Emerald's eyes reflected the light of another explosion as it rocked the pinkish void Evernight had become. The castle was in pieces, brick and stone floating idly as islands unto themselves. Somehow… she still didn't know how… they'd managed to survive it all, as this 'Frieza' freak took Salem's indifference to his attack poorly.

The castle became a one-sided warzone inside of a minute, and they'd fled out of the rotunda and into the meeting hall. She didn't think she would ever forget his high, frustrated shrieks, nor the shadow she could see upon the walls outside as he changed form… once… twice… something taller or more monstrous emerging as his true nature unveiled. Each time, the collateral damage as he attacked the Queen intensified, cracking more stone and breaking more glass. Evernight tended to mend damage to the castle as soon as it was caused, but the heft, volume and constance of the shocks was steadily overwhelming it, and their disparate pieces were suspended over the void in reverence to this power. The only thing saving them was the gulf that grew between them, most of a mile out, buffeted by the airbursts of power.

At last, he'd changed again. None of them could see more than vague silhouettes from the distance, but he looked… smaller. To what they could tell, Salem hadn't made a single move in retaliation.

"This is madness!" Watts shouted over the noise as he gripped a pillar with all his strength.

"Our Lady will not yield!" Tyrian cackled, arms out as he straddled the edge of their island, basking in the glow of power.

Emerald kept her back against the wall. "Why can't we leave?! She's going to let us all just get turned to dust?!"

Hazel had formed a wall before Emerald and Mercury, protective as he stared out into the expanse. "We're expendable, she can't risk him escaping. This is a battle of wills now."

There was a laugh from Jól Yaldā as she grinned at the conflict in a fascination that nearly vied for Tyrian's. "You maggots think Lord Frieza is trapped in here with your boss? I'll admit, she's a tough old broad… She's pushed him into his true form even! But nothing can stand before the Emperor of the Universe forever."

Tyrian chuckled, swiveling his head dangerously as yellow eyes peered out from under his hood. "I'd mind my tongue, little girl…" He audibly licked his chops as he took a step closer. "A lone Maiden in a den of wolves is less visitor than prey…"

Cinder had a gleam in her eye as she finally tore them from the battle. A Maiden delivered on a silver platter. In the chaos, the creature wouldn't question his little follower being killed in the crossfire. Callows was a fool, but he had his uses… and here he was, threatening the lonely Winter Maiden and distracting her to the real threat right behind her—

The black arm she launched was caught without the blonde even looking her way, and as Tyrian reared up, Jól grabbed him by the collar in a flash and pulled him suddenly into a headbutt. She was like a steel wall, and he crumpled unconscious like a pile of wet rags as his purple aura smashed and splintered. Then her blue eyes turned smugly to Cinder, who struggled to retract her arm.

"Neat trick!" Jól praised, squeezing the wrist as she turned. "Rustic establishment, but don't think I'll be rating the staff highly for their hospitality…"

Cinder's tearsign erupted as she struggled, grunting as she tried to overpower the grip. Ultimately she settled for hurling a spraying gout of fire, fit to melt a human being… But as she lost her breath, the glow vanished to reveal the unharmed Maiden, utterly unfazed.

"Hmm… well that's new," Jól noted.

Cinder launched blast after blast in rapid succession, conjured flaming spears that clattered off as they zeroed-in on the Winter Maiden's throat.

Her own aquamarine tearsign burst into being as she let out a gruff cry, with a wild, flaming aura of the same color blasting out to shatter the entire arsenal.

"H-how?!" Cinder groaned, still struggling, leaning back as she tried to free her arm. "You're just a Maiden like me, how are you this STRONG?! What IS this power?!"

Jól laughed again as she advanced, pinning her wrist to the wall with one hand and grabbing Cinder around the throat with the other. "I'm guessing 'Maiden' isn't a reference to this cute little body I picked up… All that power, and you're clueless to using it!"

More brick sprayed as Cinder's head was slammed into it, her Aura sputtering as she cried out, coughing and hacking in pain.

The lot of them were cowed to see Cinder so handily dismantled, but Hazel took a step forward. "You've made your point, Jól, now please… no more threat here."

She tilted her head. " 'Yoll?' " she repeated phonetically. "Strange, is this person's body someone important? The name's Ginyu, bottom-feeders! Acting Supreme Commander to the Frieza Force!" She finally released Cinder, who slumped to the floor as Emerald hugged the wall to reach her. "And Captain of the illustrious…!" Ginyu stood rod straight as her fist rose, twisting on one foot as her other arm crossed her chest in parallel with her shoulders. "...Vociferous!" Her legs flew out wide before her as she caught herself on one hand, the free hand flashing a sort of inverted peace-sign. "...And eponymous Ginyu Force!" She spun on her palm as her legs landed together, toes pointed outward as her knees fanned apart in an extremely uncomfortable looking crouch. The rest of her leaned forward, palms up and out with her arms forming a tilted 'V'

She stood there for effect, teeth bared with her smug grin burning a hole into the air.

To say Salem's entourage was surprised was insufficient. Despite fearing for Cinder, even that was put on hold as Emerald processed what she'd just seen. For a moment there it looked like she was about to attack them CROTCH-FIRST…

Ultimately it was so unexpected, so unbelievable and so nothing-she-wanted-to-see-or-acknowledge that her mind's only response was to blush with embarrassment. It was like being approached by a theme-park mascot… she just wanted to melt into the floor.

Meanwhile Cinder was undergoing a similar conundrum. Part of her knew it would be the height of ignominy if she died to this clown! The rest of her knew that being humbled as she was by said clown, death might actually be a kinder fate...

"What the hell was that?" Mercury finally surmised as Ginyu blinked, stance faltering only slightly as her lips scrunched up into her nose.

At once Ginyu had stood up straight, fist out. "That was the height of style, kid! Like you'd know, one color off from a black and white picture, drab little upstart!"

Mercury blinked at the insult.

"Am I the only one who noticed her saying she took this body?" Watts asked, nonplussed.

"No," Hazel denied, "so that's something."

Emerald had a sudden hunch that made her shudder. "Wait… is 'Ginyu' a girl's name?"

Ginyu bared her teeth. "I won't be stuck with this womanly body for much longer, once I've found a stronger one!"

"Oh my GOD…" Emerald exclaimed with sudden revulsion, a wave of empathy coursing through her as she imagined the poor Winter Maiden, her body being invaded by some male… thing! Prancing about, wearing her, showering… It could make her do anything. Suddenly this silly thing had become ten-fold more frightening.

"You idiot…" Cinder laughed weakly, slumped against the wall.

"You want seconds, girly?" Ginyu threatened.

"You're… not going to find stronger…" Cinder explained. "You stumbled onto one of the four Maidens; we're the strongest beings on Remnant, and we're ALL girls here."

Ginyu frowned, and lashed out with a virtually invisible kick to Cinder's stomach that cracked the wall behind her as she gasped, eyes bugging out in pain as the wind was knocked out of her.

"And there's gonna be one less in a second," Ginyu said coldly, palm extending.

Emerald leapt in between them, arms out protectively. "No, please, you need her!"

Ginyu paused. " 'Need her?' What for?"

Emerald shook as Ginyu took aim at her instead. "Your boss needs her! If he wants immortality… it'd have to be done with the Relics, and only the Maidens can reach them!"

"First Dragonballs, now Relics," Ginyu sighed. "I think you're bluffing, kid."

Emerald winced as she awaited the blow. "I-If you kill Cinder, her power transfers randomly to someone else! Would you risk being the reason he can't become immortal?"

Ginyu didn't answer. Hazel stepped forward. "We can prove it. Your boss owns Shade Academy, and the Winter Maiden… you… can open the vault to the Sword of Creation. We can show it to you."

Ginyu hesitated… but lowered her guard with a scoff. "That's gonna depend on how this ends," she said, nodding towards the battle still in progress.

"You WILL fall before me!" he screamed, the air quaking as both hands prepared a black and purple sphere over his head.

She floated in the atomized void, remaining in place as she was struck again and again as his movements became wilder and more beastly. She couldn't even track him as the hits landed faster than she could perceive from every conceivable direction.

But she knew it was the last gasp.

Twin red beams from blood-red eyes pierced the boiling air to sear her before his diminutive form was before her as fists and feet like hands beat into her.

She'd never been tested like this before… but her body did not yield.

At last, he flashed away from her, stood upon a piece of floating rubble as brick formed under her feet again. His fists clenched and he held them out to his sides as he growled, panting not with exhaustion, but pure rage.

"Damndable SOW! Immortal or not, none can resist my power! FIGHT BACK!"

Salem rolled her shoulders as she shook off the intensity of it all. "I'm afraid that would be pointless. I can't contest a power like yours, Lord Frieza, but nor will I fall to it. I am a Destroyer's progeny, and that comes with a number of benefits. Benefits that you could stand to profit from if you listened to my proposal."

Frieza only tensed further, barely resisting the urge to attack once more. "I will torture you till the breaking of the world!"

"What world?" she asked, gesturing around the fragmented void as it attempted to rebuild in the lull. "If it escaped your notice, this is not Remnant. In this realm, I hold sole dominion, and I control who enters and leaves. We can be of use to each other… or we can carry on like this until your last summer… or more likely, until you've starved to death."

Frieza's teeth ground hard enough to mulch mountains. A vein on his temple pulsed dangerously. His eyes turned to the spot where Ginyu and her flunkies clinged to life. "And it matters not if I've slain your subjects, oh Queen?"

She sighed. "I sought revenge on humanity thousands of years before you were born. Patience comes easy, for time is my ally. Those are replaceable… So once more the choice is yours, Lord, so long as I still deign to offer it."

Frieza floated there, frozen stiff by his own fury… but now was not the time for rash actions. "Well done…!" he spat, little more than a hiss. He chuckled. "I applaud such a devious strategy…! I confess myself at a disadvantage… I never might have anticipated such a grand trap."

"I wouldn't take it personally; only a being like myself could bear the strain of your might, and I have it on good authority that I am an aberration of the natural order."

Frieza leered. "Once more you have my ear, so don't waste my time, nor my patience! What do you propose?"

Salem hummed. "First… I must ask, why have you come here? Did you seek the Relics? Did one of the colonies survive, or perhaps the other offshoots of the human race remembered more than planned?"

He crossed his arms. "I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest notion what you mean, dear. I, my underling, and a number of my enemies were stranded upon your shores in a bout of magical treachery. My purpose henceforth is to return to my empire, astral gulfs apart, and deliver unto them a dynasty of suffering! I've not the faintest interest in your primitive, ape-addled rock."

"Truly?" Salem asked, a smile growing on her face.

"The one curiosity beside yourself, however, is your extant human pestilence. In my corner of the Cosmos they exist as feeble low-born vermin from an aptly-titled hovel called 'Earth.' You suggest this is the well from which the beasts have sprung?"

Salem blinked slowly. The dialogue had been reforged. "Once they were far greater than they are, felled by a Destroyer who feared their rise. Before being cast down, they spread to many worlds by use of the divine Relics granted them by this world's creators. One of them was my maker."

Frieza tilted his head, tail whipping idly with a creak. "Again, you speak as a thing apart, but you'll forgive me… you bear a striking resemblance to them."

Salem's smile grew wider. "Looks can be deceiving, my Lord. My essence might be focused in the being before you, but the breadth of me is scattered across Remnant in the form of what the humans call 'the Creatures of Grimm.' I appropriate select humans in aid of diminishing those areas in which I'm… deficient. And besides that, they're far more cooperative to something they see as familiar."

He watched as she changed before him. The pallor faded to a more human tone. The red in her eyes gave way. Even the shape of her face softened, as though she'd held it taut in some underlying scowl.

"Oh?" Frieza's brows rose at the sight. He couldn't place it, but there was the strangest familiarity eating at the back of his mind…

Satisfied, she returned to her ghostly appearance in seconds.

"Well this has all been quite illuminating," Frieza told her, "but as we've yet to strike an accord, I insist we return to ways and means."

"Of course," Salem agreed, as the castle finally began to reseal around them. "The Relics by which Man attained their former greatness still exist on Remnant, in four vaults, guarded by the four Kingdoms, and obtainable only by the four Maidens whose power shifts from life to life. One of my number owns the power of the Fall Maiden. Curiously… your follower presently occupies the Winter Maiden."

Frieza glimpsed at the sealing brickwork to see the platinum blonde beyond its bounds. "Ginyu? How fortuitous…"

"Yes. You'll forgive my assumption that you came here with purpose regarding the Relics. She is a curious companion to have, least of all that she alone can open the way to the Relic hidden under Shade Academy where you've settled."

" 'She alone?' " Frieza repeated. "If it is a matter of wresting the trinkets from their places, I fail to see why you play this game when you need only a tactful application of force. And I believe you're aware, but I annihilated one of your Kingdoms quite recently. By all odds, the bauble is quite obliterated."

Salem shook her head. "These are not worldly confinements, nor are the Relics worldly objects. You could no more destroy them with mere force than this realm. At any rate, I have it on reasonable enough authority that the Relic was moved before your… episode."

Frieza clucked his tongue. "Such a bother… I grow weary of the arbitrations of magic. Why do we need these wretched things? And if the humans possess them still, why are they not as they were, pray tell? Powerful as to span the stars?"

"At the behest of the gods who made them," Salem began, a scowl forming on her face, "one human was chosen to guard the Relics, reincarnating into a new form upon death. He's been gracious enough to keep our struggles a secret, only confiding in a chosen few at any given time. He has hidden the Relics from me, and even his own kind."

A memory flashed in Frieza's eyes. "Ah! I believe I might have encountered this guardian! Masquerading in the form of a child, an old soul with a treacly sense of honor… I suppose with your candidate that you've as yet procured one of these Relics?

Salem sighed. "The Relic she represents has proven elusive. Our mutual friend has evidently gone to special lengths to guard it from my sight, even after tearing Beacon Academy to pieces in search of its vault. It will need to wait."

"I suppose for such an honorable man, he'll not be so susceptible to simple torture?"

She smiled. "He was only recently bonded to the body he inhabits, and the child's mind remains independent of his for now. It's quite possible he'll prove more amenable than you'd think to guard the boy from pain…" She turned, staring out the window to the blasted red lands back on Remnant, the image no more than a projection of Evernight's original site. "The Relics themselves are virtually limitless in power when combined. I've never used them myself, but this place was once Man's greatest stronghold and repository of knowledge, including their every dealing with the Relics and their capabilities." She turned to him again. "I can use them to give you a part of what I am, Lord Frieza, the glory of immortality you've long sought."

Frieza's eyes narrowed as the smile left his face. "Or use them to take my life, I'd wager… or I yours… You take me for a common fool?!"

Salem's face softened as she took a step closer. "It's no secret that I don't want you here," she admitted, "and you wish not to be here. It's true, either of us could obtain the Relics and bring the other to an end… but a mere three Relics could grant you the everlasting life you desire, and I could even guide you to achieve it yourself without my interference."

Still skeptical, Frieza regarded her with bubbling malice.

She continued. "But with the four, I can grant us both what we want. This realm can open to any place near one of my creatures on the planet… but with the Relics together, the humans used it to instantly bridge the gap to any place in the Universe."

Frieza's eyes lit up as his chin lifted at last. His whole body shifted.

Salem smiled. "I could return you to your lost empire, Lord Frieza… and after that, we needn't lay eyes upon the other again if you don't wish it."

"Hmm!" Frieza intoned, smiling wickedly. "Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm! I must say, you present a most enticing offer! Though I've yet to hear what's required of me apart from absconding this repugnant little orb…"

Salem smiled. The castle had fully reformed by now. "That's more than a start," she said, a mere thought causing a large round table and two chairs to phase into being as she sat down like they'd existed all along.

Frieza seemed to smoke for but a moment, and his own flesh broke off as his horned first form emerged from beneath it, the pieces disintegrating before they even touched the floor as he deigned to sit himself. "As I see no more need for us to come to blows," he explained.

"In that spirit, feel free to conjure a refreshment," she offered. "This was originally a realm made to provide for mortal beings —humans, but don't let that dissuade you— and so it will provide even that which should be impossible."

Frieza hummed at the pleasantry. "Curiouser and curiouser… So if I were to desire an aged Littese Rosé…? Ohhh…"

A pleasantly pink goblet of wine appeared before him, fizzing gently. He picked it up, waving it beneath his purple lips. "Even the bouquet is the proper fragrance…" He sighed, almost forlorn. "A shame prudence bids me refuse, at the risk of offending the lady… What should I call you, oh gracious host?"

Salem remained impassive in her smile. "I've no titles, my lord… but I'd be remiss to deprive myself of all those pithy… telling little sobriquets of yours…"

His eyebrows shrugged at her indifference. "Were it any other creature, I'd have the strictest confidence in my body to render a poisoning pointless… but in your case I just can't know. Of monsters and magic, I fear I'm quite the layman."

