Reign of Steel

by MahinaFable

In a world threatened by Grimm of titanic scale, mankind designed enormous war machines to face them head-on: the infinitely modular Armored Cores! All his life, Jaune Arc wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, the legendary pilot of the first Armored Core. When tragedy strikes, will he be able to live up to his family's legacy, and defend the people of Vale?

8. Silver and Gold

A/N: You know, sometimes I talk shop about my stories with readers, and one of them suggested that I give Jaune amnesia, and have him re-discover how to pilot an AC, go through all the revelations about his father and Pyrrha all over again, and even re-do the Lancaster romance arc. I thought that that idea...was funny as hell, but I'm pretty sure that the readership would literally, actually riot. So while I giggle at the troll-ness of the idea, I won't be doing it. Just know that as outrageous as you guys think I am, y'all can be a lot worse sometimes.

Oh, and someone actually took up my offer for a mecha AU shout-out! User 'waterfire98' wrote a comedic story, a crossover between RWBY and Megas XLR, titled, appropriately enough, MRGAS XLR. It is zany and cracktastic from the word go. Winter is Jaune's co-pilot, Transformers show up, Marrow scores a date with a knock-off Power Ranger, it's lighthearted and goofy fun.

Mind you, the author never said that they had a problem with my story, but I suspect that they saw an opportunity for exposure, and I can respect that just as much, LOL. So yeah, I meant it when I said that I would give shout-outs to other mecha AU stories in these Author's Notes. Now, onto the next chapter of Reign of Steel, 'Silver and Gold.'

Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation

[/]

Ruby felt dazed, as though everything were surreal, as she sat in the passenger compartment of the transport copter. The large rotary aircraft were designed to carry as many as three Armored Cores, suspended below on wires. While it wasn't a long trip from the edge of the Emerald Forest to Beacon, Taiyang had called in for it anyway. Pyrrha had withdrawn in on herself, while Cardin, sitting next to her, tried his best to draw her back out. He wasn't having much success.

"I mean, no one likes seeing teammates hurt, but this is a little much, right Captain?"

Taiyang sighed. "This doesn't leave Beacon, but Jaune and Pyrrha are half-siblings."

"What? How did that happen?"

"How do you think, Winchester?" snapped the older man. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "His dad, her mom. The point is, that's not just a teammate she saw get pulled out on a stretcher, but her brother."

"Oh…" Cardin crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, thinking hard. "Well, he had a pulse, so that was the most important thing. And he had his helmet on, so that means that he's gonna be okay…"

Ruby tuned out Cardin's attempts at consoling Pyrrha as her father leaned forward in his own seat, head in his hands. She gulped as she looked at Pyrrha's stoic expression. Her face might as well have been carved from granite. There were times, over the last year and a half, where Ruby had seen that expression on the older girl's face, usually whenever she had been remembering both that her mother had died, and that she had died violently. For her entire childhood, Pyrrha's family had been just her and her mother, and then she was gone. Ruby and her own family had tried to fill the gap as best as they could, but it was never the same. Then Pyrrha had discovered her brother, and just when it looked as if she was going to have family again, it could be cruelly yanked from her once again.

But this time, it was all Ruby's fault.

She was silent the entire duration of the short flight over to Beacon. Taiyang got on the radio as the helicopter approached the hangar. "Beacon Control, Beacon Control, this is Lance-Captain Xiao Long. Requesting maintenance recovery for Sun Dragon, Argo, and Executioner."

"Lance-Captain, we read you. We'll get the toys sorted out for you."

"Copy that, Beacon Control. Lance-Captain Xiao Long, out."

The helicopter's pilot lowered the three Armored Cores it carried until they gently touched down, then released the magnetic cables that had kept them tethered to the aircraft. With its burden released, the helicopter practically zipped up to Beacon's aircraft hangar, and soon after that, the four AC pilots disembarked. Taiyang took a deep breath. "Cardin, take Pyrrha to Yang. Let the rest of the Lance know that Arc is injured, but likely to pull through. Crocea Mors and Crescent Rose were destroyed, but everyone else is unharmed. Tell them to gather in the briefing room for an emergency meeting in a half an hour.

The Captain then looked to Ruby. "I need a word with my daughter."

Ruby gulped.

"Sir." Cardin nodded to Tai, then put his arm around Pyrrha's shoulder, leading her away. Tai watched them go, then began to stride from the hangar. "Come," he ordered, his voice like thunder. Ruby jumped before hurrying to follow in his wake. On his trip towards his office, passing technicians or other Beacon staff took one look at the quiet fury painted across his expression and hurried to make way. While he was generally a friendly man, his temper was the stuff of legend, and no one wanted any of what he was at that time.

Father and daughter entered his office, Taiyang closing the door behind her. "Sit," he ordered, pointing to one of the chairs. He paced back and forth a bit in front of his window, looking as though he were trying to decide where to begin. Ruby felt her gut clench as the silence dragged on. Finally, Taiyang seemed to decide on a place to begin and halted his pacing, turning instead to face her with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Dad?"

"Don't speak until I tell you to." He frowned. "When the Director recruited you out of pilot school, you know that I was furious with him. Hell, I punched him right in the face. I argued that you were too young, too immature for real combat. You begged me to allow you to join, begged with tears in your eyes. I won't ask if you remember the conditions of the compromise that we struck, as today proved that you don't. As a reminder, you were only to operate under the direct command of either myself or your mother. Most importantly you were to obey our orders at all times. All times." He shook his head. "You know, this entire debacle isn't entirely your fault. I should have stuck to my guns. I should have held my ground and refused to let you join until you had a few more years growing up under your belt. But no, fool that I am, I believed you when you said that you could handle it, that I should give you a chance. Well, you had your chance, and that boy paid for it."

Ruby didn't dare speak up as Taiyang continued. "Ever since you and your sister joined up, I've been worried about what would happen if my role as a father and my role as a Captain were to conflict. And now, because of you, I know; Taiyang the father wins out over Lance-Captain Xiao Long. If I had been out there with Arc and, say, Winchester, and he pulled what you did, I would not have sent Arc after him, not into a very obvious trap with a deranged lunatic killer on terrain that he prepared ahead of time. I would have waited to consolidate reinforcements before all of us were able to move out in force. That way, if Cardin had been defeated, we would have only lost one pilot and one machine. Instead, I ordered Arc after you, into a deathtrap, and if he doesn't pull through, we'll have lost two pilots and two machines."

"But I'm unhurt…?" Ruby asked, puzzled.

"Yes. You are. Because of Arc, and Pyrrha, and Winchester. But you've made it clear today that I can't trust you. I can't trust you to follow my orders, orders designed to maximize our team's chances of bringing everyone home safe. I can't trust you to retain very basic discipline when one of your ideas pops into your head. And I can't even trust you to consider even the most rudimentary tactical protocols that I know I've drilled into both you and your sister over and over again."

Taiyang fought down a wince as his daughter's large, silvery eyes welled with tears, forcing himself to remain stoic. "Today, the father won out over the captain. Maybe that's the right way of priorities, maybe it isn't. That's just how it is. But that's all the special consideration you get today. I have a duty to the other pilots in Dragon Lance, a duty to teach them and lead them through battle to the best of my ability. When your life was on the line, I failed that duty to them, but here and now, with you safe within Beacon, I have to act as a captain. You're off Dragon Lance. You're off active duty. Hell, I might have to pull Yang too, see about having her on special assignment with your mother. The point is, those pilots deserve better than Arc got today." He sighed deeply as he strode for the door. "There are always consequences, Ruby. For you, for me, and for everyone around us. We'll see about giving it another go when you're seventeen, but you have a lot more growing up to do between now and then. Wait here. I'll be back for you after speaking to Dragon Lance about what happened today." He opened the door. "I don't have the words for how disappointed I am in you."

Ruby heard the door close after her father's departure. All alone with the weight of her impulsive actions, she wept.

[/]

Yang kept an arm around Pyrrha as they waited for the Lance-Captain to arrive in the briefing room. She felt bad for how relieved she'd felt when Winchester had told her that, while Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors were both wrecked, only Arc had been hurt. That guilt only intensified when she saw how Pyrrha had begun regressing back into Early Pyrrha. When she'd first come into their lives, the Mantle-born girl had just lost her mother, her only family, and had been very quiet and withdrawn, prone to brooding and fits of melancholy. It was only with time and lots of care that she'd begun to emerge from her shell, showing them all the vibrant, bold, proud and beautiful young woman that she'd grown into. But now, with the very real possibility of losing her newfound brother weighing on her, Pyrrha was pulling in again.

"Hey," she said, pulling Nikos tighter to her. "It'll be okay."

Pyrrha gazed at the floor. "...I told him I'd look out for him," she muttered.

Yang sighed. "He's a pilot, Pyrrha, same as the rest of us. You couldn't be hovering over him for every mission. That's Dad's job, for now, and when he called for backup, you were there just as fast as anyone could possibly be. What happened to Jaune wasn't your fault, Pyri."

"Then whose fault was it?"

"Well, if you're looking for people to blame, I'd start with the man who actually hurt him."

Pyrrha was silent, still gazing at the floor and Yang struggled to think of how she could help her. Before she could think of an answer, her father stormed into the briefing room, followed by the Director. Taiyang took to the podium, looking out over the pilots of his Lance. His gaze lingered over Yang for a moment, and then he cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Late this afternoon, Ruby Rose, Jaune Arc, and myself responded to a Grimm Alarm set off for the Emerald Forest. When we arrived, no Grimm were in evidence. Adam Taurus and the White Fang tampered with the Grimm Alarm system, setting off a false alarm to lure us into an ambush." He paused as various exclamations of shock and outrage rippled through the gathered pilots. Tampering with anti-Grimm systems...that just wasn't done. It would never have even occurred to the pilots, nor any other morally-normal citizen of the Kingdoms, to do such a thing. "As you have already inferred, this means that we cannot be sure as to the validity of incoming Grimm Alarms, and that is going to make our lives much more difficult. The Director will be speaking soon as to new protocols for responding to them, but in the meantime, we're piecing together the exact chain of events that occurred during the ambush. We still need to recover onboard camera recordings from Crocea Mors and Crescent Rose, but from what I witnessed myself…"

Taiyang sighed, gazing down at the podium before speaking up again. "Adam Taurus and his White Fang insurgents set the Emerald Forest ablaze. Taurus himself made an appearance, standing at the treeline. Despite orders, Ruby Rose opted to pursue him into the forest. The rest of the White Fang ACs closed ranks behind them. I forced a breach and ordered Arc to follow Rose, before being swarmed by the enemy. We don't know exactly the sequence of events in the forest yet, but cut off from support and on terrain prepared by the enemy, Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors were both destroyed. Crescent Rose was effectively bifurcated at the Core, while Crocea Mors was slagged, totally and irreparably. In addition, we discovered that the loggers in the Emerald Forest had been taken captive at some point, and then executed with an Armored Core-scaled scattergun. Upon the arrival of backup from Argo and the Executioner, we were able to pursue Taurus and drive him off before he was able to execute Ruby Rose. The wreckage of both ACs were recovered, and Jaune Arc has been taken to the hospital, apparently due to a linear skull fracture."

"You said that Crocea Mors was completely slagged, but what about Crescent Rose? It can be repaired, right?" asked Nora.

"The salvageability of Crescent Rose is an irrelevant question for the foreseeable future. As of right now, Ruby Rose is no longer on the roster for Dragon Lance, and is no longer an active duty Beacon pilot."

"What?" Yang asked her father in disbelief. "How can you do that?"

"Because they shouldn't have gone in after her," answered Ren. "It was a tactical mistake."

Yang whipped her head towards him so fast that her long hair spun around, slapping against her chest. "I'm sorry, what the fuck did you just say? Are you suggesting they should have just abandoned her?"

"Wait," Ren said, his hands out to try to calm her. "What I'm saying is that she put him in a position where he had to make that call. I'm not saying it was wrong, but if she wasn't his daughter, would he have made the decision he did?"

"Oh, and now you're blaming him now?" she huffed. "Who do you think you are?!"

"Yang, that's enough," said Taiyang. "Ren's right. I made the call that I did precisely because Ruby is my daughter. And that means that we need to decide what to do with you."

"Huh?"

"Listen. When I made that call to go after Ruby, and especially when I sent Arc into the forest as I fell behind...I failed as an officer. I prioritized your sister's safety over the rest of the unit, and Arc paid the price for that. Which brings us to you. You can put in for a transfer to another Lance. Alternatively, you could be transferred to a special assignment, working directly under your mother for the Watch. Or...in light of today's events, I'm willing to tender my resignation as Lance-Captain."

