18

Chapter 18

I rolled to the side as scything blow slammed down into the snow, my counter blow being met by a swing from my opponent's off hand weapon.

And while our strength may have been near equal, my weapon granted me far better leverage to make use of it then the much shorter blade of my opponent and I forced her off her feet, tumbling to the ground with a loud "oof."

I stared down at my helpless foe, raised my sword high and plunged it down, slamming it solidly into my target.

"You're getting better at using those Nora." I noted with a smile, extending a hand down to help pull my teammate to her feet.

Nora pouted mulishly before accepting my hand, pulling herself to her feet in a motion that would have torn my arm from my shoulder a few months ago. "If I had Magnhild I would have won."

I nodded earnestly at that. "Oh you would have thrashed me." I agreed, sharing a sly wink with Ana to the side as I did so, the young bear faunus giving off muffled giggles into her jacket. "But I'll happy claim this victory anyway."

Ren stepped forward and placed a hand on Nora's head, brushing some of the snow out of her hair. "You just need to get used to using them a bit more." He said reassuringly, smiling lightly as he did so.

Nora preened at this, looking down at Stormflower held tightly in her hands. "Are you sure about this? Now you don't have a weapon?"

"We all know that your unarmed proficiency is nowhere near as good as mine." Ren said calmly, deflating Nora's protests for what seemed like the fourth time today. "And it's a temporary solution. As soon as we get to Nioavellir you can make your own weapon at your father's forge."

"Alright." Nora sighed dejectedly, looking despondent for a whopping two seconds before she turned to the kids with a huge grin on her face. "Now who wants Pancakes for lunch!?"

A loud cheer rang out from the kids and they charged towards the house with Ren rushing forward to try and contain the madness and Nora following after him to try and fuel it and I found myself fighting back laughter of my own as I pulled Candidus Mors from where I had used the ground as an impromptu sheath.

Now I would normally simply have put it away in the impromptu shield/sheath that made up the other half of my weapon but there was a small issue regarding that.

Primarily the fact that I didn't have it anymore.

Last time I'd seen it my shield had been in Cinder's hot little hands shortly after she'd slammed me through a desk on top of Beacon tower, which had my shield most likely still being there.

At the top of a tower in the middle of a now utterly Grimm infested Beacon.

As well as the small problem of the freaking Dragon that was still curled around it, drawing even more Grimm in with every passing moment.

Yeah.

Something told me that I wasn't going to be getting my shield back anytime soon.

I moved my sword over my shoulder, the weapon clamping into place magnetically to my new coat.

I have no idea just how it is that my coat can do that, considering that I couldn't find anything even beginning to resemble a magnet inside of the thing.

That and the sword only adhered to the cloak when I was wearing it, leading me to think that the effect might require a constant source of aura for it to be active.

Still, saved me trying to make a new sheathe for it.

Not much in the way of crafting materials around here.

The wood in the trees isn't particularly conducive to being a good sheath.

Not that my weapon crafting skill are particularly crash hot in the first place.

Or even, existent for that matter.

I sighed.

When we got to Nora's family forge I could deal with the issue then.

I could survive with just my sword.

After all I'd survived with only that before I'd come to Beacon.

And it wasn't like I didn't have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Or hidden in my coat such as it was.

But even as I went to chuckle at that, the same thoughts that had been haunting me ever since I'd read Tob's letter to me reared their ugly head once more.

Der Kinderstod.

The fable didn't exactly come with a list of weaknesses for the woman in question. If anything, the advice was more along the lines of "run and pray for divine intervention than anything else.

It depicted the orphaned daughter of a great house in Mistral, now little more than a slave to her dead father's new wife and her two new step-sisters.

She had a horrible life but remained hopeful that one day her luck would turn around and someone would come to rescue her from her despair.

And one day someone came.

An old woman, with eyes 'like a crackling flame' arrived in a flash of smoke, informing the young girl that she was her fairy godmother. She came to the young girl in her time of need and offered her a deal.

In return for saving her from her horrid stepfamily, the girl, in twenty years hence from this date would grant the old crone a favour of equal standing.

The girl, seeing the chance for her freedom and happiness presenting itself before her agreed to the bargain, shaking the woman's hand.

The next day the girl awoke in her bed, still unsure as to whether or not the conversation she'd had with her fairy godmother had happened last night or was nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination. And so with a despondent sigh the girl went to work with her household chores, sweeping the ash out of the fire place, cooking for her step-family, and cleaning the floors.

She'd left the house with a bucket to fill from the well in the centre of town to help continue cleaning the floors when there was a loud explosion behind her.

Turning on the spot from her place in line for the well she spotted a roaring flame in the distance, far brighter and larger than she'd ever seen before. A fire that was in the same general direction of her house.

By the time she'd returned her fears were proven to be true, her family's ancestral home was now utterly engulfed by bright hot flames.

When the fire was finally extinguished, days after the fact, the girl's stepfamily were dead.

As were a half dozen more innocent people from the surrounding houses when the fire that had consumed her house had spread to others.

The old woman had fulfilled her bargain.

Albeit not in a way the girl would have ever thought of.

And do the girl did her best to forget the promise she made to the old woman and lived her life, growing up to be a beautiful and exceptionally powerful woman, going out of her way to save others as a kind of penance for the innocent lives that were taken in the fire.

But even as she tried to forget, she carried with her a constant reminder of her bargain, a mark that she had found on her skin after the fire had consumer her home.

The Empty Heart.

Until one day twenty years precisely from when she had made her promise, her fairy godmother appeared before her again, coming to collect her favour of equal standing.

And in return for the life that the old woman had given the child, she had her give one to her in return.

And no one ever saw the old woman again.

But the girl who walked out of that meeting had changed.

Now she had yellow eyes.

That sparkled like flames.

Not exactly the kind of story I'd have read to the kids anytime soon.

I mean what kind of story is that? Once upon a time there was a little girl who had a bad life, which proceeded to get even worse and ends with her 'giving up her life' to this…witch?

Can't really see myself putting a "and they all lived happily ever after" at the end of this thing.

But that wasn't all.

Stapled to the back of the pages were news clippings, pieces of the old man's half-decipherable scribbles and pages torn from books.

They were spread across decades, from all over Remnant with seemingly no correlation barring one exception that was present within all of them

Each of them depicted the same basic story, with some kind of variation on the theme.

A swift sudden natural disaster, or unforeseen accident that claimed the lives of many. What could only be called acts of god, usually involving an unnaturally large fire.

At least before I'd read the fable.

I felt the same cold chill run down my spine as I thought of the realisation that had come to mind.

This was someone who had been doing this act for a long, long time, maybe even longer than I could imagine.

Someone who had practiced the act of exploiting the weak and the helpless to such an extent it could probably be considered an art form, which was then further by her later finding these girls and doing something decidedly final to them, if the faded missing posters were any indicators.

It seemed ridiculous at first, but the more I thought about it, the more reasonable the idea became.

Possession.

Cinder, or whatever her name might be, likely has a semblance that allows her to possess another.

But instead of it just being some temporary prank, this seemed to be something far more permanent.

Where my mother once was, now the Kinderstod stood in her place.

But was she really gone?

In Tob's letter he spoke of his wife being able to fight off the possession, if only for a brief time.

Would she be able to do that?

I sighed and closed my eyes, rubbing them tiredly.

I was deluding myself.

After all this time there was no chance of that happening.

For all I know she could have died the instant that Cinder overtook her.

And that's not what matters now.

What matters now is finding a way for us to save Pyrrha, and maybe even Tob if I get lucky.

And I've wasted enough time as it is.

A hand tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up to see silver eyes staring back into my own. "You okay Jaune?" Ruby asked, looking concerned as she did so.

