A/N: Volume 3 OP: "The World" by Jonathan Young

Chapter 12

Facing Destiny

Pyrrha Nikos sat in a chair in Professor Ozpin's office facing the man while another, fairly well dressed man leaned against a nearby column. She had been summoned here about half an hour ago and she had absolutely no idea why. Nothing major and unexpected happened that she was aware of and she certainly wasn't in any trouble. To make matters even more confusing, for the past several minutes, the Professor had simply talked to her about the tournament while the unknown man vaguely glowered in the background and looked at her as though he were sizing her up for a fight.

Now, Pyrrha was no fool and was more than capable of reading the room and seeing underneath the underneath, as it were. She could tell that this conversation, once they got past the frivolities, was going to be perhaps the most important conversation in her life. It was as though she could feel the weight of her destiny— a weight that she hadn't fully experienced in some time thanks to her team— pressing down on her greater than ever before. What's more, she knew that this idle conversation was simply the Professor's attempt to put her at ease.

It was having the opposite effect.

Being summoned by the headmaster wasn't something that just happened randomly and for no reason; he didn't call people to his office just to talk about casual things. What's more, the other man seemed vaguely familiar in a way that Pyrrha couldn't quite articulate and he had an aura that wasn't all that different from Emiya Shirou's when his mask was off: Power honed to perfection and undercut by deep sorrow. Pyrrha thought that she was fairly good at getting a read on how strong a person was but she was having considerable difficulty placing this man. She was about to chalk it up to a Semblance like Lie Ren's when she spied the hip flask. Something that was both impressive and scary was that, when she noticed the hip flask, he moved it out of her sight even though she had been reading him with her peripheral vision.

"Well, it comes as no surprise that they've chosen you to move on to the final round of the tournament. Your performance was exemplary," Professor Ozpin said with a chuckle, snapping Pyrrha's attention firmly back on him.

"Thank you, Professor Ozpin, but I would never have made it this far without my teammates," Pyrrha replied almost automatically. Despite seemingly being absurd, this statement was nonetheless true. Had it not been for her friends, she would have been as she was before coming to Beacon: Automatically moving through tasks with precise perfection while patiently awaiting her destiny. The old her would have never let Jaune Arc do most of the work in the second round.

"Personally, I think it's the other way around," the other man said as he crossed his arms.

Pyrrha sharply stood up and turned to face him and it was only the countless hours of decorum training that kept her from verbally lashing out at him. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe we've been introduced," she said politely, if somewhat coldly.

"Name's Qrow," he said with a grunt.

"Qrow is a trusted colleague of mine," Professor Ozpin provided.

Pyrrha narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment before the memory came to her, "Qrow Branwen? Ruby and Yang's uncle?"

"That's me," he said with a two fingered wave. "Glad to know the brats are still talking about me. Probably haven't said anything good, I'd wager, which… would be fair. Well, Yang would probably rag on me but I don't think Ruby would."

Pyrrha opted to ignore his ramblings in favor of turning back to the headmaster. "Professor, if you don't mind me asking, why have you called me here?"

"Please, take a seat," the Professor said with a smile. Once she was reseated, the Professor leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers together. "What is your favorite fairy tale?"

Pyrrha blinked in confusion a few times as her brain ground to a halt. Once she managed to get it back in gear, the only words she could summon were "I'm… sorry?" She was vaguely aware of Qrow snickering in the background.

"Fairy tales; stories from your childhood. Surely, you must remember some of them."

It took a few more seconds for Pyrrha's brain to fully catch back up and then dig through her memories but she eventually answered him with a nostalgic smile, "Well, there's The Tale of the Two Brothers, The Shallow Sea, The Girl in the Tower…"

"What about the Story of the Seasons?" he asked as he leaned forward.

"Well, of course! Four sisters work together to bring a persnickety old man out of his house through acts of kindness with their acts correlating with the seasons. My mother loves that story."

"Would you believe me if I told you that one's been around since I was a boy?"

Pyrrha laughed at the joke, "You're not that old, Professor."

Professor Ozpin's playful demeanor changed to deadly serious as he said, "Well, would you believe me if I told you it was true?"

