Fandom Shattered Hourglass [IC] [CLOSED]

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Raven's bastard."

If Yang expected the general of Atlas to have any chill whatsoever in his retort there was none to be found, and when he did turn Yang had some fleeting sense of the sheer apathy and contempt this world seemed to have for her as he took her in with eyes decidedly lacking in empathy, pity, or really much of anything beyond a morbid curiosity. It wasn't surprising, and hardly unjust, but it was a strange feeling being the recipient of it rather than the one doling it out to her warped alter.

"And I suppose there's no point in pretending you're not Taiyang's anymore, either. Hmh. It might surprise you to learn I taught your father some of those moves. Competitive Atlesian boxing techniques don't typically occur naturally on backwater agrarian islands." He drew a replacement mag from his jacket holster, tone neither rising nor falling as he spoke to her, simply maintaining its same polished indifference. Then he snorted. "Gods, that team dynamic was a mess. You know I was in the next room when you were born? Your father had your entire future planned out, the three of you. I'd never seen him happier."

The magazine was slid into place with a satisfying click, the slide pulled back to lock it in place.

"He was the only one. Maybe you gathered that already. Did anyone ever tell you why?"

His features darkened, and whether this was all being spoken as part of some elaborate headgame or out of genuine desire to share the truth was as unclear as whether the tin man had any kind of heart at all.

"Because he was the only one who didn't know about Raven and Summer."

The gun came up, and this time it was joined by its twin, silver and black gunmetal gleaming in the hardlight's sterile hues.

"Like I said. A mess."

He opened fire, and this time Yang found the standard armor-piercing rounds from the black pistol being supplemented by hollow-tip explosives from the white.

The jab surprised Yang enough to get a snort out of her despite her simmering anger, as she tossed two ammo belts into the air and swung her hands to catch both of them around the wrists.

"Nah, that's not a surprise, dad wouldn't shut up about the first time he got one over on you. Gotta give him some credit though; us backwater hicks got our own style. Made a surprisingly good pairing." she continued, catching herself grinning slightly at the memory despite herself as she set her own feet back into stance and raised her fists.

"Just like mom told me he cried like a baby when he first held me. I'm Xiao Long stock, born and raised, but I'm not-"

She ducked low and to the side as the first pair of shots rang out, sliding just out of the sightline of the black pistol and catching the the other bullet on one gauntlet, only grimace as it blasted apart and scattered a violent spray of shrapnel against her aura. She gritted her teeth and pressed forward with the next step

"-Your stupid-"

she swung her prosthetic foward in time with the step, planting her feet hard so that the shot momentum didn't push her back and the slug tore out to knock the silver gun off its aim, then pointed her other fist underneath and clicked another shot while she loosened her footing so that it sent her spinning to the side at a full ninety degrees out of the way of the next volley. She planted her stance again, just in time for her her dear sister to come careening in from behind. a gout of flame and shattered stone rained from above, but off target, and whatever Ruby did to put ironwood off balance was rewarded as Yang took the opening for a sweet and simple step forward into an upward swing of her fist towards Ironwood's gut, hair aglow with the energy of the shot's she'd already taken to be delivered right back.

"DRAGON!"

------------------------------

ake's vantage point atop the screen didn't remain unspoiled for long, her feet only making contact for a few seconds before the blazing volley of meteorites that had been homing in on her ever since they'd been fired out of a waiting row of glyphs drilled into the projector screen with enough force to rattle it on its hinges.

When the smoke cleared Winter was already standing a few yards away, a glyph keeping her tethered as the gryphon roared where it was circling overhead.

"Forgive me for considering that something an assassin and saboteur might say?"

Despite the decidedly flat nature of the words and a combat style that was typically much more aggressive than her younger sister’s, something seemed to be staying her hand from taking the initiative, and her eyes flickered down to where Yang and Ironwood’s skirmish was raging once in uncertainty just in time to catch a glimpse of the swirling red vortex of roses about to slam into the general from behind like a missile, thrusting one rapier forward and conjuring a glyph loaded with fire dust to intercept.

Blake let out a sigh of relief from where she was now crouched on one of the lower rafters at the bottom of the screen; she'd dived to the side of the incoming meteor storm, catching just some of the heat on her aura as she swung Gambol out to snag onto the top of it, intending to put herself on one of the floating platforms, only to need to shift her momentum suddenly with her semblance when she saw Winter's intent; putting herself directly in line with the blast in an apparent act of self sacrifice only for her to suddenly turn to stone, the statue shattering but scattering the blast as Blake caught her footing in her current position. A pair of tugs loosened Gambol from the top then made it shoot once, sending it spinning back into Blake's waiting hand.

She didn't raise at Winter in turn.

"...I"

Why was Yang so angry? Did she know something about these two she didn't? Were they one of the differences in this world, if she accepted it really was a different one from her own, at least for now?

Winter.... didn't seem like she was.

"If you let us talk to Oz- I mean Salem, we'll surrender, or I'll try to get them to stop anyways." She tried to plead, a quiet earnestness to her tone. "Not even in person, just over scroll. I really don't want to hurt either of you, and if those three keep going then someone's going to be."

 

[Gus Gungus]

"...I"

Why was Yang so angry? Did she know something about these two she didn't? Were they one of the differences in this world, if she accepted it really was a different one from her own, at least for now?

Winter.... didn't seem like she was.

"If you let us talk to Oz- I mean Salem, we'll surrender, or I'll try to get them to stop anyways." She tried to plead, a quiet earnestness to her tone. "Not even in person, just over scroll. I really don't want to hurt either of you, and if those three keep going then someone's going to be."​

Winter whipped her gaze back around to refocus on Blake with a taut frown at the obvious attempt to appeal to whatever better nature she assumed to be present, frankly not nearly as concerned for the general’s physical wellbeing under the tandem assault as she was his present frame of mind. The ones in yellow and red came across as younger and younger every time she stole a glance at them, and as far as she was aware she was the one dealing with the priority target. A lesser soldier of lesser discipline might have given away how Blake’s plea was registering with her, but no such soldier was present; aside from another minor furrow of the brow as she tried once more to align the girl before her with the remorseless killer from their archives, Winter’s face was a blank canvas, the uniquely frosty bearing of an enlisted Schnee all there was to meet the faunus’ seeming listlessness.

Except there was one thing that separated Winter Schnee from Whitley and Weiss, on this world more than any other. A trait she had actively chosen to develop in her formative years, an almost rebellious opposition to her parents’—and far more palpably upsetting to her, her siblings’—apparent total lack of regard for it.

She was honest.

Consummate professional though she may have been, someone as honest as Winter was simply couldn’t mask her true feelings to the same extent, say, their kingdom’s esteemed councilwoman could. And her honest reaction to Blake squeezing a shot off from her weapon to whip it back into her waiting hand spoke of an entirely different reason for her reluctance to engage the faunus thus far. It spoke volumes to Blake more than most; it was something she’d been putting up with a majority of her life, little microreactions she’d get in the company of humans from time to time when she picked up something sharp a bit too quickly or flashed her teeth for something as harmless as a smile.

The specialist flinched.

“…If you wish to speak to Salem, that can be arranged,” she returned, just as quietly, except the mutedness of her tone was far more to do with what she was trying to keep out of it.

Blake didn’t have time to ponder that overmuch, as without warning she found herself pounced by the gryphon in the midst of a smooth, sweeping glide that carried it straight through the rafters she was perched in with calculated precision, twisting with and gnashing at her as they plunged for the arena floor.

“But it’ll be from the other side of a cell.”
​

The jab surprised Yang enough to get a snort out of her despite her simmering anger, as she tossed two ammo belts into the air and swung her hands to catch both of them around the wrists.

"Nah, that's not a surprise, dad wouldn't shut up about the first time he got one over on you. Gotta give him some credit though; us backwater hicks got our own style. Made a surprisingly good pairing." she continued, catching herself grinning slightly at the memory despite herself as she set her own feet back into stance and raised her fists.

"Just like mom told me he cried like a baby when he first held me. I'm Xiao Long stock, born and raised, but I'm not-"

She ducked low and to the side as the first pair of shots rang out, sliding just out of the sightline of the black pistol and catching the the other bullet on one gauntlet, only grimace as it blasted apart and scattered a violent spray of shrapnel against her aura. She gritted her teeth and pressed forward with the next step

"-Your stupid-"

she swung her prosthetic foward in time with the step, planting her feet hard so that the shot momentum didn't push her back and the slug tore out to knock the silver gun off its aim, then pointed her other fist underneath and clicked another shot while she loosened her footing so that it sent her spinning to the side at a full ninety degrees out of the way of the next volley. She planted her stance again, just in time for her her dear sister to come careening in from behind. a gout of flame and shattered stone rained from above, but off target, and whatever Ruby did to put ironwood off balance was rewarded as Yang took the opening for a sweet and simple step forward into an upward swing of her fist towards Ironwood's gut, hair aglow with the energy of the shot's she'd already taken to be delivered right back.

"DRAGON!"​

The shower of molten rock ended up getting sucked into Ruby’s vortex as well, and the whole lot careened into Ironwood at mach speeds from behind right as Yang stepped into her uppercut from the front, an incredibly satisfying sound like a church bell being struck with a sledgehammer supplanting her gunshot’s echo as it hit the general’s torso flush.

Ruby reformed next to her sister with Crescent fully protracted, an admittedly slightly cocky grin on her face for totally kicking one of the baddest dudes on Remnant’s butt so quickly despite her not being nearly as mad at nega-Ironwood as her sister seemed to be as she surveyed the smoking crater he ended up in.

“Hah, yeaaaaa! Call that one ‘enabler’. Get it? ‘Cause I enabled her to smoke you—“

It was almost a given that a hit like that from a Yang who’d taken some damage should’ve put anyone down for the count, so Ruby was caught completely off guard when a volatile beam of green energy dissipated the dust cloud before it finished settling, too late to get them both out of the blast’s splash radius this time as she shielded Yang from the worst of it and ended up sprawled all the way on the other side of the dais as a result.



If it hadn’t been already, the true extent of Atlas’ military leader’s hardiness became apparent in that moment as his form crystallised amidst the smoke. The top half of his uniform hung in tatters, his cybernetics visibly scuffed in the azure light, but he hadn’t even left his feet; twin three-inch grooves were gouged across the full breadth of the arena floor where he’d dug in his heels, his weapons reconfigured back into their cannon form as smoke wafted from its massive barrel.