I nodded gratefully, lightly pushing her arm to the side as I did so. "I'm fine Ruby." I said calmly before I felt a concerned look of my own come across my face. "Are you sure about this? I mean with everything that's happened, and with Yang like…"

"Yang has dad. He'll take care of her" Ruby said firmly, cutting me off before I could say anything further. "You on the other hand are trying to get to Mistral, and that's without a partner to assist you."

I grimaced.

She had a point.

It wasn't like we could just walk down the road and pop into Mistral at the end of the day and be back in time for tea. This was going to take weeks going down back roads with no guarantee of protection like the city of Vale had provided.

And as much as I'd like to think that I'd suddenly regained full combat competency with the addition of my wings in reality I knew I was nowhere near close to that quite yet.

Added to the fact I didn't have my shield anymore, Nora didn't have Magnhild and Pyrrha…

Well needless to say that team JNPR wasn't exactly firing at all cylinders at this point.

The kids were safe here at Taiyang's, away from the chaos of Vale proper and within close reach of one of Tob's students. And Peter was close by anyway, just a hop skip and a jump away.

Quite literally for Peter.

And we couldn't afford to waste any more time than we already had.

"Okay." I agreed finally, closing my eyes for a moment as I collected my thoughts before I opened them again and turned to face Ruby. "You're not wrong. I…We'd appreciate the help. We'll leave tomorrow morning." A thought struck me and I immediately added on a little more, "but you have to let Taiyang know where you're going."

Ruby threw up a little mock salute, smiling mischievously as she did so. "Glad to be a part of the team fearless leader."

I twitched.

Damn it Ren.

"But why aren't we leaving sooner?' Ruby inquired curiously, her words cutting short my thoughts of immanent and hilarious revenge against my teammate.

I sighed and closed my eyes, turning away from Ruby slightly as I did so.

"Because there is someone that I have to say goodbye to first."

I walked through the door to Signal Academy, making my way with practiced steps to the door that lead to Swineheart's med-bay, pulling out the key that Peter had gifted me and unlocking the door, pulling it shut smoothly behind me.

Silber looked up from whatever he was writing on with his utterly indecipherable scrawl, giving me a brief nod before returning to his work.

I walked forward quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the other patients that could be hidden behind those drawn curtains before I stepped forward and came to a stop by the bed, looking down at my partner.

"Hey there Pyrrha." I said quietly, taking a seat by her side and reaching out and holding one of her hands.

She was still comatose as she had been every day since I'd visited her from that first day with Peter. Sometimes she'd grimaced, or seemed to be in pain but she never woke up.

And with her hand in mine I could feel her aura, meagre as it was at the moment. It flickered like a candle in front of a strong wind, threatening to be extinguished at any moment but it remained, pulsing with every slow beat of her heart.

For now, at least.

"This is going to be my last visit for a little while." I said quietly, squeezing her hand again. "We're going to go find someone I think can help you." I explained further, looking down at her too still form.

I opened my mouth to speak further, only for the words to become caught in my throat.

What am I saying?

Can she even hear me right now?

I felt my fist clench for a moment at my own uselessness before I breathed out loudly, forcibly unclenching my hands.

I don't know if Pyrrha can hear me.

I don't know if Shang can save her.

But there's a chance.

And a chance is all I've ever needed.

"So, I just need you to do one thing for me while I'm gone Pyrrha." I started up again, raising Pyrrha's limp hand with my own, my other hand coming forward to clasp it as well. "I need you to hold on for me. Just stay alive until we come back. Please."

I placed Pyrrha's hand gently back in the bed and released it, a task that seemed to be far more difficult than it had any right to be.

I walked away from Pyrrha's bed and moved to the other door, pushing it open and coming to a stop at the stasis unit that held Tob within it.

I stood there in silence, just staring down at the frozen form of my mentor before I placed my hand on the window of the stasis unit. "Don't you die on me you old Bastard." I murmured, rapping my hand on the glass.

Then I walked away, not looking back at where Tob was preserved, striding through the door and pulling it shut behind me.

The time for goodbyes is over.

Let's get going.

Right then, checklist.

Clothes and bedroll packed away in the backpack.

Check.

I've told the kids to keep an eye on Yang and to try and be as polite as possible for Taiyang.

Check.

And Ruby's just left her letter behind for her father.

Check.

"Okay Ruby." You started, turning towards the younger huntress. "You're the expert when it comes to Patch. What's the easiest way for us to get back to the mainland?"

Ruby grinned and made her way to the front of the group, gesturing for us to follow after her. "Come on, there's a ferry that can take us to the mainland that will arrive pretty soon. If we can get there in time I can get us onto the mainland within an hour."

"Then let us make haste." Ren agreed, picking up the pace as well Nora giving off a whoop as she started running after Ruby.

"Last one there is rotten egg!" Nora called over her shoulder laughing as she did so.

"Oh no you don't!" I called out, sprinting after them myself, striving to not be the last one there when we finally arrived. "And no using your semblance Ruby!"

"What?" Ruby exclaimed, taken aback by my sudden addition, "That's not fair!" she cried out even as she twisted around a tree with a level of ease that spoke of a great deal of familiarity, pulling a little bit further away from me.

"Says the girl with the home field advantage." Nora retorted back, trying and so far failing to body check Ren out of the way, a stumble from her latest attempt giving me the opportunity to hurdle her and push myself out of last place.

"Perhaps it would be wiser to worry about yourself first, Nora." Ren called back airily with a light chuckle only for his merriment to be cut short by a snowball thudding into the back of his head, the impact knocking him off of his feet.

"Perhaps you should take heed of your own advice noble steed!" I said behind me with a laugh, my legs still pumping rapidly as I sped after Ruby.

Ten minutes later, having bartered our way on board the ferry we sat down, Ruby sitting beside me, Ren and Nora facing us on the opposing seats, slightly out of breath, covered in varying degrees of melting snow and all smiling widely as we looked at each other.

"So, Ruby," I started drawing the silver eyed huntress' attention towards me, Ren and Nora watching on. "What happened to you during the invasion? I can't say I have any idea of what happened after you jumped off the back of the airship and got back onto Amity Coliseum."

I felt the mood between us all shift slightly as I bought up the day of the invasion and Ruby's smile faltered for a moment before it regained its strength once more. "Okay, well after Geppeto told us about the off switch for all the robots I knew that I had to get onto the ship to try and find it." Ruby began, recounting her adventure. "That's why I got back onto amity Coliseum."

"How does getting onto Amity Coliseum get you onto the Atlesian flagship?" Ren interjected, unsure as to the logic of Ruby's plan at this point.

Hell, I couldn't blame him, I couldn't see what the Coliseum had to do with anything.

Ruby grinned at that. "Well while there may not have been any more airships on the coliseum, not that I know how to fly one anyway," Ruby answered, hastily with gesticulating arms as she did so. "There was one other form of transportation I could use to get onto the flagship."

What?

Nora let out a sudden gasp of realisation and nearly bounced off her seat in excitement. "I knew you could do it!" Nora crowed in victory, the balls of her feet bouncing up and down energetically as she did so. "I knew that Goodwitch was lying to me about it being impossible."

"She said illegal Nora, not impossible." I said with a sigh, hand coming up to rub my brow as I thought back to one of the more memorable events of Nora's Awesome Adventures™ that had occurred at Beacon.

And then my mind caught up with just what that implicated.

"You rode a weapon locker onto the Atlesian Flagship?" I asked incredulously, the image already painting itself clearly in my mind.

I mean the idea was utterly mad, but thinking back on most of Ruby's plans, her method of defeating the Giant Nevermore back at initiation coming to mind rather rapidly reminded me that the grand majority of Ruby's plans do seem to come as differing variants of 'utter madness'.

I did wonder sometimes how much of that was Qrow's influence and how much was naturally Ruby.