Pyrrha stared at the headmaster for a moment and was about to answer in confusion when a thought stopped her. Was that story really that hard to believe? If you had asked her before her second semester, she would have said yes but now she knew that magic existed. What had once seemed fantastical suddenly seemed plausible. "You mean the old man was a magus?"

"Yes and no," the Professor answered with a glint of approval in his eyes. "Assuming that Shirou gave a detailed enough explanation, the old man would better be called a Sorcerer."

"You mean he was capable of True Magic?"

"Indeed. You cannot grant magic to others without first possessing it yourself. What the old man granted the sisters could be likened unto a magic crest with unique rules."

"The reversal here's pretty funny," Qrow chimed in. "This was pretty crazy when Ozpin first told me but it made believing Shirou a lot easier. You've probably got it the other way around."

"I do," Pyrrha said absently as she rearranged a few things in her mind. "While this is fascinating and raises a number of interesting questions, why are you telling me this?"

Ozpin looked at Qrow who nodded in approval before turning his attention back to Pyrrha, his focus like a physical weight on her soul. "We are telling you this, Pyrrha Nikos, because we believe that you should be next in line to receive the Fall Maiden's powers."

While the "we" in that sentence could easily refer to just the Professor and Qrow, Pyrrha got the feeling that there were more than that. "Who else is there?" she asked.

As if waiting just for this moment, the door to the office slid open to reveal Professor Glynda Goodwitch and General James Ironwood. "Sorry we're late," the General said as he adjusted his tie.

Pyrrha looked at everyone now in the room as she struggled to put everything together. "The headmaster of Beacon, the headmaster of Atlas and head of their military, the deputy headmistress of Beacon, and… you." Qrow nodded at her, conceding the point that he stood out. "Am I to take it that all of you are, what, some sort of shadowy cabal trying to save the world?"

Professor Ozpin chuckled while the General looked a tad miffed and Professor Goodwitch looked chuffed. "I suppose that's one way of putting it," Professor Ozpin said.

"It's less 'save' and more 'protect,' though," Qrow clarified.

"We are the protectors of this world," General Ironwood said proudly, causing Qrow to give him a flat look for repeating what he just said.

Pyrrha turned her attention back to Professor Ozpin who gave her a reassuring smile as he said, "And we need your help."

OoOoOoO

Pyrrha had to admit that she was more than a little nervous as she stood in the elevator with Remnant's apparent protectors. The gravity of the situation was honestly starting to get to her a bit. She had long known that something like this was coming eventually but she had hoped that it wouldn't come until at least a bit into her second year. This was way too soon but she supposed that it couldn't be helped.

Putting aside her worries, Pyrrha instead chose to focus on their destination: the basement of Beacon. The basement was one of those things that had been the subject of idle rumors among the school's body since probably the school's founding. Aside from the headmaster (and even then), no one knew who was allowed down there and what could be waiting inside. The rumors had ranged from mountains of gold to vile experiments to cult-like activities. None of them could be substantiated, of course, but the basement was a fun subject to drift to when there was nothing particularly gossip worthy going on.

As it turned out, the cult-like activities rumor turned out to be true, from a certain point of view. It wouldn't be too hard to argue that the whole deal with magecraft and the Maidens and these secretly true legends wouldn't be out of place in a cult. Continuing that train of logic, Pyrrha realized that this would mean that Shirou had recruited her into a cult and Professor Ozpin et al were now inviting her to learn its deeper mysteries. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that so she decided to simply discard it.

When the elevator finally reached its destination, Pyrrha was amazed to find a very long hallway with a ridiculously high ceiling dimly lit by what might have been something like torches with mysteriously green flames. The entire thing was a little much, in Pyrrha's opinion, but she had to admit that it certainly added to the grandiosity of the situation.

"I'm sure you must have questions," Professor Goodwitch said as she waited for Pyrrha to catch up to her.

"Maybe one or two," Pyrrha said as she continued to take in the hallway that became more ridiculous the farther they walked down it. She couldn't even see the end. Maybe magecraft was being employed to protect it? "You said that I should be next in line to receive the Maiden's power. Their power is something like Sorcery, right? I'm not a magus and Shirou said you couldn't turn someone into one so how can I receive her power?"

