RWBY - The Pen and the Sword

by TwoChimpsWithoutOne

-For the Record- Surviving a plane crash? Not enough. Being hunted by super predators? Not even close. Hopping worlds? Why not? I'll see that, and raise getting recruited by a woman who fashions herself a goddess. OC/I

103. TLI2 - Your World Will Fail

Your World Will Fail

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Team SSAD.

Team. SSAD.

Ashley Lilly had never been the 'my whole life is ruined' type, but wow, in a school that had produced team names like RWBY, JNPR, CFVY, and - she couldn't forget - GEMS… She got SSAD.

The day had started out perfectly fine - she'd even say it started out well! When they all assembled on the cliff to Forever Fall, the air was dry, not too hot, not too cold, there was even a light breeze to keep things from getting stuffy and to make the grass sway. The sun was shining, and the rules for their exam were simple: It was a scavenger hunt. There were artifacts hidden throughout the forest, there were only half as many artifacts as there were prospective students, and anyone that didn't find one would go home. Partners were decided just as simply, and continuing his established penchant for playing with his students, was also a little mischievous: He tossed a sheaf of papers into the air, and as they were caught by the wind, told everyone to pick them up. Twenty minutes later, everyone had a sheet, and he declared that those who had rhyming words printed on those papers would be working together. Ashley's had been 'Maiden', and the difficulty in finding someone whose word rhymed with hers was second only to the difficulty in restraining her laughter when the best Ozma had been able to come up with was 'Straighten'.

That was how she met a man who, like Ashley, was what Beacon called an 'old entrant' - a polite way of saying 'got into the academy well after their eighteenth birthday,' although unlike Ashley, Schwarz wasn't just in his second decade, he had entered his third. After they had been unceremoniously catapulted into the forest and spent an hour finding each other, they filled the silence of their scavenger hunt by getting to know each other. According to him, his story was as simple as answering an ad on the CCT to check and see if he had any aura worth writing home about. He had an afternoon with nothing better to do, so he answered the ad, and the day after, he was being given a crash course in how to not send everyone around him into a panic with an alarmingly potent illusion semblance. The last three years Ashley had been bashing her head into a wall at Signal had been spent by him just getting up to snuff for Beacon's entrance exam, whereupon he sent half of his opponents running off the edge of the arena, chasing ghosts, and the other half tumbling off the side of an arena that was much smaller than they thought it was.

A part of her wanted to pretend she wasn't a little jealous, or even a little offended, at how easy he'd gotten off in comparison, but the rest of her remembered that the average life expectancy of a Huntsman was somewhere around fifty, and while the guy seemed to be pretty devil-may-care, he wasn't stupid, and he had to know what he was getting in to, so she had to respect him for putting in with this lot even knowing he might already be well past the halfway point of his life. Thinking about this, however, brought her mind back to her aunts - both Ecru, crippled years before her prime, and Srebro, who seemed like she was slowing down more and more each day. Schwarz, for his part, picked up on her brief melancholy, and soon they were talking about their families. She told him about her aunts, he told her about his parents and his ex-wife, it was all great, right up until the Grimm attack!

Ashley had seen Grimm before. Signal had an annual 'field trip' in which the combat instructors took their students out into the woods to expose the students to Patch's local Grimm, and the teachers could kill a few. Despite this, actually encountering one and being expected to kill it was much different - especially when she realized, between the two of them? They didn't really have a semblance that could act as a force multiplier at all, let alone against Grimm. They saw right through illusions, and while being observant meant she could predict its actions a bit quicker, that didn't really help her kill it. This was all made doubly bad by the fact that of the two of them? Her weapon was the hardest hitting - Schwarz was walking around with a bog standard gunblade. She was pretty sure she'd seen his exact model on a store shelf just a few weeks ago!

This all led to twenty minutes of back-and-forth fighting against one Beowulf. She was down a quarter of her aura, and seriously concerned about the fact that one of the smaller, weaker Grimm was giving her such a hard time. It was just as she and Schwarz were considering a tactical retreat that two new arrivals crashed the party, and appropriately did so with an even bigger Grimm. One moment, Schwarz and Ashley were staring down the Beowulf, the next they could hear the loudest voice either of them had ever heard screaming at a volume they could scarcely conceive of, and a full blown Nevermore smashed through the roof of the forest, right on top of their Beowulf. Promptly, diminutive woman climbed off of its head, and a mountain of a man dug his way out of its plumage, just in time to be dropped to the ground when it faded away into smoke.

The mountain of a man popped back up, his face painted in a big, dumb smile. He took the two in in less than a second and proudly declared in a farmer's drawl: "Hi, I'm Dusty!" Introducing them to Sylvie and Dusty.

Despite the former's 'Sonic Boom' semblance, she was practically taciturn, and was all but completely enveloped by the sheer size of her partner. The story of how they literally rode a Nevermore 'like a big ass steer' was left to the enormous man with a whip twice his already gargantuan size. Ashley had thought Srebro was pushing as big as people could get, but when she looked at Dusty, she was suddenly made aware of the fact that Srebro never had to stoop to enter rooms, whereas the boisterous brawler - who somehow managed to talk for three minutes without pausing for breath - looked like he might very well have to get on his knees and turn sideways to get into their prospective dorm. Even more bizarre was how he managed to turn 'We accidentally stumbled into its hunting grounds and got picked up, and I asked the lady with the banshee semblance to break its eardrums' into a five minute long tale, complete with sound effects and a tangent about how much fun it was to use telekinesis on his whip. It would have been utterly baffling if she wasn't instead impressed by the fact that the man managed to keep everything straight and tie it all up in the end.

Meanwhile, Sylvie's contribution to the story?

A simple 'Yes.' when directly asked if she knew his plan was to screw up the Grimm's equilibrium, and another 'Yes' when asked if she was at all worried they might get hurt when the Grimm slammed into the ground.

Together, the four of them rapidly learned that they were mostly hopeless on their own in a fight: As useful as Ashley's semblance was against people, she didn't get the same benefits against Grimm. Same for Schwarz, with the added detriment of the fact that among all of them, he had the least combat training and experience. Dusty was enormous, could take hits, and was pretty creative with his semblance and his weapon, but was just as excitable and over-zealous as his personality would lead one to believe: He would tunnel vision bad once he got going. Sylvie had the strongest semblance of the four, but couldn't deal damage at range - she was limited to close range fighting, where most Grimm naturally had the advantage, and could easily interrupt her stronger attacks.

The solution was obvious: They had to work together.

Given her aunts' stories, as well as the stories of every Beacon alumni she'd ever read, she should have known then and there that she'd met her entire team. The fact that she didn't gave her a much greater appreciation for how quickly common sense can just fly away when one is in the moment. Ashley genuinely couldn't decide which among them she liked more: Schwarz, for just how cavalier he was about his new lot in life, up to and including walking during their later encounters with Grimm, Dusty for his damn infectious smile and energy and his seemingly endless well of anecdotes, or Sylvie because it never ceased to be entertaining watching Dusty verbally bounce off of her like a brick wall, and seeing her go from 'completely taciturn' to 'deafeningly loud' always managed to catch her off guard.

Though they were working together, and thus future encounters with Grimm were significantly less troublesome than the initial fight against the Beowulf, it still took them the majority of the day just to find one pair of artifacts, and enough of what remained to find the second pair that Ashley was honestly surprised there had been any left by the time they returned to and climbed Beacon's cliffs. Their biggest holdup had been that they didn't even know what to look for to begin with. Dusty suggested that Sylvie could use her semblance to echolocate, she shot that down with a simple 'No', Ashley tried pouring over every story she'd read from alumni, but none of those helped, Dusty suggested riding another flying Grimm on purpose this time, to get a bird's-eye view, on and on it continued until an idly pacing Schwarz made a comment about how a rock formation kind of looked like an 'X'.

Dusty's immediate response: X Marks the spot, dig it up! Sylvie and Schwarz looked at him like he was a fool, but Ashley got a feeling he might actually be on the right track. From her brief interaction with Ozma, the image she had in her head was of a man who would absolutely pull this kind of trick primarily because everyone would think it was ridiculous. He was, in short: A man who loved to play with his food. Ashley told her group of her interaction with Ozma and her growing impression of the man, and got them to agree to spend at least an hour digging.

Dusty's immediate response was to laugh so hard the trees shook, proudly declare he'd only need a minute, and begin ripping huge clods of dirt out of the ground, shake them until they dissociated, and continue until they found their chess piece.

Sure enough: X marked the spot.

Ashley could hear the sound of Dusty's laughter ringing in her ears for days after, but in spite of her guilty smile, she was more on Sylvie's side: It wasn't a good joke. Nevertheless, with an idea of what to look for, it took much less time to find the next 'X', and though it - and the next several they ran into - had already been plundered, they found a yet-untouched spot as the moon began to rise.