Something told me it was a little bit of both.

"Yep!" Ruby said proudly, popping the p loudly as she did so. "I had to jump a bit with my semblance to get onto the deck of the flagship but it went pretty well.

"What happened next?"

"I made my way inside the airship and tried to find the off switch. I made my way onto the bridge and that's when I found them." Ruby said, a slight shudder going through her as she did so. "When I found Roman Torchwick."

I blinked at that. "Roman Torchwick was controlling the Flagship?" I asked, unsure as just how that could have come about. "Wasn't he in prison?"

"The documentary I watched on the flagship said that the ship has holding cells." Nora spoke up, thinking back as she did so. "And since the Atlesian forces were handling security after the breach, he might have been held up there."

"And maybe that's why the Breach took place in the first place." Ren said darkly, his eyes narrowed. "They didn't expect to succeed at all, the whole set up was to get Torchwick onto the flagship in the first place."

Now that was an unsettling thought.

But finding out what happened next was more important at this point.

"You'd just found Torchwick?"

"What was left of him." Ruby replied, her silver eyes glimmer with a flash of aura as she did so. "There were dead soldiers all over the bridge, blood covering all of the screens and crucified on one of the windows pointing outside was Roman Torchwick."

"Damn." I muttered quietly, not for Torchwick but for Ruby.

That was not the kind of image that anyone forgot anytime soon.

"Did you see who might have been responsible?" Ren asked quietly, focusing intently upon the young huntress.

Ruby shook her head. "I never saw anyone, but someone threw me a window without me ever seeing them." She recounted, a hand coming down to touch the collapsed form of Crescent Rose as she did so. "If I hadn't had my baby with me, I'd have been a pancake."

"Okay, so you got thrown off the airship, what happened next?" Nora urged, eager to find out what had happened next.

"I landed in the city and I made my way back to Beacon because I knew you would all be up there. I hitched a ride with an airship that was coming to evacuate those who were still up there. When I got there, I found most of you on the air pad. Blake and Yang were injured, You two were unconsciousness," She indicated towards Ren and Nora, "But Cardin told me that you'd gone towards Beacon Tower to go find Pyrrha, so Weiss and I went to find you."

They'd come after me?

But that would mean…

"We saw the dragon attack the top of the tower as well as the bursts of fire that came off and we thought that you had to be up there. Weiss used her Glyph's to make a path for me up the side of the tower and I used my semblance to run up it."

"I got to the top of the tower and you were there and Cinder…" Ruby's eyes seemed to change in that instant, shifting from the kind eyes of my friend into something far sharper than eyes had any right to be, her hands clenching into tight angry fists. "She threw Pyrrha off the tower and then you dived after her and Cinder just started laughing and I…I got so angry."

I placed a hand on Ruby's and she started, turning towards me with a look of shock on her face and I could feel her aura jumping all over the place with her anger, threatening to come out at a moment's notice to defend her.

"What happened after that?" I said gently, keeping my hand on Ruby's own and trying to look as comforting as humanly possible.

Or was it angel-ly possible now?

I shook my head.

Now is not the time to go off on a tangent.

"Everything went white." Ruby said, shaking her head. "And the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed in Patch."

I paused thinking on what I had just been told, trying to use it to fill in some of the empty spots in my timeline for what went down during the invasion.

Let's go over what we've learned.

Roman Torchwick was in the bridge of the Atlesian flagship, pointing his involvement in the invasion and the subsequent takeover of the Atlesian androids to be extremely likely.

Fact.

Unless the Grimm have decided to buck years of tradition and start crucifying people, Roman had an accomplice that broke him out of the airship, killed all the bridge crew with or without him and then betrayed him and crucified him in a likely vicious and brutal manner if Ruby's expression was any indication.

Fact.

Ruby was on the top of the tower after I jumped off of it after Pyrrha, recalls everything going white and then waking up back in Patch. Leaving her the last person on the tower before something, in a flash of bright white light, somehow managed to take out the dragon. Odds are this person was Ruby.

Fact.

"Attention passengers, we are now pulling into Vale harbour, all travellers please disembark via the provided walkways."

Our conversations were cut short by the sound of the captain's words blaring over the ferry's intercom, the other passengers beginning to stand up and collect their things as I heard the sound of the engine powering the little ferry start to idle down, the ship slowing noticeably in response.

"Come on guys!" Ruby cheered, bouncing off the seats and gesturing for us to follow her. "Let's start this adventure!"

I smiled lightly at the huntress' enthusiasm picking up my backseat as I stood up.

Well then.

Let's go see the sights then shall we?

Stepping off the ferry and entering Vale, weeks after Beacon had fallen, was like entering a whole other city compared to what it had been before.

The first thing that truck me was just how crowded the city seemed now. Vale hadn't had a small population by any means, being a capital city of one of the four kingdoms but the crowds had never seemed to be this oppressive before.

There were people everywhere, with the armed soldiers of the Atlesian military patrolling alongside the more chaotically dressed militia that had been created as well, with even the occasional huntsman or huntress seen walking alongside them. I even saw Dove from Cardin's team from a distance and had to restrain myself from pulling the hood of my coat any further down over my head then it already was.

We couldn't afford to leave a trail in case anyone might have been attempting to follow us, and that meant not being recognised either.

We'd made our way through the city, taking in the extent of the damage that was still present from the invasion, whether that was torn up roads, collapsed buildings or the rarer but still ominous dried patches of dried blood as we went.

We were following Ruby's lead in this regard, the smaller figure far more well versed when it came to the side-streets and back roads of Vale than we were, if only because of a lifetime of chasing after Yang when she was younger.

I made sure to check on Ruby out of the corner of my eye, to see if she was still doing alright. She wasn't looking happy by any means and I didn't blame her for that but she also didn't seem nearly as distraught as I thought she'd be.

Then again, Ruby's been through a lot in her life despite her age, her conversation about the aftermath of the massacre she'd stumbled upon in the flagship leaping to the forefront of my mind. Who's to say that she isn't better at dealing with this than I am?

"How close are we Ruby?" I asked, taking care not to bump into anyone in the constant stream of people moving in both directions on the sidewalk.

"Not too far now." She replied, near invisible in the crowd if not for her red hood bobbing and weaving in the crowd before me. "We had to make a detour because of that collapsed building but the main gate to leave town should be right around this corner."

We made our way around the corner and beheld the only exit currently available to the Kingdom of Vale.

"Something tells me this might take a little while longer than we thought." Ren said sardonically, sighing as he did so.

I didn't blame him.

Standing in front of our only way out of Vale was an impromptu checkpoint, occupied by Atlesian troopers, members of the Vale Militia, and a whole lot of gun placements.

Everyone hoping to either leave or enter the city would have to pass through the checkpoint, as well as have some form of identification on them as well.

Which I didn't have on me.

Damn.

Granted I really should have seen this coming.

Vale's just been hit with the greatest act of Terrorism outside the great war of course they were going to be beefing up their security after what the White Fang did.

"Maybe we could use the weapon lockers to fire ourselves over the wall?" Ruby suggested, trying to think of a way to surpass this unexpected obstacle.

"Won't work." Nora said with a scowl, her eyes scanning for a way for us to slip past them. "The lockers relied on the CCT to provide them accurate coordinates to arrive at their destination. With the CCT tower gone, there's no way they're going to be able to work."

"Maybe an airship?" I suggested, my stomach turning on itself as the thought of stepping onto the accursed form of transport came to mind.

"Maybe not." Ren countered indicating the rather intimidating looking Anti-Aircraft Guns in prominent positions atop the wall. "That seems like a rather fatal strategy at this point."

Damn.

"C'mon," I said, turning back and moving to re-join the crowd once more. "We need to come up with another way t…"

"YOU THERE! IN THE COAT!" A voice boomed out and I stopped in place as a man wearing the uniform of the Atlesian Military walked towards me.

