Once again
Things were hazy after everything they have learned, which was understandable.
Weiss took a detour before going back to her room, she just finished showing Pyrrha the academy.
She was relieved that, it was, in fact, her friend Pyrrha. Not some weird clone with the same memories as her old friend.
Ren and Nora took Pyrrha to their dorm, finally they got the reunion that they dreamed of.
She sat close to the edge of Atlas, which was now back on the ground inside of Mantle.
"We tried to save Atlas and Mantle, but they both got destroyed."
Weiss shuttered at the thought.
Their action doomed her home, her family, and the people of Atlas.
"Not our actions, but the actions of Jaune's original world." She reminded herself.
She still didn't fully comprehend the implication of what that meant, but she knew if Jaune hadn't intervened, things would have been much worse.
And here she was in love with the Rusted knight himself, she sighed and walked back to where her team dorm was.
She opened the door to find Yang lying on the bed, hands behind her head, with one leg on top of the other.
"Where's Blake?" Weiss asked, looking around the room.
"She went to get us some snacks, she saw how mad I was and decided to cheer me up." She answered, her eyes stuck to the ceiling.
"Oh, well, there's more information after you left that I need to tell you both." She made her way to the chair in front of the desk. She started reading her book, trying not to open the subject of Yang's anger.
"So, you won't say anything?" and it was just like Yang to bring it up by herself.
"About what?" she avoided.
"The way I snapped at Jaune?" she sat up straighter, looking at Weiss in the eyes.
"Listen, Yang, I know it was a lot to take in, but it's fine, we all are anxious about the future, especially that we don't have a set plan. But we need to stick together." Weiss gave her an assuring smile.
"You don't get it Weiss. It's not about if we have a chance to win or not, it was about me turning into a monster." Weiss felt the hurt in Yang's voice and immediately wanted to comfort her.
"No one said that Yang." She moved to set next to Yang, her hand holding Yang's shoulder tightly.
"I do, when I was about to kill Adam and you two stopped me, I was hurt, my friends fighting against me for a worthless scum. Then I thought, what if I was the problem, what if in my rage I took a life, Adam was as good as done, yet I went in for the finishing blow." Yang looked away.
"What if I didn't stop, what if I ended up like Raven, a killer, a worthless scum who fought off anyone who cared about her."
Weiss knew where Yang was coming from, she always feared turning out like her father, to become full of greed, to stomp on others purely for selfish reasons. And Yang was the same.
"I always was the hothead, I destroyed a whole club a week before Beacon, I went on and fought a mech in the middle of the streets. And when Blake didn't believe me back in the tournament…" She trailed off, Weiss didn't need to see, but she knew tears fell.
"What about after that? You overcame your fears and came to find Ruby. You're not like Raven, she wouldn't go out of her way to save her teammate from prison and take her with you." Despite Yang's mode, she laughed weakly.
"Besides, you were the one who came out with the Relic from the basement. You're nothing like Raven, besides we're always here for you Yang, that's what friends for."
"Not friends, but my family." Yang turned, tears still in her eyes, yet she smiled and took Weiss in a hug. The moment of silence didn't last, as Yang went on.
"Oh god, I said awful things to Jaune." Yang pulled back, eyes widened.
"You kinda did." Weiss gave her an apologetic smile.
"He saw us all die, and then was sent back to do it all again, and here I am just throwing more fuel to the fire." Her hands covered her face and groaned.
"Weiss." Yang looked at her, hopefully.
"Yeah Yang, I'll help you apologize, gods knows what you'll do to make it up to him." She rolled her eyes.
"Probably sleep with him. Why? Would you be jealous?" Yang teased, but when Weiss didn't respond, she got concerned.
"I take it meeting your parents plan didn't work?"
"No, it worked perfectly, well, I suppose it worked more on my family's side, I reconnected with my mother and brother. We even played a song alongside Winter."
"Then what's the problem?
"Pyrrha." And suddenly Yang understood why Weiss didn't look so happy.
"That's tough buddy." Yang said after a long pause, a pause that had Blake walk in, see the mode, then leave.
