Atlas
Ch 17 - Stakes Rising
A/N: Hey, we're getting back to Mantle for like the next two chapters now. But first, here's some Oscar.
Okay, I think I found a workaround for FFN erasing all my formatting. If I download my google docs to a word document, and then upload THOSE to FFN, it seems to keep the formatting.
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Souls or RWBY. Dark Souls belongs to From Software and RWBY belonged to RoosterTeeth. I only own my OCs.
(Oscar)
His things had been packed, triple checked, and then checked again by Ozpin. He'd left a note for his aunt that didn't detail where he was going, but did explain why he had to leave, even if she most likely wouldn't believe it. He didn't have it in himself to say goodbye to her face. He trekked down a dirt road to a train station, once again thanking the fact that the farm and the nearby settlement were built along a railway that went to Mistral. Clouds were gathering overhead, and the skies promised rain in the near future, leading to an ominous start to his "grand adventure."
"Sometimes, I wish I could think of all this as such," Ozpin mused. "Once again, for what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to be you. I can't choose who my soul passes on to, and I deeply regret that I have to bring as abrupt an end to your childhood as I am."
Oscar watched his feet as he walked. "You know, the weirdest part about all this is how it feels. Leaving home is crazy. Going to the city is crazy. Everything you've told me; it's completely crazy. But it doesn't feel crazy anymore. It feels like… I'm doing the right thing."
"Well, I suppose that's good."
Oscar sighed. "No… it's scary." Thunder boomed overhead, and Oscar looked up, seeing the station just down the road, so he began jogging to it, hoping to outpace the imminent downpour. He didn't quite make it, but holding his pack overhead kept him mostly dry. He was in luck, though, as a train was currently in the station, so all he had to do was buy a ticket and hop on. Unfortunately, that was where his luck ended, because the damn machine wouldn't register his lien and let him actually buy a ticket. "Stupid thing," he muttered. In his head, he thought, I'm assuming that whatever weird magic thing this is doesn't come with an infinite supply of money?
Ozpin chuckled. "While I certainly wish it did, I'm afraid that you'll have to solve this one on your own." And then Oscar felt a sudden sense of apprehension that wasn't his own, and his eyebrows rose with concern. "Be on your guard."
"What do you mean?" he whispered.
"Here," a gruff voice said, and Oscar turned and looked up at a towering giant of a man, who raised a fist, causing Oscar to flinch, before he slammed it onto the top of the ticket machine. The device emitted a series of beeps and chirps, as if in protest, but it shortly spat out a ticket to Mistral, which Oscar bent down to pick up, even as the man began to walk away. The man paused after a few steps, half turning his head to speak to Oscar once more. "Don't let such a small obstacle block your path." And then he kept walking.
"T-thanks!" Oscar called after him, though he didn't acknowledge the boy's gratitude. That man, Oscar thought. I felt… who is he?
"Hazel is someone from my past. Someone dangerous, and who should not be taken lightly."
Oscar swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling dry despite the humidity in the air, and an express train whizzed past the station.
(Roman)
Mother-fucking Ace-Ops, the hatted hoodlum thought. You rob Jimmy Oakenpenis once, and he sends his elite spec-ops after you. The backdoor to the SDC office that he was picking clicked open, and he stepped into the building, pulling up his scroll to check the floorplan that the Happy Huntresses had acquired. He tossed the dilemma of the military sending agents (and an upcoming conversation with Robyn about just that) after him to the back of his mind, and focused on the task at hand. Jackass Schnee's latest and greatest plan to stop Roman was to randomly move the dust around to different warehouses, so that odds were the next one he'd hit would be empty. But Roman knew how businesses worked. Someone down below had to be kept abreast of where the inventory was being moved, and odds were that person would have a written record of that information. And so he was breaking into the district's SDC administration office in the dead of night, having already cut the power to the building and now heading for the district director's office to find out where the rich bastard upstairs was hiding Roman's next heist haul.