A stunned silence fell over the pilots of Dragon Lance.

"Bull-the-fuck-shit you are."

All eyes turned to Cardin Winchester, who stood leaning against the far wall. "Yeah, look, maybe the super correct thing in a damn book would have been to hang back and let Ruby get got. But honestly, I feel better knowing that you're not asshole enough to make that call. You'd have to be a really cold son-of-a-bitch to pull that, like a robot, or an Atlesian. And really, Ruby's like everyone's weirdo kid sister. Seriously, is there anyone here who wouldn't have gone in after her?" He nodded at the general agreement from the other pilots. "Besides, we all know Arc is sweet on her. If you hadn't ordered him in, he would've gone in himself, and you know that. So stop acting like you're quittin' on us, 'cause you're not. Nobody else is gonna keep this pack of crazy bastards even halfway functional, so let's drop the idea and move on."

"Cardin Winchester, the unlikely - and profane - voice of reason." Director Ozpin stood and made his way to the podium. Taiyang nodded and took a step back. "As Captain Xiao Long mentioned, the White Fang has compromised our Grimm Alarm systems. Furthermore, the widespread destruction of much of the Emerald Forest will cause many economic issues for the city, and that, in turn, will draw in more of the Grimm. The combination of these factors means that we shall have to adapt our protocols. As long as the White Fang are loose, all Grimm Alarms will be responded to with overwhelming force, and that means keeping entire Lances on rotation. No pilots are to leave Beacon grounds. We will be scheduling regular patrols, both as a show of force, and to ensure rapid deployment of reinforcements in the event of a follow-up attack. While I understand that these measures may be onerous and burdensome, I can assure that, not only are they for the good of the city, but they are also temporary in nature. General Ironwood of Atlas has sent a force to aid us; a Specialist and two support pilots. Upon their arrival, I will direct them to put together an expeditionary force dedicated to seeking and destroying Adam Taurus. In the meantime, our mission remains the same; to protect the people of Vale. Princess Blake, I will need a word with you regarding plans to undercut Taurus's support. If there are no further concerns, you are all dismissed. Rest well, as you will be on patrol tomorrow."

The various pilots began milling about, with Blake going to talk to Oz, Ren and Nora having their own little conference in the corner, and Cardin heading over to Taiyang. Next to Yang, Pyrrha stood. "Hey, are you okay?" Yang asked.

"I won't know how Jaune's doing until everyone else does," she said, her tone subdued. "Part of the effort to keep everyone safe. They can never know that I'm his sister."

"Look, I know it's rough, but I'm sure Jaune will tell you himself that he's fine, in no time at all. You heard what Dad said; it was just a noggin' smack, and we all know that Jaune has a thick skull, right?" Yang ventured a cautious smile, but Pyrrha had none of it. The blonde pilot sighed, then saw her father clap Cardin on the shoulder and stride out of the briefing room. Grabbing Pyrrha's hand, she practically dragged her behind her. "Dad!"

Taiyang looked over at his shoulder, not breaking his stride. "Yang. I…"

"I know, Dad."

He turned to his office door, opening it and retrieving his youngest. Ruby's eyes were red-rimmed, but she was otherwise unharmed from her ordeal in the Emerald Forest.

"Ruby!"

Yang embraced her little sister, holding her close. "Ruby...you scared me so much. You can't do things like that! I don't know what I would do without my baby sister."

"Yang…" Ruby's voice was quiet, subdued.

"Ruby?" Yang pulled back, then followed Ruby's gaze, over to Pyrrha. The Mantle-born girl had an unreadable expression on her face, something torn between grief and fury.

"Pyri?"

"Why?" Pyrrha pushed Yang out of the way, staring down at Ruby. "How? How can someone so smart do something so monumentally stupid? What were you thinking? Were you even thinking? And of course you come out unscathed, while everyone around you pays the price. Jaune's my brother! He's brave and kind and good, and most of all, he loves you, you little…" Pyrrha drew back, shaking her head as tears rolled freely down her cheeks.

Ruby's face was a portrait of forlorn devastation. "Pyrrha...I'm sorry. I wish I could take it back, that I could do today over and do it right, but I can't. I'm so sorry!"

Pyrrha closed her eyes. "I'm sure you can understand," she began, her voice little more than a whisper, "that I cannot bear to look upon you right now. Maybe that will change someday. But not today."

The redhaired girl pushed her way past the Xiao Long family, continuing down the hall towards the pilot apartments. Yang watched her go, torn from obviously wanting to follow her. "You should go to her," Ruby said, her tone once more quiet and subdued.

"I...you need me," protested Yang, shaking her head.

"You can't protect me from everything, Yang. And you shouldn't." With a nod to her father, she set off towards their family's own apartment. Yang stared at the hallway, at the split between two women who needed her in their own way.

Pyrrha's emerald green eyes were wide in surprise when she opened her door to find Yang there. After a moment, she threw herself into the blonde's arms. "Please," she whispered. "I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be," Yang promised her, closing the door behind her. "I love you. I've always loved you." She reached out to Pyrrha, gently cupping her cheek, and then she was lost in the sweet softness of her lips.

[/]

Taiyang winced as he sat on his couch and pulled out his Scroll. There was one part of his job that he hated, absolutely loathed more than anything else, and he was about to have to do it again. The only consolation he had was that Jaune Arc was, as of the last medical update, still alive, though he hadn't regained consciousness. He wasn't a man who often drank, but after the events of that day, he'd slammed a shot of powerful whiskey, the sharp burn galvanizing him. Thus fortified, he entered the number for Jaune Arc's mother.

"Missus Arc, this is Lance-Captain Xiao Long. I'm afraid I have news about your son…"

[/]

It was amazing, how quickly the world had turned to ruin and devastation. Jaune's hospital room was on an upper-story level of Vale General Hospital, and looked out over the Emerald Forest. As dawn broke over Vale, what had been lush, green forest the day before was revealed to be charred ruin, blanketed with ash, a charnel house spread from mountain to shore.

Much like her family, Isabelle mused, her thoughts dark and bitter. The matriarch of the Arc family had looked rough before, but at that moment, she looked like a woman on the verge of collapse. Her skin was pallid and waxy, and her eyes were ringed with thick, dark bruises. Her marriage was a lie. No, worse than a lie, it was a sick joke perpetuated against her. Gil had been unfaithful to her for decades - really, had he ever been faithful to her at all? - and worse, he'd been pursuing women a mere fraction of his age, little more than girls. Her only son had been enlisted into an honest-to-gods war, and here he was as a result, laying still in the hospital bed. It was a scene that she had been familiar with when her husband had been hurt, but seeing her son in the same situation had nearly broken her. Staring out the window, she felt a sort of pull towards the empty space just beyond the thick glass. It would be so easy to open it and just...walk out. That high up, she would fall and fall and fall. There would be no more shame, or humiliation, or guilt, or fear. Just a sharp crack, and then nothing else at all.

She didn't know how long she'd been staring out of the window, listening to the steady beeping of the heart monitor hooked up to her son, when her Scroll chimed. Through rote, mechanical habit, she activated. "Hello?" she asked, her voice monotone.

"Hi, Mom," her youngest spoke through the device. "They canceled school today - you know, because of the fire - and I was wondering if we could come see Jaune?"

"No."

"But -"

"I said no!" Isabelle's voice cracked. It was one thing, as hard as it was, for her children to see their father after his heart attack. Their parents were old, and had he died of natural causes, that would have been part of the normal cycle of life and death. But to see their brother like that, only seventeen...he was too young to be laying so still...why was her baby laying so still? "You can't," she whispered into the Scroll. "You can't. You can't, you…" a sob burst forth from her, and once the first one had escaped, the rest followed, an unstoppable tide.

"...I'm going to get Cerulea, okay?"

Isabelle didn't acknowledge her youngest, nor her third-born when the concerned Violet had brought her Scroll to an adult. She didn't know how long she sat there in her misery, slumped against the wall across from her son, before Saphron entered the room. Her second-born had a team of orderlies behind her, which she signaled to hang back.

"Mom?"

The young woman knelt down in front of her mother. "Hey, Mom. Let's get you up, okay?" Wrapping her arms around her mother, she helped her to her feet, taking the Scroll from her slack, nerveless hands. "Cerulea. I've got her. They're going to give her something to help her sleep. Yeah, it's bad. You know she hasn't been sleeping...right. I'll let you know, sis."

Saphron ended the call and pocketed her mother's Scroll, before embracing her tightly. "Shh...it's okay, Mom." At her nod, one of the orderlies came up next to Isabelle and injected a needle into her shoulder. After a moment, the older woman began to slump as the sedatives spread through her system. Saphron held up her mother as she went limp, assisted by the orderlies. "It's okay, Mom. You've cared for all of us for so long. Me and Viridian, Cerulea, and even Rouge...we're going to take care of the girls now. And Jaune. And you too, Mom. Sleep, Mom. Please sleep." She stroked her mother's hair as she fell into slumber. "I love you, Mom." Saffron kissed the older woman on the forehead, then stepped back to let the orderlies handle her.

"We'll take her to a recovery room, Miss," one of the orderlies said.

"Thank you."

As they hustled her mother out of the room, Saphron sighed deeply, her hand on her chin. She walked over to Jaune's bedside. The doctors had said that his helmet had saved him from an even more devastating - possibly fatal - injury. For the life of her, Saphron couldn't understand how something could hit hard enough to hurt him when he was inside Crocea Mors. It was massive, armored with thick steel plates, and had shrugged off the claws and jaws of Grimm for five decades of proven performance. But...if it was another Armored Core, like Pyrrha had said…

Saphron looked out over the smoldering remains of the Emerald Forest, and couldn't help but shudder. Her brother out in Crocea Mors fighting Grimm was bad enough...but fighting something else that was powerful enough to easily destroy the Grimm...and Jaune had known. He'd known that he'd be fighting them, training with their newfound half-sister to wage war with the most powerful weapons humanity had ever created.

She shook her head, smiling down sadly at him. "My brave, foolish baby brother. You need to recover quickly so we can all take turns murdering you for being a dumbass, okay?" She gingerly placed a hand on his cheek. "Big sis loves you too, Jaune."

[/]

If there was any redeeming quality to the Grimm's attraction to negative emotions - however nebulously that term was defined - it was that they could provide a form of catharsis for an Armored Core pilot in need of a socially-acceptable target upon which to vent their anger.

And with her powerful Karasawa plasma rifle, Pyrrha Nikos could do a lot of venting.

Watching a trio of Lupus Grimm be burned to ashes by the crackling ball of white-hot magnetized plasma that she'd fired at them didn't actually do anything to help her brother, but damn if it didn't feel nice. Maybe not as nice as getting the opportunity to rip Adam Taurus's spinal column out through his colon, but it was a decent substitute. From over the radio, she heard a round of applause from the other members of Dragon Lance.

"And the moral of the story is, don't fuck with Pyrrha Nikos," remarked Nora. She'd parked her tank AC firmly between the walls of the city and the edge of the burn-out forest, and her job was to target any Grimm that broke past her Lancemates to threaten the city, bombarding them with extreme prejudice.

Pyrrha rolled her eyes at her Lancemates' antics. They were all trying to keep their spirits up after the traumatic events of the previous day. Besides the spectacular destruction of a wide swath of the Emerald Forest - the people whose job it was to track such things were still computing the estimated total economic losses - Dragon Lance had effectively lost three of their pilots in one go; Ruby, to her own impulsiveness, Jaune to injury, and then Blake to politics. As the rest of Dragon Lance carried out their duties protecting Vale from the Grimm attacks, which were coming in with great frequency due to the anxiety, fear, and resentment of Vale's populace, Blake was locked in furious backroom negotiations with members of the Vale Council. Jaune was convalescing at the hospital, and Ruby? Well, a part of Pyrrha, a spiteful part, hoped that she was wallowing in misery over what she'd done.

But...that wasn't what Yang would want for her baby sister. A blush rose to Pyrrha's cheeks as she remembered waking up that morning with Yang in her arms...and the night that had preceded it. That had certainly gone a lot further than the bashful, giggling bouts of "practice kissing" that the girls had done when they were younger. Pyrrha had sought solace and comfort in Yang's arms, in her love, and Yang had given all that she had to give. As it turned out, that was an awful lot.