“I remember your father’s embellishments all too well. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him; all that fancy footwork is useless compared to a good, solid stance.”

He calmly removed his pistols from the cannon’s compartment for them, letting it drop heavily to the floor this time as he stayed rooted to the spot, as if waiting.

“Here’s another tip: when an enemy is talking too much, assume they’re getting into position for something.”

She didn’t have to wait around to find out what that was as the gryphon smashed Blake into the floor barely a foot from him, and there was a calibrated efficiency to how quickly he drew, put the ivory handgun to her head, and squeezed off an explosive round at point blank.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Getting cold cocked by a dude he carried around the weight of killing for months didn’t place high on the list of stuff Mercury expected to happen to him today, but he was officially abolishing that list as of this morning. Maybe just sorta abolishing caring as a concept. He had very clearly fallen back into what appeared to be an emerging holding pattern of following along with the group while completely spaced out and not really paying attention to anything going on, which made him as susceptible as Neo to Roman and Tyrian’s shared bout of extreme bloodlust, rubbing his jaw with a look of mild disbelief as he picked himself up off his ass.

He guessed he had committed an act of unspeakable violence against Tyrian like, six hours ago from a certain POV. He wondered if he was successfully off the hook for that now, considering it never happened. Considering nothing in the last six months had ever happened. Considering they could no longer be sure with absolute confidence that anything had ever really happened, ever.

Nope, that was too much thinking. And just who the hell was he supposed to be without his absolute confidence?

“Sup girl. Better stop obsessing or Roman’s gonna think you’re in love with him again.”

Though probably meant as a joke, the roast lacked any of the usual heart that would’ve made it funny-mean and it kind of just came out mean. He placed his hands flat atop his head and breathed out, watching the elevator climb up the tower as Port continued to float off into the upper atmosphere. No way he was ending up like that.

“Also, guess Roman’s back. Wanna talk about it? No?”

He mashed the call button.

“Cool.”​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Right. to paraphrase what I said to miss Goodwitch, we know about Ozpin, the relics, the purpose of the maidens, and most of the other related nonsense."

He let that sit in the air for a moment to gauge Salem's reaction, definitely not stalling a little bit.

That was admittedly not what she expected to hear next, but the only shift in her expression was one of her eyebrows raising up in a questioning manner. Whatever surprise she felt, if any, was hidden behind her composed face. She had not even given any of that knowledge to the fall maiden currently in their midst. The maidens themselves were known as a fairy tale, but not their purpose...but the relics were not. Neither was...he. "How did you come by this information, then?"​

 

[MidwayLives]

Well, he'd gotten himself in.

He was pretty damn surprised he'd even managed to pull it off.

Did he feel bad about leaving Neo behind? Of course! But not enough to say he wasn't happy the constant hand-holding was over for the time being. Worrying was one thing, worrying TOO much was another. But, then to be fair to his best bud in the whole world, he DID die on her. Pretty shitbird thing of him to do.

"..."

Well, at least the music was nice.

The ride up was brief, the silence only broken by the elevator music up until doors slid open again, at which point Salem took the lead again, stepping into her office."Here we are--" Salem cut short midsentence as she caught sight of a most, most unexpected sight. That being Raven Branwen, curled up on the floor on the far side of her office by the window with an empty bottle by her side. A bottle she recognized as her own. And...were those tears?

"Huh."
A drunk bum. Sleeping it off in Salem's office. Most of the time it was considered polite behavior to just let them sleep off whatever life threw their way that night. Roman couldn't resist it here though. He gave Raven a soft nudge with his foot.

"Is she ok?"

Tyrian was more baffled by how quickly Roman had crossed the room to get over there. "The doors just opened..."

"Right. to paraphrase what I said to miss Goodwitch, we know about Ozpin, the relics, the purpose of the maidens, and most of the other related nonsense."

He let that sit in the air for a moment to gauge Salem's reaction, definitely not stalling a little bit.

Roman stood back and behind Arthur, his hands at his sides and his posture straight.
Messing around had it's place but now Arthur was getting right into it. Hopefully, this would be the explanation that Roman had been craving.

That was admittedly not what she expected to hear next, but the only shift in her expression was one of her eyebrows raising up in a questioning manner. Whatever surprise she felt, if any, was hidden behind her composed face. She had not even given any of that knowledge to the fall maiden currently in their midst. The maidens themselves were known as a fairy tale, but not their purpose...but the relics were not. Neither was...he. "How did you come by this information, then?"

"I could answer that, Miss Salem!" Roman called out as he took a step forward, gently patting Arthur on the shoulder and mouthing 'you're doing great' to him. "We saw it....in a dream. Well, dreams. I died, for real I mean. Pretty grisly affair from what I pieced together." Roman ran a hand over where his chest cavity was still, thankfully, in one piece. "I got better!"

Tyrian hooked the stinger of his tail under the back of Roman's jacket and slowly pulled him back.

"Sorry about that, Arthur please." Tyrian gestured.

"wasn't like I was lying... spoilsport..." Roman grumbled.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Getting cold cocked by a dude he carried around the weight of killing for months didn’t place high on the list of stuff Mercury expected to happen to him today, but he was officially abolishing that list as of this morning. Maybe just sorta abolishing caring as a concept. He had very clearly fallen back into what appeared to be an emerging holding pattern of following along with the group while completely spaced out and not really paying attention to anything going on, which made him as susceptible as Neo to Roman and Tyrian’s shared bout of extreme bloodlust, rubbing his jaw with a look of mild disbelief as he picked himself up off his ass.

He guessed he had committed an act of unspeakable violence against Tyrian like, six hours ago from a certain POV. He wondered if he was successfully off the hook for that now, considering it never happened. Considering nothing in the last six months had ever happened. Considering they could no longer be sure with absolute confidence that anything had ever really happened, ever.

Nope, that was too much thinking. And just who the hell was he supposed to be without his absolute confidence?

“Sup girl. Better stop obsessing or Roman’s gonna think you’re in love with him again.”

Though probably meant as a joke, the roast lacked any of the usual heart that would’ve made it funny-mean and it kind of just came out mean. He placed his hands flat atop his head and breathed out, watching the elevator climb up the tower as Port continued to float off into the upper atmosphere. No way he was ending up like that.

“Also, guess Roman’s back. Wanna talk about it? No?”

He mashed the call button.

“Cool.”​

Neo's hackles raised immediately at the mention, a heavy breath sucked in as she white knuckled Hush and lowered her raised arm. The comment and Roman being out of sight piledrived her back into reality; Saying that Roman Torchwick hadn't died was... wrong. Just like saying the last time they'd ever shared before it happened was her cracking his heart in half then refusing to look at him until it was too late would also be wrong. That all happened. Losing Cinder happened. All those thoughts she had, everything in Mistral, her being an idiot on the bridge, that all happened. While she didn't know it, Mercury could question all he wanted. It all happened. Roman had been torn apart by Yang Xiao Long, and had died in her arms.

He just wasn't dead anymore.

She wished knowing where that left them was as simple as if felt like it was supposed to. She watched the light at the top of the elevator make its way down with a hurt and angry frown, and all of a sudden Mercury slammed into the elevator doors with an umbrella shaft swung into his neck. It left his head tilted at an odd angle as he slid down it in total silence, not breathing.

Obviously, because the real Mercury was still standing to the right of the grisly scene, Neo's middle finger becoming unobscured behind the rapidly dissolving illusion as she kept her eyes focused on the lights reaching their floor

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Winter whipped her gaze back around to refocus on Blake with a taut frown at the obvious attempt to appeal to whatever better nature she assumed to be present, frankly not nearly as concerned for the general’s physical wellbeing under the tandem assault as she was his present frame of mind. The ones in yellow and red came across as younger and younger every time she stole a glance at them, and as far as she was aware she was the one dealing with the priority target. A lesser soldier of lesser discipline might have given away how Blake’s plea was registering with her, but no such soldier was present; aside from another minor furrow of the brow as she tried once more to align the girl before her with the remorseless killer from their archives, Winter’s face was a blank canvas, the uniquely frosty bearing of an enlisted Schnee all there was to meet the faunus’ seeming listlessness.

Except there was one thing that separated Winter Schnee from Whitley and Weiss, on this world more than any other. A trait she had actively chosen to develop in her formative years, an almost rebellious opposition to her parents’—and far more palpably upsetting to her, her siblings’—apparent total lack of regard for it.

She was honest.

Consummate professional though she may have been, someone as honest as Winter was simply couldn’t mask her true feelings to the same extent, say, their kingdom’s esteemed councilwoman could. And her honest reaction to Blake squeezing a shot off from her weapon to whip it back into her waiting hand spoke of an entirely different reason for her reluctance to engage the faunus thus far. It spoke volumes to Blake more than most; it was something she’d been putting up with a majority of her life, little microreactions she’d get in the company of humans from time to time when she picked up something sharp a bit too quickly or flashed her teeth for something as harmless as a smile.

The specialist flinched.

“…If you wish to speak to Salem, that can be arranged,” she returned, just as quietly, except the mutedness of her tone was far more to do with what she was trying to keep out of it.

Blake didn’t have time to ponder that overmuch, as without warning she found herself pounced by the gryphon in the midst of a smooth, sweeping glide that carried it straight through the rafters she was perched in with calculated precision, twisting with and gnashing at her as they plunged for the arena floor.

“But it’ll be from the other side of a cell.”

Winter was honest. Blake wasn't.

Not maliciously so. But so much of her life had been running from who she was, and she certainly wasn't going to show others what she hadn't wanted to confront herself. The hand had never bothered with those sort of defense mechanisms; she wore her blood-spattered heart on her sleeve, caged in her veneer of discipline and anger, but there nonetheless. This Blake lied. She kept smiling in the face of those teeth, pretended she didn't notice the looks when she grabbed a knife in the cafeteria, and she practically instinctually didn't react when Winter flinched.

Winter hadn't been like this around her before. If this other her existed, what exactly had she done?

But while Blake hadn't been honest to herself before, she was trying more these days, and the sort of quiet earnestness continued in her tone as she started to answer Winter's initial statement, a bit of the tension releasing from her shoulders.