That night, Ozma proved yet again that as much as he was here to teach, guide, and protect, the students were also there to entertain him, as evidenced primarily by SSAD, but also by teams like SWET, DEWM, and her personal favorite: BOMB, which - she suspected was by design - was populated entirely by guys that looked like they would have joined a fraternity in a real school. Alongside names came team leadership positions, with her team being a coin flip away from either having the taciturn woman or the inexperienced man leading them. Given her personal experience with him, her continued observations, as well as the subtle quirk to his brow, the stiffening of his cheek muscles, and the brief flick of his eyes, Ashley was partially convinced Ozma had picked Schwarz on the spot, as opposed to having some kind of genuine rationale. But, she did remind herself of the stories - both personal from her aunts, and anecdotal through CCT interviews - that the JNPR had apparently had something similar happen, and Jaune Arc was still out there, ripping and tearing apart Grimm along the best of them.

Ashley found she was a little grateful she'd plundered GEMS' old dorm when she had the chance, because the dorm given to SSAD was practically on the other side of the building. She had initially intended to find some choice pictures and things from her plunder and send them to her aunts, but the day's activities had left her and the rest of her team so exhausted that they all were asleep within moments of the brief free-for-all sleeping arrangements that left her sleeping at the end of the room.

All things considered: Not a bad first day. It left her feeling a little giddy for things to come. The next few days were simple, rote orientation: They got their schedules, a brief outline of their coursework, access to their student fund accounts, and on and on it went. When classes really began, Ashley found herself surprised at how much attention the Beacon professors seemed capable of paying to each of their students. Any time she had a problem or a question, it generally felt like the entire staff was there, ready to help and guide her towards a greater understanding.

The real challenge came from the actual combat training: As much as SSAD could put their heads together, doing so only really allowed them to punch at their weight, as opposed to every other team that could throw down much higher. None of SSAD were outright hopeless in combat, but the simple fact was that of all of them, only Sylvie was really able to throw down in an appreciable way. Ashley had the stamina, and her weapon hit decently hard, but her semblance left her high and dry if she ever had to fight more than one person at a time. Schwarz's illusions were astonishingly effective, but that advantage only lasted for a month, after which other teams began working out how to get around it and leverage their greater strength and experience against him. Dusty's telekinesis was versatile, but he was barely able to lift his own bodyweight. The moment any team could get any one of them separated from the whole, the fight was a good as lost. The end result was a rapid cementation of their place in their year's pecking order: Just a few teams above dead last, and then only because the teams below them were routinely failing their academics.

As was their wont, the news just rolled over Schwarz, bounced off of Sylvie, lit a fire under Ashley, and made Dusty laugh. Drawing both from her aunts' stories and the endless media she had consumed over the years, Ashley knew the only way to solve this problem was to make their team one cohesive unit. Unfortunately, being the youngest of them all and the worst performing outside of the classroom, she was merely humored, not really listened to overmuch.

But: Being humored was a foot in the door, which she put to immediate use against the oldest of them, and their assigned leader. Day after day, Ashley pestered Schwarz, trying to pull him out of his generally careless rut. It wasn't so much that she was trying to change him - all the time spent on this particular project bore some unexpected fruits in the form of his personal philosophies and the various nuggets of wisdom he would drop from time to time. The world, in his eyes, was a big place, and even living legends needed a lot of people, resources, and time to make any noticeable effect. He wasn't a living legend, he didn't know a lot of people, have a lot of resources, or really much time given his change in career. As serious as their lives and careers were, the odds were that they'd probably max out at a street level, so better to just let the world happen and roll with it than to rage against it. One couldn't control or account for everything, so the better idea was to give effort where it was needed, and let the rest sort itself out as it invariably would.

She supposed there was some logic there. There was definitely an argument to be made for just letting the things she couldn't control wash over her, and deal with the aftermath when it all calmed down. There were things one could control and influence, and things one couldn't, better to just accept the latter to focus on the former. But, she was too big of a fan of the stories - real and fictional - of those men and women who could, through raw determination, not just move mountains, but shift the axis of Remnant itself. Besides, maybe it was just her age talking, or her general experiences in getting to Beacon in the first place, but Schwarz typically seemed as though he were going to an extreme with these philosophies, and her team was something she could influence.

Seeing that her voice alone was only a foot in the door to Schwarz, Ashley branched off to the others, intent on both getting to know them as she had Schwarz, and recruiting them in her efforts against him. Believing that Dusty would be as simple as sitting down with a big plate of food and walking away with a new best friend, she instead focused on their laconic brick wall.

Sylvie was the very picture of efficiency. If asked a question that could be answered with a yes or no, that was all she would give. If asked for details, she would give only enough to get her idea across. Brusque, yes, but in watching her, Ashley never got the feeling that it was done out of rudeness or malice. It simply seemed to be how Sylvie operated: Give her a problem, ask her a question, she solved it and promptly left it behind for the next one.

"Why do you want to be a Huntress?"

"To kill Grimm."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are a threat."

Short as their conversations were, Ashley noticed how Sylvie was rarely without a book in her hands. With her semblance and a couple passing glances, she was able to rapidly determine that these books weren't fiction, but were rather an endless series of reference material. Textbooks, training manuals, audio engineering guides, scientific journals, even completely voluntary coursework, Sylvie was always working in some direction. This proved to be the key Ashley needed not necessarily to open Sylvie up, but to understand the enigma that she was. She wasn't Schwarz, she didn't just let the world happen to her - but nor was she Ashley, she didn't think she could move mountains just by smacking her head into them enough. There were things she could do, and things she couldn't do. She outright ignored and refused to consider the latter to instead focus overwhelmingly on the former. She couldn't dictate policy or make changes on the macro or micro scales, but the one thing she knew she could do? Kill Grimm.

Even if 'kill every single Grimm' wasn't the greatest solution as she herself admitted, it was nevertheless a good start. To do that she needed to be the best she possibly could be, and so she sought knowledge and training to refine herself. Indeed, she was the only one among SSAD that voluntarily took extra training time. Latching onto that, Ashley found she was able to bond with and learn from her taciturn teammate by engaging with her on her own level: Training with her during their shared off time, discussing different Grimm and efficient ways to kill them, and on and on it went. As Ashley began to learn what made Sylvie tick, she realized that the solution to this particular problem may very well be as blunt as the woman herself:

"Will you help me convince Schwarz to schedule more team training?"

"Yes."

And then it was on to Dusty.

Sure enough, the boisterous farmboy just needed a free saturday and a ticket to one of Vale's buffets, and after a hearty 'Hi, I'm Dusty!' to the waiter, and acquiring the single biggest plate of chicken wings Ashley had ever seen, he just started talking. He only ever stopped when his mouth was full of food, and even that wasn't always a guarantee. Ashley learned more about a person than she thought was possible in just a few hours. His favorite animal was the cow because they were simple creatures, they tasted great, and he thought it was cool that they could eat grass, even though it didn't taste good or give a good mouth feel to chew on. His favorite time of day was early morning, when the sun was rising and the world was bright and shiny but dark and cool at the same time and a man could get a lot of work done before his first water break. He wanted to become a Huntsman because he got sick of Grimm killing his dad's animals, and he realized that if it felt that bad to lose some chickens or cows, people that lost their people must feel awful, and since he had aura and he had a semblance, then he should probably do what he could there. His least favorite Grimm was the beowulf because there were so damn many of them, he didn't care what the news said, they can't be breeding slower if there was so damn many of them, and if they were breeding slower then it didn't matter because there was so damn many of them. Telekinesis was a boring semblance but it was cool anyways because it was like walking into a room and feeling everything, and all the tricks it gave him made him feel like the magicians they used to bring in to elementary school. His little brothers were convinced he had eyes on the back of his head because he always sensed them trying to jump on him. His Mom never caught on to him nudging things around the house to help her out. He wasn't much of a TV guy, but that was because the best stories always came from the CCT conspiracy boards, where they were convinced half of the Kingdoms had been spending obscene amounts of money looking for witches, the other half were run by a secret cabal made by aliens, and -

It never ended!

Ashley was genuinely shocked that it wasn't Dusty with sonic shouting semblance. He would have been unstoppable! But, as exhausting as he could be, and as much as his particular lifestyle wasn't really something she would want to adopt for herself, Ashley nevertheless found a certain level of charm in Dusty's very simple, straight-forward worldview. The world had a lot of problems, and he had no idea how to solve them, but he sure as hell knew how to help out, so he would! If it was as simple as putting smiles on faces or as complex as punching through a Grimm's exoskeleton, he could do it, just tell him how.

"So… Will you help me bug Schwarz about team training?"

