazel told her, smiling slightly, and turned back to Salem, who was hovering in the air with her arms spread wide, like she was about to swoop down and engulf them.

"So, you've decided against vengeance for your sister, after all this time?" she asked, and Hazel batted the air to set his fists on fire, taking a boxing stance Pyrrha recognized as his eyes blazed with more than just Dust.

"I'm doing what Gretchen would have done!" he shouted at her, before charging. Even as Pyrrha watched in horror at the byplay of Dust and magic thundering between them, the tiny fragment of her that was always a slave to her training was taking notes. Salem was firing magic in short bursts, was a longer burst unsustainable? Did it force her to be still? Why was she bothering to fight Hazel at all rather than just tanking his hits while attacking Jaune and the others?

Pyrrha was jolted out of it as the images of Jaune, Yang, and Ren ran past her. Emerald was still on her knees, staring up at the fight, and Pyrrha saw her twist towards the fleeing group, her eyes distraught, tearful. She looked up at Hazel one last time, and then got to her feet and ran, her breath shuddering out of her in a sob.

"Come on everyone, out!" the image of Jaune yelled, taking his place at the landing ramp and rapidly pointing her friends onwards. Pyrrha couldn't help a glow of pride and affection as she saw him staunchly set his feet at the exit, refusing to move on from this place of utter nightmare until everyone else had escaped. It was the steadfast commander she'd only caught glimpses of before, glimpses that were swiftly and often hidden behind his eager-to-please demeanor. Jaune's head bobbed as Yang, Ren, and Emerald ran past him in quick succession, and Pyrrha could almost see him counting them off, making sure everyone else had escaped, as a proper leader would.

Jaune stiffened, turning back to the interior of the whale.

"Wait –Oscar?!"

Oscar was standing where he had been captured, cane in his hand as he faced the fight. He turned back to Jaune, his expression grim.

"She'll just come after us." he said wearily, and Pyrrha's hand covered her mouth as he set his cane before himself in both hands and expanded it. Was she about to watch Oscar die?

Salem noticed the burgeoning magic and surged towards him, but at the very last second, Hazel grabbed her. He ignored the shadowy hands seizing him in response, biting a smaller Fire Dust crystal he'd hidden in his mouth to send Salem shrieking and writhing. He ignored the flames that burned into him too as Oscar hesitated, watching the fire.

"Do it." Hazel grunted, painstakingly twisting his neck to look Oscar in the eyes.

Oscar swallowed and pressed down on his cane, and the glimmers of gold and green energy Pyrrha had seen crackling around it expanded, flooding the world with a bright gold light, like the sun, as shimmering green wrapped around Oscar in a ball of protection.

"The explosion of the old man's kinetic energy, gathered and hoarded for many years, destroyed all in its path, be that the Grimm whale, Salem –or Hazel Rainart. Emerald Sustrai was left alone in the ashes with Jaune Arc, Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren, and Oscar Pine, and at long last, their Scrolls connected through to their friends, now having taken refuge in the Schnee Manor. Though they knew it would be some hours before Salem reconstituted herself… the night had not been uneventful for Ruby and her friends. Salem had sent her Hound in search of the Winter Maiden, while Cinder was tasked with the recovery of Arthur Watts from the Atlas Military. While Jaune Arc and the others plunged into the whale, Ruby and her friends were dealing with crises of their own."

The mist formed and sculpted a new place, a new room, and the sudden wash of cool blues and clinical white was almost an assault on Pyrrha's eyes, after the red and black and glowing crimson of the whale and the Tempest-wreathed sky.

It was a room in the Schnee estate, a somewhat familiar room, and she saw Ruby, Blake, Weiss, and what she took to be Weiss's younger brother, Whitley, all variously stained with the bright green fluid that had leaked from Penny like blood. They were looking in concern at the man, the ex-servant they had brought in, but then the distant, rumbling sound of a Dust explosion made them all spin towards the window.

The lights in the manor flickered and died.

"Oh, that's just rich." Whitley sighed, tossing his hand out a little.

Ruby's Scroll rang, and she quickly pulled it out.

"Everyone okay back there?" a brisk, worried voice asked, and Pyrrha recognized the screen icon as the woman that she'd seen in the entrance hall with them before. The icon said her name was 'May'. "Just saw another bombing run light up the kingdom."

"Looks like part of the city lost power." Ruby reported, turning back to look at the window with a worried frown. "We're okay though."

"Sorry I couldn't stick around, but time's running out for everyone in the crater."

"No, we're sorry." Ruby replied. "Once we know what's wrong with Penny, we'll… we'll do something."

"Don't beat yourself up, kid." May said, and then sighed. "At this point I don't know how much is left to be done."

The call beeped to an end, and Pyrrha's heart went out to her friend as Ruby started to tear up.

"It's all just… too much." the young brunette said in a soft, brittle voice, her eyes glancing around as though in search of an answer before she squeezed them shut. "The Grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny…"

She looked towards Weiss as her partner put a hand on her shoulder.

"How do we fix all of it?" Ruby asked, her silver eyes glinting with tears.

"One step at a time, my dear." the balding doctor/servant said after a sneeze that changed his eye color around. He sneezed once more, and his eyes changed again as his voice altered, becoming deeper, calmer as he cleared his throat a few times. "You can't worry about fixing everything. Simply focus on what's in front of you. If you'd like some place to start, I'd be able to work faster if you could bring the power back on."

Ruby blinked, glancing towards the ceiling before looking back at him.

"Well, how would we-"

"We have a generator near the edge of the estate." A drowsy, feminine voice almost-slurred, and Pyrrha turned with the others to see a woman with Weiss and Whitley's coloring slouched against the door, a bottle of Six Swans Vodka in her hand.

Whitley huffed out a sigh, folding his arms.

"So kind of you to join us, mother." he said, his tone making it clear that there was no love lost between the two of them.

"Believe it or not, I am above drinking in the dark." The woman, who Pyrrha supposed must be Willow Schnee, said wryly as she pushed away from the door. She noticed the man standing at the comatose Penny's bedside. "Oh… hello, Klein."

He gave her a silent nod as Pyrrha fixed the name in her mind.

"SDC executives have their own auxiliary power supplies… in case of a city-wide blackout." Weiss said, turning to Ruby. "It's… extremely unfair, but perhaps now isn't such a bad time for company perks."

Whitley glanced out the window, and suddenly stiffened, coming to an epiphany.

"We… don't just have perks." he said in realization, turning back towards the group.

"Hm?" Weiss blinked.

"We have the company." Whitley said with a beam, stepping away from the window and pointing excitedly to Weiss. "The people you mentioned in the crater, they need a way out, right? There are rows and rows of cargo ships just sitting in the hangars because of the embargo."

"And our own automated drones –like the ones at Snow Shoe Shipping." Weiss added, slowly coming to realize what he meant as her glee grew to match his.

"We can order as many as we need to pilot our ships down to the crater and get people to safety, while the Grimm are occupied with the general's forces." Whitley finished happily.

"We can?" Blake asked, and Whitley turned to her with a look of solemn determination.

"I can. I just need father's computer."

"Then we definitely need to get the power back on." Ruby said, looking to her friends in excitement and dawning hope as blue smoke billowed up around them.

"Though they managed to return the power to the estate, though Whitley Schnee began the process of sending drones and ships to aid the people of the crater, the Hound arrived to assault Blake and Ruby. And its timing could not be any less fortuitous, for Penny had awakened… and she had not been in control of herself."

Ren jumped away in horror as the smoke settled in the now-empty room and Penny's cheerful, limpid green eyes snapped open, hazed with red. He barely paid attention as Willow ran out of the door in a panic and Klein called after her, watching as Penny moved stiffly, jerkily, like she on strings, getting to her feet behind the butler as he turned and finally noticed something was wrong.

Even Penny's shove was stiffened, unnatural, as she pushed Klein to the side, starting to turn and walk –and then stopping as her eyes flickered green again, her body swaying as she regained her natural control, Maiden flames blooming green around her eyes.

"No –not again!" she cried, stumbling back and clutching her head as a green glow filled the room, winds suddenly whipping up, a cyclone starting to whirl around Penny in her agitation. Ren's heart went out to her –the panic, the agony, the fear in her voice was indescribable.

"You're okay. Please!" Klein called soothingly, remaining behind the chair that he'd been thrown into. Penny straightened and then crumpled again, her eyes flickering from red to green in a chaotic dance of pain as she grunted and stumbled.

"I –ugh– I don't want to do it!" she shouted desperately.

"Hey…"

Nora's voice was as unexpected as it had ever been, and it had never been more welcome as Ren watched the image of her reach out, weakly taking Penny's hand. The young Maiden stopped clutching her forehead in surprise, turning to look at Nora as the flames died in her eyes and the ghostly green winds continued whirling around them.

"No one's going to make you do anything you don't wanna do." Nora croaked.

"But…" Penny grunted, one of her eyes flickering to the side and dilating as it briefly flared red. "…there is… a part of me… it's making me…"

"It's just a part of you." Nora said, and the winds finally died as she squeezed Penny's hand. "Don't forget about the rest."

Penny finally seemed to regain proper control as her eyes flickered red one more time and then faded to green, and she knelt, gently putting Nora's bandage-laden arm back on the bed.

Ren's senses prickled as Klein's Scroll chimed.

"Klein, it's coming inside. Stay quiet. I'm on my way."

"Do hurry." Klein answered. "Whitley and Willow have yet to return."

"What? Where'd Mom go?"

Ren pulled out StormFlower again, less for the idea that he would actually need to defend himself and more because he needed to feel the comfort of his weapon in his hands, needed to know on a physical level that he could fight and defend himself if he had to. He practiced breathing exercises, trying to calm himself, trying to remind himself that this was all a vision and none of it was real, before Weiss's urgent voice broke him out of it.

"It's coming!" she called over the Scroll, and Penny bent her head, grunting desperately as she pressed the heels of both hands into her skull.

"I'm sorry!" she managed to gasp, her eyes twisting and flickering from red to green and back again, before she opened them again –and they were both red. Moving stiffly, like a puppet on parade, she made her way out of the room, and Ren followed, expecting that this was what he would need to do. He followed the image of Penny through the hallway, down to the front entrance hall, where Willow and Whitley Schnee were collapsed against the top banister, panting desperately.

"What are you doing?!" Whitley gasped as Penny marched stiffly past him, starting to descend down the stairs.

"I must open the Vault," she responded, her voice blank of any emotions. Her next words made Ren's blood run cold as she reached the first landing and turned towards the front door. "And then self-terminate."

A huge black mass suddenly slammed into her as the Hound let loose a rumbling roar, Penny shoving her hands up to block the downswipe of its huge paws. They strained together for a few moments, matching in strength, before a third arm burst from the Hound's back in a gooey explosion of Grimm essence and seized Penny by the skull, lifting her in the air and slamming her back down full-body against the ground, like she was nothing more than a limp dishrag.

"Take! The! Girl!" it gurgled, spitting each word with each hit as Ren thought he heard the faint hiss of gears grinding in ways they shouldn't, or a circuit fizzing out. Whatever it was, Penny lay limply on the ground when the Grimm finished thrashing her around, her red-stained eyes closed, as Ren saw the images of Ruby, Weiss, and Blake rush into the manor on the ground floor.

"Penny!" Ruby cried, and the Hound gripped Penny's skull again and lifted her, holding one bony, clawed finger at her neck, threatening, as Ruby gasped in horror. Beside Ren on the balcony, Whitley and Willow huddled back, Willow wrapping both hands protectively over her son's shoulders.

"That's enough." Ruby hissed, her voice going uncharacteristically low. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was with a burst of incandescent silver light, making the Grimm stumble back, crashing through the window behind itself as Penny was unceremoniously dropped, rolling limply down the stairs. Ren quickly jogged down them to join her, watching Blake, Weiss, and Ruby run to check on their friend. Penny was still unresponsive, but Ren breathed a sigh of relief. Ruby and the others had shown themselves to be nothing short of inventive, and now that Penny had been rescued from the Hound-

A sudden crackling, stretching sound made the hairs rise on Ren's neck, and he whirled just in time to see a glistening black Grimm arm reach up and claw its way onto the windowsill, quickly followed by a second arm. But that was impossible, because Ruby's silver eyes petrified or destroyed Grimm, he'd seen it numerous times over the course of these visions. How was this thing still standing, and why…?