"Thats all we w- GHK"

The shower of molten rock ended up getting sucked into Ruby’s vortex as well, and the whole lot careened into Ironwood at mach speeds from behind right as Yang stepped into her uppercut from the front, an incredibly satisfying sound like a church bell being struck with a sledgehammer supplanting her gunshot’s echo as it hit the general’s torso flush.

Ruby reformed next to her sister with Crescent fully protracted, an admittedly slightly cocky grin on her face for totally kicking one of the baddest dudes on Remnant’s butt so quickly despite her not being nearly as mad at nega-Ironwood as her sister seemed to be as she surveyed the smoking crater he ended up in.

“Hah, yeaaaaa! Call that one ‘enabler’. Get it? ‘Cause I enabled her to smoke you—“

It was almost a given that a hit like that from a Yang who’d taken some damage should’ve put anyone down for the count, so Ruby was caught completely off guard when a volatile beam of green energy dissipated the dust cloud before it finished settling, too late to get them both out of the blast’s splash radius this time as she shielded Yang from the worst of it and ended up sprawled all the way on the other side of the dais as a result.

Despite the anger still roiling under the skin, a wince and a small, bemused grin followed the start of Ruby's comment, a reply on her lips about a request to call that basically anything else that died in favor of a surprise grunt as her sister slammed into her side.

"RUBY!" She called out in distress as she saw her skid away, before she turned to Ironwood with a borderline feral growl. "You piece of SHIT!"

If it hadn’t been already, the true extent of Atlas’ military leader’s hardiness became apparent in that moment as his form crystallised amidst the smoke. The top half of his uniform hung in tatters, his cybernetics visibly scuffed in the azure light, but he hadn’t even left his feet; twin three-inch grooves were gouged across the full breadth of the arena floor where he’d dug in his heels, his weapons reconfigured back into their cannon form as smoke wafted from its massive barrel.

“I remember your father’s embellishments all too well. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him; all that fancy footwork is useless compared to a good, solid stance.”

He calmly removed his pistols from the cannon’s compartment for them, letting it drop heavily to the floor this time as he stayed rooted to the spot, as if waiting.

“Here’s another tip: when an enemy is talking too much, assume they’re getting into position for something.”

She didn’t have to wait around to find out what that was as the gryphon smashed Blake into the floor barely a foot from him, and there was a calibrated efficiency to how quickly he drew, put the ivory handgun to her head, and squeezed off an explosive round at point blank.

Yang hadn't waited. Her eyes were red, her hair was aflame, and whatever keen footwork she'd been practicing a few moments before was gone in favor of a wild sprint. What did change was her expression, twisting from wild fury into desperate fear as Blake impacted the ground beneath them with her aura flaring dangerously bright, and suddenly there was something more important that vengeance for her baby sister.

A pair of shots rang out a not even a second before Ironwood's, and a second later there was a thud.

Yang's prosethetic rolled across the arena floor, twitching erratically and with a gaping hole blasted through it, dust and exposed wiring spilling across the arena floor.

A moment after that, Yang crashed into the gryphon's back like a cannon ball with a wordless scream, intending to obliterate it from existence before she planted her stance and swung straight for Ironwood's face, as a still stunned Blake tried to push herself to her own feet.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"I could answer that, Miss Salem!" Roman called out as he took a step forward, gently patting Arthur on the shoulder and mouthing 'you're doing great' to him. "We saw it....in a dream. Well, dreams. I died, for real I mean. Pretty grisly affair from what I pieced together." Roman ran a hand over where his chest cavity was still, thankfully, in one piece. "I got better!"

Tyrian hooked the stinger of his tail under the back of Roman's jacket and slowly pulled him back.

"Sorry about that, Arthur please." Tyrian gestured.

"wasn't like I was lying... spoilsport..." Roman grumbled.

"All of thats wrong" Watts said with a snap of irritation, before he glanced back at the elevator, and cleared his throat.

"Mostly. But there were no dreams involved. However, the explanation is going to sound equally stupid, so I'm going to have to ask for a bit of grace and trust, at least until she wakes up" He continued with a gesture over to Raven's borderline corpse, hoping he hadn't entirely imagined a different haircut and clothes.

He took a deep breath.

released it.

rubbed at the side of his temple as he raised his arm.

lowered it.

Perhaps a lead in to it all.

"You've met the god of light before, correct? Back when Ozpin threw his little rebellion slash hissy fit and you got sent back down to clean up the mess as it were. What could I say to convince you we've also... perhaps... met him?"

Perhaps that was shit lead in and it was more just ripping the bandaid off.

 

[MidwayLives]

All of thats wrong" Watts said with a snap of irritation, before he glanced back at the elevator, and cleared his throat.

"Mostly. But there were no dreams involved. However, the explanation is going to sound equally stupid, so I'm going to have to ask for a bit of grace and trust, at least until she wakes up" He continued with a gesture over to Raven's borderline corpse, hoping he hadn't entirely imagined a different haircut and clothes.

Roman and Tyrian deigned to mostly let Arthur handle it from here on out.

Much to Roman's dismay, however.

"So, hey, you were there when I, uh, died, right?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"Total bloodbath."

"Damn."

"I couldn't pay too much attention."

Roman reached out and gently grasped Tyrian's shoulder. "Hey, all of this is still crazy to me. Nobody can blame you for being a little tensed up and freaked out. Not after seeing something like that."

"Well, I mean, I'd stabbed myself around the same time."

"Oh."

Tyrian nodded, said nothing more of it, and continued listening to Arthur.

 

[MyrtenRose]

A drunk bum. Sleeping it off in Salem's office. Most of the time it was considered polite behavior to just let them sleep off whatever life threw their way that night. Roman couldn't resist it here though. He gave Raven a soft nudge with his foot.

"Is she ok?"

Tyrian was more baffled by how quickly Roman had crossed the room to get over there. "The doors just opened..."

Having someone come sprinting out of the elevator to nudge the drunk Raven on the opposite end of the room was yet another thing she could put down in the list of unexpected occurrences this morning. However, it was not where her focus was at present, she decided. It could be addressed afterwards. "Leave her be."​

"I could answer that, Miss Salem!" Roman called out as he took a step forward, gently patting Arthur on the shoulder and mouthing 'you're doing great' to him. "We saw it....in a dream. Well, dreams. I died, for real I mean. Pretty grisly affair from what I pieced together." Roman ran a hand over where his chest cavity was still, thankfully, in one piece. "I got better!"

Tyrian hooked the stinger of his tail under the back of Roman's jacket and slowly pulled him back.

"Sorry about that, Arthur please." Tyrian gestured.

"wasn't like I was lying... spoilsport..." Roman grumbled.

......A dream. A dead man's dream. Well, a formerly dead man's dream. Her eyes narrowed slightly and her gaze flickered over to Glynda briefly, though it was hard to read what that glance was for. Salem said nothing yet, however. She had given them the chance to explain what was so important they had to go to all this trouble to get to her immediately, so she was simply listening.​

"All of thats wrong" Watts said with a snap of irritation, before he glanced back at the elevator, and cleared his throat.

"Mostly. But there were no dreams involved. However, the explanation is going to sound equally stupid, so I'm going to have to ask for a bit of grace and trust, at least until she wakes up" He continued with a gesture over to Raven's borderline corpse, hoping he hadn't entirely imagined a different haircut and clothes.

He took a deep breath.

released it.

rubbed at the side of his temple as he raised his arm.

lowered it.

Perhaps a lead in to it all.

"You've met the god of light before, correct? Back when Ozpin threw his little rebellion slash hissy fit and you got sent back down to clean up the mess as it were. What could I say to convince you we've also... perhaps... met him?"

Perhaps that was shit lead in and it was more just ripping the bandaid off.

At least until she was asked questions directly. She was most uncertain where they had gotten all this knowledge they shouldn't have possessed. Haven's relic was still behind it's door, the spring maiden had been lost for years. That was out. These were things she had not even told to some in her inner circle. It boggled her how they could know such details...yet at the same time the doubt was clear on her face now. It was not possible what they were saying. Formerly dead men, meeting the god of light. No, he'd left, thousands and thousands of years ago, and they both had made it evident they would not return until those certain conditions were met.

She stared at Arthur directly. "Indeed. What can you say?"​

Roman and Tyrian deigned to mostly let Arthur handle it from here on out.

Much to Roman's dismay, however.

"So, hey, you were there when I, uh, died, right?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"Total bloodbath."

"Damn."

"I couldn't pay too much attention."

Roman reached out and gently grasped Tyrian's shoulder. "Hey, all of this is still crazy to me. Nobody can blame you for being a little tensed up and freaked out. Not after seeing something like that."

"Well, I mean, I'd stabbed myself around the same time."

"Oh."

Tyrian nodded, said nothing more of it, and continued listening to Arthur.

"Perhaps you might want to start with an explanation for the certainty you all seem to speak of, that the very much still living Roman had been dead. Or why Tyrian apparently stabbed himself?"​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Perhaps you might want to start with an explanation for the certainty you all seem to speak of, that the very much still living Roman had been dead. Or why Tyrian apparently stabbed himself?"

"I'd like to know too if I'm being honest."

"Psychotic break, m'am." Tyrian added on, respectfully.

 

[Indolent]

Hazel was more rhinoceros than man as he barrelled through the corridors of the school, any students unfortunate enough to impede his massive frame little more than bowling pins in his path. His mission was simple, his motives as pure as such things came, and the adrenaline pumping through his mighty veins may as well have been rocket fuel.

The duo who came round the bend to block his progress on the final turn into the corridor housing Gretchen’s team, however, could not accurately be referred as ‘students’. At least, not with the knowledge he in particular could lay claim to.

It was at this point that Hazel encountered the first major oddity of the brave new world he found himself in, aside from the existence of that world itself. The man who stood before him was familiar, and yet his presence here was not; in his heart Hazel knew it should not have been, that Lie Ren’s systematic thrashing of the powerhouse on a certain train several months prior to their school year’s tragic end should have precluded him from standing where he now stood. He could recall it vividly, Valkyrie’s hired enforcer’s face as stoic and implacable as the dawn as he ducked and weaved around his every strike, landing three for each one Hazel failed to.

Yet disquietingly, he could now too recall a slightly different version of those same events, and indeed a slightly different version of Lie Ren. The broad strokes remained the same, yet for as much as his heart and soul screamed otherwise his memory now drew an image of the assassin on the train as a man who donned a simple yet effective mask when conducting business for his employer; a mask that spoke only in haiku for as long as it was worn, keeping the man beneath shrouded in mystery.

