SAPR

by Scipio Smith

The Island of Doctor Merlot (Rewritten)

The Island of Doctor Merlot

“I’m going to talk to her,” Pyrrha said.

“Yeah,” Jaune murmured. “I thought that you might want to do that.”

Pyrrha glanced at him. “Do you … not think that I should?”

Jaune hesitated, not quite meeting Pyrrha’s eyes. “I … I get why you want to talk to her, but … what good is it going to do? What if … what if tempers get heated and you get into another fight?”

“I don’t want to fight with her,” Pyrrha replied. “I just want to understand.”

“Can you be sure that Cinder feels the same way?” asked Jaune.

“Considering what I want to talk to her about, it would be rather ironic if Cinder wanted to fight me now,” Pyrrha said dryly. “And I think … I believe Cinder when she says that she doesn’t want to fight with us.”

“You believed Cinder before,” Jaune pointed out.

“And she kept faith with our agreement,” Pyrrha reminded him. “That is not at issue; only why she did not fight me with … everything that she was capable of.”

Jaune was silent for a moment. “Is it … is it okay if I say that I’m … glad that she didn’t? That power…” He trailed off, his instincts warring against his desire to avoid disloyalty.

“I know,” Pyrrha said, acknowledging that which he did not wish to say, that if Cinder had put forth that power against her which she had used against the mutant grimm, then the outcome of their battle would almost certainly have gone differently. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I need to know why she did not do it, or why she did what she did. She was willing to die rather than employ all the weapons at her disposal. Why?”

Jaune didn’t reply.

“Exactly,” Pyrrha said. “Only Cinder can answer that question.”

“Glory to you, Pyrrha Nikos.”

Was that a lie? Has this all been an elaborate joke?

Pyrrha even began to wonder if Cinder had lied to Sunset about her being unaware of Salem’s decision to save her from death at Pyrrha’s hands; if she had staged the whole thing — another dose of irony, that, if it turned out the fight had been staged, just as Pyrrha’s critics alleged, only by Cinder and not by her — knowing that she would be safe in Salem’s care.

Except she couldn’t think why Cinder would do such a thing; again, the only person with the answers was Cinder herself.

Everyone was giving Cinder something of a wide berth at present; it felt to Pyrrha almost as if the rest of the team was waiting for her to speak to Cinder, to answer the questions that plagued her.

She had put it off as the boat wound its way through the inland waterways of Vale, heading down the river, through the Forever Fall, passing beneath great trees with their leaves of red which sometimes drifted down to land upon the deck of the boat. There was one at Pyrrha’s feet right now, a red-gold maple leaf which, caught by a sudden gust of wind, blew in Cinder’s direction.

It felt almost like a sign.

Now, they were almost out of the river and onto the open sea, and it felt to Pyrrha as though she had delayed for long enough already.

Ruby was sat on the roof of the boat, legs crossed, Crescent Rose resting upon her legs, staring at Cinder with a look as though she would rather be looking at her through the scope of her rifle.

Sunset was out of sight of Pyrrha, but Pyrrha thought that she was on the other side of the boat cabin.

Jaune and Pyrrha were stood on the port side of the boat, with the water passing by beneath them — or rather, they were passing by the water as the vessel bore them on, watching Cinder.

Cinder herself was standing at the prow, one foot raised, her glass slipper planted upon the gunwale as the breeze, getting stronger the closer to the sea they came, blew through her black hair.

She looked like she was posing for a photoshoot. Or perhaps she was just posing for her own image, for the story that she was telling her own mind in which she was the great hero, Pyrrha of The Mistraliad reborn, a righteous avenger pitted against despicable adversaries.

What story did she tell when we fought?

“Will you wait here, please?” she asked Jaune.

Jaune bit his lip for a moment, and did not look particularly enthused about any of this, but nodded, however glum a nod it was.

“Sure,” he said.

Pyrrha smiled and reached up to stroke his cheek with one hand, before standing up on her toes to kiss him, a swift kiss and a gentle one, a light brush of her lips against his.

“I just … I need to … I want to hear what she has to say,” Pyrrha told him. “I don’t know how long this will take.”

She turned away from him, her long ponytail whipping about her as she turned and walked towards Cinder.

There was little sound upon the boat — no one else was speaking to one another — and so, she could hear her footfalls clearly as they echoed upon the metal deck. The wind blew past her, brushing her face, stroking the skin of her shoulders, running its fingers through her ponytail and pulling it behind her somewhat.

Cinder did not notice — or affected not to notice — her approach until Pyrrha was close at hand.

“Pyrrha,” she said, turning to face Pyrrha with a slight smile upon her face, a smile that did not quite reach her amber eyes in Pyrrha’s opinion. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“How long have you been a Maiden?” Pyrrha asked.

The smile remained fixed on Cinder’s face. “I don’t see that—”

“It wasn’t just in the last couple of days,” Pyrrha said, “was it?”

The smile slid off Cinder’s face. “No,” she said quietly. “No, it’s been … longer than that.”

“Then why is this the first that we’re learning of it?” Pyrrha asked, her voice quiet but sharp.

Cinder blinked. “Are you … are you upset about that? Are you upset that I fought you as a warrior, not as a Maiden?”

“Have I not cause?”

“No!” Cinder snapped. “No, you do not have cause, you … you vain and selfish girl; how dare you try and make this all about yourself when I am the one who is suffering!”

“'Suffering'?” Pyrrha repeated. “You claim that you are suffering?”

“Oh, now you not only see fit to make this entirely about yourself, but you claim the right to judge whether I do or do not have cause to feel myself aggrieved!” Cinder shouted. “Can you have any idea what it is like to go through life convinced that you are something, that you are gifted, blessed by the gods of old, and then, when you are … when you are tested, when you are given the opportunity to prove yourself equal to your imaginings, then you find … you find that you are less than you had believed yourself to be. You cannot imagine—”

“That is my life,” Pyrrha said quietly.

Cinder fell silent at the interruption, as though Pyrrha’s words had, like a sword, cut the thread of her thoughts and left them to drop to the ground like severed rope.

“You … truly?”

“Does it surprise you?” Pyrrha asked.

Cinder shrugged. “I … what does someone like you, born to the most august line in Mistral, blessed with wealth and—?”

“Talent?” suggested Pyrrha.

Cinder paused for a moment. “What do you have to prove to anyone?”

“'Have'? Nothing, perhaps,” Pyrrha admitted. “Although, as a scion of one of the most august lines in Mistral, I must perforce earn the privileges of that name through service—”

“Not all who are well born in Mistral feel so.”

“I am not an amalgam or an average of all those who are well born in Mistral; I am myself,” Pyrrha replied. “My own person. And I have always … I have always believed that I was … I was capable of some great deed, of serving the world through valour and skill at arms—”

“And now you doubt it?” Cinder asked.

“Should I not?” responded Pyrrha. “I… I have made my peace with my limitations, I am aware that there are things I cannot do, the fact that I cannot smite down Salem with my spear no longer stabs at me because I could defeat you. Or thought I could.”

“You did defeat me.”

“No,” Pyrrha said. “I didn’t. If you had—”

“Yes, if I had used the Fall Maiden’s power against you, then I would have defeated you, but what of that?” Cinder demanded. “The youngest and most adorable of your fans in Mistral could have defeated you, if they were the Fall Maiden and were motivated to fight you.”

“And yet, you defeated and killed the previous Fall Maiden to claim that power,” Pyrrha pointed out.

Cinder was quiet for a moment. She glanced away from Pyrrha. “I … I took her by surprise and killed her by ambush. She never saw me coming and had no chance to employ her power against me.” She paused for a moment. “If she had … I had her outnumbered four to one, and nevertheless, I would have been apprehensive of facing her in open battle.”

“An ambush,” Pyrrha repeated. “That does not seem like the action of a Mistralian warrior.”

“Did not your namesake lie in ambush for Cressida and cut her down as she was returning home from the temple?”

“My namesake was prodigiously skilled and valiant, but I do not take her every action as a guide to live my life,” Pyrrha pointed out. “I … practice to be kinder than she would have been.”

“All heroic virtues are found bound up in The Mistraliad.”

“That does not mean that every action taken by those heroes in their lives is virtuous,” Pyrrha pointed out.

Cinder wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps not,” she admitted. “But … anyway, it was not my intent to mock or belittle you by holding back my magic. I meant to do you honour.”

“'Honour'?” Pyrrha repeated.

“I have kept my … kept these powers to myself for reasons of secrecy,” Cinder said, “but it was not secrecy that drove me to conceal them from you; rather … I wanted to defeat you with swords and semblance, in a contest of swords and semblance. To have used magic would have proved as little as cutting your throat while you slept during the hunt for the Karkadann. Anyone could have done that, anyone could wield magic against you, but only the true Evenstar of Mistral could face the false one in a contest of arms and by those arms and arms alone emerge victorious.”

She scowled. “Such was my thought, at any rate. Except … we have fought twice, you and I; once, I fled the battle, but I could tell myself that you had assistance. The second time, you had no assistance and won the more decisive victory, breaking my aura; that is … that is something to be proud of. You beat me. I will not have you dismiss the accomplishment of that, say that it does not count; you defeated me! I demand that you acknowledge that and take some pride in the doing of it, for my pride will not suffer my defeat to be taken lightly.” She shook her head. “I am not defeated lightly.”

Pyrrha hesitated. “You … you demand?”

“Yes, yes, I demand,” Cinder declared. “I demand that you demonstrate the appropriate response to what you have done. I … I am a skilled warrior, am I not? You said it yourself, under Mountain Glenn.”

Pyrrha nodded. “You could have rivalled me in the arena, if things had been different.”

“I am your rival, as you are mine,” Cinder said, taking a step forward, so that a very short distance separated the two of them. “Training has blended with your native gifts to make you … somewhat my superior, but I am not yet willing to concede that in different circumstances, with better fortune, I may not outmatch you yet. But I respect you, and I would have you respect yourself.” She paused. “I thought you fought me for your reputation, but it was not so, was it?”

“Not entirely,” Pyrrha conceded. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could fight you.”

“You can fight me.”

“Not—”

“The magic is irrelevant!” Cinder cried. “The magic is … in all of Salem’s service, I am the only one possessed of magic, and in all of Salem’s service, I am the most skilled in arms. There is another champion more muscular than I, there is another who is wilder than I, but I am swifter than he who is stronger than me, and I am more cunning than he who is more savage than me. And you would be a match for either of them.

“Salem … Salem thinks that I am nothing more than a vessel for the powers of a Maiden, and as that vessel, I am to be protected, but I am more than that, and you … we have skill enough to carve a place out in this story. We are not fated to irrelevance; we … I imagine Sunset has tried to persuade you of this already, no?”

“Something like it,” Pyrrha conceded.

“But you fear that your friend speaks only to console you, to say what will not be true but which might put you at your ease,” Cinder said. “But hear it from your foe: I would yet be Cinder Fall, though all the magic of the Fall Maiden be stripped away from me, and you are Pyrrha Nikos yet, though you have magic none. There is a place for us that we may cut out with strength and swords, a place upon this battlefield.

“I showed you respect by meeting you only with that force which is my own, but you disrespect me by acting now as if my own strength was insignificant, as though triumphing over me was no great thing because I did not put forth Maiden’s power.”

“That was not my intent,” Pyrrha murmured. “And I … strange as it may seem, I apologise if I have given you offence. You conducted yourself with all due honour during the proceedings of our duel, I must concede. Although I might accuse you of being as self-interested in seeking to lift my spirits as Sunset ever was, moreso, for Sunset never felt that she might be diminished if I diminished myself.”

Cinder laughed lightly. “Well, I must admit you have me there.” She paused a moment. “May I ask you something?”

“If you wish.”

“Did you not want to live?” Cinder asked. “Are you not glad to be alive, you who have … well, you certainly seem to feel like you have something to live for, or does that blond scarecrow yonder who watches us not bring you so much joy as your actions would suggest?”

“'Scare—' you mean Jaune?” Pyrrha asked. “Jaune is not a … yes, he brings me joy, and yes, I am glad to be alive, very glad, but there are some things more important than life, and there are prices at which I would not purchase life. I would not buy it at the price of you thinking me unworthy of the trouble to kill me.”