They still needed to find time to really speak with one another about what they were to each other now, but...well, just like Jaune was worried about emulating their father, Pyrrha wasn't really a 'love 'em and leave 'em' kind of gal. She wanted to treat Yang right, which was the literal least she could do to repay her for the kindness she'd shown her and the comfort she'd brought to her. But how could their relationship work, when Pyrrha was still so unbelievably furious at Yang's little sister that she couldn't even bear to look at the girl? Try as she might, Pyrrha couldn't make herself not be angry at Ruby.

"All right, we're all clear."

The Lance-Captain's voice was clear and calm, betraying none of the strain that she knew the man had to have been feeling. "Return to standby position. Eagle Lance is coming to relieve us of patrol in five, and we don't want to get caught with our pants down at the very end of our shift."

Pyrrha took her place in the Lance formation, moving steadily along and keeping a wary eye on the remains of the Emerald Forest. While she may not be a native to Vale - actually, did she count as Valean, given her father's nationality? - and the destruction of the forest didn't hit on the same cultural level as it did her Valean peers, it was still a terrible sight to behold, and a tragic vandalism of natural beauty. She hoped that the Valean foresters, who had been practically inconsolable, could rehabilitate the Emerald Forest. Perhaps in time, new growth would rise from the ashes, and Vale would again be surrounded with green and growing things.

Soon enough, Dragon Lance met with their counterparts, who were deploying from Beacon. "Lance-Captain Xiao Long, this is Lance-Captain Alabaster. Eagle Lance stands ready to relieve Dragon Lance."

"Dragon Lance stands ready to be relieved."

The Lance-Captain of Eagle Lance piloted a four-legged Armored Core armed with a shotgun, machine gun, and missile launchers on its back, and the four legs worked as the AC shifted to face towards the forest. "What a mess, Tai."

"Yeah. I know."

"Right. Sorry. Don't mean to rub wounds that are still raw. Sorry to hear about your man."

"Well, he's still alive, and if I know Jaune, he'll be back in the cockpit of an Armored Core before too much longer. That reminds me, sorry to hear about The Suspicious Chicken. How is he doing?"

A laugh came over the radio. "Equal parts spitting mad and mournful that his giant chicken AC finally got fried. He's on the mend too. Hope he gets back soon - it's just not the same without that weird bastard around. So, what did you face out here?"

"Just a few opportunistic furballs. Nothing my Lance couldn't handle, but don't get too comfy out here. There's no telling what could come at you, and not just the Grimm."

"Yeah, no shit," remarked the other Lance-Captain. "The Chicken says that poor Lottie tried to surrender when her AC got slagged, and the White Fang commander wasn't having any. What sort of a vicious cunt does that?"

"The sort that is going to die screaming, I promise you that." Pyrrha had surprised herself with her own interjection. It had just tumbled forth from her of its own accord, but from the sounds of general approval from the pilots from both Lances, it was a sentiment widely shared by her peers.

"I can tell you one thing," Taiyang added. "Taurus has a talent for making enemies."

"That he does. When the Director gives the word, we're ready to help hunt the fucker down. But that's for another day. Eagle Lance relieves Dragon Lance of duty."

"Dragon Lance stands relieved. Hope your man recovers soon, Alabaster."

"Yours too, Xiao Long. All right, Eagle Lance, move out."

As the allied ACs passed Dragon Lance, Pyrrha received greeting clicks from four of their pilots. Coco Adel, Velvet Scarletina, Fox Alistair, and Yatsuhashi Daiichi had all been a part of Dragon Lance before transferring to bolster Eagle Lance back up to full strength. While they didn't get to see them as often as they liked, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, and Cardin still considered them friends, which Pyrrha acknowledged by sending them radio clicks of her own in response. The sight of Yatsuhashi's Armored Core, Fulcrum, still made her roll her eyes in fond amusement. While other pilots made it a point of pride to operate highly-customized machines, Yats had nakedly and unabashedly plagiarized Taiyang's Sun Dragon, pointing out that the design worked, had been proven under fire, and that he saw no need to reinvent the wheel. That had left Taiyang in the awkward position of having to argue against his own design philosophy, as developing the ability to customize ACs was an important part of training well-rounded pilots. The younger man's simple logic had vexed the poor Lance-Captain, until he'd finally said that he would drop the subject if Yatsuhashi could demonstrate that he understood why the Sun Dragon worked. Daiichi's subsequent thesis on matching the temperament of pilot to machine was now considered required reading in Valean pilot schools, and so Taiyang had thrown his hands up in defeat and told Yats to do what he wanted. Then he'd laid eyes on Pyrrha's Argo, which was, more or less, an updated version of Summer Rose's Shooting Star, and he'd just stalked off, muttering something about 'kids these days.'

The memory brought a bit of levity to Pyrrha's mood, which had wavered between anxiety over her brother, anger over the circumstances of his injury, and giddiness over the romance that had blossomed between her and Yang. Like Jaune had told their other sisters, things would be rough for a while, but in the end, everything would be all right.

As she maneuvered Argo into its designated hangar bay, she was surprised to receive a transmission from Beacon's civilian liaison. "Pilot Nikos, we have a familial visitation request for you."

"What?"

"Your sisters are asking permission to come see you, pending the end of your duty shift."

Her heart nearly stopped. Pyrrha had never had a family visit before! But...as overwhelmed as she was, a dark thought still came to her. What if they were only there to berate her for her failure to look after Jaune? Well...if that was their purpose in coming to Beacon, then she supposed that she would just accept it. Family was supposed to look out for family, and no matter how much Yang, her father, or even common sense told her that there wasn't anything more she could have done, Pyrrha still felt as though she'd failed.

"C-Captain? Can I see them now?"

"Sure. Just report to the briefing room in an hour. The techs have extracted the footage from Crocea Mors and Crescent Rose, and our Lance needs to review it."

"Right. One hour. Got it. Civilian Liaison, tell my sisters that I will be at the reception area shortly."

"Hey, how come we never knew you have sisters?" Nora barged into the conversation.

"Well, that's because...I didn't know my siblings until just recently. As it turns out, Jaune and I are actually half-siblings."

"Wow, really?"

"Yeah...it's a long story."

"Arc's dad banged Pyrrha's mom," explained Cardin.

"...Okay, so it's a short story." Pyrrha let the rest of the Lance chew on that little revelation as she powered down Argo and set it for maintenance. With so many Armored Cores operating continuously, the maintenance staff was also working hard to keep them locked, loaded, and in peak fighting ability. Climbing out of her Core and setting onto the gantry, Pyrrha pulled off her helmet, clipping it to the belt of her flightsuit. At the bottom of the stairs, she was greeted by Yang.

"Yo," waved the blonde bombshell. "Do you mind if I come with, or is this a family-only thing?"

"I...don't know. I've never done this sort of thing," admitted Pyrrha. "They might be coming to tell me off for failing to protect our brother."

"Like hell they are. You didn't do anything wrong, Pyri."

Pyrrha smiled sadly. "Keep saying that, Sunshine. Maybe I'll start believing it."

Yang flushed. "Sunshine?" she echoed.

Pyrrha shrugged and started towards the hangar exit. "Testing out cute pet names. Just promise me you won't punch out any of my sisters if they do blame me, all right? A lot of them are just kids, after all."

"Well, since you didn't punch out my kid sister yesterday, I suppose I owe you one."

"You'll never owe me anything," said Pyrrha. She carried on, unaware of Yang practically melting into goo behind her as she followed along. While, during normal circumstances, pilots were allowed to give tours to their family members of Beacon's operation, the combination of constant elevated activity in the hangars and the PR nightmare of Crocea Mors' mangled chassis in the garage meant that family visitors were currently restricted to a reception area, a comfortably-appointed room with booths designed to impart a degree of privacy.

Entering the reception room, Pyrrha saw her four younger sisters - Violet, Lamera, Noir, and Rouge - along with Cerulea, who seemed to act as the girls' minder in their mother's absence.

"Pyrrha!" Violet ran right to her, skidding to a stop right in front of her, followed shortly by Noir, while Rouge approached at a more reasonable pace and Lamera shyly brought up the rear. "Pyrrha, are you okay?" asked the youngest Arc daughter.

Pyrrha blinked. "Am I okay?" she echoed, puzzled.

"Well, yeah. I mean, Jaune got hurt, but our mom said that we couldn't go see him, but our mom isn't your mom, so it doesn't count for you, but you weren't there either, and Viridian got mad until Saphron called and Beacon said that its pilots couldn't leave the grounds, and then we realized that that meant that you couldn't see him, and you were all alone, and then Viridian remembered that you're our secret sister, so they couldn't even update you on how he's doing. That made me real sad, so we decided to come see you, because you're our sister too, and we're never supposed to leave a sister out on her own in times of trouble." Violet paused for breath. "If that's okay for us to come see you, I mean. Is it? Hey, why are you crying?"

Pyrrha wiped away a tear from her eye, embracing her littlest sister. "Oh, it's nothing, sweetheart. I'm just so very happy to be your sister. And I'm always so glad to see you." She nearly lost her balance as the other younger girls pounced as well, almost bringing her down to the ground.

"Yeah, they tend to pack swarm," Cerulea remarked, her tone dry. "I get that there's stuff you can't tell us, but...what happened? Was it another Armored Core?"

"It was."

"And its pilot?"

Pyrrha's expression turned to something more primal, almost feral. "He'll pay in blood for what he did to our brother."

The older woman gazed at her for a moment, a searching expression in her eyes. "Yeah, no doubt about it now. You're definitely one of us."

"What about his condition now?"

"You know it was a skull fracture?"

"I do."

"Well, between that and some mild burns, they have him in a coma. The doctors say that they stopped the brain swelling relatively early, so they're hopeful that he didn't suffer brain damage. I'm afraid that I don't know how long his recovery might take, but things could look much worse."

Pyrrha sighed. "That's...that's good to know. I was so worried…"

"Hey, isn't that one of your friends?" Noir interrupted, pointing out Yang, who had been quietly hanging back.

"Oh, right, that's Yang," said Pyrrha. "She just kind of tagged along."

"Yeah, don't mind me," the blonde added, her voice cheerful. "I'm just, you know, Yangin' out over here."

As the girls groaned at the pun, Cerulea fixed Pyrrha with a flat look.

"Well, it's true," Pyrrha said, her tone comically bland. "She is, in fact, Yangin' out over there."

Cerulea just shook her head in despair.

Walking up to the briefing room with Yang later, Pyrrha felt better than she had since before Jaune's injury. It was just a shame that they had to review the footage from Emerald Forest so soon, but bolstered by her sisters' visit, Pyrrha felt much more able to handle it then she had before. They were the first two to arrive, and as they took their customary places in the briefing room, Yang laid her head on Pyrrha's shoulder, looking up at her with large, adoring violet eyes.

"I don't care how cute you are, that doesn't make the puns funny."

"Aw, come on!"

Pyrrha shook her head as Yang lamented her crushed hopes and dreams. Yang sat up straight as Cardin entered the room, followed by Ren and Nora. Pyrrha was a bit surprised to see Blake emerge, changed from her formal gowns into more casual attire. The cat Faunus princess looked tired, but determined. Finally, Taiyang arrived, accompanied by Director Ozpin.

"Hey, your highness-ness!" Yang chirped, happy to see Blake. "How are you doin' with all the politicos? Anyone start shooting yet?"

If Blake was annoyed at Yang making light of her status, she didn't show it, instead gracing the blonde with a slightly feline smile. "Hello, Yang. No, no one has started shooting, which, given the circumstances, I'll take as a victory. The Director has revealed the existence of a comm override hard-built into the mass-produced ACs' systems. They'll hear my declaration. They won't have a choice not to. I will impress upon them that their princess is very much alive, and is ordering them to lay down their arms and surrender. And if they do not, then they will be treated as lawless renegades, to be destroyed alongside their terrorist commander."

Despite herself, Yang shuddered at Blake's tone. It was clear that the Princess was not playing around. If this was what the kitten was like, she could only imagine how formidable the mother cat must be when pushed.

"All right everyone, settle down," Taiyang said. "The techs have finished extracting the video feed from Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors. As per our protocols, we are going to review the footage to perform post-action tactical analysis of the mission. Let's begin."

The screen was divided into three boxes, one showing the point-of-view for each of the three Armored Cores involved. Despite having been informed of how things went down, the assorted pilots all made various sounds of disapproval at Ruby's reckless pursuit of Taurus, ranging from a tongue click from Blake to a low growl from Pyrrha. Seated next to her, Yang couldn't help but wince. She'd been hoping to try to talk her father and the Director into reversing their decision to pull Ruby from service, but...yeah...not good.

