AN:

So Volume 6 is starting up.
Figure this may be the point to rip off the bandaid: I don't watch the show week-to-week.
That's not a negative review and that's not to say I hate it (would I be writing this if I didn't like the show?), only that I feel that as of late it's gotten very samey and average. I'd argue that was an issue that has lasted since day one, but at least back then we had the world's lore and Oum's action to balance it out. These days (at least in my opinion) we've only the lore, and while that gets me to watch it, I only do so once the whole volume is up so I can just binge the whole thing in a day or two.

Until then, I'll do with V6 what I did with V5: Absolutely nothing until the various RWBY facebook pages explode, at which point I'll stroll over to the wiki to see what the fuss is about (see: the Ozpin reveal).

As well, if it isn't obvious by now, through sheer necessity some things here are going to diverge from canon, not so much events (holy shit are those long-since impossible by now), but rather namely the identities of the remaining two Maidens. I'm not psychic, after all, so I can't predict exactly who or what Summer and Winter are, thus for both I've decided to play just a bit, make their identities less important than the impacts they'll have on the story and the 'extra lore' (for lack of a better phrase) I'm injecting into TPATS.

What do I mean by that?

Well...

Chapter 60

Ruby wasn't sure what was going on. Her vision swam in front of her, and every time she opened her eyes she saw something different. First she was in Bluebell's bunker and could see half of JNPR charging at an enemy she couldn't see, while the one who'd led them during their school years crouched down above her, gathering her up in his arms, face painted with frantic worry. The next, she saw a clear, open, blue sky above her, and could feel an oppressive heat building a layer of sweat all over her. She thought she could hear people arguing, but it sounded as though they were all underwater to her, nothing was clear. After that, she felt she was in someone's arms and they were walking, and it was a lot colder - but simultaneously a lot more humid - and a lot more green, to the point where the sky was green, now.

Or maybe they were leaves?

Now, however, when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a tent, and both her vision and her hearing were a lot clearer than they were the last few times. She blinked twice and groaned as she slowly raised her stiff body up to a seated position; a fur blanket fell off of her shoulders and bundled around her waist. Ruby's eyes widened when she beheld the thick, heavy bandages wrapped around her chest and her stomach. She couldn't tell how fresh they were, as some of them had some spots of red bleeding through the layers of gauze, but what surprised her was that she didn't feel any pain, nothing but the stiffness of having not moved for however long she'd been out.

Experimentally, she poked at these bandages, but still, nothing.

"Weird..." She murmured, lifting her gaze -

And finding Ren there, sitting in a corner, lazily flipping through a book.

"Uh..." Said Ruby, staring at Ren. "Hey, Ren."

Ren spared her a glance, then gave her a nod.

"How long have you been there?"

"Since this morning." He turned back down to his book, which, from the cover, Ruby recognized at one of Blake's.

"How long have I been out?"

"Eight days."

Whoa. Ruby felt a little light headed after hearing that, it barely felt as though the Master had her by the throat just a few seconds ago. "Where are we?" She asked, lightly.

"The Branwen Tribe's camp." Ren said, after flipping a page, little but the sound of paper scraping against paper filling the void after he finished speaking.

Ruby frowned, breaking her gaze with him, until a thought occurred to her. "Wait, isn't this Yang's Mom's tribe? Is she here?"

Ren nodded, humming. "That is why I am here and not her. They have been speaking for the last several hours."

"And Qrow, and the others?"

"Nora and Pyrrha are training with Jaune. Weiss is working on her semblance. Blake is at a local village, sending off some mail, and is due back any day." He turned another page, eyes not breaking away from his book. "Qrow is heading to Atlas. He said it would take him ten days, nine ago." He then produced a book marker from underneath his thigh, and used it to save his place in his book.

But Ruby gasped, "what? No!" She felt her heart quicken as she tried to get to her feet, "no, we have to get him back!"

Ren was beside her in an instant, one hand on her shoulder, one under her arm, slowing her ascent to a more manageable one, not aware of how little her injuries were affecting her. "What do you mean?"

"The Master... He said his name was Ben." Ruby said, after getting to her feet, "he - whoa..." She now realized why else Ren was there: She hadn't eaten in days, and was swaying heavily, the world spinning around her. "Whoa..." She groaned, hand going to her head.

"Let's get you some food and water, Ruby." Ren prompted, "while you eat, I shall gather the others."

