Yo! Back for more. Just to let everyone know, I will be going on vacation two weeks from now. There MAY be a chapter, I haven't quite decided yet if I want to upload one/write one during that time. We'll have to see.
Start Chapter 37
Yang has been expecting Raven to corner her for a while. After all, there's an awful lot of stuff going on that Yang clearly knows more about than she's letting on.
She just hadn't quite expected her to pull her aside immediately following the meeting with Ozpin.
The place they end up is a backroom within Amity, a place they're probably not supposed to be in, but then, Raven can get them out in moments if anyone comes and finds them, so that probably doesn't matter.
"Alright," She locks the door, before turning back to Yang. "Explain."
She sighs. "Couldn't at least be a bit kinder about asking?"
Raven cocks an eyebrow at her.
"Okay, fine. What in particular am I starting with."
"That man. Jaune Arc."
"Ah." She scratches at the back of her neck. "Okay. What do you want to know about him in particular?"
"He's working with Salem to protect some girl?"
"That's our theory, anyways. He wouldn't under any other circumstance."
"Are you positive?"
"His partner from Beacon was killed by one of her main agents."
Raven grimaces. "Ah. Who was this enforcer? Someone we know?"
"That's…" Yang runs a hand through her hair. "We'll get back to that later. You wanted to know more about Jaune?"
Raven nods her head.
So, Yang tells her. She gives her mother the full story on what had happened in the Ever After, taking care to not mention anything about Atlas' destruction as of yet. She… probably does deserve to know, however. She'll tell her later, then. Once she's figured out how to say it.
"So…" She seems to have some problems wrapping her head around certain parts of that. Most of them are fairly understandable. "Your friend… is the Rusted Knight from 'The Girl Who Fell Through the World'?"
"Yeah, we were about as surprised as you." Yang snorts. "He was the one to guide Alyx through the Ever After, alongside… actually, y'know what? Let's not get into that."
"How did you all end up in the Ever After? Fuck it, scratch that; what is the Ever After? Some other world?"
"This really spiraled in terms of the scope of what I wanted to talk about," Yang admits, sighing. "Let's get back to Jaune, and focus less on the other dimension we visited on accident."
"Kind of hard to do that, kid." Raven sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Fine. The girl that this Jaune kid's doing all this for; Cinder. Who's she?"
Yang's not really sure she can get out of this one without revealing a few things. It's just… well, she wants to be honest with her mother, but in the past…
"Ugh." Yang just decides to say screw it. "She's probably Salem's strongest agent from our time. She near-singlehandedly managed to obtain two of the Relics for Salem."
Raven's eyes bug out, and she throws her head back. "Wait, I'm sorry – two Relics were in Salem's hands in your time?"
Yang huffs. "I said things were bad, didn't I?"
"I didn't think you meant world-endingly bad!"
"Vale and Atlas fell." She states matter-of-factly. "Mistral we barely saved. Vacuo was where we, the only people really capable of fighting Salem, were going to make our last stand."
Raven's eyes are wide and fearful.
"That…"
"Yeah. You can see why I maybe didn't want to tell you, little-miss-runaway, about all of this?"
Raven snarls. "Watch it."
"Bite me." Yang fires back.
Raven glares at her hard, and Yang glares back with the same amount of petulance. Call her petty, but… something about her mother's attitude towards this all is annoying her.
In fact, despite how much she's been hanging around Raven these past few months, she's found herself fairly consistently annoyed with her. Yang's just… not really sure why.
After another five seconds spent in uncomfortable silence, Ravens pushes a breath out between her teeth, and looks down and away.
"And I… didn't show up? Even though the world was ending."
"Nope. I never saw you again after we fought over the Relic of Knowledge." Yang says, and then, because she's feeling vindictive. "Oh, right, I didn't tell you about that, did I? That you worked alongside Salem's agents to open the Vault of Knowledge for them so that you and your bandits could live in peace, without Salem bothering you!"
Raven just stares at her; aghast.
"That… I wouldn't…"
Yang almost wants to scream at the woman; how can she still deny it? How can she pretend like she's not who Yang has always known her to be?
"Whatever," Yang shakes her head, biting down on her rage. "So yeah. Anything else you want to know?"
Raven is still reeling, but if there's anything her mother is good at, it's pretending she's doing great while she's spiraling helplessly, so she'll probably be fine.
"I…" She bites down on her bottom lip, before looking up at the sky and taking a deep, hard breath. "How did the kingdoms fall?"
