Yo!
Back for another chapter of Mirror Mirror! Not a ton to say, so let's just get into it!
Start Chapter 7
Weiss was honestly feeling pretty good by the time they hit the next village a few days later.
There had been something rewarding about helping the people of Woodcreek with their problems. Something that had Weiss walking with an assuredness to her steps as she marched into a village that looked rather similar in scope.
To be fair, it seemed to be doing a lot better than Woodcreek had been in terms of population. The people here were healthier, burlier, and generally seemed to be taking care of themselves better. For a moment, Weiss questioned why that was, though the truth of the matter came to her not too long after that.
This place was far closer to Mistral than Woodcreek was.
She wasn't planning on sticking around for a long time. She had to make it to Mistral sometime in the next century, and that meant actively moving towards it. If all she was worried about was avoiding her father's gaze, then she could've likely stopped in Woodcreek and been done with it.
But she had a team to catch up to.
So, she went about getting her affairs – which was to say her supplies – in order.
She stopped at first at the inn, where she purchased a warm meal, her first in several days. She had been coddled her whole life – she was not so immature as to be unable to admit that – but the thing she missed most about the Schnee Manor were the cooks.
Even just having a cold drink to go along with her meals had become something to relish. Out in the wilderness, unless one wanted to waste energy on something inconsequential, then they couldn't really afford to have cold – or hot for that matter – anything.
All she was eating was porridge, with some bread and a glass of ale.
But it was warm porridge, and cold ale.
The bread was fresh, seemingly just cut.
It was almost heaven.
She left the inn around half an hour later, thanking the proprietor. She wished she could have left a sizable tip via her father's funds, but…
Well, that wasn't an option on account of her cards being back in the Branwen camp. And honestly, knowing her father, he'd have cut her off the moment she disappeared.
Still, she had some money, so she left a good enough tip by the inn's standards, and made her way towards…
Well, an honest to goodness shop.
She was a bit surprised to find one just… existing within the village. That wasn't to say it was a crazy thing; most places had shops, but most of the villages she'd stopped in at during her journey to Mistral hadn't had enough people to really consider bothering. They supported one another via goods and services, and lien normally fell by the wayside.
Not here, it seemed.
"What can I do you for, Missy?" The man at the shop she'd entered into asked.
Weiss went through a rather standard collection of supplies, and was happy to find that each was stocked, and that none were listed for too abhorrent a price.
That wasn't to say they were good deals, for they very much weren't. But given that Weiss didn't exactly have any options, being in the middle of nowhere without anywhere else within a good fifty kilometers, she wasn't too upset. After all, she felt the man probably could have charged double what he was, and she wouldn't have had a choice in the matter but to buy.
She left the shop glad to feel an added weight on her back.
Well, an added weight aside from the mirror that she had recently begun carrying along on her back as well.
And speaking of that mirror…
"So," Jaune coughed to get her attention. "Thou informed me even before we arrived in Woodcreek that we were nearing Mistral, and yet we have walked for quite a long time even after passing that village without ever reaching the city. Thusly, I ask again, are we nearing Mistral?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Weiss let out with a sigh. "Things are a bit bigger than they were in your time. At least in terms of scale. We have to cross an entire continent. That's no small task. Were there not distant lands in ages gone by?"
"There were, I suppose." Jaune seemed to give her that. "The Lands of deserts, and snowfall. The Lands of jungle, and rain. We lived in the Lands of Light, of course. There also existed the Lands of Dark. Though living in that particular land was often… discouraged, so to speak, by the fact that its regular denizens attempted to eat you."
Weiss chuckled. "I'd imagine."
Jaune seemed mildly surprised that she'd laughed at what he'd said, and for a moment, he paused. Weiss wasn't really sure why.
"A-Anyhow," Jaune cleared his throat, "Yes, we had such lands. Journeys to them were often long, and dangerous. Even without the Grimm wandering the lands, there existed bandits, ruffians, and soldiers of other kingdoms."