"Shit, sounds fun!" And before she could blink, he had his scroll in his hand, Schwarz on speed-dial, "Hi, it's Dusty!", and was hollering up a storm.

With the combined efforts of the entire team, Schwarz rapidly buckled to pressure. She suspected it was in part because Schwarz wanted them to stop nagging and pestering him, but results were results: All she needed to do was get him to establish a habit. In this case, filling the team's every free moment with combat training. When he finally gave in and admitted that all of them had their classwork locked down so much that they never needed to spend their weekends buried in the books, the three of them used that to push him towards filling that very weekend with combat training. It took a few weeks to get him to do it again, but soon they were able to even leave him alone and still see their names appear on the roster.

Initially, they just spent the time wailing on each other. Sometimes it would be a giant free for all, sometimes two of them would fight while the other two spectated, sometimes they would go two-on-two. Alone, they each just met the standard. Together, they were passable - that was their only key to success: Leveraging their disparate powers into one united front. That was, after all, the entire point of being a team, right?

While it didn't do much for their rankings - only allowing them to claw their way up a few more spots above dead last - Ashley was mostly satisfied just with the fact that it was bringing her team together. They weren't strangers sharing a dorm anymore, they were friends - they were a team, and it was everything her aunts had told her about. It really put into perspective all the things her aunts had said and done over the years: All the stories and smiles, the yearly grave visits, the fact that they'd stuck together for almost twenty years, and as well the unspoken memories and general lamentation over how quickly their team had fallen apart. Although some of it was probably her semblance letting her pick up on things, Ashley nevertheless felt after just a few months that these people were some of her closest friends, and that was considering the age and skill differences between them all. Her aunts had spent an entire year with the two fallen members of their team,had been near the top of their year, and had even fought a war with them!

Tasting from this particular well inspired her to work as hard here as she had at graduating Signal. Sure, she wasn't the strongest in her year, but not only would she likely never be, she was only in her first year. It would be better to focus on training and cementing her team than chasing dreams of grandeur. Taking a few leaves from each of her teammate's books, she admitted to herself that the likelihood that they were going to be historic titans like RWBY or JNPR were laughably low in comparison to the odds that they would max out at or maybe just a bit above street level. Instead of chasing unrealistic dreams, it would be better for them to play with the dice they rolled and see how much good they could do with it.

And, she reminded herself: Enjoy their time in school as much as they could. If ever the subject came up, Schwarz would always be the first to say that once school was out, the training wheels were off, and as happy as times to come may be, they would never be as easy as things were now.

Before she knew it, six whole months had passed, and the mid-year break was upon them. She had initially entertained the idea of staying in her dorm, but that thought was dashed when Dusty started off on how much he was looking forward to seeing his parents and brothers. His proceeding to somehow to tell two stories at once managed to jar loose a memory from Ashley's head - the fact that she'd never sent her aunts the journals and nicknacks she'd found in their old dorm! This, alongside a sudden realization that this had been the longest she'd ever been apart from her aunts, left her with the desire to head home for the summer and surprise them. These thoughts were mirrored by Schwarz, who tried to brush it off as just a desire to sleep in his own bed, and Sylvie, who remarked 'I have hobbies' when interrogated by a disbelieving Dusty.

When the semester ended, Ashley booked the first flight back to Patch. Landing there, she noticed that the whole island seemed to be abuzz, like there was an energy in the air. A few bouts of people watching while she walked home didn't tell her much, but gave her the idea that someone famous had been spotted. Believing that it was just another movie crew scouting Ruby Rose's home, she wrote it off, whittling away the time walking home wondering why those crews had to scout the island every time they wanted to make a movie. These thoughts prevented any alternative from entering her mind until she reached her aunt's home. She thought about knocking, but thought it would be just as funny to just walk inside like she owned the place, as it would be if the house was empty and she was just there when her aunts got back.

However, as she knelt down and dug about in her bag for her keys, the door opened anyways. Her shoulders slumped, and she groaned.

"And I spent all this time coming up with a witty one liner!" She faux-whined, a smile stretching across her face as she looked up to see -

Not her aunt.

Not her aunt at all.

Looming above her, just as gobsmacked to see her as she was to see them, was a woman practically everyone on Remnant knew. A little older than her more well known and widely viewed videos and pictures, but nevertheless unmistakable with her silver eyes and dark, mostly red combat clothes: It was Ruby Rose.

Ruby Rose was staring at her, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Ruby Rose - THE Ruby Rose! - was in her aunt's house!

Ashley had never met the woman, of course, but she had inspired her just as much as she had inspired every little girl out there, so she knew of her, and was able to recognize her on sight with only slightly less ease than recognizing her aunts. Just as was with everyone else, her mind immediately started taking in details - her deep, sterling silver eyes, the black hair and faded dye, the elegant age lines on her face, it all hit her the instant the light entered her eyes. However, it felt like there was something more to it. Her parted lips, the subtle intake of breath that made her gasp a lot hollower than a normal note of surprise, the hand darting up to cover her face, the recognition in her eyes, Ruby Rose wasn't just startled to have opened the door on someone trying to do the same thing at the same time - she was shocked to see Ashley!

Her brain working on overdrive, she suddenly wondered if her aunts had been downplaying their friendship with the woman. If they hadn't instead kept contact with her over the years, and - being the world renowned Grimm slayer she was - Rose just never got the chance to visit. It was the only snap-quick explanation that made any sense, why else would it look like Rose not only recognized her, but was giving her a look that just screamed 'You are the one person I want to see, and I didn't expect I'd get the chance'.

On the one side, a case of lifelong hero worship.

On the other, seemingly a case of a sudden and unexpected reunion.

And, of course, all Ashley's brain could come up with to salvage the situation and end the silence was: "Holy shit!"

From a little deeper in the house, she heard the familiarly brash tones of her aunt: "Wait, is that -" Then, without warning, Ecru shoved Rose to the side to look down on Ashley. "Baby girl - what are you doing here?!" She asked, her voice the very definition of unbridled surprise.

"Uh -" Ashley stammered, her throat suddenly dry. "It's… Summer break, and I -" She stood up quickly. "I wanted - I'm sorry are you Ruby Rose?!" She spat out in rapid fire, unable to contain herself.

Rose still seemed stricken by shock, her eyes locked onto Ashley's. "You -"

"Ruby." Ecru's tone was one of warning, the one Ashley knew all too well: Be very careful with whatever's about to come out of your mouth, girl!

Her practiced 'mom' tone was enough to stumble Rose, who shifted her gaze to her old friend, and then back to Ashley. In the space between Ecru's warning and Rose's next word, she saw something that looked like conflict in her eye, and even heard it in the stammer of her voice, as though there was so much she wanted to say, and so many emotions bubbling within her, but she had to be careful what words she used. "She looks so much like him."

Ashley blinked, the wind successfully stolen from her sails. She turned to her aunt, who had a grimace on her face that just said 'Dammit.' Looking a bit deeper, Ashley thought she could see two warring desires in Ecru: The desire to keep secret whatever it was she hadn't wanted Ruby to say, and the desire to let it out. Turning back to Rose, Ashley fumbled with her words again. "I'm - I'm sorry?" This was not how she could have ever imagined this going.

"Your Dad." Rose said, her words blunt, but her tone soft, and softened more by the tears that were gathering in her eyes. "You look just like him!" She reached forward, and Ashley, shocked numb by the unexpected words, just let her drag her thumb over her cheek.

Blinking rapidly, her brain short circuiting, Ashley was distantly aware that she wasn't just fumbling the ball again, she'd never stopped. "I -" The gears in her mind ground together, trying to get back to spinning. "You knew my Dad?" A beat, as those words jarred loose another thought. "My Dad knew Ruby Rose?" She looked askance to Ecru, as momentum carried her forward, but only so far as to say: "What?!"

Ecru looked like she was about to speak up, but Rose did first. "I met him before Mistral. I… We fought together for a while. He saved my life at least twice that I know of." A beat passed, it looked like she was ready to explode, and that keeping everything in was taking physical effort. "I even ran into your mom a few times, though I didn't know who she was at the time." Ashley's attention was focused on the heroine in front of her, but not so much so that she would fail to notice the brief glance sent to her by Ecru, before she looked back at Ashley. "I never saw either of them after our fight with Adam Taurus. He never said he had a girl!" Her last words were a breathy whisper, poured out in one gasp, as though saying it made it real to her.

Slowly, Ashley's brain was catching up to reality, enough to allow her to coherently say: "I've seen so many interviews, documentaries - movies about Mistral! But they were never mentioned." Although thinking about it, it occurred to her that it had been so long since she'd even said her paternal family name, that here and now it took genuine effort to remember she'd been a Guilliman at all, once upon a time, to say nothing of the fact that she couldn't even remember her parents' names beyond that.

