Ch. 100 Heist of several lifetimes

Roman walked through the impossible landscape of the Vale inside the portal, his gait slow and uncertain.

From the moment he first saw the view inside the tear in reality he knew he'd end up here. He didn't know it at the time but it was like this quest was crafted for him specifically.

Arc was a strange occurrence, Roman knew that much ever since he figured out just how big of a variable the blond man was in the fate of everything. The odds of every unlikely outcome he had ever foreseen were just as likely to come to fruition in their entirety as Neo leaving without paying. That is to say, near certain.

Was Roman surprised to hear the disembodied voice of the former headmaster of Beacon?

Yes, he fucking was.

Arc had somehow (and Roman honestly didn't want to know the details of that) managed to incarcerate the soul of the supposedly dead guy. Except that wasn't all he was.

Oz… The wizard in the tower… The Infinite man… The supposed builder of this vault. And Roman had the pleasure of attempting to break in and steal what he could honestly call a divine MacGuffin. Oz was surprisingly forthcoming with the information of what this place was and what was inside.

Apparently he had made the vault to be different from the others… That there were others was a piece of information Roman filed away for later at the time, but he would be sure to look into those once he got out of this place.

The fact that they managed to untangle the magic lock seemingly by accident was… concerning. Not that Oz revealed every piece of the puzzle, but his questions pointed to quite a few pieces.

First was that Salem, whoever that was, was behind the attack in some way, simply because Oz was convinced the lock wouldn't open otherwise. Second, the firecracker, Qrow's niece, had something to do with opening it and supposedly was magic… Fall or something. And third, that only people… or men as Oz specified for some reason… that were indispensable to the defense of Vale were able to enter the Vault.

Now obviously, that only left three people really, Qrow, Arc and Roma himself. Arc volunteered himself hesitantly, glancing to his wife who wore an impressively menacing poker face in that moment. Qrow straight up said he didn't want to go but would if neither of the other two would.

Roman, of course, couldn't resist querying his semblance on the question… There was simply no other way but for him to go.

Arc would successfully retrieve the Relic but he'd emerge even more broken. Vale would not prevail until he exited either.

Qrow… Qrow was a difficult nut to crack for his semblance. He'd seen the man perform above and beyond what the odds would suggest. And he was also present when the fairly good odds failed them during the Fall of Beacon. His semblance was unreliable when it came to the scruffy huntsman and that was… maybe for the better.

As for Roman, he felt a pull like none before, the odds actively changing in his favour the moment he made the decision to go… He had no idea what that was about until Arc filled him in on what it was exactly he would be retrieving. Oz was about to speak on the topic when Arc abruptly locked him away inside the cane.

"The Relic of Choice is a crown with a history steeped in blood. As it is now it shows the future, one most likely to occur. It drove Kings insane with the future it showed before. It's a dangerous power in itself. Its true power however, is to change the future, to fracture the fate that's set in stone. Of course the price… the price for doing that is paid in blood."

Suddenly Roman understood the pull the thing had on his semblance. It was as if it was made for him. And perhaps it was arrogant of him, but he had seen firsthand what fixating on a probable future could do to a man… There was a reason his youth was as turbulent as it was. He'd grown… if there was one man who could see a bleak future and avoid despair, well it might just be Roman.

Roman had finally reached the edge of the golden fields and the streets of Vale… or whatever this place's version of Vale was.

The city was silent, the buildings of stone and wood standing pristine, as if deliberately preserved.

Then Roman encountered the first human figure. They weren't alive.

Frozen in space and time stood humanoid figures. Women leaning out of windows, men hauling wood and carts of goods, children frozen in the middle of a playful game of chase.

Roman recognised the material, how couldn't he. It was dust, each and every person within this place was made of dust, the various colours shimmering in the light that refracted off the crystal.

Roman looked on towards where Beacon should stand in the distance and noted the spires of what he first thought to be glass.

For the first time since he entered this place, Roman looked down on the cane in his hand. It wasn't the cane he was so used to, Melodic Cudgel was secured by the belt loops of his pants to his waist. Instead, in his hand lay Carcer Aeternus Infiniti Hominis, one of Arc's inexplicable creations, one that held captive the man with all the answers about this place…

Roman contemplated releasing the man within, if only to demand answers about what happened to the people here.

After nearly a minute of contemplative silence Roman shook his head and started walking again, past the figures of crystal. As he walked he could make up reflections of eyes, faces, even clothing. It wasn't as if they were encased, no it was more like they were etched on the inside of the crystal, only showing themselves when the light hit them in a certain way.

