8

Ozma Ozpin

The doors closed an hour ago. My hands stopped shaking half an hour ago. Only now do I get up and make myself a cup of hot chocolate, trying to ignore what Yu-

GUILT. PAIN.

A hiss escapes my lips as the sudden emotions slam into me, the mug fumbling in my hand for a moment. {Out of everything, that lends the most evidence to her story of self mental abuse.}

She adapted quickly. Very quickly, and with a style that is suited to reworking a person's mental pathways. {Not at all like our brute force application of will.} Skill versus power, I note sadly. {Skill in hurting herself. Skill in forcing herself to think in certain ways.}

It's effective. For the past hour we have been trying to avoid thinking her name, and about the city's'- Two idea's now poisoned in our own head. {Our thoughts have becoming traps.} This is how she shaped herself. By making certain thoughts hazardous to think, certain actions hostile to do.

The chocolate hits my lips and a warm relief floods though me. {She knew about our preference for Hot Chocolate.} Which brings me to another aspect of her. Her loneliness. {Every bit of trivia, every half remembered memory of the show, it was all seized by her. She's desperate.}

And suicidal. 'I don't want to use it, but I will.'

{If she uses her Semblance on Salem... She won't be able to get out. The Grimm in her body will drain Yu- Drain Tenno of all her Aura. She will be trapped.}

Another sip of the chocolate as we look over the city she saved. A city we failed. Guilt and pain, softer and almost natural this time, washes over me. {I think she knows she suicidal.} But to what extent? How far will she go?

{Far enough to sacrifice everything for a stranger.} Ah yes, our meeting with Miss Nikos, after she passed out on the first night.

'Res. It's... Kindness Professor. She somehow spoke with meaning, waves of soft kindness and empathy in the word. It promised to take away all the pain.' Her eyes became wet. 'It was a mother's love, in a strange distorted kind of way. Unconditional, and ready to take any suffering onto herself.'

'She took the wounds onto herself, Professor. And she was crying. I don't think she realised it.' Crying over a girl she didn't really know. Even through her show, the character Amber served as a single fight, a single moment in a coma, and a single death. A stranger.

'She looked at me, Professor. And she knew everything about me.' Pyrrha's face became wet then, as tears slowly dripped down her face.

'And she said: No longer your Destiny. Give it to me.'

'No longer your Destiny. Give it to me.' Did Pyrrha realise she too was crying when she told us that? Of Tenno's kind words and soft request? 'It was... I knew it was heavy, but I didn't realise just how heavy it was until after I gave it to her.'

Shame. Pyrrha Nikos feels shame. 'And I did. I'm sorry Professor, but I can't be your Maiden. I can't. I never wanted to be The Invincible Girl, I never wanted to have the world on my shoulders, I never... I just loved to fight and... I just wanted some friends.'

Our attempts to comfort her were not good enough. Not as our role as the person that gave her the burden. {We forbid her from telling her team. That was a mistake.} Yes. More than that, she was too young. {We knew that, but we were out of time.} Cinder forced our hand.

She forced it so instead of 4 years with her team and a foundation, she only got one. An aggressive plan, one unlike Salem. And it would have worked, had Tenno not... 'I snuck into this reality through a dream and a corpse.'

What are dreams but our unrestricted selves? Unconstrained by not just laws and physical limitations, but also our waking mind. {And what does she dream of?}

She dreams of being a hero, of helping people. Of finding suffering and helping it. Of fighting against monsters and immortals if only so people stop suffering.

{At any cost to herself.} Res. Plan T. Others she no doubt has thought up and not told us of.

'Please! I don't want to wake up!' And she is afraid. Not of Salem, not of Grimm, but that this will all turn out to be a dream.

Another memory. 'You were going to kill yourself.'

I... {We were. It was the best possible mo-} It wasn't right. As Ozpin, we would be pinned here, limited. As a new self, we would be free to move about, to fight Salem and pin our hopes on Ruby Rose. At the cost of our influence, our Vale resources, and... at the cost of Oscar.

GUILT. PAIN.

The boy's name. The third thing. And I deserve that. Dying was the correct move, but not the right one. To steal another child. To pin all my hopes on Ruby Rose, a 15 year old girl. Only to abandon her because she learned the truth. {She put it best, I think:} 'You're just a simple Knight put into the role of White Queen of this Immortal Game.'

I think I could put it better, that is a bit wordy. {Given half an hour, maybe. Old men do love to take their time.} Another chuckle, and another sip of cooling hot chocolate. A little magic and it's warm again. {Cheat.}

Cheat? Are you saying your would prefer lukewarm hot-

The lights are going out across the city. People conserving Dust? {No. Those patterns, grid by grid. That is the power grid failing.}

A flash of colour. Red, white, blue and brown. {A Dust detonation.} I realise.