Professor Goodwitch opened her mouth to answer only to shut it with a scowl and a frustrated growl. Of course she would ask about the inner workings of magecraft, something she still couldn't understand. Professor Ozpin looked over his shoulder with an amused smirk as he answered her question.

"An excellent observation. Shirou is right in practice under nearly every circumstance but the Maidens are exceptions to the rules. I mentioned before that a Maiden's power functions somewhat like a magic crest. Whether or not the recipient has magic circuits of their own, the Maiden's power essentially provides them with some."

"Does that mean that the Maiden's power would be more potent if transferred to someone who was already a magus?"

"Indeed, although it's extremely rare."

"Assuming that the name means it's restricted, why not give them to, say, Ruby? She's a magus."

Qrow tripped on his own feet before turning to stare in disbelief at Pyrrha while Professor Ozpin chuckled. "There are a fair number of reasons that we can go over later, if you insist. For the time being, just rest assured that we're confident that you're the best choice. Besides, while the power gap is certainly notable, it's not so extreme as to render this a foolish choice."

"Is the power restricted by gender or by sex?"

This time, it was Professor Ozpin's turn to open his mouth before closing it with a thoughtful hum, "You know, I'm not entirely certain. It's not as though there are only two sexes in people if we go by chromosomes. If we go by reproductive organs, that just raises more questions since those can be changed with surgery. Every Maiden we've known of has at least identified as a woman so there's that."

"This is a fascinating question but it also doesn't really matter right now," Qrow said with a dismissive wave after he regained himself. He'd have to have a talk with Ruby and/or Shirou later. "You're a woman no matter how you look at it so you'll be fine unless the rules are even more convoluted than we thought."

"So, how do the powers normally transfer?"

"To put matters simply, they go to the last person the Maiden was thinking about before they died," Professor Goodwitch answered, grateful that they were finally back in territory that she was familiar with.

"Unless it's a dude or some old hag. Then the power goes to someone random and our job gets a lot harder," Qrow clarified.

"Why tell me all of this now? Why not wait until I've graduated?" Pyrrha asked in confusion. Her head was starting to spin from all of this information and it was taking a decent force of will to keep her thoughts focused.

"Honestly, we've run out of time," Qrow began. "I don't know if you've noticed but things are getting a lot scarier out in the world. Tensions are high; Grimm are growing stronger, more prevalent; and it's not going to be much longer before the peace we've been enjoying so much goes out the window."

Pyrrha took a moment to digest this and arrange all of her thoughts. "You're talking about… war? The nations don't have any particular tension that I'm aware of so… between Soulkin and the Grimm?"

"You really are a smart girl," Qrow remarked.

"You're not entirely wrong but you're not entirely right, either," General Ironwood said. "The situation is a fair bit more complicated than that."

"We can fill you in on the details once we know that you're with us," Qrow said. "For now, all you need to know is that one of the Maidens has been attacked. And, for the first time in history, part of her power was stolen."

After what was approximately way too long in hindsight, the group finally reached the end of the hall. There they found a series of peculiar machines: two people-sized pods connected by a series of wires and cables with a small console on the inward side of the pods and a large console between them. The one on the right was laying down but the one on the left was raised to reveal a sparsely clad young woman with brown, shoulder length hair and a burn scar over her left eye and across her face.

Pyrrha stepped forward cautiously, her face a mixture of emotions at what she was seeing. It would have been a concerning sight even if she had known next to nothing but, given what she did know, it was downright horrific. "Is that…"

"The current Fall Maiden, Amber," Professor Ozpin said with a heavy sigh.

Pyrha's eyes caught the console on the side of Amber's pod and saw that it was displaying vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure, EEG readings, blood oxygen levels, Aura level. That last one was most concerning as the readout simply read "error." Seeing this sent a shock through Pyrrha's system like a jolt of electricity. One's Aura was simply a manifestation of their soul and magic circuits, likewise, were channels through the soul through which prana can flow. For the readout to be that and for only a part of her power to be missing could only mean… It was impossible for Pyrrha to complete that thought.