If there was any doubt in his mind that these were the remains of actual people before, now he was near certain. His grip on Ozpin's prison grew tighter with each child he passed.

What was this place but a graveyard, and Ozpin… Oz had used it as a vault.

Roman walked, the main streets following where he knew them today, buildings and bridges of unfamiliar shapes in very familiar places. His mind in turmoil, his feet carried him to a place where his safehouse would be, the one Neo frequented the most in the last year.

It wasn't until he stood in front of the unfamiliar building's entrance that Roman realised that he wouldn't find her here, that he couldn't make sure she was alright.

"Ah what the hell." he sighed before entering the building, feeling that if he was to take claim of any of them, it might as well be the ones in places he can call his own.

It was an idyllic home, one so similar to those you could still find in frontier settlements of today. The female looking figure by the stove seemed to be frozen in the middle of cooking though no food was present in any of the pots and pans, they looked clean as if they were washed before being placed in the dust statue's hands.

"Well that could become a problem…" Roman thought out loud. The lack of food was concerning. He wasn't exactly swimming in rations, though now he couldn't help but be grateful for the bag Qrow forced on him before he entered here.

He briefly considered the fields he had walked through to get to the city proper, he could probably do something with that if push came to shove if he could find a source of water. Still his semblance told him he had better odds while pushing forward so that was what he would be doing for now.

=O=O=O=

As Roman finally scaled the last steps on his climb up the Beacon cliffs he couldn't help but lean heavily on the cane Arc lent him. His leg was mostly fine after the broken bone healed properly but that didn't mean that climbing what felt like a thousand steps didn't make him feel it. It takes literal years for a bone to heal completely and despite the bone being most of the way there, that last bit of healing would take time.

That guy's semblance being used as first aid was nice, but the disruption to the speed Aura could heal those injuries with normally was a steep price.

Roman took a look at Beacon as he rested on top of the stairs. The fortress was big, almost as big as Beacon is outside of this place, but that wasn't the interesting part, that would be the shimmering spires of crystalline dust and the faintly shimmering dome they projected.

It wasn't at all visible from down in the city, but now that he was close he could faintly see the shimmer, like snowflakes reflecting the sun as they fell.

Roman sat on the ground, unwilling to explore anymore before he had some food. His scroll informed him he'd been inside for close to half a day so it was no wonder really that he was hungry.

There was one fact that he only now noticed after checking the time. The sun was up high as if it was midday, except it was unmoving. A high noon that has been going on for nearly twelve hours now.

After finishing his meal, Roman's fatigue caught up to him and he decided to rest. Luckily the perpetual midday sun meant the temperature was unlikely to change and honestly the weather was likely the same.

As Roman set his head on his bag of rations and tilted his hat to cover his eyes he couldn't help but think of the people outside of this pocket reality, hoping they were doing alright. Oh who was he kidding, Neo was going to stab someone in his absence, he didn't need his semblance to know the odds of that.

=O=O=O=

As roman circled the frozen bubble he slowly started losing hope. Turns out that glittery barrier was more than just a threshold, it was completely impassable, separating the fortress inside from the city sized graveyard below the cliffs.

As hours went by, Roman was sorely tempted to just… ask Oz. Unfortunately he was still very much too agitated by the state of the city below to not agitate his only source of information on this place.

Eventually though he stumbled upon a familiar sight, a crack in the bubble that looked so much like the tear he entered this place through. His excitement soon soured in yet more frustration though.

It was far too small to pass through, showing none of the land beyond it. It was barely the size of Roman's pinkie finger, but at this point he'd had enough.

Out of frustration more than any measured or thought out plan, Roman reared back, stabbing at the crack with the shaft of the ornate cane in his hands.

Whether any amount of force would do or if the fact that the man behind this place's creation inhabited the cane had anything to do with it, all Roman knew was that it worked, the crack growing bigger, expanding ever so slightly.

"Yeah, sometimes mindless violence isn't the answer. It's a question and the answer is YES!" He laughed maniacally at his dumb yet witty quip and took another stab at the crack.

Half an hour later he was sweating profusely from the exertion but regarded the wide tear in the barrier before him with a satisfied smile on his face. He wasted no time and stepped through.

=O=O=O=

The cold of the winter landscape nipped at his body as he walked through the town. It was Vale alright, much like the one before it. This one was a lot smaller though and frozen over.