We are under attack. My scroll is in my hand and hitting the buttons faster than I can think, the mug emptied down my throat before it lands on the desk. Only for it to beep at me.

Ah. I am not headmaster, this is not my office, despite Glynda not moving in. Also, I am evicted from the Council. I can't make an emergency recall of all Huntsmen. Another set of buttons. A moment passes. "Glynda. The city is under attack. Please issue an emergency recall."

"Are you?- of course you are. Meet in the courtyard." She hangs up. She is still bitter. {Everyone is. We are an idiot.}

'You're All Idiots!' {Well, at least it isn't just us.}

The broken elevator is the fastest, even in it's damaged state, to get us to the courtyard. It shakes a little as it descends.

The doors open with a half whispered whine of metal dragging on metal and I stride out, The Long Memory in hand and mug forgotten. A few more step, groups of students forming, and I spot her.

{Now we look to a total stranger for leadership. How long has it been before we truly looked to someone else to lead, and not just pretended to for the sake of appearances?} Too long, I think. Still, I believe we can provide some advice.

She, along with teams JNPR and RWBY, are already in action, snippets of their plan becoming clearer as I approach.

"No." Tenno snaps. "Pyrrha, all the progress you have made, all the progress you might have made, they will be unobtainable if we do this. You won't be able to fade away into obscurity, 'The Invincible Girl' being a long forgotten title."

"I know." Miss Nikos places her hand on It... Her shoulder. "Let me carry this."

The words. Amber's body deflates.

"Can you?" It's almost pleading, a beg to not do this as well as a defiant question. She took Miss Nikos' burden before, obviously she could not carry it. Can she carry this?

'I'm sorry, Professor, I can't.' She looks to her team, gestures of support, that no matter what they will stick together. The mistake I made she avoids. "I can."

Yu- No, don't think her name. Follow the certain paths laid out as safe through a treacherous mind. She accepts that and moves to Mr Arc. "If Pyrrha is going up, so am I."

That expression on her face, it is one I have learned to hide. Pain at the terrible choice made, of a young hopeful sent into a situation that will hurt them. "You will be under the most scrutiny. Your skills are not up to par, not yet. And your relationship with 'The Invincible Girl.'..."

He nods. "Jaune, show them who you are. Be clever and inspiring, lead with plans and hope while your physical skills grow. Ignore the hate, but accept valid criticism." She smirks. "They just want Pyrrha for themselves anyway. Envious bastards."

A light chuckle around the group as more students form up in the back of the courtyard, coming to Glynda's call. "I won't let them down." Jaune states with certainty. "Just One More, and I won't forget these four."

"Idiot." She mutters and moves to Ren.

"I am in." Already Tenno is on the back foot with Mr Ren.

"Nothing I can say to sway you?" It's pleading. Hopeful.

"No."

"If any one of you says no, I will stop the project. We can find another way, it doesn't have to be like this." She has said that before.

Mr Ren smiles, in that faint way. "You already said that." I have to suppress a chuckle of my own.

She sighs and looks down for a moment. "I use too many words to fight you."

Now she turns to Miss Val- "Let's get Famous!"

Another sigh. "It's not easy, ask Pyrrha. Everything she has complained about," A glance at Miss Nikos. "Which I would guess isn't much," Sniggers around the group. "Will be made immensely worse, not just by that which she hasn't, but also that you are all going to be part of a group."

Again she interrupts, not swayed in her conviction. "You're right. You talk too much. Team JNPR is ready! Hmm, maybe we need to update our looks. Team uniform?"

"We aren't going to wear skirts, Nora." Jaune groans.

"But you look so good in a dress! And so does Renny!" An old argument, it seems.

She steps back and looks at JNPR as a whole. "You're all idiots."

They grin back. "Yep! Now, can we go punch some Grimm?"

Another sigh. "One more thing. Mind if I use Growth?" She asks for permission and gets a nod. A hand on Mr Arc's shoulder and a moments concentration.

"Whoa." He blinks.

"Amber's Growth, applied to your tiredness and soreness. You might not have that much Aura from before, but I can help with everything else. Next?" One by one she takes away their fatigue, it seems they were training before.

"I'll assign Team CFVY to you, as camera and fashion advice. I'm sure Coco will love some dressup dolls."

Mr Arc groans. "And I thought I got away from girls playing dress up when I got to Beacon."

Finally she turns to Team RWBY. "You sure?"

Miss Rose sticks her tongue out only for Miss Schnee to slap the back of her head lightly. "We are sure."