"Take… the girl."

Ren's jaw dropped as the Grimm hauled itself back over the edge.

It wasn't Grimm, not entirely. It was a man, an auburn-haired Faunus man with canine ears and a hideous, spreading expanse of white scar tissue over the right side of his face, pronounced lines crawling like veins across his skin. The white scars seemed to emanate from the eye on that side, which was closed or swollen shut –or gone, Ren didn't know– underneath the pale tissue. Boils crept along his jaw and near his mouth –or perhaps they were blisters– and gruesomely, while the left side of his face was unscarred, the skin was sloughing off, revealing patches of raw red muscle near the man's chin and wrinkling gruesomely loose around the rest of his face. His remaining eye was open, leaking black Grimm tar from both sides…

…and it was silver.

His eyes were silver.

"Take… the girl!" the man rasped urgently, staggering forwards with one clawing arm outstretched, an arm that was still shrouded –or made entirely?– of Grimm flesh while the other dangled limply behind him, dragging on the ground. Ren wished, he so dearly wished, that he could pretend that this was a costume, someone in horribly poor taste pulling on a Grimm bodysuit with their head poking out –because if you squinted your eyes and prayed, that was what it looked like– but he knew better.

He hated that he could know better.

The Grimm's shoulders cracked and crumpled, drawing up, pulling the dangling Grimm skull towards the man's head as he reached the stairs, starting to stagger down them.

"Take. The. Girl." he growled, his voice starting to grind and rasp further, starting to distort again as his head and neck twitched. The monster's joints were cracking back into place as he lumbered down the stairs, whatever Ruby had done to peel back that loathsome exterior fading away from him. "Take the girl!"

Weiss and Blake snatched Penny, running off to the side of the hall as Ruby clutched her scythe and followed behind them. Ren watched as the man, the Hound, lurched and twitched, what he had thought to be its real head flopping forward to cover the man's, like a hood, in another gush of black ooze.

"Take… the… girl!"

Ren watched as the members of Team RWBY backed themselves into an alcove, Weiss and Blake drawing their weapons to stand at Ruby's shoulders with Penny laid safely behind all of them. The Hound was slowly crumpling –or perhaps crouching– back onto all fours again, its bottom jaw flapping loosely as the head grew to engulf that of the Faunus's, once more merging over it so that you couldn't tell there was someone underneath. Ren heard a creak of straining metal from above, and his eyes flicked up even as he backed towards Team RWBY with StormFlower raised towards the Grimm, seeing two white figures above, pushing on the gigantic armored statue.

"TAKE! THE! GIRL!"

The Hound's voice ended in a feral roar, and just as its jaw clicked back together and it lunged forwards, the statue crashed down onto it in a cloud of dust and rubble. Like a miracle, the decorative broadsword was embedded right where the Hound had been as that dust slowly cleared, and Ren sank to his knees without shame, his chest heaving as he stared at the long, spindly black arm still poking out from the rubble.

He couldn't believe that this had just happened. He couldn't believe that this was real. He couldn't believe-

"What was that?" Weiss asked softly, looking towards Ruby, who had similarly collapsed. Ruby just stared at the creature as it dissolved, stared as the Grimm flesh slowly wisped away, revealing a skeletal arm and hand. When she finally spoke, her face frozen, her voice was almost inaudible.

"That was… a person." Ruby whispered, her voice breaking on the last word.

Blue smoke rose around them as Ren stared at the corpse.

"Indeed and alas it was, for Salem had found a use for the silver-eyed warriors that plagued her. Those revelations would have to wait, however, for as Ruby's sister and her friends returned to the manor with Oscar and Emerald Sustrai in tow, a new crisis presented itself… in the form of Penny Polendina's hacking."

Ren would've physically pulled back if he was able as the scenery changed again, the blue fog melting the room around him and reforming to show the Schnee courtyard under a pink sunrise, with Penny pulling away from Ruby, her eyes sparking and twitching from red to green and back again.

"I… I must… open the Vault!" she grunted, before clutching her head and staggering away. "I, I do not want-"

Ren's heart went out to her, hearing the bright and lively girl he'd met at Beacon struggling audibly with herself as her eyes flickered from one color to another, her voice strained with fear. When she bent forward, Penny cried out as though in pain.

"Ruby, stop me!" Penny begged as she lurched again.

"Penny!" the image of Ruby cried, latching onto her friend's waist with both arms. Penny's eyes flickered red, and she lowered her hands, standing stiffly upright again.

"I must open the Vault, and self-terminate." she said as Ren heard the whooshing of rockets. Green jets shot out from her feet as Ruby yelped in a mixture of surprise and panic, Penny soaring off into the sky with her friend still attached, but then there was the sound of a familiar gunshot and Ren saw Blake's weapon wrap around Penny's right arm. Footsteps sounded beside him, and still on his knees, Ren turned to watch another image of himself dash towards Penny's other side, shooting the detachable sickle-hooks that he himself had recently installed on StormFlower, courtesy of Jaune's recommendation.

That, more than anything, convinced Ren that what he was seeing was somehow real: the fact that Jaune had somehow known the weapon that this version of Ren was using as a grappling hook to latch onto Penny's other arm, temporarily grounding her as she strained upwards. Oscar and the still-scarred Nora ran to help the image of himself as the images of Jaune and Yang did the same to help Blake, and a black Gravity glyph grew under Penny and Ruby, drawing them down towards the ground.

"I've got her!" the image of Weiss called as Penny touched down.

"What do we do?" the image of Nora asked, panicked.

An instinctive warning lurched into Ren's throat as he saw Penny bring her head up, bright green flames flaring around the edges of her eyes. That hadn't worked before: when Penny had been herself, her Maiden powers had worked, but they had dropped abruptly when her eyes had flickered back to red. Penny wasn't moving as stiffly as before, either, and her voice as she repeated those damning instructions wasn't quite as monotone.

If he didn't know any better, Ren might say that the virus was… merging with her.

A hurricane of winds blasted outwards around Penny and Ruby, making Weiss shriek as she staggered backwards and the glyph flickered and died. Penny tried to lift herself again, straining, using the winds for assistance as Ruby clung desperately to her waist.

"I must! Ugh! Open the Vault!" Penny gasped, fighting against the two grapples that bound her. "And self-terminate!"

Two more gunshots sounded, and Ren watched as green sickles not his own latched onto Penny by the shoulders. He glanced over to see Emerald, aiming the barrels of two weapons that looked like pistols towards Penny, trailing chains connecting those guns to the sickles on Penny's shoulders. The image of Emerald jerked her head over to Ren's team leader.

"Do something!" she shouted. Jaune obediently let go of Blake's ribbon as Emerald staggered and then fell back on her rear, straining to hold that little bit of leverage against Penny. He ran to Weiss, holding out his hands as they glowed a creamy gold and her glyph bloomed under Penny's feet again, pulling her down abruptly to the ground as the winds died a little. Ruby's grip was jarred loose by the impact, and she landed beside Penny.

"Penny, please." Ruby gasped, instantly crawling those few inches over to her friend and wrapping her arms around Penny again, pressing her face against Penny's shoulder as her voice wavered. "Tell me how to help you."

Penny's eyes lowered, now green, narrowing slightly in thought.

"Kill me." she said softly, and Ren's mouth went dry as Ruby's eyes widened in horror. There was a long silence as the winds surrounding them died, but Penny's expression didn't change as she looked to Ruby. "Kill me. And I can make sure the power goes to you."

Ruby was speechless, her friends looking on in dismay.

"Please…" Penny rasped, then shouted as her eyes spasmed again, dancing over to red as Ruby clutched her close. "Please! I cannot fight it!"

"Yes, you can!" Nora's image shouted. "It's just a part of you, remember? If you were only a machine, you never could have fought back for this long."

"She's right." Ruby whispered, drawing herself up a little as her eyes widened. "She's right!"

She glanced around frantically until her eyes landed on her friend.

"Jaune!" Ruby cried. "Boost her Aura!"

The image of Jaune let Weiss's Aura go as it shimmered back under her skin, running over to them and kneeling as he held his glowing hands out towards Penny. For a few tense moments, there was nothing, and Ren found himself licking his lips, praying, as he finally, shakily got to his feet, stepping closer.

Come on, come on…

His friends had done so much. Surely they couldn't fail now, now of all times?

The spasming and flaring in Penny's eyes slowed.

It stopped.

Ren let out a long, slow exhale of relief as the image of Penny sat up, her eyes full of wonder, but finally, beautifully, green. She gave a slight nod to Jaune as Ruby's face lit up, and she immediately wrapped Penny in a fierce hug.

Penny held out her hands, letting Jaune unhook all the weapons as Ren, Emerald, and Blake retrieved their respective attachments, and everyone came to gather in close around Penny. Ren smiled fondly as he saw the image of Nora dart in to give her another big hug.

"Did…I stop the virus?" Jaune asked breathlessly, his smile hopeful. Penny looked at her hands for a moment, before her smile fell.

"No." she said, dismayed as everyone's expressions dropped –Ren included. "It's still there. But-"

"You've got an Aura, Penny –a soul." Ruby interrupted, taking Penny's hand in both of hers. "That's who you are –our friend. Not a machine."

Nora took Penny's other hand, and they all smiled.

"I think you're wrong, by the way." Emerald announced suddenly, interrupting the tender moment. Ren turned with the others to look towards her, sitting where she had fallen on the ground with her legs neatly crossed, weapons laid over her lap.

"I highly doubt you're in the same place you started." Emerald said, her gaze lowered somewhat sheepishly and eyes averted from the group as she moved to tuck both guns on their sheaths behind her back. "I-I mean, yeah, y-you guys have been getting your asses kicked-"

She cringed even more.

"Some of that… my fault…"

Emerald then sobered and looked towards the others.

"-but like, you're at war. You're gonna take hits!" she said, her gaze darting around on the ground before she looked up again and burst out "Look, I'm just going to be super pissed if you all finally decided to give up the moment I switched sides!"

"Switched sides, huh?" Oscar asked with a wry smile. Emerald opened her mouth, but then closed it again as Yang "aww"ed. Everyone else began to giggle at the chagrined look on Emerald's face, and she huffed and looked aside.

"Or like, whatever." she grumbled, and Oscar stepped over, offering a hand. Emerald blinked at him, but then took it, letting him lift her to her feet.

Ren watched as blue smoke blew across the world, taking the hopeful image away with it.

"Though Penny was saved by the strength of her soul, a fresh disaster had struck earlier in the day. The ships sent by Whitley Schnee came under attack by military forces: airships diverted from the defense of Atlas shot down the unarmed drones, sending them crashing to the tundra and yet again stranding the petrified citizens of Mantle. It was then that Ironwood gave his message to the bewildered inhabitants of his city… and to Ruby and her friends."

Nora raised an incredulous eyebrow as the blue fog faded away, leaving Ruby with a Scroll projection that showed General Ironwood standing in a pitch-black room, illuminated by the only spotlight so that shadows drenched his downturned face.

Really? Really?

That was the image he was going with: the image he wanted to present to a terrified kingdom? If he'd busted out cackling and twirled the mustache merging into his beard, Nora would have not been surprised.

"I have always promised to defend this Kingdom." Ironwood began, his voice grating slightly for a moment at the beginning as the video feed took a second to connect. "Its technology –its future– from those who would see it destroyed. Our enemy is crippled, but one individual still denies Atlas its salvation. The Protector… of Mantle."

Nora blinked, frowning a little. She'd heard it once before at least, but that wasn't really a name that she was familiar with, a title that she knew…

"Penny-"

Oh hell no.

Hell the fuck no.

Nora's teeth ground together, and her hands ached for the feel of her hammer. Wherever General motherfucking Ironwood was in the world, Nora was gonna make it her life to hunt him down and slam Magnhild right through his stupid beardy face.

"-wherever you and your friends are, I need you all to listen. I know how much Mantle means to you, so I'm going to give you a choice. You can bring yourself to Atlas Academy and do your duty –help me save as much of Atlas as I can– and Mantle will be left to fend for itself. Or… you can all watch as I destroy it."

Nora heard Weiss gasp in shock behind her, but she was busy thinking which kneecap would take Ironwood out faster. The left one? No, no, that was the metal one, wasn't it?

Whatever.

Nora was angry enough, she could break both his damn kneecaps.

