Warring Black

After reaching the underground complex with Door To Darkness, I called out to the spirit of the Lamp in order to stop time.

" Jinn."

She appeared from a haze of blue-green smoke and greeted me.

" Hello, again, Silva."

" As pleasant as it is to see you, Jinn, I have a situation that makes me more than a little short on time, so I can't exchange pleasantries with you until I sort everything out."

" What happened, Silva?"

I gave her a quick summary of recent events and my immediate plans. She understood my intent and left me to my devices without complaint. I started with organizing and shifting through Ozpin's memories, and I learned a lot about Magic and Salem's current capabilities. Over a thousand years' worth of memories gave me a new perspective on Ozma and confirmed a few theories I had about his lack of a plan against his ex-wife. Some part of him still remembers and loves the girl trapped in a tower by her father, whom he saved, so he never considered more extreme measures to combat her.

I learned something that would've made me laugh in a less tense situation; Ozma was basically a justice-loving muscle head in his first life. After Salem joined him on his adventures, she became the brains of their duo and had to pull him out of more than a few sticky situations that the witch never let him live it down. I also affirmed my thoughts that Ozma was an idiot when he tried to separate his daughters from their Mother because he was worried that Salem would corrupt them and make them into monsters like her.

I also learned more exotic applications of Aura that I am going to test at a later date from Ozpin's memories. With the combined knowledge of myself and Ozma, I now had a more accurate idea of Salem's strength, so I started my conversion process to increase my Magic so that I could overpower the witch because I won't likely match her in terms of technique and finesse. As I raised my Magic to new heights, I went through the various branches of Magic the old wizard knew and found some that greatly appealed to me on a personal level but needed to be researched in detail.

An eternity later, my Magic capacity reached to be about five times what I expect Salem's to be currently. I should be able to overpower her in a direct fight, and the only real issue is her immortality and the countless Grimm under her command. I grabbed the Staff of Creation next and started making my way to the witch's fortress in the Land of Darkness. Jinn followed me as I went through a series of portals over the land and sea, dividing the world. It was hard to tell how long I froze time with the Relic, but eventually, I reached her fortress without obstruction.

Before finding Salem herself, I found Tyrian unmoving as time was stopped with him smiling in his usual demented manner. I opened a portal under the scorpion faunus and sent him into the northern seas to freeze to death when time restarts. As I scouted out the witch's castle, I also found Cinder studying in a library but left her alone for now as I had bigger fish to fry, but before that, I tested whether Soul Archive would still work on people in this state. I touched the fiery woman's shoulder and used my Semblance on her to find that it did work despite time being stopped.

I learned that Cinder is a monster at this point, with plans to betray Salem as soon as she has all the power the witch promised her and try to take Salem's power for herself. Hardly surprising, all things considered, I sent the fiery woman to the middle of nowhere and out of my hair. I soon found Salem next and used Soul Archive on her and got a headache from a few thousand years' worths of memories flooding my mind. Organizing the memories was harder than Ozma's by a long shot, but it was definitely worth more than the old wizard's.

I learned more about Magic and Summer Rose's fate which was as grim as in the show but knowing all that Salem did to Ruby's mother made me confident that I could help her with Transmutation along with the other Silver-Eyed Warrior. I spent my time organizing the witch's memories and felt that I at least had a better chance to reason with her now that I knew what she knew. I went back to my place in Vale with Jinn following close behind me to make my final preparations to confront Salem.

***

Salem had the oddest feeling she couldn't quite place as she rested on her throne. To her, something felt off, but she couldn't figure out what, which was an extreme rarity that she could barely recall the last time she felt like this in any capacity. As the witch's mind wandered, a dark doorway opened in the middle of her throne room, and she was on guard as a 6'9" foot tall young male faunus with pale gray hair and piercing gray eyes came out. His animal trait was a pair of fur-covered arms with paw-like hands that marked him as a snow leopard faunus, and he greeted her with a slight bow.

" Hello, Salem. My name is Silva Branwen, and I have come to bargain with you."

Ordinarily, Salem would've scoffed or been amused by him, but she could sense the Magical power radiating off him like an inferno. He easily exceeds the four Maidens of the Seasons by a wide margin, let alone her ex-husband at his peak or even her, but that only drew her interest in this wild card that appeared out of nowhere. She was still confident that she would win, whether through her experience or by her accused immortality, so she said in a dignified tone.