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It took Jaune a while till reality sunk in.
Pyrrha was now alive, thanks to the brothers. And now she needed to kill him because of that.
His confusion and worry turned into anger. Those pathetic so-called gods, acting like children when their toys aren't acting like they wanted.
Ironwood noticed the sudden shift and asked.
"Everything aright?" they were still sat in Ironwood's office, Ruby excused herself. Leaving both men to plan and prepare for the fight to come.
"I don't understand how Ozpin agreed with them, they not only ruined his life, but his wife, children and humanity. And he still acts like their pawns." Jaune answered, anger showing in his voice.
"When you do something for so long, it becomes harder to see other ways to do the same job but more efficiently. Ozpin worked for the brothers for so long, he convinced himself that there isn't a way to stop Salem without them."
"What am I supposed to do with Pyrrha? If she goes with what the brothers said, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop her." It was a disgusting move on the brothers part, disgusting and clever.
"Right now, Salem is our enemy, miss Nikos only wants to stop you using the bullets, and she doesn't even know what she's looking for. We'll keep it that way, and make her help us to stop Ozpin if he tries something."
"I'm sure he'll do something, he was clearly angry in the video you showed me, I can't imagine what Oscar is feeling." The boy was now trapped inside of his body.
"For now, try and focus your anger on them, not your partner, she doesn't deserve that, what concerns me the most is what is next" Jaune looked up from his screen to meet Ironwood's eyes.
"After we end this, say we all survived, will Pyrrha Nikos still exist or will she go back to the afterlife, where the brothers can use her as they please. Same with you, after you die, they'll have free rain on you."
"I'm not sure about Pyrrha, it feels weird having her around again. I'm not sure if I can handle losing her again. If things do go wrong and Pyrrha fights me, I would have one card to play, unfortunately, it will also permanently remove me from this world. But if things do go well, my soul would be with the tree in the everafter, where I can Ascend, it's the reason I need to kill Salem with the leaves. It will free her from the brothers power." He explained, and the General nodded.
"Go, you need your rest, I think we've done enough planning for now." Jaune nodded, standing and leaving with a wave.
Jaune didn't care if Pyrrha was against him or not, he was happy he got her back. A closure before the beginning of the end.
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"So, let me get this right. The brothers, who left us for thousands of years without a word, decided to use the Relic to send you a message, just so you can kill one of your allies, who obtained a weapon powerful enough to kill me." Salem, the Queen of the grimm said as she leaned back on her throne and raised a hand, dismissing the grimm who were gathering around her husband.
"That is correct, I know we had our differences, but we can't let Remnant get destroyed because of someone's idiotic decision." The man in a boy's body said, she saw her minion holding his cane and the other the staff, and she knew if he wanted, he can get both back in an instant.
"And may I ask which one of your students you want me to kill for daring to stand up against the brothers?" She said it sarcastically.
"Jaune Arc." That brought a stop to her amusement, her eyes focusing on her husband.
"That's great, this makes killing that Bastard our top priority, right?" Emerald eyes glowed with flame, she looked excitedly between Salem and Ozpin.
Emerald was confused when she heard the sound of rich laughter echoing across the room. She looked nervously at Mercury, who also shifted uncomfortably. Ozpin stood up straighter and looked at her.
"I fail to see what's so amusing about this." he said.
"Oh, you always do, after everything they have done to you, putting you in this hell to suffer again and again forever, yet, you still cower to them and let them walk all over you." She chuckled, seeing him tense.
"And now you want to stop your only hope of winning against me." That got his attention.
"What do you mean?" he asked warily.
"You didn't know." The genuine surprise in her voice stopped him.
"Oblivious as ever I see, no wonder little Cinder destroyed Beacon under your nose."
"What are you talking about? Tell me," He demanded.
"Watch your word Ozma, you're in my domain. I can have you dead in a matter of seconds. But sure, I'll allow you to fight alongside me for this, after all, this has been forsaken." Ozpin stopped.
"What?"