“That was not the case,” Cinder said, shaking her head. “That was emphatically not the case. You were worth my effort, which was why I made an effort, instead of relying upon easy gifts.” Her brow furrowed. “Did you … do you believe that you are the weaker party in this struggle? Collectively, I mean, not you alone.”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “Yes, I do. Does that surprise you?”

“Yes,” Cinder said, “since you are obviously the stronger party.”

“'Stronger'?” Pyrrha repeated.

“There are four of you here and only one of me,” Cinder declared. “Does that not seem like you are stronger?”

“You are led by an immortal witch whose malice stretches back through history and who commands the creatures of grimm.”

“The creatures of grimm are red in tooth and claw,” Cinder said, “but, at the same time, of little worth compared with a huntsman, or why do they die in such numbers? You, on the other hand, are arrayed alongside all the forces of four kingdoms and the might of Atlas, with huntsmen some of whom are … almost equal in skill to your good self. I had understood that, once I had killed you, all the gallants of the world — and Mistral especially — would rise up, their swords leaping from their scabbards, to tear me down. They may yet, if fortune favours me at our next … hostile encounter.”

“And yet you seek it anyway,” Pyrrha said dryly. “Do you not want to live?”

Cinder didn’t answer that. “And yet you think yourself weaker, on the weaker side?”

“Our enemy, our ultimate foe, cannot be destroyed,” Pyrrha reminded her. “We … have no ultimate victory but only the prevention of defeat. By killing you, I might have prevented Salem’s plans from coming to fruition, but it would have been only a temporary victory, and it would not have freed us from the threat of her malice.”

“And yet you fight this hopeless battle regardless?”

“'Hopeless'?” Pyrrha said. “No, not hopeless, but at the same time … we are on the defensive, and the odds are against us.”

“And yet you fight, nonetheless?”

Pyrrha pursed her lips together for a moment. “Hopeless or difficult, nonetheless, it is a battle that must be fought, and I would rather perish in that battle than be shamed to shrink away from it.” Now it was her turn to pause. “Why do you fight, if you perceive that your battle is the hopeless one?”

“Because…” Cinder trailed off. “Do you truly fight for your face in the opinion of the world? You will forgive me, but I do not believe it so.”

“I fight because there is more virtue in a hopeless battle than in apathy in the face of the destruction of all things,” Pyrrha said. “I fight because my blood commands that I should fight and because … because I hope yet that I have some skill that may be of use in the fight. I fight because … because my life if I forsook the fight would be a feeble, pathetic, forsaken, and wretched thing, and not even Jaune could make it worth living.”

Cinder stared at her for a moment. “The emotions of those who are thought beautiful are often filled with sorrow,” she murmured.

“At times, perhaps,” Pyrrha murmured. “You did not answer my question.”

“No,” Cinder said. “No, I did not.”

Pyrrha took that to mean that their conservation was at an end, and so … it was a strange thing perhaps, a strange sight to be sure, but she bowed her head, and a little part of her back, so that her ponytail fell across her back and some strands of hair tickled her skin.

Cinder smiled with one corner of her mouth and bowed in turn, one fist planted over her heart.

Pyrrha turned away and returned to where Jaune was waiting, having watched everything from where he leaned against the side of their craft.

“Did … did that help?”

Pyrrha opened her mouth, but then no words emerged. She closed her mouth again and considered her feelings some more. “I … yes,” she said. “Yes, it … at the least, I know that she did not mean to insult me by her action.”

“And that … makes it better?” asked Jaune.

“It … not wholly,” Pyrrha confessed. “But in part. Although…”

“Although … what?”

“I wish she had said, or perhaps I should have asked,” Pyrrha said, “whether her consideration would extend to our next violent encounter.”

---

It was a few days later, after the ship that bore them on, heedless of their wishes, had passed out of the rivers and onto the open sea, bearing them until Vale and its shore were quite out of sight and they were left with not a single clue as to where they might be, it was then when Ruby sought Pyrrha out.

It was night time, the broken moon shining down upon them, and now Pyrrha was the one who stood at the prow, although she hoped that she stood there a little less self-consciously than Cinder had done earlier. She stood on watch, looking for any sign of land, any chink of light that might emerge from out of the night’s darkness or for the sign of any grimm who might emerge out of the sea to trouble them.

Jaune and Sunset were asleep, and Cinder too no doubt, though Pyrrha had not seen her go to bed.

“There is a hunger in me that will not let me rest.”

But what is it that you hunger for, Cinder? Do you even know yourself?

“Pyrrha?”

Pyrrha looked around to see Ruby standing behind her, clutching her red cape around her in the night air.

“Ruby?” Pyrrha murmured. “You should be sleeping, with Jaune and Sunset.”

“I need to talk to you,” Ruby said. “Alone.”

“'Alone'?” Pyrrha repeated. “Why alone? What is it that you must say to me that no one else can hear?”

Ruby did not reply. She licked her lips, but she did not take her eyes off Pyrrha. At last, after some moments had passed, Ruby said, “It’s about Cinder.”

“I … I see,” Pyrrha said softly. “Except … I don’t. What is it about Cinder?”

Ruby’s chest rose and fell with her breathing. “She has to die; you know that, right? She has to die, and … and the Maiden powers need to pass to…”

“To one of us?” Pyrrha asked quietly, her voice trembling a little, as though she were speaking thoughts that ought not be given voice. To speak of it, not so much of Cinder’s death but of … ambition. To kill an enemy was one thing; to kill a foe to obtain great power was something else altogether.

Ruby nodded. She kept her voice down too, although less perhaps out of a sense of the profane and more out of a desire not to wake Sunset or Jaune. “One of us,” she agreed. “You … or me. You would be … you’d use them well, but I’d take them if I had to. I couldn’t be a worse choice than Cinder, right?”

“Do you … do you want them?” asked Pyrrha.

“Would it be wrong, if I did?” Ruby responded. “I want to be able to help people, to protect them from danger, protect the world; isn’t that what you want too?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha murmured. “But … to desire power…”

“People who say it's wrong to want power are the people who have it anyway,” Ruby pointed out. “What’s wrong with having power, so long as it’s used for good?”

“Nothing, of course—”

“And if you don’t have power, then what’s wrong with wanting power to do good?”

“Does it not depend on what you will do to obtain that power?” asked Pyrrha. “Killing someone?”

“Killing someone who has killed others,” Ruby pointed out. “Who will kill more, if she isn’t stopped. Why should we hesitate to do to her what she would do to us?”

“Because I’m not so sure she would,” Pyrrha murmured. “Ruby … we have made a truce with Cinder, and you are suggesting that we should break that truce and … and murder her.”

“We’re right,” Ruby declared. “We’re on the right side, Cinder is wrong, and she’s evil; there’s nothing that we could do to her that would make us worse than her or make her better than evil. Lie, betray, kill, just like I said; it’s all for the greater good; how can our right be doubted?”

More easily than you might think, I’m afraid, Pyrrha thought. “Sunset will never agree to this.”

“Sunset…” Ruby frowned, and this time, she did not look at Pyrrha, but glanced away, if only for a moment. “Sunset’s weak. I don’t like to say it, but it’s true.”

“Sunset has a good heart,” Pyrrha said.

“But not a heart to do what has to be done,” Ruby said. “I know that she wants what’s best, but she can’t make the difficult choices. She can’t even face up to them. Sometimes, you have to draw a line. Sometimes, you have to do whatever it takes.”

“I … understand,” Pyrrha murmured. She did not say that she agreed, only that she understood. “And … what would you propose? In the circumstances, we can hardly expect Cinder not to call upon her full strength.”

“We’d have to wait until she was weakened,” Ruby said. “Worn out by a fight; they’ve been trying so far, and they’ll probably get worse—”

“So we should deprive ourselves of an ally?”

“So we should take the opportunity,” Ruby replied. “Wait until she’s tired, then… take her out. So long as we move fast, then Sunset won’t even realise what we’re doing until it’s too late to stop us.”

“Just like that,” Pyrrha whispered.

“I … I don’t know if it will … maybe it’ll be something that we’ll have to live with, but I’m sure we can live with it. I know I can live with it.”

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. What Ruby was offering was … tempting. To achieve great power, greater than human power, not to use constantly, of course — that would give away to Salem that she had it, or that Ruby had it — but … at utmost need, with lives or the fate of kingdoms at stake, when secrecy was less important than survival, then to possess such abilities, who would not desire it?

I could have filled the Breach with fire and turned all the grimm within the tunnel to ashes, and no need for General Ironwood or his fleet.

And, just as she or Ruby would be strengthened, so too would Salem be correspondingly weakened. Cinder dead and the powers of the Maiden lost.

“I am swifter than he who is stronger than me, and I am more cunning than he who is more savage than me.”

He in both cases, two men, no women, no mention of other Maidens, and while Professor Ozpin might wish to conceal from us that he had lost one Maiden to Salem, if all their powers had fallen into her clutches, I have no doubt that he would confess it, the odds being that much greater against us.

Assuming, then, that Cinder is Salem’s only Maiden, that Spring, Summer, and Winter are secure under the protection of Professor Ozpin and his allies, then what a setback it will be to her to lose it.

Such a setback that I marvel Cinder was allowed to undertake this task. What folly to put her in such danger.

Professor Ozpin might say the same about Ruby or myself if we took the power from her.

“It occurs to me,” Pyrrha murmured. “That if … if we do this, then Professor Ozpin might well decide that we are too valuable to be risked in battle, and the magic of the Maiden with us; are you prepared to leave Beacon, to spend the rest of your life in hiding, secreted away?”

“Do you … do you think he would?”

“I think it is a possibility, at least.”

Ruby frowned. She licked her lips, her tongue darting out of her mouth. “I … it’s not what I want,” she admitted. “It’s not what I want at all, and I guess it isn’t what you want either.”

“No,” she said quietly.

“But, if it was for the greater good then I’d do it,” Ruby said. “I mean, keeping dangerous power out of the wrong hands, that’s a way of helping people, right? It’s almost like being someone’s bodyguard.”

“I suppose,” Pyrrha conceded. “That is a very selfless way of looking at it.”

She bowed her head.

She found that she could not so easily accept the possibility as Ruby had. She could not so easily accept the idea of going into hiding, let alone embrace the idea as an extension of the duties of a huntress.

It was not the destiny that she had had in mind, to say the least.

And yet…

Tempting, nonetheless; but at what cost?

“You … you must do what you think is best,” she said, “but I … I will have no part in it.”

“Why not?”

“Because Cinder and I have drawn swords together,” Pyrrha said. “She has turned her back on me, trusting me not to stab her in it but to protect it. That may not mean anything to you, but I’m afraid it means something to me.”

“Even if it gets you killed?” demanded Ruby.

“Even if … at least I will not have given anyone cause to say that I deserved it.”

---

Cinder was not asleep.

Cinder did not sleep; the grimm influence did not allow her the luxury of sleep any more than it allowed her the luxury of tasting food, of enjoying a well-cooked meal.

Not that she was particularly anxious for the whole team to know that, and so kept her condition to herself, even as, unable to settle in the cabin with Jaune and Sunset, she prowled around the vessel, keeping out of sight as she did so.

She was currently skulking about behind the cabin where, unseen by Pyrrha or by Ruby, she had heard everything.

I should gut that little rose before she can do the same to me.

But that would hardly go down well with the others, would it? It would be quite as bad as killing Pyrrha, except that Pyrrha would be alive to hate me too.

And nobody would care that I had killed Ruby Rose; it would win me no infamy. Who is Ruby Rose anyway?

No, let her live. It may be that Pyrrha’s refusal will pour cold water on her designs, and if not…

If not, then I can handle her, and that oversized gardening implement besides.

I am becoming very foolish. In past times, I would not have hesitated.

In past times, I didn’t care who thought what of me, but now…

Now, I would repay Sunset’s generous offer and vindicate Pyrrha’s faith.

After all, I’m not the only one who turned my back.

I wonder how tempting it was for you, Pyrrha, to kill me and take my power for yourself?