Ruby nodded dully, and Ren, after throwing a sweatshirt over her chest and zipping it up, guided her outside. Here she beheld the rest of the Branwen camp, and found herself surrounded by dozens of other tents similar to the one she'd been in. Around them was a giant encampment, surrounded by ever more tents, some scattered, small fires, and walls made out of felled trees jammed into the ground and secured by razor-wire. In front of her was a dirt path beaten through sheer attrition and having been walked by so many people, across which Ren led her until they reached what looked like a communal area. Some chairs and benches, the latter crafted from chopped trees, were scattered about, surrounding a bonfire and several cauldrons and improvised grills, and the occasional bandit indulging in an early meal.

Ren sat Ruby down alone, and soon supplied her with some food and a jug of water as big as her head, before leaving to find the others. Ruby dug in, but soon began to feel the hairs on the back of her neck jump up, as it dawned on her that she was surrounded on all sides by the very people she'd once dreamt of fighting, some day. It made her feel naked, and unsafe, and soon she began wondering how many of them were looking at her. She wondered how many of them had aura, and how far her Aunt's word stretched here.

She ate faster, her hands soon becoming a blur as she shoveled food into her mouth, only occasionally broken by her taking large gulps of water. She could feel her energy returning to her, in proportion to her stomach filling up, and it made her feel less exposed. This effect was amplified when Nora practically came flying in to give her a bear hug from behind.

"Oh!" Nora groaned, "Ruby's awake!" She called out in a singsong voice, "and here Jaune was all beside himself worried that he might have poisoned you with his semblance!"

Ruby blinked, turning to look at the Valkyrie over her shoulder. "His what?" She asked, as the orange-haired fireball let go of her and, alongside the rest of her team and Weiss, circled around, gathered some chairs, and surrounded Ruby.

"His semblance." Weiss repeated, "when he saw you on the ground after your ill-fated fight with the Master, he awoke it." She nodded to the blonde, who was sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head.

"I can, ah... Transfer my aura to people." Was what he offered up as a response. "But I didn't know how it worked... If it was okay, if it could be toxic to you... Or what." He shrugged.

"Whoa..." Ruby said, airily, "you're our healer!" She smiled wide, noticing Pyrrha taking a cloth to Ash's shield. "That's so cool, Jaune!" But then she remembered, and gasped, "wait! The Master, that's right! You guys will never guess what he said to me!" And soon she told them the story of her 'fight' with the Master, going into great detail about how he claimed to not be their enemy, but rather an ally - a spy working against Salem, even! - and she told them that there were four, apparently three good Masters and one evil Master, but how their leader found and fought the evil one and they killed eachother.

Then, "but then he said that they'd already found the Summer Maiden, in Atlas!" She said, lightning-fast. "That the Terrans were hoping to attack Atlas before they could work out a plan of their own, and that they'd be going after her too! Salem's people may already be there, right now! If we go there, it will be Nekrad all over again!"

Some of them looked thoughtful about this, but it was Weiss who pointed out, "have you considered that he was tricking you?" She asked, leaning forward. "How can we trust hm? He could have just known about your abilities and not wanted to risk triggering them in a fight, so he fed you a story."

Ruby's face fell at that, "but..." She hadn't thought of that. "Oh..." She looked down, frowning.

Pyrrha spoke up, "can we not trust him, though?" She asked, "think about what Qrow told us. Salem's Masters were taken from a random airship, pretty much on accident. What is more realistic? That all four of the survivals were of such poor moral fiber that they would so quickly turn to evil? Or that some of them would instead recognize her as a madwoman and try to make her think they were working for her, such that they could better maneuver themselves to take her down?" She proposed. "Such an assumption would be tantamount to thinking taking any four civilians from here and dropping them on Earth would have them immediately plotting to destroy their planet because they were picked up by a terrorist cell." She gave a melancholy smile, "I would like to think that we have allies in her circle... People mitigating what it is she does until such a time as we can find and end her threat."

Ruby smiled at this, and even Weiss gave a nod of the head, conceding the point.

"So if they really are good... Why haven't they tried to kill her already?" Jaune wondered, "why all the subterfuge?"