"You're the pawn of the light, and I'm the pawn of the dark, soon enough you'll understand. The only reason I would allow you here is because of my feelings for you. Not as your wife, but as someone immortal, someone who lived through hell." She chuckled, a joke only she understood, as she ordered the giant whale grimm to move.
The ground shook with vibrations as it took flight.
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"Welcome back." Pyrrha greeted him as soon as he entered their room.
He immediately felt back home, back at Beacon, after a long day of training, coming back to our dorm room and laughing together at Professor Port's latest story.
"Hey Pyrrha." He returned her smile.
"So, what did you and the General talk about?" he immediately grimaced. Sure, it was an innocent question, yet, with the knowledge that the brothers sent her, he felt uneasy.
"You don't need to tell me Jaune, it's ok." She said this when she saw how he suddenly tensed.
"Thank you Pyrrha, but until we have a handle on the situation, we can't tell you anything at all." He gave her an apologetic smile.
"It's fine, it's not like I can't just lift you up with my semblance and stop you." She brought her hand to her mouth and chuckled, not noticing how her team exchanged looks.
"Anyway, How did you find the tour? It's much more advanced than Beacon huh?" he asked, changing the subject.
"It was great, especially the combat arena. I bet Miss Goodwitch would be thrilled to have one at Beacon." Her eyes were filled with excitement, and he noticed it was different from the time she talked about the brothers. He mentally took a note of that.
"Wait, is that…" Pyrrha noticed the chain for the necklace he wore, he smiled and pulled it out, with the rest of his team doing the same.
"I admit, it was a surprise receiving this gift." Ren started.
"But when we met your mom, she told us how you wanted to give us those to show our friendship." Nora continued.
"But you didn't have to Pyrrha, because you're always in our hearts, we won't forget you or abandon you, not again." Tears swelled in her eyes, she couldn't find the right words. But she didn't need to, as her friends gathered around her and gave her a hug.
She embraced them, and the realization that she was back with them finally settled in.
"Now." Jaune pulled away, looking at her.
"Want to catch up?"
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"Sir, we located the one who's trying to hack our systems."
"Good Job, sent specialist Schnee with Polendina to capture him, make sure no one else knows about it." The General said.
"Yes Sir, what excuse should we give Huntress Rose? She's been with Polendina since the accident." His hand held his beard, thinking.
"Send her too, might as well be prepared." He heard another Sir before the transmission ended.
"Now that we have Watts, maybe I can make sense of what I found." He thought as he eyed the document on his screen.
It was about the Rusted knight fairytale, not the girl who fell through the world.
Seeing the history of it, a lot of people took it as a cheap sequel to the original one, which let it slip through time. Time enough that it took him a specialist team to find just the name.
And here is Watts, who just found the last copy of it. Thanks to his latest breach, we got some of that information.
The General activated his semblance, it was rare, he only did it in the worst-case scenario, which resulted in Atlas destruction. But this time, he focused it on something else.
He tried to piece everything together to find a reason why Salem wanted to know about the Rusted knight, why Ozpin's immediate reaction was to hunt down Arc, and what's the best course of action would be.
"Ozpin is missing, and we didn't catch Salem's agents, it's possible that he either joined them or got captured, the latter is unlikely, seeing how he got some of his old powers back. The fact he didn't attack Arc in the Schnee mansion means he didn't go and look for him." He muttered out loud. He was alone in his office.
"Now, the worst-case scenario here would be Ozpin joining forces with Salem, it would be bad, but it would also be an opportunity." He started to write down a basic plan, he'll need to run it through Arc and Rose to see if he tried that plan before in the previous timeline.
After a while, he stopped writing and looked at the notes. He stopped trusting documenting his plans on the system after Watts hacked Atlas, resulting in Penny's injuries.
"Good, this takes care of Salem and Ozpin, now." He looked at one of the files he had on.
It had Pyrrha's picture with the title "Tarnished Spartan".
He opened it, it held all the information his team could gather about Pyrrha Nikos in the short time he asked.
"The brothers brought her back just to stop Arc? Then why did they bring Ozpin into it?" He thought. There was a chance they grew impatient or worried, seeing how close the goal is.