How hard was it for the Mistralian honour to withstand such promise?

However hard or not it was, I am … grateful.

Though we are rivals, I do not wish us to be enemies again just yet.

---

“Weapon check,” Sunset said. “What have we got? Or should I say 'what have we got left?'”

The four members of Team SAPR were sitting on the deck of the Merlot ship, under the shadow of the unmanned conning tower. The entire ship was completely unmanned and automated — as they had proved by searching it from top to bottom when they got on board — and was being guided to its destination by algorithms that none of them had the computer skills to crack.

As a result, they were not certain exactly where they were going. All they knew was that the ship had sailed through the rivers that ran through Vale, avoiding any major waterways or even any significant bridges as it went, until it had put out into the Shallow Sea. Whether it was headed to somewhere on Patch, to another island further out, or even all the way to Solitas, they could not say.

And they had lost contact with Professor Ozpin again. They got nothing but static on their scrolls now.

Still, with the sea stretching out boundless all around them as far as the eye could see and their ship showing no sign of stopping any time soon, all that they could do now was check their weapons and see how much ammunition they had left for the fight to come.

Pyrrha switched Miló into rifle mode so that she could eject the magazine and set it down next to the other two magazines that she had produced from her pouch. “My last three,” she said.

“I’ve got four!” Ruby said, as though it was a competition.

“What about the one already in Crescent Rose?” Pyrrha pointed out.

“Oh, I’ve got five!”

“I’m out of ice dust,” Jaune admitted. He dug around in his pockets. “But I do have … two vials of lightning dust, one vial of wind dust, and one of fire dust.”

“That makes two of us,” Sunset said, taking the red vial out of her pocket and setting it down on the deck in the middle of the circle, “which is just enough to light up my jacket one more time. But I’ve also got two lightning dust vials, and I haven’t actually used up what’s already in the bracers yet, so Jaune, take them if you want them.”

“Thanks,” Jaune said, reaching out to snatch up the vials that Sunset had laid out for him. “Let me know if you need them back. If I don’t use them first.”

“Your need will probably be greater than mine,” Sunset said.

“What about Soteria?” Pyrrha asked.

Sunset shrugged. “My jacket needs it more. I can’t just magic up more dust when I’m running short. I’ve also got thirty rounds left, mostly armour piercing, a couple of fire dust rounds, a few lightning dust rounds.” She sighed and folded her arms. “So it looks like it’s going to be close quarters when we reach wherever it is we’re going.”

“Isn’t it always close quarters in the end?” Pyrrha murmured.

“Yeah, but we’re great at close quarters, so it isn’t really a problem right?” Ruby said.

“Speak for yourselves; I like being able to shoot first,” Sunset said.

“Speak for yourself; I’m still struggling to aim with a sword,” Jaune said. “Slashing at stuff feels way more natural.”

Pyrrha chuckled, and for a moment, soft smiles spread out across the four of them.

“We’ve got our semblances and Sunset’s magic,” Ruby said, “and we’ve got each other, so even if we do run out of bullets, we’ll be fine.”

Sunset grinned. “Yeah, sure we will.”

“It may interest you to know,” Cinder called out from her place upon the bow, “that there is land ahead.”

They all leapt up, gathering up their dust and ammunition and reloading their weapons where they had emptied them, and as they fumbled to put magazines back into rifles and rounds back into chambers, they all made their way up towards the prow of the boat, standing more or less close to Cinder, depending on their appetite for proximity, as they all peered out in the direction in which she gestured with one imperious hand.

It was land, or at least, it looked like land. It looked like an island, a rough and rocky island surrounded by cliffs on all sides rising up just beyond what looked like barren, sandy beach. What lay on top of the cliffs, or what they might conceal behind them, could not at this distance be seen.

But there was no doubt that the boat was heading straight for it.

“It seems we have our destination,” Pyrrha said. “With perhaps a little more fortune than has attended us so far, we may be about to reach the final stage of our journey and a resolution to all these mysteries.”

“I hope so,” Jaune said. “This treasure hunt lost its allure a little while ago.”

Sunset stared at the island dead ahead of them, trying to judge the speed of the ship by how quickly the island grew in size to meet them and from that to further judge how much longer they had until they got there.

“I don’t think we have much time,” she said. “We should get ready.”

And they did, those of them who were not ready already. The person who needed to get ready the most was Sunset herself, who had to re-dust her jacket in case she needed it. Jaune only had to choose what kind of dust he wanted to load into the pommel of his sword — he chose lightning, being out of ice — and Ruby and Pyrrha were permanently primed and ready.

Cinder was the same, or at least she gave the appearance of being the same. Since she didn’t carry a gun, she didn’t have to worry about ammunition, nor did she ever appear to run out of glass, even though she probably should have, at least after her duel with Pyrrha.

Sunset hadn’t invited her to join the weapon check — she’d had a feeling that not all of the members of Team SAPR would have welcomed her presence — but as the boat sailed on without any sign of slowing down or turning from its chosen course towards the isle, she wondered just how prepared for this Cinder actually was.

“How are you fixed?” she asked, standing up and throwing on her dust re-infused — the best that she could manage in the time constraints anyway — jacket as the island grew nearer and nearer to them.

“Hmm?”

“Dust,” Sunset clarified.

Cinder continued to look out across the water at their destination. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “So what do you think is waiting for us out there?”

Sunset’s eyebrows rose. She was silent a moment, the sea air wafting through her hair and making the hem of her jacket ripple back and forth. “A vengeful magician, unjustly forced into exile, living alone with his innocent daughter, a true ingénue who has never beheld any man not her own father in her life.” She smirked. “She’ll probably fall in love with Jaune, which will make things awkward.”

Cinder chuckled. “A story from your home?”

“A famous one,” Sunset said. “The first male the daughter sets eyes upon is actually the son of the wizard’s enemy, shipwrecked on the isle.”

“So it is a story of revenge?”

Sunset shook her head. “A story of forgiveness and reconciliation.”

“I don’t think we’re likely to find much of either on this island.”

“No,” Sunset admitted. “Probably not. What we will find though … answers, hopefully; less hopefully, I’m afraid that we’ll find all kinds of twisted science experiments down there. We still don’t know what they did with the faunus.”

“Do you know what I think we will find there?” Cinder asked softly.

“No.”

“An arrogant man who thinks he can play god,” Cinder said, “and it falls to the angels of the true gods to remind him that it is not so.”

“'Angels'?”

“Fallen in my case, perhaps,” Cinder said, “but an angel nevertheless.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled coquettishly at Sunset.

It was not long afterwards that the boat pulled in to what was a far more miserable excuse for a dockyard than Sunset had only been expecting. The rest of the island was as it had appeared: a rough, sandy, and incredibly narrow beach bordering on high, practically sheer cliffs that could not have been climbed by any of them, nor leapt even with Jaune’s semblance strengthening their legs.

The dock into which their ship slid silently was barely worthy of the name: there was just a single crane for the unloading of the vessel, and that … that was about it. There wasn’t even a proper jetty, although Sunset supposed that such things could be regarded as unnecessary if you were never intending to carry passengers. Still, the lack of any sort of facilities didn’t bode well for the hope that they would find all the answers that they were looking for here. Just as likely, this was just another way-station, another stop on their journey that would lead them to nowhere but another location on what Jaune had accurately termed a treasure hunt.

They leapt down off the boat — with aura and its enhancements to their strength, they didn’t need for there to be any way to disembark passengers — and landed in the sand as the crane began to descend upon one of the shipping containers that had been taken on in the Forever Fall. A crude wall of wooden planks and corrugated iron that looked as though it had been assembled hastily and out of whatever leftover materials happened to be available to hand separated the dock from the rest of the beach, with only a small doorway joining the two.

There was a clanking, stomping sound for a moment before that doorway was blocked by an android. A red android, one of the crimson giants that Blake and Rainbow Dash had encountered underneath Atlas and one of the same type that SAPR had found destroyed and scattered in the Emerald Forest. It stopped, and as it stared at them for a moment, Sunset almost had the impression that it was surprised to see them.

It made an unintelligible sound in no language that Sunset recognised, and then stepped out of sight behind the barrier.

“Huh,” Jaune said. “That was—”

The barrier was smashed down as a host of robots battered holes in the wood and the iron and stomped through the breaches they had made. On the right flank, closer to the water’s edge, were the blood red robots with the stylised M in white upon their chests, with their eyes of green and their polearms tinted in the same colour. Upon the left, further towards the cliff, were the bulkier white robots with the guns with which Ruby had been so enamoured when she had taken one in the forest.

They mean to drive us onto the spears of the first group with the fire of the second.

Unfortunately for them, we’re actually quite well-placed for fighting robots.

“Pyrrha, Jaune,” Sunset said. “You take the close-quarter ones on the right. Ruby, you and me are going to take the shooting ones on the left. Cinder?”

“Yes?” Cinder asked.

Sunset grinned. “Watch as it’s our turn to show off. Ruby, hold for my signal.” She raised her hands and conjured a wide shield of magic that stretched from her out to cover her team, and Cinder, and even separate the red robots from the white on either side of her barrier. “Pyrrha, Jaune, go!”

---

As her swift stride carried her into battle, Pyrrha wanted very much to simply use her semblance to rip all of these androids apart in a matter of moments.

It might not work. There were a great many robots present on this beach, after all, very many indeed, and not having encountered them before, she was not certain how much power it would require to destroy them all.

But she felt … in the presence of Cinder, after the power that Cinder had displayed in the tunnel, she felt the need to … show off a little bit.

Not show off, perhaps, or at least, she hoped that it was not simply a matter of showing off, although perhaps it was. Cinder knew her semblance, after all, or should have been able to guess at it even as Arslan had, and now that Cinder had revealed the extent of her power, Pyrrha felt the need to show that, though she might not be a Maiden, her semblance was, in itself, capable of tremendous power.

Showing off, perhaps, or warning Cinder not to take her lightly, an invitation perhaps to go all out next time, as Pyrrha felt certain there would be a next time.

Or just a statement: Yes, you can destroy a lot of grimm, but look how these robots fall before me.

Of course, it would be a fine thing to try something like that only for it not to work, for the number of androids arrayed against her to defeat her semblance; it would also be a fine thing for her to use up all her aura and require an unusually large boost from Jaune.

No, it was not worth it, not merely for some petty posturing and preening towards Cinder.

No, she would win this fight — she would help her team win this fight — the way that she had won all her battles. Against an enemy that was quite literally made of metal, it should be quite sufficient.

All these thoughts passed through Pyrrha’s head in the mere moments before she reached her android enemies and joined battle with them.

The first android swung its polearm in her direction, but Pyrrha simultaneously leaned back, her knees bending even as she adjusted the swing of the spear with her polarity so that it passed harmlessly over her head. And as the glowing blade passed before her eyes, Pyrrha lashed outward with her foot, hammering the robot in the knee with enough force to shatter its joint. It tottered upon its remaining leg even as Pyrrha leapt upwards and, with a swing of her spear, sliced off its head.

Two more androids closed on her from opposite sides. They were so slow. They stomped around as though they were moving through treacle rather than air. She threw her shield at the one that was trying with almost painful sloth to approach her from behind, shattering its visage as she struck it on the forehead. With her free hand, Pyrrha grabbed the glaive of the android that she had just decapitated and threw it at the red robot approaching her from the front, aiming for the vulnerable join of its legs to its torso. Took one of its legs off and had the satisfaction of watching the android topple over onto its side. She rounded on the android behind and finished the damage to its head that her shield had begun. The second android was now trying to crawl its way over to her, but it was even slower as it tried to drag itself across the ground, and Pyrrha despatched it easily.

She charged another android. It slashed at her with surprising speed — so they could move fast when they wished to — but Pyrrha’s semblance was able to turn them all safely away from her without any damage to her aura. She jumped, landing on top of the robot's spear as she returned its slashes with a few of her own, and her strikes did not miss.

More of the androids tried to surround her, but she was able to turn their strokes aside as she had always turned the strokes of her enemies aside in the arena and, in so doing, create openings for herself. This was familiar to her, in spite of the fact that the enemies were androids instead of fellow tournament fighters, and though it wasn’t pushing her in any new directions … well, quite honestly, after some of the novelty that had entered her life recently, there was something to be said for an experience that was a little more familiar, like an old glove. She knew how to do this, and she knew that she could do it well.