Weiss played Devil's Advocate here, "if we take Ben at face value... And with what Qrow told us, Salem was as strong as Ozpin even before she made extensive use of the relics. It's been thousands of years since then and she apparently already has Vale's... Plus Cinder absorbing the power of the Maidens, and, for a time anyways, there being the fourth Master loyal to Salem, it isn't impossible to think that they were worried that they simply wouldn't be strong enough to face the three of them. Perhaps they were hoping for a chance to separate Salem from the other Master and Cinder and face her together, hoping they three could dwarf her on her own." She shrugged, "and now that there are only two of them, and with their hand partially played by one of their number betraying her by killing another, they no longer feel that confidence, now thinking that their best option would be to try and attract us to her by helping her obtain the Maidens and their relics."

"But that would mean Cinder would absorb all four Maidens, and Salem would have all four relics!" Ruby pointed out, a horrified expression painting her face.

"A Queen's Gambit." Ren spoke up, "but remember that we would possess armies of Terrans, Humans, and Huntsmen. The former two could destroy her Grimm, the lattermost could divide Cinder and Salem, and the Masters could keep Salem from using her relics." He nodded once, "not an impossible venture. Rather one that merely holds the greatest chance for success, and concurrently, failure." He then looked up, over Ruby's shoulder, and nodded.

Ruby turned around, to see Yang, fuming and red eyed, stalking over to them, something clutched in her metal hand, tight enough that it was convulsing.

"Hey Yang!" Ruby smiled, before following up with, "was Auntie Raven that bad?"

Yang blinked, eyes turning back to their violet shade. "Huh?" Then she shook her head, "oh, no. She's... Pretty much exactly what I expected, but she's not the one who's got me mad." She sat down on the stump next to Ruby and gave the Rose a one-armed hug and letting out a long, calming breath, before holding her metal arm forward, presenting what was in her hand for everyone to see.

A long, gray tube, with black, rectangular grips at its bottom, a clip with which it could be hung from a belt, and a red button close to its top. Ruby gasped when she realized she recognized it:

It was Ash's sword.

The same sentiment dawned on everyone, and the group soon turned to silence as all waited for Yang's explanation.

She clipped it to her belt and rolled her eyes, a frown stretching across her face. "This guy, some shady, grungy-looking douche with a mullet, one of her thugs, said he'd looted Beacon, even made it into the tower. Found this and took it, said he'd recognized it from the videos he'd seen of the Terran invasion. I wanted it back, said it wasn't his and he didn't deserve it. He said no and I punched his lights out. He took offense to that and was about to throw down but one look from his chief had him give it up."

"Wow." Jaune hummed, "Raven had people in Vale?" He asked, eyes wide.

"She can rip open portals through time and space, Jaune." Weiss rolled her eyes. "She probably has people probing Vacuo, too."

Yang scoffed, "yeah, and the chance to send a bunch of guys to loot an abandoned Huntsman academy? Steal a bunch of dead students' weapons and maybe score some Dust? She wouldn't miss that chance." She said, with no small amount of disdain. "But..." She waved it away. "It doesn't matter... You're awake, and we've got it back. When this is all done we can bury it at his headstone... Be a little more proper than what we did." She turned to Ruby, "how're you feeling?"

Ruby stretched her back, "really well, actually." She admitted, "you missed it, I just finished telling everyone what I learned from one of the Masters."

Yang arced an eyebrow, "you mean the guy that almost cut you to pieces?" She clarified, "and you believe whatever he said?"

"Well -"

"It is worth note that the same man held a building aloft long enough to liquefy it and turn it into a dozen spears." Pyrrha spoke up, "Ruby was alone with him, and yet she still lives."

Yang wasn't amused, "what's your point?"

"That he has no reason to lie to us." Pyrrha responded, "with the speed they're killing Maidens and stealing their abilities... It would serve no short or long term gain. Better to scare us than to give false hope."

Yang quieted down at that, and soon the conversation ground to a halt, the only sounds being that of Ruby digging into her plate.

"So..." She said, after too long of a silence. "I haven't seen her around." She murmured, thoughts going to that tiny child so effortlessly stolen from her in Vacuo's bunker. "The... Winter Maiden."

If things had been quiet before, they were silent now, even the air of the camp appearing to fade away. Jaune was the one to break the news, "we tried, Ruby. But nothing worked."

Two Maidens, in just as many months.

So used to the pace at which they had maneuvered before the Fall of Beacon, Cinder Fall found herself somewhat astounded at the sheer speed at which things were falling into place now. First she had taken the remainder of the Fall Maiden's powers, and now?