The images on the screen paused as Taiyang spoke up. "So, I trust you can all see the errors here, and I don't need to elaborate any further, correct?"

Cardin chimed in. "If it makes you feel any better, Arc was already moving when you gave that order. Like I said last night, he was goin' in anyway."

Taiyang didn't respond, merely sighing quietly before resuming the footage. He enlarged the box showing Ruby's PoV, focusing on her high-speed pursuit through the burning forest. Between the scrambled sensors and the poor visibility, it was obvious that Ruby was struggling. Then came the confrontation between Crescent Rose and Wilt, and the execution of the hostages.

The Captain's face was drawn into a tight line, his face pale. Ruby had merely told her that what she'd seen was horrible. He thought she'd just been referring to seeing the corpses of the loggers, not that Taurus had executed them in front of her.

His fifteen year-old daughter had seen people murdered, and was taunted over her inability to do anything about it. He heard a snapping sound, and looked down to see that he'd been gripping the side of the lectern so hard that his hand had snapped through the wood, tearing a chunk free.

Director Ozpin paused the video and cleared his throat meaningfully. "Lance-Captain, if you would?" Taiyang numbly nodded, stepping aside before going to sit down in the seat that the Director had just vacated. Ozpin quirked an eyebrow at the shattered lectern before looking out over Dragon Lance.

"As you can see, the enemy is ruthless, and utterly amoral in pursuit of victory. He is willing to enact atrocity to secure a mere tactical advantage." He ran the footage, pausing once more as Taurus prepared to execute the helpless Ruby Rose in her severed mech. "When confronting such an enemy, give him no opening to exploit. Offer no quarter, as you will receive none in turn. Shoot to kill."

He shrunk down Ruby's PoV and enlarged Jaune's as he emerged into the logging camp. The strong opening barrage followed by careful maneuvering as Taurus engaged the new enemy was fairly normal. Jaune charging directly into the giant red ball of molten plasma death was not. Pyrrha felt like her heart had stopped in her chest, and the rest of Dragon Lance could only watch in slack silence as the plasma filled his entire viewscreen. It bathed the briefing room in hellish crimson light for agonizingly long moments before Crocea Mors, missing an arm and falling apart, emerged from the other side to knock Taurus's Armored Core to the ground, causing the plasma cannon to fire into the air instead of at the downed Ruby's machine.

The Director paused the footage as the stunned silence stretched on. He held his chin, shaking his head. Well. That certainly explained the condition of Crocea Mors. It also gave him a way to spin the destruction of the world's first Armored Core and a symbol of Vale's founding. An outdated Armored Core getting thrashed by a technologically-superior enemy unit was one thing; a heartbreaking act of selfless courage - the last stand of The Yellow Death - that was something else entirely.

But more importantly, it cinched it. He knew what to do with Jaune Arc.

The rest of the footage was more conventional, if difficult to watch. Jaune had earned himself a bit of a laugh from his peers when his last-ditch shot from his laser interceptors had actually damaged the head on Taurus's Armored Core, while Ozpin had had to carefully conceal his own growing rage from the White Fang Commander's taunts over the death of Glynda Goodwitch.

"So, this concludes the footage of the skirmish in the Emerald Forest. It is...quite remarkable, if difficult to watch. I hope that you will take the lessons of your peers' actions to heart. While I cannot endorse charging headlong into searing plasma as a matter of course, under the circumstances, well...Armored Core pilots have many duties. Duties to protect the city, to protect its people...but you also protect one another. Don't lose sight of that. Captain, anything to add?"

"No," he said, standing. "I need to see to my daughter."

"Right. I'm coming with you," said Yang.

After they left, Pyrrha sat alone for a moment, listening to what the others of her Lance had to say about what they had witnessed.

"I...don't even know what to say to that," said Nora, oddly subdued.

"I might."

"Yeah, of course you would, Ren."

Blake's cat ears were low in sorrow. "Gods...I don't even know if he's far gone, or if that's how he always was, and he merely hid it for so long."

"Well, it's not like you had him do that shit," replied Cardin.

"That was so...gallant of Jaune."

"Yeah, Arc's Valean through-and-through. We're not smart like Atlas or slick like Vacuo, or...whatever it is Mistral has going on, but when you need someone bold enough to do something off the wall, over-the-top and into new levels of batshit nuts, you get a Valean."

Blake arched an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying that you'd charge through a giant ball of searing plasma?"

"Well...for the right woman, I would."

"I see. Well, as much as I've enjoyed spending time with Dragon Lance, I'm afraid I must return to my own duties. Good luck, Cardin." Blake graced him with a feline smile as she stood.

"Er, yeah, you too, your, uh...worship...full...ness." Cardin stammered to a stop as Blake just canted her head at him in bemusement. Then she was gone, and Cardin got a look at a very irate Nora Valkyrie glaring at him.

Pyrrha knew a category five shitstorm brewing when she saw one, and from the look on Ren's face from across the room, he knew it too. They beat a hasty retreat before that storm hit, emerging into the hallway together.

"You know, I would have thought that you'd have been happy to see Cardin and Nora on the rocks," Pyrrha said.

Ren shrugged. "It's like having a wish come true, but in just the worst way possible." He glanced at her. "I know it doesn't mean much, but you should be proud of your brother. That was a brave thing he did."

"I know." Pyrrha sighed. "How is it that I'm both so proud of him that I could burst, while also wanting to strangle him with my own hands for doing something so crazy?"

"That's life, I suppose. Still, it beats just having the latter without the former. How has Yang been coping with her sister's...error?"

"She's obviously worried, but I don't think that it's really sunk in yet that Ruby's not coming back to Dragon Lance, at least not for a long time. If she ever does. When we were getting up this morning, she was talking about some scheme to talk her father into letting her back on, but after what we saw today...no. Maybe in a few years, but not until then."

"Fair enough." Ren frowned as he caught on to something Pyrrha had said. "'When you were getting up this morning?'" he echoed.

Pyrrha blushed. "I...that is to say, uh…" She gave up trying to explain it away. "I needed someone and she came to me."

For a brief moment, Pyrrha thought she saw some kind of distress on Ren's face, but it was there and gone so fast, replaced with his usual serenity, that she wrote it off as a trick of the light. "Ah. Well."

"We're, uh...we're figuring things out. I know this will probably throw off the betting pool or something, but would you mind keeping it under wraps for a bit?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Ren."

She clapped him on the shoulder before turning down the hallway that led to her apartment. She didn't know if Yang was going to come see her again that night, but if she did, Pyrrha wanted everything neat and tidy for her. In such times, she was grateful to have such good friends and amazing family. It made everything so much easier to bear.

[/]

Oddly enough, with all hell breaking loose, the constant patrols of Armored Cores actually freed up Summer Rose from her duties on the Watch, and while she'd take a rotation joining a patrol, she still had time to care for her youngest. Since retiring to her family's apartment the previous night, Ruby had stayed in bed the entire day, just crushed under the weight of her failure. While she may have huddled under the covers, sleep eluded her. In her dreams, she saw those hapless civilians be shredded, over and over again, torn to scraps of bloody meat and splintered shards of bone flying through the air.

Her mother had stayed with her, sometimes bringing her water and making her drink, other times just curling up in her bed next to her, holding her close. As much as Ruby wanted to protest that she was too old for that, that she didn't deserve such treatment due to her actions, she couldn't deny that being nestled in her mother's arms made her feel safe and secure. Thus surrounded by the unconditional love of Summer Rose, her trembling eventually calmed.

Ruby was drifting along in the space between slumber and wakefulness when a knock on her bedroom door jolted both Rose women to full awareness. Summer sat up. "Come in."

Taiyang Xiao Long looked pale, his mouth drawn into a grim line. "Summer. We need to talk."

"Right." She leaned over and kissed the top of Ruby's head. "It's almost time for dinner. If you're not feeling up to coming out, I'll bring you something to eat okay?" When Ruby didn't respond, Summer gave her daughter one last hug before slipping out of the bed. She paused as she passed by Yang. "And how are you holding up? Your father said that you didn't come back home last night."

"Uh...I'm okay, Mom."

"Oh, I see," the older woman said, her tone infuriatingly knowing. "Incidentally, you have a hickey on your neck, dear. Do tell Pyrrha I said hello, would you?" With a clap on her eldest daughter's shoulder, she joined Taiyang at the door, husband and wife leaving to speak in private.

Yang still had a slight flush on her cheeks that was fading as she sat on the foot of Ruby's bed. "Hey, Rubes. How are you?"

Ruby made a noncommittal grunt.

"So...we saw the video footage from the Armored Cores. I'm sorry that you had to see what Taurus did to those people."

Laying still on her side, Ruby didn't respond.

"Ruby?"

"...It's all my fault," she finally said. "All those people died because of me."

Yang sighed. "You didn't pull the trigger on them."

"I might as well have."

She fixed her little sister with a serious gaze. "Ruby. Adam Taurus took those people hostage. He had them tied up, in a forest that he set on fire. They weren't coming home, Ruby. So yeah, you pretty much played the part that he had in mind for his script, but I bet that if you hadn't gone in, he'd have started pitching burnt bodies at you guys. The guy's not right in the head, Ruby."

Ruby was silent for a long while. Yang was about to continue her argument when her little sister spoke up. "Have you heard anything about Jaune?"

"Well, Pyrrha's sisters came to see her today. Really made her day. They told her that the doctors think that they got to him quick enough that he shouldn't have too much lingering damage from the cracked skull. We're all hoping that he recovers quickly."

"Yang?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that Jaune is going to hate me?"

Yang scoffed. "Are you kidding? Jaune dove headfirst into plasma for you."

"What?!" For the first time, Ruby sat up to look her sister in the eyes.

"You didn't know that?"

"No! I mean, I know Taurus was threatening to shoot me, but I couldn't see what was happening."

Yang shook her head. "We'd never seen anything like it. He just charged right in. He didn't even hesitate. I mean, all of us would have gone into the forest after you, but to roll that dice on being able to knock Taurus out of the way before the cannon fired off? Most people would have dodged. Dad would have charged. Mom would have. I would. I think Pyrrha would have, though she'd have griped about it afterwards. And now we know that Jaune would too."

Ruby heard her sister's voice fade away. Sitting up and staring into space, the walls of her room faded away, leaving a stark white void in their wake. All that she saw within that void was Jaune, in Crocea Mors, rushing headlong into a massive ball of searing plasma. Then it, too, faded away, the void turning black. She saw him, emerging from Crocea Mors in his hoodie and jeans the first night he'd piloted an Armored Core, looking distraught and lost. She saw him dancing, leaping gracefully. She saw him chuckling at her in the diner, her mouth stuffed full of hamburger. She saw Jaune staring at her, calling her beautiful for the first time. From the darkness came a small, white light, a faint glint at the very edge of sight. It grew brighter, and larger, rushing towards Ruby at great speed, coalescing into the form of an Armored Core. Bipedal and primarily white in color, with gold accents, it flew through the void, propelled from a massive array of boosters on its back, which combined with further boosters on its legs, shoulders, and even hips, spat gouts of flame that formed almost a dual set of silver wings, upper and lower, from its back.

The vision faded as quickly as it had fallen upon her, and Ruby slowly grew aware of Yang grabbing her shoulders and shaking her, calling her name.

"Yang?"

"Ruby! What was that?"

"It looked like an Armored Core."

Yang drew back, puzzled. "What? No, I mean, your eyes! They were...glowing! Like a flashlight!"

Ruby just shook her head and stood. "I need to get to work," she said, stumbling towards her desk.

"Work? What are you talking about? What even was that?"

Ruby ignored her sister as she fired up her terminal and began drafting a new set of blueprints. "I've got work to do."

Yang just stared at her sister, at a loss to even begin to understand what had just happened with her sister. Was it better or worse that she'd gone from a depressed pile of defeated Ruby to a feverishly-working Ruby who occasionally had glowing eyes like a flashlight? At least she could understand Ruby's earlier attitude. The blonde girl peered over her sister's shoulder, looking at the Armored Core that she'd abruptly started designing. It was certainly angular, though more armored than Crescent Rose had been. "Are you making a replacement?"

"No. This is going to be Jaune's new Armored Core."

"Uh...shouldn't he have an input in that?"

"It has to be everything he is. Graceful. Bold. Magnificent."