Roman glanced around apprehensively. There should have been guards he would need to evade here, and he hadn't seen anyone in the building so far. Something was definitely off, and he surreptitiously double checked that Melodic Cudgel and his gloves were loaded and functioning. This was too easy. He silently crept up some stairs, creaked a door open, and glanced at every corner as he snuck through a room filled with office cubicles, coming up to a door helpfully labeled as being the office of the district director. He slipped in, pulling the otherwise automatic door open manually, before sliding it shut behind him, and grabbed a lightning dust crystal out of his pocket, and set to hotwiring the terminal in the office. The computer would almost certainly be fried after fifteen minutes at most, but all he needed was a map showing which warehouses in Mantle the SDC was actually storing its dust in. The terminal powered on, and he hooked a bruner scroll up to it, activating a program to crack its password. It took a good twenty seconds, and after that his fingers were flying across the keyboard, inputing a search and pulling up the file he needed. A quick download, and his scroll was unplugged, as he stood up, leaving the lightning dust crystal where it was, content in the knowledge that the terminal melting from the power source it wasn't meant to be connected to would erase his tracks.
Were he any less of a criminal mastermind than he already was, he would have missed the click as the door locked of its own accord. He whipped around, just in time to see a metal shutter slid down on top of the door, as power came back to the building. Shutters also closed on the windows, and an electronic keypad next to the door glowed an angry red. Roman warily glanced around the room. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he muttered.
A call came to the terminal behind him, already whining as it began to overheat, and was automatically picked up as a male voice began to speak. "You know, Roman Torchwick, you made this much easier than I thought it would be. Mr. Schnee will pay me a handsome sum for taking you out of the picture."
"Jackass sent a mercenary after me?" Roman asked, already looking for a way to get out of the room while stalling for time.
"I prefer the term bounty-hunter, though you are correct," the man replied. "But enough talk. This is business, and time is money. Oh, and before you think of just blasting your way out, the steel on the doors and windows is three feet thick, reinforced in case of Grimm attacks, and the walls are three feet of concrete reinforced by earth dust. Goodbye, Mister Torchwick." The call clicked shut, and Roman's head snapped up as vents near the ceiling began to open, and a cloud of green gas began to spill out. Roman was already holding his breath, and walking over to the keypad by the door, which promptly sparked and died, undoubtedly sabotaged specifically to prevent him from hacking the lock open. Shit, shit, shit, he thought, stepping back to the end of the room and leveling Melodic Cudgel to fire anyways, but all he accomplished was some shallow craters on the wall and scorch marks on the metal. Out of breath, against his will he inhaled again, lungs now burning and an intense feeling of drowsiness taking hold. He staggered over to the door once more, banging a hand against it fruitlessly and cursing up a storm in his thoughts. Of all the fucking things to do him in, of course it would be gas. Aura didn't protect against air, after all, and while it would heal any damage the chemicals were doing to his lungs and the rest of his body, it wouldn't save him from oxygen deprivation. He fell to his knees, eyelids drooping, and everything feeling sluggish. He collapsed against the door, one hand sliding down it, thoughts fleeing from his consciousness. He tumbled onto his side, his hat rolling off his head and landing in front of him, right hand reaching for it and the pink, white, and brown feather atop it, but failing to get there before flopping lifelessly to the ground. His other hand still rested on the metal shutter locking him in the death trap. His eyes drifted shut, the last thing he saw being the feather, and one of the last thoughts that pushed through his head being a supreme effort to cut through the fog in his mind and remind him that the reason he cared so much about it was that it was a reminder of Neo.
Neo…
His aura sparked.
The hand against the shutter blocking the door glowed orange.
There was a beep from the disabled keypad.
The shutter came up, and the door behind it slid all the way open. The gas poured out of the room, simple laws of density flooding the place with oxygen just as fast. Breathable air came back into Roman's failing lungs, and delirious awareness shot back into his mind as he coughed, eyes blearily cracking open as one of his hands, he wasn't even aware which, fumbled for his cane. He gripped onto the metal, leveling the curved end at a cubicle outside, and fired the grapple, barely keeping a death-grip on the weapon as it dragged him from the room and into non-poisoned air. Once he came to a stop, his hand let go, and he let his body go slack, just focusing on getting oxygen into his lungs. He wasn't sure how much time passed before he heard footsteps running towards him, followed by a voice.