And do it she did, as the androids fell before her.

---

Jaune concentrated. He could do this. There was no reason why he couldn’t do this, no reason at all.

He had a lot of aura, and what was the good of that if — well, okay, part of the good of that was his semblance and the way that he could help his teammates with it — but also, it ought to be good for concentrating it in certain places without leaving himself vulnerable.

After all, Rainbow Dash did that, and Jaune was pretty sure that he had more aura to go around than she did.

He wasn’t even going to burn lots of it at once on flashy punches; he just wanted to make his swings stronger.

Strong enough to cut right through a robot, maybe.

And so, as the robots advanced, Jaune concentrated, concentrated upon concentration of his aura, moving it so that it wasn’t spread evenly across his whole body, but focussed a bit more around his shield and his left arm, and even more so on his right arm and where his aura covered his sword.

He could feel both getting stronger. He could feel his legs weakening a little bit as the aura moved away from them, but not too much; there was still aura there, and it wasn’t as though he was tired already.

But his arms: he could feel the power in his arms increasing; he felt like he could punch through a mountain if he wanted to, shattering it into little pebbles. He felt as though he could withstand the tides with his shield.

It’s working. It’s working!

And not before time too, as the first of the red androids was already upon him. It drew back its bladed spear thingy and slashed at him.

Jaune parried with his sword, the android’s spear clashed with his blade, and the edge, enhanced by a greater than usual amount of aura, sliced clean through the mere metal as the bulk of the spear-blade dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

Even the robot seemed a little confused by what had just happened.

Jaune yelled. He yelled as he slashed down at the robot’s outstretched arm, cutting through it and slicing it off just below the elbow. He yelled as he hacked at the robot itself, slicing through the armour of its chest until it collapsed into pieces, falling apart along the lines where he and his sword had cloven through it.

It worked! It actually worked!

And that was about the easiest kill he’d ever gotten.

“Yes!” Jaune let out a triumphant shout as if he’d just won the whole battle single-handedly, before the tramp-tramp of robotic feet reminded him that there were more enemies yet to be dealt with.

Well, let them come. His sword would cut through them all just like it cut through that first one.

“Come on!” he challenged. “Who’s next?”

They came at him, without much order or coordination that he could make out. He cut their spears in half, he cut off their arms, he cut off their legs and then their heads, he simply sliced through their bodies at the waist-line, he cut them into pieces one and all. He was killing this. He was killing them. He was … he was good at this! He’d been getting better at fighting the grimm too, but he was really good at this. As the robots fell before his blade, this was the first time he really felt like the hero he’d always—

A flurry of swift blows from behind struck his back and cut his knees out from under him, and the world spun around Jaune even as he felt more blows clattering off his armour and slicing into his aura at the same time. He hit the sand heavily, shoulder first. He heard some robotic buzzing as he looked up to see the android that had gotten behind him.

Akoúo̱ flew into his field of vision to knock the android back a step before Pyrrha leapt over him in a flying kick that knocked the robot still further back even as she sliced off its head with Miló.

She leapt back, turning to him and offering him her hand, a gleam in her eyes as her smile made her whole face light up in such a way that … well, Jaune could almost forget that there was a battle raging around them.

“You were doing wonderfully well,” she said, as she helped him to his feet. “But don’t get cocky.”

“I won’t,” Jaune said. “I’ll remember.”

As the remaining robots — the red ones anyway — surrounded them, Jaune and Pyrrha turned so that they were back to back.

As the androids closed in around them, he wasn’t afraid. Together, they had this.

He was sure of it.

---

Sunset cringed a little as the bullets from the androids’ rotary cannons slammed into her magical shield, sending shockwaves rippling through her consciousness.

“Sunset—” Ruby began.

“Not yet,” Sunset said as she put forth her effort and her power alike to keep the shield stable, protecting not only herself and her partner but Jaune and Pyrrha and Cinder too.

The androids kept up their bombardment. They must have thought that this was some kind of semblance that would drop if they kept shooting at it.

They were half right, but the trick was to keep it up enough for them to grow impatient. Sunset grinned reflexively before she realised that these were robots and she wasn’t going to annoy them with a show like she would a human enemy. She looked away as the bullets spat from the guns and her shield shuddered under the impacts, and she started to get a headache. Jaune and Pyrrha were making short work of the crimson androids with the spears, and if they had any sort of tactical nous, then the white androids must be getting desperate to bring her shield down and support their allies.

Come on, Sunset thought. You’ve got a load of nice, juicy grenades stuffed in there somewhere, so why don’t you—?

They fired their grenades. Two of the white androids did, anyway; the bombs erupted from the dark barrels of their enormous guns and bounced off the sand as they flew through the air straight for Sunset.

Who enveloped them both in the grip of her telekinesis, holding them there in a bright green glow, before — with a superfluous but very cool-looking flicking gesture — she flung them straight back at the robots who had fired them.

Both grenades exploded in the midst of the cluster of white androids, enveloping them in the explosive blast.

Sunset dropped the shield. “Ruby, go!”

Ruby was already speeding forward before Sunset had even finished the second word, racing towards the enemy in a burst of rosepetals.

---

Ruby raced towards the enemy in a burst of rosepetals, re-materialising in their midst just as the explosion from the grenades died down. Two androids were down, some of the rest were damaged; only the ones on the edge of the blast were completely untouched.

Damaged or not, none of them were fast enough to react to her sudden appearance in their midst as she twirled a still-unfolding Crescent Rose in a wide arc, slicing two androids in half. A third robot swung the barrel of its gun towards her, but Ruby jumped up onto that barrel, Crescent Rose switching back into carbine mode as she fired five or six shots into the android at point-blank range — she still had enough bullets that she could afford to fire those. Probably — into its head and chest to take it down.

With all these guns here, I’ll have one that I can disassemble to see how it all works as well as one to keep, Ruby thought as she unfurled her mighty scythe once again and buried the blade in an android’s chest. Unfortunately, it got stuck there, while the robot wasn’t quite dead.

Ruby leapt upwards, trailing rose petals as she ascended into the sky, flicking Crescent Rose and collapsing it at the same time so that her scythe blade retracted — slicing through more metal and circuits as it went — even as the robot itself was flung off and against the cliff.

She unfolded her weapon again — the mechanism was certainly getting a workout right now — as she landed on the ground, kicking up sand as she charged forward, dragging her scythe behind her like a giant scoop that swept up the half-dozen robots in her path — the last white androids remaining — and threw them all up into the air like ninepins hit by a bowling ball.

Bursts of bright green energy from Sunset’s fingertips nailed all six of them as they hung suspended in the air, and they were dead — or whatever the term was for robots — before they hit the ground.

---

Sunset dusted off her hands. That was even quicker than I thought it would be. We really are good at this. We’re like robot slayers.

She glanced at Cinder, who was very studiedly acting as though she wasn’t impressed. It didn’t matter. Sunset knew that she was secretly impressed, even if she was trying not to show it.

Sunset said, “As awesomely as that was done — and good job, everybody — we’ve certainly made our presence known to our enemy after all that.”

She pulled out her scroll. She got nothing but static. However, as she glanced upwards away from the wreck that Team SAPR had made of the Merlot androids, she could see a series of communications towers rising up from behind the cliffs, three of them in fact, at different points on the island.

“We need to make contact with Professor Ozpin again,” she said. “Perhaps if we get up to one of those towers, we can boost our signal.”

“Assuming that they are signal towers,” Cinder said. “Considering that this is an island in the middle of nowhere with little apparent interest in visitors, and considering that communications are being jammed, I’d say they’re more like jamming towers.”

“Hmm,” Sunset mused. “Maybe. We’ll find out when we actually get to them.”

“We should split up,” Cinder said. “Head for each tower at the same time.”

“I don’t know how much I like that idea,” Sunset said.

“I think it could work,” Pyrrha said. “We should split up by pairs: Jaune and I, Sunset and Ruby—”

“And Cinder by herself?” Sunset asked. “That—”

“Would suit me just fine,” Cinder said.

Sunset frowned. “Are you sure?”

Cinder chuckled. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, Sunset. I’m a big girl; I can get this done by myself.”

Sunset hesitated. “It … would be quicker, I suppose. All right, if you think you can manage it, then we’ll split up, but aim to reunite as quickly as possible; we’re stronger together, and I want us to be together again very, very soon.”

They couldn’t split up right away in any case, as there was only one nearby way off the beach and into the interior of the island: an archway inviting them through the sandstone cliffs and up a narrow path that wound upwards and around a rocky hill until they came to what looked like nothing so much as an arena dug into the earth. It was a rough circle, formed on three sides by the rock faces and on the fourth by a substantial metal wall with a gate set in it. The wall was less a barrier and more like the rampart of a fortress, with a parapet at the top for defenders to stand, and in fact, as SAPR and Cinder crouched behind the rocks for cover, they could see the distinctive white androids with their enormous guns standing on said parapet looking down.

The gate was, at present, open, and red androids who had exchanged their spears for metal staves that sparked with electricity were prodding a large mutated beowolf, easily the size of your average ursa, into the arena.

A dozen ordinary beowolves, led by a battle-scarred alpha, were already there.

Cinder tensed, as if she could anticipate what was coming as the gate slammed shut.

The two sides eyeballed one another for a moment, the green beowolf and the white pack, low growls rising out of their throats.

It was practically axiomatic that grimm would only intentionally hunt humans but that they would fight animals in disputes over territory.

Sunset didn’t know whether this counted as territory or not, but after a moment of staring, the pack of beowolves surged forward into the attack, kicking up dust as they descended upon the larger, mutated beowolf from all sides.

And the single green beowolf withstood them all. Though they bit at his legs and leapt onto his back, scrabbling for purchase amongst the giant spines, though they could make the larger creature howl with pain, not all of that black tide could seem to impair the creature’s ability to fight back. Enormous paws lashed out in both directions, sending beowolves flying to slam against the stone walls that made up the natural arena; one swiping paw even took a beowolf’s head clean off when it had the misfortune to stand up at the wrong time. The mutated beowolf ripped one of his ordinary opponents off his back and bit it in half. It slammed its clawed paws onto the ground, and a line of jagged green spikes erupted from out of the surface of the earth to impale the alpha beowolf.

In a matter of mere moments, the mutated beowolf had slaughtered every beowolf that had confronted him and pounded his paws upon his chest in celebration as he roared his triumph to the skies.

Cinder’s face was hard as flint. “Sunset, our road to those jamming towers leads through here, correct?”

“Yes,” Sunset said. All the towers were in various places on the other side of that gate.

A glass bow formed in Cinder’s hands. “Then I see no reason to delay,” she said as she stood up and loosed an arrow at the mutated beowolf, striking it in the eye. The beowolf’s loud triumphant roar turned into a howl of pain that was no less loud for having exchanged triumph for agony.

“Get through the gate and be on your way,” Cinder said. “I can deal with this mongrel myself. In fact, I’d prefer it that way.”

Without another word, she leapt down into the arena, loosing another glass shaft that, this time, struck the beowolf in the neck. Green ichor began to leak from the creature’s wound as it turned its head, trying to find her with the one eye that she had left it.

The androids had much less trouble noticing her and began to turn their guns towards her.

“Sorry about this, Ruby,” Sunset said.

“What are you—?” Ruby’s question was cut off as Sunset grabbed her and teleported the pair of them onto the battlements of the metal wall before the white androids could start to take their shots at Cinder.

It was to Ruby’s credit that, once they were actually up on the wall, she didn’t hesitate to charge the androids, Crescent Rose unfolding behind her as she slashed with it in a wide arc that sliced two androids clean in half already. Sunset thought she could handle the remainders, so she leapt down off the wall to where the red androids with the cattle prods were waiting.

Magical blasts shot from the palms of Sunset’s hands, punching holes in the chests of two of the androids before they could react. Since they couldn’t shoot at her, Sunset ignored the other two for a moment as she ran to the gate and slammed her fist into the big red button beside it.