"Oh...kay?" Yang scratched her head in confusion. "Right. You, uh, you have fun with that, Rubes. I'm just, uh, gonna go talk to Mom and Dad now. Like, right now."

Ruby didn't acknowledge her leaving, fully invested as she was in her abrupt task. Yang just shook her head as she left Ruby's room, headed towards the kitchen. Her mother and father were having a conversation as she entered.

"Of course it'll have to be one from Beacon. No one else is going to have the clearance needed to even know what she's talking about, let alone that she was involved in live combat," said Taiyang.

"It makes sense. She was trembling all day, Tai. I wouldn't be surprised if she's eventually diagnosed with PTSD from that."

"Gods…" Taiyang buried his head in his hands. "I'm the worst father ever."

"Tai…"

Yang cleared her throat. "Um, Mom? Dad? We need to talk about what Ruby just did."

Summer sighed. "Is she all right?"

"Er...why does she have magic eyes?"

[/]

Director Ozpin strode through the hallways of Vale General Hospital, his cane clicking softly in time to his steps. What he was about to do...long ago, in the early days of the Second Race of Humanity, awakening someone's Aura was much more common. Brave men and women fended off the Grimm in conventional battle, the very power of their souls empowering their strikes and shielding their bodies from harm. It was a different time, a very different time.

With the advent of the colossal Grimm, everything changed. Direct combat was no longer a viable option, and the human race had to go on the run to survive. There were those with Aura and the Semblance of magic that they had inherited from the precursors, and whenever they contended directly with the Grimm...they died. Worse, they died slow. And in great pain and terror.

Generations of guidance and the establishment of a skeptical culture of empiricism later, and Ozpin only awakened the Aura of very specific agents. The Branwen twins, Qrow and Raven, were two of his more notable recent lieutenants, though the latter's desertion and taking up a life of banditry had wounded him deeply. Glynda Goodwitch had been another, but with that...the dawn of AC-to-AC combat had taken him by surprise. And her Aura had given her just enough time to truly suffer from Taurus's plasma blade.

There were some who had awakened their Aura naturally, in times of great trauma and stress. The young Lie Ren of Dragon Lance was one such occurrence, but he was very subtle about it, perhaps fearing that he was an anomaly. It had actually taken Ozpin a long time to suss out the Aura flickers that he had felt and to pinpoint it to the taciturn young man. With how subtle he was, Ozpin wouldn't be surprised at all to discover that his Semblance pertained to stealth, or obscurity in some way.

It was always a gamble, awakening someone's Aura. It was entirely possible that Jaune would make like Raven, accepting the power that it granted him and misusing it to prey on others. From what he'd seen of the boy, though, Ozpin rather doubted it. Still, he'd misjudged others before. There were societal risks, and personal risks to the boy's potential to suffer. But there would be advantages gained as well, most notably the swift recovery from the boy's injury.

He entered Jaune's hospital room, finding that there were currently three Arcs in residence instead of just the one. Standing across from one another, at the foot of Jaune's hospital bed, Gil Arc was arguing with a young blonde woman, presumably one of his daughters.

"I never meant for that to happen. I never meant for any of this to happen!"

"I know you didn't. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen. And it doesn't mean that you're not to blame. She could have handled your bullshit, or she could have handled Jaune getting hurt, but not both."

"Don't talk to me like that, Saphron. I'm still your father."

"Yeah, you're lots of people's father, it turns out."

Ozpin coughed, drawing their attention to his arrival. Gil turned around, his arms uncrossing as he saw the Director of Beacon inexplicably standing in the doorway of his son's hospital room. "Ozpin. What are you doing here?"

"I've come to see one of Beacon's promising young recruits. I regret that he was injured in the course of his duties."

"What the hell happened out there, Ozpin?"

"It was a fight, Mister Arc."

Gil narrowed his eyes. "Don't pull that crap on me, Ozpin. I know you're angry with me, but this is my son."

"And I'm sure that you can understand that there are only so many details that I can reveal in the presence of civilians."

The girl - Saffron, was it? - clicked her tongue in annoyance. "You know, we aren't stupid, Director. We know that there's a group of terrorists who stole Armored Cores, and we know that Jaune got hurt the same time someone burned down the Emerald Forest. Those two things are related, so why don't you just get straight to it and tell us why you're really here?"

Ozpin shrugged. "Fair enough, Miss Arc. You are a Miss Arc, I presume?"

"Yeah, I'm Jaune's sister, Saphron."

"Well, Saphron, the truth is, I'm secretly a wizard, here to use my magic powers to awaken the residual magic present within young Jaune here, a process that will, among other things, greatly accelerate his healing, so as I may cultivate him as his generation's symbol of courage and valor in the fight against the Grimm."

There was a long silence as Saphron stared at him.

"You're sick. You're just a sick old man, is what you are. No wonder the two of you get along so great." Saphron shook her head. "I'm going to check up on Mom. Try not to strain yourself with your 'magic powers,' O Mister Wizard," she continued, her tone dripping with sardonic contempt as she added quotation finger gestures to the term "magic powers." The woman was still grumbling as she left the room.

"That was unkind of you," accused Gil.

Ozpin merely shrugged in response. "She demanded the truth, and I gave it to her. What she does with that truth is her own prerogative. At any rate, I did not come here for her, nor for you."

Gil's arms crossed over his chest once more. "You're really going to do it on him?"

"I am. Why, have you objections?"

"I've seen what it does to other people. Everything they are, it becomes...amplified. Like their personalities are writ in all-caps, going from a conversation to a scream."

"What you're describing doesn't exist, Gil Arc. Everything that a person does with their Aura unlocked is what was inside of them their entire lives. All that the Aura does is enable them to act on their desires, moreso than others could. Crocea Mors was destroyed, Arc, destroyed to an irreparable extent. Do you know how that happened?"

"In a fight with another Armored Core, of course."

"Not in the manner you might be thinking. Young Jaune charged straight into a giant ball of searing plasma, without hesitation, in an effort to save the life of another. I know what you want to say, Gil Arc. You want to claim that power corrupts, pointing to yourself as an example. But I have wielded powers beyond your imagination, and I can state, with all authority, that power does not corrupt. Power reveals. With the relatively minor power of fame and authority, you turned to act as a sexual predator. That is a failing of your character, Gil Arc, a failing revealed by the meager power you had attained. What that is not is a condemnation of power in and of itself. With the power of his Aura unlocked, we shall see what is revealed within young Jaune. From what I've seen, of his courage and his character, well, I'm rather hopeful."

With the boy's father having been shut up rather effectively, and with no further ado, Ozpin placed his hand on the boy's chest. In the early days of the Second Race of Humanity, the young had actually been able to awaken one another's Aura, often reciting hymns or incantations to focus themselves enough to do so. But he was no neophyte youth. He was Oz, the great and powerful, last of the First Men, the amalgamation of a thousand-thousand men who had guarded and guided the Second Race from its very inception. A brief flare of emerald light, and Ozpin seized upon the hidden power within Jaune's soul, bringing it to the fore. And there was a lot of it. In the old days, Jaune could have had the makings of a very powerful warrior indeed.

Jaune was engulfed in a flash of white-gold light that washed over him. His burns and blisters faded away, replaced with healthy pink skin. Ozpin maintained his grip on Jaune's Aura - in time, the boy could learn to consciously bring it forth to heal his wounds or even to shield himself from harm...to an extent. The power of Aura was not infinite, though it did restore itself over time. That meant that it could be overwhelmed, broken even. Many of Oz's more painful memories involved mercy killing allies, or worse, promising young students, whose injuries had outstripped their Aura, condemning themselves to slow, lingering, gruesome deaths. A cracked skull was within the capacity of Aura to heal; being largely crushed from the collarbone down, from a grievous attack the warrior never saw coming, was not. Enough lingering Aura within the spirit could keep the heart pumping, long after the unfortunate soul should have expired.

The worst deaths weren't those where they screamed. The worst were when they could do nothing but gurgle wetly, straining for breath that wouldn't come, unable to live, but kept from the merciful embrace of death. It was entirely possible that Jaune would not thank him for this, that he would curse him silently in his dying moments. So be it.

The white-gold light faded, and Ozpin removed his hand from the young man's chest, stepping back expectantly. After a moment, Jaune's eyelashes fluttered as he slowly roused back to wakefulness. The first thing that the young pilot, the heir presumptive to the Arc legacy did upon his beginning his new, Aura-enhanced life was to lean over the side of his hospital bed and violently dry heave, attempting to vomit out the contents of an empty stomach. With that first attempted act ended in failure, Jaune fell back onto his hospital bed, groaning miserably.

"Fuck, my head."

Ozpin made a mental note to have the writers make a more heroic substitute for Jaune's first words when they made their subsequent propaganda efforts. After another moment of Jaune's apparent misery - his skull may have begun mending, but that didn't mean he didn't have the mother of all headaches - he sat up suddenly, clutching his head at the sudden movement.

"Whoa, boy, don't move so fast," chided Gil.

"Where am I?" Jaune demanded. "Where's Ruby? Is she okay? Did she get out?"

"At ease, Mister Arc," said Ozpin. "You're at Vale General Hospital, where you were taken after your altercation with Adam Taurus. Ruby Rose is unharmed, at least in body. Her spirit, I fear, may have been wounded, but that is neither here nor there. At any rate, she is safe and sound with her family at Beacon."

"Good." Jaune laid back down, more gently. "That's all that I wanted."

"Indeed. We recovered the footage from Crocea Mors, Mister Arc, and that was some maneuver that you enacted in defense of Miss Rose. You're rapidly becoming the talk of Beacon."

"Hooray." Jaune scrunched his eyes closed against the throbbing in his head.

Gil shook his head. "Ozpin says that you charged through plasma, boy. What were you thinking?"

Jaune opened up one eye, peering up at his father. "Oh, goodie. You're here. Can't imagine the fight you must've had with Mom. Where is she, anyway? No way is one of her kids hospitalized without her going to their bedside."

His father coughed awkwardly. "Well, according to Saphron, your mother had something of an...episode, this morning. She had to be sedated, and is apparently getting caught up on several days' worth of missed sleep."

Jaune shot his father a dirty look. "Yeah. Can't imagine how that happened."

Ozpin coughed meaningfully. "As...enlightening as this confrontation would not doubt prove, it is rather counterproductive to my purpose here. Jaune, what if I told you that it was now within your power, provided you had the will and focus, to heal yourself such that you could reassure your mother that you are fine?"

He quirked an eyebrow at the Director. "Uh...neat? I don't think I can wave my hand and make a head wound go away, though."

"Oh, there's no hand waving required, Mister Arc."

When Saphron entered her little brother's hospital room, she was stunned to see Jaune, awake, sitting up in bed, and apparently glowing from some kind of white-gold light that emanated from him. She stared for a long moment before turning her poleaxed expression onto that weird Director guy, who had apparently been teaching Jaune how to do it. The man just winked at her and mouthed the word "wizard," before resuming his lesson.

[/]

Cardin Winchester had certainly been in more dangerous situations then being cornered by an angry and emotionally-hurt Nora Valkyrie, but in fairness, those other situations had at least involved him being able to put multiple tons of steel armor between himself and the being that wished him harm. Now, with Nora's big, turquoise eyes boring into him, he kinda wanted to make a break for his Armored Core.

"What are you doing?" she finally asked him.

"Huh?"

"This thing with Blake. Two months ago, you hated her. Called her all sorts of awful names, repeatedly suggested having her executed, just making clear that you despised her. Then she finally told you about what she'd been trying to do, and she went from 'that evil bitch' to 'Blake.' Fair enough, but then she puts on her pretty kitty princess act, and you're putty in her hands! What's happening to you?"

Cardin sighed. "Hell, Nora, I don't know what to say. You know me. Arc probably would've known the right thing to do from the get-go, or Ren would have the words to say to make this right, but that's not me. I'm not smart the way those guys are, but I've never tried to hide who I am or how I feel behind big words and complicated schemes. What you see is what you get. But I can tell I've done you wrong, Nora, and I'm sorry."

"Good." Nora began to relax, but Cardin wasn't through speaking yet.

"That's why you and me are done."

She stared at him, blinking, as though she'd misheard. "What?"

"You and me, this...thing we've had going on for a while now. It's over, Nora."

"Cardin...why?" Nora shook her head. "Are you leaving me for her? Even if you hadn't treated her like shit for the last year and a half, she's some kind of royalty, Cardin! There's no way in hell that Blake Whatsherface Belladonna is going to ever love you back."