"The doors were locked, and the keypad disabled. How the hell did he unlock the damned thing?!" the voice of the asshole who tried to gas him shouted. "Where the fuck is he?" Roman pretended to be unconscious as the footsteps got closer, and stopped, the prick likely having spotted his prone form. The footsteps came closer, this time at a walking speed, and he heard the man kneel down next to him. "Well, a knife will finish the job regardless."
And with that queue, Roman suddenly shot up, bodily throwing himself on top of the other man, dressed in black and face obscured by a gas mask, and pinned him beneath him. Roman took advantage of his surprise, wrenching an eight-inch combat knife from the man's hand and tossing it to the side, simultaneously raising a fist and slamming it into the bastard's face. He flinched, aura stopping any lasting damage from the blow, and Roman wrapped his other hand around his neck, letting go with the full voltage of the lightning dust stored in the gloves. The "bounty-hunter" screamed, twitching, and Roman reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife of his own, jabbing it against the aura shielding his opponents' throat three times before the man snapped his head forwards into Roman's own. He shouted at the pain, and the masked man pushed Roman, rolling on top of him, arms wrapping about his throat as he tried to choke the life out of the hatted hoodlum.
The prick forgot to pin his legs though, so without hesitation, Roman's knee jerked up into his assailant's scrotum, and his grip loosened as he shrieked, before Roman tried to stick his knife into his foe's ribs, aura again stopping the blow. But that was enough to make the man stop trying to strangle him, and as his hands went for Roman's knife, the thief used his other hand to toss the man off him, letting go of his knife to accomplish the task. He rolled to the side, snatching his cane from the floor, pointing the business end at his opponent, and pulling the trigger in the same motion, a flare whistling out at point blank range, sending both men flying back. Roman kept a grip on the weapon however, and with distance gained, aimed the weapon once more, firing three more times. All three hit the man, his aura visibly flickering a pale green as it struggled to stay up. With a shout, Roman sprinted over to the prone man as he tried to get up, swinging fast enough for Melodic Cudgel to whistle through the air before it connected with his foe's head. His aura broke with a sound of shattering glass as he went tumbling, and Roman walked forwards, rage plastered to his face as he shouted and raised the weapon overhead as swung at the man's cranium one more time. There was a sickening crack as the metal made contact, the skull deformed, and blood splattered out.
Roman Torchwick breathed heavily, scowling down at the fucker's corpse. He turned, glaring at a snowflake logo plastered on the nearest cubicle. "Alright, Jacques," he spat. "This means war." He glanced around, grabbing his own knife from the floor, as well as that of the man he just killed. Not really sure if he was gonna use it, but he was taking it regardless. He rifled through the corpse's pockets, finding and pocketing his scroll (and wallet), to see if there was anything useful on it later. He took a deep breath, held it, and turned around, stalking into the office whose vents were still spraying gas, and snatched up his bowler hat, verifying the tricolor feather was still attached, before setting it back atop his head. He walked out of the gas chamber, pulling out his lighter, and setting fire to not only a cubicle, but also the corpse of the hitman, before he began to blast cameras on his way out the building. It wouldn't do to leave evidence after all, and fire and explosives had a good habit of erasing that.
It was only a minute or two later, when he came to the backdoor he'd entered the now-burning building in, and found another shutter blocking it, that he thought back to what had happened in the office. He had remembered Neo, and something happened with his aura, before the doors opened. He looked at his left hand, and rather than use his own scroll to hack the door, he placed the palm against the metal shutter, and concentrated. He looked for that feeling from when his aura had sparked, and watched as his hand glowed orange, before the door beeped and slid open.
You know, Roman remarked to himself as he stepped outside and began to disappear into the night, I always hated semblances. Damn things are a crutch. But I gotta say, being able to unlock any door is one hell of a skeleton key. He paused in an alleyway. Skeleton Key… yeah, that'll work. He chuckled to himself as he kept going, sirens that had begun to approach from the distance already growing quieter as he continued to walk.