He smiled, an image every bit as mild as the rest of him.

“You look harried, friend. I daresay, emotional. Careful where you step.”

It was an innocent enough remark on the surface, yet there was no mistaking the air of menace behind it; made all the more apparent by the far less contradictory form of Pyrrha Nikos stepping around the corner behind him.

Indolent​

"He's right you know? Wouldn't want you making a blunder and falling, now would we?" Another voice chimed in as a hand gently reached out to place itself upon the youth's shoulder as a friendly smile was also shot his way.
View attachment 1095894

"You could get hurt."

In the world that the girls currently being beset upon by Ironwood called home, Pyrrha Nikos was more or less a hero. One who'd tried and given everything to stop scoundrels like Cinder Fall from achieving their goals. The same couldn't be said for the smiling warrior standing before Hazel. She'd still trained in Argus, loathe as she was to bring it up in idle conversation, she DID still have her face put across cereal boxes. But this wasn't a friend. This was a woman who'd fight you and savor every minute of it. The thrill, the euphoric rush that ebbed and flowed during the heat of battle. It was helped fuel her drive to keep on improving, to keep going.

Even if that meant stepping over those trying to genuinely do good.

But, she'd do it with a friendly demeanor all the while and, really, didn't that make up for it?

Indolent Gus Gungus

The persistence Hazel showed in his unflagging march for Gretchen's dormitory was iconic. Almost as much as his endurance he'd brought to bear in the many situations which called for it. The trouble was, it tended to blunt his situational awareness to a tunnel vision. Which presented as apathy to those caught in his path, never mind the property damage.

He would later submit a loquaciously written apology, which Professor Peter Port might appreciate.

Priorities took a hard shift, the apology evaporating into the ether, with Hazel's consuming focus akin to a singularity jarred by the figure that emerged from the corner. The 'dream', the interspersing memories, and loathe as he was to admit Ren's observation, his emotional state, were effective in doing that.

"You're not supposed to be here." It was direct a statement as could be, his jaws clenching yet it failed to disguise his confusion. It was a disorienting mix that included a hazy epiphany. This was no mere coincidence, in this new brave world. That was an impossibility.

It was a personal failing he carried when Ren defeated him months ago, on the train. It disturbed him he couldn't stop a threat. And it stood before him, outright taunting him. A veneer of the assassin's mask from the memory made knowledge seemed to materialize over Ren's face, a hazy figment which seemed real. A hitched breath led to a forward step. At least it would have if it hadn't been for the famed gladiator attempting to discourage him.

Contempt hardly scratched the surface for what he felt toward Pyrrha.

She had mutilated his teammate with an even-tempered glee so far departed from a person of a sound mind, in a bid to encourage Cinder's growth. Something to that effect. Whatever it was, it resulted in the loss of her eye, among many other complications.

Gretchen was the stopping impetus that saw Hazel barely shunt the desire to exact retaliation immediately, his demand grinding out in a low tone riddled with rancor.

"Where. Is. My. Sister? Why... are... you here?"

Then it was clear he hardly shunted enough to really open a dialogue. His bare leniency dissipated as muscles like hausers uncoiled in place from the colossus's taut stance. His right arm snapping out suddenly in a swipe for Pyrrha to create space for himself followed by a devastating stomp that saw the hallway's flooring splintering and cratering into a shower of debris.

A feral cry and Ren was on the receiving end of a whole body lunge, a low tackle with the arms angled in a way that clearly signaled his intent to grapple. A feint in of itself as Hazel sought to bypass these two, his arms exploding upwards if he managed to near Ren enough such to blow him aside, as he continued his stampeding towards his sister's room, swinging around the corner into the corridor before he bellowed.

"GRETCHEN, RUN!"

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Perhaps you might want to start with an explanation for the certainty you all seem to speak of, that the very much still living Roman had been dead. Or why Tyrian apparently stabbed himself?"​

He took another deep breath and glanced over to Cinder, only to snort and turn back the other way. She certainly wasn't going to really care how stupid they sounded to their school faculty; he supposed he didn't either, even if it was less the blow to their reputation he was concerned about than it was getting laughed out of the office in disbelief or branded as Ozpin's little lackeys themselves. Nothing to be done however, except rip the rest of that bandage off

"We know all of this with such certainty because you told us yourself. Or rather a version of you, from another timeline. Very.... different versions of a few people from a third timeline had been sent here to warn us about a terrible attack on Beacon during the Vytal festival by the brothers themselves. Apparently our joint efforts in everything that came after were a wash, because tall bright and deery told us we had to take another swing at it and we went from in varying states of disarray in a Vacuoan cavern trying to find the staff of creation after its departure from Atlas to sprawled out in our dorm rooms, plus one very alive friend who'd been very much not that after our visit to Haven." He said with a sideways glance to Roman.

"...As I said, I'm aware how insane all this must sound, and were I you I'd be more suspicious of the work of some semblance or other than the sudden reintervention of the absentee gods after however many years. Which is why we need to talk to her" He said as he jerked his head once again towards the comatose Branwen "-because unless I'm mistaken that's the former leader of the Branwen Bandit tribe turned former spring maiden, and not your favorite henchwoman"

 

[Gus Gungus]

Neo's hackles raised immediately at the mention, a heavy breath sucked in as she white knuckled Hush and lowered her raised arm. The comment and Roman being out of sight piledrived her back into reality; Saying that Roman Torchwick hadn't died was... wrong. Just like saying the last time they'd ever shared before it happened was her cracking his heart in half then refusing to look at him until it was too late would also be wrong. That all happened. Losing Cinder happened. All those thoughts she had, everything in Mistral, her being an idiot on the bridge, that all happened. While she didn't know it, Mercury could question all he wanted. It all happened. Roman had been torn apart by Yang Xiao Long, and had died in her arms.

He just wasn't dead anymore.

She wished knowing where that left them was as simple as if felt like it was supposed to. She watched the light at the top of the elevator make its way down with a hurt and angry frown, and all of a sudden Mercury slammed into the elevator doors with an umbrella shaft swung into his neck. It left his head tilted at an odd angle as he slid down it in total silence, not breathing.

Obviously, because the real Mercury was still standing to the right of the grisly scene, Neo's middle finger becoming unobscured behind the rapidly dissolving illusion as she kept her eyes focused on the lights reaching their floor​

Mercury noticed the effect his words had on Neo; there was simply no way he couldn't have. Reading the most minute of cues in peoples' body language was chief among a diverse portfolio of skills his mind and body had sharpened to compensate for a certain lacking in his soul, and Neo was practically his opposite number in that regard, having developed her own highly animated mode of language to work around the barriers between herself and more conventional self-expression. Maybe that was why they had always been able to understand each other pretty well, irrespective of their mutual difficulties in communicating with others; and why they were about as effective a tandem as anyone in their team (or year, for that matter) when it came to the battlefield, even if their respective partners were more complementary to their skills as part of a quartet.

So it wasn't that he didn't notice the tension flood her shoulders at his caustic choice of words, or her knuckles wrap around Hush and drain of color, or the breath catch in her throat.

He just didn't seem to care.

It was far from the first time he had hallucinated himself dead since he'd ended up locked inside a codependent pity party with two crazy chicks, and the first time he had hallucinated it was far from the first time someone made him think it. He truly was worlds apart from Neo as he watched himself slide down against the doors with nary a flinch, the sight failing to provoke so much as the twitch of a muscle aside from the long, hard microscope of a side-eye he held her under for a few seconds before returning his gaze to the sliding doors. Whatever kind of way he was feeling about it was completely divorced from his outside presentation as he stood firmly with arms crossed, his posture a closed book bound with a padlock. Old habits died hard.

Just like Roman.

It was a while before he dignified it with a response.

"Yeah, yeah. Dude caught feelings. Now he finally has the chance to get over it, and you get to stop being hysterical about it."

He sniffed, watching as the elevator dial ticked down steadily from five. With how awkward the wait at ground level had shook out, he couldn't help but think about how unbearable the ascent was going to be.

"Or are you still hung up on this pathetic 'I have nothing left to live for' routine? No offense, but I think we all lost track a while ago."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"I'd like to know too if I'm being honest."

"Psychotic break, m'am." Tyrian added on, respectfully.

He took another deep breath and glanced over to Cinder, only to snort and turn back the other way. She certainly wasn't going to really care how stupid they sounded to their school faculty; he supposed he didn't either, even if it was less the blow to their reputation he was concerned about than it was getting laughed out of the office in disbelief or branded as Ozpin's little lackeys themselves. Nothing to be done however, except rip the rest of that bandage off

"We know all of this with such certainty because you told us yourself. Or rather a version of you, from another timeline. Very.... different versions of a few people from a third timeline had been sent here to warn us about a terrible attack on Beacon during the Vytal festival by the brothers themselves. Apparently our joint efforts in everything that came after were a wash, because tall bright and deery told us we had to take another swing at it and we went from in varying states of disarray in a Vacuoan cavern trying to find the staff of creation after its departure from Atlas to sprawled out in our dorm rooms, plus one very alive friend who'd been very much not that after our visit to Haven." He said with a sideways glance to Roman.