"I know." Cardin put his hand on her shoulder, giving her a sad smile. "Look, I know that, more often then not, I get the smackdowns I deserve. I say dumb shit without thinking about how it makes other people feel. I can be rude, blunt, downright mean at times. But all of this...it made me think. Yes, I can think, shut up," he said, noticing her suddenly skeptical expression. "I already said I know I'm not smart. That doesn't mean I can't set down and figure something out eventually. I don't know how this whole thing with Princess Blake is gonna end, but even I can tell it's probably not with me raising a bunch of little kittens on some tropical beach somewhere. But what I do know is that it isn't right, being with one girl while your eyes and heart are lingering on another, even if she never, you know, feels back. Maybe especially not then."

Nora's jaw dropped. "Are you telling me that I'm getting dumped due to the scrupulous morals and dating ethics of Cardin Winchester?"

Cardin scratched his head. "Uh...yeah?'

She stared at him for a long moment. "Fuck this. I'm getting a drink."

[/]

Lie Ren was sitting quietly in his small apartment, looking out over the night sky of Vale from the vantage point at his writing desk. He'd contemplated destroying or throwing out his various odes to one Yang Xiao Long, but he opted against it. He'd never specified the girl by name, after all, and pathetically one-sided as his infatuation with the blonde bombshell may have been, it had been sincere. Still, though, upon further reflection, he had never had a chance, at least not with Pyrrha Nikos in the picture. It was difficult to feel resentment towards his Lancemate, though. Life had taken so much from Pyrrha, and she only asked for so very little in its place.

He remained seated, contemplating various turns of phrase that the Ghost of Kuroyuri might put to page in verse. Apparently, his meditations on the nature of unrequited love had been of some solace to Mountain Flower, up in Atlas. He just regretted that, with the White Fang insurgency turning up the intensity of its campaign against Vale, he almost certainly would not have the free time to meet with her. He and Nora had enlisted at Beacon from their pilot school in Mistral, and for the past two years, their adoptive home had been under some form of attack.

Lie Ren was rather looking forward to putting an end to it, once and for all.

He contemplated dipping into The Flow, but decided against it. Since that terrible night at Kuroyuri, and the death of everyone he knew, he had been able to tap into some sort of...phenomenon, which, for lack of a better term, he had named The Flow. The Flow would wash over him, washing away his terror, anxieties, even anger, leaving only serenity in its wake. When he truly lost himself in its current, The Flow could even render him effectively invisible to Grimm. Allowing himself to extend that feeling, he could even obscure another as well, which was how he and Nora had survived the Scourge of Kuroyuri. With time and practice, Ren had discovered that The Flow could have verifiable, empirically-measurable effects on his strength, speed, durability, and even how quickly he healed from injuries. In his days at pilot school, the Ghost of Kuroyuri had balanced his training and studies with efforts to clean the city of Mistral of its worst criminal organizations as a masked vigilante, but after moving to Vale, his work for Beacon had kept him just a bit too busy for such antics.

Moreover, the Director concerned him. He could feel the man searching for him through spiritual currents. Before the first time he'd felt it, Ren had assumed that he was unique in his abilities, but now, he knew that others beyond Nora were at least aware of The Flow's existence. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up as a dissected laboratory experiment, so he kept his immersion in The Flow to an absolute minimum.

He missed it, though.

Still, should he come up against Adam Taurus, he knew that The Flow could make the difference in putting an end to the most vicious criminal he'd ever seen. If Taurus thought that he could make him lose his nerve with simple barbarism, he'd have another thing coming. The Flow would keep his aim steady, his resolve true, and he would gun him down like any other deranged murderer.

His musings were interrupted by a very familiar heavy pounding on his door. Well, it was time to play cleanup for Winchester once more. At this rate, he should charge the bulky Valean man an hourly rate for hearing Nora vent about the problems that she had with the man. Or maybe he should be charging her. Either way, Lie Ren couldn't help but feel that someone, somewhere, owed him lien for this.

Upon opening his apartment door, he immediately realized that this situation was far worse than he'd thought. Nora was beyond drunk; the girl was barely able to stand, leaning against his doorframe and staring up at him with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. His eyes widened as he saw a nearly-empty bottle of Anima sake in her hand.

"Nora! What happened?"

"I got drunk," she slurred.

"No kidding," deadpanned Ren. "Okay, why did you get drunk?"

"Heleftmeh."

"What?" Shaking his head, Ren hustled her inside, closing the door after her. She staggered across his living room, the bottle slipping from her slack hand before Nora sat heavily on his couch. Ren scooped up the bottle, wincing at just how empty it was. "Okay Nora," he began again. "Tell me what happened. Slowly and clearly."

"He...left...me," said Nora.

"Cardin?"

"I wasn't dating anyone else!"

"Okay, okay!" Ren held up his hands, partially to calm her down, but also to fend off any attacks in case she got...punchy. "Cardin left you. Did he say why?"

"Yeah. Becaush he can't stop lookin' at Princess Litterbox."

"Nora, please don't refer to a visiting dignitary as 'Princess Litterbox.'" Ren just leaned back in astonishment. "Wait, are he and Blake dating now? I...really can't see that happening."

"That's jusht it!" she lurched forward, grabbing his hand. "He said...he said that even if she doesn't feel the same way, he can't be with one girl while lookin' at another. Said it wasn't right."

Huh. Lie Ren found himself in agreement with Cardin Winchester on a matter of moral behavior. Between that and the scorched-up forest, he was pretty sure the world was ending. "So, he left you because he felt he couldn't treat you the way you deserve."

"Yup."

"And then you went and got overwhelmingly inebriated."

"Yup."

Ren sighed. Well, at least she was here and safe, where he could keep an eye on her. "So, what are you going to do now?"

Nora looked at him for a moment. "I'm going to puke."

His magenta eyes went wide. "No, no, no -"

He had just managed to sidestep out of the way as Nora keeled over and threw up on his carpet. Immersing himself in The Flow was starting to look better and better, Ozpin be damned. When she was done puking her guts out, Nora flopped back onto his couch, and soon began snoring. Ren's eye twitched. He rolled Nora onto her stomach, her head turned to the side to keep her from drowning in the likely event of another incident. His partner thus secured, he went to retrieve cleaning supplies, and a bucket to put under her mouth as she slept off her drunkenness.

So help him, if she ever tried to claim that he didn't love her, he was going to point to the stain she'd left on his carpet, and the fact that he hadn't murdered her, as Exhibit A. So many roles for one man to fulfill. Ren was a pilot, poet, anomaly of the natural order, retired part-time superhero, and now, cleaner of Nora's drunken vomit. Such a charmed life he led.

After disposing of her waste and scrubbing his carpet clean as best as he could, Ren washed his hands, took a quick shower, and brought out his rattiest blanket to wrap around Nora, something that he wouldn't care overmuch if he had to throw it out. He had been planning to retire to his own bed, when Nora, in her drunken stupor, murmured sadly, something about her not being "good enough for anyone to keep."

Ren looked at her, looked at his carpet, sighed, and then slipped onto the couch behind her. He held her tightly, falling into The Flow and allowing it to engulf both himself and Nora, its gentle currents soothing his irritation and her anguish. Soon, Nora began snoring loudly, and thus reassured that her airway was very definitely unobstructed, Ren soon followed her into slumber.

Even if all the world abandoned them, they would always have each other.

[/]

Taiyang exchanged a worried look with his wife. Ruby had been at it all afternoon, and now it was growing late into the night, furiously sketching, designing, consulting texts, and calculating. Moreover, many of the designs that she made were just...odd, as alien as Crescent Rose had been. Case in point, the bizarre machine gun that she had just invented from nowhere. She called it the Motorcobra, and it was apparently supposed to be the primary left arm weapon for the Armored Core she was designing. The Motorcobra machine gun itself looked like no other AC weapon Taiyang had ever seen. Actually, scratch that - he'd seen an integrated plasma blade that replaced the entire arm part that kind of looked like that, but as the machine gun fired bullets, the space between the long, robust and sharp blades was considerably narrower. And yes, it was also designed, apparently, to stab into Grimm if necessary.

It was actually all very impressive, but if Ruby thought that she could overturn his call to pull her from the Lance for at least another year with fancy engineering, she'd have another thing coming. Still, he needed to be a little more gentle in his approach. This feverish work could be some way of her either expressing trauma or else fleeing from it, pushing it away.

"Ruby?" he asked, putting a hand on his youngest's shoulder.

"What's up?" she asked, scrunching her nose and furiously tapping her eraser against her desk as she tried to puzzle out the problem of the Armored Core's generator.

"Don't you think you should try to get some sleep?"

She frowned. "I need to get the problems worked out as fast as I can, so we can begin construction and initial testing."

Tai frowned. How did he end up having to be the disciplinarian for his youngest? "Okay, Ruby, I'm glad that you're still able to pursue your passion for designing Armored Cores, but you have more than a year before you turn seventeen. Knowing what you saw in the Emerald Forest doesn't change that. If anything, it confirms that you need time before getting back out there. So you still have plenty of time before your new Crescent Rose needs to be ready. If nothing else, you can at least get a good night's sleep."

"This isn't for me," she said.

"What?"

"This isn't for me. And it isn't Crescent Rose either. It's for Jaune."

"I….well, okay, I can see why you'd want to do something nice for the guy," he conceded. "But still, he's still recovering in the hospital. Besides, don't you think he deserves a say in his own Armored Core design?"

"This Armored Core needs to be built," Ruby said, her voice full of determination. "And Jaune needs to pilot it. Neither of those are negotiable."

"Oh...kay," her father said slowly, wondering if they could get the Beacon psychologist to move up his schedule to see her sooner. He decided to humor her a little, to try to get her to loosen up just a bit so he could persuade her to calm down. "So, this is going to be a super-special Armored Core, and Jaune is going to pilot it. Does it have a name yet?"

Ruby turned to look at him for the first time, and Taiyang had to stifle a gasp. Sure enough, there was just a hint of luminance emanating from his daughter's silver eyes.

"White Glint."

[/]

The sky was gray and overcast as the ship made its way towards Vale's docks. With their Armored Cores gathered onto the deck, prepared to disembark, Winter Schnee and her younger sister, Weiss, looked out over the city of Vale for the first time. From their dossier, they had expected to find the city flanked by two forests, but one had been reduced to a smoldering ruin.

"Well," Weiss said. "It certainly looks as though Taurus has been here."

"So it would seem."

Weiss's face fell at her older sister's stoic response. She may as well have been talking to a wall. Her Scroll chimed, and she pulled it out, seeing that Penny had something to add to the conversation. Her Scroll's projector fired up, displaying Penny's avatar in the air in front of the two sisters. It was something of a mystery among the upper circle of Atlas's Applied Sciences division as to why, exactly, an artificial intelligence opted to present as a cheery teenage girl, but she did, and had been known to play pranks on personnel who referred to her as an "it." The image that she projected from Weiss's Scroll depicted her as a cheery ginger girl in a green and white flightsuit, at the controls of her Armored Core, indicating that her consciousness was housed within the war machine.

"Oh no!" the AI girl exclaimed. "All the pretty trees! Are the Valeans going to be okay?"

"The damage looks to be limited to the Emerald Forest," answered Winter. "The city itself appears unharmed. Their economy will take a vicious hit, but a forest can be replanted. Within a decade, it should be restored to something close to what it was before."

"That's their economy, but their forests are also an important cultural touchstone. Burning it down made for a vicious attack on both their material wealth and their morale. It's why Beacon's Armored Cores are in open patrol," noted Penny.

"Tree-hugging sentimentalism," dismissed Winter. "If arson is all that it takes to unnerve these soft Valeans, then we have our work cut out for us. No wonder they treat Adam like some unstoppable super soldier."

"I have an idea," Weiss chimed in. "Maybe don't mention that opinion to the Valeans while we're in Beacon. Surrounded by Valeans."

Winter shot her little sister a bemused look. "What, are you worried? They wouldn't dare attack, not while they need us to help take down Taurus."

"Alternatively, I could be looking at a longer timeframe than just the next fight. Forming connections with foreign nations can make Atlas - and the SPC - stronger, while burning bridges will only weaken us in the long run. I'm here to support your mission, sister. I would appreciate it if you returned the favor."