Weiss' interest was piqued. "Other kingdom's soldiers? Were they your enemies?"
"Not necessary enemies, but it was often…" Jaune paused a moment. "Things were tense, back then. Without delving too deeply into the topic, essentially, the nobility had begun to overstep their bounds in a variety of Kingdoms, testing what they could and could not get away with, and then exploiting those very loopholes. As a result, tensions were running high. It felt like all it would take was a single spark to ignite the veritable powder keg that was the world of that time. Even normal travelers might be mistaken for enemy combatants by those thinking they were going to be attacked."
"So… even a band of travelers could have set the entire world off?"
"More than could have; they did. Not among the lands of the Lords of Light, of course, for I would not have allowed as such. But in the land of the desert, a traveling caravan was thought by another's army to be ferrying supplies to a rival kingdom. The reasoning behind such, as far as was reported to me, was that they had been forced off their normal route by a sandstorm. Because of that, they looked to be coming and going from far different directions than they would normally. They were slaughtered to the man, and when it was found out what had happened… well, it sparked a war that engulfed the entirety of the Land of Desert in conflict."
Weiss winced as they left the village they'd briefly stopped within. "It sounds like your world was hanging on the precipice of collapse."
"That would be because it was." Jaune sighed, and it was clear there was a story there that he didn't want to get into. "Suffice it to say that things were even worse than I can possibly describe. The gods had begun to grow absent. The Kings and Kingdoms of the world grew more and more concerned with conquest, instead of the lives of their subjects. It seemed to me, at least, that the world might very well go up in flames any day. Of course, before that could happen, Salem and Ozma arrived. And you know the story from there."
It was obvious he was skipping over something. Jaune had secrets he didn't want to reveal to her, but that was fine in Weiss' opinion. She, too, had things she would not tell him, and she did not begrudge him his not wanting to share his own.
Instead, the two of them gradually lost themselves in conversation as the road stretched out beyond them. In the distance, on the edge of the horizon, Mistral grew ever closer.
/
Honestly, Ruby Rose felt that things had gone pretty well in terms of making it to Mistral.
And like, sure, they'd run into a destroyed village, had to deal with a guy sent by the evil queen of the Grimm, had to deal with that guy nearly killing uncle Qrow, and then had to deal with a revenant from Ren and Nora's past…
But other than that, they'd done quite well for themselves!
Currently, they were staying within a house close to Haven, which was apparently owned by Lionheart. It was a modest, but overall nice place. The real problem was that they'd been cooped up within it for the last week, without any real chance to go out and explore Mistral proper, and Ruby was growing very bored.
Lionheart had assured them that that they should stay hidden away in case any of Salem's goons happened to be around, but Ruby had her doubts.
There were seven of them there. It was herself, Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, uncle Qrow, and Jasmine, alongside the newest arrival in Oscar. The fact that Oscar was technically their dead headmaster inside the body of a 14-year-old boy was something that Ruby was choosing not to think about too hard.
That way laid insanity. That or actually accepting the fact that the world was really that weird.
Ruby wasn't sure which was worse.
Apart from their accommodations, not much had changed among their group. Ren and Nora were still exactly the same as they'd always been; which was to say that they were pretending they weren't interested in each other while being very obviously interested in each other.
Things didn't get any easier with Jasmine and Pyrrha, either, the former of whom was entirely oblivious to the fact that the latter was head over heels for her. It was obvious enough to the point that uncle Qrow, having only known the two for maybe a day whilst they'd been carrying his poisoned body along, had immediately been able to pick out Pyrrha's 'subtle' crush.
Ruby tried not to judge her, given that Pyrrha hadn't exactly grown up with the same kind of childhood that the rest of them had. She'd grown up surrounded by sponsors, sycophants, and people doing their absolute best to bring her down a notch.
A normal school girl crush was perhaps the most terrifying foe she'd ever faced in her life.
Ruby just wished she could make it a little less obvious for the rest of them.