Now, as she stepped out of the dropship gifted to her by her late partner, she would take for herself the powers of the Winter Maiden.

Stepping out into the dry, arid sands of the desert kingdom, Cinder repressed a flinch at the feeling of the sun beating at her scarred flesh. Hanging from a belt wrapped around her long, red dress were the beans Aldric had once promised would heal their injuries, and she hoped they would, because if Salem were correct and taking Winter's power would heal the damage done to her by Ruby Rose, she could waste no time at all acclimating herself to another meteoric rise in strength.

The whine of the engines died down and the bay-door finished lowering, digging into the sand. Cinder stepped outside, flanked by two ancient Grimm and a Seer. In front of her was Hazel Rainart, the giant bear of a man, and his polar opposite, the ninety year old Terran Master, Ben, who stood with a straightness to his back that betrayed the weakness one would initially perceive from the wrinkles on his face and the thinness of his white hair.

In between the two was another Seer Grimm, and in front of it, waiting for Cinder, was her.

The bandaged Fall Maiden paused a moment, looking at the pale child, who knelt on the ground, arms tied behind her back and a gag wrapped around her mouth. Cinder hadn't expected someone so young, she hadn't known Maidens could be so young. As she picked up the pace again, the Maiden's wide, blue eyes shone with fear when she laid them on Cinder's one orange orb. Clearly the girl had been told about Cinder by her protectors, told that someone was out there, stealing the powers of her sisters, working towards goals she was too young to understand. The Maiden feared Cinder, and appeared to only now be grasping what was happening, and what would happen to her.

She tried to struggle in her bonds, tried to get to her feet to run, but the Seer planted a tentacle on her neck, and Ben and Hazel each planted an arm on her shoulder, forcing her to remain on the ground, as Cinder slowly stalked towards her.

When Cinder reached the girl, she knelt down in front of her. The girl's eyes were reddening from the tears now freely falling, her chest was heaving with each haggard breath and her body was beginning to shake. Cinder remained silent, simply frowning as she wondered why she hadn't been told she would be so young. Was this Salem testing her resolve? Or had the Master and his ally seen it as so inconsequential as to not be worth mentioning?

Regardless, Cinder realized, with a light clench in her chest, that she recognized the fear in the girl's eyes. It was the same fear she'd once seen in herself so many years ago. Now, however, instead of seeing it in the shard of a mirror in a dark room underneath a half-broken bed, Cinder was seeing it in another person, barely as old as she had been; and now, unlike then, the person radiating this fear wouldn't get to run away, wouldn't live to define her life by it.

In a way, Fall envied Winter for that.

As she stood up, though, and clenched her good hand tight enough that her fingernails dug into her palm, seeing this fear also strengthened her resolve. This was exactly why she was doing what she did, and this was exactly why she would do this now.

She didn't want to feel that fear ever again.

And she wouldn't.

So Cinder opened her hand and held it in front of the sobbing and struggling Maiden. A swirling vortex of red energy formed in her palm, and out of it dug an insect, oily black and with a pure white carapace. It hooked its many legs around the portal from which it came, and locked its many eyes onto the Maiden, who was now trying to back away, but was being held down, forced to stay in position. Her eyes glowed with an otherworldly energy and soon Cinder saw Hazel visibly straining to keep the girl in check.

As the bug shot its stringy black tendrils over the Maiden's face, Cinder saw, just out of the corner of her eye, Ben's lips purse, as he turned to look away from the proceedings. The Maiden screamed through her gag, and Cinder felt a warmth, not at all harsh and overbearing like that of the desert sun roasting her flesh, but pleasant and welcoming, rushing in to fill that emptiness she felt in her chest. The Grimm Bug's tendrils glowed with the Maiden's energy and it drained her dry, her agonized screams growing weaker and weaker, and her skin paler and paler, until she had naught but a deathly pallor and a trickle of aura sliding into Cinder, whose eye widened as she felt an almost orgasmic high at the lack of any pain in the weaker half of her body. Moreover she began to have feeling in her bandaged arm once it was done, Cinder realized she felt whole.

The bug's tendrils slithered off of the Maiden's face and back into its inky black body, and the Maiden slumped forward, eyes glazed over and mouth agape, her face appearing burned by the bug that had latched onto it. Her breaths were hollow and shallow, and her entire body was limp now. Cinder, on the other hand, towered over her, body seizing up as the now multi-Maiden's body adapted to the sudden influx of energy. She gasped and twitched, fist clenching tight and muscles spasming under her skin.