"I have one bomb. That's all it will take. If there is no Mantle then there is no reason for you not to work with me. Neither of us want it to come to that… but one of us is willing to do it. If anyone tries anything other than what I've ordered, Mantle… is gone. You have one hour to respond."

One hour before Nora ripped him limb from fucking limb with her teeth, he meant. Remnant was small, and General Ironwood was a public figure. He couldn't hide from her forever.

"I hope you live up to the title I gave you."

For a moment, as the smoke that sculpted each of these scenes started to rise and billow around her, Nora legitimately thought she saw red. The fucking audacity, that General Ironwood would remind Penny of her title, her duty as a protector. Nora knew Penny, she'd been hanging with her for a few days and seen her through these visions, and for someone as bright and honest as Penny was, that was more than enough time to get an accurate read on her personality. It would kill her to think that she was hurting people by her decisions, even when it was a blatant manipulation like this.

And what kind of stupid ultimatum was this? "Help me or I blow up thousands of innocent people?" Did Ironwood think that Ruby and the others would forget that he had been prepared to do that? How could he possibly think that he was still in the right, saying stuff like this? He spent more time talking about the technology of Atlas than he did the people that lived there, for crying out loud!

And was the class divide between Atlas and Mantle really so stark that no one on Atlas would condemn the decision to kill all the people below? Did Ironwood think that they would trust him after this, after he proved that he was willing to jettison anyone who threatened the island in the sky?

Nora ground her teeth as the world wisped away.

"Ironwood's declaration of war, however, was the final straw for all too many. The Ace Ops and Winter Schnee had begun harboring doubts about their leader, trained though they may be to obey him both through many years of trust, and just as many years of military service. His behavior was too erratic, too irrational, based on emotion and not the judgement they had come to trust from him, the foundation of their obedience. When they learned that he truly and fully intended to go through with his monstrous plan, Marrow Amin snapped."

Nora narrowed her eyes as she manifested in an Atlas corridor amidst wreathes of that blue fog, watching the Ace Ops facing each other.

"Of course he's not going to do it." one of the women scoffed –Elm, Nora thought.

"So what, he's bluffing? With the whole city?" Marrow asked her incredulously, throwing his arm out.

"It may finally push the kids to see reason." the other man said, and Nora snarled at him.

"Who cares?" the other woman muttered.

The door behind the group opened, interrupting Nora's simultaneous flipping-off as she balanced precariously between the images of Vine and Harriet, middle fingers shoved into both of their faces. She was close enough that her hand whisked through Harriet's face as she stepped away from the wall, and Nora quickly backed away from them both, a sneer of disgust on her face. She didn't want to touch these people, who so easily gave up the lives of others, even in illusion.

"Good, you're here." the image of Ironwood, he-whose-days-were-numbered, said as the Ace Ops lined up and stood at attention before him and Winter. "I need a squad of drones on standby to drop the payload."

The image of Winter blinked as he finished, eyes widening.

"Sir… what for?" she asked, turning to her commanding officer.

"I believe I was clear in the broadcast." Mr. Dead-Man-Walking said with a cold, expressionless glance over his shoulder. "If they give me a reason, I'm gonna remove Mantle from the equation. This is how we save Atlas."

When Nora looked back to the Ace Ops, they all looked stricken, but Marrow had actually shifted backwards, so great was his shock. Nora's face lit up with delight as he stepped forward after a retreating Ironwood, quickly moving to stand as close to the Faunus as she thought she could get without ruining his image in smoke.

"You call this saving Atlas?!" Marrow cried, throwing his hands up in the air before vehemently gesturing to the wall, and all the Grimm outside the compound beyond it. "Doing Salem's job for her?"

Ironwood stopped dead.

"I believed in you!" Marrow continued, stepping forward again as his voice almost broke. "I thought we could work towards something better. But now, you're throwing it all away."

Harriet grabbed her teammate by the shoulder and shoved him back so that she could stand in front of him.

"If you don't shut your mouth, I'm going to do it for you." she hissed, getting in his face.

"Booooo." Nora drawled, standing right beside the two of them and watching the Faunus eagerly. "Marrow's right, and he is also now officially my favorite dude in all of Atlas."

"If this is what gets the children to cooperate, then it's worth it." the image of Vine said over her, stepping to face Marrow and coming to a halt behind Nora.

"I don't like this either," Elm mumbled from Nora's other side as she looked around a little, realizing that the images of the Ace Ops had now boxed her in. "-but, the top priority is-"

Marrow's jaw clenched at her words, and he shoved around Harriet to face Ironwood, who had turned and was watching from a few meters away.

"Do you even believe what you're saying anymore?" he asked, before turning back to his team. "Do any of you believe in anything!?"

His shoulders sank, a look of shame crossing his face.

"I used to wear this rank with pride." Marrow said, voice trembling, before he turned to Ironwood again and it hardened with disgust. "Now I see it for what it really is: a collar."

Nora whooped happily as Marrow turned away from Ironwood again, starting to stalk past the Ace Ops.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" she cheered, moving to skip along beside Marrow. If he didn't fade away to that light blue mist the moment she touched him, Nora would've given the Faunus a hearty backslap even if he was an illusion. As it was, she vowed to do so later, when she tracked down the real Marrow, just as she had vowed to pulverize General Ironwood the moment she saw him.

A gun cocked behind them, and Marrow froze as Nora's heart dropped all the way down to her ankles.

Suddenly, mist rushed past her, and a protest rose on Nora's tongue, a plea for Jinn to stop, wait, she wanted to see if he was okay, but then as she spun she saw that the mist hadn't been a prelude to the scene dissolving, it had been Winter, Winter's image moving right through Nora as she punched Marrow to the ground with a cry, hitting him right in the jaw.

Nora's heart bumped all the way back up to her mouth as she turned and looked, seeing with relief that Winter was between Ironwood and his pistol as he moved to holster it again, watching her wrench Marrow's arms up from the ground as he grunted in pain, cuffing him with a Dust shackle.

"You want a collar?" she asked, clicking it into place. "Fine."

Winter rose, Marrow in tow as the Ace Ops stared at her and Ironwood in shock.

"I'll throw this traitor in the brig… where he belongs." she said crisply.

Nora blew out a relieved breath as Winter pulled Marrow past Ironwood, who let them go. This time, she didn't freak out as the blue smoke rose around her.

"Events had been moving quickly on Atlas. While Ruby and her friends desperately battled the Hound, while Oscar and his comrades faced down an enraged Salem, Cinder Fall had returned to the prison block and retrieved Arthur Watts. Her destruction of the cells had freed Qrow Branwen and Robyn Hill as well, and they would not remain idle. However, Ironwood's forces were not the only ones to show cracks, for Salem's lackeys held friction at the best of times, and with the temporary destruction of their leader, tempers flared and agendas rose on every side."

Blake narrowed her eyes, watching keenly as the mist faded away, sculpting the familiar sight of the Atlas skyline. She was on a building, a rooftop, and hazy golden light was filtering down at her. For a moment, she didn't understand, because she couldn't feel the dust or smell the ash, but as she turned and saw the giant whale corpse dissolving on the horizon, she realized what had happened. The debris knocked loose by Oscar's attack must still be settling, and it was blocking out some of the light.

"Did…"

Blake turned, and her ears flattened as she saw Arthur Watts and Cinder standing almost directly behind her, staring at the whale's disintegrating corpse as well.

"Did anyone respond?" Watts finished, looking towards his comrade. Cinder glanced down at her open Scroll, then back at the whale.

"No." she answered calmly, clicking the button to withdraw the screen as she tucked her Scroll away again.

"Well, she'll come back." Watts said, moving to put his hands in his pockets as he squinted thoughtfully at the horizon. "In the interim, we need a plan."

Cinder turned to him with a disdainful, almost shocked expression.

"Plan?" she scoffed, before her expression slid back into the familiar, sardonic look Blake so hated. "The plan hasn't changed. I'm going to rip the Maiden power out of Penny Polendina, because you're going to bring her to me."

"I beg your pardon?" Watts asked, all in a huff as he turned to watch her strutting back towards the service door they must have used to get up here. Blake watched as the image of Cinder paused near the center of the roof, her voice turning dangerous.

"You said in your message that you have control over Penny."

"I said I had Penny under control," Watts corrected primly, taking one hand out of his pockets to use air quotes, before twiddling his fingers at the side of his head as his expression turned exasperated. "-not that I could, telekinetically force her to do whatever I want."

"What?" Cinder snapped, turning around to face him with a scowl.

"I implanted a virus in her, you dimwit." Watts sneered, putting his hand back in his pockets and bouncing on his heels a little. Blake saw Cinder's hand twitch, her fingers clenching into a fist. "She's on a set path now… at least, she should be."

He turned away, pulling one of his gloved hands out of his pockets to glare at it, as though frustrated by his lack of progress.

"As much as I hate to admit it, there seems to be some part of her capable of resisting." Watts muttered in irritation, taking his other hand out of his pocket as well to gesture. "Regardless, it's only a matter of time before her mechanical body succumbs to the virus. She'll open the Vault, then she'll destroy herself, and our little Penny problem will be do-"

Blake lurched out of the way in a panic as Cinder's black arm flashed past her, grabbing Watts by the collar and turning his last word into a grunt. Blake was forced to scramble further out of the way as Cinder reeled him in just as fast, holding Watts up in the air by the throat, just a little more than arm's length away from her.

"What do you mean, she'll destroy herself?" Cinder hissed. Blake's ears quivered in dislike as the woman continued, sounding like a frustrated, spoiled child that had just been denied a toy. "How am I supposed to take her power if she's dead?!"

"You know, it's impressive that you haven't realized this yet," Watts wheezed, straining a little to ease the pressure around his throat, both hands around Cinder's Grimm wrist. "-but I don't work for you!"

Cinder snarled, her arm lengthening grotesquely again as Watts was shot across the roof to dangle right at the edge. Blake watched in surprise: she had been here for this, been in Atlas at this time, but this, for once, was very new information for her. Yang and the others had caught her up to speed on what had happened in the whale, Qrow and Winter had reported on events inside Atlas, but this was the first time Blake was seeing events from the enemy's side.

It was important, and that was why she stepped closer, paying as much attention as she could. What information could be useful to them in the future? What could help how, where, and when? There was friction between these two, and Jinn had said it hadn't popped up just now, but what did that mean? How much did they dislike each other? Enough to betray Salem if it meant a chance of getting even?

Blake wanted, needed, to pay close attention to every word and deed that happened on this rooftop.

"Please." Watts scoffed, holding out his arms as the tips of his shoes scraped against the concrete edge, his body hanging almost diagonally to try and keep that last grip. "You can't just threaten me like everyone else!"

"You think you're so clever, don't you, Arthur?" Cinder seethed, walking towards him slowly. Watts struggled a little, clinging to her wrist with both hands.

"Salem sent you to bring me back-"

"Salem isn't here right now." Cinder purred, swinging out with her free hand. "But I think we can still come up with a plan while she's pulling herself together. First, I'm gonna watch you plummet to an unremarkable end."

Cinder's eyes flared with Maiden power as she came nose to nose with Watts.

"And then I'm gonna burn a path directly to the Vault… where I will wait, to tear that magical puppet to pieces."

She shoved as her arm extended, pushing Watts over the edge and holding him in the empty air, more than a hundred feet above the ground. Cinder's human palm ignited, and she smirked, clenching her fist around the open flame.

"And take… what is mine."

There was a moment of silence, and Blake's ears pricked as she heard a stifled huff.

"Huh… haha!"

Cinder's gleeful expression faded into uncertainty, anger, doubt, as Watts began to laugh uproariously.

"Oh, of course you are!" he gasped, managing to sound patronizing even now. "Because that's just what you do, isn't it?"

He let go of Cinder's arm with both hands, as though daring her to drop him.

"And how has that worked out for you?" he asked as Cinder's expression twisted into a snarl of anger. "You stormed into Fria's room, thinking you could take on Ironwood's top fighter and war machine. But you couldn't! And that machine became the Winter Maiden."

Watts struck himself on the forehead, gesturing sarcastically.

"Oh, and let's not forget your deal with Raven Branwen –get all your enemies in one place so you'd have a shot at revenge."

He stroked his mustache, his voice turning cloyingly concerned.

"If only someone could have warned you against such a miserable idea –oh wait."

Watts jabbed his finger at himself.

