Yo!
How's everyone doing? Hopefully well? I hope so at least! Chapter two here, other than that, not much else to say!
Let's get into it!
Start Chapter 2
Yang's first thought as she's dumped out of the portal that she and the rest of those trapped within the Ever After had taken to, hopefully, Vacuo, is that she's pretty sure Vacuo doesn't have any forests.
Her second thought is that there's a Grimm charging directly at her.
She dodges to the left, swearing under her breath and wondering just why she's suddenly being thrust into this situation five seconds after arriving. She hadn't even had the time to really identify the Grimm in question before having to throwing herself out of its way.
She does get the chance to study it now, and recognizes the Ursa Major. It's no major threat (hah), not really, and she manages to fell it within ten seconds. It falls to the ground, slowly disintegrating.
And that's when Yang hears the screaming.
In her opinion, this day could really be going a lot better.
She sighs, even as she begins to run towards the source of it, and stumbles out of the forests to see…
A village.
One that's burning.
Yang's complaints end about then, and she transitions into her Huntress persona mere moments later.
She's running before too long.
As she's closing in on the village, she's trying to analyze where the screams are coming from so as to be able to rush to the aid of the citizenry immediately. The problem with that is she's never really been the type on RWBY to do the analyzing. Usually, she lets Ruby call out targets, positions, strategies, and then does the dirty work afterwards.
She's a lot better at that than this.
Still, she has no real choice but to make do.
She vaults over the village's wall, and attempts to get a scale of the destruction. There are fires all over the village, alongside fleeing civilians, and the occasional member of what seems like a village defense force. It's a cobbled together group of barely-above-pedestrians, using half-a-century-year-old dust rifles to fend off the oncoming Grimm.
They won't be able to stop them. That Yang recognizes immediately. Had she not been here, this village would've been wiped off the map.
It's a good thing she is here, then.
One of the guards, a young man no older than nineteen or twenty, screams out in terror as an Alpha Beowolf closes in on him, the bullets from his rifle bouncing harmlessly off its bone plating.
Yang's Ember Celica-enhanced fists have no such issues.
She sends the Grimm sailing backwards, crashing into a pack of smaller Beowolves, and also, importantly, drawing the Grimm's attention towards her.
Good. Come to me. Pick on someone your own size.
An Ursa approaches her, swinging wide, obvious, easy, and she catches its arm, breaks it, and then does a backflip to kick the creature straight in the throat. It collapses, and the Grimm falls backwards.
"A Huntress!" She hears echo out from somewhere behind her. "There's a Huntress here!"
Suddenly, the screams of terror begin to die down. They're still present, but they're muted.
Yang smiles. That's half the point of Huntsman and Huntresses, to serve the role of superhero, and eliminate the fear that the Grimm feed upon.
It's one of the major reasons that survivors from villages attacked by the Grimm are so rare. Without a semblance like Ren's, the horror that a civilian would feel watching their entire life being destroyed around them would only amplify the fear they felt. And that fear would, in turn, attract more Grimm, creating a vicious cycle.
A Hunter interrupted that cycle. They'd arrive, defeat a few Grimm, and, crucially, raise morale. That raise in morale would result in less Grimm arriving.
A much less vicious cycle.
That's what Yang's aiming for, now. She strikes a pose, smiles as widely as she can, and announces loudly, "Don't worry! I'm here now! You're safe!"
The village doesn't exactly cheer, but the screaming and yelling has stopped. It's enough, hopefully, for the Grimm that Yang's dealing with now to be the last of them.
It only takes her fifteen minutes to fully clear the village, and it only really takes that long because there are Grimm stragglers outside the walls. Yang doesn't want to leave the village until the Grimm have been fully cleared out, so she instead lures the Grimm over by yelling and attracting attention.
Finally, though, when they're all culled, the surviving villagers come out of the woodworks. It seems that nearly all of the villagers had managed to make it to safety in time, which is good, since Yang hates seeing people suffering.
She's inundated with happy people, coming up to her and hugging her, practically worshipping the ground she walks on. She laughs, quite a bit awkward about it all, but clears her throat and asks if there are any people missing.
If she can act quickly, she might be able to save people who've been trapped, or buried beneath rubble.