Said button changed to green as the gate slid open, revealing that Cinder had changed her glass bow for a pair of scimitars as she engaged the mutated beowolf at close quarters. The altered grimm was bleeding from a dozen wounds but didn’t seem in any danger of dying at this stage.

Sunset fired another magical blast from out of her palms, which would also signal to Pyrrha and Jaune that the gate was open. She struck the beowolf on the thigh, making it turn its scarred face towards her and roar angrily.

Cinder soon got its attention back, slashing across its throat with both swords. “This is my fight, Sunset,” she snarled. “Leave me.”

“But—”

“Leave me!” Cinder snapped as she retreated back a step and led the beowolf on.

Sunset might have argued further — she felt like arguing further — but she heard the remaining red androids closing with her and turned just in time as one of them tried to wield its oversized cattle prod like a club, bringing it down upon her head.

Sunset took the blow upon her forearm, the metal clanging against the bracers that she wore.

The lightning dust infused bracers.

Sunset tapped the bracer with her free hand, and with her aura, she activated the dust that she’d infused into the metal. Lightning rippled up and down the bracers, and not only that, but it surged down the pole of the android’s weapon, the lightning snapping and crackling like a pack of angry hounds, and ripped across the crimson body of the android itself, which jerked and twitched before collapsing like an unused puppet.

Pyrrha’s shield flew over Sunset’s shoulder to strike the remaining red android before Pyrrha herself emerged into view to finish it off.

Ruby leapt down off the wall. “Nailed it,” she said as various pieces of white android followed her to the ground.

Jaune was the last to arrive. “What now?” he asked.

Sunset turned towards Cinder, still locked in combat with the beowolf.

“This is my fight.”

Then good luck with it.

“We get to the towers,” Sunset said before she turned away.

But she left the gate open for when Cinder was finished.

---

Pyrrha’s boots hammered upon the metal steps as she ran down them. The second jamming tower, the tower that it had fallen to her and Jaune to disable in the hope of getting their signal out, stood on the edge of a clear blue lake. In fact, the tower had been built just in the lake, rising up out of the water and casting a long shadow of beams and poles over it. The controls — or at least what Pyrrha, who would never claim to be any sort of engineer, took to be the control panel, considering that it was a glowing panel with buttons on it — lay at the bottom of the tower and underneath it.

“Pyrrha, Jaune, do you read me?” Sunset asked.

“You’re crackling a little, but we can make you out,” Jaune said. “Whoever lives here must be more concerned about jamming long-range communications.”

“Right,” Sunset said. “Ruby and I have reached the tower. I’m disabling the jammer now.”

A burst of static sounded in Pyrrha’s ear, followed by a voice that was — just about — identifiable as belonging to Professor Ozpin.

“Team…can you…resp…”

“Professor Ozpin?” Pyrrha asked. “Professor, can you hear us?”

“…don’t know…keep doing…trying…” His voice was lost amidst more static.

“Sounds like we’re onto something at least,” Sunset said. “Pyrrha, where are you?”

“Almost there,” Pyrrha said.

“Okay,” Sunset said. “We’ll see what taking two towers offline can do.”

Pyrrha didn’t reply as she reached the base of the tower, where the steps widened out into a large metal pad, with the control panel before her. Her steps slowed as she approached.

“Pyrrha?” Jaune said as he caught up with her. “Is something wrong?”

Pyrrha hesitated for a moment, then pulled the ear piece out of her ear and switched it off so that Sunset and Ruby couldn’t hear her. “Jaune, would you…?”

Jaune frowned. “But—”

“Please,” Pyrrha said softly.

Jaune blinked, but he put his finger to his ear. “There, it’s off. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Pyrrha said, which she recognised was a silly thing to say almost as soon as she’d said it, because if nothing was going on, she wouldn’t have asked him to turn off his earpiece, would she? She walked to the control panel but did not deactivate the jammer. Not yet. She would, of course, but not yet. She turned back to face Jaune. “I wanted to talk to you without Sunset being able to overhear. Just for a moment.”

“Pyrrha,” Jaune said. “What is this?”

Pyrrha hesitated. She didn’t really want to tell him this, not least because Ruby hadn’t wanted to tell him this, and she was not at all sure that she had the right to tell it. But if Ruby was going to do this, then … Pyrrha valued his advice; perhaps he would see things differently to her.

Or perhaps he would see it the same way and be able to persuade Ruby not to go through with it.

“Ruby wishes to kill Cinder,” she said. “To rid us of an enemy and deny Salem a Maiden. I did not wish to be involved, but I think that she may attempt it anyway, if given the chance.”

“On her own?” Jaune asked. “That’s—”

“She means to wait until Cinder is weakened and distracted,” Pyrrha pointed out. She paused for a moment. “Do you think that I made the right decision?”

Jaune rubbed his jaw with one hand. “I … I think it would have been better if you’d been able to talk her out of it; Cinder is … Cinder’s too much for Ruby, and this thing about waiting until she’s weak, waiting until the right moment … what if Ruby misjudges it? She could be in serious trouble.”

“I would never stand by while Cinder hurt her, and neither would Sunset.”

“Does Sunset know about this?”

“No, of course not,” Pyrrha said.

“No,” Jaune said. “No, I see what you mean; we would have heard the yelling about it. All the same … I think that maybe we should tell her; that way she can stop Ruby from doing anything stupid.”

“I don’t want to cause any more trouble between them,” she said. “You know that Sunset’s attempt at respecting other people’s decisions would not stand before this.”

“I’d rather Ruby and Sunset have another fight than Ruby do something dangerous,” Jaune said. “Ruby could get herself in serious trouble doing this.”

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. “Do you think … should I have agreed to help her?”

It was Jaune’s turn to hesitate. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t feel a little easier if Cinder weren’t around.”

“But she saved our lives,” Pyrrha said. “And then we would repay her by blowing her head off?”

Jaune winced. “You know, I remember when you used to be worried about how Sunset felt about Cinder.”

“This is not the same thing,” Pyrrha said, a touch of sternness entering her voice. “This is … a matter of obligation, and trust.”

“You’re right,” he said. “It would be … it would be rough to do that, after what we agreed and what she did; I’m just saying I’m a little surprised that … never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“I suppose it might seem that I’m defending her,” Pyrrha said. “That might be why I told Ruby that I wouldn’t stop her, even though I wouldn’t help her either. Or perhaps I just didn’t want her to think that I was putting barriers around her again.”

“Like I said, I kind of wish you had,” Jaune muttered. “Ruby could—”

“Get herself killed?” Pyrrha asked. “Has that not always been our reason, mine and Sunset, and has not Ruby always chafed at it?”

“I … guess,” Jaune sighed. “I suppose I ought to be on her side, but the idea of her going up against Cinder … did she tell you why she held back? Cinder, I mean?”

“She had a point to prove,” Pyrrha said. “Regarding our respective talents. Even after I had disproved that point, she would have preferred to die rather than use her magic against me.”

“Do you think that she’ll show Ruby the same indulgence?”

“No,” Pyrrha murmured. “That’s why I supported the idea of splitting up; Sunset may want us to reunite quickly, but at least in Cinder’s case, it would be better for both of them if they were to stay apart for as long as possible.”

Jaune nodded. “That sounds for the best.” He put his hands on her arms, two fingers resting upon the honour band on her left arm, the others pressed lightly against her skin. “Ruby put you in a difficult position; you weren’t left any really good choices.”

“Despite the circumstances, it gladdens me to hear you say it.”

“I’m always here to help,” Jaune said, a brief smile flitting across his face. “Sunset’s going to start wondering if we’re okay.”

She switched on her earpiece as she put it back in her ear. “Sunset, I’m disabling the jammer now. I think,” she said as she pushed what she hoped was the right button on the control panel.

“Students…almost…got you. Just…more,” Professor Ozpin said, before his voice cut out.

I suppose it’s all up to Cinder now.

For better or for worse.

---

Green ooze dripped off Cinder to form a trail leading back the way that she had come as she made her way up the rocky path and up the steps towards the final jamming tower.

She wondered idly if any of them had doubted that she would win the fight. And she hadn’t even had to use her Maiden powers to do it, although that would have undoubtedly ended the struggle much faster. But it would also have revealed said powers to their host, and she wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.

Cinder reached the control panel underneath the third and final tower and stood before it. There was an argument to be made for not turning it off. After all, she didn’t need to get in touch with Ozpin, did she? But she and Sunset were allies on this mission, and Sunset was counting on her.

And she would, at some point, need a way off this island, and that might be difficult to accomplish if she couldn’t get a signal out to Emerald.

I suppose, by this point, Tempest Shadow has begun to wonder where I am.

I wonder if Salem is upset with her for letting me go.

Probably not — I’ll get the blame, no doubt — but one can dream, can one not?

Once they heard that she had defeated whoever was responsible for kidnapping innocent Atlesian faunus, they’d probably be only too happy to rescue her.

Cinder flicked the switch to turn off the jammer.

Instantly, her scroll buzzed.

She reached for it. It might have been Sunset, and so, she reflexively pulled out her scroll only to be confronted by the face of an old man with a shock of white hair, an untidy handlebar moustache, and a goatee. A red eye, clearly cybernetic, burned in his left socket. A rich fruity voice emerged from out of Cinder’s scroll as he spoke.

“Forgive the cold call, as it were, young lady,” he said. “But since your comms don’t appear to be linked to any of the other children currently enjoying my island, I thought it might be nice to have a little word.”

Cinder’s eyebrows arched. “Doctor Merlot, I presume.”

“You know who I am?” he asked, looking somewhat surprised to hear it.

Cinder smirked. “Take a tip, Doctor; if you’re looking to stay anonymous, perhaps don’t splash your corporate logo on absolutely every surface that you can. Especially when that logo is the initial of your last name.”

Merlot did not reply directly. Instead, he said, “Ozpin sends his children in teams of four, so may I ask who you are and what you’re doing here?”

“I could ask what you’re doing more generally,” Cinder said. “Abducting grimm, desecrating them … there are other powers in the world beyond Ozpin, Doctor, and you have offended them greatly.”

“'Desecrating'?” Merlot asked incredulously. “I’m improving upon nature’s design.”

“'Improving'?” Cinder asked with deadly calm.

“The grimm are truly a superior species,” Merlot said, deaf to the sharpening of Cinder’s tone. “Immune to pity, to fear, to love, unburdened by all the weaknesses of mankind. But for all that, they remain frustratingly vulnerable, blinded by base instincts, prey to the weapons and abilities of Ozpin’s huntsmen. Do you know that a young grimm can’t resist attacking even though it is certain death to do so? I have taken promising savages and lifted them up, starting them along a path to their destiny as the supreme and superior species on Remnant.”

“And you will be their king, I suppose?” Cinder asked.

“A king? Why speak in such small, mean terms?” Merlot asked. “The power of my creations will set me above the gods themselves.”

Cinder chuckled. “You are a Valishman I take it, Doctor?”

“I was, once,” Merlot said. “I like to think that I have renounced and transcended the kingdoms of men.”

It was all Cinder could do not to roll her eyes. “Then, being a Valishman and a scientist, I take it you are not familiar with the vast corpus of Mistralian myths regarding men who presume to boast that they were superior to the gods in any way?”

“No,” he said, “no, I can’t say that I am.”

“Then let me sum up the general trend for you,” Cinder said. “It never ends well. I am no god myself, but nevertheless, I will remind you of what follows after hubris.” She hung up on him.

Idiot.

He’s lucky that I’m only going to kill him and not turn him into a grimm as the gods of old would have.

Cinder began to walk away. Obviously, he had some sort of facility on this island; all she had to do was find it and then find him.

In the meantime, she would let SAPR act as a distraction for Merlot’s security while she snuck in without so much interference. It was a little harsh, but she was confident that Sunset’s team would be able to handle it.

After all, they had Sunset and Pyrrha; that would be enough to see them through.

They would not perish at the hands of some arrogant irrelevance, before she had the chance to win back some of her pride.

She would not tolerate anything else.

---

“I think the last jammer just went down; Cinder did it,” Sunset said. “Professor Ozpin, can you—?”