"...As I said, I'm aware how insane all this must sound, and were I you I'd be more suspicious of the work of some semblance or other than the sudden reintervention of the absentee gods after however many years. Which is why we need to talk to her" He said as he jerked his head once again towards the comatose Branwen "-because unless I'm mistaken that's the former leader of the Branwen Bandit tribe turned former spring maiden, and not your favorite henchwoman"

"Right. Psychotic breaks, not simply another timeline but two, one of which had people emerge into ours to prevent an attack on this institution, only for everything to be undone because someone wasn't pleased, resulting in you all being here now to share this information. Not only that, but you believe Raven had once taken the position currently held by her...wayward brother somewhere in the heart of Mistral and that she was also once the spring maiden." The long lost spring maiden, that she left unsaid. Salem scrutinized the unconscious drunk huntress with keen eyes. "Seeing as that is evidently not Qrow in an unflattering disguise, I must say I believe you are mistaken." The headmistress sighed, followed nigh simultaneously by her pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Students, I confess I am taken aback. I do not know if this is some kind of joke in your minds, or some temporary loss of mental clarity brought on all of you by some outside influence, or something else entirely, but I expected better from you. Today is a busy day, and I have things to which I must attend, and I have heard enough. When the elevator gets back up here, you all shall take it back down, without miss Branwen in tow. Is that underst--"

Cinder had been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time, letting her team leader do his job and take the lead on this, but she took this moment to open her mouth and interrupt. "Salem, please, we all know how this sounds, but you gotta believe me, it's the truth!!" She practically screamed the last part. "We're not tryin' to--"

Salem took her turn to interrupt. "Miss Fall, that is enough. As soon as the elevator is here, you will either go on your own, or Glynda shall ensure it. Either way, I will attend to you all later." She glanced between every single one of them, with her stare lingering on Tyrian the longest. "Is that understood?" She repeated herself, uninterrupted this time. Cinder said nothing but turned to Arthur with a frustrated expression, trying to share a look with him. He was not only team leader but he was the smartest one of the group, even if that did get her butting heads with him more often than not. If there was anything to say to stop them from getting kicked out.....well, she hoped he knew.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"You're not supposed to be here." It was direct a statement as could be, his jaws clenching yet it failed to disguise his confusion. It was a disorienting mix that included a hazy epiphany. This was no mere coincidence, in this new brave world. That was an impossibility.​

"And yet."

The enigma called Lie Ren didn't rise to his quarry's enmity or denial as he stood there with hands behind back, perfectly cordial; but his smile, as tranquil as the dawn rising in his stead, widened.

​

It was a personal failing he carried when Ren defeated him months ago, on the train. It disturbed him he couldn't stop a threat. And it stood before him, outright taunting him. A veneer of the assassin's mask from the memory made knowledge seemed to materialize over Ren's face, a hazy figment which seemed real. A hitched breath led to a forward step. At least it would have if it hadn't been for the famed gladiator attempting to discourage him.

Contempt hardly scratched the surface for what he felt toward Pyrrha.

She had mutilated his teammate with an even-tempered glee so far departed from a person of a sound mind, in a bid to encourage Cinder's growth. Something to that effect. Whatever it was, it resulted in the loss of her eye, among many other complications.

Gretchen was the stopping impetus that saw Hazel barely shunt the desire to exact retaliation immediately, his demand grinding out in a low tone riddled with rancor.

"Where. Is. My. Sister? Why... are... you here?"​

And widened.

"Why else? To make sure she's sleeping soundly."

His left foot slid back in perfect time with Hazel's right sliding forward, a subtle, unnerving motion leaving the positioning of their bodies mirrored, though Valkyrie's man had yet to unclasp his arms from behind him. So practiced was the movement in nature, yet so fluid, so casual in its execution, that it called to mind both snake and snake charmer; the duality of man gently weaving, plying his art, and beast, coiling, following along, mesmerized yet poised at any moment to strike.

​

Then it was clear he hardly shunted enough to really open a dialogue. His bare leniency dissipated as muscles like hausers uncoiled in place from the colossus's taut stance. His right arm snapping out suddenly in a swipe for Pyrrha to create space for himself followed by a devastating stomp that saw the hallway's flooring splintering and cratering into a shower of debris.

A feral cry and Ren was on the receiving end of a whole body lunge, a low tackle with the arms angled in a way that clearly signaled his intent to grapple. A feint in of itself as Hazel sought to bypass these two, his arms exploding upwards if he managed to near Ren enough such to blow him aside, as he continued his stampeding towards his sister's room, swinging around the corner into the corridor before he bellowed.

"GRETCHEN, RUN!"​

Dawn broke. The viper struck. And with it the grin across the executioner's face; measured and reserved, much like his bearing. Placid, untroubled; but make no mistake.

Delighted.



He moved when Hazel did, reacting to his offensive with such spontaneity it was as though he saw the storm gather over the man mountain's heart before he did, saw the rage that fueled his violence, the love that propelled his rage. The assassin saw it all, saw them bleed into one other with the clarity a painter saw watercolors bleed red and pink across his canvas. It spurred a jarringly sudden sideways motion synchronized with Hazel's forward one as he lurched for the wall, boot already planted against its surface when the goliath swung for Pyrrha, pushing off to dash across the ceiling's surface as his stomp practically took out the entire section of the floor they were standing on, sending segments of corridor crashing into the one below as a choir of startled outcries harmonized their response.

Ren pushed off the opposite wall on his descent, alighting perfectly on the furthest edge of the floor still structurally sound enough to support him, but he didn't stop moving there. As Hazel continued his charge, leaping across the chasm of his own making, Ren stayed in perpetual motion; if a throwback combatant like one James Ironwood took issue with a certain kickboxer's idea of a stance, Ren's would have given him conniptions. Where Yang Xiao Long practiced her own kind of stick-and-move approach, stayed light on her toes, switched stances as appropriate, she still kept to a certain axis of motion, followed a degree of logic that made sense.

Ren was moving almost like he was drunk. His stance never settled in one place, feet never planting the way any kind of competitive boxer or kickboxer's would; this was a different set of traditions, older, developed over generations far from the shining lights of Atlas' sports arenas or the corn-fed donnybrooks of an isle like Patch. Lie Ren's stance was so fluid it was as though his limbs moved through water, yet with all the elegance and speed of a man performing some sort of choreographed dance. Every forward step Hazel took was mirrored by a backwards one of his own, his grabs and swings yielding nothing but air as Ren arched and swerved around them, less warrior in the throes of combat and more ancient oak yielding to hurricane gales.

His final push off the front foot sent him sliding the rest of the way back across the corridor, ending with form perfectly framed by Gretchen's door, and only then did his feet finally stop moving.

And only then did his hands finally emerge from behind his back.

His hands danced and feet set in something finally resembling some form of traditional stance, and his smile never wavered as one leg's heel climbed gingerly up to rest atop the other's knee, adopting the bearing of the crane as he continued in his unbothered tones.

"Would you like to see?"​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Right. Psychotic breaks, not simply another timeline but two, one of which had people emerge into ours to prevent an attack on this institution, only for everything to be undone because someone wasn't pleased, resulting in you all being here now to share this information. Not only that, but you believe Raven had once taken the position currently held by her...wayward brother somewhere in the heart of Mistral and that she was also once the spring maiden." The long lost spring maiden, that she left unsaid. Salem scrutinized the unconscious drunk huntress with keen eyes. "Seeing as that is evidently not Qrow in an unflattering disguise, I must say I believe you are mistaken." The headmistress sighed, followed nigh simultaneously by her pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Students, I confess I am taken aback. I do not know if this is some kind of joke in your minds, or some temporary loss of mental clarity brought on all of you by some outside influence, or something else entirely, but I expected better from you. Today is a busy day, and I have things to which I must attend, and I have heard enough. When the elevator gets back up here, you all shall take it back down, without miss Branwen in tow. Is that underst--"

Cinder had been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time, letting her team leader do his job and take the lead on this, but she took this moment to open her mouth and interrupt. "Salem, please, we all know how this sounds, but you gotta believe me, it's the truth!!" She practically screamed the last part. "We're not tryin' to--"

Salem took her turn to interrupt. "Miss Fall, that is enough. As soon as the elevator is here, you will either go on your own, or Glynda shall ensure it. Either way, I will attend to you all later." She glanced between every single one of them, with her stare lingering on Tyrian the longest. "Is that understood?" She repeated herself, uninterrupted this time. Cinder said nothing but turned to Arthur with a frustrated expression, trying to share a look with him. He was not only team leader but he was the smartest one of the group, even if that did get her butting heads with him more often than not. If there was anything to say to stop them from getting kicked out.....well, she hoped he knew.​

Well, he supposed that was to be expected, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with a hum before he clasped his hands behind his back.

Til the elevator was here. Got it.

"You're misunderstanding, headmistress." he said, holding his gaze steady as he waited to catch her attention again. "That Raven didn't take her brother's position; THAT Qrow is still out there, drinking himself silly presumably along with his pet maiden Vernal after they killed the former one. Another secret we know, one I'm not even sure you're supposed to know at this point" he continued, his tone hardening somewhat.

"There are others. You could quiz us if you like. Name of the spirit in the lamp of knowledge. The highest power in Atlas that Ozpin has managed to squeeze under his thumb. Which two of your headmasters crack under the pressure and betray you. How many daughters you two had in your weird little post resurrection honey moon. Because forgive me if a single flustered 'no' isn't going to dissuade us, but a dear friend of mine gets eviscerated in front of the world in your festival's finals. And irregardless of what has or hasn't changed this go around, I am not letting that happen again."

-------------------------------------------------

Mercury noticed the effect his words had on Neo; there was simply no way he couldn't have. Reading the most minute of cues in peoples' body language was chief among a diverse portfolio of skills his mind and body had sharpened to compensate for a certain lacking in his soul, and Neo was practically his opposite number in that regard, having developed her own highly animated mode of language to work around the barriers between herself and more conventional self-expression. Maybe that was why they had always been able to understand each other pretty well, irrespective of their mutual difficulties in communicating with others; and why they were about as effective a tandem as anyone in their team (or year, for that matter) when it came to the battlefield, even if their respective partners were more complementary to their skills as part of a quartet.

So it wasn't that he didn't notice the tension flood her shoulders at his caustic choice of words, or her knuckles wrap around Hush and drain of color, or the breath catch in her throat.

He just didn't seem to care.

It was far from the first time he had hallucinated himself dead since he'd ended up locked inside a codependent pity party with two crazy chicks, and the first time he had hallucinated it was far from the first time someone made him think it. He truly was worlds apart from Neo as he watched himself slide down against the doors with nary a flinch, the sight failing to provoke so much as the twitch of a muscle aside from the long, hard microscope of a side-eye he held her under for a few seconds before returning his gaze to the sliding doors. Whatever kind of way he was feeling about it was completely divorced from his outside presentation as he stood firmly with arms crossed, his posture a closed book bound with a padlock. Old habits died hard.

Just like Roman.

It was a while before he dignified it with a response.

"Yeah, yeah. Dude caught feelings. Now he finally has the chance to get over it, and you get to stop being hysterical about it."

He sniffed, watching as the elevator dial ticked down steadily from five. With how awkward the wait at ground level had shook out, he couldn't help but think about how unbearable the ascent was going to be.