Luckily, there don't seem to be too many. Yang ends up having to punch a few wooden beams out of a doorframe to free a trapped family, and then break down a bolted door to get out an old man who'd believed them to be lying to him that the village had been saved. Eventually, though, the village is able to count its dead.
There had been deaths, of course there had been. But luckily, they'd been minimal. In a village of two or three hundred people, they'd only lost nineteen. All of them a part of the defense force.
That helps Yang feel somewhat better, knowing those men and women had signed up to defend this place with their lives, but hearing their families cry is no easier.
No sooner has Yang begun to relax, however, than does one of the men she'd sent to the top of the wall come running back down, with wide eyes and a panicked expression.
"What's the matter?" Yang asks, wary.
"F-Figures on the horizon, ma'am!" He reports. "They're armed! They look like bandits."
Yang scoffs. Bandits are just about her least favorite people in all the world, and not just for the obvious reasons. People who would take advantage of others in their most vulnerable moments, who would enslave and sell human beings, who can't contribute to society, who can only take from it…
Yang's eyes narrow.
"Bar the gates. I'll handle them."
She moves towards the top of the wall, looking out on the path that approaches the village. Sure enough, there are people incoming, perhaps fifty meters out from Yang's position.
She sighs, wondering what she's done to deserve this.
Funnily enough, it's only then, nearly thirty minutes after she'd been deposited here in this forest somewhere in the world, that she truly accepts the reality of the situation.
She's on her own. Her allies aren't with her.
She could really use Blake by her side right now for moral support. Or Ruby to give her a gameplan. Perhaps Weiss to have a straight man to bounce shitty jokes off of.
Honestly, she'd settle for Jaune, too. She definitely wouldn't mind his semblance topping her up at the moment. She's really not picky.
Yang lets loose a great sigh, and then leaps off the wall.
Bandits, she's always found, are the kinds of folk who try and take advantage only of those weaker than them. They'll bray and heckle, but they're too cowardly to ever attack someone bigger or stronger than they are.
That means that all Yang should have to do is make a show of force, and these bandits will scatter.
She cracks her neck, stretches her arms, and then, with a great big motion, smashes her fist into the ground.
The earth erupts up and into the air, as if struck by a meteor. It shoots up dirt, and smoke, and little bits of ash. She'd used one of Ember Celica's rounds to enhance the effect, but from the distance they're standing at, Yang's pretty sure the bandits won't notice that.
When the dust settles, she sees that the bandits have halted, as predicted.
Now, to seal the deal.
"You get one chance." She tells them, flaring her semblance so her eyes change to their crimson shade, and her hair glows with literal embers. "Leave."
Quite a few of the bandits flinch backwards, but honestly, it's less than Yang would've assumed. She watches as, instead of clearing out entirely, they instead clear a path. A trench opens up between their ranks – about fifty strong – and in the middle–
Yang gasps.
Because…
That's her mother.
Raven Branwen stands before her, with a cocky smile on her lips and Omen strapped to her hip. She's dressed in the exact armor that Yang's always known her to wear, the somewhat ridiculous combination of plate mail and a skirt.
Ruby and Weiss would tell her that combat skirts are actually quite effective, and very ergonomic in terms of leg-maneuverability, but Yang still has her doubts.
Either way…
The thing that stands out the most is how young she looks.
The last time Yang had seen her, she'd seemed… broken. She'd cried, openly, ashamed of what she'd done. She'd apologized to Yang, and then…
Then she'd gone off on her own to who knows where.
So, either she'd really turned things around – in a bad way – in the last year or so they'd been in Atlas, or…
No. That's not possible.
Not where; When you are needed.
…Shit, unless it is possible.
"Are you this village's… guardian?" Raven calls out to her, and Yang tenses. "I don't recall seeing you while my men and I scouted this place. Who are you? Where did you come from?"
Raven wants to talk? She's not really sure why. She should have recognized her by now, surely?
…Things are already beginning to become clearer in her head, and she sighs as she realizes just what it is that's likely going on.
That… is not good.
That's very much not good.
Is she here alone? Is Ruby here? Where is Blake, and Weiss, and even Jaune?
"Oi, blondie, are you going to answer me?"
Yang keys back into the fact that Raven's trying to get her to engage her in conversation. It's actually a good thing, really. It gives her time to formulate a strategy.
"My name is…" Ah, shit. "Blake. Blake Belladonna."