"So, Jasmine," Pyrrha coughed into one hand as she approached the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, Jasmine Arc. "I was thinking… perhaps the two of us could retire for the evening by going to see a movie, and getting a bite to eat?"
"That sounds great!" The easy-going leader of Team JNPR responded, smiling widely, and Pyrrha seemed giddy for all of half a second. "We can invite Ren and Nora too! Make a whole night of it!"
"Y-Yes…" Pyrrha's expression was so pained that Ruby felt a little bad. "That… that sounds lovely."
Oscar, who had known Pyrrha and Jasmine for all of a few days, ran a hand down his face in exasperation.
"That girl has the density of a neutron star." He muttered below his breath, and Ruby was inclined to agree, whether or not Jasmine was one of her best friends or not. "Wait, what even is a neutron star?" He paused a moment, seemingly having asked Ozpin inside his head.
Ruby decided to zone Oscar out as he learned about celestial bodies from the companion in his head. Instead, she headed towards where Uncle Qrow had been resting, sleeping off the last little bits of fatigue from when he'd been poisoned.
The door was open, but Ruby still gave him the courtesy of a knock on the door frame as she stepped in.
"Ah, hey Rubes." He rasped out from his position on the bed, the bags hanging around his eyes and the paleness of his face speaking more than he ever could about how he wasn't yet back at one-hundred percent. "Whatcha' up to?"
"Nothing really." She admitted, stepping into the room and sitting down at the end of Qrow's bed. "Bored, honestly? We've been sitting in this place for at least a week, waiting for Lionheart to call us in, and yet he still hasn't said a word."
"Yeah, well…" Qrow sighed. "Try to be a bit more patient, although I do see the irony in me, of all people, saying that. Lionheart's a good man, he'll be doing his absolute best to help us out."
Ruby was sure that Uncle Qrow was right, but in that moment, she couldn't help but remember that his semblance was bad luck, and she idly wondered that if by saying such things, he was quite literally cursing them.
Eh, probably not.
"So, do we have anything planned for the next few days?"
"Other than bedrest?" Qrow laughed at her pain. "No, kid. We have sitting here and pretending we don't exist on the docket. Not much else."
"Ugh…" Ruby ran a hand down her face. "I mean, I know we don't want to reveal ourselves to any of the members of Salem's faction that might be in the area, but can't we at least go shopping or something!?"
"I thought Jasmine and that Pyrrha chick were finally going out?"
"Nope," Ruby lamented. "Jasmine somehow misconstrued that as an invitation to go out to dinner… with her whole team."
"Wow." Qrow's eyes were wide. "That's a special brand of dense."
"Hey, that's my best friend you're talking about!"
"And do you deny it?"
"Well…" She coughed awkwardly. "…No."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Qrow snickered. "I'd have thought that Pyrrha almost biting it back on top of the Beacon Spire would've had you a bit more cautious."
"Eh, she was fine." Ruby waved a hand.
"She got shot with an arrow through the chest, Rubes."
"And she was fine!"
"Like, straight through her spine. The fact that she's totally fine isn't just shocking, it's flabbergasting. Plus, didn't that Cinder chick try and disintegrate her?"
"She got better."
"Uh-huh." Qrow stated flatly. "Well, remind me again to contact whatever doctors operated on her to do any work I need done in the future."
/
Out in the living room, Jasmine Arc sneezed.
"Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked her.
"Oh, yeah, no. Totally fine." She laughed. "Definitely nothing suspicious going on!"
"I'm glad to hear it." Pyrrha said in return.
No one suspected a thing.
/
"Speaking of, are you going to tell me what it was that I did up there, when I nearly vaporized Cinder with my eyes?"
It was Qrow's turn to clam up. "Nope."
"I mean, I know it has something to do with my eyes."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The first thing Ozpin said to me when we met was that I had Silver Eyes."
"Non-sequitur. Completely unrelated."
"Somehow I don't think it is."
"Ah, I'm so tired." Qrow faked a yawn. "Looks like I've got to sleep."