"Honestly, I'd be disappointed by anything less."

"Well... I hardly see the base in keeping this a private affair." He turned to the door, eyes wide as his volume heightened. "No need to listen at the keyhole, children! Mommy and daddy have stopped beating each other for the moment…"

The door did open, with Ginyu swaggering inside as Salem's followers cautiously followed. Bruised, Cinder didn't take it much further than the doorframe, watching it all with bemusement.

Salem peered over them. "Where is Tyrian?"

"Unconscious," Watts answered. "Something of a spirited sideline disagreement along party lines."

Ginyu's teeth flashed with her grin as Salem hummed.

"Interesting… So this latent ability can be learned by humans. I believe that will be our first concession; I'd like if you could teach this power to my disciples."

Ginyu scoffed. "I bet you would."

Frieza chuckled. "As it happens we were just discussing the aim of arming my underlings with ability worthy of my name, before your bristled messenger found us. In our experience those with power are fated to have it and require no such instruction. In most circumstances, power is more a matter of birth than knowledge."

Emerald couldn't help catching Cinder's expression. She blinked constantly, mouth open as if she might say something, but never did. She looked distressed by what he'd said.

"There are exceptions, however. The Saiyans for one have defied their limitations, strength dramatically increasing with successive battles and by edging near to death only to wrest from its jaws. I myself detected an unexpressed well of power within the humans of this world; nothing overly impressive, but enough to realize their kind are stymied as not to use it. My dear Ginyu bore this out after taking possession of one of their bodies and proving surprisingly formidable with application of his own unique skills."

Salem gave Ginyu a harder gaze. "Interesting. So you'll do it?"

Ginyu scowled. "What a ploy! Teach you skills to be used against Lord Frieza?! She's taking us for a ride!"

Salem hummed. "It would have cost me nothing to try my own strength against yours, Frieza, and yet I did not retaliate. If I wanted this to end with your death, I could starve you out and be done. I cannot use human power any more effectively than they can. My power is my own, different from yours, and I know that in this area my resistance would be but a stemmed leaf against the cyclone."

Watts watched it all play out with fascination and exhaustion. That it had come down to negotiation after the pitched battle before… Things on Remnant were about to change forever.

Salem stood up, turning to the guarded Maiden. "My concern is not for you, but those who arrived with you. Lord Frieza, you and I are the sort to convey strength through influence, not as islands unto ourselves. I have my own reasons for remaining in Evernight, but we need those who can act effectively on our behalf, and with the power you bring I fear my own stand woefully unprepared."

"A counter-force to Vegeta and his little friends?" Frieza surmised. "Indeed, if any step taken on this world might require superior power, a king and queen have need of the other pieces on the board. I hope your troupe is up to the task."

Ginyu eyed her master with concern, but did not contradict him.

Salem sat back down. "Next, I feel it's unlikely that I might dissuade you from open war. My aim on Remnant has been to sow mistrust among the humans, though perhaps not to this extent. With Vacuo conquered and Mistral destroyed, the odds that the others will galvanize against a threat like yourself are high. Fortunately, as you might have noticed by now, we've managed to cripple global communications. Thus your nature remains a matter of mystique and rumor. I might suggest you keep it that way, remaining a feared name and nothing more, the truth of you a mystery."

Frieza gave a humming laugh. "Such a lark… I've never taken a world with anything short of overwhelming force… I confess, dragging it out sounds delightfully amusing."

Salem smiled. "And presents a proper misdirection as my people take the remaining Maidens and Relics while they've occupied themselves with fearing you."

"Now now, my dear… You shouldn't think I'd be so foolish as to leave these trinkets solely in your care?"

"Of course not," she said without hesitation. "You already possess a perfect means of safeguarding two Relics. The vault under Shade already contains one. I'll hold the other two. Your Maiden —Ginyu, was it?— is the only being who could open it. This was the design of an enemy who sought to repel me specifically. If trust is your concern, it needn't apply."

Frieza steepled his hands, eyes boring into hers. He glanced across the others in the room, then turned right back to the black queen. At last, he shook with his humming laugh, before it burst into an open-mouth cackle as he stood up. He strode half the distance towards her, extending his hand. "A joint venture, cooperation in the aims of ridding each of the other… We've an accord then?"

She gave a heavy blink and stood up herself, well more than a head taller than him, and traveled the last few steps to meet him. She lightly took his hand, and both gave a firm grip. "May all we desire be ours… It's been a pleasure."

"All yours, I'm sure."

A black gate yawned into existence before them, back to the sands and stone.

"Cinder?" Salem called. "Take your team and help our new partners to find the vault under Shade. You'll remain to join the others for instruction later."

Cinder bowed obediently, uneasy as Ginyu caught her eye.

Watts took a step forward. "My lady, surely you're not including me in that…?"

Salem didn't look at him. "Combat is not your specialty, Arthur, yes I am aware. As such, I expect your prior responsibilities to be carried out with all the more focus. Your comrades will be put to great strain. If they must double their efforts, then I expect nothing less of you."

"Of… Of course, ma'am."

Frieza glanced behind him as Cinder followed, and was herself accompanied by the impassive Mercury and uneasy Emerald. Ginyu brought up the rear as they filed through back to Vacuo, leaving the Queen's realm behind.

Taiyang was followed by Qrow, Krillin and Ozpin and Bulma as he stepped outside, darkness having finally taken the Island of Patch. Mostly, they were attracted to the distant sound and flaring lights through the trees.

"I see Vegeta's taking it well," Bulma snarked.

"Turning our land into ground-zero is 'taking it well?' " Tai asked as he edged towards the cellar.

Krillin stepped in. "The first time we met, he got so ticked-off that Goku could land a hit on him that he tried to blow up the planet. Ripping up a few football fields is restraint."

"We're not the only folks that live on this island, he's gonna get the regular army brought down on us."

Oscar stepped out onto the dirt. "Then there's really no sense waiting." He extended his staff, dragging its end in the dirt around him to firm a circle.

"Oz… what are you doing?" Tai asked, warning behind his voice.

"I'm glad you asked," he said, pausing. "I was able to recover a great deal of magic once used to seal the Lamp in Haven. I can use that with little consequence to form a sphere of protection around your domicile… Protection for us, and protection from us and all we might do within it."

"Uh, so… does that mean this is 'hero HQ' now?" Yang asked, stepping outside alongside Raven.

Oscar turned. "Were we still in Mistral and burdened by typical travel restrictions, I'd suggest we reconvened with James Ironwood under the protection of Remnant's strongest kingdom. But as our primary force can circumnavigate the globe with apparent ease, it does seem more prudent to operate out of a single, hidden base of operations."

Taiyang sighed as Oscar met his eye. "Heeeeere it comes…"

"Yes Tai, with your permission I would like to establish that base on your property."

Taiyang grimaced, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, it's better than wondering what my kids are up to, and whether they're still alive."

"Wait, hold up!" Yang shouted, leaping the rail to reach Oscar's level. "Does anyone else think Salem, Frieza and anyone else with a hit out on us shouldn't be able to hunt down Ruby n' me just by searching our names on the net? Our secret rebel-base is literally listed in the phone book?"

Krillin hummed. "She's got a point…"

Yang continued. "Why not do this trick on Beacon? It's close, empty, built for combat training… Not like the Grimm are gonna be a problem."

"Attractive, but it wouldn't work," Qrow told her. "Sure, we could clear the Grimm, but that wouldn't go unnoticed. She'd feel that, send people to check it out. She's still searching around for the Beacon Relic. Meanwhile, rebuilding efforts would start as soon as Vale sees the opportunity. They've got to get the CCT network up and running again."

"Beacon's too high profile," Raven agreed. "Magic or no magic, stepping on Salem's toes would be inevitable. At least here people need to go out of their way to reach it."

Ozpin nodded. "And if they did, this spell isn't a mere shield. All inside it largely exist within an overlapping space only accessible by those explicitly invited. All else will merely pass through a facsimile of the property that appears long abandoned. Enemies will believe Taiyang has fled and move on."

" 'Invite' people," Yang repeated. "So it's like vampire rules…"

Krillin blinked. "Vampires have rules? Wish I'd known that at Baba's tournament, I got my head sucked."

There was a ripple of blinking as a number of them went rod-straight.

"Context?" Qrow begged.

"Well, I fought a vampire once as a kid… and lost. He chomped down right on the ol' chestnut. Didn't even offer cookies and orange juice, just kicked me out of the ring."

"Vampires are REAL? So you're a vampire too?!"

"Huh? No, I just lost a lotta blood."

"I… I…" Yang sighed, leaning back to slump against the railing. "I don't know what's real anymore…"

Taiyang got back on track. "So, obviously this doesn't stop anyone from seeing us come or go into town. We gotta lay low?"

Ozpin refocused. "Mm, not per se. I wouldn't loudly advertise our presence, but even if our enemies knew, there isn't much they can do about it. The Haven vault survived even the blast that destroyed Mistral. For all intents and purposes, I think that's as thorough a stress test as I ever might have dreamed putting them through."

"Well, if you're doing it, then do it."

Bulma had a sudden thought. "Wait, hold on!"

Krillin spoke first. "What?"

She stepped past Oscar, turning around. "Normally I'm ridiculously liquid, but there's no exchange for Zeni, and even if I could manufacture dynocaps to sell that'd get us noticed fast."

"What's this about dinosaurs…?" Raven demanded, annoyed.

Bulma sighed. "Look, if we're all staying here, and if I'm going to be making tech to help, it's all going to be expensive! I've got some capsule-houses, but we're gonna need a barracks, materials, toiletries, food!" She hooked a thumb toward Taiyang. "And it's not fair to dump all this on blue-eyes here and drive him broke footing the bill!"

"Blue-eyes…?" Tai whispered in surprise.

Krillin stared. "Wow, that's… thoughtful of you, Bulma."

She leered. "Of course! I'm super thoughtful! I don't like imposing on other people's goodwill…"

"Since when?"

"Since shut-it, Krillin!"

Ozpin smirked. "That won't be a problem. Over my lifetimes I've accrued a great deal of capital and kept caches I alone can access, both to safely secure my cane between lives and ensure I'm not hindered by the circumstances of the new. We need only take a brief trip to Vale to secure all we can conceivably need."

"So what happened back at the train station?" Oscar demanded.

"The nearest such cache would have been in Mistral. By then monetary concerns were moot. Now without further ado…"

Oscar's body burned green, brighter and brighter as a pulse surged down the cane's staff. He slammed the end into the ground, emerald fissures reaching out to the circle like lightning before the circle itself burned with the glow.

Before their eyes, a bubble of distorted light burst out to engulf them, the house, and in seconds was spreading out into the night sky until it had blended in with the darkness. All lights on the property went out, and even the moon itself dimmed… but gently the glow returned, and all was silent again. Even the chirp of crickets had quieted from the phenomenon having spooked them so.

"It's done," Ozpin said.

"So much for the easy stuff," Qrow muttered.

With a pair of hard clinks, Taiyang slapped down two huge bottles of clear and amber liquid on the kitchen table where Jaune, Ren and Nora were seated.

"Whoa," Qrow exclaimed as he read the labels. "Bill and Jake's Cognac… and Eventyr triple-distilled Vodka…"

Taiyang glowered as he put a finger to Qrow's chest. "You get A shot. One…"

He placed a sheet of paper on the table and rolled a couple pens beside it. "Okay! If we're all doing this, we're gonna need to establish a few things. This is an anonymous list… Tomorrow I'm gonna be going into town and picking up food and supplies. The list is for anyone to write down special dietary needs, suggestions, or… various gendered hygiene products outside the basics…"

There were a few uncomfortable side glances among the girls of the group, but no arguments otherwise.

"Two baths if anyone needs to clean up, upstairs and joined to the laundry room downstairs. Only a couple clean towels, so I'd run your clothes with a few dirty ones for the next person. Laundry is stocked if you need to run it. Got a few sleeping bags and blankets, but gonna be playing it by ear tonight."

Suddenly there was a trifecta of bangs outside. Several of them ducked, fearing Vegeta had turned his wrath in their direction, but the screen door squealed as she stepped inside. "These should help!"

They looked out the window to see three dome-shaped little buildings on the lawn amidst the clearing smoke.

"Two beds apiece, room on the floor," she explained, a number of them still baffled at the concept.

"Err… alright then!" Taiyang agreed. "So, make yourselves at home… We'll figure the rest come morning. Like I said, open-bar," he said, tapping the bottles, which sat beside a tray of identical shot glasses, "so that's a thing…"

With that, he strode off into the living room, again looking like a stranger to a party he wasn't invited to.

Nora eyed Ren as Jaune stared at the bottles, not really seeing them but for the slow, syrupy swirl of the fluid within.

"Don't stop me, Ren," Nora warned. "I know it's not syrup, but my brain is all wound tight, and I'm an adult, darn it!" she finished, slamming a fist against the table to a brittle clattering.

Ren sat motionless. "I… wasn't going to stop you. I'll try the vodka. Sake was one of my father's vices… Always wondered about it… I don't know whether or not this is similar…"

"Bit stronger," Qrow told him, swiping a glass and filling it to the brim with the cognac. "N' cognac is basically bourbon, but better." He lifted the glass, not spilling a dribble as he downed the shot in one practiced motion. He clapped the glass back down, bottom-end up, then made for the door. "Drink responsibly."

Raven sneered as she watched him leave. Then her hair bristled as she felt eyes on her back. She turned. "Oh… Yang."

Yang idly held her frayed favored limb, but her gaze was no less piercing. "So… the Spring Maiden… Can we talk about that?"

She sighed. "Outside."

Ruby's eyes flicked between Goku, Gohan and Oobleck from her seat on the stairs, the former two seated on the couch as Goku expounded in awe about the godly things they'd seen. The latter had found a legal pad and was writing so feverishly she wondered whether the paper would catch fire. Her dad approached him.

"Stupid question, but you getting anything, Bart?"

Taiyang's smile widened as the good doctor shooed him away. "I cannot be disturbed! I must compose a record of all the history we witnessed for posterity's sake! Regardless..." He slumped momentarily. "Regardless if the greater public or proper academic channels will allow such visions into evidence…"

"I just can't believe those two kids," Goku added, enthused, "and that little Zeno-guy! I thought it couldn't get better than King Kai's training, but I wonder if—"

"Absolutely NOT!" The voice came crashing down from the sky. "Grand Zeno is not a fighter, he is THE supreme being! Frankly, even knowing he exists without his knowledge or consent… Even knowing about Destroyers is WAY above your pay-grade, bub!"

"Well what about the Beers and Wiz guy?"

"I don't know which meeting would be WORSE!"

Ruby smiled and caught Gohan's eye. He made to look away like he'd been caught.

"Gohan…!" She called, smiling at him. The invitation thawed his hesitation, and he strode cautiously over as she patted the spot next to her. He sat down.

"Hey… We haven't really spoken since it all went down. Are you okay? You were really brave back there when Frieza showed up."

"I learned back on Earth… saw what happens when you hesitate…" Gohan bashfully sought Ruby's eye. "Ruby, I'm sorry about earlier… are you… not mad at me anymore?"

She paused, smiling fondly as she hugged him. "I was never mad at you, Gohan… I'm sorry you thought so…" Pain came over her smile. "You were right… I just would have died. Nothing would have changed, I just… I couldn't stand to sit there and watch. I needed someone to pull me back from the edge, and that was you Gohan. My little bud…"

Relieved, he laughed as she mussed his hair. "Rosebuds…?"

She snickered, arm around his back. "Yeah! Rosebuds forever…"

They sat a moment. She really did take strength from his ferocious example. If a boy like him could protect the world…

She thought of something. "Gohan, there were a couple moments back there when you kinda… scared me."

"Huh?"

"Yeah… You got Cinder off of me, and Frieza later… You saved my life… but you were so angry…"

He looked guilty. "I couldn't let you get hurt."

"I know," she said, soothingly. "We're not too different when it comes to people we care about… It just seems wrong for a little boy like you to have to deal with all this."

"Maybe… Is your… 'Crescent Rose' gonna be alright? Maybe Bulma can fix it."

"Oh, pff," she played off, waving a dismissive hand. "I just need to sneak into Signal and use the tools there tomorrow. I still keep the print files on my scroll, most of the replacement parts can just be machined real quick."

His eyes lit up. " 'Files?' Y'mean, like… you design it with a computer?"

"Sure!" she said, entering her wheelhouse. "There's this app called Fluidworks to design stuff with moving parts! Helps you figure out gear ratios and stress points, and you can test it in the computer before even making it and…"

She paused, and he stared. "Uh… Ruby?"

"Gohan… do you want your own weapon?"