Ruby's face split in a smile, and her lips parted as she searched for the right thing to say through her own state of shock. "Uh… He was… A private man." She said, her smile turning a little sheepish, which looked almost alien on her face, so used was Ashley to seeing it painted with a kind, confident, heroic grin. "And your Mom… Well, she was too." Ashley saw Ruby's eye and cheek twitch at those words. "Neither of them were really the fame and fortune kinds of people. He was the reason we even found Adam Taurus at all, but he let us have the credit for it."

"Ruby." Came the voice of Srebero, sliding around Ecru from deeper inside the house, her words cutting through Rose just as she was picking up steam. "She's not ready. Not yet." Her expression, Ashley noted, was one of controlled terror - trying convincingly to hide it, but unable to do so to someone who had lived with her for so long, and whose power was literally to see these things.

Ecru nodded in agreement with the giantess, and Rose paused a moment, sharing a look with the two of them, appearing to beseech them as much as ensure she understood them. There had been many things Ashley had expected to see, hear, and do when she came home, but this conversation was as far from that list as she could imagine. A part of her wanted to protest her aunts- apparently, her dad might have been a hero! But her parents had been a book she'd closed a long time ago, and this one tiny nugget given to her by Rose helped provide a lot of context that her aunts had been reluctant to share. If her Dad had been the reason RWBY and JNPR were able to find, fight, and defeat Adam Taurus, and ostensibly had died alongside her mom during that fight, it made sense why they would give her to Srebro, and Srebro to Ecru: Her Dad was effectively responsible for ending the entire war.

While Blake Belladonna had done a mountainous amount of work towards fixing things afterwards, there were still a lot of radical White Fang out there that had escaped capture. If they knew Guilliman had had a child, that child would have been a target for revenge, if nothing else. Furthermore, if her Dad had been partly responsible for ending the war and her aunts had kept that a secret, that suggested it wasn't as noble a labor as one raised on movies and TV would think: Ecru and Srebro very well might have had legitimate reasons to hide this from her, and given Srebro had said she wasn't ready yet, they clearly hadn't intended to keep this from her forever. Things just spiraled a little out of control because of an unannounced visit.

Wanting to spare her aunt an awkward conversation and deciding to trust in her judgement, Ashley instead moved forward with: "Why are you here?"

All of a sudden, Rose and Srebro looked sheepish, the former even a little embarrassed, although Ecru quickly got her 'indignant pride' look about her, silently telling Ashley everything she needed to know: Whatever was about to be said, Ecru wasn't sorry for any of it.

"She… Told me about Torchwick." Was Rose's reluctant response.

It took Ashley a moment to pull that out of her memory, but when she did, she rounded on Ecru. "Auntie Ec!" She said, scandalized. "That was six months ago!" Had she really called one of the busiest women on the planet, dropped a 'Your war buddy had a kid' bombshell on her, and then pulled her away from her work because of a one-off run in with a goon?!

"And that's when I called her!" Was Ecru's response, after she squared her shoulders in that 'I powdered your butt, watch your tone!' kind of way.

"I'm out of CCT range a lot, I only got the message a few weeks ago." Said Rose, trying to defend her friend.

"I think that makes it worse, ma'am!" What was most shocking was Srebro's sheepish look, implying to Ashley that she'd signed off on this too! She was usually Ecru's voice of reason, why had she entertained this of all things? "I - I'm so sorry, Miss Rose, but -"

"Please call me Ruby." Said Rose, in a tone that was half practiced, half desperate, and all 'I bled with the guy, his daughter doesn't need to speak so formally'.

Ignoring the fact that a decade of hero worship told her she might not be able to do that, Ashley plowed forward. "But… That was six months ago. Aside from the occasional weekend in town, I've hardly left Beacon in that time! I've pretty much only talked to my team, my teachers, Professor Ozma, and I haven't gone anywhere Torchwick might be watching besides!"

What Rose latched onto wasn't the part she thought she would: "Ozma?" A beat passed, then, "he's, uh, headmaster now? Not Professor Goodwitch?"

Ashley frowned, wondering why the back half of Rose's question felt more forced, like she'd hastily added that on. "No… She's the deputy headmistress." Even her aunts seemed a little stiffer at the mention of Ozma. "Do we not like Professor Ozma?" Ashley asked, shooting in the dark.

Rose floundered for a moment, but Ecru recovered first, shaking her head. "He was a little bloodthirsty in our time." But she couldn't hide the dread in her voice, Ashley didn't even need her semblance to hear it. "It's surprising to hear he got rank over Goodwitch, and still talks to students." Even stranger was Srebro, who looked just short of being outright terrified.

Was he that bad? Ashley wondered, looking back over her few interactions with the man in a different light, wondering if she'd missed something, or if he'd mellowed out as he climbed up in years. "Well, I haven't been alone in a room with him since the beginning of the year, and that was just because he saw me sneak off to your old dorm." This, at least, she knew how to handle, where she could take it, and could reasonably expect it not to try and turn her world upside down. "I found the compartments you two told me about. That was one of the reasons I came here, I wanted to tell you, show you what I found."

She noticed Rose's smile settle into a fond, nostalgic grin. "I think I'll take that as my cue to leave, then." She said, turning to Ecru with a knowing look. "Like I was saying, I don't know who all will pick up, but I think she will at least." Rose then turned to Ashley and gave her a warm, strong hug. "And you…" She said, softly, before releasing her. "When I'm done, I want to meet you, all nice and formal like. I want to know everything." She said, with a wide smile.

Briefly starstruck again, her other concerns wiped away by the awe of the prospect of having Ruby Rose's personal attention, Ashley couldn't scrounge together enough brainpower to try and argue that paying the kingpin a visit on her behalf could very well succeed in putting her firmly on his radar as opposed to remove her from it. By the time the words congealed together in her mind, Rose was already halfway towards the street, and Ecru's hand was on her arm, pulling her inside.

"Come on, baby." Ecru's words, along with her actions, dragged Ashley back to reality. "You'll…" She sighed, "you'll see her again, so no use pining after her now."

Ashley rolled her eyes, and entered her home. After giving Blue some much needed love and attention, she settled at the kitchen table. Srebro, as was her wont, sat directly next to her, though unlike all the years before, Ashley thought this looked more protective than anything else. Before she could dwell on that, Ecru settled down into her chair, and nodded at Ashley's bag. Soon, the heroine and the conversation at the door faded away to the back of her mind, buried under the sounds of nostalgic laughter and old stories. Ashley started with the simplest things first, telling them how she skipped looting Ecru's stash because there was nothing worthwhile there - which Ecru vehemently argued against, of course. Next she told them about the things she'd found under Myrtle's bed, causing the both of them to have an equally titanic revelation, their resident thief having apparently kept this so far below the radar even Goud - 'the blind man with eyes on the back of his head' - had never even mentioned it.

From there, with a wicked glance towards Srebro, Ashley pulled out her notebooks, pictures, and sketches. Ashley had seen Srebro embarrassed before, but this was the first time she'd ever seen the woman turn scarlett. Meanwhile, Ecru looked ten years younger as she practically squealed at the sight of the first sketch in the Myrtle book. Ecru then brought Ashley in on an old inside joke between GEMS, where the entire team liked to tease Srebro over who she was more attracted to: Goud or Myrtle. Given Srebro's life post-Beacon had been described by the woman herself as 'happily celibate', Ecru openly admitted defeat, but knew that she could nevertheless still get under the giant woman's skin even now by teasing her about it:

"Seriously! I've been to museums and I haven't seen this much detail given to someone's ass!" She declared, giving Srebro a dastardly look.

"I was eighteen!" The Huntress whined in a way that made her sound the age. "I needed a hobby! I just wanted them to look right!" She hid her face in her hands, though Ashley could see beneath the blush and the mortified look a subtle twitch of the shoulders: Beneath it all, Srebro was laughing right alongside her friend and her niece.

"A likely story." Ecru chortled, dropping the Myrtle book and grabbing the Ecru book, flipping to a random page, and revealing a picture of Ecru in her pajamas, yawning as she exited the bathroom, light pouring out of the room and lighting her from behind. "See?!" She pointed at her chest, "twice as much detail as the rest of me!" She then indicated herself, "honey, I was never impressive in this department, and here you are doing this to all of us."

"The shadows looked nice…" Srebro murmured, wiping a tear from her eye.

Ecru rolled her eyes, slid the picture back in the notebook, and grabbed the Goud notebook. "Oh… You had one of him, too." She sighed, a distant look on her face, her nostalgic expression slowly falling away. Ashley noticed a twitch to Ecru's hand, and got the feeling she both wanted to open it, and wanted to keep it closed.