This... She thought, as she slowly turned her head to the arm slung in a thick cast. This is... The cast burst into white hot flames and almost immediately began to crumble away into ash, revealing the red, scarred, leathery limb beneath it. This is power... She thought, as she took her newly working limb and ripped away the bandages that kept her ruined eye covered. She ran her scarred hand over her scarred face and reveled in both how she felt the sensations and how she didn't feel the pain that had been there just minutes earlier.

Is this what he felt? She wondered, single eye turning down to the beady bag hanging from her plucked the bean bag from her hip and pried it open with two of her fingers, before digging one of the beans out. She regarded it curiously for a moment, it briefly occurring to her that Aldric could have been playing with her, as he was wont to do. But, deciding she had nothing to lose, she popped it in her mouth, bit down, and swallowed.

The effects were instantaneous. Like a spash of cold water waking one up out of a deep sleep, Cinder was suddenly assaulted by first her eyes - plural - both functioning perfectly, the one she had lost just suddenly being there, growing back where it belonged so quickly that she almost didn't realize it. Then her once injured arm lost its scars and its leathery skin, it fading away, practically shrinking until it was gone, and the same with her face. In a scant second, Cinder had gone from almost crippled to perfectly healthy.

No... She thought. More than healthy. She grinned, clenching her once injured fist, wreathing it in white hot flames.

She lifted her gaze, a sneer stretching across one half of her face. Ben had finally turned back to face her, but his expression was guarded, almost concerned. Hazel's was neutral, uncaring for the situation, and the Seer was as unreadable as ever. Cinder was about to speak, when she looked down and beheld the Maiden. Her hand slowly going limp and her expression changing from one of confidence bordering on arrogance to one of shock and confusion prompted her allies to do the same.

The Maiden wasn't dead.

With a confused frown, Cinder knelt down in front of the Maiden, grabbing her head and lifting it up so they could make eye contact. She didn't know what to expect, but what she got wasn't it: The very instant she touched the girl, she screamed. Or rather, she didn't scream, she wailed. Long and loud, deep and throaty, but also soft and numb, this wasn't a scream of any kind of agony or pain, it was one born of a lack of all of those things. Something fundamental was gone in this girl and she was so unable to process it that all she could do was scream in some infantile means of trying to summon help.

Unfortunately, she got the exact opposite: Ben and Hazel both retreated a step, and Cinder's hand recoiled like it had been burned. The only one among them not to move was the Seer, which hovered in place, still as death. The multi-Maiden frowned at the girl, head tilting as the latter ran out of breath. The former Maiden then inhaled deeply, and wailed some more, pitch growing until something primal entered it: Fear.

Eyes still glazed over, the former Maiden limply reached forward, trying to grasp the one who had stolen her powers. Cinder watched and allowed it to happen, but slapped the girl's hands away when they touched her. Despite the sun baking everyone present, the heat of the air, and fires just toyed with by the multi-Maiden, the child's skin was as cold as ice, enough so that the brief contact between the two was enough to shock Cinder. Furthermore, she was beginning to notice a change in the girl - her skin, still bleach-white and of a deathly pallor, it was being filled in. Cinder could just see something dark underneath it, her veins, turning black as coal, as though filled with an oily ichor.

But this was all Cinder would see, as the Seer floated forward, and wrapped its tentacles around the former Maiden's neck. With a violent yank, the child's neck was snapped into pieces, and her body dropped to the sand.

It vanished into black smoke before it was even halfway there.

"Oh... Wow." Ruby mumbled, getting her first look at her combat gear since she'd woken up.

"Yeah." Yang hoisted the crusty, blood-stained skirt up with two pinched fingers. "This isn't salvageable, Rubes." She said, twisting it about and revealing the many gashes running up and down it. "You can try but, after a certain point you just have to get some new ones." She tossed them to the side. "I gave Blake your measurements though, so she should be able to scrounge something up on the way back."

Ruby blinked, then turned to her sister, the two seated inside their shared tent. "Wait, you gave Blake carte blanche to make my next combat outfit?" She clarified, "Yang!" She whined, "she won't put any red in it!"