Ruby just groaned. "Yes, I'm sure with how old you're getting, you're going to start needing more and more of it."
"Hey!"
She stuck out her tongue at her uncle as she left the room, stepped back into the living space with the others.
She ended up arriving to a conversation in progress. Ren and Nora seemed to be discussing the other members of Team RWBY, and where they were at that time.
"So, Yang's getting back on her feet in Patch, yeah?" Nora asked.
"I do believe that's correct, yes." Ren confirmed.
"And then Weiss got kidnapped by her older sister and taken back to Atlas."
"I don't know if it's considered kidnapping when your older sister and family are worried about your health after a terrorist attack, but that is generally correct, certainly."
"And then Blake just sort of…" Nora held her right hand up over her left palm, and then made her pointer and middle fingers wiggle back and forth. "Ran off?"
"…Yes, that does seem like what happened."
Nora seemed to notice her then, for she wore a guilty expression as Ruby came over, and sat down with them.
"Er… sorry, Ruby."
"It's fine." She told Nora, and she did mean it. "It's not like it's not true. Blake's my teammate, and I love her, but she did run off after what happened with Yang and that Adam guy."
"Mm." Nora frowned. "Left Yang down an arm, and she broke her heart!"
"Huh?"
"Wait, you haven't noticed?"
"Noticed what?"
"Never mind then!" Nora suddenly smacked her hands together, all smiles. Said smiles were a bit too saccharine to be believable. "Anyways, Ren and I were thinking about who among them might be the most likely to come and join us first."
Ruby considered that for a moment. "I'd say either Yang, or Weiss."
"Why them?"
"Well, Yang just needed a bit to get herself back up on her feet." Ruby spoke, and she meant it. "She'll be coming. She's not the type to let me go stick my neck into something like this without being there."
Nora smiled. "And Weiss?"
"She's stubborn."
"…That's it?"
"You'd be surprised how stubborn she is." Ruby chuckled. "Stubborn to the point where if she wants to do something, she'll move heaven and earth to make it happen. She'll make it to us, I'm confident in that."
"And what about Blake?"
Ruby thought for a moment. "…Blake has her own things to work out. I'm sure she'll come and find us when she's ready."
"Uh, yeah, sure." Nora seemed skeptical. "If by 'her own things to work out' you mean that she's going to find somewhere she can fight the White Fang, then sure, yeah, I totally agree."
Ruby felt the need to defend her teammates honor. "Blake's not that bad! I'm sure that wherever she is, she's staying out of trouble."
/
Bullets pinged off of the metal beam just in front of her, and Blake Belladonna bit down on her bottom lip as she loaded another clip into Gambol Shroud. Ahead, the White Fang grunts were doing their best to pin her down, to surround her and eliminate her.
But she wasn't going to allow that. She'd come here to expose their secrets to the people of Menagerie. To show them that they were who Blake said they were.
And she wasn't going to be turned away.
Not a chance.
/
"Do you… actually believe that?" Nora asked, seeming genuinely curious.
Ruby did her best to hold her feelings in. She tried as hard as she could. She managed to make it a full three seconds.
She then sighed. "…No."
"Yeah." Nora snickered. "I kind of figured."
Ren chuckled quietly under his breath, even as Jasmine and Pyrrha discussed something behind her. Knowing them, it was Pyrrha getting down on one knee, bringing out a small velvet box, and asking the woman to marry her, and Jasmine somehow construing that to mean that Pyrrha was interested in someone else.
And then, just sort of randomly…
A black and red… thing appeared in front of Ruby.
She shot back away from it with her Semblance, and brought Crescent Rose off of her back, pointing her weapon right at it. The others had similar reactions. Pyrrha shielded Jasmine behind her, Ren placed a hand on top of Magnhild and gently urged the grenade launcher down, given that they were in a small, enclosed space, and Nora realized that a moment later.
And then, without any real pomp and circumstance…
Someone stepped out of the red, swirling mass.