His eyes lit up. "Piccolo gave me a short-sword when we were training… It was nice, but I fight better with my hands free…"

"Say no more," she laughed. "I mean, ask your dad first… but Yang's the same way and designed Celica around how she fights. I think we can do something that gives you an edge without getting in the way. It's like Deha said to me… lean on each other's strengths."

"Cool…" the son of Goku cooed with awe and excitement. "Ruby… what's it feel like to be a god?"

"Uh…!" She uttered awkwardly, eyes unfocused. "I-I'm not really a god, just… I don't know what… but… no different than this morning, I guess?"

"It was amazing to see how all the world really works," he continued, not missing a beat. "I hated seeing them die…"

She didn't have to ask. "Yeah… me too."

"They did so much for us."

She sighed. "They did, but… I think it's complicated, Gohan. They were heroes to us, but a lot of people were lost who didn't do anything wrong. Not too many things that are as simple as good guys and bad guys."

"Uh huh… like Vegeta."

She blinked. "Where is he, by the way?"

Gohan met her eye and nodded, focusing. "Not far. He's out fighting something I can't sense. Probably Grimm."

She nodded. "We knew Grimm didn't manifest an Aura, so we've always said they didn't have souls… but now we know they're all Salem, and she has… like… a backwards soul?"

"Maybe it's the god-energy? Krillin and I couldn't sense you either when your eyes went off…"

She frowned, nodding. "Oh, wait! How can you sense him now? Weren't you guys hiding your power from Frieza?!"

"Oh! Sorry, we should have said something. That weird thing Frieza wore on his eye? That's a scouter. For some reason, aliens like him don't know how to feel out powers, so they use those to find us."

She nodded, remembering the red glassy monocle.

Gohan smiled. "And he broke it while fighting Vegeta. There's no place he can get a new one now, so we don't have to hide our powers anymore."

She sighed with relief. "That… actually sounds like a big advantage. Finally some good news…"

He pondered. "Ruby… why do people drink? I've never seen my dad do it…"

She gave an exasperated laugh. "Well, my uncle is the biggest drinker I know… and I think it helps keep pain away. Now… I think that's definitely the case."

He shook his head. "Mister Piccolo always taught me to fight the things that hurt you."

"Well, not everything that hurts is something you can fight… and it's not always your enemy," she explained, as he nodded. "I think I've had you to myself long enough… Your dad must have missed you a lot." She urged, nodding Goku's way with a smile.

"You're right," he sighed. "It was good to talk…"

They shared a smile as he got up and returned to Goku on the couch as he played "keep-away" from Zwei with his own fingers, the corgi mouthing the air in playful frustration as they danced around his nose.

Suddenly Ruby realized her father had sat down beside her, a cup of orange juice in his hands.

"So… safe to call this a rough day?"

Ruby turned to face ahead again. "Well… yeah. I'm okay tho—"

"Nope," Taiyang countered, shaking his head. "I thought it sounded hard before, but you just went through another Beacon… escaped one of the galaxy's most wanted… said goodbye to some people… saw like, half a dozen gods, talked to one…"

"Dad," she sighed.

"And found out you basically are one," he finished, shaking his head. "In the history of big, bad days, this is about as big and bad as they get. And I know you… I know you don't like to mope, you deal with grief by yourself and never make it other people's business."

"Dad, I… I'm not—"

"But you don't need to admit a damn thing," he said, setting the cup down by his feet, "just let me be here for ya…"

With that, his hand was behind her back and head, and as she complained suddenly he pulled her into him with a strong hug. She resisted, but he didn't let go, rubbing her back until she was forced to relax.

There had been a lot of affection going around that day, but… she knew what he was doing, even if it wasn't spoken. This wasn't for Mistral, for lost friends or hard truths… this was for her, for the pains she hid from the world. Because of course he, if anyone, could see through her.

She relented, squeezing him back in equal measure with that pain. It was a while before he let go, still patting her back. "For the rest," he said, handing her the cup of orange juice, "drink this. All of it."

She took it, eyeing it with suspicion as he watched expectantly. She took a draft and winced. "Dad… it tastes funny…"

"All of it," he repeated, tipping it back to her mouth and forcing her to drink more until she had to come back up for air.

"Eugh…!" she exclaimed, nose wrinkling from the aftertaste. "Dad… what…" She felt a warmth behind her ears, and her nose was reddening.

Taiyang smiled, nodding. "Just like your Mom… light as a feather. One more swig, baby, make the monsters go away for the night."

Her eyes slowly drifted between him and the cup, but she downed it all the same, covering her mouth suddenly as a hiccup escaped her lips.

"Good girl. Try not to walk too much."

He kissed her forehead and watched her swoon a moment before setting off in search of the next fire in need of dousing.

"Make way for Emperor Frieza!"

Emerald meekly followed their procession as they climbed the steps towards Shade Academy, the pyramid aglow with bonfires at regular intervals along its stepped architecture. Frieza led the group, floating idly in an anti-gravity chair as guards flanked the path in nervous reverence, standing at attention.

"Sure not used to the red carpet treatment," Mercury observed, almost disturbed at the attention.

He was shoved from behind and staggered as Ginyu stomped up, rounding on her with a growl. "You'll speak when spoken to, maggot!"

"Countermanded," Frieza ordered, idly turning as Ginyu stopped in her tracks. "An ounce of patience, Commander! Begrudge them the urge to scatter in the light! The poor things have scrabbled in the shadows so long, it's only natural."

"You've commanded such obedience over a kingdom in a matter of days," Cinder noted, eyeing the top of the Academy, lit with construction lights as laborers worked through the night to restore what had been destroyed.

"A mastery of fear is a potent motivator," Frieza explained as they continued into the hollow. "A proper application of force tempered with the right words makes slaves of the most defiant would-be masters. Yours embraces subtlety to a fault… I admire her patience, but life is to be lived."

Emerald remained silent as she watched Cinder hanging onto his every word. She didn't like the hunger in her eyes…

"I'm afraid the lift is out of order," Frieza told them. "Apologies, but it behooved me to impress while seeing to the Academy's former warden. But this may be where instruction will serve us best all the same. Where do we begin in finding this vault?"

Cinder furrowed her brow. "We never placed an agent in Vacuo, or found Beacon's true hiding place. Haven's vault had a special sort of key, and the Beacon vault I DID find was only accessible by a hidden pressure-based tile in the walls. Ozpin likes his secret little toys."

Ginyu took a menacing step closer. "Didn't ask what you couldn't find…"

"Quite right," Frieza agreed, dangerously. "I'm afraid if dear Dahlia possessed anything on her person, it was quite lost when I destroyed her. Your master made acquiring this trinket sound a menial task. Must we tear this edifice apart?!"

Cinder held her ground. "No, the Beacon vault was specially hidden, but Haven's was too big to hide easily. It MUST lie at the bottom of the shaft, under the school."

"And I suppose if force is applied carelessly we risk its loss," Frieza surmised, eyeing the doors to the elevator, which blew open as if struck by a boulder the size of a car.

"PERRAULT!" he shrieked suddenly, startling Emerald as the grey-haired Huntsman came pelting ahead obediently.

"My lord! You have returned—"

"Send for Doctor Henrys at once! I'm to understand she's an excavator in the area of antiquities?"

"Among the very best, of cou—"

"Inform her that it's time she earned her keep," Frieza demanded. "I'll not be kept waiting!"

Without another word, he vaulted entire flights of stairs in strictest obedience as Frieza approached the yawning elevator shaft. "Do mind the gap, children! The darkness awaits." His seat floated down into the shaft. Cinder and her disciples looked at each other.

Beasts scattered as Vegeta chased them down. Blasting had lost the more personal touch, though the damn things popped into smoke before anything of real satisfaction could be done.

As an armoured, spike-studded bear wriggled with his fist buried in its chest cavity, he found realization that they did take ever so slightly more energy than expected to destroy. Perhaps owed to their profane, anti-divine nature? Had Remnant man, with their odd use of ki, been pushed to evolve their shield and techniques to account for this? Had they specialized in fighting this Occultic power in exclusion to most everything else?

"Vegeta!"

As the creature moaned and evaporated, he felt a pang of sympathy as he imagined it for his own reaction to Krillin descending into the forest clearing he'd made by tearing one into existence. Uprooted trees lay everywhere.

"Mind your own business, baldy," he warned.

"It's gonna be everyone's business if you draw too much attention. We're still on Yang's property, so Ozpin's barrier has this place covered, but outside it…"

The prince stared. "What are you blabbering about? What barrier?"

Krillin sighed. "The one that passed over you while you were clearly too busy throwing a fit out here!" He leapt vertically to avoid a charging Beowulf behind him, allowing for one backwards flip before his toes swung to send it sailing into the roots of a fallen tree as it passed under him. "Nobody can get in now without an invite, or see what's really going on. That said, be nice if you didn't blow the place apart either, so can we cool it with the tantrum?"

He rounded on Krillin with a stomp. "I'll rip that tongue from your head! Am I meant to suffer such humiliation gracefully?! The mighty, independent Saiyan race, offshoots of this pathetic world?! Sharing blood with space-rejects like YOU?! The pets of a couple of saccharine god-toddlers?! What, do you think this makes us FRIENDS or something?!"

"Feh!" Krillin winced. "Sure hope not, I'm still in two minds about whether I shoulda' gutted you back on Earth when I had the chance. But for now, we're all rats on this sinking ship…"

Vegeta barely held himself back, instead turning his back as his body tensed-up. "The glory of the Saiyan race, my birthright! Bred like dogs! The legacy I carried on alone, of no greater significance than the loss of some nameless lineage! What's left for me?! ALL MEANINGLESS!"

Krillin ducked as Vegeta burned purple, and his aura erupted into tendril-like beams that sought out another handful of Grimm as they crept upon his brew of negativity. Dust billowed as it ended, the Saiyan breathing heavily in the darkness as Krillin's eyes adjusted to see again, like he'd been flashed by a strobe-light.

"I swear, the way you act… not caring about Goku's brother and then offing your partner on Earth, you'd think you were happy being the last of your kind…"

"It's called acceptance, you worm," he answered. "The Saiyan race died with our world, and four survivors weren't going to change that. If the last to represent our kind were weaklings or failures, better they die to keep the bar elevated on what strength remains! If the last of our kind are the greatest, at least our legacy was secured!"

Krillin hummed, understanding. "And being a smaller part of a bigger picture wrecks all that, huh?"

"Don't pretend as though you understand! Our legacy could have been the last prince of Saiyans, an immortal, our revenge wrought upon Frieza and all that would prefer to forget our age of terror! Invincible, undying!"

Krillin shook his head. "Yeah, guess I don't understand. Y'know, you could stop acting out this sole-avenger bit long enough to see that maybe this, right now… is your big second chance. Stop Frieza before he snuffs out our real homeworld."

Vegeta scoffed. "And what? Be a big damn hero, like Kakarot, or those bleeding-heart brats presume to be? I was a child when Frieza destroyed the world I was meant to rule, I never wished to undo history! And these… you… are not my people. If I spare this world its fate, it will only be for the sake of my own… and for hate's sake alone I'll destroy Frieza… then Kakarot… and when my rage is quenched this Universe will be a lot emptier."

Krillin closed his eyes. "Well, far be it from me to wish your life better, but sounds like a hollow existence where I'm standing. You want to be alone, fine… But now that we know the truth, you can never say that's anything but a choice you made."

He lifted into the air and soared away. Vegeta kept his back to him as he left, cold eyes staring into the abyss. An Ursa crept up on him, only to be impaled as a pair of fingers idly blasted behind the Prince, not even dignified by his attention.

Jaune couldn't help listening through the screen door as an argument took root outside.

"I can't believe it… you just murdered her! Gained her trust and cut down an innocent girl…"

"Oh Yang… Grow UP!" Raven demanded. "Innocence wasn't the point, she was incapable of fighting! Wholly unprepared for Salem's people! She'd have been hunteddown and slaughtered in the end; I made sudden and painless what Salem's people would have made cruel and agonizing! I spared her that!"

"Because protecting her was out of the question…"

Raven's hands shook the railing as they slammed down upon it. "Yes, a liability and a threat to the whole tribe, squatting there while her power goes to waste!"

"So you admit it was just about the power! You could take it, so you did…"

"The weak die, and the strong survive! Tribe or not I can't change that! Why are you surprised? Are you so naive that you thought we hadn't killed before?! What makes this different?"

Yang's eyes were fully red. "I don't know, Mom! Maybe I was trying to think better of you! Maybe you surprised me, and I wanted to believe you couldn't stoop that low! I was hoping that thing at Shion was just an accident, but maybe you did just slaughter an entire—"

The door slammed open as Jaune marched outside. "Shion was you?!" he demanded, eyes alight with anger and surprise. "You sacked and burned that whole town and just… left it to the Grimm!"

"Jaune, not now!" Yang warned, venom in her voice.

He built up a head of steam, ignoring her. "All that crap about strength, but you're not special! You're just a parasite! You don't make anything yourself, you rely on everyone else to do it for you! Living in some made-up juvenile fantasy—"

The wind howled as Raven's tearsign ignited, and she fixed both of them with a stare of rage and pain. "You kids want to LECTURE ME?! Beat on me like I'VE never suffered! Like my people haven't paid for it all! Well to HELL with you!"

Ren and Nora's faces crammed into the doorframe as Yang and Jaune were buffeted back.

"You think I don't pay for what I did to that girl EVERY DAY since?! What conscience I once had was replaced with her voice! Judging me! Second-guessing me! Reminding me of my sins every time she has silence to fill! Ozpin's sick little joke, haunting me forever!"

Jaune froze, but his voice couldn't be restrained. "Her… her voice? You hear her voice?"

The wind slowed as Raven rolled her eyes. "Yes, is there an echo?"

"Would… would Cinder hear a voice…?"

The tearsign vanished as Raven's anger melted into confusion. "Cind… Like I said, Ozpin ensured each Maiden is guided by the voice of the last Maiden. He molds them into his little girl scouts that way… I don't know if it's the real thing or not, but she sure knows things I don't know."

Yang watched as Jaune slumped against the wall, hands barely catching him.

"Jaune… what's up?"

He kept staring ahead. "There was a point during the fight at Haven… Cinder was about to finish me off. I had no help, no strength left… but when she tried, she couldn't do it! She just… froze… She got angry, said she'd fixed something, and asked 'why you?' Then she put my hand to her head, told me to 'make her stop.' "

Yang blinked. "What the hell…"

Raven frowned. "Well she certainly wasn't averse to killing… Were you acquainted with the last Fall Maiden?"

Jaune thought hard. "No… but I knew the person Oz meant to replace her."

Yang blinked and her eyes returned to their usual lavender. "Pyrrha… But… she wasn't the Maiden, so…"

"Nikos?" Raven asked, smirking. "Mistral's darling? Hmph… Ozpin is nothing if not predictable."

Jaune winced, his fingers held against his forehead hard enough to leave marks. "No she wasn't the Maiden, but… she and Oz tried! She got into the other pod and tried to fuse the Maiden's aura with hers before… before Cinder showed up. It didn't take, but… their Auras were… touching? Combining? I-I don't know."

Raven hummed. "You're worried some sliver of her crossed over? That Nikos' soul was cleaved from herself to become adjoined with Cinder?"

Jaune let out a ragged shudder. "A sliver…"

"I mean," Yang began, delicately, "it's not like she got the whole thing, right? You can't go walking around without your soul… but wouldn't that same thing have stopped Cinder from…?"

"Perhaps not," Raven muttered. "Self-harm is more often caused by a guilty conscience than stopped by it."

"But," Nora added suddenly, concern in her eyes, "maybe after she was… Could Cinder have gotten the whole soul then, like how the Maiden's power came to her?!"

Raven growled, eyes shut as she thought. "I don't know, only Ozpin knows how this works. He created the Maidens, ask him. I don't even know if my soul is just my own anymore. For all I know, Maidens are bound to the power for good."

"I can safely say THAT'S not true," King Kai offered suddenly, prompting the rest of them to stare up. "A sliver of their soul left behind? That's harder even for me to detect. But I'm fairly positive your Maidens aren't a stockpile of souls."

Jaune finally couldn't hold himself back. "So what happens if someone is wished back to life, but part of them is still in something alive?! Do they lose that part of themselves?! Are they counted as technically alive, and the rest of them stays on the other side?! I… I'm…"

"Jaune, I…" Yang deflated, her fire completely put out.

"You fear any wish might pass over her… should the time come and your Cinder remains alive," King Kai surmised, an almost audible nod at the end of his words. "That's a fair concern. I'm no Namekian, but I don't think there's a lot of precedent for something like tha— Ulk!"