“I did entertain some hope that you might provide some more scintillating conversation than your associate, but after hearing you call for Ozpin, my hopes fade by the second,” declared the voice on the other end of the line. It was definitely not Ozpin’s voice; it was richer, fuller, and a little more full of itself as well. “You’re obviously just another four of the self-righteous huntsmen that Oz so delights in churning out.”

“Who is this?” Pyrrha demanded from her position, her voice entering Sunset’s ear via the earpiece. “Who are you?”

The voice chuckled. “Not as insightful as your associate either. Permit me to introduce myself, my name—”

“Merlot,” the voice of Professor Ozpin interrupted him. “Like the rest of the world, I believed you to be dead. Unlike some, I also hoped that it was so.”

“Hoped I was dead?” the other voice — Merlot — asked in mock horror. “Come now, Oz, is that any way to speak to an old chum?”

“If we were ever friends, Merlot, I’m not aware of it,” Ozpin said dryly.

“That’s because you don’t let yourself have any friends, Oz, but believe me, there was a time when I would have done absolutely anything to make you proud.”

“'Merlot'?” Sunset said. “The Merlot? Founder of Merlot Industries? You’re—”

“Supposed to be dead?” Merlot asked. “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, it seems.”

“I should have known,” Ozpin said wearily. “I had hoped that, you having done so much to bring about the Mountain Glenn tragedy, you would at least have had the good grace to perish alongside those you condemned by your heedless arrogance, but of course, that never was your style, was it, Merlot? It was always others who had to pay the price for your recklessness.”

“Reckless?” Merlot snapped. “You sent four children here, and you call me reckless? Tell me, Oz, old pal, how many people have you sent to their deaths over the years while you sat safe in your emerald tower?”

“Far too many for my liking,” Ozpin admitted. “And that is a weight that I have to carry; why do I doubt that the lives you’ve cost burden your shoulders nearly so much?”

“Professor Ozpin?” Ruby said. “What are you talking about?”

Ozpin sighed. “Doctor Merlot was expelled from Beacon after he convinced a team of first years to go into the Emerald Forest and act as bait as part of a plan he had devised to capture some grimm for study.”

“How could we develop superior strategies and weapons for combating the grimm if we never studied the grimm?” Merlot demanded. “Beacon clings to ancient orthodoxies without ever trying to verify them; Grimm Studies is based on fleeting observation and anecdote combined with teachings so ancient, they’re antefractionarian, simply because they’ve survived being passed from hand to hand over the centuries. I wanted to see for myself!”

“And as a result, three of your fellow students died, and another was gravely injured in the body and scarred in the mind and soul,” Ozpin snapped.

“Has any great thing ever been accomplished without sacrifice?”

“And it still wasn’t enough,” Ozpin thundered. “You didn’t stop there, did you, Merlot? You were luring grimm to Mountain Glenn, weren’t you?”

The momentary silence was broken by Merlot saying, “I needed more specimens than could be acquired any other way.”

Ruby gasped. “You … you mean you … you brought the grimm to Mountain Glenn? You’re the reason the city fell?”

“A mere speed bump on the path of scientific discovery,” Merlot declared breezily.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here!” Jaune said.

“The city was fundamentally untenable in any case; it probably would have fallen for some other reason sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t,” Jaune said. “It fell because of you.”

“And as a result, fell in a greater purpose than would otherwise have been the case.”

“You’re a monster,” Pyrrha said.

“On the contrary, my dear girl, I am a visionary,” Merlot declared. “I am the only one—”

“Shut up,” Ruby snarled, her voice coming out raggedly, as though she was about to start sobbing. When Sunset looked at her, she could see tears welling at the edges of her eyes. “Just … shut up!

“There was a girl … her name was Skye. Her parents moved out to Mountain Glenn so that they could have a better life than in Vale. She loved her friends, and the colour pink, and she had a crush on a cool young huntsman she’d seen in the Vytal Festival. And she’s dead because of what you did!

“There was a huntress, her name was Elphaba Westwick, she was Professor Goodwitch’s partner when they were students at Beacon; she believed in humanity, and she fought for humanity, and she died trying to defend Mountain Glenn against the monsters that you brought there. Those people … all of those people that you killed … all of those lives and dreams that you snuffed out … I’m going to make you pay for all of them!”

Merlot’s only response was to laugh. “My my, Oz, what fierce little kittens you’re training at Beacon nowadays.”

“Patronising ass,” Sunset muttered.

In truth … in truth, she felt nearly as sick to the stomach as Ruby seemed furious. The cloak of righteousness did not fit her well, she knew; it was a shabby, tawdry thing upon her shoulders, stained by all the ways that she had behaved unrighteously, and yet … for science? To do all this, to send people to their deaths, to condemn a city, for science? Sunset had been willing to take a risk for the sake of those she loved, but this … just to find out more? Just to advance your own knowledge?

She felt ill, although not so much at Merlot as at the fact that for all that she might disdain his motives, the end results of their actions could have been the same. If Vale had fallen as Mountain Glenn had fallen, then it would have mattered little that her intentions were arguably more noble than his.

“Do you regret it, Doctor?” Sunset asked. “Do you regret what you did, ever? Do you ever wake up in the morning and wish that you had done other than you did, that things had turned out differently?”

“I somewhat regret that I have been forced to hide on this island for many years past, does that count?”

“Do you regret the dead?” Sunset demanded. “Do you regret the cost of the advancement of your knowledge?”

Merlot feigned a yawn. “My dear girl, at least they died for something. Their deaths were worth more than their miserable little lives ever were. Just as your deaths will be worth more than your tedious lives as part of a little experiment I’ve been dying to try, if you’ll excuse the execrable play on words.”

“These students are more than a match for your robots, Merlot,” Ozpin declared.

“Yes, it will probably make you feel very smug to know that they’ve proved that already,” Merlot said. “You never did rate my androids, did you Oz?”

“If you mean that I never believed you when you said they could replace huntsmen on the battlefield then no, I didn’t,” Ozpin said. “It seems that I have been proved right.”

“These particular students are somewhat above average,” Merlot conceded, “but that’s what makes them so perfect for my experiment. You see, it isn’t androids that I wish to test. It’s something much, much more interesting.”

The sounds of gunfire erupted in Sunset’s earpiece.

“Pyrrha!” Jaune yelled.

“Jaune?” Sunset cried. “Pyrrha?”

“Best of luck,” Merlot said.

---

The beowolf had wings.

It was absolutely a beowolf. Pyrrha was not so wearied, confused, or discombobulated that she had mistaken a nevermore or a griffon for a beowolf. It was a beowolf: a green, mutated beowolf, but a beowolf nonetheless. But it also had wings, black leathery wings like a bat which carried the beowolf through the air towards her and Jaune, diving down towards them with its teeth-filled maw bared and open.

It was smaller than some of the mutants created by Doctor Merlot — for this bizarre chimera surely had to be his work somehow too; the green tint gave it away, for all that it was a less bright and vivid green than found on some of the mutated grimm they had so far encountered — and yet, for a moment, the sight of it so astonished and discomfited Pyrrha that she could not react.

The moment passed. This may be one of the more bizarre grimm that she had ever seen, it might have been augmented by the dark lights of a perverted science, but it was just a grimm nevertheless, and being a grimm, it could be slain.

Miló formed into rifle mode in her hands as she raised it to her shoulder, aiming down the sights straight at the swooping demon as it descended for them straight as a javelin.

“What is that thing?” Jaune asked.

“It’s just a grimm, like any other,” Pyrrha murmured, as much to herself as to Jaune.

She fired, once, twice. Her first shot missed as the grimm rolled sideways as she squeezed the trigger, but her second shot caught it in the shoulder and made it howl in pain as its roll turned into an ungainly diving fall towards the water of the lake.

Pyrrha, standing on the very edge of the metal step with the lake’s water just an inch below her toes, lined up her third shot even as the bat-beowolf tried to recover its descent.

She barely had time to register the dark shadow in the water beneath her before another beowolf, with fins upon its forelegs, erupted up from out of the lake and grabbed her by the ankles.

“Pyrrha! Jaune yelled.

“Jaune?” Sunset shouted through the ear piece. “Pyrrha?”

Pyrrha said nothing. She couldn’t say anything because the beowolf had dragged her underwater in moments; the sound of Jaune’s voice became muffled as Pyrrha’s head disappeared beneath the surface. The blue water of the lake was all around her now, beginning to darken as the grimm pulled her down towards the bottom of the lake.

It had one foreleg — one finned foreleg, like the fins that some fish faunus had, and its hind legs had webbed toes — wrapped around Pyrrha’s legs as it slashed at her, gouging her aura with its other leg even as it snapped at her like its jaws.

Pyrrha punched it on the snout with her free hand, grabbing hold of it to stop it getting its jaws into her. It struggled, of course, but she was able to hold it off for now. She still had Miló in her hand. Not all weapons were designed to work under water, but there were some advantages to coming from an old and wealthy family: namely, high quality equipment with a price-tag equivalent to said quality. Miló transformed into a spear beneath the water as easily as it would have done on land, and Pyrrha thrust it down into the shoulder of this strange aquatic beowolf.

She had little time to wonder at the strangeness of that, though it was undoubtedly strange. She had no time to do anything but fight, and so, she stabbed the beowolf with her spear, impaling it upon the weapon and releasing a cloud of green ooze out into the water all around her. Pyrrha kicked herself free of the dead beowolf’s grip, and kicked its body — turning to ash too slowly for her liking or her needs — off of her spear while she trod water, or tried to. She knew how to swim, but it was a little more difficult while wearing armour and having one hand encumbered with a weapon. Her hair floated out behind her but, being tied back, did not obscure her vision. Pyrrha floated backwards out of the cloud of ooze the dead grimm had released and looked behind her towards the surface. There was no ladder out of the lake, so she would have to scramble out onto the tower. She could do that, but she would be vulnerable while she did it.

Still, it would have to be done. She had only just had time to catch her breath before the grimm pulled her under, and she couldn’t hold it forever. And Jaune might need her help dealing with that flying beowolf.

A cry drew Pyrrha’s attention. Not a human cry, not Jaune calling for help, but a cry from the depths of the lake below her, shrill and shrieking as it echoed through the water.

She looked down. There, at the bottom of the lake, she could see some kind of square hole or open hatch, leading into a dark recess whose gloom her eyes could not penetrate; and there, out of the hatch and into the lake, were pouring more aquatic beowolves: some with fins on their legs, others with webbed toes, some with the lower halves of their bodies replaced with fish tails lightly encrusted with bone instead of scales. All, though they might circle around the lake, were rising up towards her.

She had to get out of this water, and she couldn’t scramble out with these creatures coming up behind her.

Pyrrha pulled her shield from off her back and threw it downwards like a thunderbolt descending from the heavens, using her semblance rather more than the force of her arm to overcome the resistance of the water all around her. Her arm was sheathed in black as she propelled her shield faster and faster down and down to strike the closest aquatic beowolf on the head, knocking it downwards, stunning it as it ceased to swim and began to sink instead. The other beowolves let out more of those shrill underwater shrieks and began to close upon her, swimming faster now as if anger lent them haste.

Pyrrha reversed the direction of her polarity, pulling her shield back up towards her. Come on, faster. She pulled harder, as hard as she dared without damaging Akoúo̱ with the force upon it, drawing it up towards her as the grimm closed in. She slashed with her spear, whirling it through the water with her right hand, drawing more green ooze as a beowolf whined in pain and turned away from her.

Her shield struck her feet, and as Pyrrha continued to pull it upwards, it acted almost like a rocket on her, pushing her upwards and propelling her out of the water from which she rose, spraying water in all directions, pulling her shield onto her arm as she leapt from her balance on it and towards the land.

Jaune was fending off the bat-beowolf; though he hadn’t killed it, he looked as though he had given it a couple of cuts, and he was using his shield well to keep it away from him. It flew away, circling around for another pass.

Pyrrha threw her shield at it even as she landed on the metal platform with a clattering thump, dripping water down upon the floor. Akoúo̱, guided by her semblance, struck home and dropped the bat-beowolf into the water.

“Pyrrha!” Jaune cried, overjoyed.