And this day just keeps getting better.

I turned towards him smoothly, the Old Bastard's lessons taking a firm hold as I replied with an easy smile. "Good day sir, is there anything I could assist you with?"

The soldier looked me up and down, his eyes hidden behind the visor of his helmet but the motion of his head making his actions plain to see. "I'm going to need to see some I.D buddy."

I frowned quizzically at him, tilting my head to the side as I stared at him. "Is there a problem officer?" I asked politely, my every motion aimed at reinforcing my calm and non-threatening image.

"Yeah, there's a problem," The man scowled at me, the hands gripping his rifle tightening perceptibly around the stock. "I got a big threatening looking guy in front of me not obeying my instructions, so unless you want to spend the rest of today in a goddamn cell, show me you…"

A hand clapped down heavily on the soldier's shoulder and he turned around to see a much taller and far more imposing man staring down at him with a far too calm gaze.

"Daniels, take a walk." The newcomer said, and if the wince that Daniels gave was any indication damn near crushing the riflemen's shoulder beneath his hand.

It was not a suggestion.

Daniel's turned on his heel, threw up a quick salute and then began marching away from us as fast as humanly possible.

"What is it with you kids and trouble?" The newcomer sighed rubbing his eyebrows tiredly as he did so. "Do you actively seek it out or does it just happen.

I found myself smiling despite the man's harsh words and stepped forward, extending a hand in greeting. "It's good to see you up on your feet again Deputy Cobalt."

One of the only survivors from Dragon's Pass scowled at me for a moment longer before sighing again, returning a smile of his own. "That's Commander Cobalt to you, Jaune." Cobalt greeted, grasping my hand with his own as he looked over the rest of our group. "And it seems you've gotten a new addition to the team. But wait, where's Pyrrha?"

I felt my smile tug downwards an instant at the mention of my partner's name and Cobalt immediately took note. "No." He breathed, taking a step back to look at the rest of us. "Not her too."

"She's alive." I reassured him before fighting off a grimace as I thought back to her current status. "But it's a bit of a long story."

Cobalt shrugged, gesturing for us to follow him into a temporary demountable that I had seen the like of throughout the city already, a cheap, quick to build yet sturdy temporary housing to support those that no longer had housing of their own. "Follow me, you guys fill me in on the details, and I'll fill out your paperwork so you can get through the gate."

Former Deputy Roland Cobalt sighed as he massaged his brow, fighting the urge to take of his beret and scratch his head.

God what is it with these kids?

And Pyrrha…

It didn't sound good for the young huntress.

But from what they had told him, there was a chance they could help her.

Roland didn't delude himself into to thinking that he'd gotten the whole truth out of them. You didn't work as a lawman at Dragon's Passing without being able to pick up on things like that.

But at the same time, he wasn't going to ask for all the details either.

There were some things that Roland had seen or learned over his time, both as a deputy and before that in the Atlesian Military that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Things that would haunt him, that stayed in those dark corners of his mind that only surfaced at the blackest times.

And even if Jaune didn't know it, Cobalt owed the young hunter.

Through the footage that had been recovered from the arena as well as the stories he'd heard from those who had been there, it had been Jaune that had been the one to destroy the Prometheus Unit.

Jaune had been the one to avenge Dragon's Passing.

To avenge Lyn.

For that alone he would have helped Jaune and his group, would have joined them in their quest whatever it might be,

But he couldn't.

Not with things as they were.

Waking up in the aftermath of the invasion was chaos in the worst sense of the word.

People feeling helpless, quickly transition to anger and then rage, a whole host of dark emotions that could have inspired the Grimm that were approaching Beacon to head towards them instead.

So, he did what Lin would have done in this situation.

He walked up to the one that was inciting people to turn against the Atlesian Army, promptly knocked her into next week with a very firm headbutt and promptly asked the crowd if they wanted to turn on themselves, or on the Grimm that had invaded their home.

Long story short, the Vale Militia was formed shortly after and Roland somehow found himself shanghaied into the position of "'commander", a position that was only further reinforced when General Ironwood of all people rocked up to the impromptu headquarters of the Militia unannounced, and dropped off a chest full of equipment for the under-equipped militia as well as an official acknowledgment of his new responsibilities as the 'commander' of the Militia in the way of an altered commander's uniform.

And things had proceeded to continue to escalate from there.

He released his brow and looked over the paperwork one last once over before stapling it together and sliding it across the table towards the kids, Jaune picking it up as it came to a stop in front of him.

"Okay, so according to the paperwork I've given you the three of you are escorting Nora to her hometown to check on her parents and reforge her weapon." He moved the paperwork away from his eyes and winked at the group in front of him. "And you will all be staying there for an extended period of time, right?"

They all turned to look amongst themselves, nodded once and turned back to face the former deputy.

"Sounds about right."

"Forging is tough work."

"Might need to have some armour made myself."

"And I need to add a few new ideas to Crescent Rose as well."

Cobalt chuckles before nodding his head. "Well alright then. By the authority invested in me by the people of Vale, I do hereby approve of your application to leave the city of Vale and wish you good fortune during your travel."

"Are we there yet?" Ruby whined for what seemed to be the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes and I fought the urge to sigh as I collapsed the map I was looking at to stare at Ruby pointedly with an eyebrow raised.

Ruby coloured in embarrassment even as Nora giggled in front of us at Ruby's actions.

"We're not that much further now." Ren said calmly from his position at the front, looking over his shoulder to stare at Ruby. "How long did you think it was going to take us to get there?"

"I don't know, like an hour?" Ruby answered, with a question causing me to let out a snort of laughter that had Ruby giving me a look of abject betrayal. "What?"

"I thought you'd looked at the map?" I asked politely, still grinning lightly despite my attempts to keep a straight face.

"I did!" Ruby protested, waving her arms about like the child she was as she gesticulated. "But there's a difference between seeing it on a map and then actually walking it, you know? And besides, other than Vale I've spent my whole life on Patch, I could have literally circled the whole island at this point."

It was at this point I lost the battle controlling my laughter, and started chuckling, Ren giving a quiet snort of his own while Nora let out a giggle.

"Well worry no longer Ruby Rose!" Nora called out brightly ahead of us, stopping and gesturing with her arms like a ringmaster at a circus. "Welcome to Nioavellir!"

We walked into the town, a few of the townspeople calling out greetings to Ren and Nora as they walked past

The town reminded me very much of Freshwater in a way, not in the environment, no, we were by no means in the middle of a forest thank you very much, but in the way the houses were constructed, the way everyone greeted each other by name.

This was a sense of community that a city like Vale with its multitude of citizens couldn't possibly hope to achieve and in a way, it kind of made me feel homesick for those times back at the orphanage, when life was far less complicated than it was now.

But only for a moment.

I turned towards Ren as Nora continued bombarding a dazed looking Ruby with every random bit of knowledge about the town that came into her head, none of which seemed to be in any kind of order. "So, which one of these is Wayland's Forge?" I asked quietly, jerking a thumb towards the near identical houses we were strolling past.

Ren looked at me with an insufferably smug expression on his face and smirked. "Oh I'm sure you'll know it when you see it." He said airily, waving me off with one hand as he did so.

I pursed my lips and glared at the self-satisfied Ren before I drew my gaze back away from Ren and jumped backwards mid-step to avoid running into the back of Ruby.

"What's the hol…" My question died in my mouth as I beheld the house before me.

If one could even call it a house.

Ruby stood in a similar state just before me, trying and failing to comprehend just what would drive someone to create the affront to the senses that stood before us.

Nora had stopped as well, before raising an arm and pointing towards one of the uppermost corners of the building. "Was that corner always that color?" She pondered, clearly trying to remember just what it had looked like the last time she was here.