There was a murmur of confusion before the voice of Piccolo replaced the Kai's. "I can tell you about me, and Kami. We were once the same being until the one we ONCE were tried to purge the evil from his soul, creating my father, King Piccolo. My life is bound to Kami's, and when I died he came along for the ride. In my experience, souls are a package deal, split or not."

Jaune shared a glance with his teammates, who both seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "But… we're pretty sure Cinder is still alive… and the voice knew me..."

Piccolo grunted. "If you're so concerned, then see to it that the job is done. All I can tell you is the afterlife treats this sort of thing like oil and water. There's enough REAL problems to worry about."

"See Jaune?" Nora offered, relief in her eyes as she put a hand on his shoulder. "There you go! It's gonna be okay, alright?"

He didn't smile back, but clasped her hand and met her eye. "Yeah… maybe. Sorry for butting in, Yang."

Yang knew he was right to apologize, but she couldn't fault him. "It's okay man, I get it." She finally set eyes on Raven again, who stood crossing her arms. "Mom, just…" She sighed. "If you're gonna try being in our lives… save the sword for the bad guys, okay?"

Raven clucked her tongue, rolling her eyes.

Yang's eyes flashed. "I'm serious!" she yelled, showing her teeth. "If I let your past slide, I'm not letting you drag us down to murdering whatever gets between us and the mission! If you don't shape-up… you can forget about being in our lives when all this is over."

The wood clacked under her boots as she made for the door. "We just found out Hell's a real place… I don't want to think about you ending up there."

She strode inside, Jaune daring one last glance at the bandit before vanishing inside the door frame.

Raven was alone with her thoughts, incensed, but knew a loss when she took one. If Yang didn't want Raven in her life, that was the end of it.

"You're wrong, you realize?"

She started. "You're still here? What is it?"

"You think your tribe and yourself have already paid their due, or will in death… but you couldn't be more wrong."

She leered at the sky. "What are you saying, Kai?"

"You KNOW what I'm saying. For their crimes and yours, your tribe is paying the ultimate price for their part… as will you."

"What?!" she gasped, body tensed. "They've been… damned?"

"I must warn you: you believe the good you've done for Yang and her family have evened-out the harm you've caused to others, but these acts alone are little more than selfish gestures," he explained, as she spluttered in mounting outrage. "As a mother, you've a vested interest in her wellbeing, but mortals are not judged by how they treat their dearest… Only the very worst betray such souls… An immortal soul's fate is decided in how they dealt with those they considered least in life. You don't have to LIKE them… but you've staked your life and others in regarding the helpless with contempt, apathy… and on occasion dooming them through your deeds. You were trained to be a shield to them, making it all the more heinous in the eyes of your adjudicator."

"Y-you don't mean… what about…"

In an instant she vaulted the rail and sprinted over to the fresh graves, the fresh earth unpacked. "What… what about her?"

The Kai was silent.

"Damn it, what about HER?!"

"There's little distinction to be made between any of you… She writhes in the pit."

"No-o…!" She slumped retrieving her sword instinctively to catch her fall as its tip touched the ground. "NO! GOD DAMN YOU!" she shouted, cursing the tears in her eyes.

"No," he said, gravely. "Of course, I'm not the judge… but the question of damning isn't a hard one."

She couldn't keep her sobbing silent as her teeth ground together. She wove her fingers through the dirt of Rufina's grave like it were the young woman's hair.

"You gods…! You hypocrites!" she strained, her tears watering the earth. "You sit there and chide us about cruelty… but what crime can be worth unending pain?! She's barely an adult and she's going to burn in an endless unlife?!"

King Kai grunted in surprise. "Hell isn't a place of pain," he explained, defensively, "it's a place of punishment. There's no flails or fire… Each punishment is meted out alone, a personal irony or nightmare of their own fears and failings. If possible it's meant to teach a lesson, rehabilitate the soul even."

She lifted her eyes to the sky at this. "Rehabilitate…? Why? For what?"

"Reincarnation," he told her. "Once time's served, they can't be with their loved ones in paradise… that's the worst bit… but they get to start over, memory wiped and sent on their way. Still, sentences are long depending on how many lives you've wronged or taken. It's not MEANT to be more than they can stand… buuuuut the condemned can always opt-out. Choose to be destroyed instead. Only the worst and most stubborn villains… like Frieza… will face a term to outlast the youngest stars, but be too stubborn and vile to wish their existence be ended."

"How many choose to… end?" she asked, staring helplessly at Rufina's name on the headstone.

"Many," he told her, plainly regretting he had to answer. "For some, the length of the sentence is too much to bear, and they'll prefer the simple void… For others, reincarnation makes no difference if they fear becoming someone else. A worse fate to them, not merely gone but CHANGED… Fear of being born into ignorance or starvation, fear of losing the self they were satisfied being."

She said nothing, her mind racing like her head was full of fluttering moths.

"And, sometimes, these all coincide. Centuries in bondage, with the only reward being to lose what's left of themselves… A great many choose the abyss early on. They might labor in denial, or fear making the call… but those who choose it know that they will."

"Can these… Can this dragon save her?!"

"Yes… but like I said, there may be no time to lose. Your hopes, like the boy, Jaune, rest on young Dende. For now… learn from this. Mend your path, for your own sake if not for your family's."

"What must I do?"

"Atone. You've dug quite the hole in your time, and it needs filling. You could learn a thing or two from those kids, if you're not too proud."

She stood up, sighing as her eyes closed. "The Huntsman's path, huh? I'll never hear the end of it… Alright, Summer… you win."

Yang stepped past the kitchen table, vacated by Ren and Nora, and promptly poured herself a shot of the amber liquid. She winced as she downed it. It was no strawberry sunrise…

"So I got the basic gist," her father said suddenly, appearing from the living room, "but I guess I never heard all that happened."

She turned suddenly, the frayed metal of her limb catching the tablecloth and dragging the bottles and glasses a few inches before she cursed and removed the catch. "Stupid… arghh! It keeps snagging stuff…!"

"Yeah, like that for example…" he said, grimacing at the destroyed artifice.

She groaned as she twisted it off, leaving the rest of her limb free as she sat the ruin on the table.

"Huh…" came an interested voice as Bulma strode in, nursing her own glass of vodka. Without a word, she lifted the jagged piece of metal and examined its connective end.

"Uhh, excuse you?" Yang droned, flabbergasted at the boldness of the intrusion.

"Nifty," Bulma commented, ignoring her. "Lemme see your arm," she asked, holding her palm out.

Yang frowned before offering her left hand… which was smacked away with the flat of two fingers.

"Ha-ha, smarty, you know what I meant. I'm trying to help you here..."

Yang's eyes flew open in surprise and mild outrage, but caught the sight of her father, turning away briefly with a grin as his chest spasmed with silent laughter. She sighed as she held out the shortened limb, and Bulma began examining the steely ball joint.

"Wow, that's drilled-in there… Direct nerve connections… Frieza didn't damage the receiver," she noted, "so I should just be able to machine, connect and power everything below it."

Yang blinked. "You want to fix my arm?"

"Of course I want to fix your arm! It's all hands on deck! Literally in this case… 'Course, when I'm done it'll basically be a new one, I just need the original receivers to send data and commands… unless I can build my own better ones."

Yang stood frozen at the offer as the older woman peered down the frayed end of the broken limb to examine the wiring.

Her father stepped closer, smiling as he watched. "That's incredible… Thank you… I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Tai… or, 'Blue Eyes'... I guess…" he chuckled.

Yang leered. "We literally introduced everyone like an alcoholics' support group…" she noted, glancing at the booze. "...and I'm not convinced it isn't…"

Bulma lifted her gaze. "Hi again, 'Blue Eyes', I'm 'Blue Hair…' Cozy place you've got here, I'll try to help keep it nice."

Yang frowned at her reply, glancing back and forth between them. What the hell is going on?

Taiyang nodded. "I'll make sure the kids pull their weight, you've put a lot on your plate between this and… gravity rooms and whatever."

She beamed, the broken prosthetic in both hands. "Thanks… It's not as tough as it sounds, but yeah… Nice to meet you again. I won't… Tai you down any longer," she finished with a wink, turning and exiting the door to the outside.

Yang stood frozen as she watched the screen shut again. Even by her standards that was a terrible pun…

"So… anyway," Taiyang started again, drawing her to turn again as he took a seat. "Right, so… clearly you spent time with your mom… Did the whole portal trick go to plan?"

She nodded. "I had to fight her for it, she wanted to keep me there, lead her tribe someday I guess. Good thing I ran into Krillin on the road earlier. Knowing she's a Maiden now, I can only figure he softened her up for me."

"You fought her? Hold-on; you beat her…?" He leaned back, surprised. "Even without magic powers she's world-class… That… There's no way she let you win…"

"Not the point, Dad…"

He shook his head. "I'm just impressed is all… So you found Qrow with Ruby?"

"No, we missed him and just found ourselves wandering the streets of Mistral. Then the commotion started up on Haven and we saw the White Fang swoop in for the attack. I guess Ruby, Oz and everyone was up top dealing with Salem's goons. The Fang were planting charges under the school. We went in loud, found Blake, Sun, her friend… and Bulma…" She nodded her head to the door the bluenette left from. "They'd tracked down Adam Taurus."

Her father tipped back suddenly in his seat, two of the legs clattering after slightly lifting from the floor. Eyes wider, he regained his sense of calm, elbow on the table and hand on his mouth as he feigned being nonchalant. "So, uh… how'd that go?"

Yang allowed herself a joyless smile. "Blake and I took him on, and… we won," she reported with a breathless chuckle. "He was tough and crazy, but… I think he just had the perfect bead on us at Beacon. He had the setup before I even showed. It didn't go his way this time though… He's dead."

Tai's hand lifted from his mouth, eyes unfocused. "You killed—" He stopped himself. "What… what happened to him?"

"Well, we floored him, we didn't take him out… though he really tried with us. Blake's friend disarmed the charges, but he hit this detonator anyway. I guess one was still in the satchel he got it from. Blake's friend tossed the satchel at him, and he fell… exploded… Then… it was over."

He let out a breath he'd been holding. "I'm just… I'm glad you didn't go all out for revenge."

Yang nodded. "Blake took it hard… they were partners once… It… felt good to face him down… but only to steal my mojo back, y'know? 'Face your fear' type stuff. Seeing him flat on his back, babbling like a desperate madman… there was nothing gained in seeing him die. But at least he can't hurt anyone else."

He reached for her hand. "I'm proud of you… That takes restraint, it's exactly what a Huntress should shoot for."

She returned a grimace of a smile. "We went up top and… Ruby was fighting that crazy Cinder bi— lady," she corrected, her father's brow rising. "I guess everybody was. Suddenly we were all there. Weiss showed up with that Vegeta guy earlier… the whole Team RWBY, thrown back into the mix! We kicked ass, it was like… destiny or some crap! Or, I guess that dragon set it up? It was crazy; I've felt this connection with the others before, but this time… it was like we all knew what the other was thinking, when to attack, what to do…"

A gruff voice emerged from the doorway. "Tetrasynchrony," Qrow offered wistfully. "Four as one... the ultimate goal of any Huntsman team, teamwork-wise."

Yang blinked. "Yeah, I know what it means to Tet, but… You think we pulled it off?"

Qrow chuckled. "No question. Oz recognized it too. Apparently the four of you kids have been doing it since initiation, 'least when it's all four of you in the ring together."

She looked back to her father, whose leer at her uncle revealed no lie. "If Qrow's saying it, then it's probably true in this case… If you've done it consciously, you know it when you see it."

Yang shook in surprise. "Wait… so Team STRQ could Tet? You guys have never mentioned this before!"

"Hasn't been relevant for a long while," Qrow explained. "It's a delicate state, every member has to be on the same wavelength. Hell, we only pulled it off a couple times… You kids already beat our tally and you didn't even realize it."

Yang's eyes drilled into the wall. "We're that in touch…? Everything I heard about it was like, meditation or trances, but… we were just jazzed to be together again, and we wanted to kick Cinder's high-heeled ass!"

"It's different for everyone," Taiyang agreed. "It's why Beacon does the whole eye-contact thing: they're hoping you'll pair with someone that naturally clicks, that you feel their Aura and presence. It's more about who than about how. Some people would just never manage it however hard they tried."

"Unsubstantiated," Qrow began, "but the best have practically been able to fight in sync like one mind without even thinking. It never confers any extra strength or anything, but there have been rumors of people who could use each other's semblances… Heh… Wild…"

"Well… it didn't matter when Frieza showed up," she sighed. "Whole thing was such a blur of chaos. All hell broke loose, Blake's friend exploded… Neptune… god…! And then he laid eyes on Ruby…"

She saw the color drain from her father's face and continued before he could speak. "I jumped between them… I didn't… I didn't know what else to do, so I swung at him! That's when he… when my arm… He was just toying with me… We'd be dead if Krillin and Gohan hadn't attacked him then and there. Should be dead anyway! The whole school fell… Ruby tried protecting Sun and got her scythe mangled… A whole god damn Atlas fleet cruised up and got erased! It was this WAR just to take down ONE GUY and we couldn't do it…!"

There was a screech of table legs as her father stood up and hurried over with his arm around her back as her chest heaved with her breaths, as she remembered the destruction and the constant sense at every turn that her life was about to end.

"You're safe, you're home… And we're gonna figure this out."

Yang caught her breath, but she was no less worried. "Somewhere, that thing is still out there, working to make this world Hell…"

Cinder landed last at the bottom of the black shaft, shoes sparking as she rode the wall to the floor, a plate that bounced in with the impact. A flame sprouted in her palm, illuminating half the bottom and its occupants. Frieza's red eyes danced as they reflected the flame. Ginyu stared around idly.

"Where's this so-called expert?" she demanded.

As if in answer there was an echoing snap or crack above them.

"Those the cables?!" Emerald suggested, fearing the elevator was about to plummet onto their heads.

But instead, in the darker half of the shaft, the plate shook as something lighter touched down. A black figure stood up in the dark, something held up in its hand. With a click, a flame emerged from the top, chasing its way up the length of the whip she'd descended by even as it retracted to coil into her weapon like measuring tape. All that remained then was effectively a torch, revealing the black silhouette of a ponytailed head and a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat.

Stepping into the light revealed the professor Henrys and her hazel eyes, having left her academic dress behind in favor of a tan undershirt, brown pants and a dark leather jacket.

"Nice entrance," Mercury praised dryly.

"Doctor Henrys, I presume?" Emerald suggested with a sigh.

"I was… summoned?" she asked, ignoring them.

Frieza took stock and cleared his throat. "Your craft is called for, we seek a vault concealed within the foundations of the Academy."

"Containing what?"

"A sword, an artifact of some power from a time gone by. Allegedly hidden beneath schools such as this."

"The 'Sword of Creation?' " Henrys surmised. "You mean one of the four Relics of Fraternist mythology, handed down by the Brother gods and lost in the moonfall? The Crown, the Staff, the Lamp…?"

"Yes, I'm led to believe it is here, by my newfound associates."

Henrys peered around the walls, walking carefully. "People have been searching for the Relics since the fall. A lot of my first-year students bring this up and point to the emblems of the four Kingdoms. Each has imagery of one of the Relics, but that was a joint effort, an intentional reference first unveiled at the first Vytal Tournament after the war. Suffice to say, tensions were still a bit high for Vale and Vacuo to trust Mantle and Mistral with holy weapons of war."

"It's here," Cinder insisted, boredom in her synthesized voice.

Diana Henrys seemed to shrug with her eyes. "You wanted my expertise… and I'm asking why we're discussing this at the bottom of an elevator shaft."

Frieza chuckled. "Such challenges I don't take lightly from a subordinate, but in this case my dear… she has a point. The aim of this was to prove your master's veracity. Tis not the Doctor's good name in question…"

Emerald caught Cinder's eye and dared. "Cinder… you're sure it's down here?"

Her eyes burned gold as her teeth bared. "The Mistral vault was large enough to need a mountain to hide it. Beacon's was like a cathedral. This damn school is hollow, it can't BE anywhere else."

"Well all of this is recent construction," Henrys noted, "archeologically speaking… But if anything were hidden here, it'd be an extra sub-level." She let her weapon's flame climb higher to illuminate the upper shaft. "We have three listed… and three accounted for. So provided there's no airtight seal…"

She nearly let the flames extinguish, causing a sputtering of smoke to fill the space, and let it burn again. "...just follow the smoke."

Cinder and Emerald coughed at the result, but watched the drifting haze float about. There was little movement among the walls, until it seemed to suck to the edges of the plate and beneath them.

"Below us?" Ginyu noted.

Henrys nodded. "The plate is impact dampening suspended by hydraulic lifters. A last chance if the carriage falls. But… being hydraulic, it could lower too."