"I did!" he barked, before switching his finger to point at her, like an accusation. "But you pushed ahead and you lost it, when all you had to do was your job!"

A low, rumbling thing, too primal to be called a growl, rose in Cinder's throat, her body settling almost instinctively into a fighting stance as the winds around them began to pick up, forming a cone of fiery air around the Maiden that rose and rose, matching her anger.

"You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough!" Watts continued, ignoring how the glow of the magical wind was growing sharper, brighter, stronger, hotter, with Cinder's rage. "You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy! But all you have ever been, is a bloody migraine!"

Cinder screamed at his last words, but instead of dropping him, she suddenly jerked him back onto the roof as Watts let out a yelp of surprise.

Her eyes fixed intently on Cinder's face, Blake saw that she looked… empty. Lost. Blake didn't bother to think why, because that was speculation and speculation could come after she had gotten all of the information she possibly could.

Cinder was staring ahead, fixedly, with that vacant, subtly distressed expression. She looked like the world had been pulled out from under her, or she had been disoriented from a sudden blow. The winds around them died sharply, fading almost as soon as they had appeared, and she lowered her hand, the Maiden flames fading from her visible eye.

Cinder's expression crumpled, and she turned away from Watts, walking to the edge of the roof and sitting down, hands both human and otherwise folded neatly in her lap. When Blake leaned around to look at her expression, she saw Cinder blink, a tear falling down her face.

Blake kept her eyes fixed on the woman's melancholy, lost expression as mist rose around them all, enfolding the rooftop and its bizarre scene, and blurring it away to nothing.

"One of these warring factions within Salem's group was Neopolitan, once Trivia Vanille. It was her hand that disturbed the Grimm whale, that retrieved my Relic as Oscar and the others made their attempt to flee. It was her who skipped through the debris of Oscar Pine's attack, Lamp in hand, and it was her who held a goal of burning vengeance in her heart, the desire to slay Ruby Rose for the part Ruby had played in her partner's death. Cinder had put her off with half-promises and orders before, but now Neo would not be denied, for she had leverage and bargaining power in the form of my Lamp."

The ping of a Scroll message echoed across the same rooftop as the blue smoke subtly changed the positions of Cinder and Watts, lightened the dust and ash in the air, and Blake watched Cinder quickly move to open her Scroll, unlocking a message from Neo…a very simple one.

Your boss won't stay dead…but you will without this. ;)

A picture of Neo popped up, her hand over her mouth as though in coquettish surprise as she held the Lamp up in her other hand. Cinder snarled in anger as she saw the photo, making Watts shift.

"Who is it?" he asked. "Did someone survive?"

If you want her name, you know what you owe me.

Blue smoke rose and swirled, reforming into an alleyway where Watts was dismantling one of the Atlas drones. Neo was standing at the other end of the alley, pointing her parasol towards him like a threat. Watts sighed in annoyance as he got to his feet.

"Neopolitan, was it?" he drawled. "Now isn't the time to hold grudges."

"No." Cinder said, stepping up to join him as she held up her hand. "She's right to be angry. I…"

Cinder lowered the hand she had been facing Watts with, looking aside as though in guilt.

"…know I haven't upheld my end of the bargain." she said slowly, the words being pulled out of her one careful, inexperienced syllable after another. "I'm… sorry."

As Cinder put her hand on her chest, seemingly genuinely remorseful, Neo flicked her parasol down to fold her arms, glaring.

"I will get you Ruby Rose –today." Cinder promised, lowering her hand and stepping forward. "But to do that, I need to ask the Lamp a question."

Watts rolled his eyes and sighed.

But after a moment of hesitation, Neo flipped off Torchwick's hat, pulling the Lamp from it, and then donned her hat again as the Relic swelled back to its normal size. Cinder smirked, stepping forward, but when she moved to grab the Lamp, there was a moment of resistance from Neo as they firmly locked eyes. What Neo saw there seemed to reassure her, and she slowly let go of the Lamp.

Blake cursed her for it as the blue fog swept the world away.

"One question remained that century, and the question they asked was simple. Cinder Fall and her allies asked what were the plans of Ruby Rose and her friends, plans that were at that very moment spinning into existence as they sat in the outer courtyard of the Schnee home. They asked this question in order to thwart those plans, and loth though I was to answer, much as I desired to hold my tongue, I could not do anything but speak, for I am the Spirit of Knowledge, and to answer that which is asked of me is my reason for existence."

Neo rolled her eyes as the blue mist shimmered away to reveal the Schnee's courtyard again.

"We've been so worried about keeping the Vault closed that… we've never considered using what's inside." the boy, Jaune Arc, was saying in tones of revelation, and Neo stepped away from the group, idling along the false cobblestones as she gripped the hooked base of her parasol with both hands and swung Hush like a golf club, wondering how far she'd be able to hit something if she ever got back to this place in the flesh.

"The Staff of Creation." she heard murmured behind her.

"Maybe we can use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Little Red added, excitement in her voice. Neo tuned out the rest of the plan as they started talking about Emerald and the Schnee's sister and illusions and double-pronged attacks: she knew it and she'd always known it, and there were more important things to be looking forward to: things like what had happened when they fell off the paths, which, if Jinn continued in chronological order, was soon.

That was why she was here. That was why she had sat through this mind-numbingly long recitation, why she had kept her attention pinned on what was important and new as best she could throughout these thousands of years of history.

Neo was here to find out what had happened to her, and what that meant for her and Roman, and possibly, maybe, what that meant for Remnant, inasmuch as if it got twisted and fragmented by cosmic whirlwinds unleashed by the twisting of time and space, she wouldn't have anywhere to live.

"So we've got people trapped in Atlas and Mantle that we can't evacuate unless we use the Staff, which is located inside the Vault." the Schnee said, and Neo jumped away from the wall a little as the image changed into the dining room of her manor. "If we open the Vault, Penny terminates. If Ironwood gets wind of any of this, he blows up Mantle."

"There's something else to consider. Once the Staff creates anything else, the city drops. Atlas has enough natural Gravity Dust to keep it from plummeting immediately, but, well, nobody's going to want to be around when it touches down."

"Okay, then let's use the Staff to teleport everyone to safety. Maybe even to another Kingdom."

"We can't just wave it like a magic wand and make our problems go away." Oscar sighed. "And we haven't even told you about… him."

"Who?" Little Red's sister asked suspiciously.

Neo looked over her shoulder as there was an almost imperceptible pulse of energy. She knew the kid, the most recent host of Ozpin or Ozma or whatever the wizard called himself, but she hadn't actually interacted with him much, and especially not when he was switching control of his body back and forth.

Was it weird?

Did it feel weird?

Or did it feel like it did with her, when Trivia and Neo bled into each other until it was hard to tell where one beginning and one ended? Neopolitan had been Trivia's friend, but she'd also been a part of her, before Trivia had set her name and her old self aside forever.

"The spirit in the Staff. Like Jinn, but, well, he's a character." Oscar's image sighed. "He can build you anything, but only if you can explain to him how. Like any craftsman, he'll need blueprints. Some sort of reference. It'll help if we have real world examples to show him."

"So, that takes care of phase one." the Faunus, Blake, said.

"Meanwhile, the real Penny goes to the Vault, with help." Ruby said firmly.

"I blasted a hole through the bottom of Atlas and I highly doubt they've had time for repairs." Oscar said, with a sheepish little laugh. "That should take you straight to it. All of that is the easy part."

"As soon as Penny opens the door, we go through, grab the Staff, and stop her termination." Ruby finished firmly, and Neo bounced impatiently on her heels as the blue smoke rose up and started to dissolve these images away. She couldn't wait to get to the good parts.

"They contacted their allies on Atlas, Qrow and Robyn Hill. They contacted Winter Schnee, who had at that time finally begun to reach out to her sister for aid, and they spun their plan to use my brother Relic, the Spirit of Creation Ambrosius, to create a new form for Penny Polendina, a body that would no longer betray her with mechanical commands, and they planned to use the Relic again to warp and twist space, creating a network of portals that would allow all the citizens of Atlas and Mantle to flee to Vacuo."

Smoke seething and settling around her, Neo watched with a blink as Ruby's Semblance carried her and several others into a flowery meadow, with a series of broad, circular stepping stones making a path to the central podium where Neo had manifested, the Staff of Creation hovering between two stone supports next to her. Little Red lunged to grab it, closing her eyes as she did. There was a slight shiver in the air, and Neo looked back to the exterior of the Vault, where the Penny girl was standing, clutching her head. She was frozen in time.

The same light blue smoke that sculpted these visions fountained from the crystal at the top of the staff, swirling, rising, and coalescing to form a muscular man with long turquoise hair tied in a tail billowing down his back. Like Jinn, he was blue from head to toe; like Jinn, his ears were pointed; and like Jinn, he was completely nude except for golden chains, strung across his chest to form an X and dangling from the cuffs on his wrist. Unlike the shimmering, trailing mist that followed Jinn below the waist like a skirt, his legs were bare except for the decorative golden clasps that curled up his muscular calf and thigh like vines.

"Ah!" the spirit groaned, stretching luxuriantly, almost posing in the air as he hovered before the stunned Team RWBY. "It seems someone has come to engage my creative wiles! All I'll say is it had better be worth it after my last project."

He crossed his arms, turning away from them with blatant disdain.

"A floating city?" he scoffed, tossing out one hand. "How pedestrian."

"Hi, um… Mr. Ambrosius? Sir?" Little Red stammered, taking a step forward, glancing anxiously back to the world outside the Vault. "Listen, it's about our friend, she's… she's dying."

Ambrosius picked at his nails, earning Neo's immediate respect.

"I'm going to go ahead and assume that you know it's against the rules for me to bring people back from the dead," he drawled with the heavy patience of someone reciting something by rote, leaning back as he floated so that he eventually lay on his back and looked at her upside-down. "So..."

"That's not what we want." Little Red said, and gave a tiny little smile. "She's… not your typical girl."

The spirit's eyes widened, and he straightened up, drawn to attention. Without a word to Little Red or her friends, he flew to the Vault entrance, peering down at the crouching robot. With the snap of his fingers, a jeweler's magnifying glass dropped into his hand, and he bent to inspect the Winter Maiden with it.

"So she isn't!" he laughed in delight. "I'd love to meet whoever did this… ah. I see."

His voice grew solemn, and he zoomed back to rejoin them, rubbing his chin with one hand.

"There's something eating away at her? I-I'm guessing you think you have some clever plan to save her." he asked carelessly, then pointed to them with a fearsome scowl. "Just know, I will give you exactly what you ask for, and I don't want any complaining when it's not what you wanted."

Ruby and her partner exchanged a smug look as he spoke, the Staff that the former held still glowing brilliantly from the crystal at the top. The second Ambrosius finished, the Schnee held out her Scroll, projecting what even Neo could recognize was the plans for the robot girl. The spirit's attention was arrested on the spot, and Neo saw his eyes darting over the blueprints as he leaned forward and brought a hand to his chin, fascinated.

"We brought her schematics." Little Red told Ambrosius as he studied those holograms eagerly. "We want you to make a new version of her, using her exact same robot parts."

"That was… curiously worded, girl." Ambrosius said as he straightened up again, putting both hands on his hips as he looked measuringly down at Ruby over the edge of the hologram.

"An exact copy of her would include the virus." Little Red said. "An exact copy of her without the virus would cease to exist the second you make something else… and we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that."

"You've done your homework." Ambrosius chuckled, sounding both impressed and delighted as he shifted forward to lay on his stomach, kicking his legs behind himself as he continued to devour the blueprints with his eyes.

"We want you to create a new version of her, using her existing robotic parts, taking the virus with them." Little Red said slowly and deliberately, and Ambrosius steepled his fingers, looking over them in thought as he hummed.

"Okay," he muttered, flipping over himself to face away from the group, gesturing rapidly with both hands as gold points of light trailed from his fingers, leaving fading blue streaks in the air. "-but if I take the robot parts out of her, that would leave… ugh…"

"Penny." Blake said simply, making him pause. "The girl who's always been there underneath it."

"Hmm…" the spirit hummed, rubbing his chin.

"You can't destroy. It's against the rules." Ruby said, making him tap his cheek thoughtfully. "But you wouldn't be destroying her. Her soul is who she is."

"The mechanical parts are just… extra." Little Red's sister added.

"But a soul without a complete body," Ambrosius almost-stuttered, flying over to face the girls again as he gestured with both hands. "W-what would be left?