This… isn't really an easier conversation.
"Vale went first." She sighs out, leaning against the wall behind her, and slowly sliding down it, so that she's seated on the floor. "It happened during the Vytal Festival, funnily enough. It was our first year at Beacon. That would be… nine years from now, I think? Give or take some time either way."
Raven nods slowly, clearly antsy. Yang's half-surprised she's still here, and hasn't fucked off back to the Branwen tribe. That's kind of her MO.
"The person who orchestrated that was Cinder Fall. The same girl that Jaune's now trying to prevent from falling into Salem's hands." She tells her. "She became the Fall Maiden at some point, and used that power to kill Ozpin, alongside a bunch of other people and students at the festival. She… also happens to be the woman who killed Jaune's partner."
"Wait, what!?" Raven's suddenly a lot more animated. "Then why does he give a shit about her!?"
"Because that's just how he is." Yang states again, running a hand through her hair. "Because his heart's too big, and he can't help caring."
"Idiot…"
"Hey, you went and fell in love with both mom and dad, who're the exact same way, so I don't want to hear it from you." Yang pokes.
Raven rolls her eyes, but has no counter to that.
"That's the same battle I lost my arm in." Yang holds up her metal one. "To Adam Taurus, of all people."
"I'm sorry," Raven's flabbergasted. "To that kid who lost his eye?"
"Yeah. Him." Yang snorts. Her mother's befuddlement is making this telling much less difficult to get through, not like she's going to tell her that. "He and Blake grew up together. He was a high-ranking member in the White Fang – don't ask – and didn't take too kindly to her leaving it when she did. Became an obsessive asshole. We eventually killed him when it became clear he was too far gone."
"Shit…" Her mother mutters.
"Mhm." Yang responds, breathing out harshly. "Anyways, suffice it to say we were not pleased with our academy being burned to the ground by some megalomaniac. But Ruby ended up going after Cinder with Jaune's team, or the remnants of it. I was out of commission, Weiss had been taken back to Atlas, and Blake…" Yang always gets bitter when she thinks about this particular part of her life, despite the fact that she's forgiven Blake for it. "…She left. Went off to try and fix things all on her own."
"Ah." Raven hums. "So, that's a trend, then?"
"Like you wouldn't believe." She groans. "Anyways, abridging this somewhat so it doesn't take fifty fucking years; I went and found you, you told me the truth as you knew it about Salem and Ozpin, and the Relics and Maidens and stuff like that. At some point Cinder and some of the others found you, threatened you into working with them. You did."
Raven looks away.
"There was this big battle at Haven. Kind of a clusterfuck; I don't remember much of it. Point is, we ended up getting the Relic of Knowledge." She thinks about something. "Actually, have Ozpin check in on Leonardo Lionheart. In our time, he was a traitor."
Now that really seems to shake Raven. "WHAT!?"
"Yeah. He was afraid of Salem. Sent like half of Mistral's hunters off to their deaths."
"That's not possible." Raven shakes her head, entirely convinced. "I've met Lionheart personally. I'm a piece of shit, and I'll admit that, but even I can tell you that there's no braver man in all the world."
"Yeah, well… people change." She spits out below her breath. "Lionheart fought against us. Qrow was there; he was pretty much always with us from Haven onwards."
"What about Tai and Summer?"
…Oh. Right.
Yang… she…
What can she say?
She won't tell Raven the truth. She refuses. Because she can just see it now. If she tells her that Summer had died…
She'll take her, and run off somewhere to keep her safe. Because Raven's a coward, at the end of the day.
And when she's truly afraid, she doesn't think rationally.
"Back home." Yang says after a while. "Both of them had jobs at Signal. They couldn't afford to break off from that and travel the world. They left that to Qrow. He'd always been the field agent anyways."
"Hah. Tai, sure, but Summer? A teacher?" Raven actually laughs. "That I'd pay to see."
"Well… I never had her in classes or anything, but people liked her." She makes up on the spot.
"I'm sure. Probably loved it when she spent three full hours going on and on about weapon maintenance and the importance of knowing how best to disassemble and reassemble your gear. Riveting stuff."
"Getting back on topic," Because Yang can't talk about this for long without getting emotional; her mom's death has always been, and will likely always be, a sore spot. "We went to Atlas. General Ironwood had gone a bit cuckoo–"
"And no one was shocked." Raven rolls her eyes.