Pyrrha wrapped her arms around herself as she struggled with this situation that was beyond horrific. She was well aware that there was evil in the world and was equally aware that the evil was great but this was something that was beyond evil. It was an evil so great that it made every other evil Pyrrha had thought about or confronted up to this point seem like children playing at being adults. She felt something shift and change inside her, felt a part of her innocence that she didn't even know existed slip away, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was evils such as this that made Shirou and Qrow who they were.

"She's… still alive," Pyrrha commented, her mouth on autopilot as she made an obvious and pointless observation, even if her life seemed impossible.

"For now," General Ironwood corrected. "We're using state of the art Atlas technology to keep her stable but there is a lot about this situation that is… unprecedented."

That was an understatement if Pyrrha had ever heard one. To continue to live— for some definition of the word— with a chunk of your soul missing was a little beyond unprecedented. That being said, it wasn't just her survival that was unprecedented. In this particular case, there was something arguably more important that was unknown.

"What will happen when she dies? Who will her power go to?"

"That's the problem," General Ironwood said as his features set into a grim scowl. "In instances of murder, it's not uncommon for a Maiden's last thoughts to be of their assailant which means, assuming that they're a young woman, the power would go to them. She was assaulted by three unknown people and it's reasonable to assume, given other pieces of information, that at least one of them was a woman. What's unprecedented is that no one's ever seen the power split like this before. There's a fair chance that it will go to its other half."

Pyrrha focused on trying to calm her rising heart rate as she took in this information. Frankly speaking, she was being overwhelmed and would need a lot of time to try and process all of this but she couldn't back down now.

"Even if her last thoughts aren't of her assailant, the power will probably go to her anyway," Pyrrha concluded.

"And that would not bode well for any of us," Professor Ozpin confirmed with a nod.

Pyrrha bowed her head deep in thought as she took this lull to try and sort out at least some of this. The lessons she had been given as a child on how to effectively learn and process complicated information got to work as she filtered through everything and sorted them into piles: Things not immediately important, things that were important but not a priority, and things that were a priority. Once she had done that, she approached Amber's pod and placed a hand on the glass as she considered this unfortunate young woman.

"If all of this is true, why keep it secret‽" Pyrrha suddenly shouted as she rounded on everyone. "If this girl is so import—" Pyrrha stopped her tirade just as suddenly as the answer came to mind. She had been told it before, after all. "The fewer people who know about what they are capable of, the safer they are. If someone targets them by happenstance, they can't be prepared."

"Precisely," Professor Ozpin said with a nod and a proud smile as he placed his cane in front of him and rested both hands atop it. "This all actually used to be common knowledge— all legends are based upon at least a kernel of truth— but our brotherhood has been suppressing this knowledge for a long time to keep them safe."

"As you might imagine, anyone who'd go after a Maiden for their power isn't someone you'd want having it," Qrow said as he took out his flask and took a drink from it.

"Besides, at this point, no one would believe us. At best, we'd be seen as insane and ignored. At worst, we'd be ridiculed, declared incompetent, and stripped of all authority," General Ironwood pointed out.

Professor Ozpin continued, "There is also a chance, slim though it may be, that this information would cause a panic and we all know what that would bring to clawing to our Kingdoms' walls. Which is why we—"

"I'll do it," Pyrrha said resolutely, interrupting Professor Ozpin. The headmaster looked shocked by this but Pyrrha continued on, "If you believe that this will help Soulkin… then I will become your Fall Maiden." Pyrrha looked up from where she had been staring at the ground and was confused to see everyone exchanging wary looks. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

"It is, but I'm afraid it's not that simple," Professor Ozpin said as he stepped closer to her. "Given Amber's condition, you won't be able to inherit her power naturally. However, General Ironwood believes he has a solution."

"For the past few years, Atlas has been studying Aura from a more scientific standpoint; how it works, what it's made of, how it can be used," General Ironwood began, a hint of pride in his voice. "We've made… significant strides and we believe we've found a way to capture it."

"Capture it and cram it into something else," Qrow said tersely as he took another swig from his flask before gesturing to Pyrrha. "Or in your case…"

Pyrrha looked at General Ironwood with wide eyes, a look of utter shock on her face. "That's…"

"Classified," the General interrupted, believing he knew where she was going.