I saw Ren cock a head to one side peering at what Nora was pointing at. "Nope, that's definitely a different pattern. Looks like Wayland set the house on fire again while we were away."

"Again?" Ruby squeaked even as my mind began drawing parallels from this house to the myriad of different 'upgrades' and repairs that had been affixed unto our room back at Beacon after it had been damaged in a number of unavoidable accidents.

Like the Pretty Pink Paint Grenade going off in our room.

Or the time Nora knocked a wall out trying to hit a fly with Magnhild.

Or the defenestration incidents.

I paused.

We really messed up that room, didn't we?

"Well at least now we know where Nora gets it from." I sighed, the bubbly berserker turning and giving me the evil eye for a moment before she turned with a huff and started walking towards the front door of her home.

The building in front of us was by no means a small one. It dominated the area around it, the two-story building the most physically imposing thing in the entire town.

Whoever had built it had seemingly been unable to decide just what material he wanted to make use of predominantly and instead had employed a mish-mash of different ones, from hardy oak, to polished metal to smooth stone and yet despite the chaotic nature of the arrangement it was still clearly a beautiful piece of architecture, the different parts somehow seamlessly working together to make it something greater than the sum of its parts.

Although something told me that some if not most of those additions were not part of the original structure and more along the lines of a Nora-esque rush patch job to repair whatever had been broken before anyone noticed.

However, much like Nora, it seemed her father seemed to make use of whatever material he had at hand at the time of the breakage, which wasn't always something that exactly blended in with what was already there.

The front of the house had a large sign mounted above the door that seemed in pristine condition as compared to the hodgepodge nature of the rest of the house. It was made of the same metal as Nora's hammer had been, the word 'Valhalla' emblazoned upon it.

I'm guessing that's the name of the forge.

Nora walked up to the door, the steps creaking as she stepped forward, reaching for the door only for it to swing open before she could even touch it.

Wayland stood there for perhaps a second before he knelt down and swept his daughter into his arms, a look of abject relief filling his face. "Oh thank the heavens." Wayland breathed, his voice breaking as he did so. "You're alive. My baby is alive."

Nora stood there for a moment in shock before she returned the hug as best as she could in the awkward position, leaning into her father's embrace. "I'm okay dad, don't worry I'm fine." Nora tried to convince her father, her words somewhat unconvincing by the tears in her eyes and the sniffle she gave halfway through her response.

"After the invasion, I was so worried about you. And I couldn't call your scroll so for a moment there I feared the worst before the news about the CCT tower being destroyed got to the village." Wayland continued, still holding his daughter as tightly as he could, almost as if he feared that she would vanish out of his grasp if he loosened it. "Your mother's making her way back here as fast as she could and as soon as she arrived we were going to go there to find you."

I stood there in silence, not wanting to interrupt the moment between the father and daughter only for a flurry of movement to take place and suddenly I could feel the breath whoosh out of me as I was squeezed tightly in the same embrace.

I heard the strangled grunt Ren let out as well as the light squeak of Ruby on either side of me, informing me that they had also been swept up in Wayland's death hug.

"Ren, Jaune, thank you two boys for keeping my daughter safe." Wayland said, gratitude evident in his every word. "And Pyrrha, thank y…you are not Pyrrha." His words were now tinged from confusion as he released us from his grip, examining all of us and seeing that Pyrrha was nowhere to be seen. "Where is Pyrrha?"

Nora place a hand on her father's shoulder, drawing his attention back towards her. "Let's go inside dad. We've got a lot to talk about."

Wayland sat back in the firm backed seat he had occupied for the entirety of our tale and he picked up a glass that would have been called a jug unless you were as large as he was and drained the glass in a handful of gulps, slamming it back down onto the table with a loud thud.

"Shit." Wayland summed up succinctly a far more serious expression on his face then when we'd seen him at the door. "Pyrrha. God it's just like her father all over again."

There was silence for a moment, the only sound the crackling of fire blazing away out of sight, but still close enough to keep the room more than warm.

"Mistral." He said finally, looking up from his empty glass to examine us all. "That's by no means a small journey."

"But it is one that we must make." Ren said calmly, sitting atop one of the stools that were placed haphazardly around the room. "And you know this as well as we do."

The massive man glared at Ren before he sighed nodding his head. "Aye, that I do." Wayland nodded before giving a rather pointed look at Nora and Ren. "But it's not me that you have to convince, now is it?"

Nora winced and Ren went a rather pasty white as they both seemed to remember something rather unpleasant.

Well going by process of elimination and the look on Ren's face something tells me they're referring to Nora's mother.

Who I am still in two minds if I want to meet purely from the reactions that come up whenever the woman is referenced.

"But before we deal with that issue," The smith said, pushing himself up from his chair and wiping his hands off on his apron. "I may as well get started on helping you all with the smithing."

I paused at that. "All of us?" I repeated quizzically, not quite sure where he was going with this. "Nora's the only one without a weapon here."

"True but not what I meant." Wayland answered reaching forward to tap my chest plate with one of his oversized fingers. "I think you're all a tad overdue for an upgrade kids. That armour is well made, given the materials it's made with, but I can do better. That and it's looking a bit smaller now."

I looked down at his words to examine the chest plate and true to his word, it was looking a little bit snugger than it had been a year ago. To be fair I had grown a fair bit since then so it made sense that I would have outgrown my armour.

But at the same time, it was an odd feeling.

This had been a part of not only my appearance but also my routine almost every day since I had received that armour shortly before I left Freshwater for Beacon.

That being said, my armour in its current state wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world at the moment.

Especially with my wings.

As I thought about that Wayland lifted the twin guns that were Stormflower, causing Nora to open her eyes in shock and frantically pat down her outfit to no avail.

"Ren, I know these have sentimental value to you, that much is blatantly clear." He said calmly, indicating the guns as he did so. "But these blades aren't anywhere near as strong as they should be, let alone could be."

Ren looked at Stormflower with a pained expression, clenching a fist for a moment before releasing it. "It's all I have left of them." He whispered, the words almost inaudible. "Don't make me get rid of it."

I went to go over to Ren only to be rooted in place by a look Nora shot at me. Whatever this was about, now was not the time for my interaction.

Wayland froze at Ren's words before he knelt down do he was level with Ren's eyes, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I can't make you do anything Ren." He said softly, a kind look on his face. "And we don't have to get rid of them, I just mean that I can reinforce the weapon's frame and increase its sharpness if I made a few alterations and additions."

Ren stood there for what seemed to be a very long moment before he sighed and nodded, walking away to stand next to Nora who grabbed his hand and placed it in her own, Ren not complaining in the slightest.

"I was wondering if I could make use of your forge as well Mr. Valkyrie." Ruby piped up, drawing everyone's attention back towards her, extending Crescent Rose out to its full form with a flourish. "I've had a few ideas that I've been wanting to add to my baby."

I fought the urge to face palm.

God damn it Ruby it is a giant gun scythe not a living thing.

Wayland walked forward looking down at the little huntress. "May I?" he asked, extending a massive palm towards Ruby's weapon.

Ruby handed over her scythe without complaint and Wayland began closely examining it, turning and twisting it occasionally to have a better look at a certain part of it. He ran a thumb along the blade of the scythe and let out an impressed sounding whistle at what he found, before flicked his wrist causing the scythe to collapse into its sniper rifle configuration. He flicked it in his hands, ratcheting the slide of the rifle and staring at the interior of the barrel.

"I have to say miss Rose, you have a gift when it comes to weapons." Wayland said finally, returning the weapon with a small grin on his face. "Be welcome in my forge."

Well, Ruby's made a new friend.

Good for her.

I turned away from Ruby and Wayland, walking over to Ren to see if he'd be willing to do a bit of hand to hand training while the others were working away at the forge as well as providing him with a distraction from whatever it was that Wayland had bought up with his words.