(Miltia)
It was a quiet room they were tucked into. A few chairs, a TV screen, a couch, and three girls trying to figure out what one of them had managed to pull off when they somehow evaded notice at point-blank range by Atlesian Spec-Ops. It was Melaine who had eventually suggested that Miltia might have managed to unlock her semblance in the heat of the moment in order to save herself, and it was also the elder twin who suggested in securing the aid of someone who already had an invisibility-based semblance to help them figure out what exactly she had done. And so, May Marigold and the Malachite twins found themselves situated in the room for three hours, trying every-which way they could think of to replicate what the younger twin had done in that alleyway.
Miltiades Malachite focused on that subtle shift in her aura once more, and a feeling she couldn't quite describe settled over her. Her sister and May both continued to watch her, the former standing next to her, and the latter across the room, expressions unchanging.
Finally, the Happy Huntress broke the silence. "Well, I can confidently rule out your semblance also being invisibility like mine, because this would be outside my own semblance's range, and I can still see you just fine."
Miltia frowned, keeping that feeling in her soul going. "Well, I did something. What could it possibly be besides a semblance?"
Her sister rolled her eyes as she addressed May. "How else would you explain Ironwood's elite special operatives not seeing you right in front of them?"
Miltia opened her mouth, not quite sure if she'd actually give a response to begin with, when the door to the room banged open, revealing Roman Torchwick, clearly exhausted, and suit ruffled from exertion, shuffling in before flopping down onto the couch. "I have just had," the hatted hoodlum began as he took his hat off and placed it on his lap, rubbing his eyes, "the shittiest. Fucking. Night. Ever. Unlocked my semblance, which can apparently unlock any door, but still. I got fucking gassed, by some asshat hitman hired by the dust-damned SDC." He took his hands off his face, and looked up at the room, eyes glancing over May, then Mel, and then… skipping her entirely, before an eyebrow raised, and he gave the room a more thorough glance over. "Where's brat number two?" He asked.
The shorter-haired twin in question blinked, slightly offended, and shared a glance with the other two occupants of the room. "Like, are you serious?" Mel replied. "She's right there," she said while gesturing a hand.
Roman squinted, rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times, and then leaned forwards and squinted towards her again. He looked back at Melanie. "You're pulling my leg, right?"
Miltia scowled. "I'm right here!" she snapped.
Roman's eyes widened, and he flinched back a few inches. "Wha- you just appeared!"
Miltia blinked, the quieter twin letting the gears in her head turn. "You… really didn't see me until I spoke to you?" At the hatted hoodlum's nod, the younger twin had a eureka moment. "My semblance is perception based," she murmured.
"Huh?" May questioned.
"You were both looking at me when I activated it. Roman and the Ace Ops weren't. So maybe when I activate it, anyone not looking at me already just won't notice me, unless I specifically get their attention, I guess."
"That seems like something you should probably test more extensively," Roman commented.
Miltia nodded. "Mmm-hmm. But still, that could be really useful. It might have an unlimited range, as long as I'm not actually touching someone."
"Don't get be wrong Mil, I'm really happy you finally got a semblance," Mel chimed in, "but I'm also jealous."
Miltia offered a contrite shrug, and then frowned. What to name it? she thought to herself.
As if reading her mind, her elder twin gave a suggestion. "Wallflower. Like, a background character, who you don't notice because they're just there like a flower on the wall. Made to make the background look populated and nice, but otherwise unnoticeable if asked to recall them."
The other twin smiled at her sister, and murmured, "I like it. Wallflower it is."
Roman ended the moment by clapping his hands. "Great! Now, parental issues," he addressed to May, who glared at him, "Where's your boss? Jackass Schnee just pissed me off, and I need to make some plans with her in order to hit him right where it hurts."
"His nuts?" Melanie jokingly questioned.
"I wish," Roman muttered, "Gonna have to settle for his wallet though."
May sighed, walking to the door, gesturing for Roman to follow. The man got up, offered a nod to the twins, and went after her.