"Huh." Raven sneers. "Not the name I would've given you, but alright, then." Oh, I know the name you would've given me, Yang thinks. "Well, Blake, I'm sure you're a great Huntress, but I'm going to give it to you straight; that village you just protected? That was our target. That Grimm attack was our doing, softening the place up, let's say. Everything, and everyone within it, belongs to us. So, if you'd like to live, I'd suggest looking the other way."
"Quick question; has that ever worked?" Yang's honestly curious. "The whole 'step aside and you shall live' thing?"
Raven barks out a laugh. "No. But hey, can't hurt to try."
She draws one of Omen's blades in the next moment, one that appears to be made of fire dust, judging by the deep red coloration. All around her, the bandits begin to smile, and jeer, evidently pleased to get to see their boss go toe-to-toe with a Huntress.
Yang sighs, even as she primes Ember Celica. She's fairly certain that she's not going to be able to convince Raven to back down, which means the only way to get her to leave this village alone…
Well, it's to beat the shit out of her.
And hey, honestly, this will probably be good for her.
The Raven she's familiar with really needed to get the shit beaten out of her more often when she'd been younger. It would've really helped her build character.
"Hey, so, before we start," Yang makes a show of being casual. Really casual, knowing such will annoy her mother. "What's your 'I'm sorry, you're way tougher than me, and I give up' safe word?"
Raven snarls, and lunges towards her.
"Alright, we'll default to pineapple, then."
/
Weiss snaps awake inside of a dark, dingy bedroom in a home she's never seen before.
Her mind whirls as she tries to process quite a few things. For one, she'd been within the Ever After, stepping through the portal to what they'd assumed would be Vacuo, surrounded by her friends, thinking all had been well, maybe ten seconds ago.
And now…
She pushes herself up off of the ground, and tries to get her bearings. The floor below her is wooden, but old, creaking. The walls around her are painted, but the color has all but faded, and in several sections the paint is flaking off.
She doesn't recognize this place. Not at all. Maybe, in some far-off corner of her mind, she gets the vague feeling that a house like this wouldn't be built in Vacuo.
More noticeable, however, and the thing that ultimately distracts her from thinking any further on that subject, is the smell.
There's an acrid, almost rancid smell coming from somewhere in the house, and it's one that Weiss recognizes, just as much as she's trying her best to hope that this isn't what she thinks it is.
She makes as little noise as she can, but pushes herself out into the hallway beyond her room. She can't hear anyone else within the building, and it's hard to say if that's either a good or bad sign.
It's a multi-story home, and it seems, as Weiss had thought, to be quite old. If she had to guess, she'd say about a century or so. The décor is all wrong for the current day and age – although given her upbringing, perhaps she knows less about that than most – and the trim of the wood, and other such details, feel older to her.
There's another room on the top floor, and it's this room that Weiss is making her way towards. That's the room, after all, emitting the smell itself.
She breathes through her mouth, braces herself, and then pushes open the door.
Weiss finds what she'd expected to find, no matter how much she'd dreaded such an outcome.
The room itself is nothing special. The same color paint on the walls, the same flakiness, and the same wooden floors. But the differences between the two become more apparent when Weiss looks at the bed, and the figure atop it.
Namely, the corpse that's laid there.
She swallows back on the bile rising in her throat, doing her best to prevent herself from vomiting. She barely manages it, almost entirely because she's grown quite used to the smell during her time in Atlas, no matter how much that fact disgusts and horrifies her. Their primary job at that time had been trying to keep the city secure. But that work had also included attempting to reinforce broken lines, or solve Hunter-related crimes within the city. Some of which had been quite grisly.
She does her best to take in the facts of the situation. As much as she'd not had detective work on the agenda when she'd awoken that day, and as much as this entire thing makes her want to empty out the modest meal she'd had before they'd gone off in search of Neo and Ruby all over the floors, she's been spat out in the home of a murder victim. At the very least, it's a home containing a murder victim, which is a pretty good reason for Weiss to try and sleuth out what's happened.
The man, and he is a man, she's able to determine, seems to have been dead for several days already. His body has begun to decay, some of his skin and muscle melting into the bedding beneath him. There's dried blood on the sheets, and, perhaps most damningly, a hole the size of a golf ball just off-center of the man's chest, almost directly above his heart.
Weiss grimaces, but she moves closer, so as to get a better look.