"Wrong!" Pyrrha shouted as she took a half step toward the General, her face a picture of pure rage. "A person's Aura is their soul! It's the core of their being! It's what makes them be alive and be who they are! Tampering with that externally isn't something that should even be thought of, let alone researched!"

"I like her," Qrow said as he took another drink.

General Ironwood shot Qrow a glare before turning his attention back to Pyrrha and raising his hands in surrender. "I understand your concerns, that's why this research is beyond top secret. In this case, however, we would be in serious trouble if we hadn't been researching it."

"How do we know that it wasn't your research that let this happen?" Pyrrha accused.

"Rest assured that we know for a fact that isn't the case," Professor Ozpin interjected, cutting off General Ironwood's remark.

"Might have been inspired by it, though," Qrow pointed out.

"Are you suggesting that one of the small handful of people who were picked by me personally is a spy?" General Ironwood asked incredulously with more than a little venom in his voice as he rounded on Qrow and leveled an intense glare at him.

Qrow didn't seem to be bothered by this, "I wouldn't be surprised; she has rats everywhere. Besides, look at the guy who developed pretty much all of Atlas' systems and where he's at now."

"I think we're getting off topic here," Professor Goodwitch said as she stepped between the two men before it could come to blows. "While I very much agree with you, Miss Nikos, desperate times call for desperate measures."

"And these are indeed desperate times," General Ironwood said as he gave Qrow one last withering look and straightened his suit. "We can't transfer Amber's power to you, but we can give you what those powers are bound to."

"Her soul…" Pyrrha said softly as she looked back down to the ground. She wasn't certain if her mind was racing at a million miles per minute or if it had completely stopped.

"Her life… would become intertwined with yours. The question is…" Professor Ozpin began carefully.

"What's that going to do to you?" Qrow finished.

Pyrrha was silent for a long moment as she tried to put everything in order. The methods she had been taught were failing her as absolutely everything seemed to be of the utmost importance. She eventually managed to sift through everything and find the one that was more important than all the others: Surviving as herself. If she could ensure that or otherwise make her chances high enough, everything else could come later.

"Professor Ozpin, are you— are you a magus, too?" she asked.

"Indeed I am."

"Can't you— Is there— Can you use your magecraft to… do… something?"

Ozpin adjusted his glasses while saying, "Yes and no. There is nothing I can do to completely ensure your protection, unfortunately, but I will do everything I can to safeguard you. That being said, what is likely to happen is that your soul and hers will vie for dominance. The outcome will depend on which one is stronger."

"Wouldn't mine be stronger since hers… isn't whole?"

"Under what could be called normal circumstances, yes. However, she is still a Maiden. Under what could also be called normal circumstances, hers would almost certainly be stronger than yours. As things currently stand, it's impossible to say which one is stronger."

"What would happen if neither of us is stronger?"

"A number of possible things that would partly be determined by what I do. If I do nothing, the most likely outcome is that your souls would combine without either one being dominant. You wouldn't be you nor would you be Amber. You would become someone else who is both and neither.

"What I could and will do unless you insist otherwise is place a sort of one way barrier around your soul. If yours is stronger, it will bypass the barrier. If hers is stronger, it will buy you an uncertain amount of time; it's impossible to say how long and if you could get stronger before it fails. If neither is stronger, it'll buy you time to try and become stronger."

"What does that mean? How do I… make my soul stronger?"

"You gotta work out more," Qrow said after having taken another drink from his canteen.

"Strengthening your soul is no different than strengthening your Aura since they are one in the same," Professor Goodwitch clarified. "Every lesson you've ever learned about how to do that would be applied here."

"It would be great if we could let you train yourself until we were more certain about the outcome but we haven't the time," General Ironwood added.

"The assailant that attacked the Fall Maiden has made their first move. And there's no telling when their next move will be," Professor Ozpin finished. "You have an important decision before you, Miss Nikos. There's no guarantee this transfer will work and there's no telling if you will be the same person if it does. I advise you to take time on this matter but understand that before the Vytal Festival is over, we will need your answer."