Someone with blonde hair, indigo eyes, and a look of complete and total confusion on her face.
"…YANG!?" Ruby felt her response was appropriate.
"Oh, uh… hey, sis." Yang Xiao-Long, her sister who she'd been pretty sure had, up until about five seconds ago, not been there in their crappy house, waved her hand awkwardly. "…Sup?"
"Huh." Nora remarked under her breath. "Guess Yang won after all."
The next ten or so minutes were lost in a cacophony of shouting, disbelief, and Yang having to deal with the fact that Oscar had Ozpin in his head – "No, seriously, what the fuck?"
"Okay, so…" Ruby felt a little dumbstruck. "You met your mother?"
"Yeah, and my replacement." She huffed out under her breath, and immediately, Ruby decided that was something she wasn't going to be touching with a twelve-foot pole. "Some woman named Vernal. She was maybe my age. She and my mom slept in the same bed. I mean, seriously, can you believe that? She abandons me when I'm a baby, and then goes and cuddles some other–"
"Er… Yang?" Jasmine chimed in, couching awkwardly under her breath. "You said before that you weren't mad about that whole thing?"
"Mad? What? Who's mad? Why would I be mad about that bitch stealing my mom? Frankly, who gives a shit? I don't give a shit!"
"Uh-huh." Jasmine whispered awkwardly. "I'll uh… I'll take your word for it."
"Anyways," Ruby cleared her throat. "We were talking about that weird… what was it?"
"Yeah, the incident with the mirror, right?"
Ruby nodded her head; glad they could get back on topic. Yang's… issues with her mother were a discussion for another time.
"You say that whatever occurred at the Branwen camp was, at least according to Raven, due to the influence of some seemingly magical mirror?"
Ruby looked over, and was surprised to see that it was Oscar who had spoken. Or no, that wasn't quite right.
It was Ozpin who'd spoken, simply through Oscar's voice.
The look on his face, though… it was guarded. His mouth was drawn tightly, and his brow was furrowed.
"Yeah, that's what she said." Yang shrugged her shoulders. "She said there was some guy in there who was somehow connected to this weird evil witch lady she made up named Salem."
Oscar's face went through a plethora of emotions in that moment. It… was an odd thing to see on someone so young, for many of those expressions were those of someone much older, someone haunted with regrets and memories.
"And you are certain of this?"
"I mean, I wasn't there, but that's what she said?" Yang seemed confused. "Do you actually believe that story? That Weiss is working alongside the Queen of the Grimm?"
"I do not believe that that is the case, no." Ozpin shook his head. "It is more… there is much more at play here than you know. Raven thought that it was Salem's influence simply because she had nothing else to compare that feeling to. She must have felt magic."
"So…" Ruby felt a bit awkward interrupting, but she was too curious not to. "Is this like the Maiden's?"
"I'm afraid it is far older, and far more dangerous than the maidens." Ozpin spoke, and it was said in such a way that a chill ran down Ruby's spine. "The man who lurks within that mirror… is someone who was sealed away at the very dawn of this world. Someone who wielded the same potency of magics that I and Salem once did. I had thought him long gone. He… has not been seen in several… well, in a very long time."
Everyone at the table seemed to be growing more and more nervous about Ozpin's words. He seemed almost scared. Ruby didn't think she'd ever seen the man like that. Even when he'd been about to die at Cinder's hands in the bowels of Beacon Academy, he had stepped forward to defend both Jasmine and Pyrrha without a second thought.
And yet, somehow, this scared him.
Ruby didn't like that very much.
Jasmine seemed to be rather scared herself, muttering under her breath as Pyrrha placed her hands on the woman's shoulders to comfort her. Ruby couldn't make out what was being said, but it sounded something like "were real."
"That he has suddenly reappeared now fills me with an uncertain dread." Ozpin admitted. "And seemingly, from the sound of Raven's report, heading towards Mistral."
Ruby wasn't the only one to have wide eyes at that.