I felt something grab my sword and pull it, lifting me bodily from the ground as my blade refused to detach from my jacket.

It was a pretty short list of who could lift me bodily in the air by my sword among this group and seeing as Nora was right in front of me…

"Wayland, could you let me down?" I asked, flailing in the air for a moment before I got control of myself again. "Please?"

"This is your weapon?" He asked, his tone insistent and incredulous. "This?"

"What's wrong with Candidus Mors?" I said, feeling vaguely insulted by his words, shaking myself loose from his grip to land on the floor once more, pulling the blade from my back and holding it before me. "It's the only weapon I've ever needed and it's worked just fine."

"How long have these runes been glowing?" Wayland asked, ignoring my indignation, pointing at the glowing white symbols that had remained on my sword as soon as my wings had appeared on my back. "I'm guessing since the incursion?"

I paused at that, my annoyance quickly giving way to curiosity. "How did you know that?"

"May I?" He asked, repeating the same question he had asked Ruby minutes before, only this time he was asking it to me.

"Uh, sure." I replied handing over my weapon to the smith, who looked to be even more interested on the sword when the symbols on the blade faded to plain steel when it was released from my hand.

Wayland seemed enthralled by my sword, not even saying a word as he examined every possible angle, spinning it through his hands as if to see how the light gleamed off it, attempting to flex it with his hands to no avail and then he…

I paused looking at the large smith rather oddly as he placed the sword up to his mouth and attempted to bite into it.

"Dad?" Nora asked, sounding just as confused as I was feeling at this point. "What are you doing?"

"Unbelievable." Wayland muttered, apparently not having heard his daughter's question. "Was right in front of me and I didn't even realise it."

"Does he do this a lot?" I heard Ruby stage whisper towards Ren, with less than subtle gestures towards the still oblivious smith.

Ren shrugged, waggling a hand back and forth. "Oh, only when he finds something that intrigues him." He said before thinking on what he said. "So, something along the lines of once a week or so."

"Seriously?" I interrupted Ren a bit incredulous at just what he was saying.

I mean once a week?

Really?

Nora laughed sheepishly at that. "Yeah, Dad can be a bit…scatterbrained sometimes." She admitted, rubbing the back of her head. "Although it's usually because mom's bought home a new souvenir for him."

I was interrupted from any further conversation by the tip of Candidus Mors being thrust towards my face, stopping just an inch before my nose.

"Do you know just what it is you have boy?" Wayland asked, shaking the blade lightly as he did so.

I was rather occupied with the sharp object dancing about in front of my face but I still tried my best to answer his question. "A sword?" I answered questioningly, not quite sure where the large man was going with this.

"A sword?" Wayland scoffed, bringing the sword back to gesture with it wildly through the air. "I mean granted it is a sword, a pretty damn good one, but that's not what I was referring to. I was referring what the sword was made of."

"Uh…" I stammered

"You shouldn't have Nora." Wayland said, still staring intently at my weapon. "This right here, is made out of a hundred percent Selenian Steel."

Nora damn near fell over at that before she pulled a remarkable impression of Ruby's semblance and teleported over to her father's side joining her father in oohing and ahhing over my blade.

I on the other hand was just as, if not even more confused than I already was. Selenian steel?

What the heck was that supposed to be some kind of super alloy?

"It's been called a whole host of names in various times and cultures, Adamantine, Mythril, and things like that." Wayland continued before he reversed his grip on the sword and offered the hilt back to me. "But these days most people just call it moon metal."

I felt my jaw drop at what had just been told to me even as I mechanically took the sword back into my hands.

Moon metal.

That was…

Well it was quite literally the stuff of legend.

Nine times out of ten, if the hero or heroine was on a quest to defeat evil or save a kingdom or something of that like, somewhere along the way they'd normally find a weapon of legend to help them on their quest that would help them on their quest that was inevitably made of the stuff.

"It's rare, obviously so, has a whole host of properties that I can't quite properly explain that make it far superior to damn near anything else on Remnant, barring maybe some of Polendina's latest work. But even ignoring the whole, trying to find a piece of the moon on Remnant problem, no one knows how to forge the stuff."

"Wait, I thought you said that you'd used it before?" I asked him, gesturing towards the sword.

"Well I've used it yes, but I was never able to forge it." Wayland admitted, looking rather regretful as he said it. "To be more precise I built around the Selenian Steel ore my master gave me rather than the other way around. It was the only way I could get it to work."

Ruby looked at Wayland with a look I had coined 'lost puppy' her head tilting slightly to the side as she came across something that confounded her. "Get it to work?" Ruby repeated, sounding just as lost as I was at this point. "Get what to work?"

He waved us off, still focused on the sword. "My proof of mastery I built to get Master Daedelus' approval to start a forge of my own.

"Who?" Ren asked, sounding honestly curious at this new development.

"Daedalus. He was a master smith from Vacuo that I travelled to and trained under in the hopes of becoming a master smith myself." Wayland explained, pointing to a very faded picture of a much younger looking Wayland holding another boy about the same age in a headlock, while a much taller man with an odd-looking beard and dark hair that looked like an older version of the boy Wayland had in a headlock watched on with an exasperated expression. Maybe one of the rarer kinds of Faunus, not something I'd ever seen before outside of a book. "Though just calling him a smith would be a bit of a misnomer. He was more like a jack of all trades, master of all."

"Don't you mean jack of all trades, master of none?" Ren interjected, raising a brow as he did so.

Wayland shook his head with a rueful expression. "I know what I said Ren. That man could build anything."

I stepped up the framed picture, picking it up from the cluttered desk to look closely at the other person in the photo.

He was by no means a muscular fellow, looking more like a real-life stick figure when put into comparison to the beefy Wayland. But his eyes.

Eyes that were like sparkling Emeralds.

I could see where Pyrrha had gotten her eyes from.

I felt an arm on my shoulder and looked up to see Wayland standing there, looking down at the photo with me with a melancholic look on his face.

"Icarus." The smith breathed, smiling faintly as he did so. "God, we got along like cats and dogs back then. You could not find more opposing views than between the two of us."

"How so?" I asked, honestly curious about learning more about Pyrrha's rarely mentioned father.

"Well, I wanted to be a great blacksmith, someone who could make weapons like those straight out of legend and help drive back the darkness. Icarus disagreed. He felt the best way to continue on wasn't to create better weapons but for us to create better lives, with devices that could help make people's lives easier in the long run, things like forcefields or alternate forms of transport."

Wayland chuckled shaking his head. "And let's just say that our arguments were always more than a little heated. To the extent that we got in a brawl and nearly managed to accidentally burn down the master's house at the process."

Yep that sounds like something Nora could have managed in that situation.

"And so, having quite enough blatant stupidity from the both of us, Daedalus set us a final task to complete together, one that fulfilled both of our beliefs. He tasked us with creating the means for an individual to achieve three-dimensional movement. Or in other words, flight.""

A personal flight device?

"So COOL!" Ruby said, her eyes sparkling like stars as she listened to the smith's story.

"To help us out with that, he provided each of us with a piece of Selenian steel along with a hint that it could prove useful in our task."

That explains how he could recognise the Selenian Steel in my sword, he's seen the material before.

"Icarus used his to make a flight suit the size of a backpack that could be adjusted to a variety of shapes and sizes and could fly at quite frankly ridiculous speeds through some trick with force fields that I never did figure out, much to my annoyance." Wayland explained, growling lightly at the end as he admitted his failing before his expression lightened again. "I on the other hand chose a different method. Nowhere near as easy to replicate as Icarus' design but I like to think I made up for that setback."