The man's face reveals little. His jaw is hanging open, which might suggest he'd died screaming, but could also be the byproduct of his body being left to rot here for days; perhaps the muscles holding his jaw had simply decomposed. His eyes are open, which leads Weiss to the conclusion that if he'd died in this bed, he'd done so awake.
She's not the most experienced with this kind of thing, however, and the whole… dead body thing is really beginning to overwhelm her. She has to take a moment to retreat from the room, and steady herself. Breathe non-stale air.
It doesn't help much. Not really. Even still, when she feels she's gotten a good enough break, she makes to step back into the room, and continue examining the body.
Before she can, however, she hears a sound just behind her, feels a sharp point against the back of her neck, and goes deathly still.
"Hands in the air." A masculine voice, young, but somewhat gruff, commands. "Now, if you would."
Weiss swallows, but does as commanded.
"Drop your weapon, and then kick it towards me."
Weiss instantly knows she has an opportunity to free herself. She does as she's been asked; holding Myrtenaster up, and, subtly, in a motion that would look like nothing at all to anyone not intimating familiar with her weapon, primes one of the chambers. She drops it, and sends all her aura towards her legs.
When Myrtenaster hits the floor, the fire dust in the chamber ignites, and creates a localized fireball that explodes on the ground beneath them. Weiss hears her mysterious assailant curse as he's forced to jump backwards.
Weiss has lost a good bit of aura due to tanking the brunt of the explosion, but she still likely has seventy-five percent or more. She reaches down, takes up Myrtenaster, jumps back to create distance between them, starts the process of priming her semblance, and–
Her eyes widen.
His face is less sunken in, livelier. There's no five o'clock shadow along his chin, and he looks healthier. His eyes aren't quite so bloodshot, and his breath doesn't smell potently of liquor.
But even so, it's so clearly…
"Qrow!?"
He has a similar reaction to her words, his eyes going wide, taking a step back, and looking right at her with a furrowed brow.
"You know me?" Qrow's face scrunches up. "Huh. Guess my reputation precedes me for once. Not going to lie, that's a good feeling. Even still, I'm going to have to ask you to not try that shit again. Put the weapon down, Miss. I'd really rather this not get ugly."
"I'll be keeping my weapon to myself, thank you very much!" Weiss speaks, some of her old haughtiness slipping into her tone. "Why on Remnant did you hold me up, anyways!?"
"Uh, because you were standing in a room with a dead body, lady?"
Okay, admittedly, now that Weiss thinks about it…
Wait, no!
"A dead body that's very obviously day's old!? That dead body!?"
Qrow visibly deflates somewhat. "Alright, fair." He lowers Harbinger with a great sigh. "Who the hell are you, anyways? I've never seen someone to have hair that shade of white that wasn't a Schnee, but somehow, I don't think that's it."
What?
"You don't… know who I am?" Weiss asks, her instincts flaring that something is wrong.
"Uh, should I?" Qrow cocks an eyebrow.
Okay… that's not good.
Qrow not knowing who she is… Weiss isn't quite sure what's up with that, but she's pretty sure none of the explanations behind such are good. For right now, she'll assume that there's something wrong with Qrow, and work from there.
In that case, if he's familiar with Schnee's, but doesn't know her, then using her real name here would probably be a bad idea, as would utilizing her semblance.
She's very glad she hadn't managed to prime it in time before recognizing Qrow.
Still, she has to come up with a fake name. And quickly, without hesitating, if she wants to not be seen as overwhelmingly suspicious.
"My name is…" think, Weiss, think! "Ruby. Ruby White."
Excellent. Great. Just peachy. That's my name now. Incredible work there, brain.
"Ruby, huh?" Qrow actually smiles. "I have a niece named Ruby. Alright then, Rubes–"
"Do not call me that."
"Too late, name's stickin'," Qrow ignores her complaints as he steps into the room alongside her, and takes a long, hard look at the corpse on the bed. "Since you were studying the body, give me your take on all of this."
"It's… not exactly my forte."
"It's not mine either." Qrow admits, gesturing once more towards the body. "C'mon, surely you figured something out."
Weiss sighs, even as she crosses her arms over her breasts and gives Qrow a basic rundown of what she thinks happened. When she finishes, she can see him nodding sagely, taking her words into account.