Yang laughed at the young Rose's overly pouty face and rolled her violet eyes. "Ah, give her some credit. Maybe she'll -" But she was interrupted by a lot of raised voices off in the distance.

Blinking, Yang looked over her shoulder, then to Ruby, who shared a concerned expression. Yang strapped her gauntlet to her fleshy limb and clipped Ash's sword to her belt, while Ruby hefted her collapsed scythe into her hands and the two carefully slid outside. Their confusion appeared to be shared by everyone present, as Weiss, JNPR, and the Branwen tribe all were looking around, trying to figure out what exactly was going on, and where.

"Almost sounds like it's coming from Mom's tent..." Yang hummed, before patting Ruby's back. "C'mon."

Ruby followed Yang and the two rushed off to the back end of the camp, whereupon they found the leader of the camp verbally squaring off against -

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby gasped, elated, before this bled off to confusion. "Wait, I thought he had to be in Atlas for Raven to transport us there? Why did he come back?" She wondered, looking up to Yang, who also appeared confused.

"And what are they arguing about?" She voiced, nodding to the two. "Look at Mom, she's pissed, and Qrow looks pale."

Ruby hummed, and then slowly strolled forward, taking the lead both to get the two moving again, and because she was dreadfully curious as to what was getting Qrow so animate.

"- down and they're already on the trail of the third, Raven! You can't pretend to not be seeing the writing on the wall!"

"I left that man for this exact reason, and you know this!" His sister shouted, "I don't want a damn thing to do with this war, the kingdoms, or now, the other planet!" Her hand was resting on her blade and her eyes were thin with rage.

"The Atlesians figured out how to fight the Terrans and Salem will have a third Maiden in a week!" Qrow roared, "and you yourself -" He threw his hands into the air, "- you've long since thrown out your chance to not be involved with this shit!"

Raven, silently fuming, briefly glanced over to her lieutenant, before turning back to him. "What did he say to you?! What exactly did -" But she trailed off when she got her first look at the approaching sisters.

This prompted Qrow to turn and look over his shoulder, and upon seeing them, he deflated almost instantly, taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a long sigh. "Hey, girls. Surprised you're alone." He mentioned, pulling his flask from his hip and upending it into his mouth.

"So... A lot of raised voices in here." Yang mentioned on approach, "what's the story?"

Qrow wiped some of the excess alcohol from his lips, "a long one." He rasped, "but we can't go to Atlas."

Ruby blinked, "why?" She asked, not able to resist the urge to sneak a peak at her aunt, the woman not quite what she had expected.

"Yes, tell them Qrow. Tell them how Ozpin's grand plan fell apart again!" Raven leaned against a wall and crossed her arms, waving Qrow on. "Or are you about to really insinuate you still have faith in him? After all this?!"

Qrow shook his head, "It only took me three days to fly there. I spent the rest of the time talking to Ironwood and getting the lay of the land." He revealed, "and I finally left after what he told me today. He's been spending these months getting intel. On Salem, the Terrans, all of it. But he's new to this whole game, the war. Newer than most everyone else, and seeing Ozpin fail so many times... He's thinking with his gun. He deemed the more important fight being the one against the Terrans, and he's going to take the fight to them. I told him that he's playing into Salem's hands, weakening us all, but he doesn't care. So Salem and her Masters are just going to waltz up to the Summer -"

"But the Masters aren't really on her side!" Ruby blurted out, not wanting to hear whatever worst-case scenario Qrow would give out.

Qrow blinked, turning to Raven, who appeared just as confused, then back to them. "Huh?"

Yang tried to curb her sister, placing her fleshy hand on her shoulder. "Ruby -"

But Ruby, seeing perhaps the only chance to mitigate what she knew could be the worst possible choice Ironwood could make, pushed on. "In Nekrad! The Master we saw, before he knocked me out he talked to me! He said that they were on our side, that they were spying on Salem, trying to get in close!" She explained, "he said that there used to be four of them... But their leader died fighting the only one of them who was loyal to Salem! That the rest of them are good guys, they just haven't had the chance to speak to us!"

Raven burst out laughing. "Yeah, and Vernal is -" She raised her voice to a higher, more feminine and innocent volume. "- certainly just an innocent traveler, good sir!" She rolled her eyes, "- not at all trying to trick you to lower your guard so those kind gentlemen behind you can stab you and take your money! No sir!" She shook her head, "what are you, twelve?"

"Hey!" Yang stepped forward, "you leave her alone!"