I went to ask Wayland exactly what he meant by that when an earthshattering boom sounded out, the ground shaking with such force that everyone was thrown from their chairs or from where they stood to the floor, a variety of loose paraphernalia crashing to the floor with a clatter around the house with a loud clatter.

"For once, that wasn't on me." Wayland groaned, pushing himself up to his feet, looking around the now utterly disorganised house and let out a long sigh. "Honey is not going to be pleased."

"Is everyone okay?" I asked as I used the heavy oak table to pull myself up before assisting a dizzy looking Ruby to her feet.

Ren made his way towards the door, pushing it open. "That came from outside." He said urgently, walking back out into the town to try and see what had caused it.

I walked out after him and rather quickly found just what it was that had caused the boom.

"You have got to be kidding me." I breathed, refusing to believe that our luck could be that bad.

Collapsed outside the village was the mammoth form of a Goliath, the oversized elephant Grimm bloody and battered, one of its mighty tusks snapped off of it and impaled deeply into its side. Half of the Grimm's face was just gone, a gaping bloody void where there had once been an ivory plate and enormous crimson eyes, the beast letting out a piteous moaning trumpet every so often.

And high above it, floating in the air was something silver with trails of flame extending away from its back, keeping the silver figure propelled in the air.

Then it spun on its axis and dived down towards the downed Grimm like a meteor drawing back a weapon of some kind to slam into the base of the tusk that was impaled in the Goliath, the ivory lancing through the Goliath and into the ground as if it were an oversized bug that had been pinned into place.

I felt myself take a step back as a wave of force emanated from the direction of the downed Goliath, realising that the sheer magnitude of power the tusk had been struck with could be felt even from here.

"Woah." I heard Ruby breath beside me, sounding just as amazed by the sight before me as I was.

Then I caught sight of the silver figure soaring through the air once more towards us this time and I heard Ruby extending Crescent Rose into its scythe form once more.

I looked down and found my sword in my hand, gripping it tightly as the silver figure got closer and closer.

Maybe it'll be okay?

I mean they did just take out a Goliath.

Maybe they're on our side?

The silver figure came to a halt high above us before corkscrewing down, slamming into the ground like a bolt of lightning, the impact sliding me backwards as few steps and kicking up a dust cloud that hid the silver figure from view.

There was silence for a moment before the whirr of servos and the hiss of moving pistons and hydraulics as something massive stepped out of the smoke.

For a moment, I thought it was the Prometheus Unit, fully repaired and ready to finish the job, but I was wrong. The P-01s for all of its power and abilities had appeared remarkably plain in seeming direct opposition to its high-tech nature, simplicity in both form and function.

The machine that stood before me was the exact opposite.

This thing looked mean.

It easily cleared over two meters tall, the entirety of its frame oversized and bulky, thick armour plates covering every surface. Its form was littered with dents, dings and scratches looking as if it had just gotten into a boxing match with a herd of goliaths, it's form occasionally lit up by pulses of yellow energy that surged in the just visible joins in the armour.

Hell from the way this thing looks it just might have.

My eyes were instantly drawn to the huge battle axe the figure held casually in one titanic fist, a viciously sharp blade capping one end while the other was capped by what appeared to be a jet engine that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Bullhead.

I turned back to the oversized silver figure, my eyes shifting from its oversized limbs to the intimidating helm, a stylised silver skull staring down at me with glowing yellow voids for eyes.

Oh and then there was the black Grimm blood that utterly covered the thing, the silver titan appearing as if it had all but bathed in the blood of its enemies before it had landed in front of us.

"JAUNE ARC?" The thing growled at me with a voice that was straight out of a horror film, the kind of thing that would speak once and then horribly eviscerate the poor sap standing in front of it.

As the poor sap in question I was not feeling particularly good about my odds at this moment. "That's me." I confirmed, swallowing my fear as best I could, the armour's size readily becoming more apparent as they stepped closer, and as the black blood of the Grimm flowed off of it I could see that on its empty handed left arm there was another depiction of the skull that was its face, pointed outwards like some kind of oversized watch with glowing yellow dust crystals for eyes.

Fun.

"Who's asking?" I forced myself to question, fighting the urge to take a step backward as the metal man came to a halt before me, the yellow gaze of its skull unnerving in the extreme.

There was the sound of machinery moving and shifting with loud 'CA-CHUNKS', the metal man not moving in the slightest. And then the chest retracted, sliding into both sides of it like the reverse of my shield, the yellow glow that had been seen in the joins of its armour now blinding to see, and I squinted my eyes in an attempt to protect them while still being able to see.

"Jorth." A much quieter, yet at the same time sharper voice said out of the lift, not angry or happy or anything else, sounding more apathetic and yet somehow all the more intimidating for it. It sounded like a woman's voice, the kind of thing that Goodwitch likely dreamed of having and inspired respect, discipline and respect just by listening to it. A figure walked through the smoke, throwing huge shadows with their every step and I felt my grip tighten around my blade. "Why are you here?"

"I, uh…" I stammered, frantically thinking on what I should say in this situation, on whether I should treat the person before me as an ally, an enemy or a neutral third party when the light faded, revealing the silver giant from before with an empty cavity in its chest, and the large figure who had been walking towards me vanished from sight.

What the hell?

"Down here." The voice from before spoke up and I lowered my gaze to see what would have to be one of the shortest women I have ever seen standing before me. Even Ruby had half a head of height on her, maybe even more. Based purely on her height I wouldn't have hesitated in placing her age around the same age as Kira, if not for the fact that no-one that age is anywhere near as developed as this woman is before me, something made all the more apparent by her outfit.

She had piercing eyes that were blue like a clear sky, that were narrowed as she examined me, her eyes scanning my form, one of her eyes obscured by a high tech looking yellow visor that she was wearing. She had orange hair that was tied into a simple ponytail that trailed down until it almost touched the floor. She was wearing what seemed to be some kind of full bodysuit that incorporated shoes as well, primarily in black with yellow 'veins' that ran the length of the suit, pulses of the same yellow light I saw inside the armour running up and down it. And there on her chest was a very familiar looking heart shape which was identical to that of one of my teammates.

"Mom!" Nora called out, running past me and engulfing the shorter woman in a hug, to which Jorth patted her on the back. "It's so good to see you."

"It is pleasant to see you as well, daughter." Jorge answered, her voice not changing in the slightest before Nora released her examining the rest of us. "You seem to be relatively unharmed barring some tenderness in your ribs which is likely a sign of lingering psychosomatic trauma."

Wow.

She's certainly observant.

Ren came to a stop next to me and let out a little chuckle. "Yeah, not really what comes to mind when you think of Nora's mother is it?" He asked quietly, nudging me with his elbow.

I looked between Nora and Jorth, and the two diametrically opposing personalities interacting with each other. "You're not wrong there."

"Ren." We both jumped and looked forward to see Jorth standing in front of us, Nora now closely examining her mother's armour along with an openly drooling Ruby.

"Ma'am." Ren said stiffly, his back going straight as he stared back at the smaller figure. "It is good to see you."

The orange haired woman cocked her head to the side at that, still examining Ren as she did so. "Is it?" She asked in that same dead tone, before she looked into his eyes once more. "Thank you for keeping an eye on my daughter."

Ren bowed, averting his eyes as he did so. "I would always protect Nora, Mrs Valkyrie." Ren said honestly, standing up and being just as stiff backed as before. "She's the best friend I've ever had."

"It is pleasing to hear that." Jorth replied with a nod before she walked past him, Ren relaxing instantly with a silent sigh as he did so.

"Honey!" Wayland called out in relief, walking from the house with a wide smile on his face lifting her off her feet with a wide hug, spinning her in the air and laughing loudly. "I thought you were going to be at least another day dealing with your latest bounty?"