She crept to a corner and aimed her light under the plate. The smoke continued, sucked into the gaps of the walls beneath. "Or the whole damn thing is a false bottom. Lifters on lifters maybe."

Ginyu stomped her foot, a gleam in her eyes. "False bottom? Alright then…!" She leapt up, rattling the plate as Henrys slammed herself against the corner.

"No! Wait wait wait WAIT!"

But Ginyu slammed back down on both feet, the plate crashing as the hydraulic lifters bent out and became missiles, embedding into the walls with a hissing detonation. The plate slammed into the floor, which dropped out beneath them into a dark and empty space.

Beneath was a sandy island in the dark, beige atop red stone, dotted by a few small palms… but they'd missed. Set as a destination for the elevator, the pit yawned before them. Ginyu simply leapt from the plate as it smashed and splashed below. Mercury cried out as he corrected with blasts from his legs. Henrys' whip cracked as she snagged a palm, but otherwise wheezed as the rest of her swung into the island.

Emerald missed altogether, forced to grab Henrys' hand as she passed, sharing a glance with the doctor before she saw Cinder descend upon jets of fire and Frieza idly float down after.

"Well well, point to you my dear… What was your name again?"

Cinder landed, unconcerned as Emerald swung from Henrys' arm to haul herself onto the island. "Cinder Fall, my lord. A moment please."

Emerald extended a hand as Cinder knelt down and took it by the wrist. She was pulled up… into a debilitating pain as the air was forced from her lungs with the strength of Cinder's fist in her gut.

She slumped to the floor, clutching her stomach before a glass heel stepped on it and squeezed her like a lemon. Emerald could only stare up into Cinder's golden eyes as they burned. "If you EVER question me like that again, you will be SORRY…!" She hissed, kicking her over and turning back to the evil emperor and his wicked smile.

"Good form, my dear!" Frieza lauded. "A strong hand breeds strong men… But shall we continue, Doctor Henrys?"

Emerald strained to get up as Henrys passed her, glancing down with concern. She caught Mercury's eye with only a shrug to show for it. Crestfallen, she tried not to let it show as she limped after.

Henrys led the way, her torch lighting up a surprising distance as the island linked to a trail suspended over the darkness. She sniffed the air, listened, and finally they glimpsed the shimmer to the left of a rocky wall with a split striation that bled water into the blackness below. Not a waterfall but a trickle, echoing and gurgling back at them.

"An aquifer," she noted, "probably where the whole city gets its water. Goes for miles."

Cinder sighed. "I'm acutely familiar."

"Not much to do but follow—"

She stopped short as a very different shimmer struck the torchlight, a glint of gold.

"Oh…" Frieza exclaimed, his keen eyes piercing the dark.

They stepped suddenly from a natural formation to a broken, ivory semicircle, which glowed a pale yellow at their approach. Clearly, from above, it was meant to represent the broken moon and its many fragments.

Then beyond was a series of islands trailing away from it to a sandstone wall, and a vast golden door several stories tall flanked by enormous palms. As they watched, the bulbous fruit of the palms glowed gold to Illuminate the entire cavern.

The door itself, unlike its sister of Haven, seemed to be composed of overlapping pieces in crescent shapes of varying sizes.

Cinder watched Henrys with distinct amusement. "Lost for words, Doctor?"

"I've never seen anything like this," she admitted, her brow furrowed as she took it in. "It doesn't even make sense, this can't be any older than the school."

"How's that?" Mercury asked.

"Ancient places… truly ancient places never sourced local stone for the bulk of construction, not for anything built to keep something out. Real easy to tell, it was always the same grey silicate rock, especially in a dust-rich spot like Vacuo. Anything big, anything worth protecting, they built with molds filled with earth dust. Earth dust always generates silicate rock, anywhere on the planet… probably because we think dust came to the planet from the moon. Few samples, but spectroscopy suggests silicon is a chief component of lunar regolith and even—"

"We know they're not old," Cinder snapped. "Ozpin, or whoever his predecessor was, built these at the same time as the schools."

"Ozpin? The Headmaster? How w—"

"This is pointless," Ginyu barked. "I just have to go grab it, right?"

"Ah-ah!" Frieza admonished bringing up the rear. "A slight precaution, if you would… Cinder dear, you are one such 'Maiden,' correct?"

"The Fall Maiden, my lord."

Frieza's brow tilted as he blinked. "Your family name is suspiciously apt, my dear… is it self-styled?"

"Who I was before I chose my destiny doesn't matter… She never mattered."

"Mmm… All the same, I need you to attempt entry first," Frieza told her, eyes returned to the door, which glimmered back at them. "I want to see that your master has been truthful; that the door shall only yield to Ginyu. Firstly…"

He raised a finger lazily, and the golden glow was eclipsed as a fuschia beam lanced out to blot out the darkness in a flash as it struck the door with a sound like a bell. It echoed into the dark as dust and rock broke loose, tinkling down as splashes reported back in all directions from the larger chunks.

As the pink mist of power faded, the vault door showed itself no worse for the attack. Actually, with dust shaken from its recesses, it might have shined with a greater luster than before.

"Very well then… if you would?"

Cinder obeyed, vaulting the entire gap on a single burst of flame. She landed with a bend of her knees and ascended the steps.

Henrys gaped at it all. "Fall Maiden… So now we're involving the fable about the four merry nomadic altruists into this? Just who are you people?"

Mercury flashed a grin. "We're the ones out to change the world… I'd get used to fairy stories, Doc. We're writing one right now."

"Silence," Frieza ordered firmly. "The lot of you will stand before me, and I'll have your hands open where I can see them."

"Our hands?" Emerald asked, tentatively obeying.

"I said 'silence…' " Frieza leered at her dangerously. "My aim is to account for any chicanery on your side. I dare not trust this alliance if it is not a certainty this bewitched strongbox cannot be opened by some hidden means or mechanism. Once I confirm she cannot unseal it, we'll be more securely moored in the harbor of provisional confidence…"

"L-lord Frieza… sir!" Emerald dared again, shuddering.

Frieza's eyes widened as his lips thinned in outrage. He silently raised a finger as a light gleamed at its tip.

The color left Emerald's face as she fought the heaving in her chest. "Please! I-I-I need to disclose something!"

Frieza's face softened, the light flickering out even as he gave a curious hum. " 'Disclose?' For your sake this had better be worthwhile, girl…"

Cinder watched in confusion as Mercury shot her a look.

"M-my semblance! I… can broadcast illusions into people's heads, hallucinations!"

"...Is that so?"

She shivered, but saw that he was relaxing, a snake lowering back to its coil. "As long as I can see them, I can do it to as many as two people. I… I feel like we'll regret it if I don't say anything now."

"Show me," he ordered, waving his hand in invitation. "Fool us both, myself and Ginyu."

She took a breath, closed her eyes… and flared them open as she projected duplicates of both subjects before them.

Ginyu's reaction was immediate. "Who's this little blonde tramp?"

"It… It's you…"

She blanked, stepping back as she looked down at herself with a blush. "It is?"

Frieza glanced sideways at her. "Commander… have you yet to see your reflection?"

"Been… busy, sire!" she said, reaching behind and pulling her hair to the front for inspection.

"Hmm… Well, carry on, use your gift on me, lass…"

Emerald's eyes contracted. "What? But… I am…"

He narrowed his eyes. "I see nothing."

She blinked. "I… I don't know… You're not from Remnant, maybe it doesn't work on you? I've never seen that before."

Frieza laughed, smiling wickedly. "Or perhaps I'm not so weak of mind… Or perhaps you've played to my hauteur, showing me nothing as to conceal your gift as a weapon while fortifying my trust!"

"I-I… I'm not! I swear!"

"Ha ha… But I believe you, my desert blossom!" he told her. "And for your candor, let me be plain as well... Were I not of a mind to keep the peace with your mistress, I would have obliterated you already to remove such threat…"

She couldn't help but to stumble backwards as she shook like a leaf, pupils shrunk to points as he so casually admitted his desire to kill her.

"To fear me is a sensible first step on the path to life," he told her. "For now… Ginyu, ensure her eyes remain closed for the duration… nothing permanent, you understand?"

Emerald froze helplessly as Ginyu strode over obediently. She didn't want to be touched by her, but the alternative…

She shuddered as Ginyu crossed an arm around her collar from the back, and the other hand covered her eyes. The voice slithered in her ear.

"Stay right here with me, girly… No sudden moves."

Satisfied, Frieza turned to Mercury, whose amused grin vanished. "And you? What is your gift?"

He shrugged. "Don't have one. Dad stole it… then I killed him… never came back."

"Convenient," Frieza hissed, nostrils flared at the boy's flippancy. "And what was it…? I shan't ask twice."

For once, his disaffected demeanor fell. "Okay, fine! I could fly…"

Emerald, even blinded, couldn't help it. "You could fly…?"

"I could fly, yes… sort of, I had… Aura-wings on my ankles. That's it. Boy, old man really made sure that one stuck." The side of his foot tapped his leg with a shrill metallic thud.

"I suppose I must also take that for granted," Frieza grumbled. "But know this: if I discover either of you have deceived me… you will wish your kind had never crawled free of the primeval muck, perished in freakish misery, than been borne of man yourselves…"

The threat lingered in the air as Frieza turned his attention back to Cinder.

"And with that, how does the appropriate being set about this?"

"Just touch it, I believe."

"...You believe?"

"I've seen it, I never opened mine at Beacon…"

Mercury hung back, watching Frieza wring details out of her. "Sheesh… so intense…"

But suddenly a hand struck him along his ear. "Hey— Augh!"

He turned to find Henrys face to face with him, grabbing him by the collar."Shut up, you idiot, you're gonna get us all killed!"

"Only one of us is gonna eat dirt if you don't—"

"I watched him execute BLOODLINES for pissing him off… Stop… sassing him…"

"Alright alright, keep your Trilby on…"

"Very well, that's enough," Frieza commanded dryly as Cinder took her hands off the door. "Step away then. Ginyu?"

"And her, Lord Frieza?" she asked, nodding to the still held Emerald.

"I'll relieve you of your post," he said, the throne chattering as it crept closer.

Ginyu released Emerald —her eyes shut tight regardless— and vaulted over beside Cinder, giving her a snide grin.

"Good girl," Frieza praised as he saw her still shut eyes, "but just to keep you honest…"

Emerald flinched and squeaked as Frieza's great tail coiled across her eyes to encircle her very head.

"Doctor, I'll want you to recover the blade once we've gained entry. Ready yourself."

Diana Henrys sighed as she leapt the illuminated islands to obey. Of course… I'm the expendable one…

"And…" Frieza waited, eyes on all involved before committing. "Proceed."

Ginyu approached the door, staring up its immense height, and planted a hand on its golden exterior. She listened, waited…

And then a clicking sounded deep within. A chattering of gears, a clunk of heavy metal… and then the topmost crescent slid with a heavy grinding into its recess before rotating to leave a gap of open air. Daylight from some unseen source poured into the cavern to dim almost everything within it.

And like that, there seemed to be a domino effect as the crescents flanking the gap rolled out into the walls and out of sight in a manner that was spatially impossible. A larger center piece rolled and enlarged the gap, and another small bordering pair slid into the wall. A cascade swept opposite each other like huge slashing blades, followed by a smaller set the did the same, faster and faster.

Frieza beheld hungrily as the door so tortuously revealed its secrets as it was revealed lower and lower. At last, a series of crescents formed arches over the bottom. Unlike the rest, the topmost slid down in a glacial manner to lower straight into the floor. Metal grinded as it almost seemed to catch on something, but very suddenly sunk down as the pieces below it moved freely, lowering as well. Then, at last the top of the arch vanished into the floor of the frame… and the open frame was all that remained.

A smell of salt wafted in, alongside a dull roar.

"Excellent," Frieza remarked. "Doctor?"

Henrys stared through as she proceeded forward. Beyond the grand frame was a tilted crag of a shale shoreline, black as could be. A boiling sea sprayed as it met the grooved stone, a spray that seemed to launch blue sparks to hang in the air. In fact, the disturbed waters seemed to glow themselves as they were churned.

But a mere dozen yards ahead was an ivory dais, triple-pronged to surround an object she'd only ever seen depicted in the most ancient structures and artifacts on Remnant.

Floating, point-up, was a brilliant blue fang of a blade, breathing with a glow of power at its core. The hilt, pommel and guard all looked to be solid gold. The guard was an extremely delicate-looking form that curled up from the hilt, and one of them actually extended as a trail to loop around the very bottom of the blade. It looked weak enough to be snapped off with the most menial effort, ornamental at best.

She bent, picking up a small stone before the entryway, and tossed it into this impossible realm. It clattered and tossed, but came to stop unharmed. With a cautious step, she extended a hand through. The rest of her followed.

All of it was impossible. She didn't believe in magic, and for good reason. She'd recovered artifacts from nearly every lost civilization on record, and she'd never encountered anything close to this. It was an orgy of evidence for a power that violated nature, all beneath her feet and hidden by the very people she reported to.

The crag looked and felt like the real thing. She looked back to see the frame and cavern, but around it this isle of shale seemed like another world altogether.

She was wary of traps, but it seemed moot. If only one being could serve as the key to this door, imperiling that person further was needless. Traps were normally defeated at the point of entry if you had the key. It was only tombs, or culturally forbidden places that set surprise death traps with no means of deactivation, for they were places the trappers never intended to revisit.

Still, if this was truly an artifact handed down by a god, smash and grab might be ill-advised.

At last she was there, the Relic before her, as real as could be. She dared not touch the blue blade, but slid her fingers over the grip.

And while she expected something, she couldn't prepare her mind for the surge as voices and visions screamed inside her. She glimpsed crowds of thousands, impossible structures… Cities suspended in the sky, black, haunting vistas in the cosmic dark transforming to bear blue, life-bearing skies. Joy, triumph, unbearable loss…

It all struck her at an instant, and found herself on the floor, hat askew. Frieza and Ginyu stood over her, Emerald still in the latter's grip.

"Well? What happened?!" Ginyu demanded, idly tapping her with a foot.

Henrys re-secured her hat and stood up. "I'll be god damned… that thing is real."

Frieza was still inspecting the coastal surroundings. "How are you certain?"

"My semblance. Auras leave their mark on objects or places of extreme personal or cultural importance. My gift… I get flashes, memories like residue leftover from the past. But I've never felt anything that strong," she admitted, eyes fixed on the blade as it floated nearby. "This was an object of astonishing relevance to its people… and more than that, it had real power. The people didn't just believe in it, they'd seen it create wonders."

Ginyu turned to the realm itself. "I'm concerned, Lord Frieza… Is this just set-dressing, or can these backstabbers find this place on the planet and take it?"

Frieza hummed. "A worthy concern… but she would have long made off with it were that possible. A test then!"

Once more his finger fired its deadly ray, pointed out into the horizon as Emerald flinched beside him. The pink spear carried off a mile… then another… and smashed against thin air in a shock of dispelled power as the sky itself, clouds and all rippled like a massive stage-play backdrop curtain.

"Ah…" Frieza sighed in satisfaction. "Indeed, 'tis a ruse. Most impressive. Very well, my dear, you're free to go."

Emerald spun slowly as the tail uncoiled from her head, shivering as she blinked, regaining her bearings in the strange locale before glimpsing Cinder and Mercury on the cavern side of the rift and making her way over as nonchalant as possible.

She passed both of them, making it a few feet before—

"Emerald."

She stopped, fearing what might come next from Cinder's voice box.

"...Good work, telling him your semblance. I missed it, and it might have caused him to turn on us. That might go a ways to earning his trust."

Emerald let out the breath she'd been holding. "Thank you ma'am."

Frieza gazed at the trinket grasping its handle to inspect it more closely.

"Are we taking it out of here, my lord?"

"No no, the old dear has been true to her word… This will be a safer store for these than any conventional defense, I confess."

Ginyu glared at the vault. "I still don't trust her."

Frieza chuckled. "Of course not, Commander! She no more intends our success than we hers. She might be rid of us, but retains ultimate power to span the stars? I think not…" His chuckle returned, darkening as his eyes nearly shut with the malice in his smile. "She played me for a fool, luring me to her parlour… and for that she will see her conquests laid to ruin. The four attained, she will draw me once more, to slay me, but we will correct the score."

Ginyu lowered her voice. "But my lord… if she keeps hers in that place, you'll be as at risk of death as her!"

"Oh, if only it were so," he laughed. "But the matron herself has already let slip her limitations. In spite of her boundless vitality she simply couldn't keep an eye on my movements. When it comes to who shall destroy who, I will have dealt with her before she's realized her error."

Ginyu flashed a toothed grin. "Brilliant, Lord Frieza… a simple solution."

"The best always are."