Snowflakes hung in the air, unmoving, and the crystal bodies of the residents seemed almost as if made out of ice. Where the other ones were like natural gems, these looked like they froze slowly, icicle like forms hanging off of limbs.

Roman walked swiftly, eager to reach the Beacon cliffs and the similar, yet distinct fortress on top. The rainbow crystal spires looked downright identical though, like they occupied the same space here.

As he passed piles of firewood, both stacked by houses and carried by the frozen residents, Roman decided to take a break, light a fire and warm himself up with a warm meal before climbing the stairs up the cliffs again.

As he appropriated a log here and a twig there, trying to leave the overall picture of this strange graveyard as undisturbed as he could he thought of sleep, eventually deciding to try and force his way through this cold place before he needed to rest. He was beginning to suspect that the Crown wouldn't be so simply obtained as just climbing the cliffs twice.

Honestly Roman was pretty good at delving into the mind of those who devised protections. House security, car alarms, bank vaults, you name it… The bigger and more important the thing they protected the more of themselves people tended to put into the measures.

And this one was big indeed, so big that one could probably get a pretty good idea of who Oz was back when he designed this. It was a graveyard for sure but even before that it was important. The Vault though… that business came later.

As Roman built a small campfire by the first step of the climb he carefully took out one of his flares. The fight to protect Vale had drained his ammo down to only a handful of shells for Melodic Cudgel so he was apprehensive about using one like this, but reasoned that the place didn't seem hostile. Not in the Grimm sense anyway. Either way, he emptied the red dust out and onto the firewood, easily igniting the wood with the heat of the Burn dust's combustion.

An hour or so of rest and a meal later, Roman scaled the cliffs again.

=O=O=O=

This one was almost as unpleasant as the winter Vale. It was clearly spring if the vegetation could be trusted. That was the problem though, the vegetation. This place wasn't much like Vale at all.

Instead of buildings the place was covered with blooming greenery in a sort of wetland forest kinda deal. The ground was muddy and there was little in terms of paths, let alone a proper road.

He did know where he was going though, that was pretty easy to decide on. After all, he could very much see the cliffs with four rainbow spires on top whenever the canopy decided to part for a brief moment on his journey.

From what he could tell from the distance though, it wasn't just a fortress and the spires. There was a settlement up there. Small, sure, but there. Roman didn't hold out much hope that he'd find anything other than more petrified people there though.

At some point through the trek Roman discovered his scroll had died. The battery should have lasted for a lot longer than a few days so it probably wasn't that, but the fact remained that he was now left without a way to tell the time. The best he had was the sound of his grumbling stomach and the need to sleep to help him determine how many days it took to walk through the overgrown place. And it did take days.

=O=O=O=

As Roman cracked open yet another bubble and stepped through into another version of the same place he stopped immediately.

Several things were very different from the others. It was nighttime here for one. Roman briefly entertained the idea that maybe time passed normally here but quickly saw it for what it was, just a perpetual summer night.

One would expect a summer night to be warm, and it was. Not all the heat came from the season though. There was no green of the forest here nor were there buildings. Or rather both were clearly here at one point, before getting burned to the ground. The earth was scorched, the wood charred and the people…

Roman looked down at the prison of the man with all the answers here, in part just so that he could avert his eyes.

The crystal figures were cracked in places, melted in others. Men, women and children petrified in time, their bodies and expressions showing only the agony of burning alive.

A soft click echoed over the silent remnants of Vale.

"Jaune I… You're not Jaune Arc." the voice so similar to the former headmaster of Beacon carried over the graveyard.

"What the fuck happened here, Oz." Roman asked, his voice quiet and solemn. "Tell me. Spare no detail. I need to know before going further."

=O=O=O=

Author's note:

Poor Roman, volunteering himself to be the sole focus of this adventure. The Vault was always meant to be about Roman and I love showing off actual personality rather than the Saturday morning cartoon villain persona he was originally written with. Vale has a far longer and deeper history with Oz than we previously saw and I believe it fitting that Oz would keep those failures close by as a reminder. It also serves as a reminder of just how powerful Oz was in his hayday before creating the Maidens.

As for last week, my apologies for missing an upload of AoA. I am currently completely devoid of free time due to work in adition to schoolwork for uni so I just didn't have the time to flesh this chapter out last week. But a delayed chapter is good eventually whereas a ŕushed one will never be good... I hope you find the end result satisfactory.

Thank you so much for reading and thank you for getting this far. If you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe

Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 101 Time moves on