Pyrrha smiled, but only briefly. “Be careful, there are more creatures in the water.”

Jaune grinned. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as he stepped forward and thrust his sword into the lake. Then he discharged a burst of the lightning dust that he’d loaded into the pommel.

Lightning erupted into the lake, the electric bursts rippling across the surface of the water and all through it, all the way to the very bottom of the lake. Jaune held the blade into the water, he held it there, and he kept firing until he must have used half the lightning dust in that vial, but when he pulled his dripping sword out of the water again, there was no sign of any of those aquatic beowolves, or even the bat-winged beowolf, rising from the water.

Only the faint tendrils of smoke from dead and decaying grimm disturbed the tranquillity of the water.

Nevertheless, Pyrrha pulled Jaune a step back from the water’s edge just in case.

“What … what were they?” Jaune asked.

“I … I’m not sure…” Pyrrha said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay split up any longer. Sunset? Sunset, can you hear me?”

“Yes!” Sunset said loudly. “Yes, Pyrrha, I can hear you.”

“Are you and Jaune okay?” Ruby demanded. “What was that shooting?”

“We’re fine now,” Jaune said. “We had a little run in with some aquatic beowolves?”

There was a moment of pause on the other end of the line.

“Did you just say ‘aquatic beowolves’?” Sunset demanded.

“Indeed, strange as it may sound,” Pyrrha replied. “Although I supported the idea of splitting up, I now believe we should regroup as soon as possible.”

“Right,” Sunset agreed. “Did you deal with the … aquatic beowolves?”

“For now,” Jaune said.

“Then stay put,” Sunset said. “We’ll come to you.”

---

It didn’t take long for Sunset and Ruby to reunite with Jaune and Pyrrha, and they all stood under the jamming tower — standing well back from the water in case there were any more surprises from that direction — discussing the encounter that Pyrrha and Jaune had just been through.

“So the experiment that Merlot wanted us to take part in … was that it?” Jaune asked.

“Well, that was certainly a part of it,” Merlot’s voice purred cheerfully into their earpieces, “but don’t think that the experiment is over just yet.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Can’t we have a little privacy while we talk about how to defeat you? Or if you’re going to eavesdrop, why don’t you tell us something useful, like how you created these weird grimm?”

“You mean to say that you haven’t figured it out yet?” Merlot asked, sounding a little disappointed. “Oz, are you selecting for brawn rather more than brains these days?”

“Oh, I’m sorry that my knowledge of mad science isn’t as good as it ought to be,” Sunset said. I’d like to see you explain the theory behind duplication decay.

“Nevertheless, as I’m sure Oz would agree, I can’t just give you the answer when you’ll learn so much more working it out for yourselves,” Merlot said. “Find your way to my lab, and you’ll find the answers you’re looking for. And we can continue our little experiment along the way. Everybody wins … until somebody doesn’t.”

“I can’t believe that I’m about to say this,” Ozpin said, “but you’re going to have to do as he says. Although you’ve made contact, I can’t yet get a sufficiently accurate trace on your location to pinpoint Merlot’s island. I can arrange forces to support you and take Merlot into custody, but for that to happen, I need to know where to send your backup. You need to explore the island further, find Doctor Merlot’s main facility—”

“And send you a signal so that you can send the cavalry in,” Sunset said.

“Exactly, Miss Shimmer,” Professor Ozpin said. “You’ve all done exceptionally well so far. I want to make that very clear to all of you. While some decisions have been made that I disagree with, I want to say that I’m proud of what you’ve managed to accomplish … and to survive so far. And though it may be the worst is yet to come, I have no doubt that, so long as you work together, you will overcome all obstacles and return home. And until then … even though staying on this line is as close to helping you as I can come, I’ll stay here until your mission is complete.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Pyrrha said. “There were times in Mountain Glenn and after … it means a great deal to know that we’re not alone.”

“You are never alone, Miss Nikos,” Professor Ozpin said. “You have one another.”

Pyrrha looked a little guilty about something — Sunset couldn’t think of anything that Pyrrha might need to feel guilty about — for a moment, but all she said was, “I know, Professor.”

“Thanks, Professor,” Sunset said.

“On the contrary, students,” Professor Ozpin. “The thanks are all yours.”

“I…” Sunset hesitated, because she didn’t really know how to respond to this. She understood Professor Ozpin better now, but she still didn’t know how to react to this kind of effusive praise. “I … right. Okay. Let’s head towards the third jamming tower, see if Cinder’s still there, and then start exploring the island for this lab.”

Cinder might have come under attack by these extraordinary grimm herself, although Sunset wasn’t too concerned for her ability to withstand them. Still, they would go to her first and then see just what there was to find.

The answers seemed so close now, much closer than they had appeared to be when on the approach to the island.

The question was, how grim would those answers be once SAPR found them?

Author's Note:

Rewrite Notes: This chapter is a good deal longer than it was, with the addition of a few new scenes, principally the conversation between Cinder and Pyrrha over why Cinder didn't use her Maiden powers in the duel, and what that means for the way they see one another.

Then we get the scene between Ruby and Pyrrha, which leads to a substantial change to this chapter, originally it was Pyrrha who wanted to kill Cinder and take her powers, having been so frightened by them that she was desperate to get them for herself. Here Pyrrha is calmer and it's Ruby who wants to stab Cinder in the back, in keeping with the ideas she expressed during the duel that the fact that they're on the right side gives them license to do almost anything for the good cause.

And then we find out that Cinder heard that.

Afterwards, in the stuff that was written already, there were fewer changes, except that Pyrrha doesn't ask Jaune for help in killing Cinder, for obvious reasons, rather they talk about Ruby's plan to do so (and Pyrrha suggests that they should split up in order that Ruby can't carry out her intentions and she, Pyrrha, doesn't have to decide what to do about it).

Comments

[JMP]

“I’m out of ice dust,” Jaune admitted. He dug around in his pockets. “But I do have…two vials of lightning dust, one vial of wind dust-“

“And I’m telling you, I don’t care what you saw on TV, focussed wind is not going to turn your sword invisible,” Sunset said.

I appreciate that Saber reference. Funnily enough, I'm reading a story on AO3 that's a Fate/RWBY crossover where Jaune is Saber's son and eventually starts to learn how to use Invisible Air. It's complicated.

“Come on?” he asked. “Who’s next?”

In amidst the babble of robot-speak that he couldn’t understand he could swear that he heard one of them say ‘roger-roger’.

Jaune, channeling his inner Dante, who is now apparently fighting Battle Droids from Star Wars.

Pyrrha....I highly doubt taking down Cinder will be anywhere near as simple as you think it will be. We've seen only two powers that can compete with the power of a Maiden: Silver Eyes, and another Maiden. Neither killed her or permanently took her out of the fight.

[AnimeGamer13]

Question: would it be funny or tragic that if Pyrrha had taken her shot at Cinder it was at a moment where Cinder was reconsidering Sunset's offer to leave Salem and Change her ways

I just can't stop picturing the scenario of it being the key factor in driving Cinder further into her crusade.

[Mastermind4892]

Well said, Ruby!

You claim your research is for the benefit of others, Merlot? There is nothing even remotely good or even grey about your actions. You callously sent out inexperienced first-years for no reason other than to act as attractive bait for the monsters of Remnant. You kidnapped hundreds of innocent Faunus for your experiments and you sacrificed an entire city of tens of thousands merely to capture a on extra bounty of specimens.

All these atrocities... just to make yourself a god of the Grimm. There is nothing grey about that.

[Mastermind4892]

9729719
Let's not forget that Cinder is only a half-baked Maiden at this point. Just like Pyrrha doesn't want to reveal her semblance or it's strength, Cinder doesn't want them to know she isn't a full-fledged Fall Maiden. That level of power she used back underground was extremely taxing, and left her gulping as much water from the river as she could like a woman out of the desert.

Besides, Cinder took down the Fall Maiden herself without magic or silver eyes. She wasn't alone, of course, but she still demonstrated that sufficient planning and skill can take down a Maiden.

[JMP]

9729975
Very true. I did overlook Cinder's theft of the power to begin with. My overall point still stands, though, as Pyrrha will be attacking her alone.

[Midnight Moon]

9729976
And she gave a tough fight to Cinder when she did have the full powers of the Fall Maiden in canon.

[TheFreightrain]

9729760
Imagine for a moment, such a confrontation (at some point in time) would lead to Cinder's death. She might give up on her disdain for the world knowing that she won't be in it much longer, and knowing how the maiden powers are passed on (I'm pretty sure it's by thinking about that person if I'm not mistaken), she just might have them passed to Sunset. It'd almost be poetic, she came for almost this very kind of power, only to find friendship, then have that friendship strained or severed and a power she once might have sought out as a permanent reminder of her 'kinship' with Cinder.

[lordelliott]

You see, it isn’t androids that I wish to test. It’s something much, much more interesting.” The sounds of gunfire erupted in Sunset’s earpiece.

Grimm with guns?

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I noticed the pun with The Island of Dr. Moreau and thought it was funny. Merlot, Moreau, good one! So it's probably a cross between Grimm and Faunus... with guns?

9730243
I'm fairly certain Sunset would be the last person Cinder thinks of regardless. She's been on Cinder's mind a lot lately.

[Scipio Smith]

9729719

Funnily enough, I'm reading a story on AO3 that's a Fate/RWBY crossover where Jaune is Saber's son and eventually starts to learn how to use Invisible Air. It's complicated.

I started reading that, but then I found out that this was yet another friggin' crossover where Pyrrha dies even though everything else is changing all over the place and I lost interest in carrying on with it.

Pyrrha....I highly doubt taking down Cinder will be anywhere near as simple as you think it will be. We've seen only two powers that can compete with the power of a Maiden: Silver Eyes, and another Maiden. Neither killed her or permanently took her out of the fight.

True, but if Jaune had been a little more on the ball in V5 (if he had, for example, remembered that he had a slashing weapon) then he could have killed her in Haven after Ruby's brief Silver-Eye burst rendered her temporarily helpless.

9730320

The Island of Dr. Moreau and thought it was funny. Merlot, Moreau, good one!

I can't take credit for that, it's the name of the game level.

[Omega-82]

Pyrrha don't you dare kill my Hellfire ship!!!

Ruby is showing a bit of her inner rage

Sunset you need to look for some more combat spells with Twilight in your free time you could use a bit more of those than a basic magic beam EVEN SUNBURST CAN DO THOSE , SUNBURST!!! Who knows maybe when Starlight is reformed they will become penpals and develop new combat spells just for the hell of it , and Starlight could teach Sunset Accelero spell (if she doesn't know it yet) , Imagine Ruby with added Accelero , she could propably run from Mt. Glen to Beacon like it was nothing

Cinder calling Salem a goddess? That is more of a Tyrian thing , I don't think anyone else on team WTCH ever called her that , most of the time she is called a queen (even by Tyrian)

[RolkFlameraven]

See, my biggest worry with Cinder dieing is that the last woman on her mind is going to be Salem, and a big part of me is terrified that is whole plan once Cinder sucks the power out of the other three.

That Grimm arm that Cinder has is how she beat Amber, and stole enough power from Raven to take that fall.

If and when Sunset finds out about that arm, if she doesn't look into how Tirek's little trick works, I will be disappointed.

As for Pyrrha's "plan", she does know that Sunset wouldn't stand for it, right? That even if she wins, she will brake something between her and Sunset that can never be fixed? If Cinder attacks, fine, but it Pyrrha is the agresser? This cannot end well.

[Omega-82]

9730487
Cinder didn't have the grimm arm when she beat Amber she had a glove
But it is alot like Tireks magic

[JMP]

9730461
I mean, Pyrrha's death is a major catalyst for Jaune's growth in most cases, and I don't think it felt cheap at all. Jaune's guilt carries him for a long while. But hey, suit yourself. It's the only crossover I've read that's made it that far anyway, and I'm curious how you're going to be handling it.

Volume 5 was a while ago so my memory's a little fuzzy. Was Jaune too busy panicking over Weiss at the time? I remember Ruby started to use her eyes, only to be interrupted by Emerald I think? In my opinion, if Jaune had charged Cinder at that moment, he would have failed. Mercury or Emerald probably would have stopped him.