Ashley decided now would be the best time to bring it up: "I've actually got some of his things, too." What she didn't expect was the immediate, stunned silence at the table as she revealed Goud's bag. "It looks like it's just stuff from his village. I was thinking, isn't he -" She caught herself, about to ask if he was buried near here, before remembering that he specifically wasn't. "- isn't his grave near here?"

At once, Ecru sharply asked: "You looked at his stuff?" While Srebro intoned: "I think it's only a few miles from here."

As the two exchanged a brief glance, Ashley shrugged just a little sheepishly. "I was curious, you guys don't really talk about him, and all there is that's out there about him was from his time at Beacon." She explained. "It's just a few odds and ends, though. Patches, some old-style scrolls, a couple glass coins." She said, noticing the trepidation on Ecru's face and the tremble in her hands. It broke Ashley's heart to be opening old wounds, but the look on Srebro's face told her this might actually be the right road to go down, the amazon's face was blossoming in something that almost looked like hope. "I thought maybe it would be nice to actually have something in the grave." Despite that, with every word she said, she felt just a little bit worse, a fact which wasn't helped when Srebro gave Ecru a look, and the former's budding expression fell to sorrow-tinged neutrality at the stony expression on the latter.

Oh, this was a terrible idea… She gritted her teeth, as her aunts inspected the bag, then exchanged another look.

She saw Ecru visibly flinch, her entire body shuddering. Were it not for Ashley's semblance, she wouldn't have noticed how tightly Ecru was clutching the bag, but more astonishing was how much rage she saw radiating off of the woman, being capped off tightly, but still struggling against her self control. Ashley realized a moment before she saw the muscles under Ecru's skin begin to bunch up that the woman wanted to throw the bag! Stunned, Ashley realized she was actually going to do it, but was halted by Srebro, putting her hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Ashley… I know you had a lot of questions that came up when you saw Ruby here." Srebro said, Ashley getting the indication she was speaking more to give Ecru the chance to calm down. "And I know you're smart enough to realize we know more about your mother and father than we've told you until now." She turned from Ecru, who had shut her eyes she was trying to hard to bring herself back under control, to Ashley, who noticed how Ecru's grip around Goud's bag was only growing tighter despite her efforts. "You heard Auntie Ec say that we couldn't tell you yet what we know. I saw you notice it, Love. The same reason we're waiting to tell you about your parents is why we don't talk about Ash much often.

"Just like we intended to tell you what we know about your parents, we were going to tell you about him. Certainly not when you were a child, and needed heroes, and not when you were a teenager -"

"Full of piss and vinegar like we all were." That snipe seemed to do as much good for Ecru as anything could have, Ashley could all but see the pressure inside getting released with each word.

Srebro stumbled over her words a moment, "- but now that you're an adult, and you're stepping into a very complicated world, we know the day will come very soon when we think you're ready to know these things. Not now, but very soon, I promise."

"I know you, Baby." Ecru opened her eyes and locked onto Ashley's. "I know when you set your mind to something, you go for it like you've been dared not to. We're asking you to wait on us for this. This isn't your aunties not wanting to believe you're grown up, this is…" She trailed off, looking for the right words, before scoffing. "He would've called it 'secrets the universe doesn't -"

"Guys?" Ashley cut in, sensing that the two of them were picking up steam. "I get it." Oh she wanted to push this envelope, she wanted them to keep talking, she wanted to know what they had ostensibly kept from her her entire life, but: "It's okay." She'd seen this movie before, Mom and Dad - or in this case, Aunt and Auntie - weren't keeping secrets because they didn't trust her, because she was 'just a kid', or any other dramatic reason she may misinterpret as them thinking she was stupid. They were keeping secrets because, for all she was kind of an adult, she was still practically a kid. For all she'd seen of the world, there was still so much of its functions she simply failed to understand because she didn't even know they existed yet. Dropping whatever they had on her now would be like impressing on an eight year old the reality of having to work every day and sacrifice in order to pay the bills each month. She had to trust them to know what she did and did not need to know at this very moment, and to trust that they would tell her when she was ready to know.

She let her words settle for a moment, before - as was her wont - she had to cut the tension: "Just understand that telling a curious bitch with a stubborn streak that you've got secrets is not a very good way of curbing that curiosity."

Fortunately, unlike her mistake in bringing Goud's effects home with her, this did have the desired effect: Ecru guffawed, and Srebro looked halfway between scandalized that her niece would use such language, and embarrassed that she actually found it a little funny.

A few moments passed, and when they calmed down, Ecru let out a long sigh. "I think we should give you something at least. A little context for why we haven't spoken much." Ashley saw Srebro give Ecru a worried glance, but the louder of her aunts just nodded once.

"Goud was…" Ecru hummed in thought. "He liked to talk about the differences between people and symbols. The idea of things." She turned from Srebro to Ashley, who noticed how Ecru's grip around Goud's bag was only growing tighter despite her efforts. "He did it because he understood that people change over time, and that the world is very complicated. He invented symbols and created ideas that could live and function regardless of him, because he knew he was flawed, just like all of us.

"Goud… Etiolate… Was the good man that everyone thought he was."A tremble made its way into Ecru's voice. "There's no 'but' there. Only the understanding that he was Human just like we all are, and he had parts of him that never made the news."

"We know about those things, and we don't like to talk about them, to preserve the idea of him." Srebro picked up, giving Ecru a soft, reassuring smile. "For us and for others."

"A 'death of the author' kind of thing." Ashley prodded, gently, her eyes wide both because this was the most the two had ever talked about Goud before, and because of something that would have shocked her to her core if her aunts hadn't prefaced all of this by outright revealing they'd been keeping things from her.

Srebro nodded, a warm smile spreading across her face. "I always preferred 'don't meet your heroes,' but yes. People put their heroes on pedestals, and when they meet them, often they don't live up to the fantasy. Ash understood that, so like death of the author, he created something that lived independently of Goud, the person. He created the character, Ash."

Ecru took in a deep breath, "I want to say it again. Goud was everything people thought he was. But he also believed that if people looked closely, he may not live up to his own hype. So…" She jostled the bag in her iron grip. "Ideas and symbols. We like to remember the idea of him, both because it was a good idea, and because that's what he would have wanted."

But there's more. Ashley thought, the words only failing to reach her lips because of the massive shock going through her system.

Her aunts were lying.

Not in the sense that they were telling her falsehoods, but in the sense that there was much more to what they were telling her, the context of which would completely change the meaning of everything they were saying. Just through how much she knew them, Ashley was picking up on all of the small cues - the briefest hesitations, the catches as one word threatened to slip out before they could replace it with another, how one rarely contributed or even moved until the other had finished speaking and provided a cue from which to branch off. All of this together was painting a picture in her mind:

Vale's hero had one hell of a secret, and it was something her aunts had to keep.

More than that though, is when all of this was processed through her semblance, the picture was made all the more vivid. Whatever this secret was, it was something that still held sway over their lives - it all but physically pained them to even think about it, let alone brush against it in conversation. They simultaneously didn't want to lie to her, but also didn't want to reveal this skeleton in Goud's closet. It didn't end there, because when looked at through this light, Ashley realized that they were trying, in their own way, to tell her this! To tell her they knew they were lying, but still felt compelled by the threat of consequences to keep this secret and maintain the lie.

Worst of all was that exactly what they had just told her was already beginning to unfold in her mind. The man, the person, Goud Etiolate, was already beginning to take on a darker shade in her mind, even while the foundation of his ideals, passed onto her through her aunts, remained sacred. Simply knowing he had a dark secret - and even more than that, that it was hurting her family twenty years on - was causing her to acknowledge that there had been Goud, the man, and Ash, the idea, and she was automatically beginning to dislike the former for sole reason of him causing pain to the two most important people in her life.

Ashley couldn't imagine what her reaction would have been if this hadn't been prefaced by their admission that this was why they kept things from her.

They knew him for a year. Just what the hell did he do? She asked herself, as she nodded. "I'm… Uh…"

There was a thud that made her jump, and she looked up to see Ecru had dropped the bag to reach across the table and grab Ashley's hand. "You've got nothing to apologize for, Baby." She said, firmly. "I'm…" She wavered a moment, before shaking her head. "Srebro's too nice to tell you, but for a long time after he died, I hated Ash." Another shock to Ashley's system, as she tried to process that. "Here was this prodigy, this hero who leapt right out of the movies. This genius who understood more about what it means to be a Huntsman than some of our teachers did, who understood and harped on how important they are… And that arrogant asshole went off to die in a fight he knew he couldn't win. He abandoned all of us to chase some girl he had a crush on, watched a terrorist kill the headmaster, then gave away his shield and went to die for no reason. Then, because he died, one of our best friends just up and leaves us, no word, no warning, and I got crippled for life in a bone-headed move to recover his body.