"Or are you still hung up on this pathetic 'I have nothing left to live for' routine? No offense, but I think we all lost track a while ago."​

That was wrong. She hadn't gotten over Torchwick's death before this sudden reversal. She couldn't even say she was over it after literally staring him in the face, the grief and anger and bile around the how and who still gurgling underneath the relief and happiness she'd felt during that reunion. but...

Neo, I'm sorry we're not him, we weren't trying to be but we need you way more than you need us, I swear to god I'm not just saying that, it's true

Seeing Emerald break down crystallized so much of it for Neo. They would've never abandoned her. She wasn't a weight they were waiting on pins and needles to finally be rid of. She was a burden. One they'd been carrying ever since Haven. She hadn't even let them have their own feelings about Roman, because they were too busy trying to take care of her. Right up until last night, she thought, in that fleeting moment between the ground and Cinder's arms, that it was one they'd be relieved to finally be rid of. They'd cry, they'd mourn, and then they'd be better off.

She was an idiot. There wasn't anyone in the world who knew how it felt to lose someone important to them than Neo herself. She'd just never realized thats what she was to them.

"Yeah! I mean, it's just a big, stupid hole in the ground anyway, right? That's all. And we're family."

Mercury, on the other hand, got a far more casual arm slung around his shoulder and a flick in the ear for essentially giving her away, which did little to abate his mounting laughter at just how corny this all was even as his own attempt at a hug came like the embrace a warrior gave his allies after the heat of combat.

"H-hey! If you sappy chicks can't accept my role in the family dynamic as the aloof, emotionally uninvolved father figure whose sole pleasure in life is derived when I crack open a brew or five to watch the game then—"

"I WANT—"

Floating butterfly kicks.

krak

"What the fuck was that supposed to be? Pathetic, that's what it was. Get an icepack. Grab me another beer while you're at it."
"—EVERY PENT-UP SACK OF SHIT WITH ISSUES WHO WANDERS BY—"

Jumping tornado crescent kick.

smak

"God allfuckingmighty, I didn't invent that move to watch you piss all over its legacy. Reset and hit me with 10 more."
"—TO STOP TREATING HER—"

Alternating mantis claws.

whak

"Hold on. What is that? Come back here, you little shit, are you crying? I swear to fuck if you're crying in my dojo—"
"—LIKE THEIR PERSONAL PUNCHING BAG!"

...her not having anything to live for wasn't true. She felt like an idiot for taking so long to have that mind numbingly obvious realization, but it wasn't. She'd resolved to get better about it, to be there for the other two like they'd been there for her so many times, and now everything was out of sorts again. She wouldn't be that burden again; she wanted to be there for them as much as they had for her.

Even if Mercury was being a total dick right now. And she had no idea why. And despite her own prodigious people reading skills, to her deep frustration the two people she most needed to rely on them for were very good at stonewalling hers. and she'd never been a sterling conversationalist

So for now she merely stood in silence and continued to stare at the doors herself, a bit of semblance over her face to cover the fact that no those words really did hurt and she was maybe crying a little bit.

---------------------

'oh come on'

She stared out the window as the elevator just... stopped moving a quarter of the way up, turning a deeply awkward ride into a deeply awkward prison.

 

[MyrtenRose]

Well, he supposed that was to be expected, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with a hum before he clasped his hands behind his back.

Til the elevator was here. Got it.

"You're misunderstanding, headmistress." he said, holding his gaze steady as he waited to catch her attention again. "That Raven didn't take her brother's position; THAT Qrow is still out there, drinking himself silly presumably along with his pet maiden Vernal after they killed the former one. Another secret we know, one I'm not even sure you're supposed to know at this point" he continued, his tone hardening somewhat.

"There are others. You could quiz us if you like. Name of the spirit in the lamp of knowledge. The highest power in Atlas that Ozpin has managed to squeeze under his thumb. Which two of your headmasters crack under the pressure and betray you. How many daughters you two had in your weird little post resurrection honey moon. Because forgive me if a single flustered 'no' isn't going to dissuade us, but a dear friend of mine gets eviscerated in front of the world in your festival's finals. And irregardless of what has or hasn't changed this go around, I am not letting that happen again."

"That was not meant as an invitation to slow or stop the elevator, Arthur." She remarked with a hint of a knowing smile, despite the insanity of the conversation so far. "Hands in front of yourself, and please release your hold over my elevator. It would be appreciated. I need it, after all." That much said, any hint of any smile disappeared as she gave the situation the seriousness that was warranted. A lot of what they had to say, it seemed...well, insane almost felt too light of a word to describe it. Impossible to believe. Yet there were things they were revealing that they simply could not have known. How they knew about the maiden, if that was even true...not to mention her own past. Secrets she had not shared. What's more was that they knew the lamp had a spirit within it...even her name. That could potentially explain how they knew all these things, if not the how they accessed it. She lowered her gaze for a moment, clearly thinking before she raised her head back up and met his steady gaze with her own.

"I do believe I said that was enough." She said first and foremost. "There will be no quiz. However, I swear to you, I will be looking into your claims. Personally. If any of what you say is actually true, then it will be investigated. Handled. If it is true. The safety of this academy, and those within it are my responsibility, not yours. Will that satisfy you?" ​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"That was not meant as an invitation to slow or stop the elevator, Arthur." She remarked with a hint of a knowing smile, despite the insanity of the conversation so far. "Hands in front of yourself, and please release your hold over my elevator. It would be appreciated. I need it, after all." That much said, any hint of any smile disappeared as she gave the situation the seriousness that was warranted. A lot of what they had to say, it seemed...well, insane almost felt too light of a word to describe it. Impossible to believe. Yet there were things they were revealing that they simply could not have known. How they knew about the maiden, if that was even true...not to mention her own past. Secrets she had not shared. What's more was that they knew the lamp had a spirit within it...even her name. That could potentially explain how they knew all these things, if not the how they accessed it. She lowered her gaze for a moment, clearly thinking before she raised her head back up and met his steady gaze with her own.

"I do believe I said that was enough." She said first and foremost. "There will be no quiz. However, I swear to you, I will be looking into your claims. Personally. If any of what you say is actually true, then it will be investigated. Handled. If it is true. The safety of this academy, and those within it are my responsibility, not yours. Will that satisfy you?" ​

"....Not particularly." He replied, a bit of the edge leaving his tone at least. "You haven't even let us get into the specifics. Name names, as it were. Unless you intend to just grasp at whatever straws in the dark you've been fiddling with since the CCT invasion and Mt. Glenn incident. Because despite it being your responsibility, your word wasn't enough last time"

...Nor were their own efforts

 

[MyrtenRose]

"....Not particularly." He replied, a bit of the edge leaving his tone at least. "You haven't even let us get into the specifics. Name names, as it were. Unless you intend to just grasp at whatever straws in the dark you've been fiddling with since the CCT invasion and Mt. Glenn incident. Because despite it being your responsibility, your word wasn't enough last time"

...Nor were their own efforts

"Point made, but I do have other things I need to tend to, not the least of which is Miss Branwen here, and to go into great detail now seems it would take some time. A delay I do not need. So." She reached into a pocket and pulled out her scroll. "Though I am confident you could manage to procure it yourself regardless, I will give you my scroll contact. Send me all the details you like in a message. There will be no grasping in the dark here." ​

 

[MidwayLives]

She had mutilated his teammate with an even-tempered glee so far departed from a person of a sound mind, in a bid to encourage Cinder's growth. Something to that effect. Whatever it was, it resulted in the loss of her eye, among many other complications.

Gretchen was the stopping impetus that saw Hazel barely shunt the desire to exact retaliation immediately, his demand grinding out in a low tone riddled with rancor.

"Where. Is. My. Sister? Why... are... you here?"

Splaying her hands out to the side, Pyrrha couldn't help but smile.

"So tense, I can practically feel the hostility running through your body and to think, we've barely even begun."

Then it was clear he hardly shunted enough to really open a dialogue. His bare leniency dissipated as muscles like hausers uncoiled in place from the colossus's taut stance. His right arm snapping out suddenly in a swipe for Pyrrha to create space for himself followed by a devastating stomp that saw the hallway's flooring splintering and cratering into a shower of debris.

A feral cry and Ren was on the receiving end of a whole body lunge, a low tackle with the arms angled in a way that clearly signaled his intent to grapple. A feint in of itself as Hazel sought to bypass these two, his arms exploding upwards if he managed to near Ren enough such to blow him aside, as he continued his stampeding towards his sister's room, swinging around the corner into the corridor before he bellowed.

"GRETCHEN, RUN!"

Jumping back with all the poise and grace of a championed athlete, the smile never left her face. "Such fire..."

And yet...

His hands danced and feet set in something finally resembling some form of traditional stance, and his smile never wavered as one leg's heel climbed gingerly up to rest atop the other's knee, adopting the bearing of the crane as he continued in his unbothered tones.

"Would you like to see?"

"It's truly a tragedy I cannot partake but perhaps I'll get my chance yet..."

If the boy lived past this encounter.

And she meant it. Fighting was in her blood and to see someone so willing to throw themselves into the heat of it all. It was practically like handing her an open inviation to throw down. But, as fun as it may have been to give into her usual indulgences, such was not the time. She could trust Ren to do what had to be done.

The rest was up to her, and so, she moved down the hall, Hazel's attention clearly elsewhere.

Back towards the direction Hazel had come from...

 

[Gus Gungus]

But while Blake hadn't been honest to herself before, she was trying more these days, and the sort of quiet earnestness continued in her tone as she started to answer Winter's initial statement, a bit of the tension releasing from her shoulders.

"Thats all we w- GHK"​

Though she exhaled through the nose and her shoulders sank in palpable relief from a posture that had frankly come across ever-so-slightly too stiff, just that bit too stoic and composed to be wholly natural, Winter couldn’t help but wear a discomfited frown as she watched the gryphon careen down towards the floor with Blake’s head in its beak. For as much as the subterfuge had followed her duty to the letter, and as much as every instinct she had in her body was adamant that the young woman she’d just blindsided was the sort of savage monster who could be given no quarter, be afforded no mercy she wouldn’t sharpen and slide between the profferer’s ribs at a moment’s opportunity, another thought she couldn’t shake joined her view of her commanding officer’s conduct during this… arrest.

Perhaps her opinion of her own honesty needed reassessing.
​

Despite the anger still roiling under the skin, a wince and a small, bemused grin followed the start of Ruby's comment, a reply on her lips about a request to call that basically anything else that died in favor of a surprise grunt as her sister slammed into her side.