"I think a lot of what you're saying there is pretty accurate, actually." He tells her. "Course, without actually knowing who this is, you were never going to be able to grasp the full picture, but that's hardly your fault."
"Alright," Weiss huffs, a bit annoyed that he'd wasted her time. "Then tell me, who was this man?"
"He is – was a Huntsman." Qrow sighs. "A damn good one, too."
That's troubling, but then, good can mean a lot of things.
"How good?" Weiss asks.
"Good enough that he was one of Leonardo Lionheart's personal guard for years." Weiss' eyes widen. "Yeah. Glad you get the picture."
That's not quite why Weiss had reacted, but she'll let Qrow think that for now. It's been… quite a while since she's thought about Lionheart. To hear his name brought up in conversation…
A lot of little things are beginning to add up in Weiss' head, beginning to paint a picture she's fairly certain she doesn't like.
"And Leonardo Lionheart… how is he?"
"Huh? Uh… fine, last I heard." Qrow's looking at her a bit funny. "I didn't mean that Lionheart was attacked, and his guard died protecting him or something. This was an isolated event."
Okay… okay…
No, it's not okay! What does he mean that Leonardo Lionheart is fine!? The man had been dead and buried last time Weiss had checked!
Weiss breathes our hoarsely, trying to make sense of all of this without giving herself away more than she already has. Something is afoot, and while she's curious about the nature of such, she wants to hold more cards than Qrow does in this scenario.
"Alright." Weiss clears her throat. "I think I understand the basics of what you're getting at. So, what exactly is your major point here?"
"What I'm saying is that whatever killed him?" Qrow points down at the body. "They would've had to be better. That, or they snuck in while he was asleep. But given the wide eyes, which you yourself noticed, I have my doubts."
Weiss nods her head. "You came here, seemingly on alert. Did you think he would be dead?"
"It's less that, and more that no one had heard from him in a week." Qrow explains. "Honestly, I figured you'd have known that, and that's why you were here."
Ah, suspicion yet again. Weiss thinks that's probably fair, given she did, technically, just appear in the middle of this house in the middle of, apparently, Mistral.
She wants to get the subject off of her, so she pivots.
"Do you have a suspect?"
Qrow, seemingly, does. He looks back towards the body, towards that wound through the man's torso, and lets loose a sigh.
"The MO doesn't add up, but the methodology does. That wound is similar to one's we see coming up all throughout Mistral, and hell, even some parts of Eastern Sanus. That big-ass hole, straight through him. It takes a strong weapon to do something like that. And… well, one bastard has made it his calling card."
"And who's that?"
"Well, maybe you've heard of him." Qrow speaks, turning back towards her.
"Asshole's name is Marcus Black."
/
Ruby really feels that after she'd gone through such a deep, traumatic, and emotional journey within the Ever After, she'd earned a more dignified entrance into Vacuo than landing face first on a toilet seat.
The contact hurts, for one, which is absolutely no fun, but for two…
Actually, it just hurts, and is super embarrassing. She doesn't have much else to say except for that.
She shakes her head to try and lift the fog that had set in when she'd hit it, and looks around. She uh… doesn't really recognize the place. It's a cramped bathroom, maybe a meter wide, and a meter long? It reminds Ruby of an airship toilet, actually, except it's quite a bit fancier than any that she's been in.
That one they'd had while aboard their stolen airship from Argus to Atlas had been… really bad.
…Ruby's not going to put any more time into analyzing a bathroom, she decides then. Instead, she rises, makes sure that Crescent Rose is strapped to her back – it is – and pushes her way out into…
A sea of people.
More than that, a sea of Huntsman and Huntresses!
Funnily enough, it clicks for Ruby exactly where she is, then. She recognizes the particular airliner she's been loaded into, recognizes the large windows that look out onto the familiar city below, the fins that move up and down outside.
This is the airship that had taken Ruby from Vale to Beacon on her very first day.
This raises an awful lot of questions, none of which Ruby really has the mental capacity to comprehend. Her game plan for the day, after having gone through everything in the Ever After, had been to get to Vacuo, lie down on the closest bed, and sleep for one to two weeks.
That is, seemingly, not going to be an option.
She's a bit salty about that.
Even still, Ruby's sort of expecting heads to turn towards her, for them to look at her and point and say she's way too old to be here, or something, but instead, aside from a single cursory glance from a few of the other hopefuls…
Nothing.