(Kamohtik)
The men and women under his command were as prepared as they would be, the hidden bunker left behind from the Great War they had been using to set up for the operation now empty. His warriors were ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause, armed and armored, for once in their uniforms, as this was an operation where the colors wanted to be seen, so that all of Atlas would know who was responsible for their coming deeds. Last checks to gear, weapons, vehicles and personnel were made, and then the soldiers of the White Fang began to embark on the nondescript vans with tinted windows that had been acquired for the mission. A final verification that the target was in the SDC warehouse the stolen itinerary said he would be in was sent in, and Kamohtik closed his eyes, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. A brief feeling of vertigo went through him as he put one foot into his own van, a shudder running through him and shaking his neck-fins. Then resolve followed, and contentment at the knowledge of the blow they'd deal to the Oppressors washed away the apprehension brought on by all the possible ways the operation could go wrong. He raised a clenched fist into the air, uncurling his fingers as he leveled his arm to point his hand forwards, before climbing the rest of the way into his vehicle and closing the door.
The order was given, and the vans sped off. With what they intended to do, their destination would lie within the pages of history themselves.
(Emerald)
A gaggle of gunshots rang out. One, two, four, six, and finally eight beowolves went down. A sweep of one half of Thief's Respite sent out an arc of flame that incinerated ten more. Thundering footfalls let Emerald know a Beringel was coming from behind, her, and with a scream and dilated eyes, she twisted, slamming both her weapons into the floor with a crash of flame, a pillar of arcane heat bursting with immolating energy and incinerating the unfortunate Grimm. She panted from the exertion, throwing her gaze around the training room. "Who's next?!" she screamed out a challenge. "Come on!"
"Enough." And with just one word, the cold tone of Salem snuffed the fires of rage in her soul.
The queen of the Grimm silently stalked in a circle around her. "You told me you wanted power. That you sought revenge for Cinder's sake. Was that a lie?"
"No!" the Fall Maiden shouted.
"Then start acting like it!" Salem told her. "Your mindless rage does nothing but waste your potential, and waste my time and efforts."
"Y-yes, your Grace. I'm sorry."
"Words mean nothing, Emerald. Show me that you-"
The doors to the room banged open. Tyrian staggered in, looking like a desiccated corpse, skin colored and textured like jerky, eyes gone and replaced by two red lights in the sockets. The scorpion faunus was mumbling and cursing quietly to himself, before collapsing to a prostrated position on the floor.
Salem raised an eyebrow. "Tyrian. Have you ended the Irithyllian?"
The scorpion faunus' mouth moved silently for a few moments, and then, "N-no…"
"You didn't even kill her once? You disappoint me," she told him with disdain in her tone, before turning her back and gliding out of the room.
Tyrian stared after her, before starting to cry, and then scream. His anguish brought another beowolf into the room, and as it stalked after him, he turned, taking on a deranged grin, screaming as he began to stab it repeatedly, continuing long after the beast was dead. In silence, Emerald began to step backwards, disturbed by the sight, but unable to draw her eyes away until she finally broke line of sight upon leaving the room. Tyrian's screams, wails, and laughter echoed behind her long after she began to speed up her exodus.
(Oscar)
The train trundled along in (relative) silence, the farmhand watching the forests of Anima pass him by. Occasionally, the gentle trundling of the train would be interrupted by the harsh staccato of gunfire from the turrets on the train as they detected a grimm, and Oscar was semi-proud of himself that he'd stopped flinching at the sudden sprays of bullets after the third time.
"So," Ozpin began in his head, "I'm aware you've been a bit busy and stressed, and I'm aware that a good deal of that is my fault regardless of how unintentional my arrival was, but we have a few hours of downtime now, and I would like to finally ask you what exactly occurred since I fell in the defense of my school."
Oscar glanced around the train car, finding no-one else with him, a situation that likely wouldn't change until they were far closer to Mistral proper, and so he answered out loud. "Uh, how much do you know from my own memories… bleeding through?" he finished, still not happy about that.
"I've done my best to respect you privacy and avoid stray thoughts, but even so, I'm aware that despite Cinder Fall's best efforts, she herself was slain, Beacon withstood the disaster that befell it, and that knowledge of the Maidens has become public once again, but not much more."