"I lost two of my closest friends, my third friend went into a mountain of debt to cover my medical bills, and I lost my chance at my dream, because that idiot wanted to martyr himself. Worse is that it worked, baby - you still hear people singing him praises, and dammit, he's been in more than a few movies. Everything he believed in, he proved - he was an idiot, but people loved the idea of him.

"It wasn't until we took you in that I really, really began to understand what he did, and why. It wasn't until I saw you believe in the idea of Huntsmen that I really understood the truth to his words. A person can be a flawed, complicated mess, but their ideals can still inspire. The idea can even be more important than the person. I'm ashamed of how much time I spent hating Ash, Baby. How much I ruined that beautiful image in my mind because I didn't understand him. How difficult it is for me to conjure up that idea now because of all that time I wasted.

"That's why we don't talk about him, Baby. I'm reminded of the flawed man, and not his beautiful idea." A tear fell down Ecru's face as she ran her fingers over Ashley's knuckles. "And that's why you're not going to apologize for bringing us his things. Because while it hurts to think about him, you did what you did with the right intention." She squeezed her hand, "you had the right idea."

Ashley just felt numb. The two had done exactly as they'd said - given context to a great number of lies of omission. Ecru had just bared her soul to her, had revealed one of her greatest shames - and had she not told her what this was contextualizing, she would have only been reinforcing the lies that had been flying through this house this entire time. In a way, they still were doing just that - but now instead of trying to obscure and deflect, they were reinforcing and securing. A final set of patches and emergency repairs to keep a wall from falling before the people behind it evacuated.

If that was what Goud had 'done', then what else was there to hide?

All Ashley could do was nod, and hold her aunt's hand. She didn't know what they were hiding, and although every cell in her body screamed at her to learn, she forced herself to trust them, to remember that - as they had just said - people were complicated, messy monsters. For all that Ashley wanted to know, she really had no right to pry, and they had no obligation to do more than they already had. If anything, simply promising that they did intend to bare all one day was far and above what they 'had' to give her. For now, she knew all she needed to: Whatever it was they were hiding, it was tied deeply to the soul-baring Ecru had just done, and very well was related to her parents and their now-less-suspect reaction towards Roman Torchwick. All of it was deeply private and deeply personal to the both of them.

The table remained silent, for what else could be said? After a few quiet moments, and prompted by Ashley checking the time and seeing it had stretched to well past dinner, the three of them got to their feet and started on throwing something together. After their quaint but satisfying meal, during which Ashley told them stories about her team, they broke apart to prepare for bed. Ashley laughed mirthfully when she saw her room had been left alone and untouched since her departure months ago, and spent her last few waking hours on odds and ends: Grabbing things she hadn't anticipated needing at Beacon, tidying up, texting her team - and wondering how on Remnant Dusty managed to be glass-shatteringly loud through text messages - and taking a few minutes to dwell on how quickly the time was coming that she wouldn't just be leaving this room for brief jaunts to school, but for years at a time, if not indefinitely.

It's already been six months… She thought, climbing into bed. Three and a half years and I'm out on my own. The thought was dizzying enough that it actually helped drain her enough to fall asleep.

However, this didn't last for long. What exactly woke her up, she couldn't begin to guess at, but whatever the reason was, she was left tossing and turning long after the sun went down. When she looked out of her window and saw the shattered moon painting her room in a pale white light, she decided she'd get up and try the usual suspects. First she tried the bathroom, but when she unsuccessfully returned to her room, nothing had changed - only a nagging feeling that that hadn't been it. She spent a few more minutes in bed, playing on her scroll, she even shared a few texts with Sylvie when she saw the taciturn rookie was awake.

Of course, the conversation went exactly as she expected:

"Why are you awake?"

'Because I'm not asleep.'

"That's all?"

'Yes.'

Ashley's last message, an image of an exasperated cartoon character, was left on 'read'. Out of curiosity, Ashley checked to see if the rest of her team was online, but wasn't surprised when they weren't : Schwarz was definitely the 'sleep whenever I have a chance' type, and would have probably considered being awake after midnight a sin, especially while on vacation, while Dusty had probably been put right back to work when he'd gotten home - with a smile on his face, she'd bet. The former thought vacation was sacred, while the latter thought vacation was nothing more than the time he got to catch up and maybe get ahead on chores. She was pretty confident in guessing that Sylvie was the type that didn't know what vacation was, and so was just killing time the way she always did.

Giving on sleep for the moment, Ashley decided to go downstairs. She supposed it was possible Blue might be sleeping in the living room tonight, and might be amenable to keeping her company instead, but she doubted it, and aimed for the kitchen for some water.

Or don't they drink warm milk in the movies? She asked herself, idly wondering if that worked, or if it was a myth.

It was just as she reached for her scroll to look that up that she paused at the sound of muffled voices. Ashley frowned, and peered around the corner, only to find no one in the kitchen. Another brief flurry of noise gave her a better idea of where they were coming from - behind her, and back upstairs. Realizing she wasn't the only one to lose out on sleep tonight, she smiled a little morosely. Was it coincidence, or the old memories she'd dredged up that had kept her aunts awake? She turned around, and had just reached the landing at the staircase when the word 'him' floated through the walls, and she realized it was, indeed, old memories keeping the women awake. She reached their door, seeing the lights on in the room, and raised her hand to knock, a joke about pulling an all-nighter already forming in her head. Something nagging at the back of her mind kept her from taking the next step, causing her to falter just long enough to hear Ecru's uncharacteristically quiet voice through the door:

"Look at him, he's writing his record, right there. He really was, right in front of us." She heard her aunt rumble. "Think it was about us?"

There was a pause, then, Srebro quietly intoned: "We… Never came up. He mentioned the team once or twice, but only ever mentioned Myrtle by name."

"Is that right?" Asked Ecru, in a distant tone that told Ashley she was looking off into space, trying to conjure up some memories. "Suppose that's a good thing then, all things considered." A beat, "was this before or after our intervention?"

"Before. See, he's still wearing the sunglasses."

There was a few moments of silence, broken only by the slight sound of paper scraping against paper. "One night. We showed him her trick once."

"Ecru…"

"I know, I know." There was a deep sigh, one filled with equal parts nostalgia and melancholy. "I'm so glad she takes after him, and not him." Ashley heard the sound of a thin book being placed on a desk, and then a sigh get released into hands covering a face. "Did we mess up, Srebro?"

"She's ours, Ecru. If Torchwick is even looking at her, if he finds out… No, we made the right call." Ashley let out a silent sigh and hung her head, still more than a little miffed that her aunts had gone that far for something so little.

Just as Ashley was about to dedicate to knocking on the door and 'innocently' interrupt their conversation, however: "And you really don't think he'll invoke Aldric?"

Ashley paused. There was something in Ecru's voice there, a mixture of fear and hatred so deep and so powerful that Ashley was ready to swear she could feel it wash over her like hot water. She mouthed the word - or had it been a name? - that Ecru had used, as Srebro responded.

"Even if he could, he's not suicidal, Ecru. Ash always did his homework, and Aldric even more so. Torchwick calls him, he'll figure out why, and then…" A pause, then she changed tracks. "That's not what you want to ask."

Ecru let out a long, heavy sigh. "Did we wait too long?"

Ashley could imagine Srebro laying her hand on Ecru's shoulder. "When she graduates." The words came out so easily that she could tell they were familiar, oft-repeated to the point of becoming a mantra. "She's a smart girl, but I know there's a certain kind of wisdom that only comes with this job. When she graduates, she'll have enough experience in the gray area that we can tell her." The words were gentle, reassuring - said like a patient mother talking to a child that knew the answer, but needed to hear it regardless. "And we're already introducing it all to her, bit by bit. She'll be ready when the time comes."

I… Ashley felt a pit in her chest, and turned back to the hallway, trying to ignore every instinct and voice in her head telling her she needed to stay. I shouldn't be listening to this. This wasn't a movie, they were talking about her yes, but she had the barest possible context for this. She might as well be walking into a lecture on the Faunus Rebellions after they detailed the events that led up to them. Of course it would look bad if one knew only the worst part of the story. She had to leave, they'd tell her eventually, they said they'd tell her -

"Yesterday I would've agreed, but now?" Ecru sighed, and Ashley felt her feet turn to lead, an overwhelming but guilty curiosity pinning her in place. "She said he zeroed in on her in a day. If he figures out -"

"He won't, Ecru."

"He can read minds!"

"And Aldric proved he can't see past that… Flashy thing." She heard another scrape of paper, and a sigh. "And now we've got Ruby helping us. She's going to get his… Brothers, were they even dating?" There was silence, Ashley could imagine a shrug being exchanged. "Yeah, who the knows? Whatever the case, he looked up to Ruby, and supposedly he trusted her, so… I think it will work out."

"You sure?"