"Enough!" Was Qrow's whip-crack interruption, before he turned to Ruby. "Tell me what he said." He demanded, eyes locked onto hers with such an intensity that she shrank beneath them. "Exactly what he said, Ruby."

Ruby blinked, "uh, he said that -" She gulped, "he said that their numbers have dwindled... That the best of them was dead, but so was the worst of them, and that the last ones were old, but they weren't loyal to her." She stammered.

"Pack your things." Qrow barked almost instantly, "right now. Go tell the others we're going to Mistral." He gave Raven a scathing look, "and you better be there."

"Qrow, with any luck I'll be on Earth when all this starts going down." Raven deadpanned.

"Wait, I'm confused -" Yang began, casting a confused glance between her mother and uncle, "why are we going to Mistral?"

"Why can't we go to Atlas?" Ruby all but begged, "if we have the chance to save the Maiden, we have to!"

But Qrow shook his head, "no, that Maiden's as good as dead." He said, taking another deep tug of his flask, emptying it into his gut. "And Spring will be too... If we can't get through to her in time." Yang noticed Vernal give Raven a brief look at this, but Raven's frown didn't budge. "And besides, if that Master is to be trusted, he tipped his hand to give us time to fortify. To either get Spring to come with us or fortify Haven and protect its Relic. If Spring is the last on their list that means Haven will be their first target once they get everyone... And more than that:

"We need to wait for Ozpin."

"What..." Cinder coughed, waving away the oily smoke and realizing belatedly that her throat was functioning again, as though she'd never been injured in the first place. "What was that?" She looked up to the Seer, seeing Salem's face begin to form inside.

Salem held a thin smile underneath half-lidded eyes, both of which were lowered as though she were deep in thought.

"My lady?" Ben spoke, his aged tremolo barely making it to Cinder through the dead, dry desert air, while his companion was busy glaring at where the former Maiden had been.

But Salem shook her head, "a development, Cinder." She spoke from many millions of kilometers away. "A not unpredictable... But certainly unforeseen one." She hummed, before raising her gaze to the multi-Maiden. "I can see clearly now your injuries are gone, young one." She noted, pride evident in her voice and her smile. "I am glad to have been correct in this account."

Cinder, hesitantly, nodded, and raised her once injured hand, holding a sphere of white hot fire in her palm, and allowing the flames to flow and dance between her fingers, before they flowed down her arm and sank harmlessly into her skin. "I am glad, ma'am. I must admit I had grown accustomed to moving around as I once did, before all this..."

"With the young Master." Salem nodded, knowingly. "Well you should have your chance again." She turned, her head facing Hazel, "Hazel. You and Ben shall move to Mistral and await Tyrian's locating of the Spring Maiden. I want you to scout both the Mistrali and Terran forces stationed there, in preparation for our attack on Haven." She turned back to Cinder, "you, my dear, shall advance to Atlas. Helmut and Arthur are on the trail of Summer, and it is only a matter of time before Ironwood's pride or Atlas' intelligence finds some way to convince him to attack the Terrans. I want you with them, ready to attack her, when the crossfire begins."

Cinder nodded, and Salem's face faded away. She made to turn back to her ship, but Ben coughed, attracting her and Hazel's attention.

"Young lady, I must ask... Have you any idea what..." He nodded to the small disturbance in the sand where the Maiden's knees had been, the only remaining evidence of her having existed. "I mean... You've our mutual Mistress' ear. I would hope you would have at least some inkling of what it is she thinks."

But surprising her was Hazel, who stepped up and said, "it doesn't matter. Ozpin's people will no-doubt know we intend to strike Atlas next, and with little time to regroup, they'll inevitably choose to find the Spring Maiden first and take her to Haven to fortify it. We need to go there, to prepare."

Ben shook his head, "young man, I know your world is intrinsically different from mine but even you must understand the benefit that knowledge brings." He said, even though he began walking to the east. "Imagine where you would be had you no idea Ozpin's deaths were temporary affairs..."

Hazel shook his head and followed the old man. "I understand what you're saying... But I think what we witnessed is among those few things that shouldn't be understood. Because you know as well as I that with understanding comes the ability to replicate. And if that was what I think it was...

"Imagine what would happen to the world if..." He cast a look over his shoulder at Cinder, who recognized it as a warning glare. "Someone... Figured out how to make Human Grimm."