"Coming from you?"
Raven glares at her, but Yang just rolls her eyes, and continues. "Anyway, really abridging things from here on, since we were there for the better part of a year; Cinder and some of the others serving Salem snuck into Atlas, stole away the Relic of Knowledge from us and the Relic of Creation from Atlas, and then sunk the city into the crater of Mantle. For all we know, it probably destroyed both of them."
"Damn." Raven spits. "Were there survivors?"
"Oh, most of the people survived." Yang nods her head. "That was our doing. Ironwood was content to leave the people of Mantle out to dry, keeping only Atlas safe by lifting it into space. Don't ask, again, that particular plan really doesn't bare talking about."
"How were they going to survive in space?"
"What part of don't ask–"
"No, seriously, how were they going to not die in space?"
"I don't know. Probably trying to abuse the Relic of Creation, I'd guess. If he has the idea again a decade from now, feel free to ask him."
Raven grumbles something out under her breath, but nods, and lets Yang continue.
"So, to make a really complicated story short; we made a sort of… other dimension thanks to the Relic of Creation's power, but then we fell into it. That's how we ended up in the Ever After. Jaune… got sent back in time then, helped out Alyx and Lewis, waited for us, and just when we thought we'd be going back to our world… well, we ended up here, in this time, all of us separated."
Raven nods along, some of the awkward energy that had built between them fading away now that they're back on topic.
Even so, Yang's had just about enough of talking about this for the time being. They can wait for the rest until after the follow-up conversation tomorrow.
She tells Raven as much, and gets a curt nod in answer.
"That's fine. This is already a lot to take in, so perhaps that's for the best." Raven grunted out. "But… are you planning on telling the others all of this?"
"That… I don't know." Yang admits.
"I'm fine with not telling Oz. But Qrow, Summer, Tai… they deserve to know."
Maybe they do. Yang's just… not entirely sure. And if she's wrong…
"Maybe." She states. "It's just… I don't know. I don't want to be the reason something bad happens. I've… I've done that enough already."
Raven stares at her for a moment, her expression solemn. Eventually, she sighs, before leaning forward and placing a hand on Yang's shoulder.
"Have a little faith in the people around you." She says simply. "Take it from someone who never did; a lot of the time, people surprise you."
"Yeah…" Yang mutters.
"That's what I'm worried about."
/
Blake leaves the meeting room with no small semblance of regret hanging about her.
That's not because of what she'd done, to be clear. It's what she'd failed to do that's leaving her feeling hollow. Because of her failure, Raven had been implicated in Eve's escape. It's likely only a matter of time before that comes back to bite them, and frankly…
Well, Blake's not really sure they can afford that right now.
For the moment, she forces herself to think less on what she's done, and more on what she has to do.
Eve's waiting for her.
Well, that's not quite correct. Technically, Eve's already been sequestered off to Mantle to see Adam, wanting to confirm above anything else that her son had still been alive.
Blake bites down on the inside of her cheek. Thinking about how Hawthorne and his men had lied to her, had told her that her son had died, all to try and force a confession or a suicide out of her…
It disgusts her. Back in the mining camp that she'd rescued Eve and the other faunus from, she'd seen things that had almost succeeded in radicalizing her again, just as she'd been years and years ago, and now, in this moment…
She's realizing that this world has not yet undergone the improvements it initially had, after the emergence of Sienna's White Fang.
As horrible as many liked to claim Sienna's actions had been – and even Blake could somewhat agree with that – they had undeniably produced results. Many companies around Remnant had increased their pay of faunus to be even with that of humans in fear of White Fang intervention, and even if it had been wrong, the attack on the SDC that had killed several board members – and scarred one of her closest friends, Weiss, for life – had made it clear to anyone on Remnant that the White Fang couldn't be ignored.
Progress through violence. An ugly, but undeniable truth of the world.
She's not willing to allow all of it to happen again. She's not going to let innocent people get caught in the crossfire.
But is there a way for her to still force that change, without people being hurt? She'd tried. But all she's done is make lives worse for the faunus.
If violence truly is the only thing the people of Atlas will respect, then…
Blake sighs as she steps out of the portal that Raven has conjured for her in lower Mantle. The woman simply nods to her, before conjuring another portal – presumably back to Yang – and stepping through it.
And then Blake's alone.
…The clinic isn't far.