"What makes you think he and Weiss are coming this way?" Yang asked.
"Because why else would they be moving on the continent of Anima?" Ozpin asked, and it seemed to be a rhetorical question. "What other reason would there be for them to be here? If he desired simply to grow more powerful, there were many in Atlas he could have swung to his side with dark magics. No, his goal, whatever it might be, lies here, within Mistral. It simply must."
"And… how powerful is this man?" Ruby had to ask.
"Rather luckily, he is from the sound of things still trapped within that mirror. That means that any application of force he might otherwise have access to is limited. Still, I would urge all of you exercise caution. This is an evil long since forgotten by this world. An evil that once threatened it at the dawn of civilization. This is an enemy that was almost beyond me in my prime. I am certain that even now, to banish it once more from this world will take all of us in tandem to accomplish."
There was a general murmur of nervousness at that.
"Should we tell Lionheart?" Nora brought up. "I mean, doesn't he deserve to know if there's a threat headed for his city?"
"I will go and speak with Leonardo on my own." Ozpin spoke, standing from his place at that table with a hasty breath. "You are very much correct, Ms. Valkyrie; he must be warned. The rest of you, stay here, and stay quiet."
"Could it be that he's coming here because Weiss wants to see us?"
It was an oddly random thing for Ruby to suddenly bring up, but she couldn't help herself.
"Ms. Rose?" Ozpin turned back towards her.
"I just mean… Wouldn't it add up for Weiss to travel to Mistral if she wanted to escape her father's clutches, and meet up with us? It seems like she'd be killing two birds with one stone with that."
"That is to imply that Weiss has somehow managed to avoid the Dread King's influence." Ozpin spoke, sighing. "But I have seen for myself great men and women succumb to his honeyed words, and silver tongue. They held no hope of retaining their wills against him. They subscribed to his horrid ideals in single conversations with the man. I fear that Weiss has likely succumbed to such powers as well."
Ruby felt a pang of terror flit through her. "Does that mean–"
"Fear not, Miss Rose." Ozpin, for the first time in the conversation, seemed to present a hint of confidence. "Such control is in no way permanent. All we must do to win back your friend is to separate her from that mirror. If we can break the Dread King's spell over her, then we will save her as well."
She let out a breath of relief, hearing that Weiss wasn't lost to them. She'd… she'd been concerned, she'd admit, but this…
This sounded like something they could handle.
"But do not grow complacent." Ozpin rebuked them immediately as their spirits rose. "This enemy once roused an entire Kingdom to his side, laying to waste all that stood before him. He utilized magics the likes of which were never seen, and should not be seen, again. He is more formidable than I, and perhaps even more formidable than Salem."
"We must prepare. For when he does arrive in Mistral…"
"This Kingdom may very well fall at his feet."
/
"She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she cooomes!"
Weiss Schnee, former heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, and all-around good person – in her opinion – couldn't help but think she'd done nothing to deserve this.
"She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she cooomes!"
Had she gone wrong somewhere? Broken a sacred creed? Defied the gods of this world? Angered the universe? It felt like the easiest explanation, for the scenario she found herself in was truly something that one might have experienced within hell itself.
"She'll be coming 'round the mountain, she'll be coming 'round the mountain, she'll be coming 'round the mountain when she coooomes!"
"I never should have said anything." Weiss hissed out, filled with naught but regret. "I should've kept my damned mouth shut and let you stew in boredom."
"Oh, come now, angel of freshly fallen snow–"
She glared at him.
"Come now, Weiss," Jaune corrected from his position on her back. "Tis a wondrous tune thou hath shared with me! In fact, I think I might sing it once again!"
"Please do not–"
"She'll be comin' around the mountain when she coooomes!"
Weiss sobbed silently into her hands.
End Chapter 7
Alright, that was Chapter 7!
Weiss' suffering continues, and it's unlikely to abate in the near future. Meanwhile, Jaune's having a great time!
In other news, Ozpin seems to be severely overestimating our boy Jaune. ...Right?
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