Rebirth
Neopolitan stood in the empty blackness of the Tree, surrounded by nothingness.
It was strange to her, standing in an infinite dark. The only real sound were her own thoughts and the rhythm of metal upon metal clinking away at the forge only a few feet from her, lit only with the dull, firefly-like light of floating blue orbs.
"Ah, another, so soon?"
The face of the metal woman was eerily kind. A fixed, pleasant smile upon a plate of steel, a visage that never changed despite the exertion of smithing at the forge, or the sudden appearance of Neopolitan.
She didn't trust it.
"I mean you no harm, child. I am only here to guide you."
She'd heard that one before.
"Such cynicism. Nothing can happen here, that you do not want to."
Neo raised an eyebrow at the metal woman.
"You came to me, child, of your own volition. Seeking something, I think."
A flash of memory. Little Red and her friends embracing before an immense gate.
"To have what they have. What a thing, huh?"
False-Roman's last words echoed through her mind, torturing it with the awareness of how little, now much nothing she had left to tether her to anything, even life.
Little Red had chosen to go back to her friends. Neopolitan had none, anymore.
"Ah. Yes. A fine wish, companionship, but extremely difficult to gain, and even harder to truly hold. Perhaps, then, we can find purpose for you in that struggle?"
Dozens of glass caskets rose around her. Weapons hung in each. Swords, axes, rifles and dust-blades.
Even as her eyes wandered amongst the glass, she quirked her head at the metal woman in askance.
"Here, you can become who you want to be. All you need do is choose. Approach them, feel them, see to which you feel the most drawn."
Even in this strange void Neo's heels clicked as she walked, fingertips tracing the glass of the boxes she passed, barely paying attention.
She was elsewhere, musing on her last thought before this place.
"To have what they have."
She'd had it, once. With Roman-
A cold, excited chill ran down her arm, and she turned to the case she was touching.
It would seem to most to be a walking stick, but Neo knew it too well. The hint of red just under the curve, the small, hidden button on the grip, the tiny hinge near the base for the flip-up sight, the hair-line trigger on the inside…
It was Roman's. It was the Melodic Cudgel.
A moment of memory overtook her vision. The cudgel held high in the air, raining blow after blow down on a defenceless little girl, curled up in the fetal position as wind tore around them and the shrieks of Grimm echoed.
"I'll do what I do best! LIE! CHEAT! STEAL!AND SURVIV-"
Roman didn't get to finish his statement.
Neo felt the tears run down her cheeks. She hadn't known, not really. All she had known was that she'd been forced to leave him alone to fight Little Red. The little brat's trick with her umbrella had ensured it. But this was Roman, beating a weaponless little girl was something he should've managed with ease.
But he'd never come home, and there was only one person who she could possibly blame.
Neo dried her eyes on her sleeve, that bloody cat's words in her head like knives after all their arguing.
"Leave your tears to someone else, it's not just you who lost it all."
She'd been wrong. She'd been so wrong. Neo had seen it when she was torturing the little shit. The way the tears had filled her eyes as the image of the robot-girl told her just how badly she'd failed, how she'd died again like at Amity Arena so long ago. Oh, Neo had been elated, a Cheshire grin coated all over her face. It faded the second that scythe had cut the boy. Little Red's eyes weren't just those of someone who'd killed a friend, they were the eyes of someone who'd never killed before at all, even an illusion.
Breaking Ruby Rose had been all she wanted, to make the girl feel as she had felt the night she'd lost Roman. But it had been pointless. A waste. It hadn't made it better, because it hadn't even been the girls fault. Not really. Finally getting her revenge, and this little insight, had cleared her vision.
It was Cinder's fault. All of it, and Neo had let that bitch manipulate her rage for her own agenda and discard her like trash when it was done.
It had been the Grimm that had killed Roman. Grimm that had been summoned from the panic. Panic orchestrated by Cinder Fall.
The thought that she'd been so easily pushed into targeting the red-hooded girl and not the one who'd brought it all crashing down around them incensed her. Neo and Roman had been happy. Sure, that was usually at the cost of other people's wallets and a few bruises here and there. The occasional very rare 'oops my rapier slipped between your ribs', the even rarer 'Shit I blew up a building in a getaway, forgot to not use my fire-dust ammo in the arms factory.' But on the whole they'd kept their heads down, kept out of the way, kept the organised crime, well, organised. Being Crime Lords meant money, it meant power, and it meant that when anyone got particularly stupid and tried to bump off a cop or draw the attention of the huntsmen, you got rid of them on the quiet.
As Roman had liked to say, The threat of violence was great for business. Actual violence was terrible for it.
It was why she had spent so many of her days just eating ice cream, generally doing whatever she wanted, and annoying the crap out of Roman.