"That he trusted them? Ecru, she said he trusted whatever-her-name-is as his agent - he didn't trust anyone to do that! And he…" There was a pause, as though Srebro were considering better words. "He gave Ruby the scroll. Those two can keep the heat off of her for this last stretch, and if Ruby actually can get Nikos on the line? We're golden. Maybe we should've said something before today, but she's a smart girl, Ecru, and she trusts us." Srebro then added, with a little pride and playfulness: "I like to think we did pretty well."

Ecru let out a long, exhausted sigh. "I do too. I do too." A pause, then another scrape of paper. "Ten years. More! I still have trouble believing it."

There was a long pause, and tentatively, Srebro said: "I'm pretty sure Ash would've made a joke about how it makes perfect sense, when you consider an alien wizard had a kid with a devil-worshipper. Of course it wouldn't turn out the way you expect."

The silence that followed almost made Ashley think the joke had been received poorly, until she realized it was because Ecru was trying not to make noise as she laughed. "It only took, what, fifty years to crack that shell?"

"I am not that old!" Srebro's voice took on a tone closer to that of normalcy, and Ashley could hear a playful shove. There was a pause, as Ashley could imagine the two just smiling, then a sigh from Srebro. "It'll all turn out fine, Ecru."

Ashley slinked away from the door at this, unable to continue betraying her aunts' trust like this. With years of practiced ease, she crept back to her room and shut the door. Two sides of her mind warred against each other - one side wanted to know just what the hell she'd heard the tail end of, whereas the other side was throwing her own words back at her: She had next to zero context for any of that, and even less context for her early childhood on top of that. As Ruby Rose had demonstrated, there was a lot that her aunts were keeping from her, and for good reason. As much as she liked to think otherwise, she was still - as Schwarz liked to point out - a kid, in the grand scheme of things. She had thus far only dipped a toe into the adult world, and she suspected whatever her aunts had would be like cannon-balling into the deep end. She had to trust them, they had their reasons, they would tell her when they thought she was ready.

She knew this.

She understood this.

She believed it!

And yet, those parts of her that had dragged her through several repeat grades at Signal, had forced her team to bond, and were slowly pounding her way towards a full-blown Huntress license, were also inexorably igniting a desire to get answers. As much as it shamed her to so quickly pound directly against the wall her aunts had outright asked her to leave alone, this was something big she'd blundered into. It was big enough to stumble both of her aunts, to get them to call in decades-old favors from Ruby Rose, who was - apparently! - willing to seek out, alongside this 'agent', Pyrrha Nikos to solve it! For all Ashley believed they were over reacting, did she actually know that? She'd been in this house for ten years and had never once thought that the reason they didn't talk about Goud was a personal and human one: They got their emotions mixed up, blamed him for things he didn't do, and were ashamed of that.

Under that auspice, she may be the naive child who didn't think it was a big deal she spent a few minutes talking to the creepy couple in the minivan. Of course that didn't seem like anything for Mom and Dad to freak out about, but that was just because she didn't know, she couldn't conceive of why, and wouldn't until she understood the world better. So sure, the fact that Torchwick had scoped her out at the beginning of the year might not seem like a big deal, but what if she only thought that because she didn't know about her parents? If they were, like she suspected, some kind of war-ending figures, Torchwick was a criminal kingpin - the second he thought he could get something useful out of her identity, he'd use it in a heartbeat and she'd die, or worse!

In that light, her aunts calling in the big guns made a hell of a lot more sense. Ruby Rose being willing to go to her old team and her old allies immediately actually lent credence to the idea that this was much bigger than Ashley could comprehend. However, landing on this conclusion - even when acknowledging that it relied on assumptions based on facts that, again, she had little to no context for - just made the fire within her grow hotter. She wanted to know as much as she had wanted to go to Beacon, and dammit, she'd gotten one of those things!

Now, c'mon Ashley, a kid's gotta respect their Ma and Pa, they've been at the game a lot longer than you. She could hear Dusty admonishing her, trying to fortify the more logical, less emotional parts of her. Well, Auntie and Auntie in your case, but still!

She could just hear Schwarz, too: Can't say I've got kids of my own, but I learned the whole 'Mom and Dad really do know better' lesson a long time ago… But there is an argument to be made that if it involves you, you have a right to know. Maybe find your answers, but keep in mind they're only Human, yeah?

She shifted her mind and tried imagining the advice Sylvie would give, but couldn't really imagine the conversation going much further than Sylvie saying 'Yes' if Ashley asked her if it would be prudent to go behind her aunts' backs to learn something they would have otherwise kept from her. Of course, asking why would just land on something along the lines of 'Knowledge is power.'

Even in her mind, she couldn't really imagine Sylvie saying terribly much.

But she still found herself in the same place, warring against the same question. What won out was when she gamed out the entire idea. Ignoring that they'd told her outright that they'd give it all to her soon - and then reaffirmed that idea in private! - if she actually decided to go through with this thing and go behind their backs… How would she do it? How would she reasonably expect to get answers to these questions when only two people in the world had them? It wasn't like she could go onto the CCT, look up 'that thing my aunts don't want me to know', and start sleuthing, like a detective movie.

Although… That thought did spark an idea in her. There was the word they'd used a few times, 'Aldric'. The way they'd used it, it almost sounded like a name, but it wasn't one she'd ever heard before - there wasn't any color in it, as far as she could tell.

Usually, that meant the name was old - oftentimes it meant it was old money, but she remembered looking up her paternal name when she was younger and coming up with nothing, so it wasn't like that was a rule. There were, after all, a great deal of extra-kingdom villages that didn't care much for the whole colorful naming thing.

That thought, however, led her to a different one: She suddenly realized that out of every word she'd listened to, she'd only heard 'Aldric', never 'Guilliman'. 'Aldric' seemed to have some kind of connection to them and to her, but she couldn't fathom why that name would come up and not hers. It took her a while of combing through her memory, but while she found she couldn't remember her father or her mother's first names - what kid knew anything beyond 'Mom and Dad' - she at least remembered there wasn't anything strange about them, so it's not like 'Aldric' was her father's first name.

Something of this train of thought smacked of significance, but she couldn't put together exactly what it was.

How would you even spell that? Ashley wondered, turning her head towards her bedroom door and frowning in thought. Aldric… Aldric… The more she turned the name over in her head, the more she felt like it just didn't sound right, but she also knew that if one said a word often enough, it lost all meaning.

She decided, bare minimum, she would at least solve this mystery. She tried to fight off the shame that welled up in her gut by rationalizing it away with the idea that she just wanted to figure out how to spell a name, and totally wouldn't be tempted to go further than that. Grabbing her scroll, she decided to do what everyone did when faced with a new word they'd only heard spoken: She spoke it into her scroll and let the CCT tell her how it was spelled. The first few times didn't give her anything useful, and she narrowed her search to 'Aldric name spelling', but still didn't get much. Every single time she spoke the name into her scroll, the spelling of the word came out differently. She started getting flashbacks to when she'd looked up her old name, and wondered if this wasn't such an obscure village name that there was no way to check its spelling.

Or… She hummed to herself, recalling the old money adage. Was that going to be the twist her aunts were hiding? That her Dad had ended the war by betraying or otherwise inconveniencing some Old Money asshat, and Aldric was petty or angry enough to be willing to eliminate a bloodline? No, that was getting a little too wild. Something like that would fit in a movie, but real life tended to work on much simpler explanations.

She scoffed, and decided that if she were going to entertain the idea that some Old Money guy might be after her head, she might as well entertain the idea that maybe it was a Terran name! Dusty's rants about CCT conspiracy boards and the 'real truth' about the hidden kingdoms came to mind. It did enough to divert her thoughts away from arcane mysteries with, in all probability, mundane explanations, and instead towards fanciful idiocy about magic space aliens that showed up, trashed the four Kingdoms, refused to elaborate, and left.

She could hear it now: There you go, girl! Let ol' young Dusty distract you from the big wide world. Screw TV, conspiracy nuts is where it's at!

The steam stolen from her, Ashley settled in on the more logical answer: They were her aunts, they loved her, they weren't stupid, they outright told her they knew something she didn't, and they had their reasons. They would tell her whatever they had when she was ready, and in all likelihood, it was going to be so mundane that she'd cringe at the memories of tonight and swear to never admit to them.

Her last thoughts as she settled in to go back to sleep were what the most mundane explanation even could be to begin with.

The rest of her vacation was significantly less eventful than its beginning. No surprise guests and gobsmacking episodes of hero worship, no dredging up old memories, no late night conversations, just quiet days with her and her aunts. She told them her mostly mundane stories about life at Beacon, they commiserated with their own memories and the occasional story from Srebro's field work. Ashley found herself a little bummed that Srebro ended up leaving on a mission a few days before she herself was scheduled to return to school, but she was happy she found herself part of the conversations regarding the amazon's retirement towards teaching, as much as Ecru and Srebro both insisted she had a good half decade still left in her, thank you very much.