"Well, that at least gives me somewhere to start," Oscar replied. Taking a moment to think, only barely noticing the gunfire outside that signified another grimm riddled with holes, he continued, "Well, it took a couple weeks for a newspaper with the full story to end up in my aunt's house, but after she read it, so did I. In Vale itself, that thief Roman Torchwick basically led a mafia militia like he was coming straight out of an anime to defend the city, and casualties were really low, considering that Vale reported a level 9 grimm attack. In Beacon, the White Fang under Adam Taurus attacking the school were routed by that robot girl from Atlas, and Pyrrha Nikos and her partner fought Cinder Fall at the top of your tower."
Oscar felt a chill down his spine that wasn't from himself. "What… what happened to them?" Ozpin asked, hesitating as Oscar felt the headmaster brace for the worst.
Raising his hands despite the pointlessness of the gesture, Oscar metaphorically backpedaled. "No, no! They both survived!" The relief from Ozpin was literally palpable. "In fact, that, uh… Jaune! That was his name! That Jaune guy used healing miracles taught by that Vyliria woman, and they didn't even have any lasting injuries when everything was said and done. But, uh, from what the interviews said, Cinder was apparently about to kill them both, only for Vyliria Avalon to literally come back from the dead to stop her."
"What?" Some part of Oscar felt a guilty schadenfreude at Ozpin mentally short-circuiting when he heard that. "Vyliria came back from the dead?" Ozpin reiterated.
"Yeah," Oscar replied. "Sounds like something straight out of fiction, but so were the Maidens and the magic she'd been teaching her friends in the months prior. She's some kinda eon-old animate corpse that doesn't age and has been cursed to always come back when she gets murdered. Apparently she kept quiet about that part not only because of how insane it would have been to hear that without proof, but also because she's literally been burnt at the stake because of what she was before, and was rather leery of repeating that. She said that while she spent the majority of her existence in something similar to a hibernation state deep underground, when she was last active, it was before the moon broke, back when gods were still walking around on Remnant… though, it apparently wasn't called that back then."
"I… I see," Ozpin said, and Oscar didn't need a mental link with the man to know just how deep in his own thoughts the ex-headmaster currently was.
"Yeah, it is kinda crazy. She's probably older than you, Ozpin. Vyliria came back, and she came back pissed. While she's been tight-lipped about the exact details of her fight against Cinder, she basically called a full-on thunderstorm sans rain right on top of Beacon, caused some kind of torrential explosion of teal light and fire, and murdered Cinder Fall so thoroughly that the only thing left of her was a severed ear that she took as a trophy. Metal as hell, if you ask me. But those Maiden powers went to a girl named Emerald who was working with Cinder."
He felt Ozpin sober up a bit at that last sentence. "Then our foes still have the power of the Fall Maiden, even if Beacon stands, and that power isn't in the intended vessel. I… thank you, Oscar."
"No problem. Any other questions?"
As it turned out, Ozpin did have quite a few more, and the conversation that followed made the hours fly by so fast that it was only as the light of the sun began to dim that Oscar noticed just how long he'd been having a conversation with the ghost in his mind.
(?)
The red phantom slipped into the second story window, much to the surprise of the occupant of the bedroom he found himself in. The woman in question picked up a lamppost from her bedside, throwing it at the interloper, who battered it aside with his shield, where it crashed into a wardrobe, before he vaulted over the bed and tackled his latest victim. His hand latched onto her face, slamming her skull into the floor to daze her, before he let the dark hand flare to life and begin to drain the unfortunate woman. She was dead in seconds, and drained not a moment longer after that. He let go of her head, huffing in annoyance at the evidence he'd left on the body, in the form of the puncture wounds from the spikes upon his gauntlets. A light in the corner of his vision drew his attention, revealing itself to be one of the electronic devices the denizens of the era seemed to carry so ubiquitously. His eyes flicked over the open page, reading a headline about a murder elsewhere in the city, and describing the state of the body. He pegged it as his own handiwork instantly.