"RUBY!" She called out in distress as she saw her skid away, before she turned to Ironwood with a borderline feral growl. "You piece of SHIT!"​

Yang could practically feel her blood bubbling by the time she got close enough to pick out the smirk of sheer undisguised sanctimony adorning the general’s sickeningly chiselled jawline, an all-too-Atlesian aura of impersonal satisfaction as effective a buffer against her rage as any. It became apparent in that moment just why he and this world’s Weiss had made for such natural—If not somewhat convoluted—allies; the politician whose heart was encased in so many layers of ice she couldn’t separate her own fact from fiction by the end, and the general whose heart’s very existence had become a topic of some debate on his own academy’s grounds.

For as much as Belladonna and her people had proven by far the biggest thorn in his side of Ozpin’s mysterious acolytes to date—the Shadow Fang along with the Vale syndicates forming a dense front line of shock troops who drew the public and military eye away from the rest—the existence of his enigmatic mad dog had become something of a fascination for him ever since he began to suspect who she was. Many pawns had been taken and replaced on both sides ever since his enlistment into Salem’s shadow war against the master of Grimm, but Dragon had been something of a constant, the first reported sightings of the wrathful young woman who made entire villages disappear overnight having been nigh on ten years ago now.

Even among the upper hierarchy of the Atlas rank and file, the fact that reports put her in her mid twenties would’ve bade many to pause, think about the ramifications of that.

James Ironwood simply didn’t think in those terms.

The amount of lives this beast had swallowed made exploiting her obvious anger issues and psychological instability, made using a personal history with her parents as ammunition to do so, as natural as breathing to him.

And it made her next actions every bit as obvious as, without even turning his eyes from Belladonna, the arm wielding his second pistol came up as precisely and efficiently as the second hand on a clock to press against Yang’s head in turn where he predicted her frenzied dash for him to leave her.

This woman was clearly powerful. But according to every report and every fearful whisper ever uttered in the dark, her anger knew no bounds; and for someone like him, anger was easy.

Anger was predictable.

Anger was—
​

Yang hadn't waited. Her eyes were red, her hair was aflame, and whatever keen footwork she'd been practicing a few moments before was gone in favor of a wild sprint. What did change was her expression, twisting from wild fury into desperate fear as Blake impacted the ground beneath them with her aura flaring dangerously bright, and suddenly there was something more important that vengeance for her baby sister.

A pair of shots rang out a not even a second before Ironwood's, and a second later there was a thud.

Yang's prosethetic rolled across the arena floor, twitching erratically and with a gaping hole blasted through it, dust and exposed wiring spilling across the arena floor.

A moment after that, Yang crashed into the gryphon's back like a cannon ball with a wordless scream, intending to obliterate it from existence before she planted her stance and swung straight for Ironwood's face, as a still stunned Blake tried to push herself to her own feet.​

—a miscalculation.

A gross one, it seemed, on his part; one that had him snarl lightly in dismay as rather than putting everything she had into a wild swing for him like he assumed she would Ozpin’s fury incarnate stepped in under the barrel of a pistol knocked wide by her rocket punch, skidded in between him and Belladonna, and demonstrated the one thing he didn’t expect. Rage, yes, most definitely; but secondary to something else.

A protective instinct.

Several things flashed through the tin man’s mind while he tried to process that. A vortex of wind kicked up around them, a swirling curtain of fluttering red that filled the corners of his vision and brought to mind another pang of familiarity from long ago, and Yang barely had to put any force at all into her body check of the gryphon for its head to peel off neatly from its body like a cube of butter courtesy of a hot knife, having been hooked at just the right angle by a scythe blade large enough to wrap around the breadth of its neck. Ruby had been unfortunate enough to witness a man—An admittedly terrible dude, but still a dude—get eaten alive by one of these not so long ago, on a day as terrible as this one still had the potential to become. It wasn’t anything she particularly wanted to see happen again, least of all to someone she actually cared about, and many an hour had been spent practicing with Crescent to pin down the quickest and most means of preventing it, made all the easier by a little percussive assistance from her battering ram of a sibling.

The second thing that went through Ironwood’s mind was the fact that the mangled prosthetic skidding its way across the arena tiles was somehow even more cutting-edge than his were.

The third and final thing was the concussive impact of Yang’s fist.

Spoiler

It rippled all the way through his jowls in a way no jawline could cushion, generating a snapshot that seemed to age him at least twenty years. His follow-up shot went wide, his balance was lost to the scythe that whirled back around courtesy of a gunshot to catch him behind the legs at the same instant Yang clocked him, and this time he very much did lose his footing as he he was sent skidding across the polished metal surface like a pebble skipping across the surface of the ocean at mach 3.

He just about managed to catch himself, ramming a metallic fist into the floor to slow his momentum and dig yet another deep crevice into the feat of Atlesian engineering, but his aura shimmered once before breaking in a shower of metallic particles as he brought a hand to his jaw and almost lost his balance attempting to steady on a knee, finally taking a blow to his composure with a reluctant, punch-drunk grunt of pain. Winter’s eyes widened where she was halfway through surfing the distance on a column of glyphs, and she cursed her own miscalculation, already opening her mouth to issue a shout of warning—

Then Ironwood spoke into his wrist, speech faintly slurred but coherent.

“Screw it. Penny, deal with this.”

“As you command, general Ironwood sir! My caffeine subprotocols are running as intended and all systems are combat rea-“

“I’ll apologise later but shut up and do it.”

BOOM

That was the sound of the skybox wall exploding entirely as a pair of thrusters attached to a frame even hardier than the general’s blasted through from the same hole Ironwood’s weapon case had made, and however it happened, however long it took, thus did Winter witness the earliest-rising of what would prove to be a a number of high-level security risks threatening the day’s proceedings have a very unfortunate and abrupt conclusion to their morning.

—————————————————
​

Even if Mercury was being a total dick right now. And she had no idea why. And despite her own prodigious people reading skills, to her deep frustration the two people she most needed to rely on them for were very good at stonewalling hers. and she'd never been a sterling conversationalist

So for now she merely stood in silence and continued to stare at the doors herself, a bit of semblance over her face to cover the fact that no those words really did hurt and she was maybe crying a little bit.

---------------------

'oh come on'

She stared out the window as the elevator just... stopped moving a quarter of the way up, turning a deeply awkward ride into a deeply awkward prison.​

Maybe he was just pissy he had just been laid out by dumb, dead Roman of all people. Maybe he didn’t know why either.

Or maybe Mercury just didn’t care anymore. Maybe he was tired of all the sappy crap, and of feeling the hurt that came with it, and getting jerked around and battered up and down the block emotionally no less viciously than anything his dear old dad had ever done to him physically.

Maybe that just wasn’t anything he had ever seen happening for himself, and whatever lapse in judgment had led him to chase after it like a doggy with his tail wagging for the last however long just needed to stop now. It was all getting just a little bit embarrassing for all of them.



His eyes only flicked back Neo’s way once for the entirety of their stint inside the elevator, a gaze immediately broken with a bracing sigh as he placed his palms on the small of his back and looked up at the lights.

“Maybe it’s just time we all bit the bullet and admitted that everything we’ve done since Mistral has been a giant waste of time.”

He muttered, and though far enough under his breath as to be soft that didn’t make the words any less bitter in cadence, nor any less of a shotgun blast to the chest in content.

“I mean, whatever god’s up there obviously thinks so. Who the hell are we to disagree?”

That’s it, buddy. You’re finally catchin’ up.

The voice buried much, much deeper in his noggin than any scalpel was capable of extracting rang out far louder than his own did, if only to him.

I am so proud of you.

That was right about when the needle halted to precipitate the elevator shuddering and grinding to a halt, bidding Mercury to sneer and set his jaw in a rigid scowl.

“Great. A metaphor.”

—————————————————



For her part, Glynda had spent her time largely doing an excellent job of compensating for just how out of her depth she truly felt in this conversation by showing Roman, and subsequently Tyrian, the folly of their ways in having the absolute audacity to treat an esteemed huntress like Raven Branwen as though she were little more than some boorish vagrant; and for continuing to distract from proceedings with their puerile little interruptions thereafter.

“Headmistress Salem.”



But there came a point where she could bite her tongue no longer, and no student present could shake the feeling that they had suddenly ended up caught in the path of an encounter between Godwyvern and King Beringel as Salem found herself the subject of the withering disciplinarian’s stare they had all grown to fear or at the very least respect so much, seemingly prompted by the even the slight notion that this absolute gibberish would be entertained any further.

“…Over the course of their nine-month period of study, I have been lied to by some combination of teams WTCH and MTEN a total of one thousand, seven hundred and forty-two times, over matters ranging from monumental to absurdly trivial. Mister Black, who has yet to grace us with his presence, once submitted a physician’s note officially signed by Nurse Tapioca claiming that an errant raccoon had broken into the dormitory and stolen his prosthetics as an excuse for cutting an entire month of classes. Miss Sustrai, also absent, once claimed to me that the reason she had failed to submit an assignment on the specified date was that mister Callows had eaten it. When confronted with this outlandish accusation, mister Callows didn’t even attempt to defend himself; merely went along with it on instinct. My point being that for these particular students, dishonesty comes disquietingly easy.”

She paused as she herself became aware of Watts’ influence over the elevator, and an even deeper scowl set in over her face as she whipped her riding crop towards the door on instinct. She held it there, furrowed her brow in concentration, and…

Lowered it, a terse sigh escaping her lips and all the makings of a migraine coming on.

“They are not this atrocious at it.”

She stood up from where she had been attempting to rouse Raven personally, stalking around her with an admittedly-judgy sneer of her own to cross her arms and set a brisk pace back and forth in front of the desk.

“Moreover, the number of occasions on which they’ve exemplified outstanding values of bravery, valour, heroism and soundness of mind and judgment is similarly high. Their capacity for these qualities exceeds many fully licensed huntsmen and huntresses operating in the field today.” She cast another pointed look over at the unconscious Branwen, lower lip curling in disappointment. “Miss Fall and mister Watts in particular, even when breaching the parameters and rules set by the academy, are typically acting with some magnanimous intention or another at heart. We can’t forget that the loss of life during the Grimm incursion from Mountain Glenn could have been catastrophic without their influence. They had no business being there, yet they were. And because of that, untold lives were saved.”