Nora's mother waited until she her husband released her before answering. "I managed to find a way to finish the task off faster. On an unrelated note, I'm going to need you to repair the Valkyrie's flight system again."

His expression froze at that and he turned from his wife to her suit of powered armour and a look of horror came over his face. "Oh my god what did you do to it?" He despaired running over to the dented and dinged piece of machinery, hands reaching into his apron to pull out a handful of tools put of the various pockets, going to work on the machine without missing a step.

"You told me not to tell you how I damage the suit after last time." She answered dully, a single eyebrow raising slightly.

"Jorth this is not a laughing matter!" He cried out with an aggrieved look on his face, even as his hands were hard at work at something on the back of the suit.

I turned from Jorth, to Wayland and then back to Jorth again looking at the, to my eyes at least, utterly unchanged expression on her face.

"Oh she's laughing." Ren whispered out of the side of his mouth, clearly having seen the look of confusion on my face, "It takes a while to get accustomed to Jorth. She's like Nora in that regard, and very little else."

"Nora." Jorth called out, her quiet voice still easily heard by all of us. "You didn't tell me that your team leader was an angel."

I felt the blood in my veins freeze at that.

"What did you just say?" I asked in disbelief, staring down at the short woman in front of me.

"I said that she did not tell me that you were an angel." She repeated dully, cocking her head to the side once more as she turned on her heel and looked at me. "Do you perhaps have a hearing problem? My husband could possibly make a device that could assist you if that is the case."

"Uh, I think what Jaune means mom," Nora interrupted hastily, jogging over to his mother's side. "Was how did you know that he was an angel?" She asked politely, smiling as she did so.

Jorth frowned minutely at that. "Then why did he not simply ask that?" She inquired, a tone of light confusion barely audible in her voice.

Ruby blurred into place on Jorth's other side, grinning widely as she did so. "Jaune can be a bit silly like that sometimes."

"I see." Jorth said, nodding resolutely. "I shall endeavour to keep an eye out for that next time."

I felt an eyebrow twitch violently at that and fixed an apologetic looking Ruby with a look that could charitably be described as murderous.

"Honey," Wayland called out, walking away from the power armour for a moment. "How did you know that Jaune was an angel?" He asked the question again, his words quiet but serious.

Jorth shrugged and pointed at Candidus Mors, to be precise the white symbols that now ran the length of the blade as I held it in my hand. "The blade has Enochian symbols all along the blade." She said simply, saying it as if she was pointing out that grass was green or that the sky was blue.

The rest of us on the other hand stared at the orange haired woman with a look of abject confusion on our faces, Wayland included.

She seemed to see that we had utterly no clue what she was talking about and repeated herself. "Enochian?" she looked between us, looking for a sign of recognition "Written language of the angels?"

"You know how to read this?" I asked excitedly, bringing the sword closer to her and indicating towards it.

Jorth shook her head, expression unchanging as always. "No I can't read it but I recognise a few of the general shapes." She said simply before reaching over and tapping Nora's emblem. "Family crest is derived from Enochian symbol."

I felt my eyes widen at that in shock, well now that is certainly something.

"Perhaps it would be best if we finished this conversation inside." Wayland called out, seeing the neighbours beginning to make their way out of their houses. "This is something we should not be speaking about around prying ears."

Ren's hand grabbed be and started pulling me towards the house, turning me around entirely. "Whatever you hear, do not turn around until I tell you it is safe to do so." Ren said to me, his tone deadly serious.

I looked at him oddly out of the corner of my eye, no idea where he was going with this.

Then I heard a scandalised gasp behind me from Ruby and Nora letting out an embarrassed yelp. "MOM!" Nora shouted, mortification clearly audible in her voice.

"Yes daughter?" Jorth asked behind us, sounding as monosyllabic as usual.

"Honey, remember what we talked about regarding getting changed in public?" Wayland probed politely, a loud clanking sound which I presumed to be the power armour being moved towards the house.

Oh no.

"But I'm on our property so we're not in public." Jorth reasoned, the sound of something which my mind said is likely the bodysuit she had been wearing hitting the ground.

What would Wayland do if we saw his wife naked?

"It was inside the house honey, I said you should only change inside the house." Wayland repeated calmly in a tone of infinite patience that I presumed came from being married to Jorth and with Nora as your daughter.

Oh God, what would Nora do if we saw her mother naked?

Suddenly the fear that Ren had regarding Jorth became perfectly clear in my mind.

"Ah," Jorth said aloud, the sound of dingers clicking sounding out behind us. "I forgot."

I followed Ren through the front door, ensuring I was always looking directly away from where I thought Jorth was standing behind us.

Ren then side-stepped to the right and opened a door that was there without looking at it, pulling me in after him and closing the door, sliding a bolt across to ensure that it could not be opened from the inside.

I let out a sigh of relief as I felt the tension leave my body, Ren slumping down against the wall with a shuddery breath as he did so.

The door rattled loudly, someone pushing against the door a few times before giving up, the sound of light footsteps making their way away from us.

And that's why the door has a deadbolt I suppose.

Ren pushed himself up from the wall and made his way over to one of the desk of drawers, pulling the drawer out and retrieving a set of cards out from inside it.

"Want to play cards while we wait?" Ren said casually sitting on the floor as he began shuffling the deck.

"Sure, why not?" I said with a laugh, waiting for Ren to deal out the cards.

We sat there for a few minutes, the first few hands being played before I deemed it a long enough time to speak again. "So is Nora's mom always so…" I struggled to find a word that sufficiently encompassed what had just gone on outside.

"She's always been almost entirely devoid of common sense yes." Ren answered without blinking. "You should have seen her trying to give Nora and me 'The Talk'." He shuddered before placing another card down.

My mind briefly entertained what that scene could entail before my own common sense rather firmly intervened and informed me just how much I did not want to think about that.

There was a series of knocks on the door in a certain pattern that seemed familiar to me but I couldn't put a name to and Ren hopped up and slid back the deadbolt to allow Wayland into the room, sliding the deadbolt in behind him.

Wayland looked down at me sitting cross legged on the floor with a handful of cards and raised a brow before speaking. "Budge over Jaune. Ren deal me in."

"I've got your cards right here." Ren answered simply, drawing a pre-dealt hand off one of the side tables.

The smith snorted and rolled his eyes. "You've been gone a while Ren, but you haven't been gone that long. Deal them again."

Ren stood there with a look of indignant affront on his face which I might have even believed if not for the fact that I had caught sight of him trying to slip a card up his sleeve until I indicated that I'd seen him.

"I was going to ask before our little interruption, why couldn't you just study something like my sword and find out how to make Selenian Steel?"

"Well that's the problem Jaune." Wayland said shrugging as he did so. "Things made of Selenian steel are for all intents and purposes, unbreakable. Once it's forged into a shape it remains in that shape, permanently. I've got no idea how they were able to make the sheath shift into a shield like that. Speaking of you wouldn't happen to have that on you would you?"

I winced at that. "I kind of…lost it. During the invasion." I admitted with a grimace, my eyes flicking down to where my sheathed sword would normally be hanging from my waist.

Wayland chuckled at that. "Always the way." He said with a knowing voice before he patted me on the shoulder with a commiserating look. "I'll try and help you out with that one."

I nodded in thanks. "Something tells me I'm going to need a sheath for my sword if someone can tell I'm an angel just by looking at it." I agreed, drawing a rueful grin from the smith.

"Hey," Ren called out drawing both my attention and Wayland's back towards him. "Are you going to play or not, Wayland? It's your turn."

"Alright, hold your horses." The smith said, waving off Ren's words as he sat cross-legged on the floor, taking up almost all the remaining room in the process before closely examining his new cards, his eyes flicking back and forth suspiciously from Ren to me. Finally, his eyes stopped on me and he spoke again. "Got any threes?"

"Go fish."

"Son of a…"