"Nonetheless, I'm sure Penny could handle her with the help of Winter." Nikos semblance, Polarity, can be easily countered with Schnee's glyphs and Penny's hardlight swords.
Seeing the progress he made, he tried to turn off his semblance, it took him more than he cared to admit, but eventually, he felt his mind go back to normal.
He smiled a tired smile when he saw the progress he had made. It would be enough for now. He glanced at the clock in his office and sighed.
Arc left his office around seven in the evening, and now it was four in the morning. He spent almost nine hours away in his semblance.
He opened a secure channel, he had to put in his password and scan his hand to access it. When it opened, he saw multiple files, one of which was titled "TITANFALL PROTOCOL", There were more, but he double-checked that one.
He has been checking this file nonstop for the last month now, ever since he discovered what he did, what his semblance made him do. He made sure there were contingencies if he ever went hyper-focus.
TITANFALL ONE
Specialist Winter Schnee needs to confirm that General Ironwood has gone hyper-focus with her own tests.
If the General was indeed under the effects of his semblance, Mettle, the top priority is to nullify the effects by any means.
On failure, move to…
Ironwood skipped most of it, he already read it more than he could count, he went through it to reach TITANFALL THREE.
TITANFALL THREE
OPERATION ATLAS FALL
General Ironwood must be taken down, as none of the other options worked. Winter Schnee, or whoever is in charge, will declare General Ironwood a rogue General, and they need to stop him by any means necessary.
It's preferable to take James Ironwood alive for trial, and if the situation isn't dire, back in rank as an advisor, under the condition to never use his semblance again.
If the situation is dire, James Ironwood would be executed immediately, failing to do so would be considered treason, and he would get the same fate as James Ironwood.
He closed the file after a signed.
He glanced at another file, "WITCH", It took him years to build up this file, commands, operations, and soldiers were all built for this, just in case Salem decided to show up.
Now he knew it was all wasted.
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Feeling the scroll vibrating, he looked at the notification, it was alerting him that someone had broken in.
"I guess it's time to go." He immediately stood up and backed up his belongings, which were multiple storage devices and a laptop.
An explosion sound shook the build, a smirk came to his face as he raced down the emergency stairs.
"Idiot, did they really think I wouldn't have plans for this?" He got his scroll out and sent a message, it won't delay them much, but it would work.
He exited the building calmly so he wouldn't raise suspicion, walking by civilians who looked in shock at the military force that came for him.
"They always use their muscles instead of their brain, typical of the General." He sighed.
All he needed to do now was get into the car, and make itself drive him to the meeting point, where Hazel should be waiting for him.
When he got into the car, it closed all the doors instantly, he didn't worry and let it drive him as he hacked the security camera of the hotel he was just in.
As he suspected, the soldiers just busted his door room to find nothing in it.
As the car moved, he busied himself by sending the military arrangements that Ironwood planned in case Salem ever attack.
"Oh dear General, when will you learn to stop trusting those idiots to stop me." As he clicked send, the car stopped.
"Weird, it didn't take as long as I thought." He thought as he got out of the car, and he was surprised to find himself not in front of the giant man.
But in front of a team of specialists.
Winter Schnee, alongside Penny polendina and Ruby Rose, stood in front of him, weapons drawn.
"Arthur Watts, by order from General Ironwood, you're under arrest." Winter Schnee said, her gaze never leaving him.
Note: Thanks for everyone's comment in the last chapter, I was really happy to see all of your opinions.
Although I didn't mean to have Yang be like that, sure, she snapped at Jaune, but she had a good reason, as she explained here, I did want to give her and Jaune a chapter to make up, but seeing how much hate she got, I decided to explain her actions.
Also, Ozpin betrayal, Pyrrha's arrival and Raven showing up, all happened in about 3 to 4 hours from each other, so going from fighting your teacher, to your mom saving you, to your dead friend is back, to Jaune telling them the truth, would leave everyone confused.
And yeah, this is also for Jaune, that's why he was happier than "wtf" and he still is.
Anyway thanks for reading, and I would love to read more reviews.
Free Palestine.
And goodbye.