She makes the journey in three or so minutes. She's watching around every corner, in every patch of darkness, as she makes her way there. In theory, there's no one among Hawthorne's number who'd be able to track Raven, but then, they almost certainly know where it is that Adam had previously been being taken care of.
They'd moved him to another clinic in secrecy once the former clinic had done all it could for him. It had been Sienna's idea, actually, and Blake would have been remiss not to give her the credit for it.
That means that Blake and the others need to get out of Mantle, and soon. The man's likely still dealing with the chaos of the Vytal Festival, and his own injuries, but it won't be long before he regroups his forces, and attempts to bring them in yet again.
They just need to be off Solitas by then.
She enters into the clinic that's housing Adam, and finds a good majority of their party – those who'd come representing the White Fang – there as well. It's not particularly subtle, and given the situation they're in Blake would prefer they be, but then, these people are civilians. They don't know what they're up against.
She'll have to help them understand. If she can't…
"Where's Eve?"
She's pointed towards a room that she's not actually visited before. It must be where Adam's still being cared for. She knocks on the door lightly, and hears no response. Even so, she's too concerned about Eve's safety to not go in regardless.
She pushes the door open, and takes in the room.
There are four people within. She's one of them – or, well, young Blake – alongside her mother, Kali. The other two are Eve and Adam.
The former is practically draped over the latter, sobbing into his shoulder as she clutches to him for dear life.
"You're okay…" She squeaks out brokenly. "You're okay…"
"Yeah, mom…" Adam's voice is quiet, subdued. He's not old enough to really understand what's going on with his mother, but he must be able to tell something's wrong. He's putting on a brave face. "I'm okay."
It's not a full truth, but it's what Eve needs to hear. He had, after all, still lost an eye.
"Oh, Ms. Blake." Kali notices her, and she nods back, even as the entire room's attention shifts to her. "It's good to see you."
"Likewise." She glances over at Eve, who's not so much as shifted from her position, practically crushing Adam. "Eve?"
That at least seems to get her student out of her own head. She startles, and stands up. One of her hands goes to her right thigh, where Blake is realizing she's strapped the weapon she'd stolen from one of the Atlesian Specialists.
"Oh. Blake." Her hand drops limply to her side, no longer treating her as a potential threat. "It's you…"
"Yeah." She tries for a smile. It's… hard, given everything. "How are you doing?"
"I'm okay." She lies, but then, Blake can't fault her for that in front of her son. She probably wants to present herself as more put together than she really is. "You were injured rather heavily. How are you?"
"I'm… handling it." She'd had some aura boosters injected into her while she'd waited for Raven to fly down to Mantle, and so the wounds caused by the bullet holes had sealed up. Her wrist… well, that wouldn't be healing for another week or so, but still, it's a much faster process than if she hadn't had aura at all.
"That's good." Eve nods her head. "I uhm… we can talk later, I suppose?"
Eve's being rather clear about the fact that she doesn't want to discuss what happened in front of Adam. She won't push her. "Sounds great. I'll leave you all to it."
"W-Wait–"
Blake turns back around to see Eve having reached out towards her. It's… odd, because she looks reluctant to have done so.
"I… would you…" She stares at the floor below her. "…Stay, please?"
…Blake understands, in that moment, what it is that Eve's going through. Fear. First and foremost, she's afraid. She can't blame the woman, either. Not with what she'd faced, not with what she'd experienced. She'd been brutally abused by Hawthorne's men, made to think her son had died. She'd had to live with that for days before Blake could break her out.
And now, she just needs comfort.
Blake won't begrudge her that.
"Yeah." She speaks out, smiling as earnestly as she can.
"I'll stay."
End Chapter 37
Alright, that was 37! We're very much still in the fallout of what happened during the Vytal Festival, and will be for a few more chapters before Part 3 starts up.
Although, if you wanted to skip the waiting...
There's a discord server you guys can join to read the next chapter right now for free, but posting links on ff is like damn near impossible, so instead, here, just have the last letters of that, after the discord dot gg. uYwsZKw3eT
If you want to support me, and get access to the next FIVE chapters of this story right now, far sooner than they'll release on FF or AO3, then consider checking out my Patron! There's an e in there after the r and before the o. I assume you know what I'm talking about, but FF and AO3 don't like me typing that. It's just website dot com /Deferonz! NO EXCLUSIVE CONTENT WILL EVER BE POSTED THERE, this is only early access, just to be clear!
Want to support me without signing up for a monthly payment? Check out my Kofi! just website dot com /Deferonz!