Ruby's just… accepted.
She has half a mind to be offended. She's nearly eighteen! She's a fully-fledged Huntress! She's fought against some of Remnant's strongest bad guys!
…She's also, technically, around the age she should've been had she not been moved up by Ozpin to actually attend Beacon.
So perhaps the people around her accepting her presence is fair.
It doesn't mean Ruby has to like it.
…Hey, wait, hold on, Vale had been blown up!
Ruby, in what may look to those around her to be a fit of madness, uses her semblance to fly right over to the window, and looks out upon the city below her.
Somehow, someway, it's unscathed.
Which is…
Huh.
Ruby turns around, sees that a few people are whispering, presumably about her, and thinks that maybe, she should just find a seat and sit down.
She does, and then, realizing that this ship isn't exactly the fastest ever, she decides to take some time to ponder her options.
Or lack thereof, really.
Aside from throwing herself out of the vehicle at speed, Ruby's pretty much just waiting for the airship to dock at Beacon. Once she's there…
Well, that's a good question.
Ozpin's not going to be here, given he's Oscar now – but then, Vale's also not supposed to be here, and for that matter, Beacon! – but she might be able to talk with Professor Goodwitch, or Headmistress, she supposes.
…Yeah, no, Ruby's totally lost.
She thinks, ponders, questions, other synonyms for thinks, for quite a while, until, eventually, she feels the ship jolt, and realizes they've docked.
The other kids begin getting up – and they really do look like kids! Is this how Yang had always seen Ruby? Because wow – and make their way towards the doors, apprehension obvious about the lot of them.
Finally, once they've cleared out, Ruby realizes that she should probably follow suit.
She tiptoes down the aisle, wondering how she's supposed to deal with this whole… what's that word Weiss likes? Debacle? Yeah. Debacle.
She makes it to the doors, steps outside, and…
Yep. There's Beacon.
No giant Grimm wyvern attached to the central spire, turned to stone by Ruby's eyes. No signs of destruction, or craters from White Fang Paladins. No bloodstains, or medical tents, or screaming or dead children who'd just wanted to make the world a better place.
Just… Beacon. As she remembers it.
Ruby finds her eyes tearing up, and she reaches up to wipe those tears before they can fall. It's just… it's a lot, being back here. It feels like she's lived an entire lifetime since she's last seen it.
…It's probably way worse for Jaune, she finds herself thinking, then. With having been the Rusted Knight for so long, according to him nearly two full decades.
That… Ruby can't even imagine. It's still kind of weird, and it probably won't ever not be, that her friend is the Rusted Knight. She can barely remember her mom and dad reading her the story of Alyx in the Ever After as a child.
Now… well, she's lived through it.
"Excuse me, miss."
Ruby practically jumps out of her cape, and turns towards the sound of the voice so quickly that she has to adjust mid-air to not hurt herself.
She lets loose a breath of relief as she lands, looking up at the man who's just addressed her, and seeing, presumably, a Beacon attendant.
Ruby doesn't know him.
"Oh, uh… hi!"
"Hello to you too, miss." The man smiles, before pointing towards Beacon. "If I were you, I would make my way in towards the auditorium. It's just a straight shot from here to the front doors and then from there, you follow the signs."
Oh. Right. Ruby looks like a student.
"R-Right!" She salutes, before realizing saluting is weird, and then decides not to do that anymore. "T-Thank you, sir! I appreciate it."
"Don't mention it." He chuckles. "Run along now. You wouldn't want to be late for your very first day."
"Definitely not."
Ruby nods towards the man as he steps off, and enters into the ship that had taken them to Beacon. Perhaps he'd been the pilot?
Ah, well, he's probably right, either way. Ruby's not really sure what's going on – maybe this is all some kind of illusion – but she doesn't feel like she's going to learn more about what's happening by running away from it all.
So, for now, she takes a breath, squares her shoulders, and soldiers on.
/
"Sir."
The Headmaster of Beacon Academy, Ozpin, looks up from the paperwork he'd been consummately avoiding actually working on, and into the eyes of his deputy, and first-year combat professor, Glynda Goodwitch.
She's holding a tablet in her hands, one which she's offering out to him, urging him to take it.
"What seems to be the problem, Glynda?"
"There's been an… incident."