But then Cinder Fall had come along. Made Roman her lackey, because how could he fight the kind of power she had? Even Neo couldn't take her, not that in her rage she hadn't tried, and tried hard. Then the robberies, the crime spree, the dust thieving. The Mountain Glenn plan, the Fall of Beacon…
The Grimm were there because of Cinder. Roman had that irritating team RWBY on his ass for a year because Cinder made him stick his head out, he got captured because Cinder had him out in the middle of nowhere doing fuck knows what with the White Fang while forcing Neo to stay in the city.
Everything began, and ended, with Cinder fucking Fall.
"This one?"
The question snapped Neo back to this odd reality. Her hand was still on the glass, staring intently at her best friend's weapon of choice.
She turned to the Smith of the tree, eyebrow raised.
"You can become him, if you wish. If you believe it is what you want, what will give you purpose. What will allow you to finally achieve the bonds you so desire."
Neo's purpose had been in being with Roman. Their bond was with each-other. Roman's purpose had been to become the kingpin of Vale, in order to give them both the lives, the freedom, they wanted.
Vale was, by and large, gone. There was no glory to be found in its ruins, even, especially, as a criminal. Gone were the days of laughing while running circles around the cops, all that was left were refugees desperate to get out and huntsman trying to save as many lives as they could. Even if he could go back, rebuild it all...
Roman hadn't just wanted that power for himself. He'd wanted enough to stop having to live in a ditch, sure, but it wasn't until they had met, that she had joined him, that either of them had found purpose in it. Freedom, for each-other. Power, and the fun that could be had with it, had together.
If she became him, took wearing the hat to the ultimate stage, it wouldn't fix anything. There was nothing on the other side of that door for him either. There would be no more her, no more them, no more criminal empire…
He might not know it in his head, but he'd know it in his heart, and he'd never get out because of it, never know how to fix it.
Roman would be as trapped in this place as she was, and the idea of doing that to him made her physically sick.
Neo, sullenly, pulled her hand away from the glass. No, what she and Roman had was gone, simply because it was her who was in here. If anyone else had staggered in, chosen this particular weapon…
But no. There had only ever been eight humans in the ever after, and of those, only one had 'Ascended,' and Ruby Rose had chosen to not really ascend at all, to change nothing. Even if someone else did stumble this place, happened to ascend, or was forced to...
Neo looked around at the plethora of cases. The odds of them choosing Roman's cane, of it even being offered...
It broke her heart all over again, to actually have a tangible chance to have him back, and yet know it would never come to pass.
"Ah, perhaps not then."
Neo ignored the Smith, words and thoughts spinning in her head like a hurricane of glass, not letting her think straight, her guilt over not being able to help Roman again tore at her and made her head roar with noise and swirling heartbreak.
"I need to help him."
Cinder fucking Fall.
"It's not just you who lost it all."
Red hair and tear-filled eyes over Penny Pollendina.
"To have what they have. What a thing, huh?"
The blonde, troubled man, embracing his friends, red sash blowing in the wind as light from the portal glints off his-
Bronze caught Neo's eye, a tall case across from her.
She approached it slowly. It looked familiar, the weapon within. Almost-
It clicked, and Neopolitan's sullen contemplation changed to a feral, elated grin.
This was perfect.
Staring at the red and bronze within, Neo knew it. Everything she wanted, right here. She couldn't escape this place, neither could Roman, but the one who this weapon belonged to…
They had every reason, every reason in the world, to walk through that portal.
Their friends, their little boy-toy, their unfinished business with Cinder…
"To have what they have."
It would come so easily.
"It's not just you who lost it all."
No, but she, they, could get it back.
Cinder fucking Fall.
The craven bitch wouldn't see it coming, her greatest achievement undone, because of her, Neopolitan.
Neo turned to the Smith, grinning with feral intent, and nodded.
She was falling, the weapon before her just within her reach.
Neo wasn't doing this for the right reason. She was doing it out of selfishness, and spite. A way to be free again of this fairy-tale nightmare, a way to fuck over Cinder.
But, also, a way to get back what she hadn't had in years.
Though as her hand wrapped around the shaft of her new weapon, as her arm slipped into the leather straps of the shield, the reasoning of why started to fade, like the memory of a dream as you wake up.
The sense of elation at doing the right thing did not. Nor did the yearning for something now much closer to her grasp.
The umbrella-wielding facade of the girl on the ancient tree began to crack, light blasting outward. The tree-branch shattered, and a girl fell, landing on one knee, eyes closed.
Flame-coloured hair billowed downward from a ponytail, bronze leg armour clinking softly as the girl rose.
Then, finally, after far, far too long, the emerald eyes of victory opened once more.