As much as she loved being in Beacon, she had to admit she found herself returning decidedly too soon, and lamented on the flight back that she would have liked another week, even though in the same breath she admitted in a Sylvie fashion that she might not have done much if anything of substance with that time. After chartering a direct flight from Patch to Beacon's docks - she had access to her school funds account, so why not? - she soon discovered she was actually the first of SSAD to make it back to their dorms. Slightly surprised, as she would have thought Sylvie at least would have beaten her, she shrugged it off and unpacked her bags.

A mild surprise came in the form of a tumbling object when she opened her closet. She knelt down to pick it up out of the carpet, and found that it was something she'd failed to bring home to her aunts: A solid glass coin, with a flower emblazoned on each side. She was reminded by its presence that there had been three in Goud's bag, but she'd stowed one away. She couldn't even remember why, believing that any combination of running into the Headmaster immediately after, all the normal nonsense and drama with school, and then the end of the semester, had all but bleached it from her mind. Deciding there was nothing to do but put it back in her closet, she bent down to do so.

Just as she stood back up, the door to her dorm crashed open, and the room was flooded with the scent of dirt and grass, and the sound of country music belting out from a cheap scroll's speakers.

"Damn girl, you beat me here!" She heard Dusty's booming drawl fill the room, followed by equally loud laughter. "Have fun back home? How're your aunties?" He asked, as she turned to face him, wondering why his voice sounded strange, like talking through clenched teeth.

She got her answer immediately. Ashley blinked, taking in the sight before her - of the giant with an equally massive trio of bags under his arms and slung over his back, an enormous bootprint on their door, and the cheap scroll clenched in his jaw, out of which came the sounds of banjos and guitars.

Somehow, she wasn't surprised.

"You know you're a stereotype, right?"

Dusty laughed and spat the scroll out onto his bed. "Girl, I'm a giant farmer boy with a voice that can clear out rooms better than our Little Tiger! I made my peace with stereotypes when I was ten!" He grinned at her, before doing a double take. "Wait, what's that?!" The room literally shook with the force of impact when Dusty dropped all three of his bags. Ashley didn't so much as blink before Dusty was in front of her, his big blue eyes locked onto the coin in her hand. "Girl - you been lying to me? I thought you weren't into those parts of the CCT!"

Ashley blinked, her mind grinding to a halt. She knew this man well enough to know he wasn't trying to make a 'ha ha, you watch porn' joke, but that was the only explanation that came to mind. She looked down at the glass coin in her hand, then back up to Dusty, who looked equal parts excited and curious as he switched his gaze back and forth between the coin and her. She didn't need a fancy semblance to know that this was the literal object of his attention, but the fact that he'd picked it up from across the room in a second, and was shocked enough to literally drop everything to talk about it, was catching her up.

"What?" Was the only thing she could push out of her mouth. What was he talking about? What was this thing? What made it important? What did it have to do with 'those' parts of the CCT? What parts of the CCT? "What?!"

Dusty blinked, his own mind seeming to skip about. "The -" He pointed a giant hand at the coin. "The coin!" He said, as though that explained everything. He elaborated when Ashley's response was just to stare at him and shake her head. "Don't tell me you have a replica and don't know what it is!"

"Dusty I just found this. I was supposed to give it to my aunts."

"Your aunts wanted a Garden Coin, and you don't know what it is."

"No, I -" Ashley shook her head, "Dusty what the hell are you going on about? I found this in the beginning of the year. I went to their dorm and found their old stuff hidden in the floorboards. This was in their old team leader's bag, it fell out, I forgot to put it back in." She said, hoping the whole story would successfully restart the conversation and get him to speak sense.

Dusty hollered with laughter, slapped his knee and let himself teeter backwards until he fell onto one of the beds. "Which one of them put you up to this?"

Ashley liked Dusty, she did. There was something charming about him and his simple views and his simple life, but that didn't mean he couldn't get on her nerves: "What are you talking about?!"

Dusty's head recoiled at Ashley's snap, and it caused him to look her over for a moment, as though only now realizing the two of them were on two completely different pages. "You… Really don't know, do you?" He asked, before pausing. "Wait, you said you found that in your aunties' dorm? Can I see it?"

Ashley shook her head, dropped the coin in Dusty's hand, and got back to unpacking her bags.

She was about to chalk this up to Dusty just being Dusty, when: "Holy sheep shit, it's actually glass!"

"As opposed to?" She asked, sliding some clothes into the drawers.

"Well the one I got is plastic." Ashley paused a moment, deeply conflicted on whether or not it would be a good idea to ask him why he would buy a plastic coin. In the end, she gave in to curiosity and asked, and got an answer that actually spoke to her own heart: "Ah, there's just something cool about an underground criminal world that has its own currency, you know? Makes real life feel like a movie!"

She looked over to Dusty, who was regarding the coin with awe. "How does a glass coin mean a criminal world?" A few older pieces of information got knocked loose by that, and she had a revelation: "Wait, Dusty - did you buy a prop from someone on a conspiracy board?!" 'Those' parts of the CCT hadn't meant porn, it had been the shadier conspiracy forums, the places Dusty had said more than once he found more interesting than actual television. The fact that he'd actually given money to one of those people, and hadn't had his identity stolen stunned her.

"Well… Yeah!" Was his blunt response. "Wouldn't be the first time I got something like this. I technically bought a replica of Pyrrha Nikos' shield for myself, but my brothers thought it was cool so now it's hanging in their room and it's pretty much theirs now, seeing as how I didn't bring it with me - I was a little worried Beacon would think it was part of my arsenal and they'd want me to register it, but also that my little brothers would be sad if I took it. Anyways, they say these things can be redeemed for anything. Food, medicine, guns, they're favors, and the glass ones are supposed to be worth… Like… A million!" He handed it back to her. "You said your aunties had this?" A beat, "wait, didn't you say your aunts were, like, famous?"

"No?" Ashley shook her hand in a 'so-so' fashion, before taking the coin and stowing it in the closet. "Their team leader kind of was, so they kind of were by proxy, but he died during the Fall, and one of my aunts was crippled and works at a tax agency. The other's a Huntress yes - and a good one! - but she's no Ruby Rose."

"Ah don't tell me you're more a Ruby Rose gal than an Invible Girl Girl!" Dusty hollered laughter for a few moments, before shaking his head, "Wasn't there a fourth one? Well, no - there was a fourth one, but I mean -"

Ashley grinned, and shut the closet before sitting on her bed. "Yes, and she was a bit shadier than the others, but this wasn't hers." She gestured with the coin. "It was under their team leader's bed."

Dusty leaned back, covering his face with his hands. "This sounds so familiar!" He shot back forward, "you sure Schwarz didn't put you up to this?"

"He's not the practical joke type." A beat, then: "Actually, none of us are."

Dusty nodded to the side, "fair enough." He ran his hands through his hair, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that's real, but I could not imagine why their leader would have one of those. I wasn't kidding - the CCT says those are basically favors in this whole, world-spanning underworld, and the only way to get one is to do a favor. They say that usually means killing someone, but, well - personally, I doubt there's anyone out there that's actually killed…" He leaned back again, sighing. "Dammit, I can't remember the ratio… Like, there was one coin that's worth one, then another that's worth a thousand of that one, and then one that's worth a thousand of the second one. You'd have to be a Roman Torchwick, just collecting criminal taxes, to get one of those. I like the idea, but I never thought it made sense. That's why the real world switched to paper money and digital transactions, you know? If you gave someone a thousand lien bill, yeah you could buy your stuff, but then you'd have to walk out with a whole wad of cash, which is bad enough, but swap that out for hundreds and hundreds of metal coins? Eh… Neat idea, but it always frustrated me they never really went into detail as to how it all works under the hood."

Ashley examined the coin in her hand with new eyes, frowning at it. "Well, the way they say it, he had a benefactor. He did bodyguard work before he got hurt bad and they wanted him to get proper training. It could just have been his boss'?" She paused a moment, "wait - why am I entertaining this?" She thought aloud, shaking her head. "Dusty, it's a glass coin from a village kid's bag. It was probably just a memento, and it probably sounds familiar because you can find anything on those boards." She waved her hand, "didn't you once say those people were convinced the kingdoms have been looking for witches for the last twenty years?"

Dusty let out a long sigh as he deflated, "yeah… Yeah, sorry. I got excited." He brushed his hands through his wild hair. "My little brothers have had me telling stories all this time, so I guess I'm a bit more connected to little Dusty than normal. Bit more excitable."

"More excitable." Ashley teased, sticking her tongue out.