"Oh? Did something occur here in Beacon, or perhaps aboard the transport ship?"
"The latter, sir."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"Not that kind of incident. More… well," Glynda clears her throat. "I'm sure I do not have to tell you that the Beacon student transport is equipped with a state-of-the-art SDC weight tracker?"
"To make sure that it doesn't exceed a certain weight limit, I'm aware."
"Well, during the flight, something… unusual occurred." Glynda takes the tablet, which seems to show a video taken from inside of the transport. "Roughly seventy-three percent of the way through the journey, the weight of the craft… increased."
Ozpin's brow furrows. "By how much?"
"Roughly sixty-five kilos."
"No small amount." Ozpin notes. "It wasn't a mechanical error?"
"No, sir. It wasn't. The moment the pilot contacted me about the sudden shift, I checked the cameras for anything out of the ordinary. Look at this footage."
Ozpin does just that. On screen, he sees the sped-up events of the entire ride from Vale to Beacon. It's a rather boring thing, consisting, mostly, of children attempting to occupy their own attentions with either their scrolls or conversations between one another. Occasionally, someone stands to use the restroom.
And then, just as Glynda had described, something curious happens.
For after the restroom empties out, and should, by all accounts, be unoccupied…
Three minutes later, another figure exits out.
Ozpin's eyebrows raise.
"I went over the footage." Glynda tells him. "This girl was not a part of the initial boarding party, nor was she aboard the transport when it first took off. Given the sudden weight increase midflight, I was initially inclined to believe she possessed some sort of teleportation semblance."
"I'm sensing a 'but', given your tone."
"But," Glynda proves him right. "Instead, a mere two minutes later, this mysterious arrival showed off what I believe to be her semblance."
Ozpin watches as, lo and behold, the girl seems to use some manner of a speed semblance, rocketing forward and leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake.
Odd. A semblance somewhat alike to another he'd seen from one of his students. Not quite in usage, given hers had a much different application, but the residual effect, that of creating rose petals…
It's just like hers.
"So, you believe we can rule out teleportation?" Ozpin asks.
"Indeed." Glynda says, before sighing a moment later. "Except that makes much less sense, given that she did get aboard the ship somehow. A teleportation semblance at least explains that fact."
Ozpin hums out under his breath.
"Interesting. What do you suggest we do, Glynda?"
"I would suggest that we apprehend this potentially dangerous young huntress, who has already shown a propensity to break the law, given she hitched a ride aboard one of our ships illegally." Glynda speaks. She reaches up and massages her brow a moment later. "And yet, knowing you, I have a feeling what you will instead be doing."
Ozpin smiles. "She does not know that we know. For now, I say keep a close eye on her… but allow her to continue along unabated. Have Peter or Peach watch her subtly, and make sure she doesn't get up to anything untoward, but otherwise, let us see exactly what it is this 'rose girl' intends to do."
Glynda groans, but nods her head. "Yes. I thought you would say as much."
"Is that all, Glynda?"
"No. There is one more thing."
"Concerning her?"
"Yes." Glynda reaches across, seemingly to take back her tablet. Ozpin acquiesces, and she begins to skip ahead in the video, right to the last minute or so of footage, where the other students are emptying out. "At the very end, the camera managed to catch something particularly… disconcerting. I could not quite be sure if my eyes were deceiving me or not. I would like for you to take a look as well."
Ozpin nods, and takes the tablet back. The video is set to move at roughly four frames a second.
The girl stands from her seat near the back of the transport, the last to do so. She makes her way forward, closer, ever closer to the cameras, and then–
Ozpin's breath catches in his throat, just as his finger reaches down and pauses the video, freezing on that single damning frame.
And Ozpin feels something, then, that he has not in what feels like centuries. For so very long, he has been the puppet master, manipulating things behind the scenes. For so very long, he has known the answer to every question, every riddle; hell, been their origin.
But here, well and truly, Ozpin has been caught completely unawares.
Because their mysterious stowaway… this new piece on the board…
Has silver eyes.
End Chapter 2
Alright, that's chapter two!
Not a ton to say at the moment! We're still in the introductions for everyone here before the real plots start to kick off (that will happen next chapter for some of our people) but I hope everyone's enjoying the story so far!
Full disclosure; I nearly forgot to upload this today because I was too distracted with the Elden Ring DLC. Awkward.
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