"I don't know." Little Red shrugged, grinning a little. "I guess you just have to… get creative."

Ambrosius thought for a second, then laughed. He started darting here and there like a hummingbird, paying not a lick of attention to the humans below as he muttered to himself.

"I suppose I could do a little… Oh, add a touch of…But if I do that, how much of the old Penny would be… my work and how much would be… her? Just coming up to the surface…"

"This is all very exciting!" he cackled, swooping over to Team RWBY, and abruptly sobered in the same moment. "And very dangerous, uh, I don't know what the results are going to be."

"We don't have any other options." the Schnee said crisply. "We believe in her."

"Then ready yourselves, to witness my artistry!" the Spirit of Creation said after a pause, flourishing with both hands. He turned away from them, beginning a swift series of gestures that ended with a glowing ball of bluish light held over his head. He let it go almost as soon as it had formed, though, bursting it like a firework, and blue mist laced with gold sparks raced in streamers and snakes towards Penny's frozen form, lifting her up into the air as they spun around her.

Neo watched with interest as the robot girl was remade in a flash of light, two copies standing beyond the threshold of the Vault with their eyes closed and arms hanging stiffly by their sides.

Ambrosius snapped his fingers, turning to the girls.

"It's done!" he said, and disappeared in that characteristic blue smoke with a cheeky wink.

Neo trotted over with the others as Team RWBY went to investigate the two shells of their friend, wondering to herself just what this was. An Aura skin that had formed colors and clothes? A flesh-and-blood person, somehow?

"…Penny?" Little Red asked nervously. The left-hand Penny opened her eyes, and they were a light, ordinary green. She looked down at her bare hand, seeing the skin there. Crackling drew everyone's attention sideways, to the lifeless husk that had once been the robot girl as it sparked and glitched, staggering and reaching towards her before collapsing in a lifeless heap at her feet. Rather understandably, Penny looked at the thing with horror as its red eyes widened and the light in them flickered out, leaving the lenses dilated to their fullest extent as they went grey and dark.

Little Red handed the staff to her partner, before putting her hand on Penny's shoulder.

"Are you… okay?" she asked gingerly. The robot girl's gaze traveled from hand to arm to face, before she suddenly lunged forward and wrapped Ruby's torso in a fierce hug as Little Red raised her arms in surprise.

"Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside?" Penny asked, her head nestled against Ruby's chest. Ruby smiled fondly, moving to return the embrace.

"Yes."

"Woooow…" Penny gasped, her eyes shining in delight. She pulled away from Little Red and leaped towards the Schnee, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. "More!"

"We should probably make sure our theory works." the Schnee grunted, slightly muffled by Penny's hair. She squeaked as the robot girl squeezed her tighter, then let go, lunging for Ruby's sister and then Blake as the Schnee continued in a more normal tone. "And start the evacuation."

The Schnee turned away from the others, spinning the Staff theatrically before holding it out in front of her as the gem crowning it glowed and more mist fountained up.

"Ah!" Ambrosius groaned as he manifested again, stretching luxuriantly for the second time. "Free to create, aaaand…"

His expression fell as he looked down at his summoner(s) and noticed Team RWBY alongside Penny.

"…oh, it's… you guys again." he finished in a groan, slumping as he hung in midair.

"We're not done with you yet." the Schnee said briskly, grounding the Staff and putting her other hand on her hip.

"Ugh, fine!" Ambrosius huffed like a petulant child, crossing his arms and looking away. Ruby's sister stepped forward.

"Let's try the quick version." she asked hopefully. "Can you –make a bunch of doorways in Atlas that open at a single spot in Vacuo?"

"Sure!" Ambrosius drawled, turning and spreading his arms, before his voice rapidly turned businesslike, ticking off points on his hand in quick succession. "I'll just need… coordinates and specs for each door, an explanation for bending space and time to account for the much greater traffic on one side, aaaand the single point of exit on the other."

Neo grinned as the spirit flipped over himself in midair to lay on his stomach again, resting his chin on one hand and his elbow on the same invisible plane he was laying on. She liked this guy.

"Okay, that's about what we expected." the Schnee huffed in annoyance, touching her forehead. "So, we need to funnel everybody through a central location first."

Ambrosius studied his nails, but rather than enjoy the eccentricities of the spirit, who was much more interesting than Jinn, Neo narrowed her eyes in focus. This was a moment she had never witnessed before –and this was the one that counted for the most. It was, after all, the real answer to the question Little Red and her friends had asked, rather than all the prior useless backstory.

"You're going to have to tell me more about this central location, for starters." Ambrosius drawled, looking away from his hand and folding his arms across his brawny chest again. "Uh, where is it?

"Here. A place like… these Vaults." Ruby's sister answered, spreading her arms to indicate the grassy, flower-strewn plain around them. "Wherever they are, they're not part of Remnant –only accessible if you know the right way in. Seems like a safe enough place for thousands of refugees."

Ambrosius chuckled in manifest delight as he understood their plan.

"You kids are either smarter…"

His voice abruptly sobered again.

"…or much more foolish than you realize."

He sighed, as though in resignation, and tossed his hand up again.

"I'm going to need a reference?"

"Oh, we've got one." the Schnee said proudly. She beamed up another diagram of schematics that the spirit studied with interest, tapping his chin.

"People enter from Atlas and Mantle on one side…" the Schnee continued. "And leave on the other side, with a one-way ticket to Vacuo."

Neo watched intently as a slight smile tugged at Ambrosius's lips. He pulled his legs up to cross them midair, as though sitting, and clapped his hands together, beginning to gesture sharply in somewhat angular motions as those glowing streaks of blue-gold light followed in the wake of his extended pointer fingers.

After a moment, there was a shimmering sound of air igniting, and Neo turned with the others to see the familiar oval arch of a portal, filled with blue-white mist and with a golden frame that threw off flaring rays of light like the sun. She knew, at this moment, that many others were similarly appearing all across Atlas and Mantle.

"Well, everything appears to be in order." Ambrosius announced loudly, putting his hands back on his knees, before kicking back to recline in midair. "You were… quite thorough. Disappointingly so."

"So, it's done?" the Schnee asked cautiously, and Ambrosius took a hand from behind his head to wave her off, still reclining with his feet kicked up in the air.

"Yeah." he yawned.

Without another word, Ruby and her friends turned away from the spirit, heading out of the Vault as they shared excited looks. Neo walked at the back, and so was thus able to see Penny hesitate as her former body dissolved into fragments amidst a flush of blue smoke. That was… mildly horrifying, and Neo didn't blame her for her quickened pace.

But something was off here. Team RWBY had finished, they were heading into the portals, and where was the last threat that they'd reportedly heard from Ambrosius?

Neo's hand tightened on Hush.

Had they lied to her after all?

"Oh!" Ambrosius suddenly piped up from behind her, making Neo turn quickly as she saw the giant man straighten to hover vertically in the air.

"And one last point of clarification about this, 'central location' of yours." he said, holding up a single finger, before folding his arms across his chest. The spirit's voice suddenly gained a resonant quality, his face darkening, and chills crawled up Neo's spine as he stared down the five –six, in memory– girls without a trace of irony on his face.

"Do not fall."

Her hands trembled on Hush's grip. Neo could see what Little Red had meant when she said that however eccentric the Spirit of Creation was, he hadn't been lying or exaggerating when he'd uttered these words. The sudden drop in expression and tone was all the more jarring compared to the jollity she had seen from him before, the exuberance that the spirit quickly recovered.

"Ooookay, and with that dire warning-" he finished cheerfully as he swept his arm in to bow to them, before vanishing into blue mist.

Neo couldn't stop the shaking in her hands as some of that same mist rose around her and the images of the others, changing the scene yet again.

"With the paths of escape made, Ruby and her friends thought to alert the citizens through a live broadcast, but as Cinder had learned of their plans, Arthur Watts was quick to put a stop to it, banning all communications on Atlas. It was then decided between Jaune Arc and his followers, Nora, Ren, Oscar, and Emerald, that they would spread the news on foot, physically ushering all of the citizens into the portals. With Penny newly housed in mortal, physical, fleshly form, she and Team RWBY moved through the portals as well, carrying the Staff and leaving Winter Schnee to guard the portal in the Vault, while Qrow Branwen and Marrow Amin went to thwart Ironwood's bomb. Cinder, however, was also within the Central Location, and she wasted no time in beginning her attack, scattering civilians like leaves as she went to do battle with the Winter Maiden and her allies."

Weiss gritted her teeth as Jinn's fog cleared away and she saw Cinder soaring upwards atop a pillar of swirling fire, sneering down at all of them from one of the landings in the central location.

"I knew your plan would be bold, but I never could have predicted all of this." she laughed, summoning more black glass swords into either hand. "At least, not without a little help from Jinn. I suppose I have all of you to thank for one last lesson."

Weiss watched with narrowed eyes, seeing Neopolitan in a civilian disguise slowly make her way towards Ruby. It had been everyone and no one's fault, that Yang was the only one who noticed, that Yang was the only one who had moved. Weiss had been almost the same distance away, but she had been more focused on her enemy than her partner, had been watching Cinder monologue while she should have noticed a single lone figure moving calmly against the screaming, running crowd, walking towards Ruby and the others.

"Sometimes, if you want to win-"

Weiss saw the image of Yang bat her fists, cocking Ember Celica, but then her lilac eyes flickered to the side as she saw what Weiss should have noticed, saw the unsheathing blade as Neopolitan dismissed the illusion of a briefcase.

"-you simply can't do it alone!"

"Ruby!" Yang screamed, and launched herself off, her hair igniting as she used her Semblance to power herself forwards as fast as possible.

Neopolitan struck.

Yang's Aura broke.

She was sent flying head over heels, shot off the edge of the platform.

With a cry, Blake rushed to the edge to try and grab for her partner as Weiss's past self ran to support her. Blake shot Gambol Shroud, but missed by mere feet, and Yang plummeted through the blackness to disappear in a faint shimmer of gold.

"YANG!" Blake screamed, and far away, at the very threshold of the portal to Vacuo, Penny turned.

"Yang?" Ruby whispered, her voice shrinking, but then she had to shove Crescent Rose up to block Neopolitan's next strike. While Weiss's past self was occupied with holding a sobbing, vainly reaching Blake, Ruby was forced to defend herself, swirling around as Neopolitan darted at her with rapid, vicious swipes of her parasol. Blake soon rushed off to join her, hooking Gambol Shroud around Neopolitan's elbow and jerking her back, only to shatter an illusion as Neopolitan and Ruby struggled up another of the paths.

The image of Weiss was left to face Cinder alone –only not so alone, as Penny soared through the air, jets of green flames replacing the rockets that she had once had.

"Why'd you have to come back?!" she called angrily.

"Penny, no!" Weiss's past self shouted from the ground, reaching up.

"Why didn't you just learn your lesson!?" Penny demanded, her eyes flaring with Maiden flames as she landed a solid punch to Cinder's face, sending her flying back a dozen meters as she tumbled through the air, quickly recovering herself with gouts of ordinary flames sprouting from her hands.

"Oh, Penny…" she drawled almost sympathetically, summoning a blade and swiping a thumb under her nose, wiping away whatever blood or snot that had been knocked loose by Penny's attack. "I did."

As the two Maidens surged together in combat, Weiss saw the image of her past self skate up to a higher podium, so she could help. Weiss herself ran up to the place where Blake and Ruby were fighting, hearing Penny's scream as she saw Blake, trailing behind, whirl to look at the two Maidens dancing through the air with fire and swords, and Weiss's image clinging to a Gravity glyph in midair as she struggled not to drop. Blake looked torn, frantic, as she glanced back to Ruby, pressed ever-backwards under Neopolitan's constant, unyielding assault.

The image of Weiss had soon recovered, however, and she soared off on her Lancer summon to help Penny… a decision that would cost her as a fireball exploded on her back, destroying the summon and sending the images of Weiss and Penny tumbling to the ground as Penny dropped the Staff, Weiss Myrtenaster, and both of their Auras crackled and shimmered, weakening.

Cinder landed between them and the fleeing refugees, tossing her shorter hair out of her face with a huff and a smirk as she straightened.

Recovering at the time, Weiss hadn't noticed how those cruel amber eyes had darted to her, or how Penny had seen them and hastily struggled to her feet, stepping between Weiss and Cinder and spreading her arms wide, making a target of herself.