"I'll assign Team SSSN to you for defence and Paradigm Shifting. You'll be part of the second wave. Just because you aren't fighting, doesn't mean that-"

The alarms start playing across Vale, audible from here. "Too soon." A shake of her head as she accepts the update in her schedule. A hand held out to refresh the team as her other hand pulls out her scroll. "Tell me the bad news."

James voice comes out from the scroll. "They have started moving." The Grimm are on approach. "And we have only just arrived on Amity." Miss Schnee blinks with sudden energy.

Amity? "How long till command is up?" Ah, they are going to use Amity as a communications hub. {It was designed for broadcast in conjunction with the CCTS.} Was that her idea, or James? Miss Rose starts fiddling with her weapon, her sudden increase in energy going into nervousness.

"25 minutes. By then the Grimm will be at the walls." The worry in his voice tells me just how bad the situation is. {His ship has been grounded all day, clearing systems of the virus for their return trip to Atlas tomorrow. And not killing Grimm.}

Miss Xiao Long grins and flexes as the physical symptoms of their training are washed away. This was attack was made at the perfect time, before the majority of people attending Vytal have been able to leave and after enough time for people to just start feeling safe. There will be follow up attacks after this, repercussions.

"How long till Warbeat readiness?" That would be her plan then. Whatever Warbeat is. "Blake, take that silly thing off."

"10 minutes, and I already have a bullhead en-route to pick up Teams RWBY and SSSN." Miss Belladonna, sans ribbon, takes a breath with just the slightest bit more movement than the one before.

"Understood." A message sent, no doubt asking Glynda for the two teams, and she turns to me. "I should fix that." A stride and a bit of ice forming up her body to hold it in place. "Permission to patch the damage I did?"

A nod and she is- {Hello hello. This shouldn't take long.} Immediately I can feel her getting to work.

Author's Note:

I'm done moving, though it will take a while for me to settle in to my new place. The computer station I have is alot more uncomfortable, so my writing will suffer somehow. Oh well, at least only a few things went missing/stolen, and nothing important.

Now that I think about it, I didn't start any of my chapters with 'I don't own this, pls don't sue'.

Mostly because I don't care. If CockBite wants to hit the FNDM like that, then they don't deserve to live. I'll take down the story, and never touch RWBY or anything they own again. I mean, they literally got started making fan content for Halo (Red Versus Blue) and Monty's animations were all using existing models as he leveled up from 'Pretty Good' to 'Better Than Sex'. If CockBite want's to attack it's own Fandom, then they don't deserve to live. Though, considering how they treat... Uhhh, Everything, they don't really deserve to anyway.

Were it up to me, I would gather the FNDM and buy RWBY via crowdfunding, then work up a team of actual people and break it up into two parts, the Beacon Years (which would subsume RWBY Chibi and be the mostly fun stuff of day to day life) and the Forever War (Which is the side I would be on.) We would have to restart, or at least heavily rework, but considering the mess of a show this is, and the literal blood in it, that might be for the best.

Do No 'Forget' To Treat Your Team Like People.

Fucking crunch.

Do not #GreenlightVolume10

#FreeRWBY from CockBite's grip.

Speaking of messes...

If this were it's own chapter, I would called it something like 'Twisted Timeline Trouble'. Or not. Either way, it's not it's own chapter because Yuki has the luxury of asking Raven and Ozma about their pasts where as I, a helpless omnipotent author, have to work out what happened all on my own.

Which led to a massive author's note about ages and timeline to put here too, thoughts and working things out that I have to make an author's note because Yuki can just ask Ozma and Raven what happened, where as I, a helpless omnipotent author, have to work things out.

Mostly it comes down to this: Ozma has been headmaster for about 40 years, or half the time Beacon has been up, which makes Weiss' comment 'One of the youngest headmasters to be appointed to the school.' (Volume 5, Chapter 6) kind of a bit silly. 80 years isn't that long a time. Also, she said 'one of the youngest', not 'the youngest'.

Which means there is some kickass young headmaster/mistress out there who took control of Beacon for a while. Sounds like a good fic idea, in the vein of 'Professor Arc' or something like that.

The other thing I calculated/interpolated/did the thinking on, was that Raven became a Maiden after her and Summer's mission and importantly, couldn't have asked the missing question.

Because One, Raven doesn't know Jinn's name. Two, Leo Lionheart was guarding the vault the entire time. She could have snuck in there or bribed Leo with the question, but that doesn't solve how hardcore Ozma was trying to prevent anyone knowing Jinn's name. And for good reason, Salem doesn't know it. So the more people that know the name, the more vectors of attack she has to extract that. Ozma can just die if he gets captured after all, little Ruby Rose though? After what we saw of the Hound? Not good.