"Stupid… slow… wash cycle…! Mnn…"

Nora took Taiyang's invitation with the laundry to heart, but found herself in a delicate position. Truthfully she only needed one… particular article washed after her earlier… incident in the valley of Mistral. But alone it would have seemed suspect enough to draw attention. Her jacket was leather, so no good there… Her skirt would leave her in a far worse place too, so she'd lifted off her tank top and was presently zipped up in the jacket.

She'd never really meant to wear the jacket closed, and it was uncomfortably tight, but otherwise it'd be just her bra showing, so…

She nervously patted her skirt down as another lick of air ran up her thighs and… She knew nobody could tell, but in those situations it felt like everybody had selective hyper-vision and could read minds. No way could she risk going out there with the others, or sit down… The booze wasn't helping anything either, as if she didn't feel warm enough already. So there she stood, awkwardly upright, browsing on her scroll as she waited for the damn machine to just finish—

The bathroom door opened, releasing steam into the room as she jumped, and none other than Ren walked out in nothing but a towel… again.

"Oh! Uh… hey!"

A second towel rubbed over his face as he caught her eye with that 'I just realized the milk expires NEXT month' half-smile of his. "Hi… Uh… the shower's free if you—" He blinked. "Oh, right, the towels are still drying… With my clothes…"

Oh GREAT. She'd hoped to avoid traffic —and luckily, the laundry room only connected to the living room and the bathroom— but now she was stuck with him. After Jaune dropped that bomb about Pyrrha… After she'd only that day freaking CONFESSED to Ren in front of everyone…

Her addled thoughts were of no help, but… steer into the skid, maybe?

"So, ha, pfff…" she laughed fakely, "Give any thought to what I said earlier?"

"Earlier…?"

"I mean, about LOVE n' stuff? I mean… ha… n-no point pretending, it's already out there!" She formed her fingers and thumbs into a heart. "Love you…"

What was she DOING?!

Oh god, he's blushing?!

"Heh…" He smiled, not meeting her eyes. "I… I guess I'm not great with words. You… know I accepted, right? Was that… clear? I…" He took a breath, straightened his posture and furrowed his brow. "I love you too!" he proclaimed, like a soldier acknowledging a direct order. It was only missing a salute.

She knew about his social graces… but still, seeing him project the words as forcefully as he'd allow himself was…

" '*Snrk!*' Adorable…"

"Uh… thank you."

She said that out loud?!

"So uhh… Actually, I don't really know where to start, do you?" she asked honestly. Weirdly, she was on a role… Maybe she could stall by taking the bull by the horns? " 'Cause usually it starts with dating, but dating is all getting-to-know-you stuff, and just a couple hanging out… and… ha… If you think about it, we've technically been dating for years!"

The red in his face only brightened. "Are… you… suggesting something?"

Entirely serious, she shook her head, entirely forgetting what she was trying to avoid. "No, I really don't know where the starting point is… when it's not the starting point… I mean, we could hold hands…" The smile returned to her as she sidled closer. "But we already hit that note on the airship, you sly dog…" she said lowly, smacking him on the back as she wheezed with laughter, leaning back against the washing machine with a thud. A detergent bottle fell off the other side, its cap still on the machine, rattling.

Ren watched her with concern, but still red in the face. "Nora, I… is my state of dress filling you with certain… compulsions?"

"Nah, mine is," she chuckled to herself.

"What…? Oh, your shirt is… your jacket… I see."

She snorted again, working to stand straight again. "What'd you think I meant, chisels? That I jump you here and now like some kind of—"

But as her feet crept backwards to stand… they found the detergent she'd knocked over, pooling like an oil slick from underneath the machine. She scrambled not to brain herself against the edge, feet flying out from under her.

But Ren noticed and moved in quickly, grabbing her around the middle. Her hands clasped onto his shoulders. Her slippery boots, however, just couldn't find purchase as they slid under his legs until—

"Oh…!" She uttered as they'd stopped moving. "Oh gosh…"

Her legs had managed to dislodge his questionably-secured towel as they passed. She couldn't tell it by sight, as it was all being blocked by her own skirt. She could tell from a sudden warmth where it didn't belong...

"Oh," Ren remarked, eyes in the middle distance as he went puce. "...That state of dress…"

She couldn't meet his eyes. "Y...Yeah…"

Oh god… What to do… Jeez, that's distracting… Spike the ball in HIS court? Deflect it with humor?

She laughed, as awkward and fake a laugh as she'd ever committed to. "W-Well, hey there! If it's like that, get the lock, hon'..."

His eyes finally met hers. They stared, and she could only stare back from her compromised position… still very much mashed against him in a very— What's he doing with his hand?

Her peripherals were suddenly the focus of her whole head as one hand supporting her drifted off slowly, deliberately to the laundry door's handle. With a click, the door was locked, and her face blanked as he hesitated.

No way... No WAY…! Ren wouldn't… he didn't have the… He wasn't bold enough to just… Even IF she wanted to… DID she want to…? Did she BELIEVE all that stuff she said to him just now? It didn't come from nowhere, but…

His hand returned, his grip shifting lower to support her better… or no! He was going to pick her up…

She'd just back out. It would just take a word… a gesture… so why was she redoubling her grip on his shoulders?

She was being lifted. Her knees slid over his thighs as they sought to clear his hips. She was upright at last, head higher than his. She fumbled. He fiddled. She let out a dry gasp when it was right.

"N-Nora… are…" His breath caught in his throat.

She was shaking, but as she stared, her nod was unmistakable. His hands pressed upon the small of her back.

"A-agkk…!" Her mouth hung open, her eyes the widest they'd ever been, head thrown back. As he set his grip higher, her arms crossed behind his back for the next push.

Those eyes winced shut as it came. She pulled herself the rest of the way, nearly baring her teeth in discomfort as she whined… but it was done, and her lungs exploded as she let herself breathe again, rattling against him like a leaf. She found his astonished pink eyes.

"I-I… are you o…?"

Both winced as her eyes rolled back for a moment as she tensed. "W-warm…?"

He nodded. "Yeah… warm…"

"Huh…?" she wondered, aswoon. "N-no, I…"

Screw it…

She grabbed the zipper of her jacket and tugged it down to reveal what little remained beneath it. The cool air washed over her as surely as the endorphins she swam in.

"I-If you need a moment I— mmmph!"

It felt quaint to think of her first kiss at this point… but there it was. Her hand on his cheek, her lips against his, and the emboldened rocking and swiveling that followed.

Yang sat down at the coffee table with another pair of shots in her hand... Training her hand to achieve awkward grips was something she'd had a while to perfect… Blake snatched both of them.

"Oh, okay…"

"Grab me another?" Weiss asked, Ruby leaned against her shoulder. Oscar sat on the other side with Gohan.

Yang shrugged, heading back to the kitchen.

Sun watched with concern as Blake downed the drinks one after another. "You okay?"

"No… I am not okay," she groaned, head in her hand. "How are you okay?! The faunus… all of it, just like getting a… a… piercing or tattoo! A cool thing to be, since being human was too boring, I guess!"

"Well I like it," Gohan told her.

She sighed with a smile. "Thanks, Gohan, so do I, it's just… My life has been defined by the struggle to be seen and treated as equal by humans. I've lost a lot for this, gone through so much pain… To know it was because of something so… frivolous…"

Weiss sighed. "Well it sure makes anyone who might have held anything against faunus look dumb."

Blake blinked as she smiled, but let it fade otherwise. Weiss drained her drink.

Sun shrugged. "Well, who cares what it meant at the start? It means something to us now." He twitched the bandaged stub of his tail, forlorn. "It sure doesn't make me miss this any less."

Blake met his eye, a look of guilt and sympathy plastered on her face.

Weiss rubbed her partner's back. "Well, some of it still means a lot… Ruby, you there?"

Rather, Ruby slipped off her shoulder, her face slamming into the coffee table with an awful sound.

"HUH?!" She stood bolt-upright "I-I-I'M AWAKE, PROFESSOR OOBLECK!"

"Doctor…" he admonished from behind.

"Did… Did that hurt?" Blake asked, wincing.

"Did what hurt?" Ruby asked, turning around and wobbling a great deal from her own turning momentum.

Weiss closed her mouth and shook it off. "So Ruby… I… I've actually heard of the Silver Eyed Warriors before. It was something W… It was read to me as a kid. I've gotta apologize to you, because… You're kind of the reason I thought it was just a myth… You know, since back when we met I… thought you were just some silly brat."

Yang snorted. "To be fair… you weren't exactly wrong…"

Weiss shook her head. "Then the 'just' part was wrong… It's really… really cool to have a Silver Eyed Warrior as a best friend…" She giggled, slurring her words. "You're like… a unicorn person…"

Ruby snickered absently into her shoulder. "Neigh…"

Oscar watched her with concern. "Should we get a pillow so she doesn't slam her head on the—?"

But he froze stiff as she leaned over out of nowhere and felt her lips on his cheek. "Wha—?! Y-y…!"

But Ruby had already set her head onto her crossed arms and closed her eyes. "You're cute…"

He touched the spot where it happened, going red as he noticed her teammates leaning over to stare at him like queens in a hand of cards peeking past each other.

"Hey Oz-boy," Yang huffed. "Don't get any ideas."

"Yang, don't be mean," Weiss laughed, her eyelids half-mast.

Yang didn't budge, arms crossed. "It's not mistrust of boys, Weiss… he's got Ozpin in his head, remember?"

"Oh… right… That's weird… Don't do that."

Blake hummed. "I mean, if he's thousands of years old, what's the difference if a girl is sixteen…" She hiccuped. "...or sixty-four?"

"Oh, there's a difference," Weiss opined.

Yang groaned. "Can we not pull the pin on that hand grenade…?"

"Off-limits," Oscar surmised, patting his thighs idly, still red. "Right… Got it…"

"Yeah, it wasn't less creepy to find out Roshi was hundreds of years old," Bulma chimed-in out of nowhere.

"Who-shi…?" Ruby asked through her sleeves.

Goku smiled brightly. "Master Roshi, The Turtle Hermit! My first teacher after Grandpa… Inventor of the Turtle School of Martial Arts!"

Weiss gave a hard blink as she fought for coherency. "So wait… He's a turtle?"

"Nah, he just wears and trains with a big heavy stone shell sometimes."

Blake frowned. "That's a… (*Hic!*) ...appropriation…"

"Well hey, his best friend is a real turtle…"

"Wow, I've never heard that one before…" Blake snarked, no less cross for it.

Bulma sat down across from them all, frowning as her eyes met Goku. "Oh, and speaking of Roshi-like behavior, Goku… for future reference, except for Sun, and this kid," she said, indicating Oscar, "...all of them are girls… I swear to god, if I catch you pulling any of that crotch-patting stuff, I'll slug you!"

"Aw, c'mon, Bulma," he laughed. "I haven't had trouble with that since I was a kid!"

The group went silent. " 'What patting…?' " Weiss asked, flushed in the face with horror.

Ruby snorted, still not sitting up, nor opening her eyes. "Pat-pat, soft n' flat…"

Bulma sighed. "Goku's formative years were spent alone in the woods… and he never met another person, let alone a girl until he was a teenager… when he met me. He didn't really understand the differences… but once he did, his favorite way to tell girls apart from guys was to find someone he suspected and pat them down up-front in case they were 'smuggling eggs…' if you get me…"

The shock reverberating through the room was like a fog you could taste. The three girls went absolutely red as their jaws fell open in unison.

...And then Ruby burst out laughing with a dry wheeze.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHH…. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…!"

"Okay!" Yang said over the cackling. "I know how today has been… and that's still the WEIRDEST GODDAMN THING I've ever heard!"

"Pfffff!" Ruby exclaimed. "What about… that THING you did to Junior…?"

"I didn't think he was pretending to be a CHICK!"

Weiss blinked. "Yang, what is she referring to?"

Yang groaned. "I had this dumb idea that the local underground might know something about Raven… I walked into Junior's club and put on this whole spy routine and flashed her photo around."

Ruby put on as deep a voice as she could manage. " 'You got a name, sweetheart?' " Her voice heightened again. " 'Why YES, Junior, I've got SEVERAL!' "

Weiss stifled a laugh. "What? No you don't…"

"Did you really say that?" Blake asked, giggling.

"I saw it," Ruby claimed proudly as her sister leered.

"I never should have had you help me wipe their security tapes…" Yang looked down, blushing. "Look, it was lame! I know! Look, 'Xiao' and 'Long' are different…!"

"This is amazing…" Weiss said, satisfaction rife in her tone.

"Yeah, so… he wasn't taking me seriously," Yang continued, "and he kinda torqued me off with the whole 'sweetheart' line… so I made him take me seriously…"

Blake waited. "So…"

She sighed. "Soooo… I grabbed him… 'below the belt…' "

Weiss' mouth fell open as she slumped forward dramatically. "No…!"

"I mean, it worked! He was putty in my— Nevermind…"

Blake was giggling uncontrollably. "S-s-so… I-I guess that makes that y-your most intimate moment with a—?"

Yang went puce. "H-hey, Miss 'Ninjas of Love,' we can't all be experienced romantics with no parental… Wait, hold on… How long were you and Adam a thing?"

Blake looked away. "Uhh… six years ago, before Beacon. We met after Sienna Khan took over for the White Fang."

Weiss' eyes widened. "And he is… was…"

"This year he'd be twenty-three."

"U-um…!" Weiss swallowed. "S-So you were thirteen, and he was seven...teen…?"

Yang went rod-straight. "Blake, what the f—?!"

Blake's ears flattened. "I-It's not that bad, we met through rallies, dated two years later… i-it didn't get… y'know… 'serious' for another year."

Weiss and Bulma shared their horror. "Blake, oh my god!"

"Oh GREAT!" Yang exclaimed. "So he turned nineteen and dated a fifteen year old... and a year later…"

Weiss nodded. "Could you imagine some… some pervert dating Ruby a year ago, turning twenty and 'sealing the deal' TODAY…?"

Ruby's eyes creaked open in concern. "S...sealing…? Nn-nnn," she objected, shaking her head as it remained buried in her arms. "Ew…"

Yang looked at her as she considered it, eyes turning red. "I'd kill 'em."

"Look, nobody regrets it more than me," Blake said defensively. "It felt… special to have his attention like that then, he wasn't like what he turned into… It was… forbidden and exciting, like a romance novel… It wasn't until way later that I even realized it was abuse…"

Bulma huffed. "So add 'pederast' to his rap-sheet… wonderful."

Sun stood up, looking uncomfortable. "So, that's my limit… I'm gonna go get some air…"

Oscar followed. "Hold up, I'll… help…?"

" ...What?"

Weiss watched them go with a withering frown. "Heh… men…"

Goku blinked. "So… Bulma, when we first met, and you tried to make me touch your butt…"

Bulma blanked. "Hey, wha…! I…!"

Blake's eyebrows shot up. "Uuuuuuuh…"

"I mean, I was eleven, and you were—"

"Sixteen, I know, I thought you were FOURTEEN! YOU thought you were fourteen!"

Yang tilted her head. "So, you tried to get weird with a kid you first me—"

"It was transactional!" Bulma shouted. "I just wanted his Dragonball! Sex appeal was one of the only tools I had… He was a teenage boy, I thought it'd work. I was gonna ask the dragon for a boyfriend anyway!"

"Transactional?" Blake asked. "Not to shame anyone… do what you gotta do... but you have more respect for yourself than that…"

"I do! Look, I was younger than you kids, it was stupid…"

Yang sighed and sipped on her drink.

Goku considered. "Then when we met Master Roshi, you wanted his Dragonball, and showed him your 'hamster.' "

"GOKU!" Bulma shrieked, the color drained from her face. Ruby's eyes flew open.

Yang's face seemed to explode as liquid sprayed suddenly out her nose. Immediately her eyes screamed her horror as she covered her face and mouth with her hand, face taut and bouncing up and down in pain as she bolted to her feet.

"Augghh! There's vodka up my NOSE! It burns, it friggin' BURNS!"

She clambered towards the laundry room, but Weiss chimed in. "Ren's showering in there!"

Yang gave an annoyed, anguished groan and turned to stomp up the stairs.

When the others returned their attention to Bulma, they found her tugging mercilessly on Goku's ear. "What the HELL is THAT word?! You didn't see that, you were messing around on Nimbus!"

"I-It's just what Roshi said, Bulma! You showed him the hamster in your pan— AGK!"

"I'll rip it off!" she threatened, her eyes steely and her nostrils flared. "Of course, YOU would never realize that was a euphemism…"

"...I thought only boys had those…"

"You hopeless…!"

Oobleck stood up as well, pocketing his notepad. "I must also… be somewhere… that isn't here…"

Blake dared to ask as Ruby watched with sudden sobriety, pink in her cheeks. "Bulma, you didn't…"

"It wasn't supposed to be!" she defended. "It was just supposed to be my underwear! But like I said, this ill-mannered, unsocialized NEANDERTHAL didn't get the point of girls, and disrobed me in my sleep the night before!"