"I'm right here!" she said without hesitation. "I'm what you want!"

The image of Cinder chuckled.

"I want it all…" she purred, and was about to shoot herself forward, powered by flames darting from her hands, but she only got a few yards before both of Blake's booted feet slammed into the side of her face, knocking the Fall Maiden to the side. Blake shifted Gambol Shroud from pistol to katana as she landed and looked urgently at Weiss, fear in her eyes.

"Get up!"

Weiss's past self grabbed Myrtenaster and the Staff and ran as Penny summoned her new swords and Blake brandished Gambol Shroud at Cinder, preparing to hold her back. As they fought, Cinder glanced up to where Ruby and Weiss and Neo were, watching Weiss launch Neo through one of the portals to Atlas. She snarled in frustration, hurling a fireball at Penny and sending a wash of flames towards Blake, who staggered backwards with a cry.

With another snarl, Cinder came down hard through the flames with her leg, creating another explosion that sent Blake flying.

"Blake!" Penny gasped, soaring up above the flames to see her friend falling through the void. She swooped down to catch her, and Weiss looked up with a wince. She heard her own voice cry out, knew that she was bouncing from the force of Cinder's blow, her Aura flickering one last time before breaking in a shower of blue-white sparks. She knew that they'd lost the Staff when a few seconds later, Ruby cried out as she was struck off the platform and onto a path, dropping Crescent Rose as she fell.

"No!" Ruby cried, scrambling for the edge of the path and reaching out, just in time to miss her beloved weapon as it tumbled off into the abyss. Ruby turned with narrowed eyes as Neopolitan cocked her parasol over her shoulder at the edge of the platform, glaring down at her. With a hop and a skip, Neopolitan floated down, carrying the Staff as she flew, and the two stared at each other from either side of the meter-wide path as she landed.

"Whatever you wanted…" the image of Ruby said as Weiss finally managed to reach them, her voice trembling as she edged towards the very lip of the glowing pathway, glancing down and over. She glanced back and held out her arms as her expression flattened and her voice firmed, as though daring Neopolitan to hit her. "I hope it was worth it."

Neopolitan narrowed her eyes and brought her parasol across her chest, a spike pushing out of the very tip. As she lunged for Ruby, Ruby stepped back, her foot slipping off the edge of the platform as she quickly twisted into the red, rose-laden blur of her Semblance. That blur swooped rapidly around to the other side, landing on the path again as Ruby reassembled herself and shoved the lunging Neopolitan off the edge with a cry. The Staff spun in the air, the Lamp still hooked onto Neopolitan's belt, but as Ruby reached up to catch the tumbling Staff, a stream of fire hit her in the back, making her cry out again and tumble off the edge with Neopolitan, her Aura fragmenting into glowing red particles.

Weiss's heart lurched, a lump coming to her throat as she peered over the edge and saw Ruby dangling there, grasping onto Neopolitan's ankle. Behind her, she could hear the clang as Cinder kicked the Relic up into her hand.

"You should have never threatened me." she growled, Grimm arm stretching forward to snatch the Relic from Neopolitan's belt, ignoring the gloved hand that was stretched towards her in supplication. Blue mist flickered around Weiss's chest as Cinder kicked Neopolitan's parasol right through her, sending it spinning off into the abyss.

"And you…" Cinder said, glaring down at Ruby. "…should have never been born."

Cinder spun the Staff once, extending it, and she slammed the golden metal into Neopolitan's fingers, knocking her grip loose and making both Ruby and Neopolitan fall from the paths.

"RUBY!" two voices called, almost in sync, and Weiss turned, tears streaming down her face, to see Penny and Blake zooming towards them. Cinder snarled in rage, hurling a fireball at them, but Penny spun and flipped, hurling Blake past it as she slammed into her teammate, making Ruby yelp as Blake caught her around the waist.

Blake flung Gambol Shroud up, and the blade caught and held on the edge of a path, but as Blake and Ruby began to curve through the air, just as they hit the apex of their swing and started to rise, another fireball shot through Blake's ribbon.

Dust-infused it may have been, Aura-infused it was not.

It burned through.

They began to drop.

They fell apart from each other just before they vanished into the black. From this distance, Weiss couldn't tell if they had let go or if they'd just… stopped holding on.

"No!" Penny gasped, holding her hands to her mouth as her eyes glimmered with tears.

Cinder huffed in cruel satisfaction, but bullets peppered the ground around them, making her image jump away from where Weiss stood, staring longingly into the abyss. She wondered, if she jumped down now, would it make any difference? Would she somehow be able to loop back to this very moment, and save her team?

"Get back!" she heard her own voice cry, and remembered well the feeling of tears streaking down her cheeks in the warmth of the real Central Location, so different from the tundra of Atlas, remembered how they had blurred her vision as she shot at Cinder with the last part of Blake she still had, remembered how her hands had trembled with grief on Gambol Shroud.

There was an odd tugging at the edge of her attention, and the world shifted and swirled in blue mist, suddenly putting Weiss on the central platform, her back to where she had been as she watched Jaune soar to the last, stubby path that led to Vacuo where Nora was waving him down, using his shield as a paraglider. Nora lowered her hand as he landed beside her, the stream of fleeing civilians having slowed to almost nothing. They looked from the gate, to the combatants, and then back at each other.

"May, Joanna, any Huntsmen that went through that gate, bring 'em here!" Jaune ordered as he collapsed the Hard Light extension around his shield. He held out his hand, and Nora looked at him and gave a steadfast grin. They clasped their hands together, tugging once, and then Nora let go, running back through the portal to Vacuo with the last of the civilians as Jaune headed back towards the center of the tangled paths.

"But alas, due to a mere slip of the tongue, reinforcements would not come."

Weiss's jaw dropped as the smoke swirled and reformed and darkened, forming a cloud of gritty sand that blew against her and the images of the Atlas civilians as they huddled together in the desert. Their colors were dull and grey, all the color leeched out of them with Ren's Semblance, but as Weiss watched, they flickered over with the magenta hue of his Aura, and returned to their natural colors. Ren, on his knees in the sand, slumped and gasped as his Aura flickered around him in dissolving particles.

"I'm spent." he wheezed, hands on the ground, and Emerald held up her arm, trying to block the howling winds and peer through the shifting sand at the portal.

"Where's Penny? Couldn't she deal with this storm?" she asked urgently. Weiss looked to Oscar alongside the images of Ren and Emerald: Oscar was facing away from them, his arms raised as well as he tried to squint through the flying sand.

"Wait, Penny should've been here by now." he gasped, realization striking him at Emerald's reminder. He turned, running back to the portal as the citizens made way before him. "Something's wrong!"

When Oscar hit the flat, glowing blue mist that filled the portal, it thrummed and flared brighter as he was sent flying backwards, landing on his rear.

"What?" he gasped. "Why can't I-"

'Oh, dear.' Ozpin's voice came, echoing around Weiss as it surely must have in Oscar's head. 'Ambrosius.'

Weiss blinked, her shock and horror mixed with confusion. Ambrosius? But he had said that they were thorough, that they were annoyingly thorough, how could he have-

She gasped, her hand darting to her mouth.

It was her.

This was all her fault.

Her flippant remark as they were outlining the plan to the Spirit of Creation had doomed them all.

People enter from Atlas and Mantle from one side, and leave on the other side, with a one-way ticket to Vacuo.

One-way ticket to Vacuo.

One-way.

"We can't go back," Oscar gasped as he scrambled to his feet, running back to the others. "The portal won't let us!"

Almost before he had finished those words, Weiss heard the bone-chilling shriek of a flock of Ravagers.

She joined them in their cries, sobbing her horror and despair into her hands as Weiss fell to her knees, the world dissolving away into blue mist.

"Ruby and the others were thus left to battle alone against a vengeful Neo and a murderous Cinder, and it cost them. As Winter fought against her former commanding officer, as Qrow Branwen and Robyn Hill struggled against the Ace Ops from on high, a losing battle was fought in the Central Location, a battle that ended in Cinder's victory as she stole not one, but two Relics."

Ruby's heart tightened as the blue fog swirled and reformed to show the Central Location again, where Weiss was sent flying, still clutching Gambol Shroud in one hand with Myrtenaster in the other. She lay in a heap where she landed, panting heavily.

"It figures that a Schnee would be the last one standing, letting all her friends die first." Cinder sneered happily, hovering in the air with the gouts of fire. She spat a tongue of flame at Weiss like a dragon, and Ruby gasped her fear as Weiss cried out. She knew that Weiss fell, that they all had fell, but what condition they had fallen in was unknown to her. What if Weiss had been tossed into the abyss broken and bleeding?

Could Ruby stomach watching that, knowing that she could do nothing? It was going to be bad enough when Penny- when Jaune-

A circle of spinning green blades caught the flames, protecting Weiss as the Winter Maiden came to stand before her.

"You wouldn't know anything about friends." Penny said fiercely, glaring up at Cinder. The other Maiden was about to strike, but Jaune interrupted her with a cry, soaring in on his shield and slamming it into her crossed arms as he landed. Jaune boosted his attack, however, with a pulse of Gravity Dust, sending Cinder flying backwards as he dropped onto the ground beside Weiss and Penny, drawing his sword swiftly. Penny rose into the air, her swords spinning around her back like a halo, and Weiss held up her two swords. Had she ever been trained to dual-wield, Ruby wondered? She seemed a lot more confident with it than Ruby would be.

Cinder staggered to her feet, but then she suddenly yelped in pain, her Grimm arm wriggling like a dying snake as she grasped the black, bony wrist with her free hand. Her groans swiftly died out into panting gasps as the limb smoked and seethed, before Cinder looked at Ruby's friends with a smug grin.

"She's back." she hissed, and slammed her hand down, creating a wave of fire that knocked all three of them backwards. Cinder pulled two molten glass staves out of the air, hurling them in spinning arcs, one towards Jaune and the other towards Weiss. Penny flew in to block both of them, but Cinder's next attack, a gout of pure flames, made Weiss and Jaune step to the sides with a yelp as Penny deflected it to either side of herself. She gasped, looking to both of her friends in consternation –then screamed as there was an ugly sound of something piercing flesh.

Ruby stepped forward, reaching involuntarily for her friend before she could stop herself.

The image of Penny looked down slowly, bright green Maiden flames flickering around her eyes, to see the long, sharp nails of Cinder's Grimm hand embedded in her chest, the thumb digging into her torso under her ribs. Green light was flowing out of her, rushing down that grotesquely extended arm, and Ruby had never wished harder to be present, to be able to freeze it solid with her eyes –she had more than enough memories of love in her to qualify right now, more than enough desire to preserve a life-

The image of Weiss lunged for Cinder, making her withdraw her arm abruptly to avoid getting it cut off, their swords clashing together as Jaune rushed to Penny's side the moment she collapsed to the ground. Ruby rushed there too, not caring that this was an illusion, a vision, mere puppetry sculpted by Jinn. She couldn't leave Penny alone like this.

"Penny! Just -hold on!" Jaune gasped, swiftly falling to his knees and holding his hands over her chest as the green of her Aura began to shimmer over the wound. "My Semblance-"

"No." Penny croaked, making him jerk his hands away just a fraction. "There's not enough time to heal me…"

Jaune looked over his shoulder, frantic, as Weiss dueled with Cinder. He looked back as Penny continued.

"She can't get the Staff and the power…" She reached up weakly, touching Jaune's hand with her own –the hand of the arm with his sheathed sword on it– and Penny gently pushed his glowing hand away from her, making him lower it. "But there is something… you can do…"

Jaune followed her gaze slightly, to his arm and the sword on it, and suddenly jerked away from her like she had threatened him.

"I-I don't know where the others are, but… Weiss will give us time!" he said, pleading, negotiating, his voice almost breaking on the last word. Ruby's eyes watered, the tears spilling over, and heedless of whether it was an illusion or not, she grabbed Penny's ghostly hand, following it wherever Penny moved.

"Let me choose… this one thing…" Penny gasped as blood pooled from the four holes in her chest, reaching up to brush her fingers against the hilt of his sword. "Trust me…!"

"Penny, no." Ruby choked, still clutching that misty hand as it blurred into blue fog whenever Penny moved through her, her hand intangible and weightless inside Ruby's own. "Don't do this, please."