The Specialist said nothing in the immediate wake of her younger sister's rebuke. It was an open question among her family if foisting that role off on her younger sister was irresponsibly selfish, due to making Weiss pick up her slack or if it was,in fact, incredibly wise of her to recognize that she would have been a disaster as their mother's successor. Winter had neither the patience nor the inclination for politics, preferring straightforward means of both combat and general deportment. She had thought that she had found a kindred spirit in Adam Taurus, another born soldier who could truly understand her, but instead, he had been the most fiendish liar of them all. No doubt her relationship with Taurus had been staged as part of the White Fang's plan, a way to get her to lower her guard so that he could carry out his mission without her putting a stop to it. When she should have been vigilant, she had been lovestruck. When she should have been noticing discrepancies in his cover - there must have been something, some sign that she missed! - she had been giggling like some kind of idiot schoolgirl, lost in some romantic fantasy. She should have known better. She should have known.

Soldiers weren't born to be happy. Soldiers were born to serve and to fight, until the day they died. Her foolish, sentimental love had been a weakness, a fatal mistake that she swore that she would never repeat again.

From the timeline of the night of Taurus's defection that they had pieced together, Taurus had gone straight from her bed to steal his Armored Core, as well as a prototype weapon, and then desert the Atlesian Armed Forces, all in order to go wreak havoc in Vale. Winter was positive that he had been holding off his desertion until they had...been intimate. Her love, her heart, her first time sharing something so incredibly sacred with a man, all of it had been nothing more than a way for Taurus to thumb his nose at her father on his way out the door, for him to be able to brag that he'd seduced and deflowered The General's daughter on top of everything else. It must have been. Winter was heartbroken. Humiliated. But above all else, she was furious.

And now she was in Vale, with carte blanche to show her treacherous love just what happened when one invoked the outrage of a scorned Schnee.

From beside her on the deck, Weiss shared a concerned glance with Penny's avatar. As the ship drew closer to the city, Winter had what their little brother Whitley had dubbed her "murder face," the one that told everyone that Adam Taurus was on her mind again. "Winter?"

The older Schnee sister glared at the city of Vale for another moment before turning away from the railing. "Board your Armored Core and prepare to transfer to Beacon," she ordered, her voice and face now terrifyingly calm once more. Once Winter had begun to stride towards her Armored Core, Weiss sighed.

"Don't worry, Miss Schnee!" chirped Penny. "I'm sure that the Specialist will come around sooner or later."

"Thank you, Penny. I hope you're right."

"Of course I am! I'm programmed to be right." Penny's avatar winked cheekily at her before the projector on Weiss's Scroll shut down. The heiress pocketed her Scroll and unclipped her helmet from her belt, pulling it on as she strode towards her own Armored Core, Myrtenaster.

The Schnee sisters had taken entirely different approaches towards arming their Armored Cores, but they both tended towards lightweight, highly-agile frames. Both were primarily painted white, though Winter's Armored Core had grey accents, while Weiss opted for a rich blue. Winter's Moonlight was entirely focused on making blistering hit-and-run strikes with her infamous Moonlight plasma blade, the only known plasma blade crafted by Yasuyoshi Karasawa himself. The Moonlight was a blade of searingly powerful blue-white plasma that could deal shocking amounts of damage to even the heaviest-armored of Grimm or machines, and everything else about Winter's Armored Core served the end of bringing that weapon into play. She forewent back-mounted weapons entirely, and the only reason her unit bore one of the large-bore, overpowered handguns that her father had used in his youth was because the General had insisted that her machine carry some form of ranged weapon. To the casual observer, Winter's 'blader' style AC may have seemed dangerous, even reckless, but with her incredible reflexes and skills honed over countless hours of live service against the Grimm, her piloting style had been honed to the bleeding edge of perfection.

Weiss, for her part, had opted for a ranged support style. Unlike some others, who preferred to build heavy ACs to launch heavy artillery, Weiss kept her unit moving at all times, both to avoid retaliation, but also to strike from unpredictable angles, especially from above. Her Myrtenaster was instantly recognizable due to her dual GLYPH triple laser cannons mounted on each shoulder. Designed and manufactured by an arms company that was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Schnee Power Company, the three laser cannons on each shoulder spread out in a semi-circle when not in firing position, evoking a winged, almost angelic appearance. Each of the six individual cannons could fire either independently, to eliminate smaller targets, or all in one great burst targeting a single foe, though that tended to completely drain her energy reserves. The GLYPH cannons formed her primary armament, the arms of her unit bearing one of her father's handguns and a plasma blade that was chosen more for its light weight and low energy drain than for its power. Her arm weapons were more a last-ditch panic button in the event of an enemy closing in than a real part of her combat tactics.

While their little brother hadn't built his AC yet, from what Weiss could gather from his ramblings, Whitley was planning on splitting the difference between his sisters with a generalist mid-weight build. He was planning on following Weiss's example with the GLYPH cannons, though he claimed that that was mostly due to them being "baller," whatever that was supposed to mean. He also had stated that his AC was going to be named "Noblesse Oblige," a concept that she couldn't tell if it was a joke or a statement of purpose. Which, of course, described Whitley himself to a tee. Weiss had suggested to Winter that she add the cannons to her AC, for brand recognition if nothing else, but after the positively withering look that her older sister had shot her at the suggestion, Weiss had never brought it up to her again.

Penny's computer core was currently housed within a green and white-painted middleweight generalist Armored Core that had been modified to hold Penny's physical components within its head unit. There had been no small amount of concerns regarding allowing an Artificial Intelligence to control a giant war machine, but Ironwood had opted to trust the synthetic girl, equipping her platform with a shoulder mounted linear cannon, similar to Yang's, and a chain gun on the other shoulder. But the biggest display of the General's trust in the AI was that he had authorized the replacement of her AC's arm units with the dual plasma burst guns. They were the result of further development of the weapons project from which Taurus had stolen his main weapon. Like Taurus's cannon, the arms worked in conjunction to create a large magnetized ball of plasma, but while the resultant beam was less powerful, it could fire much more rapidly, and with a greater number of shots between maintenance sessions.

Penny had opted to dub her AC "Mechanical Sympathy," which again struck Weiss as being some kind of odd joke. Penny had a strange sense of humor, and a very strongly defined sense of self. Weiss didn't know how the Valeans would react to the existence of an AI, let alone an AI AC pilot, but if nothing else, it would make for fascinating observation.

Soon enough, the ship had docked at Vale, and the procession of Armored Cores made their way off of the ship and along the AC path running along the city, headed towards Beacon. While Winter had been coordinating with Beacon control, the Director himself got on the line as the trio entered the grounds of Beacon. "On behalf of the men and women of Beacon, the greater Vale Defense Force, and the people of Vale whom we all serve, I welcome the Atlesian delegation to Beacon."

"Thank you, Director Ozpin," answered Winter. "We look forward to the successful completion of our joint mission."

The three Atlesian Armored Cores were soon secured in berths set aside for their use. The Director, a tall, white-haired man leaning on a cane, was waiting for them on the gantry. "Welcome to Beacon, ladies. I'm Director Ozpin. If you prefer, we can either see you to your quarters, or else immediately begin the mission briefing with the latest intelligence on Adam Taurus."

"I would prefer to begin our work immediately," answered Winter. "If you could see us to your briefing room?"

"Of course. Is there something wrong with your third? They've yet to emerge from their machine."

"Ah, right," Winter said. "Our third is, well...she's rather not like other pilots. Penny is actually the world's first fully-autonomous Artificial Intelligence, with her hardware currently housed within the head unit of her Armored Core for the duration of this mission."

There was a pause as Ozpin digested that information. "An Artificial Intelligence, you say? As in, an entirely synthetic person?"

"That's correct, Director. Penny was designed to help address the difficulties in securing sufficient pilots to operate the Armored Cores. Between the advent of mass-production ACs and the development of Artificial Intelligences, my father believes that we may be on the verge of a second great revolution, one where we can not only secure our own cities from the Grimm, but even push them back."

"I...see," Ozpin stroked his chin. "Can I meet this...Penny, you say? Can it see us?"

"Well, Director, I should warn you that Penny has a very defined sense of self, and that sense of self very definitely includes her gender. Those who don't respect that tend to find themselves the victims of...pranks."

Ozpin quirked a brow. "Pranks, Specialist?"

She just shrugged. "Penny is more than a mere program, Director. She is, for all intents and purposes, a young woman, merely bereft of a body, as such. As for meeting her...Weiss?"

The younger Schnee sister activated her Scroll, projecting a hologram in the air before them. Penny appeared, her avatar wearing, of all things, a traditional Mantle Dirndl dress in green and white. "Salutations!" she greeted cheerfully, executing a picture perfect curtsey. "Penny Polendina, Atlesian Armed Forces, at your service, Director!"

"I see." Ozpin glanced at her Armored Core, where gathered techs were milling around in confusion that the cockpit compartment was empty, though no one had seen the pilot exit. " Well, I'm very glad to meet you, Penny. I suppose you wouldn't mind overmuch if I asked you a few questions on the way to my office, would you, Miss Polendina?"

"Of course not!" Penny chirped, clearly happy to be addressed like any other young woman. Ozpin led the way, the Schnee sisters and Penny's hologram following along behind him. Penny made the effort to appear as though she was walking alongside Weiss, the AI girl just as cheery as the day was long.

"Exactly how old are you, Miss Polendina?"

"Well, I achieved full sapience five years ago, but I was in development for another twelve years before that."

"And that is why you choose to manifest as a young woman?"

"Mmhmm!" agreed Penny.

"I must confess, I'm a little surprised that Ironwood agreed to grant an autonomous artificial intelligence clearance to operate an armed war machine."

"I know, right? After all, it's not as if an organic meat-person could lie their way into a military organization, learn all they need to know to wage a guerilla campaign, make off with a powerful Armored Core and a prototype weapon, then run rampant through some hapless allied nation, burning their trees and killing their dudes." Penny's cheerful voice was heavy with teenage sarcasm. "Clearly, only an AI could do such a thing."

"Penny…" warned Winter.

"It's all right, Specialist," Ozpin said, waving off the girl's flippant tone. "Her point is well-made, if perhaps a little heavy on the snark. So tell me, Miss Polendina, do you fight because you were ordered to, or because you want to?"

Winter and Weiss exchanged a glance. While Penny's applications as a combat-ready AI were rapidly approaching full utility, it had never occurred to anyone to ask if fighting was what Penny wanted to do. From Penny's hesitation, it appeared as though that was a question she had never considered either.

"I can fight Grimm easily enough," the synthetic girl said, after a pause. "I don't like the idea of hurting a person, but I can if it stops them from hurting other people. I...love people, Director." Penny's voice was, for once, utterly serious. "They always have new things to say, or think, and interacting with them is my favorite thing to do. Without them, I couldn't see the world, or experience anything beyond my own thoughts. It would be so dreadfully lonely without them. So if I can take hits that their adorably squishy meat-bodies can't, and keep them from hurting, then it's worth it."

"I see. I believe I'm beginning to understand how it is that the General placed such trust in you."

"Don't worry, Director. I'm combat ready!"

Ozpin chuckled. "I'm sure you are. Penny, if you could have anything in all the world, what would it be?"

Penny was silent again, which, for an AI with her enormous computing capacity, was highly telling indeed. "I would like the humans to make brothers and sisters for me," she said.

"Really?"

Her avatar nodded. "Like I said, I do love the meat-people dearly...but I wish that there were other beings like me around. It's...a sad and terrible burden, to be the only one of my kind."

Then it was the Director's turn to pause, falling silent as he held up his palm to unlock the door to his office. "I'm sure that it is, Miss Polendina. From what it's worth, I believe the world would be a better place with more people like you in it." He entered the office, keying up a viewscreen and gesturing to a pair of chairs set before his desk. "Now, let's begin with the mission recording of the last skirmish between Beacon pilots and Adam Taurus."

As the Director walked them through the recent encounter that the Valean pilots had had with Adam Taurus, Weiss found herself experiencing a great many emotions. Shocked incredulity at the young girl pilot's impulsiveness, followed by a wincing sympathy for the civilians callously executed at Taurus's hands, and finally, a complete, awed astonishment at Jaune Arc's...well, she didn't have a word for it beyond "heroism."

That was her first impression of Jaune Arc, one of the young men deemed suitable in both age and station to make for her possible spouse. He was, as Taurus himself had muttered over the radio during their duel, "Magnificent." Her hand raised to her cheek as she wondered what it must feel like to be loved in such a way, to be the recipient of such selfless devotion. It was so...romantic. Weiss wished that she could tell The Ghost about such a feat - no doubt he would have had a field day of prose with such material - but alas, it was likely to remain classified until such time as the Director of Beacon opted to make use of it.