"No offense, sir," Weiss said, horrified, "but I'm sleeping with Myrtenaster under my pillow tonight…"

"And… you didn't… feel that?" Blake asked.

Bulma crossed her arms. "They were very expensive undies… They breathed."

Ruby noticed Gohan as his eyes lit up.

"Oh!" he sighed. "I think I get it!"

All eyes turned to him.

"Bulma has a hamster… but my Mom says she has a kitty…" He turned to a dumbstruck Blake. "And you're upset because you do too… and cat's eat hamsters!"

Bulma and Blake stared at each other, uncomfortably trying to interpret the boy's theory into coherency and only conjuring obscenities…

Ruby burst into a fit of giggles and wrapped him in a hug.

"That's offensi…" Blake started, but remembered who he was talking to, "...right! You're absolutely right, Gohan…" she strained, hiding her face. "He's so right, who votes we drop this topic?"

Hands shot up unanimously, aside from Ruby as she tousled the half-Saiyan's hair.

"The I's have it…"

Mechanical. Primal. The air infused. Lint and androstene, thick as kerosene. The steady burn.

Stamen and Stigma, Lock and Key. From Puzzle to Picture, the clouds did part.

Applause, but no palms. Hydra. Chimera. At war with itself.

The world buckled, succumbed. A Grand Infliction, but a Little Death.

The Rivers bled Salt to a Freshwater Sea.

Nora ignored the edge of the dryer in her back as all of her squeezed him, trembling as blood rushed through her ears. Every breath was a gasp. She could feel his on her neck.

Ultimately she collapsed, head bowing the thin, painted metal in as it and her shoulders softly landed. She mewled, eyes unfocused. She wasn't certain if she was drenched from the leftover shower steam, or their own perspiration. The sensations slowly faded into lightheadedness. Even her legs had gone limp, hanging. Still he held her up.

"Holy…" she breathed. "Shit…"

"Y-y… Yeah…"

She giggled airily as she realized, despite no longer being chest to chest with him… she could still feel his heart beating in a very specific way...

"Isn't… the first supposed to suck?"

"Yeah..." he breathed.

"What a load…"

"Oh… sorry."

She frowned. "Huh…?" She considered. And then her eyes flew open as she laughed. "No-o-o, not like… that! Eww… Gross, Ren… Although…" she crooned, eyes drifting illicitly low.

He blinked rapidly as he stared straight ahead. "It… feels weird… when you laugh… like this."

Her eyebrows waggled. "I'll bet..."

"...Yours?"

"Huh?"

"First…"

"Huh? 'Course… When would I… have snuck that past ya? Pff… like it's not… yours…"

He caught his breath before he answered, eyes shut as he swooned, surprisingly exhausted. "I mean, you're not wrong, but… Nora?"

He stared back down at her, entirely limp as the room echoed with the sound of snoring.

Krillin minded the quiet as he slipped in the kitchen entrance. The three houses on the lawn were occupied, and Qrow was dead asleep in a kitchen chair. He noticed Raven, sat pretzel-style by the headstones, but couldn't tell if she hadn't achieved the same.

He strode in to find Jaune, Sun, Oscar and Blake in an arrangement of sleeping bags and blankets. Taiyang was in the process of draping a huge blanket over the three-headed monster of Weiss, Ruby and Gohan as they passed out against the couch next to each other.

No sooner had he taken stock than the door opened behind him.

"Oh, hey" a familiar voice greeted nasally.

"Hey Yan—" He froze to see Yang's defeated visage in the doorframe, a pair of red, rolled up bits of tissue sticking out of her nostrils.

"Don't ask," she droned, walking past him.

He shrugged. "I was only gonna ask how you slipped past me just now…"

"I was just putting my bike in the shed," she explained, as he surreptitiously watched her arrange empty shot glasses around the emptied bottles on the table. "We're camped out in the living room tonight. You can have the honor of bunking next to me… provided you don't pants me in my sleep or something."

He recoiled at the suggestion. "What?!"

"Bulma told us some stuff about your best bud," she explained.

"Oh…" he sighed, arms crossed. "Goku was clueless back in the day, but honestly… the day he showed up with his kid, I was amazed he'd figured that process out. Never shown an interest in girls or booze… his would-be wife Chichi pretty much jumped him for a proposal at the last tournament we attended."

"I wondered why he was staying stone-sober," she sighed with some relief.

Then she blinked. "Her name is Chichi?"

"Uh… yeah?"

"Is that… is that not slang for boobs on Earth?"

He stared. "Is it?"

"Sorry, you guys probably don't deserve the dress-down, but we still barely know you… y'know?"

"Right."

"You get set-up, I'll be right back…"

She found the laundry room door and found it wouldn't open. "The heck…? Ren, come on! Don't make me go back upstairs to pee!"

The door opened, revealing Ren in his clothes, bridal-style carrying a passed-out Nora with her jacket zipped up.

"Why'd you lock the door…?"

"She… knocked out waiting for the machine," he explained, evasively.

"Huh," Yang acknowledged. "Well, me and Ruby are camped down here. You guys can take our room upstairs. There's two beds, second door on the right."

"Uh… sure! Thank you…"

He made off, weaving past the others on the floor as Yang stepped into the laundry room. "Ugh…! That smell… What's Dad using with the dryer?"

Weiss found herself awake with her thoughts beside Ruby. The subsiding alcohol was of no help to her bid for sleep, and in all honesty she was scared to imagine what dreams awaited her. Her waking thoughts were bad enough.

"Ruby…? You still awake?"

"Nnn?"

She felt awful. "It was… Winter… who read me the story about Silver Eyes…"

"Mnn…"

This wasn't fair to ask, this was too personal.

"Ruby… I… I know you've… lost someone… a long long time ago. And you never talk about it, and you don't want to, and I'm… I'm sorry, but…" She felt so selfish, even as she fought the tears budding in her eyes. "Ruby, does the pain ever go away…?"

She almost half hoped to be ignored, that Ruby hadn't understood, or had slipped back asleep. That would have been better.

Instead, she turned to face Weiss. The shine was gone from her eyes. Weiss Schnee couldn't describe it, but she'd never seen a more agonizing, simple sadness on someone's face. Let alone the face of the endlessly optimistic Ruby Rose.

She wasn't angry, or dodging… Weiss saw the mask slip. No… she saw the mask lifted for her to see beneath it. She'd been trusted with a glimpse underneath the facade.

And with apology rife in her voice, earnest and injured… Weiss received her answer.

"No…"

Weiss felt herself break. It was unbearable. It was brutal. But she felt a thousand stabbing truths piercing the calm. She shuddered into quiet sobs. She mourned in knowing the grief would always be part of her… as it was with Ruby… Poor, silently suffering Ruby, who had let her in to share the load… whose arms had silently draped around her, leaving her a literal shoulder to cry on. And more than that, she swore she felt the cold burn on her own shoulder as well.

She'd scarcely felt this close to anyone, ever. It was an honor… It was agony...

Emerald lay in her bunk, staring out at the city skyline from the Shade dorm they'd been assigned… or rather the tiers of small buildings on rolling terrain, with a smattering of industrial towers and the distant spokes of derricks beyond the outer walls.

Mercury sighed somewhere above her. "Just like old times… Room, board, an Academy—"

"Controlled by an alien overlord who could vaporize it with a single whim."

"You're always such a downer…"

"But this time, we stand as honored guests," Cinder noted, sitting with a pleasant smile on a chaise lounge. "Make no mistake though… we're here to work."

Emerald sighed. "Invited or not, we're definitely here to keep tabs on him too… I wouldn't want to be caught dead snooping around in this place now."

" 'Caught… Dead…' Heh… I think you've rounded out a tautology."

"I'll keep this brief then."

The three of them turned to the voice of their master as the lights flickered and went black. Emerald's eyes strained to adjust to the light from the window and barely made out a pair of blood-red eyes in the dark with a chill before the bulbs glowed to life again. The black portal at her back, Salem stood before them, impassive.

"I see things have gone to plan," she noted. "I have a gift for the three of you. Stand."

They gathered promptly, Mercury sliding down from the bunk.

"I have my doubts that this power, regardless of Maidenhood, will be simple to harness or grow. But I believe I can advantage you… and they won't even realize it's happening."

"We're all ears."

"Hmm…" She intoned, leering. "In having been so viciously attacked by our new friend, I was constantly given a taste of the nature of his power. It will be of no use to me, but his body exudes it, wastefully, constantly. You don't feel it, but the air where he roams is thick with the heat of it… One man's waste is another's warchest."

"So… we steal his power?" Emerald asked, unsettled.

"You simply cannot steal what is so readily discarded," Salem argued. "No more than the Sun is deprived for your basking in its glow."

Cinder stepped forward readily, utterly focused. "How is this achieved?"

"Hold out your hand…" Salem ordered. "You will only require a slight change…"

The pale hand slid over her wrist as she complied. Her thumb pointed down, and her nail pierced Cinder's flesh.

She cried out as her Aura broke in an instant, the golden flecks and shards spraying throughout the room as they flickered and vanished. She bared her teeth… but then the full barrier blinked back into existence, a trickle of fuschia tracing across it as the sole apparent difference, like lightning.

"...Good… and for the two of you…"

She beckoned Emerald forward, and she crept close uncertainly. Without warning, Salem's hand snatched her by the wrist, the other palm cupping the underside of her forearm.

"Agh! Nnnnrggh!"

She heard a distinctive, piercing bite, and clutched her arm as she witnessed a white-headed, tar-black leech had been placed there, its jaws embedded in her skin. She beheld it in fear… She'd seen the thing Salem implanted in Cinder to steal the Fall Maiden's power. She didn't want this… She didn't want that thing inside her… but she could only watch in fear as it burrowed under her skin, pulling its engorged, wormlike body in after its head until the wound had sealed itself.

She screamed as she felt the creature's jaws clamp down onto something —a nerve, perhaps— and felt intense nausea as her Aura broke as well… only to feel something new surging into her, replenishing her. Her Aura reformed in seconds, but with something… foreign to her… like her blood was being transfused with the essence of the alien emperor himself.

She still shook, even as she felt strength filling her. Already Mercury had stepped forward to receive the same. Emerald could only stare at the spot on her arm where it happened. She felt wrong… Like she'd crossed a line…

Like she'd sold her soul.

A/N: I'm sorry these next few will be come-down chapters like this. Part and parcel to changing acts, we've gotta build towards the big stuff again. Though at least a lot of good stuff can just happen now with the setup that's been achieved already.

I'd definitely say this one is more about our bad guys gaining momentum, while our good guys cope, reflect, plan and… other things. But hey, more Frieza, more Ginyu, more characters interacting and learning about each other.

Some doubted Frieza would ever accept a truce or work with Salem, but her shrewd ploy left him little choice once he'd plumbed every depth of his power and realized she'd starve him out if he didn't convince her to let him leave.

...Now it's PERSONAL, and he's willing to play the long game just to make her suffer for that. Both sides working together to be rid of each other, fully intent on ultimately betraying them.

It feels moot given we all know Frieza's forms, but I DID labor to only describe the barest features of him in his ultimate form, the writing equivalent of shrouding a figure in shadow and using tight, specific camera angles. I also wrote only Salem as properly seeing his true form, while the others only make out a vague, distant silhouette.

Ginyu shows she means business… and finally lets her freak-flag fly, forging a steady hatred and future rivalry with Cinder… who is awestruck by Frieza, his tactics and his results. Emerald notices, and doesn't like it, all the while being disrespected despite being a team player.

I feel like Doctor Henrys requires no explanation. We see her in her element, though there are no real traps in this trove.

I actually modeled and animated the Crescent-themed vault door to be sure of the design in my head. I just love that I'm equipped to do stuff like that in the name of research…

Back home, Ozpin imbues the property with magical protection, and we explain why their home base is somewhere Ruby's mail would still be delivered. Tai promised kids be drinking, and damn it, that's what we get.

"Bill and Jake's" is a reference to William and Jacob Grimm, and "Eventyr" is another word for "fairytale." I love stuff like that. Being honest, I don't know from experience if cognac is better than bourbon, scotch or basic whiskey… Had vodka, had a bunch of stuff, but not much in that family of hard liquor.

Being wholly honest, this chapter might have been my most dubious for character writing… because I needed to write a number of the kids being tipsy or drunk, and there's no precedent for that. Tai loads Ruby up to relax her and maybe give her a good night's sleep, and she's TRASHED by his concoction. The others take it better, less lucid depending on how hard they're working to forget the day's events… so naturally Weiss and Blake have hit the bottle hard, and come closest to true inebriation besides Ruby.

Poor Jaune is too stressed to hit the brakes on his pain this way, and instead challenges Raven upon realizing SHE effectively destroyed the town he remembered from his childhood. Then she reveals something he's suspected about Cinder, and it becomes a whole thing…

And I've said it before, but MAN am I glad to have Raven here… because there's just so many good things that come with her involvement. Realizing she's doomed her people, including Vernal, we get an explanation for how Hell works, and motivation for Raven to become a better person. I wanted largely to make Otherworld less cruel, but also went closer to the "Resurrection F" version of Hell than the one with ogres and blood ponds. I even worked-in reincarnation to pair with what was done with Kid Buu and Uub.

Gohan and Ruby have a nice little scene to cover everything in their corner… and yes, lore about modern weapon creation, and the tease of Gohan receiving his own. I didn't want it to be an entirely automated process, like the fully designed weapon just pops out, but also… I really doubt most of these kids are accomplished S-tier blacksmiths; is that fair? I figure they assemble the machined components by hand after having designed them. I mean, we're still pretty impressed whenever Michael Reeves or Mark Rober create this manufacture-level purpose-built invention from their own imagination.

Sadly, Gohan will likely be the exception in having a weapon rather than just bare fists, but did you really expect Vegeta to rely on something he could lose or destroy?

Then… Hmm… I'll admit to being fairly risqué, at least with implications. There IS a reason, and that reason is Dragonball itself. With it taking a more prominent role in the story, I'm trying to emulate classic DB humor, if being more tasteful and less potentially sexist. You probably recall a lot of immature jokes, lewd offers, implied bodily functions… I mean, the first episode Bulma showed off her underwear and peed herself…

I don't intend to be offensive, but if I can reference moments like that or do something tastefully amusing or surprising in their place, I almost feel obligated to do so. The girls might definitely have something to say about Goku's past history of checking potential females for balls, and literally removing Bulma's underwear in her sleep… Or Bulma's cavalier use of her own body to get what she wanted.

But I'm fair, so Ruby spills the beans on Yang's Yellow Trailer shenanigans. I figure she probably enlisted Ruby to help destroy the surveillance footage, because… sure, Junior was probably unlikely to call the police, but let's not pretend Yang didn't commit a butt-ton of assault after being vaguely insulted… including sexual assault. Every time I watch the Yellow Trailer with hindsight, Yang's claim to have "several" names makes me react the same way Weiss does here, like she's pretending to be a bond-girl or something.

And… yes, in a slight twist, I am suggesting that Yang's experience with boys has never advanced beyond flirting, and that she pretends to be far more experienced than she is… while truthfully she is VERY selective but doesn't want to come off vulnerable. She's outwardly confident as an intimidation tactic to boys that will fall for it, while stonewalling men that would call her on it or be pushy and threatening violence if they REALLY take it there.

Blake, meanwhile, is the dark horse in that race. FAR more experienced, but not forthcoming about it. I think that's probably not difficult to guess given her past and her taste in literature. Still… I was about two minds in bringing up the two-ton beringel of Blake CERTAINLY being a victim to Adam in terms of underage… yeah.

I'm just saying, now that we KNOW RWBY's birthdays, we also know Blake wasn't 18 until January before attending Beacon… and you can't convince me she and Adam weren't long-time lovers by then. And no, you also can't convince me Adam was younger than 17 years when Sienna took over for Ghira judging by his appearance in the V6 Adam trailer… which, according to Blake in "Black and White," was five years before Beacon, making him 23 in V4-6.

I REALLY didn't want to be terrible here, so I minimized the squick to Blake and Adam… "starting…" when she was sixteen… but regardless, he was still a creepazoid of 19/20 grooming a teenager.

Again, I debated including this… but the drunk conversation was supposed to be spiraling into uncomfortable, controversial territory until the boys left and they opted to drop it once they recognized the five-year-old was straining to follow it. I'm not trying to minimize Blake's abuse or make light of it. I questioned if it was in bad taste to suggest, but I really don't think there's any other way you can interpret Blake and Adam without being unrealistically charitable to him.

Then… Well, Renora certainly started off with a bang!