"So… three days from now," Pyrrha said somewhat distantly as she turned back around and placed her hand on the glass separating Amber from the world.

"Well, more like two days since today's almost over," Qrow pointed out, only to grunt in pain as Professor Goodwitch elbowed him in the side.

"I do not envy you this decision, Miss Nikos," Professor Ozpin began. "It would not be an exaggeration to say the fate of countless people would fall on your shoulders should you choose to accept this. Do understand that none of us will be disappointed or think less of you should you choose to reject this. We have a few contingencies in place that will hopefully buy us more time but there's no telling if they'll work.

"I understand that nothing about this situation is fair. You're only in your first year at this school and you're already being forced to make a decision that only a seasoned veteran should make. Sadly, this world is never fair and things very rarely go the way we'd like. Don't rush into this decision. While I don't want you to reveal Amber to anyone, feel free to discuss this with your friends using broad terms. Maybe focus on the finals tomorrow. Just know that the clock is ticking and every second brings us closer to disaster."

A/N: And here we have what I'm pretty sure is the first full chapter without a single appearance by our beloved sword. We'll be getting more of these as the action ramps up. This chapter is another one of those frustratingly same-y chapters but, again, there wasn't really much I could do that I didn't do. All of the verbatim dialogue was information that needed to be conveyed and there was no reason for me to arbitrarily change it. That being said, I hope you appreciate the changes brought about the in conversation both by Shirou's presence and also by the presence of the Nasuverse stuff. Trying to figure out how to get the Maiden powers to work within the rules of thaumaturgy was a trick and I hope the answer I reached was sufficient.

That stuff aside, I also made one change in particular that frustrated me in canon. In the very beginning of the show, pretty much, it's firmly established that one's Aura is a manifestation of one's soul. However, that fact seems to have been completely forgotten in canon. Case in point is near the end of the final conversation in this chapter where Pyrrha calls Ironwood out. In canon, they were just saying "Aura" like it was its own separate thing without any mention as to why transferring one person's Aura to another would be considered amoral. So, I fixed that and actually had Pyrrha tear into Ironwood for doing something so unspeakably horrendous. Seriously, Ironwood's research into that subject is one of most evil things in the series.

For the record, Shirou is well aware of the research and that machine. While he wasn't pleased with it, as a magus, the idea of fucking with someone's soul doesn't bother him as much since that's relatively common. He's also pragmatic so he recognizes the potential necessity of the research even when divorced from Amber's situation. It also helps that, as a magus, he understands a soul's function far better than just about everyone else on Remnant. His "inner Tohsaka" was actually more intrigued by how advanced Remnant's technology is if it's reaching the level of straight up soul transference. That's no mean feat even for a highly skilled magus (as a reminder, Illya had to use an incomplete version of the Third Sorcery in order to do something similar). Of course, there's also that one Bad End in the Fate route where Illya transfers Shirou's soul (well, his mind, but) into another container using something called "Apport" but I couldn't find anything on that in the wiki. Illya wanted to use the Dress of Heaven in order to make sure she didn't fail so it has to be linked to the Third in some fashion.

The Nasuverse is fucking complicated, man.

Time for reviews!

Jason169: It could be interesting but there's no reason for it to happen. Winter trusts Ironwood's judgement and nothing would really be gained by it. They'd probably spar if Shirou decided to take Ironwood up on his offer but he's not going to so yeah. If they were to fight, especially at this point in time, Shirou would kick Winter's ass. Her sword can be copied by UBW so he'd know all of the intricacies of her fighting style right from the start and thus would be pretty much completely unable to surprise him. In terms of physical stats, Winter's probably superior to Shirou in a couple of areas but Shirou's is way more skilled and the gap in physical attributes isn't enough to make up the difference. Again, Shirou is one of the strongest people on the good guys' side at this moment in time.

vinayakdj1: You do know that you don't have to read this story, right? If you hate it so much, you are perfectly free to use the time you take to read this to do literally anything else.

EMSreader: Yes. I have big plans for Adam.

marleyjahuan: I'm glad you're enjoying this story so much and welcome back!

Anyway, that's all from me! I'll see you next week for another completely original chapter!