He tsked. That was… aggravating. Notice of his actions would draw in warriors who would seek to stop him. He doubted any individual in this entire so-called "kingdom" would be able to best him, but enough numbers could and would lay him low. He would have to be more careful as he continued. Though it was something that left a bitter taste in his mouth, he would likely need to wait a few days until his next invasion, and even then, have it occur on the opposite side of the city in order to confuse any potential investigations. And perhaps he should also begin to look into the possibility of invading the city above. He may lack a great deal of information about the time and place he found himself in, but even to him the disparity between this "Atlas" and "Mantle" was obvious, and him causing havoc up there would likely draw a lot of attention away from the city on the ground.
Regardless, he would need to take care in the coming weeks. And he could start doing that by closing the window he came through, before using his black crystal to return to his physical body once more.
()
A/N: So uh, you know what felt dumb to me? That Ozpin never really showed guilt for essentially dragging a child into the war against Salem. Even if he didn't really have a choice, the man could have been a bit more contrite, for Gwyn's sake. Also dumb was the fact that Hazel was definitely in earshot but apparently didn't pick up Oscar's joke that would have rather clearly tipped the man off to the fact that he's Ozpin's next host. So I had Oscar think it. And let me tell you, if you think differentiating between Oscar's thoughts and Ozpin's thought-speech is gonna become very annoying very quickly, that's because it is. I mean, the only difference is that there's quotation marks on what Oz is saying. Uuuuuuugh.
A simple robbery goes to shit. Poor Roman… except, however much the man dislikes semblances, I think that in order to save his own life, and to make sure he gets back to Best Girl Neo, he might have just unlocked his.
I've very much been looking forward to this one. Ladies, gentleman, and whatever-the-Izalith-you-might-identify-as-that's-non-binary, I present to you what might possibly be the best semblance ever conceived for someone like Roman Torchwick: Skeleton Key, the ability to unlock any lock. Not that many combat applications, but I honestly challenge you to come up with a semblance better suited for Roman Torchwick.
As for how Roman almost immediately figured out he unlocked his semblance where Miltia wasn't quite sure until just this chapter; Roman is much more street-smart than her. He did something that should have been impossible, which meant there were two explanations: outright magic, which he doesn't have, or a semblance (which is technically also magic in this series), which he didn't have at that moment, but was certainly in a stressful enough situation that it could have unlocked. And so, he decided to test it rather than use physical means to open the exit door, and it turned out his hypothesis was correct.
As to Miltia's semblance, I present to you: Wallflower, a semblance that once activated, will make anyone who looks at her after it's activation simply… not notice her. Kinda like a background character. Hence the name. Oh, she's still there, perfectly visible, but in your mind, her presence simply isn't worth even a subconscious acknowledgement. And two of the limits to this semblance has already been discovered: If someone is looking at her when she activates it, they can still notice her afterwards. Like when someone points out a camouflage animal in a video, and then zooms out the video, or the animal moves. You may not have spotted them without them pointing it out, but once you know where they are, you can still keep track of them. The second being that if she specifically grabs the attention of someone while Wallflower is active, her semblance stops working on them.
Whitley is about to have a very bad day. Kamohtik is about to have a very good one. How this is going to play out will be something you'll have to wait for the next chapter to see.
Oscar makes stop working for a minute, and also gives him a slight briefing on the absolute shitstorm he was too dead to be aware of that happened at his school. And if he thinks that was bad, just wait until he meets Vyl in person.
And that last POV. Dear Gwyn, this is a plot that I've had cooking for a while, and I'm still got a bit more to build it up before it truly kicks off. Those of you who know Dark Souls lore have probably already figured out just who this is by now, as I've left several hints, and have just about gone as close as I can to naming him without actually doing so, but I'm still hoping a few people will be surprised when the eventual reveal happens. Suffice to say if you thought Roman was single-handedly causing anarchy, this SOB is gonna blow him out of the water, despite not even being connected to the main plot going on in Atlas.
Hope you're all having a good one, and I'll see you guys in the next chapter. Stay safe out there!