Heh… heh… (I'll see myself out).

I mean, what? Who said anything inappropriate happened in that laundry room? It was just a very long… romantic hug! Hugs are nice…

...Seriously though, I know I'm riding a line here despite not being explicitly descriptive, but I promise at no point will this transform into a lemon… Like I said, this is a pg-13 to my mind, and pg-13's aren't sexless material, they just don't SHOW anything but an exposed back and vague motions between sheets… and facial expressions. I'll imply all SORTS of things with dialogue and facial expressions without a single anatomical reference.

But, if y'all HATE it, I'll tone it down…

As to Renora itself… Yes, I did plan this as the necessary outcome of Nora peeing herself in fear during Chapter 14 after almost getting cut in half the long way. She had to clean them things… Cinder burned their house down in Mistral with all their extra stuff.

I actually did feel self-conscious about them starting out this fast after seeing how Volume 8 handled it… I do think it was maturely handled on CRWBY's part, and respect that for the most part…

...But here's my justification.

Volume 7 and 8 gave Ren all these feelings of guilt and responsibility that drove a wedge between them, until finally they have their fight in V8 and Nora feels apart from him enough to question her own identity.

...That's not really a THING here? Nora isn't feeling these doubts and Ren is too practical to believe (unlike Ruby) that they EVER could have prepared for Frieza. They're just happy to be alive, and hey… war has a way of crafting a sense of urgency.

And while I respect the "we're in love, but we'll wait" thing V8 does… you guys realize this is ALSO an excuse for RT not to write them in an active relationship, right?

This is why I'm doing THIS. I'm sick to DEATH of romances being 100% about the PURSUIT and never about the happy couple being together. Even Avatar is guilty of this. "Oh, it's complicated… maybe after the war is over…"

Yeah, f*** that.

If Ren and Nora survive RWBY, they'll only get together at the end in canon.

Well I'm tired of that. I'm not going to write about them kissing in the sunset while the credits roll, I'm not going to break them up between sequels to rekindle their romance later…

No, I'm going to break convention and show the foibles of these two being an item. We'll get to see how the others react, see them fawn, see it get under their skin.

Though to be fair to Avatar… the post-series comics actually surprised me by showing what I never expected to see: Aang and Katara as a couple, complete with sappy nicknames and making Sokka uncomfortable. That's FUN, that's DIFFERENT.

I want THAT action. Let them be happy, damn it. Let the drama come from people REACTING to them rather than building and building a "will they/won't they" situation we ALL know the answer to while everything about their love is left to the imagination. You knew they were going to get together… Now what happens NEXT?

And finally… Salem imbues her people with their own advantage in the coming training. After the savage beating Frieza tried to give her, she's attuned enough to his power to basically create a Grimm solar-panel parasite that adds his cast-off power to their own.

I mean, come on, I need these guys to stay relevant… and they're going to be up against kids trained under the likes of GOKU… Ginyu is better than your typical Frieza soldier, but the kids are going to receive superior quality training. It'll be towering powers vs weaker heroes who can move efficiently and actually know how to USE that power properly.

...But never count the baddies out.

Yep, it's going to be an interesting dynamic in terms of balance, but I've got so much planned here… Let's get fun.

Let's dig into some comments!

Wolf1741: This is why I don't write strictly to appease fans…

Firstly, I'm sorry you were forced to engage your BRAIN, but if that's asking too much, then don't worry, I never sought your approval in the first place.

Also, thanks for scaring the hell out of me when I was terrified Ch16 would go over everyone's heads. This being my first review for HOURS was just great…

Edward4555: Destroyers, yes, but Deha and Doya are Kais first, species-wise. Supreme Kais are named for less popular IRL gods.

zack32: I just love how triggered this guy got… As if humility wasn't a CORE principle of Roshi's training, Popo's/Kami's training… You're right about energy control, but it was BORNE of that humility, using what power they had as effectively and efficiently as possible.

I actually pm'd this guy, and his refusal to accept that this wasn't canon RWBY limits was just amazingly bullheaded.

X3runner: I mean, I go into that here, but… Wow, this was the shortest review you've ever made. You feeling okay?

Darkjaden: Thanks, man!

BlindAsABat95: I want to thank you personally for being the first to assure me I hadn't screwed it all up, hahaha. The first few reviews were neutral to negative, and I was extremely worried that in waters of largely original writing and ideas that I might have failed to recognize something crucial because I was too close to it.

I can tell you that the feelings you got from the chapter are straight from me trying to be as affecting as possible. I wanted the twins to be flawed, but likeable, I wanted them to seem inseparable to the point of almost being blind to other loyalties. I wanted characters like Ruby to be heartbroken by their choice to end in order to preserve their world and the life residing in it.

Suffice to say that the process of writing a lot of it drove ME to tears because I didn't hold back, I let myself be vulnerable by throwing as much of my own morals and beliefs into it and communicating why I feel they are beautiful. The bit I wrote about humans surviving as a result of love where the smarter Neanderthals died is something I legitimately believe to be true. That might seem sappy, but I don't shy away from it.

Alex Bloodbane: Well, here you go!

ThePolishSausageRoaster: Hearing stuff like this makes it all worth the effort. I knew it might be a hard sell, but I like to think I put the work in to give this story a solid foundation. It's nothing short of moving to find I wasn't the only one that could see what I saw in these ideas.

Villiandeku9501: This sort of thing is utterly fascinating to me. I could never read a crossover with something I wasn't familiar with, and this isn't even the first time someone has said something like this.

Sorry to say, I really do feel the canon lore isn't as strong or interesting as this, at the risk of sounding arrogant. I can still recommend the proper series, provided you temper your expectations early and look at it more like a college production that gained a following and a budget. Don't turn your brain off, just recognize that the series is from people growing their craft who hit a lot of bumps. It can be undoubtedly frustrating at times, but there's also so much to love. One thing that could never be said about RWBY is that it fails to invest you in the characters. They have a talent in making new and old characters likeable, and this is such a strength that it bids a lot of forgiveness from viewers out of sheer, raw earnestness.

AntonioBarbarian: I don't know about PERFECT, but god did I give it my best effort, and I thank you for appreciating it. I can't deny that I was giddy to leave you guys off on that cliffhanger in Chapter 15, knowing full well you could NEVER have anticipated how hard I went in crafting this backstory.

Hopefully you can understand why I was worried to try to follow THAT up with THIS chapter, which despite having a lot of stuff I'm happy to show feels lighter in tone and generally, and I'll admit to some tonal shifts I'm not sold on.

SuperSaiyanFever: Well, she doesn't exist in this story.

King of Fans: Gotcha. Chapter 13 was shorter and originally intended as the ending half of Chapter 12. I actually intended Frieza's rampage to be Chapter 13 for the unlucky number reason… not to say I was ever stalling.

I don't know what a chill is, but Salem isn't something with an Achilles Heel like that. She IS the Grimm. I think it's fair if you miss the personal nature of Ozpin's canon relationship with Salem, at least for how antagonistic it is. Sorry to say something had to be sacrificed for this backstory, and Ozpin was necessarily going to be born after the moonfall as the last child of the bloodlines of mages that survived. I was far more concerned with Salem being a more sympathetic being. She does awful things to make the characters hate her while her motives remain understandable, to the point that even for having lost her mother, Ruby wants to save her from herself.

Yes, you are correct that technically every Universe has a twin… It's more that 6 and 7 are two of the four only ones in the list beside each other, with lucky 7 being the clincher.

I actually could never forgive "This War of Mine" for wasting the chance to have Penny meet 16 when both were in the same story… I'm sorry that unless this story has a sequel, I can't make it happen myself.

Gojosin: Well, you have your answer.

c16Wuest: I mean… sorta?

y2j badass: Well, keep waiting…

G119: This is the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning. Seriously, I don't hear too many people talking about the music. I won't do this too often… but again, a bunch of these scenes were envisioned in terms of animation, and I absolutely want to represent all this visually some day.

To be clear to others, Odette was the first human to fall prey to Salem. The pools were underground or in craggy, isolated areas until finally breaking ground somewhere a person might stumble onto them.

Hopefully after this chapter it's clear how Salem remains a threat after tanking Frieza at his best without crumpling. She has a lot of tricks up her sleeve and truly as long as a bit of Grimm exists she will expand. Killing Grimm doesn't remove what they're made of.

And yes, no GT. Sorry, for all its own faults, I vibe with Super's concepts on a fundamentally better level than I ever did GT.

I'm honored to hear this made you feel more than RWBY's most wrenching moments, even if that's hard for me to believe.

Temsen: You are absolutely right, and I'm glad you caught it. Fixed.

TimsonShay: You pretty much nailed it! Yes, Occult Energy is like an antimatter version of Divine Energy. It cannot be sensed by mortals, creating the misconception in humans that they are soulless… when the reality is far more terrifying. She's not immortal, but she could withstand Frieza, and per this story that's all that matters.

Though as Salem IS the Grimm, with the normal Grimm as extensions, and her essence and consciousness existing within the pools and creatures… she effectively IS immortal given what it would take to obliterate all of her. The Relics, honestly, would be the neatest means of removing her.

If you want to think about it like the normal Grimm being like white blood cells in a massive body, Salem might make more sense to you, with her human body as the embodiment of her mind at the time.

Kage-kitsune9001: You mean Zeno? I mean, I felt compelled to have people react to learning who GOD is and what he looks like.

c16Archie: You're so welcome! I agree… I mean, I wouldn't have bothered if I thought I couldn't do better.

I'dMakeANameButIDon'tWantTo: I look forward to your commentary every time, and you didn't disappoint.

Your praise of Deha and Doya as OC's is incredibly flattering, and suffice to say I felt they were the biggest risk to the premise falling flat if I didn't get them right. I only ever create OC's to fulfill a necessary role or purpose, and I try to keep them to that role. The difference here is that their roles are so utterly important that they needed all the love I've ever given one.

I'm not sure what you mean about the Grimm's portrayal. They didn't begin as ferocious, but always looked the part. Humanity's own fears bid them to attack the beasts on sight, and when they defended themselves it only deepened humanity's resolve. And once Salem had the mind to understand where they stood and chose the bloody path, the Grimm changed accordingly, seeking out humans and their creations. The ability to sense negativity is a perversion of her intended purpose, entirely borne of her own hate for humanity. She is a thing that was made to love, and SEEK love and positivity, but this empathic ability was twisted when her heart was changed and broken, when she felt betrayed by the maker she loved.

I hope this chapter wasn't too low brow after 16, but it was unbelievable enough already to have three chapters chock full of content and bombshell reveals. It was going to settle down eventually.

Doctor Snake Eater: I labored to make it so, and I'm overjoyed that it went over this well.

Flen99: Haha, thanks… love you too…?

123GOHANZ: I would never hand the defeat of Frieza solely to Ruby Rose or the Remnant crew. If victory will be had, it will require nothing less than every once of their combined efforts with a lot of cleverness as well.

I wouldn't write this just for Goku to go Super and kill Frieza, nor Ruby to eyeblast Frieza and end it.

Actually, the ending of this story as it's currently planned… Good or ill, it has a LOT of moving parts. Don't worry too much.

Son Kenshin: It wouldn't be Ruby without her trying to save even a thing that's caused her such pain if she believes it can change. Of course, she won't be WHOLLY consistent there… There ARE things even SHE has difficulty forgiving.

Volume 8 would be one of my absolute favorites if not for Penny.

If you understand writing, you know that the villains need to be imposing, and more than that they need to CONSTANTLY edge closer to their goal, because without the risk of them winning there cannot be tension. If the Death Star weren't on the verge of destroying Yavin IV, the heroes attacking wouldn't have had so much riding on their success. And if they didn't lose in Empire, the struggle in Jedi wouldn't have felt as climactic or as desperate. Thus, the victory wouldn't have been as satisfying or powerful.

The Fall of Beacon was the last REAL win that Salem's people had. Tyrian failed to take Ruby, Cinder and the others were soundly beaten at Haven and forced to flee, leaving the one free Relic in the hands of the protagonists. They licked their wounds in Volume 6 only to cause trouble in Atlas but ultimately fail in securing the Winter Maiden. Neo alone nabs the Lamp as consolation.

It's literally been the entire series again since Beacon without the villains getting a solid win over the heroes. Now they're halfway towards gathering the Relics, they've eliminated the Atlas military (their technology anyway) and to their knowledge they've slain a huge chunk of the enemy force with Jaune and RWBY as a whole meeting with the abyss.

Frankly I believed Ren would be our major loss for the Atlas arc (and I still think that would've been better) but plainly the writers had other, more cruel, more wasteful ideas…

Scott Kanouse: Thanks! I don't really even know much about the Tuffles, and they're not important here, but if they're as humanoid as in the Saiyan Saga flashbacks, it's a solid bet.

Yes, I grant you the Saiyan perks relating to transformation and moonlight are truly something apart, but given how crazy and meat headed the people requesting it must have been… I can only figure the Relic keepers just rolled with it to get rid of them and shoved them onto a planet far off from everything else. I figure after a certain point it was like paying to name a star or something. No shortage of lifeless rocks out there to make habitable.

"Become giant apes when subjected to moonlight… sure, whatever… Do moons emit anything specific, Tom?"

"Uh… yeah! Minor band, but usually just blutz waves due to the—"

"Done! Fine, just pack your creatine or whatever and we'll meet you in the next room… Friggin' psychopaths…"

Also, Remnant started the color thing after Mantle and Mistral tried to enforce the outlaw of art and basically anything that could inspire a negative emotional response. It was meant to stop Grimm attacks for good, but Vale and Vacuo wouldn't stand for it. It was a "trading freedom for security" thing. That's what The Great War was about, a recent thing, and naming kids after colors was a rebellion against this oppression.

I didn't make that up either, that's literally the lore of the series.

Coreldecortavar: Thanks so much! Yeah, I definitely feel the same, and yeah, I tried to incorporate the best elements into something new that lived up to what I wanted to tell.

Yeah, I'm sorry to have so blatantly pulled heartstrings by killing them… but they just weren't the sort to abandon Remnant, so sadly this was the most effective option. So hey, if you're going to do it, don't be halfway about it.

Never read the Ender series… Honestly, I'm not that well read. Nah, all of that comes from eleven years as a skeptic, building my personal moral code from the ashes of my former beliefs and realizing how perverse the "loving father" angle often is in religions. Because unless you're a MONSTER, parents don't act like gods traditionally do. If gods acted like REAL parents, I'd probably not object to half as many.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Given that entities like Zeno, Beerus or the Brothers themselves could handily end Frieza… it does diminish his presence a little… but that was kind of the point. To show the kids how vast a Cosmos they actually live in and that maybe… just maybe… they can pull through. It's a double-edged sword, but it doesn't make that gap any smaller in reality.

Describing the Prime Universe coming apart was as simple as imagining a Universe where the basic laws of physics were changing. The four forces of the Universe are changing their mathematical values and rending space and time. Electromagnetism is making light, electricity and radiation fade or function differently. With Otherworld, I was kinda inspired by the amalgamates from Undertale, and how they were fused together into horrific shapes.

c14Guest: Why is it always the guest reviews?

I don't even know if this was actually for Chapter 16, that's how vague and unhelpful your criticism is. Suffice to say, what interests you and I are clearly different things. If you want me to address a damn thing, maybe include specifics of ANY kind… Otherwise it's just a mangle of vaguely negative statements.

c16Matthew: I mean, that's basically half of what Transposition F IS for me. I had to fix Volume 5 into something workable.

Trust me, after this Volume, I'd have trouble getting through the day if not for THIS as my outlet.

But maybe that's telling...

LuminaDawn: I grant you I had no way of naturally including this information, but for the sake of clarity I'll explain outright:

I have altered the Multiverse to remove repeat instances of worlds and species, such that every Universe is unique per this story.

Dragonball Super only created the notion of branching possibilities as an excuse to add more Saiyans to the series, and while I don't necessarily dislike the characters they made for this, like Cabba, I INTENSELY dislike the lazy reuse of species to fill the cracks with multiversal Yardrats, Namekians and so on.

In the same sense that I removed the Super Dragonballs from continuity, I've removed this nonsensical cross-Universe parity. You'd have a point if the U6 Saiyans and such still existed, but they're not a thing in this story, and if the Beerus/Champa tournament still happened, it would look very different and have much different stakes.

If you still object, well, I'm sorry. There's just no other way to reconcile stupid ideas like cross-species hybrids, or the preposterous similarities different species have, or especially the existence of humans from different worlds. Unless I embraced the dumb "same species, different universe" idea, the only way to even HAVE this crossover would be generic dimensional portal garbage, and I VOWED I wouldn't use a handwaving excuse like that as the easy way out. I was compelled to actually put effort into the basis for the crossover, and I feel the story is a hundred times better for it.