Her voice did break, and she choked on a sob as Jaune unsheathed Crocea Mors above them. He was staring into his reflection, his face ashen. Weiss was crying out nearby, and Ruby caught the flicker of Gambol Shroud, black on black, pinwheeling into the abyss as Cinder disarmed her partner. She didn't look away from Penny's face, and her grip tightened, uncaring of how it made Penny's hand blur into mist, unable to keep its form when Ruby's fingers were in the way.

Jaune's scream was a ragged, broken thing, a cry born of pure frustration and grief as he plunged his sword down. It ended in a sob, and he continued to sob as he jerked the blade free, his voice choking in his throat as blood dripped down Crocea Mors onto the gold of the platform, joined by the droplets of his tears. Ruby sobbed with him, clutching her friend's intangible hand as she wailed her grief to the void around them.

Their grief was interrupted by a snarl of rage as the image of Cinder barreled towards Jaune, trailing flames. He barely got his shield between them in time, and snarled back at her as Cinder landed on it, tears streaming down his face as he activated the Gravity pulse and sent her flying.

Cinder caught herself with a flip, skidding on the ground a little before she summoned another of her swords and launched towards him. She blasted herself up to gain height, swinging down at him with all the momentum in her body –and as Jaune moved to counter her, his sword snapped, right at the line where the blood from P-Penny ended. Jaune stared at the remaining hilt-and-a-half for a heartbeat too long, and Cinder knocked him onto his back.

"Where did it go?!" she snarled in frustration, her control starting to unravel a little, before she cried out at a lance of blue-white energy striking her in the back. She was knocked aside, and Ruby looked up from Penny's body to see Winter approach on a storm of swirling ice particles. For perhaps a fraction of a second, fear entered Cinder's eyes, before she snarled and the flames around her eyes flared brighter. She launched herself at Winter, who surged towards her just as readily.

Ruby wasn't in the mood to watch Maiden-on-Maiden combat, not now, not anymore, and she looked up listlessly as she watched Jaune stagger to his feet, running over to Weiss, who was barely able to move. She'd had her Aura broken even before she fought Cinder, Ruby remembered vaguely, and Jaune had to support her almost entirely as he pulled Weiss towards the portal to Vacuo, his arm around her waist and hers draped over his shoulder.

Jaune suddenly turned as Ruby heard air rush and burn overhead, throwing his Dust disk in an attempt to shield them both. The fireball that Cinder must have thrown detonated right in front of them, though, before the Hard Light could activate, and both Jaune and Weiss were sent flying as Ruby hastily leapt to her feet, running for them. Honestly, at this point, she'd half-forgotten that she couldn't help, couldn't do anything, that this was just an image and a memory.

Her friends were in trouble.

She needed to help.

Weiss and Jaune managed to stay together, Jaune clutching onto her shoulder as they landed in a crouch, but then Ruby saw that familiar hateful, familiar circle of warped heat start to swirl beneath them. Jaune was knocked to one side with a cry of frustration and desperation mixed, his Aura finally breaking, and Weiss shrieked as she was sent flying over the edge.

"WEISS!" Winter screamed, and Ruby looked up to see her reaching desperately as she rocketed towards them, plunging past the paths Jaune was on without a thought. Ruby looked back down as Winter zipped past her, seeing Weiss melt into the blackness, a flicker of something that almost looked like golden Aura washing over her.

Winter slowed, her momentum coming to a halt. Ruby sniffled and wiped her arm across her face, trying to contain any more tears, as Weiss's big sister hovered back up to the platform, sobbing brokenly. She sounded like she had never cried before, like she had been saving up all her lifetime's worth of tears and grief and frustration for this one moment, choking out her sobs like cries of pain.

Winter then slammed her fist against the ground as her weeping turned to a snarl. Her breath seethed in her throat as she turned, seeing Cinder coast down to one of the higher platforms.

The image of Winter got to her feet, richly-glowing blue flames bursting to life around her eyes as her teeth drew back in a snarl and she raised her swords, but before she could do anything the world suddenly rocked, subtly, and Ruby staggered and almost side-slipped on the path. A woman's scream drifted through the air, faint, distant, and enraged, a bloodcurdling cry like the lost souls in some of Ruby's videogames.

For just a moment, the light of the portals flickered as that scream rang out, and the hairs rose on the back of Ruby's neck as Jaune got to his feet, looking around himself nervously.

"We need to go…" he gulped, no doubt realizing the same thing Ruby had, that this was Salem and no one else, as he looked towards Winter, glaring at Cinder with visceral hatred. "Now."

"You are going to pay." Winter spat at the other Maiden, her voice almost breaking from rage, now, rather than grief. "For everything you've done!"

She and Jaune turned to run, and Ruby watched as Cinder smirked and looped around, zooming through one of the portals that led back to Atlas.

Almost immediately, though, the oval portals began to vanish, the termination of those pathways dissolving in golden sparks. Ruby's blood turned to ice.

So here it was, then.

This was how Jaune fell.

That golden glow retracted, pulling in towards the very center of this Central Location, the podium that held the short path and much-larger portal to Vacuo. It moved with incredible swiftness: by the time Jaune had run more than a dozen feet up the path, Winter leading the way as she soared on her Maiden powers, the golden sparks had already devoured the central platform behind them. The hissing, fizzing sound as those sparks faded away drew Winter's attention, and she looked behind herself just as she reached the portal, turning and moving to reach out.

But, Ruby figured, the no-going-back applied to you once you'd already gone through, no matter how much of you went through. With half of Winter's body on the other side, the rest of her was inexorably drawn in that direction whether she wanted to be or not, like a stone sinking into mud as her grasping arm reached back for Jaune, a gasp of dismay trailing behind her.

Ruby's friend ran, the last of them still alive, his legs pumping desperately as the pathway unraveled behind him. The particles were creeping up almost at his heels now, and Jaune gathered his legs and launched himself in a desperate spring towards the portal as the pathway finally vanished under his very feet. No doubt he knew that the same force that had pulled Winter into Vacuo would draw him in as well, just so long as he got a single finger through. Jaune was smart. He was a strategist.

Injustice upon cruelty, Ruby watched as the portal burst into golden sparks just as Jaune would've touched it.

He dropped with a cry of despair, plummeting through the blackness as he dissolved into that same golden-orange light Ruby had observed before.

"Thereby hangs this tale of all that has gone before. Team RWBY, their friend Jaune, and their onetime enemy Neopolitan fell from the paths created by my brother Relic, presumably to their deaths. And yet, it was not so. Instead they found themselves where they had been, many years before, at the start of the Beacon year, in the very semester when Ruby Rose had first entered that illustrious school after defeating Roman Torchwick. And knowing my name and my powers, they sought me out to answer their question of how this impossibility came to pass."

Ruby blinked as the mist seethed and settled, looking around herself. She was in a white void, a nothingness, with Jinn hovering gravely in the air before her. Jaune was on her left side, and Weiss, Blake, and Yang ranged in a line on her right, with Neopolitan at the very end.

"What? Is that it?" Ruby asked, blinking, and Jinn shifted to cup her chin, leaning forward a little and resting her elbow on the air.

"You have asked how it is that you have reached the place where you are now, and I have answered, inasmuch as I have given you a recapitulation of the events that have led to this moment." she answered calmly.

"Oh hell no." Yang took a step forward. "No more of this double-dealing bullshit. We asked you how we got here, as in, what the fuck happened to us when we fell off those paths? Your job is to answer it, so answer."

"That is a question wide in scope." Jinn hummed, leaning back a little again. She didn't seem offended, which Ruby breathed a sigh of relief at. "I assumed that you would have been pleased to have your teammates see the events that have led up to this moment in particular."

"I am." Jaune said from Ruby's other side, and then amended "We are. We… we wanted them to know about all of this. We wanted them to be ready."

Neo stamped her foot, striking the butt of her parasol against the nonexistent ground with a slight noise. Jinn's eyes turned to her, and a knowing smile curved her mouth.

"Very well then." she said, sounding amused. "I shall not keep any of you in suspense any longer. The reason why you are here, in this space, instead of me continuing my answer is that I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to ask for… more clarification, as I gave you your answer."

"Wait, but doesn't that mean we would ask you more questions?" Weiss asked after a second, her voice faltering. "I thought you weren't allowed- I mean, you and Ambrosius are bound by rules-"

"You are correct, Miss Schnee. The laws that govern me as the Spirit of Knowledge are absolute: I may answer any questions put to me, as long as they concern the present and past. I may answer only three questions per century." Jinn said, and then unbent, smiling a little. "And… I am a being created to aid humanity. How much or how little I choose to answer a question, after I have granted the minimal knowledge to fulfill it, is an ability given to me. I may use my own judgement on how much a complete answer would aid humanity: if it is substantial, then I will make the effort to be equally informative."

"Okay, so that means… what? You can find loopholes?" Blake asked cautiously, her ears folding back a little.

"I may choose to clarify a question with greater effort than the asker perhaps intended or expected." Jinn said, serene. "In the case of Cinder Fall, her question was answered exactly as she asked it and no more, although, sadly, it was an answer that was nonetheless extremely useful to her. In the asking of what Ozpin had been hiding from you, however, I was inclined to provide substantially more leeway."

"So we can ask questions to clarify what you told us, and that still counts under the umbrella of 'an answer' to our question, right?" Ruby asked slowly. Jinn's smile grew.

"Up to a certain point: after all, if you fail to understand me, then that in turn means that I have failed to correctly answer your question. Providing an incomplete answer would thus go against my purpose as the Spirit of Knowledge, for I only have three answers to give within a century –or, perhaps, looking at it another way, only three questions to be asked of me."

Jinn tilted her head with a slight chuckle, her golden jewelry clinking gently.

"Though you should be careful not to stray too far out of the definition of 'an answer' to your original question." she said, her unearthly blue eyes twinkling with amusement.

Ruby took a deep breath, and blew it out.

"Would you please tell us if one of, uh, the clarifying questions we ask would count as a separate explanation?" she asked, gesturing down the end of the line, towards Neopolitan. "Because, uh, we kinda owe her that one, and I'm not gonna go back on the promise."

"It shall be done." Jinn said, and leaned up, folding her arms and watching them with wry amusement as she clearly waited for their next questions.

Yang took the first move.

"All that happened." she said, throwing out her arm to indicate the general state of affairs that had led up to the fall of Atlas. "So why are we here after we fell from the paths? How are we here? That's what we wanted you to tell us."

Jinn tilted her chin back slightly, looking up in thought.

"The reason for your transmitigation, for why and how you have found yourselves in your old forms, is complex." she said. "Let me assuage your fears by telling you that this is not a cruel dream: you are here as your true and physical selves, not in illusion, not in hallucination. This is real."

Ruby wasn't the only one to exhale. Weiss in particular seemed like she might almost collapse in relief.

"Allow me to further soothe you by letting it be known that you are not dead." Jinn said, a slight glimmer of amusement in her eyes as she glanced back down towards them. "And that this is not the afterlife. You are on Remnant."

"Okay, that's good…" Ruby heard Jaune murmur from beside her, and she glanced over as he ran a hand through his hair. "So is this, what, an alternate reality, or is it time travel?"

"Hmm…" Jinn tilted her head to the side slightly, her lips pressed together in a thoughtful frown as she regarded all of them. A look of contemplation slowly crept across her face. "Unorthodox as it may be, I will require knowledge from you before I answer that question. If this is one fragment of reality among thousands, rather than a rewinding of the universe's clock, what will you do in regards to the world you have left?"

It felt like the breath was sucked out of Ruby. That wasn't –Jinn would know what their answers would be as soon as she brought the question up, because that was information that existed in the present and past, which meant that either they were so far out of this Remnant's reality that her spooky spirit powers didn't work on them, or Jinn wanted to hear their answers for themselves. She wanted them to tell her the truth, admit their truth of whether or not they'd go back and leave this paradisal form of Remnant behind.

That was probably it. Jinn had proved that they fell under her definition of knowledge, since she'd called up all the images of their adventures up to now, and Jinn had also said that how much she answered a question was contingent on how much it would aid humanity. She was testing them, using her personal judgement to see if they deserved that extra effort or not.

There was a moment of nervous silence. Then-

"I'd go back, if I could." Blake said firmly, making everyone swing to look at her. She had her eyes fixed on Jinn's, staring up into the spirit's face almost defiantly. "We'd be leaving our fight half-done if we stayed here. We'd be leaving behind people that needed us. I won't be a coward and run away."