[Scipio Smith]

9730605
I can appreciate in this specific case that it fits in with the general Fate idea of 'choosing to save someone means choosing not to save somebody else' inherent in being a Hero of Justice, so it was thematically appropriate in that sense. It's just that...I'll be honest, I can't even be bothered to watch actual RWBY any more now that Pyrrha's not in it (I started the show last year at about the same time I started to write this fic, and then stopped watching halfway through V4 when it became clear that Pyrrha's death had also killed my engagement with the show) let alone read fics that retreat the same ground that I didn't like the first time. And it's made all the more aggravating because every single fic that I've read does it! The worst offender was a My Hero Academia crossover in which Pyrrha is joined in the the fight by Deku, Shouto, Jaune, Ruby, Weiss and possibly even Bakugo as well and yet still Pyrrha (and only Pyrrha) dies.

This fic exists because I got so fed up of being unable to find a single RWBY fanfic that didn't kill Pyrrha off that I decided I'd have to write it myself.

[ShadowRoyal]

I'm just going to dump all my speculations here for a moment.

If Cinder does die, I'm seriously thinking that Sunset will be the person her powers go to. I would say maybe Salem, but I've always gotten the impression that Salem isn't compatible with the Maiden's powers, otherwise she would have either acquired the abilities long ago (let's face it Ozpin wouldn't have been able to find EVERY Maiden there was, and Salem's probably killed some Maiden's in her time so at some point she would have been their last thought). I'm also thinking that Sunset wouldn't just consider it a betrayal, but also a breaking of their friendship. She trusts Pyrrha, considers her to be her best friend, and in the last chapter when Cinder told Ruby that Salem's promise was a deception, Pyrrha was there. Okay, so Cinder kinda screwed up slightly afterwards, but to Sunset it was obvious that, in her own way, Cinder was trying to help, and she would have expected Pyrrha to see the same thing. To Sunset, Pyrrha would have not only killed Cinder, but destroyed any chance Cinder had of turning away from Salem before the end, and I think that would enrage her just as much as her grief would. If Cinder does die I truly wouldn't be surprised if Sunset named Ruby the new leader of SAPR and just left for a good while.

On the other hand, though, I doubt it'll be that easy for Pyrrha to kill Cinder. Either Cinder will beat her or Sunset will step in. Either way, Sunset would be livid. If Cinder did get badly injured enough, though, I wonder if Sunset would just say screw it and try to race Cinder to Equestria to just get her out of there and maybe save her. It would also be an interesting reveal to Cinder that Sunset's Equestrian, since she's not aware of that yet (it would also be interesting to see what her reaction would be to finding out Salem knew and didn't tell her). I do get the impression from Cinder that if Sunset was badly injured at this point, especially saving her from her own team member, Cinder would try and take Sunset somewhere safe, possibly even to Salem in the hopes of finally convincing Sunset to join them after Pyrrha of all people attacked. On the other hand, if Cinder just flat out defeats her, I can definitely see her being pushed more away from Ozpin's side, but not entirely away from Sunset, since Sunset's offer was away from both Salem AND Ozpin... but I can also see her telling Sunset exactly what Pyrrha did and driving a wedge between Sunset and her team.

Onto the writing itself though: I really enjoy how you drop the ideas of things that are possibly going to happen in the next couple of chapters to both further the plot/characterisation while leaving us on the edge of our seats waiting. You do it really well and never with something irrelevant or doesn't add to something. It always gives something to built on without cluttering up the chapter.

[JMP]

9730625
That's fair. And Pyrrha dying is definitely a unique reason for dropping the show (mostly I see criticism about the writing and story direction). I liked her, but she was never the reason why I watched it myself.

And yeah, it does seem strange that crossing over with a show about literal superheroes in which none of the main characters have died or been permanently maimed (Deku's coming real close to doing it himself, though) would still have Pyrrha die.

[DarthRevan]

9729719
The Silver Eyes only effected Cinder because of her Grimm hybrid stuff. Volume 6 directly states that Silver Eyes only effects Grimm.

[lord hades]

I read a reference to fate/stay night

[LegionCenturionMaster]

In amidst the babble of robot-speak that he couldn’t understand he could swear that he heard one of them say ‘roger-roger’.

They’re clankers! Get them! Don’t let any survive!

[Mastermind4892]

This chapter is one of my favorite rewrites! For one thing, this is the most profound and meaningful conversation between Pyrrha and Cinder. A fine example of the culmination of their rewritten character arcs so far!

I'm also happy to see more of Sunset's own thoughts about Merlot. A reminder that she herself is not a monster, a reminder of what a real monster looks like. She risked lives for the sake of her friends. Merlot did it for the sake of his own mad science and to create a genocidal army. There is no comparison, for there is a world of difference between them. It is also for this reason that Merlot has no right to compare Ozpin's flaws to his own. Again, there is no comparison.

I even said as much in my review for the original chapter several years ago:

Well said, Ruby!

You claim your research is for the benefit of others, Merlot? There is nothing even remotely good or even grey about your actions. You callously sent out inexperienced first-years for no reason other than to act as attractive bait for the monsters of Remnant. You kidnapped hundreds of innocent Faunus for your experiments and you sacrificed an entire city of tens of thousands merely to capture an extra bounty of specimens.

All these atrocities... just to make yourself a god of the Grimm. There is nothing grey about that.

This is also, I must say, why Ruby's arguments are not wrong. The only thing about this version of Ruby that we are meant to disagree with is how she is too ready to sacrifice herself and expect others to do the same, even if it is to save innocent lives. We have to remember that, while Cinder's current case is sympathetic and she is making progress, she still serves a cause that absolutely must be stopped, regardless of approach. A cause that seeks to divide the precious few societies, to create strife and civil war, to inflict mass genocide. All so that Salem may bring the Brother Gods back to ensure absolute global extinction. Seriously, is it even possible to get more black-and-white than that? On such a scale, anyone's so-called justifications for joining Salem are pretty much immaterial. Even ignorance of Salem's true plans does not change how utterly imperative it is that her plans must be stopped.

Hoping to redeem a villain like Cinder is indeed wise and kind, the highest moral ideal to strive for... but we also do not back down from where we stand.

[Lancerguy]

While there is a lot to like about Far Cry the RWBY Chapter, there is one major glaring weakness with the rewrite:

That's not Ruby. That is not the Ruby we have come to known over some 240 odd previous chapters, and what has this Ruby done with that one? Ruby entertaining the idea of backstabbing Cinder for the greater good (cue meme) I can buy, but it should be a conflict tearing her apart. The thought of doing something evil in order to do something good works for many characters, but not Ruby. She should doubt herself for coming up with this idea, yet still consider it. All Ruby does is pursue the fairy tail nobility in spite of the messy world she finds herself in without succumbing to it. This should have set up a central argument for chapters to come, possibly in contrast, and comparison, to Sunset's and Pyrrha's own inner conflicts over the situation they find themsleves in (and have been handled excellently IMO). Yet, with how it is presented here, it is dead on arrival. Ruby will not budge, and no-one appears willing to confront her over the apparent hypocrisy in her plan outside of token arguments. There is no room for debate, doubt, or discussion, there just is. Ruby's main conflict should should be trying to hold onto her ideals of what she imagines being a huntress is versus the cold hard reality she finds herself confronted with regularly, a point I believe Blake brought up in canon before it was promptly abandoned. This is not that. This is a facade of that, but it lacks any depth and nuance. Ruby is just straight up saying everything is morally permissible if it is for the greater good (cue meme) and we are just expected to go along with it

[Kiue Jin]

11505860
I would actually disagree somewhat here. Ruby is very much still in the fairy tale mindset: Namely, they are good and Cinder is evil. It is a very simplistic mindset to be sure, but I kind of suspect that Ruby has defaulted to it because she is somewhat younger then the rest of the time and there is an immaturity there. The idea of someone being a bad person and yet... not being a bad person at the same time is a highly difficult idea to properly internalize and Ruby... is avoiding doing so because it would undermine her convictions and world view.

Plus I suspect that Pyrrha and Sunset introducing Ruby to the The Mistraliad and its take on heroes and heroic virtues might also be influencing Ruby somewhat. Because it gives her a reference of saying 'You can do dishonorable and questionable things, but still be the hero'.

[Scipio Smith]

11505860
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree.

Ruby has always had this edge to her; it was there when she argued with Rainbow Dash during their collaborative project about how she could never go to work for someone like Ironwood because she believes that loyalty to an idea or an ideal should trump loyalty to a person (and she phrased that in the most extreme way as 'What if General Ironwood turned evil' which, yes, was a meta gag about Volume 7/8 but it was also an indication of Ruby's state of mind). It was there before Pyrrha's duel when Ruby suggested that they should ambush Cinder in the Emerald Forest because the righteousness of their cause gave them the right to violate the Mistralian code of honour that says that a duel is sacrosanct.

And it's here again: they are in the right, they're on the side of life and light and goodness, while Cinder is a monster. Which makes Ruby seem like an unthinking fanatic, until you remember that she supported the idea of allying with Cinder under Mountain Glenn, because they had a job to do and fighting with Cinder in that context would have gotten in the way of that, and possibly led to more trouble if they failed to get to the bottom of what was going on.

But the reveal of Cinder's powers has changed the calculation: Cinder is now the bigger danger than Merlot. Cinder has just shown with stunning clarity just how dangerous she is, more dangerous than they ever suspected. And in the face of that, in the face of what Cinder could do with that power, how many people she could harm or kill, how many lives she could ruin, then it becomes evil to be restrained by petty niceties like 'we agreed not to fight one another'.

I would be the first to admit that Ruby is one of the weakest elements of this story, but this particular bit of characterisation didn't come out of nowhere in this chapter.

[Adser]

11505860
The analysis you make for Ruby would make sense if she was presented with triage, "save this group, save this other group or fail to save anyone". THAT would totally kill her, to force a situation where she can't uphold her maxim of always saving all the innocents.

Ruby has no love to fighting "fair" (unsurprising considering Crow is her mentor) or any real moral consideration, which is something that exists in canon and SAPR has leaned on even earlier. I don't see a situation where Ruby, someone who has been really vocal about how dismissible the life of fellow huntsmen are as long as it is under the banner of saving the innocent, would ever have issues with taking care of an actual villain.

The main conflict between Ruby and Pyrrha/Mistral culture in general is that Mistral is all about the form, while Ruby is all about the outcome. Mistral doesn't care what ends up happening as long as it is done in the way they consider honorable, while Ruby doesn't care how it is done as long as the people of Remnant are safe.

[Lancerguy]

11506402
I can also see your point here, but feel the need to clarify my own a little bit.
It isn't that it comes out of nowhere for Ruby, it's that she gets so little development in her inner conflict, especially when compared with her teammates, that it has the appearance of doing so.

Sunset has to learn the magic of friendship sans rainbow laser, which you have brought up before I believe and have highlighted as the major force of this story

Jaune has Imposter Syndrome on several accounts and has the personal conflict of understanding his need for growth, but also understanding that he does not need to do it alone

Pyrrha is a combination of these two to a certain extent, but also has the problem of figuring out who she is and what she wants of herself (and who she serves and the rest)

All of these conflicts help drive the story as they inform their character decisions, actions, growth, and the overall story and all have at the minimum several multi chapter arcs dedicated to them.

Ruby has none of that. She has the setup of a conflict (ideals versus reality) but it's rarely explored and never for long or in depth. She gets hints and snippets, but mainly is driven by the story as opposed to the opposite that the other three demonstrate in spades. She has opportunity to develop her conflict, but instead is left with outbursts such as in this chapter that have the appearance of being out of place because of their infrequency. I think it hurts the most because the potential is there but never realized.

[Mindscape]

Sunset’s eyebrows rose. She was silent a moment, the sea air wafting through her hair and making the hem of her jacket ripple back and forth. “A vengeful magician, unjustly forced into exile, living alone with his innocent daughter, a true ingénue who has never beheld any man not her own father in her life.” She smirked. “She’ll probably fall in love with Jaune, which will make things awkward.”

Lol, I see the Shakespearian reference