" I must admit I wasn't expecting any guests, especially one of your caliber. So tell me, Silva Branwen, what do you wish to bargain for?"

" To put it plainly, I want to point out the end result of your attempt at suicide that will drag the rest of the world that WILL happen if you go through with your plans."

Salem narrowed her eyes in displeasure and coolly demanded.

" Enlighten me."

Silva was unbothered by the witch's attitude as he started to try and reason with her.

" You know the Brother Gods better than me, yes?"

Salem waved for him to continue, as she wanted to see where he was going with this conversation. The snow leopard faunus went ahead and said neutrally.

" If you get all four Relics and divide the world beyond the point of any chance of uniting, then summon the gods for their final judgment; they will erase everything. Well, everything except you because they are not completely ignorant of everything that happens in this world. In fact, I half suspect that if Ozma takes too long to unite the world, then they would just go ahead and label humanity and faunus as failures and end everything. Again except for YOU, that is, as they will leave you alive to suffer on a dead world without even Grimm to keep you company, considering your past transgressions with them."

The witch looked at the snow leopard faunus for a few moments, then started to laugh. She laughed and laughed with even tears coming out of her eyes, but Silva was unbothered by her reaction as he knew that she would take his word with a grain of salt and then some. Salem's laughter started to settle down, and her amused expression remained as she asked as she assumed her guest's affiliations.

" Is dear Ozma so desperate that he sends someone like you to try and reason with me on mere possibilities?"

The snow leopard faunus was unfazed by her question and assumptions, as he said.

" Ozma was a fool to try and separate your daughters from you simply because he gave up on you and paid the price with their lives."

The witch actually looked surprised at what her uninvited guest just said and demanded calmly.

" Who are you, truly? Knowing Ozma, he would never reveal that information to anyone lest he loses all his allies."

" I gave my introduction before, Salem, and I know all of Ozma's dirty little secrets thanks to this."

Silva took out the Lamp of Knowledge, and Salem's eyes narrowed as she saw the Relic then said.

" Today has certainly been full of surprises, and this is the most pleasant of all."

The floor beneath the snow leopard faunus turned pitch black as Grimm's hands reached out from the to hold him in place but were met with destructive black energy that destroyed them. The witch arched her eyebrow appraisingly at her guest's immediate reaction and said dominantly.

" I will only make this offer once, Silva Branwen. Hand over the Relic, and you may leave unmolested."

Silva just sighed and muttered.

" I guess it really does boil down to a fight in the end."

The snow leopard faunus fired off his Semblance Dark Wrath and blasted the witch out of her fortress. Needless to say, Salem was angry and conjured a tornado to lift her into the air and fired a beam of energy at Silva which was met with another blast of dark energy from his Semblance, and it overpowered the witch's magic. Salem's head and torso were blasted clean off, and what was left fell to the ground before regenerating. The snow leopard faunus manipulated the dark clouds above the fortress with Magic and unleashed a massive bolt of lightning against the witch as she recovered.

Silva waited for her to be reformed enough to be aware of the next lightning strike, then struck her again. He wasn't going to use complex tactics and strategies but pure brute force to make a point to Salem. He outclassed her in terms of raw power thanks to his method of acquiring Magic, and the witch reformed again only to be struck by lightning again and again. The snow leopard faunus continued for hours until he started to run low on magical energy and went down to where Salem was to see if she was in a listening mood.

As the witch reformed under Silva's watch, he asked.

" Will you at least consider my words, if nothing else?"

" You underestimate me; I will achieve my goals no matter who stands in my way!'

" Says the woman cursed by the gods, that killed her own children in a fit of rage and had her husband run out on her in fear of the monster she had become. Let me ask you this, have you had anyone truly care about you since you killed Ozma for the first time?"

Salem was surprised by the question, and Silva left without another word as he knew it would be a process to get the witch to see reason. If all else fails, he will send her to the moon with the Staff of Creation, and thus, a new war has begun. Before the snow leopard faunus left the Land of Darkness, we went to Salem's lab to recover the two Grimm-ified Silver-Eyed Warriors in hopes of restoring them to their former selves.