So, that brings me back to Volume 9 (Half spoiler there) with Raven and Summer heading off to fight the big bad bitch all by themselves. Raven was not a Maiden then, she can't of been. Otherwise she would have used her magic to save Summer and/or Salem would have seen her use her magic during the fight and told Cinder to go get it.

Raven is 'complicated', but she's not 'leave Summer to die to keep magic a secret' complicated.

Which leaves us with a very small time frame of when she could get magic. Soon after Summer's death, and not too late or she wouldn't be considered young enough for it. I'm setting the number at 30 years, which is basically as soon as Summer died, if we take Yang and Ruby sleeping to be about 7 and 5 years old.

Volume 9. I watched it before starting this fic. Well, the important bits anyway. And I deliberately made sure not to include it into this AU for several reasons.

If you analyse the world of the Ever After, or at least if you analyse it as I have, things A) Don't really make sense (I know that's the point, but I mean on a cosmic scale not a local scale). Gods and Trees. I understand it's fictional, but evolution and Grimm do not work nice together. Something I have already touched upon in the this fic.

B) Time Travel. Why not just have time scale differently on each Acre? Have Jaune's extended stay in the Ever After be because he is forcing himself to stay there, to play hero with the Paper Pleasers. It would play much nicer with his character arc, letting go and accepting losses and all that, but no.

They had to introduce Time Travel. I made sure to include a solid reason not to use it in this story, but if Yuki 'woke up' in RWBY knowing about Time Travel? She would go full Cinder, kill Fria, take the staff and then make a time machine. All problems would be solved not long after.

Okay, maybe not that brutal, but still. Time Travel is too powerful for anyone to have. Done right, the first faction that gets Time Travel, wins. Full stop. No story.

C) This is the main reason I didn't want to include Volume 9 and why Yuki skipped the end of credits scene. (Yuki is fully out of Self Insert territory now, only a few chapters in. Good.)

RWBY is dead.

I don't just mean the team, for thematic purposes in the show.

I mean the Show RWBY by Rooster Teeth is dead. Volume 9 limped along, maybe 10 can too, but I doubt it and I don't want it to.

Salem won. The end. The lamp is the only relic worth fighting for, with it and enough time (Salem can wait for another 20 years, or 120, or 1000) she can get whatever she needs. Importantly, the company I am calling Cockbite, they have screwed up over and over again, but not on this.

Thematically, Salem winning is actually a good point to end this story on. Ozma screwed up not trusting people. James trusted only to be broken at the last moment. Leo was a traitor. Yang pushed away Raven in the end. Over and over they make the same mistakes and don't learn from them, barely scratching out victories thanks to 'sudden Silver Eyes' and Cinder making her own mistakes.

So, the moment Cinder gets her act together and kicks their assess, she wins. Well, Salem wins, Cinder loses, but she doesn't know that.

We don't often see stories where the bad guy wins. RWBY, I think, deserves to be one of those stories. One of the themes in it is 'being in over your head'. Situation after situation they are thrust into and run into, not really questioning what they are doing or trying to get more information. Ozma abandons them after it is revealed that he doesn't know what he's doing.

Another theme is that 'this isn't like the stories', something that Volume 9 touched on during it's 'Ruby meltdown' parts. And it's not.

'They always saved the day, didn't they? Always knew what to do. Always won in the end.'

'But… life isn't like a fairy tale…' (9:4)

Now, let's say Ozma didn't kill himself in the Fall of Beacon. Let's say otherwise, he beats the shit out of Cinder, then uses some of his stored magic to blast away the Wyvern. Suddenly things shift, hope and all that stuff that Yuki did, only without the battleship. Then again, looking at the episode again, it could have still been up when they entered the Vault. With how cinematic things are (clips from all different places spliced together into a coherent story), the few seconds spent saved by Cinder running and Yuki's complete disregard for banter, added on everyone's Aura boosted speed as they sprinted down the Vault's halls...

Eh, the story is already slightly AU. Amber was wearing panties, and Volume 9 doesn't exist.

Speaking again of Vol9, A reviewer seemed surprised that Summer went with Raven, even thought I thought it was fairly obvious? We know that she was there, both by her reaction to 'how strong Salem is' and by the fact that she knew Yang was in danger during Volume 2. Unless she was on that train, watching Neo beat up Yang, her Semblance allows her to know when someone she is linked to is in danger.

Would she leave Summer to die?

Well, Volume 9 goes ahead and confirms that more literally for me anyway. Not that it's new information.

Ugh. I'm done writing for today. I forced this chapter out because I said 1 to 2 weeks, and here I am at 2 weeks. I hope to have a proper chapter next time, the Siege of Vale. Or I'll name it something else.