Jinn nodded slightly, and her eyes flickered aside as Neopolitan smacked her parasol against the ground again, except this was definitely an 'I'm staying here' motion rather than impatience. Well, that was natural: she didn't have anything she wanted in the place they'd left. To her, everything was fine as long as she stayed with her partner, and this was the only reality Torchwick was alive in.

"I'm staying with my team." Weiss said a moment afterwards, glancing from Blake to Ruby before glancing up at Jinn. "Where they go, I go."

"And I'm sticking with Ruby." Yang said, folding her arms. Ruby gulped as everyone glanced towards her a second afterwards, realizing that that put the impetus of deciding here-or-there for the whole of Team RWBY all on her.

"I-" she began, then took a deep breath. "I'm with Blake. Nora and Ren and Pyrrha all saw this, right? So they know what's coming. We'll have left people here, we'll have warned them of what's ahead, and they can tell Ozpin and everybody else. They can take steps to deal with it, and we can deal with our mess, the one we left behind."

Now it was Jaune's turn, and he looked in agony as everyone's eyes turned to him, even Jinn, whose expression was sympathetic but implacable. He swallowed thickly.

For a few seconds there was silence as Jaune thought. His eyes dropped to his feet, and his clenched fist trembled.

Then, like the others before him, Jaune took a deep breath and looked up.

"I want to stay here." he admitted. "But if I had the chance to go back, I'd take it. Pyrrha has Nora and Ren, they can all stick together and get over me, no big deal. They've only known me for a couple months. But- back in that world, our world, whatever, Ren and Nora would have lost me and Pyrrha if I stuck around here. Our team would've been halved. I have to go back. I owe it to them to go back."

Even if I don't like it.

Even if I don't want to.

Ruby heard those words clear as day, even if he didn't say them, and she bumped Jaune's arm with her shoulder in an affectionate nudge. He nodded to her and swallowed again, trying to remove the lump in his throat as he quickly dashed a finger over his eyes, rubbing any unnecessary moisture away.

A faint smile curled over Jinn's enigmatic face as she pulled back away from them, straightening up again.

"It is good to see your resolve." she said. "And it has bought you my answer. Hear, then, the reason behind your transmitigation. As you plunged from the golden paths, you fell through the world –much as another child had done long ago. Plunging through the nothingness that is all that was and will ever be, you slipped into the gaps between time –the moment between the tick and the tock. What led you all back to this specific moment… I could not say. Perhaps it holds some significance for you."

Ruby exchanged glances with Weiss.

"But all the same, like a snake swallowing its own tail, you have consumed you who you were." Jinn's inscrutable blue eyes moved from one of them to another. "No longer does a girl in a red hood seek to hide from her own achievements as she enters Beacon two years early. No longer does an heiress flee the yoke of her father while still feeling his hand cling to her reins. No longer does a young Faunus use a black bow to hide from her past. No longer does an older sister look upon her years as a Huntress and see only adventure ahead. No longer does a boy without Aura attempt to gain entry to Beacon Academy. No longer does a young woman brush aside the dangers of playing with fire. These people are gone as though they had never been, existing only in your memories."

There was a universal sort of nervous shuffle.

"So we… ate our past selves?" Ruby asked, rubbing her folded arms.

"There can be only one Ruby Rose." Jinn replied, serene as ever. "The Ruby Rose who boarded an airship to Beacon is the same Ruby Rose who stepped off of it in search of her teammate –just at different points in time. The older replaces the younger: you might equally say that your fifteen-year-old self ate your seven-year-old self."

"Oh. Uh, good."

"But why, though? How?" Weiss asked, putting a hand on her hip. "Ambrosius said not to fall –what does that even mean, if all it does is send you back?"

Jinn's eyes glowed slightly, and she leaned forward just a little from where she hovered in the air as they all unconsciously took a step back.

"It does not just send you back in time, Weiss Schnee." Jinn said, her voice grave and ever-so-slightly resonant. She seemed to hold all their eyes at once. "My brother Relic warned you because he knew that once you fell, you would be at the mercy of forces beyond your control or understanding. I cannot tell you more of the forces at work lest you ask another question, but I can tell you this."

She leaned back again.

"There are things even beyond our reckoning –that even we, even I, cannot truly read what happens there. It is there, and we are here. It is the emptiness that gives shape to all things –separate, apart, but running through all worlds like a shuttle through a loom. In that place, the rules that are so immutable here are as easy to sculpt and mold as wet clay. A twist of will, a flicker of luck, and the plane of reality that you call your own flows like water towards a new goal."

Jinn regarded them all almost contemplatively.

"All the same, the turning and twisting of time is… complex. It can be done –it has been done– but the results I see here seem… deceptively straightforward. Those that have fallen have returned in their old selves, and the future that once was certain has been blown away like smoke in the wind."

The side of her mouth curled upwards briefly, before falling back into a worried frown.

"Unless one of you is hiding godlike powers capable of manipulating that realm beyond and is responsible for this easy transition, I would caution you to be careful moving forward. I fear that this miracle came too easily, too simply, and that there may be consequences or further aftereffects hidden down the line."

"Can't you tell us?" Blake asked in surprise, and Jinn closed her eyes, shaking her head mournfully.

"It is the future, and not my purview." she said. She opened her eyes again, measuring them up once more. "All I can say for now is that there may be a hidden price for what has occurred, one I cannot yet see. Time is like a great river, flowing inexorably onwards. It is not easy to dam, nor to block, and doing so requires a certain amount of… structure. What the structure that has allowed you to return in this manner is, its shape, what it draws from, I do not know. This may cause problems later –for you, perhaps even for how the world is woven."

"And you won't be able to figure it out until it does cause problems, right?" Weiss asked with a terse sigh, almost a scoff. Jinn smiled ruefully.

"Alas."

"Well, I guess this is better than nothing." Yang sighed, massaging her temples with both hands. "Time-travel, source unknown, watch out for weird side effects. Got it."

Ruby took a deep breath.

"Yeah." she said, and gestured at Neopolitan, sweeping her hand towards Jinn. "So, um, there it is. We've got our answer, so… the floor is yours?"

Before Neo could even react to that, they were back in the Vault chamber, like the flick of a switch had changed the white void into the shimmering, ever-shifting sandy desert. Time was still frozen, and Jinn was still hovering serenely nearby, but now they were facing off against the rest of Team JNPR, who were staring at Ruby and the others with expressions ranging from dumb shock to sheer catatonia.

Nora, predictably, was first to break the silence.

"I fucking knew it!" she howled, flinging up both arms before she swung a finger to point accusingly at Jaune. "I KNEW you were from the future or some shit!"

"What?!" Jaune spluttered, looking honestly caught off-guard for the first time in months as he flinched backwards, half-raising his arms. "No you did not!"

"I knew it, I clocked you, and Ren can't accuse me for weeks about overreacting to some shit, oh my gods, this is the best moment of my life-"

"Wait wait wait, can we go back to-" Pyrrha tried vainly, pointing sideways towards Jinn.

"-I'm going to engrave this on my tombstone: Nora! Was! Right! Jaune was a double agent this whole time and none of you believed me, oh the validation-"

"Enough!" Ren barked, making the two redheads fall silent. He folded his arms, glaring stonily at Ruby and the others. "We can hash this all out later. Right now, we need to focus on fulfilling our half of the bargain. Right?"

Jaune nodded gratefully to him, though he averted his eyes as he did.

"Ren's right." he said. "Neopolitan gets to ask the last question."

Everyone's eyes turned to Neo, who stared at the Lamp, then up at Jinn, with something almost approaching trepidation. Ruby and the others made way as she slowly stepped closer to the Lamp hovering beneath Jinn, reaching out for the glowing Relic.

Then, the moment Neo's fingers almost brushed it, she jerked her hand away, balling it in a fist near her chest as she shook her head.

Everyone stared in shock for several moments.

"You… don't have a question?" Ruby asked, and Neopolitan jerked her chin slightly in agreement, not looking at her.

"Well, that's a problem." Yang sighed, propping both hands on her hips, and Neopolitan shifted gears to glare at her. Yang jabbed a thumb at the frozen Raven, still caught mid-blink on the exterior of the Vault. "We can't exactly ask Raven to crack open the Vault again, so unless we take this thing with us, this's your only chance to ask your question."

"Bad idea." said Jaune, Blake, and Ren concurrently. They all exchanged slightly surprised looks, and then nodded to each other.

"We've seen what happens when you take a Relic out of its Vault." Jaune expanded, gesturing with one hand as he turned to the others. "Making these Vaults might not have been one of Ozpin's best ideas, but it's certainly better security than nothing. He must have had control of each of the four Maidens at one point or another, and he chose to leave the Relics in the Vaults. There's probably a lot of reasons why that even we don't know yet."

"If things go even slightly like the way they did before, Ozpin will lie to us or others about how many questions there are left." Blake said, her ears folding slightly. "If Neopolitan doesn't want to use it, we should leave the Relic here and keep it with one question topped up to prove him wrong."

"You guys said that you were going to take our information to Ozpin, after we got this 'Relic' thing." Ren said after a moment. His magenta eyes flicked up to hold the gaze of everyone on Team RWBY, as well as his own leader, narrowing sternly. "Is that true?"

RWBJN exchanged looks with each other, before glancing back to Ren.

"It is." Ruby said firmly. "Once we get back to Beacon, we're going to tell him everything we learned from Jinn."

"Then we should leave the Lamp as it is." Ren said. "Just because we can't think of a question now doesn't mean that Ozpin or someone under him won't think of a valuable question later, after we tell him all this. Being able to answer something fully and completely as long as it concerns the present or the past is a precious opportunity, and one we shouldn't waste on wild shots in the dark."

Nora raised her hand.

"Ooh, ooh, you mean like 'why does the floating spirit lady not have any clothes'?"

Jinn, ignored up to this point, coughed pointedly and raised an amused eyebrow.

"Will that be your third and final question for this era?" she asked, and Nora hastily slapped a hand over her mouth, shaking her head back and forth. Jinn smiled and continued. "While I cannot provide answers without a question, I could, perhaps, casually announce to myself that I'm not wearing clothes for the same reason that I do not have a true body. You will perhaps notice the lack of nipples and genitalia."

"Don't notice too hard." Nora mumbled from behind her hand, jabbing an elbow into Ren's side. "Her boobs are big even if they aren't real."

"I am not noticing." Ren repeated obediently. "I think we have bigger things to worry about right now, anyway."

"Oh. Right!"

"So we're not using the last question." Ruby said, and eyed Neopolitan. "Is that okay with you?"

Neo nodded curtly. Her fingers skated over her Scroll, before she held it up to show them.

Given what we just saw, you were telling the truth. It's more than what Cinder gave us, so… for now, I'm with you. Don't expect it to last after Salem's been taken care of.

"So no one has a question for me?" Jinn asked, and Neopolitan put her Scroll away hastily as everyone looked towards everyone else.

"Um, no." Ruby said. "We'll just be… uh, going now. Ahaha…"

She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, and Jinn gave a faint smile and dissolved into bluish mist.

As time resumed, Ruby batted the Lamp back towards its podium before quickly scooping everyone else up with her Semblance and zooming out to the exterior. When they landed in a blur of rose petals, there was a general hasty reshuffling of weapons and stances all around as everybody suddenly remembered that they were supposed to prevent Raven from stealing the Relic before she sealed the Vault.

"Hmph." Raven eyed them all disdainfully, before stepping forward and carefully, almost uncertainly putting her hand to the space where the door had been. Gears clicked and whirred to life as Raven quickly pulled her hand back, and the saw-toothed edges of the massive metal flowers began their jerky, fanning descent, eventually covering the Vault over completely. The blue glow on the spiraling fronds faded, draining downwards towards the base, and it was done.

The Vault of the Spring Maiden was sealed.

"And with that, our little favor is at an end." Raven said aloud, turning to her daughter with distaste sharp on her tongue. "If we ever come across each other again, we'll be meeting with steel rather than words."

"Wouldn't bother me none." Yang said, glaring at her defiantly. Raven scoffed under her breath, but turned swiftly, cutting open a portal that she walked through without a backwards glance.

Silence descended on the Vault chamber, and Ruby took a deep breath as she folded Crescent Rose back up.

"So." she said brightly, turning to the others. "Questions, comments, concerns?"