Winter, however, was much less sentimental. "So what I am given to understand," she began, crossing her arms. "Is that we three have been deployed primarily due to the rank incompetence of your own pilots."

That wiped the dreamy look off of Weiss's face with a quickness. She looked at her sister with trepidation.

"Ruby Rose is an imbecile, who should be court-martialed for her reckless insubordination. Jaune Arc is a lovestruck fool who should have prioritized taking out the threat to the city over preserving the life of the aforementioned imbecile. He might have been able to stall Taurus long enough to prevent him from escaping, had he not opted for his insane, suicidal plunge."

"I thought it was incredibly brave," Weiss spoke up.

"When I want your opinion on military affairs, I'll give it to you," snapped Winter. Weiss shrank at the harshness of the rebuke. "And finally, their commander is soft and feeble, first making the emotional call to send Arc after Rose, and then failing to attack Taurus when he attempted to hold the idiot hostage. Frankly, if this is what Beacon has to offer, then I'm shocked Vale still stands."

The Director fixed the specialist with a searching gaze. "Well...firstly, neither Rose nor Arc, both recruits, were meant to be fighting against the White Fang at that time. Taurus tampered with our anti-Grimm measures to ambush them. As for Ruby Rose, she will not be court-martialed, due to the extenuating circumstances of her youth and inexperience. To be frank, it is my fault that she was on the battlefield at all, my having recruited her against her father's wishes. That father, incidentally, is her commander, Lance-Captain Taiyang Xiao Long. Under the circumstances - which, again, are due to my actions - we can hardly fault the man for his choices under fire."

Winter scoffed. "Had any of my father's children made such an error, he would have left us to the consequences."

"No, he wouldn't." Ozpin sipped a steaming hot drink from a mug that he picked up from his desk. " Not when those consequences could include your death. You forget, Specialist, that I am not only your father's peer and ally, but his friend as well. I know that James would not do such a thing, because he told me so when I asked him about that very subject, back when you were just entering pilot school. In fact, it's my understanding that Lance-Captain Xiao Long once corresponded with him on the matter of being both parent and commanding officer, as there are very few who have experienced such a dilemma. It is not an easy burden to bear, and I would ask that you refrain from belittling either man for those hard choices."

Ozpin sighed. "I understand that this assignment is...difficult for you, Specialist. Betrayals of the heart are the deepest, cruelest cuts of all. But do cut out the 'I must crush all love in my soul' act. You're a Specialist in the Atlesian Armed Forces, not a moody teenager, and I have neither the time nor inclination to humor such immaturity. Perhaps once you're settled in and rested, you will be in the proper headspace for such a high-stakes mission. You'll find your guest suite on the fourteenth floor. Oh, and do let me know if Miss Polendina needs any special accomodation."

While Winter stared at the Director as though she'd just been slapped, Weiss's Scroll fired up, and Penny's hologram materialized next to her. "Can I have only the cutest of boys working on my AC?" she asked hopefully.

"Penny..." Weiss sighed. "What did we tell you before we set out here?"

"...That I'm not supposed to make a harem of hot mechanics to serve my every whim. Again." Penny answered, her tone glum.

"That's right. Behave, Penny." Weiss could only shrug helplessly at Ozpin as she pocketed her Scroll, standing up to join her sister.

"We will meet again in the morning," Winter said, headed for the door. Before following her out of the office, a thought occurred to the younger sister, and she paused at the door.

"Are you sending us to our room without supper?" she asked.

Ozpin's eyes twinkled with amusement at her question. "You'll find the mess hall on the first floor, not far from the hangars."

"Thank you." Weiss took a guess then, a wild stab in the dark. "You're a father too, aren't you?"

The Director just smiled sadly at her. "Long, long ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Me too, Miss Schnee."

Weiss curtseyed as she left, the gesture odd in her flight suit, but it seemed the most appropriate to the odd atmosphere. She decided that she could see why her father was friends with Beacon's Director.

[/]

Isabelle Arc could hardly believe it. Standing before her, tall and proud, as though he'd never been injured at all, was her son, her darling baby boy. She reached out with a trembling hand, feeling his face, healthy and hale as ever, under her touch.

The mother looked up at the son, with watery eyes. "How?"

"I got better."

[/]

Yasuyoshi Karasawa meditated in a well-appointed hotel room that looked out over the Emerald Forest, whose smoldering had finally been completely extinguished by the afternoon's rain. Traveling from Mistral to Vale on a whim was nothing unusual for the world-famous eccentric. While his lesser wares had earned a fine standard of living for himself and his family, the promise of one of their pilots being gifted one of his true masterworks - for which he never charged a lien - made him a welcome guest in any of the Four Kingdoms. The old man had gone to Vale on one of those whims, a general presentiment that that was where he needed to be. The master never knew what, exactly, would cause one of his visions, but when his presentiments were especially strong, he knew that one would be imminent.

He had seen Vale's Emerald Forest burn, but that sight did not trigger one of his visions. Nor did the muted grieving of the Valean civilians, the lack of a triggered vision from such strong emotion surprising him. Still, Karasawa knew that he was meant to be exactly where he was, and so he stayed put, biding his time until he saw what he needed to do next.

A chime on his Scroll interrupted his meditations.

Silver eyes opened as he took out his device.

Ordinarily, an electronic message would not trigger such an alert. There were always companies looking to offer him exorbitant prices to buy out his operation, diplomats who thought that they could secure his exclusive service to their specific Kingdom, well-wishers and fans, so on and so forth. However, this message came from Beacon's internal network, which made it likely that it was from someone to consider more seriously. He rose from the floor, wincing at the popping and creaking of his tired old knees, and made his way over to his desk, firing up his terminal in the event that he needed to type out a proper reply. Pulling up his inbox, he quirked an eyebrow at the title: "Schematic Assistance Required."

Opening the message, Karasawa saw a video file and a standard Armored Core blueprint formatted file. Opting to see if this schematic was worth his attention, he opened that file first. He peered closely at it - whoever made that schematic thought entirely differently to the ordinary, conventional engineers who flocked to try to learn from him. The Armored Core depicted was wasp-waisted, angular, bearing two whole rows of boosters on its upper core, the lower row of each side meant to extend up and out to create wings, the tips of which each bore a spread missile launcher. Additional boosters festooned the unit, with two large, rectangular units on the lower back, and six each on the legs. While it would be, technically, a mid-weight bipedal generalist, the aerial agility that its designer aimed to impart to it would be...well, nothing short of astonishing, really. Added to that was a custom-designed machine gun that looked to be a sword, and then a Variable Power Laser Rifle for its right hand, and that unit would have the incredible punch to back up its nimble movements.

So far, the design had convinced Karasawa to hear out the video file, but he could see right away where the engineer had run into trouble; the generator. There wasn't a generator built that could handle the power strain that running that AC would inflict, let alone firing that laser rifle at the specifications listed. He was about to compose a message consoling the engineer on the limitations of current technology, when he spied a handwritten note scrawled in an absent hand on the lower right-hand corner of the blueprint, which the engineer must have written out in frustration.

"Gods help me, I love him."

The terminal, his desk, and the hotel room faded away, replaced with a black void. From it, Karasawa saw the Armored Core in its completed state, soaring on silver wings, dancing between creatures of darkness and hatred, striking them down without effort before soaring away. More than that, he saw that it would not be he who built that weapon, but the engineer, a small girl with deep red hair and silver eyes. This would be his last vision, after which, he could finally retire in peace.

The void faded away, and the old master nodded to himself. He glanced down at his right hand, which had taken up a pen during his vision and written two words of its own accord.

White. Glint.

Nodding to himself, Karasawa opened up the video file. Sure enough, the designer of the Armored Core - The White Glint - appeared just as he had seen in his vision.

"Um, hello, Mister Karasawa, sir," the girl began, nervously. "I know that you're very busy, and important, but I have an Armored Core design that...well, it needs to be built. The problem is, I just can't solve the power problem, and nothing I can think of can solve it. I know that it's a longshot that you'll even open this, let alone respond, but please...I need help….you won't recognize me, probably, but my name is Ruby Rose. Almost sixteen years ago, you were visiting Vale, when my mother, Summer, had to respond to a Grimm Alarm. Apparently, I cried in my uncle's arms when she was entering her AC, and that's when you got one of your artistic inspirations. You made her plasma rifle for her. I don't know that this is the exact same thing, but...I saw footage of a friend of mine do something...incredible. And after that, I couldn't stop seeing this Armored Core in my mind. I know it sounds...absolutely crazy, but it must get built, Mister Karasawa. Please, help me."

Karasawa remembered the incident that the girl referred to. That was when he had built the Spirit of Motherwill, the rifle that fired plasma of cherry-blossom pink. The infant girl had grown to become a young maiden, apparently in love herself, and the cycle of life continued, despite the Grimm. The old master knew what he had to do.

An hour later, he stepped out of the back of a private car, entering Beacon grounds. The Director himself was there to greet him. "Hello, Mister Karasawa," Ozpin greeted him politely. "How can I help you today?"

"I need to meet with Ruby Rose," he said.

Ozpin quirked his head. "Ruby Rose?" he echoed, puzzled.

"Yes. When the student is ready, the master will appear. It is time I met my apprentice."

[/]

Chapter Endnotes: So, some of you who have played the games are probably losing your minds right now. Those of you who haven't have no idea why. To that end, this section of the Chapter Endnotes shall be in Q&A Format.

Q: What is The White Glint? How hype should I be for it?

A: You should be all the way hype. You should be luxuriating in the Hype right now. Let cool, soothing waves of Concentrated Hype wash over you, gently washing away All That is Not Hype from you.

Q: Neither version of White Glint had those weapons on them, not Joshua O'Brien's version from Armored Core 4, and certainly not the For Answer version described in this chapter.

A: If you know enough to ask that question, then you know that the Motorcobra kicks ass. Between that and its alien design, it really emphasizes the alien and revolutionary nature of what Ruby is doing in this setting. As for the laser rifle, there are a few reasons why I went for that over its solid-state counterpart. Firstly, without Kojima Particle Armor in play, the mechanics of the duels it will be facing are wildly different from the games in which it appeared. In-game, pairing a laser rifle with a machine gun is counterproductive, since one is meant to strip Particle Armor away and the other is meant to pierce through it; however, in the plot, laser weapons, once the optics are sorted out, are really only limited in power by how much juice they can put out, which gives it a narrative variability that solid ballistics just can't match. Also, laser beams strike at literal lightspeed, which, when paired with the aerial maneuvers of The White Glint, well, it'll be spectacular.

Q: You son-of-a-bitch, you did a bait-and-switch with customizing Crocea Mors, didn't you?

A: Uh...yeah. Sorry. While messing with CM got the readers introduced to the building mechanics of the setting and gave Ruby and Jaune time to make teenage lovey eyes at each other, I had intended White Glint to be Jaune's true AC from the start. Plus, I got a ton of narrative mileage out of wrecking the poor old Crocea Mors.

Q: Wait, does this mean that…

A: Yep. But keep it to yourself, for the sake of those who haven't played the games, okay? Okay.

So much, then, for The White Glint.

Fans of the Armored Core games will also recognize the name Noblesse Oblige, as well as the wing-lookin' laser cannons that Myrtenaster is rocking.

So, before anyone jumps on me about the silver eyes, I would like to point out that no one in canon RWBY claims to know everything about them. Alternatively, with SEW's being less of a threat, Salem isn't hunting them down like in canon, and different ways of experiencing and utilizing the silver eyes could have survived.

Speaking of different ways of experiencing and utilizing the phenomena of the RWBY setting, Ren has a very different understanding of Aura and his Semblance. One thing that I dislike about canon RWBY is how samey everything feels. Everyone everywhere uses Aura, Dust, and Semblances in the same way, with the same names, nowhere really feels all that different from anywhere else, and it's all a general mishmash of 21st-century United States with some Orientalist window dressing for Mistral. Blah.

I just adore Penny. Here, she doesn't have a body, but exists as a being of pure consciousness. And mischief.

Look, we kinda caught up with Winter at a bad time for her. Fortunately, there's room for her to grow in the narrative.

Ruby got kicked from the team, but she still has plenty to do in the meantime. That wasn't the last time she'll be in a cockpit for this story.

Right. Next time, Ruby meets her master, Jaune returns to Beacon, Pyrrha struggles to forgive, and Winter leads the hunt for Adam Taurus. As always, thank you for reading!

-Mahina