She ceased her unnervingly severe pacing to turn on heel and affix the students with a single, lingering glare, albeit one inscrutable in its intent. She held that focused look they had all grown so unpleasantly familiar with on each of their features in turn before finally resettling it on Salem.

“Outside of that, their grade-point average is impeccable. I believe… that they believe… every word of this outlandish nonsense. And I believe that alone makes it due more consideration than you appear to.” She sniffed. “I assure you, nobody recognises the importance of this day’s proceedings more than I do. And I will gladly assume the responsibility of your part in them if it means you treat your role as protector of this kingdom with a more appropriate degree of seriousness.”

Her grip on her riding crop seemed to twitch, and it may have occurred to some of those present that they were about to see the most uncanny thing any of them were ever going to see when she suddenly…

Frowned.

The elevator was moving again. And not by her hand or Arthur’s.

Moreover, it was going back down.

—————————————————

“Sweeeeeet. A metaphor with layers.”

Mercury drawled unconvincingly as the floors started counting backwards again, though he squinted in a manner that for some reason wasn’t overly concerned with the elevator ride from hell being prolonged for the two of them. When the needle hit zero and the doors slid open, his reaction was as immediate as it was inappropriately flippant.

“I had a dream it’d end this way.”


—————————————————

However the conversation transpired from then on, Glynda’s frown only deepened as the elevator started the whole climb up towards them again.


Why Salem insisted on retaining this pointlessly difficult-to-reach office space was beyond her, vault or no.

​

 

[MidwayLives]

For her part, Glynda had spent her time largely doing an excellent job of compensating for just how out of her depth she truly felt in this conversation by showing Roman, and subsequently Tyrian, the folly of their ways in having the absolute audacity to treat an esteemed huntress like Raven Branwen as though she were little more than some boorish vagrant; and for continuing to distract from proceedings with their puerile little interruptions thereafter.

"I think i'm gonna be sick-WHOA, TYRIAN, MY GUY, COIL YOUR TAIL UP!!" Roman screeched as Tyrian, having in his heart of hearts, expected something like this, gave in and went as along for the ride as he could, his tail swinging as it went. His stinger swaying WAY too close to Roman's face for his comfort. It was as though his formerly deceased friend's yells for restraint weren't even being acknowledged!

"woooooooooooooooo-"

He'd leave the remainder of talking up to Arthur. He'd said his piece.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Several things flashed through the tin man’s mind while he tried to process that. A vortex of wind kicked up around them, a swirling curtain of fluttering red that filled the corners of his vision and brought to mind another pang of familiarity from long ago, and Yang barely had to put any force at all into her body check of the gryphon for its head to peel off neatly from its body like a cube of butter courtesy of a hot knife, having been hooked at just the right angle by a scythe blade large enough to wrap around the breadth of its neck. Ruby had been unfortunate enough to witness a man—An admittedly terrible dude, but still a dude—get eaten alive by one of these not so long ago, on a day as terrible as this one still had the potential to become. It wasn’t anything she particularly wanted to see happen again, least of all to someone she actually cared about, and many an hour had been spent practicing with Crescent to pin down the quickest and most means of preventing it, made all the easier by a little percussive assistance from her battering ram of a sibling.

The second thing that went through Ironwood’s mind was the fact that the mangled prosthetic skidding its way across the arena tiles was somehow even more cutting-edge than his were.

The third and final thing was the concussive impact of Yang’s fist.

It rippled all the way through his jowls in a way no jawline could cushion, generating a snapshot that seemed to age him at least twenty years. His follow-up shot went wide, his balance was lost to the scythe that whirled back around courtesy of a gunshot to catch him behind the legs at the same instant Yang clocked him, and this time he very much did lose his footing as he he was sent skidding across the polished metal surface like a pebble skipping across the surface of the ocean at mach 3.

Yang's own momentum had her skid forward a few feet, having thrown so much of herself into that one blow that it carried herself off of her footing for a moment. She heaved a breath and swung her remaining arm out to jab a finger towards Iron's unwillingly retreating form.

"THATS for Ruby AND Weiss, punk!" She called after him, before she glanced past her shoulder with a much softer look.

"Nice one sis. You two okay?"

"Yea" Blake managed past some obvious pain, gripping at her side. Her face fell when she saw what was scattered in pieces across the arena. "Yang, I'm so sorry, thats my-"

"No its not, don't worry about it, and focus up." Yang said as she started to turn towards the sound of spinning glyphs from above them, the the rest of the anger fading from her eyes in favor of some reluctant determination. "We still got one more-"

Then Ironwood spoke into his wrist, speech faintly slurred but coherent.

“Screw it. Penny, deal with this.”

“As you command, general Ironwood sir! My caffeine subprotocols are running as intended and all systems are combat rea-“

“I’ll apologise later but shut up and do it.”

BOOM

That was the sound of the skybox wall exploding entirely as a pair of thrusters attached to a frame even hardier than the general’s blasted through from the same hole Ironwood’s weapon case had made, and however it happened, however long it took, thus did Winter witness the earliest-rising of what would prove to be a a number of high-level security risks threatening the day’s proceedings have a very unfortunate and abrupt conclusion to their morning.

"oh that is SO unfair-"

Blake's ears pinned back at the sound of shattered glass, and a quick upward glance showed a green blur hurtling towards them that none of them had the aura left to deal with. But she also recognized the look on this Penny's face; the calm, ireless determination in the face of an enemy. More than the general, and now winter as well, she at least hoped that this version of Penny was close to the other as she dropped Gambol Shroud and put both her hands up with palms outward and called out a very simple decree.

"We surrender!"

The result was the same regardless of Penny's response; outside of how many medical procedures team RBY required after anyways

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Point made, but I do have other things I need to tend to, not the least of which is Miss Branwen here, and to go into great detail now seems it would take some time. A delay I do not need. So." She reached into a pocket and pulled out her scroll. "Though I am confident you could manage to procure it yourself regardless, I will give you my scroll contact. Send me all the details you like in a message. There will be no grasping in the dark here." ​

A text.

She wanted a text.

They'd been sent hurtling backwards in time, after barely preventing one kingdom from falling and watching two others collapse, after watching two of their best friends die horrifically, and everything that happened after, all things he was doing his best to warn Salem about, and she wanted it as a fucking memo?

Cinder could see her partner's shoulders tense and his frown curl in a way that was different than his normal obnoxious, know it all irritation, one she'd only seen maybe twice before; at the Branwen camp, and in front of that god-forsaken Mcnylods as he started to open his mouth-

“Headmistress Salem.”

But there came a point where she could bite her tongue no longer, and no student present could shake the feeling that they had suddenly ended up caught in the path of an encounter between Godwyvern and King Beringel as Salem found herself the subject of the withering disciplinarian’s stare they had all grown to fear or at the very least respect so much, seemingly prompted by the even the slight notion that this absolute gibberish would be entertained any further.

“…Over the course of their nine-month period of study, I have been lied to by some combination of teams WTCH and MTEN a total of one thousand, seven hundred and forty-two times, over matters ranging from monumental to absurdly trivial. Mister Black, who has yet to grace us with his presence, once submitted a physician’s note officially signed by Nurse Tapioca claiming that an errant raccoon had broken into the dormitory and stolen his prosthetics as an excuse for cutting an entire month of classes. Miss Sustrai, also absent, once claimed to me that the reason she had failed to submit an assignment on the specified date was that mister Callows had eaten it. When confronted with this outlandish accusation, mister Callows didn’t even attempt to defend himself; merely went along with it on instinct. My point being that for these particular students, dishonesty comes disquietingly easy.”

She paused as she herself became aware of Watts’ influence over the elevator, and an even deeper scowl set in over her face as she whipped her riding crop towards the door on instinct. She held it there, furrowed her brow in concentration, and…

Lowered it, a terse sigh escaping her lips and all the makings of a migraine coming on.

“They are not this atrocious at it.”

She stood up from where she had been attempting to rouse Raven personally, stalking around her with an admittedly-judgy sneer of her own to cross her arms and set a brisk pace back and forth in front of the desk.

“Moreover, the number of occasions on which they’ve exemplified outstanding values of bravery, valour, heroism and soundness of mind and judgment is similarly high. Their capacity for these qualities exceeds many fully licensed huntsmen and huntresses operating in the field today.” She cast another pointed look over at the unconscious Branwen, lower lip curling in disappointment. “Miss Fall and mister Watts in particular, even when breaching the parameters and rules set by the academy, are typically acting with some magnanimous intention or another at heart. We can’t forget that the loss of life during the Grimm incursion from Mountain Glenn could have been catastrophic without their influence. They had no business being there, yet they were. And because of that, untold lives were saved.”

She ceased her unnervingly severe pacing to turn on heel and affix the students with a single, lingering glare, albeit one inscrutable in its intent. She held that focused look they had all grown so unpleasantly familiar with on each of their features in turn before finally resettling it on Salem.

“Outside of that, their grade-point average is impeccable. I believe… that they believe… every word of this outlandish nonsense. And I believe that alone makes it due more consideration than you appear to.” She sniffed. “I assure you, nobody recognises the importance of this day’s proceedings more than I do. And I will gladly assume the responsibility of your part in them if it means you treat your role as protector of this kingdom with a more appropriate degree of seriousness.”

...His shoulders slowly slackened the farther Glynda got in her speech. As angry as he'd gotten, he'd expected the sort of reaction Salem had given them. It was insanity he'd speaking. He'd come up to this office expecting to have to drag both these women kicking and screaming into at least some acceptance of what he was saying, and he'd come prepared to do it. Disbelief, anger, scorn, he'd been prepared for all of that.

Trust, he had not been.

It left him somewhat flustered, truth be told, and he cleared his throat and thanked genetics that he didn't share Roman or Cinder's paler complexion, the sort easier to pick a blush out against. "...Well... Thank you Miss Goodwitch. I promise you won't regret this."

Her grip on her riding crop seemed to twitch, and it may have occurred to some of those present that they were about to see the most uncanny thing any of them were ever going to see when she suddenly…

Frowned.

The elevator was moving again. And not by her hand or Arthur’s.

Moreover, it was going back down.

He squinted, and swung his hands back around to his front, the ghost long given up on what he was doing as he looked over the screen floating over his rings with a frown. "I'm not doing that."