Hidden enemies

The Games We Play

Hidden Enemies​

As I walked away, I held myself in check and tried not to visibly react any more than I had already allowed myself to. I wasn't sure if such caution was necessary, but under the circumstances…well, it seemed like it would be wise to err on the side of caution, given the circumstances and what I might be facing.

His level wasn't the only thing I hadn't been able to see. Ozpin was clean—or, at least, I hadn't seen anything. On any other occasion, against any other foe, I'd have considered that confirmation enough because I had very, very good eyes, but against these Riders and their father…I couldn't lie; I was out of my depth and I knew it. I had no idea what they were up to, who they were, what they were capable of, and so I couldn't let my guard down.

Especially since there was another pattern I'd noticed and I suspected Ozpin had, too. Two data points weren't enough to truly be certain of anything, but as the headmaster himself had said, it seemed safe to dismiss coincidence here, so I couldn't help but notice what I'd seen. Conquest had infected people through bacterial Grimm and this Red Rider seemed to spread through some type of substance in the blood. Given that, their apparent purpose, and the fact that Conquest claimed he'd been used to bring down Babel, we could go so far as to consider Conquest to be a 'biological weapon' and the Red Rider might be considered a 'chemical weapon.'

It wasn't hard to make the jump to types of Weapons of Mass Destruction, especially since it seemed to fit at least Conquest's MO. And if one was going to create weapons to destroy enormous numbers of people, it would seem logical to base them on…well, things designed to kill enormous numbers of people, so that made a certain kind of sense, too. And if there was a connection there, it could tell us more about the other hypothetical Riders, too—at least, in theory.

In practice, things were less simple. The term 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' was vague enough that it could potentially apply to a lot of thing—which is why it had been officially changed at least twice that I knew of and there had been numerous attempts to refine it even further. Biological and Chemical were fairly basic, so it would make sense for them to fall somewhere on any system used by people susceptible to poison and disease, which had been used as weapons longer than we had any records of. Making them WMDs was just a matter of…thinking a little bigger and even that wasn't very hard. Diseases could and had wiped cities or even nations off the map and poisoning rivers or food supplies was a fairly ancient tactic, so it made sense for those two to fit. Beyond that, however, things got more complicated. The term 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' had first been coined about eighty years ago, when the Astras had been unleashed during the War and took the conflict to a whole new level.

Or, at least, a level that had been new to us. During the War, the use of Dust on such a massive scale had resulted in the coining of anywhere from five to twelve new type of WMDs, depending on who you asked, which definition of WMD you used, and often times both. In the aftermath of the War, pretty much all of those were consolidated into the term 'Astral'—thereby giving the ABCs a horrifying new meaning—and that had been considered enough for the treaties made in the immediate aftermath. It had been decided that the term required some clarification less than a decade later as more experiments into that power were made, though, and even now, the extreme breadth of Dust-based weaponry made the term a matter of contention.

The point being that 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' covered a lot of ground. As such, if the Riders were modeled after such a pattern, who was to say they would match the model we used? Those were what we considered WMDs, but what type of weapons could a civilization as powerful as Babel create? A civilization that covered the globe, that didn't have to deal with the Grimm until the end, that knew so much more than we did about everything…what could they do? Just considering the possibilities meant entering the realms of fantasy and science fiction, but I did have a few ideas and none of them were good. If I narrowed the possibilities down to only what I knew or could reasonably assume, there were four main options. The first two, Biological and Chemical, were obvious and potentially represented by Conquest and the Red Rider but…while undoubtedly terrifying in their own ways, but I couldn't help but be more afraid of other two.

The first essentially boiled down to Astral, in some shape or form—the power of Dust taken to its destructive extreme. At this point, it seemed safe to assume that Babel had some relation to Dust, because they seemed to be involved in everything else in some way or other, so I kept this option on the table. As the War had proven, that could be divided God knows how many ways, from the spatial weapons that had crushed or rearranged entire cities to the nuclear explosions that had left craters half a kilometer wide and poisoned countless thousands. It could mean one rider or five or fifty, I had no idea, but I'd simplify the concept at least. I'd searched for any sign of that I could of such a thing in Ozpin, scanning down to his cells and through the entire Electromagnetic spectrum; whether it had been physical or even some strange type of radiation, I was confident I'd have noticed something if it had been there and I hadn't.

Yet I wasn't relieved, because that still left the final—and most worrying—possibility, because if there was one thing I knew about Babel for sure, it was that they had a far better grasp of souls then we did now. Could they have weaponized that? Probably; if history has proven anything, it's that you can weaponize a whole lot, if you want to. After all, in a way we weaponized souls by training Hunters in their use, so it wasn't hard to imagine that a civilization that actually knew what they were dealing with could do a lot more. How that might manifest, I could only imagine—weapons that attacked the souls, bombs that tore them out, or perhaps even creating souls designed to fight.

Hell, maybe that's what my Semblance was, some attempt to produce a powerful, artificial soul—at this point, it might not surprise me. I mean, it may have been a little arrogant to think so, but I'd say I was pretty damn good as weapons went; less than six months ago, I'd been too weak to enter Signal, and now…now, I wouldn't be afraid to fight a trained Hunters or two with my bare hands. Weapons that learned and improved were a pretty common science fiction device and I'd say I learned pretty damn fast. That might explain a few things, even, and the possibility was enough for me to put it on the list.

But if I was right, if there was a pattern here and I was anywhere close in my guesses, then that was very, very bad. If a Rider—or some of the Riders or whatever the fuck—was a weapon based on the soul in some way, then that opened a whole new realm of paranoia. I knew it was possible, after all; I'd encountered some version of Conquest in my father's soul even though he had to infect the body to reach that part. Something that could remove the middle man entirely, though, that was…well, worrying.

Worst of all, it might even make sense. Ozpin himself had told me about how he'd survived those Grimm—how he'd been allowed to survive them in circumstances as odd as my own. But if he'd been infected at that point, it'd make sense for them to let him leave; hell, in whatever hierarchy the Grimm used, the Riders seemed to rank pretty damn high. And after that point, he'd gone on to become one of the most powerful Hunters in the world, amassing power on a scale that boggled even my mind. He seemed to have friends in every single high place and had personally molded the minds of generations upon generations of Hunters. Ozpin had been in the business long enough that everyone seemed to know him and just take his presence for granted and he was in charge of so much it was frightening and let him largely act unabated.

Hell, if I wanted to go full on conspiracy theorist, I could go a step further—I'd met Conquest because of Ozpin, hadn't I? He'd chosen the mission and given it to my father, just like he chose the missions for every Hunter in Vale. If he was infected, he could have arranged that and countless other things; one of the perks, I imagined, of having the enemy general be one of your double agents. It could fit.

As could just about anything, if you forced it hard enough. In the end, all I had were assumptions and conjectures, with no way to prove whether or not Ozpin was infected. I'd checked his Aura, of course, but that didn't tell me anything; while for diseases, chemicals, and even radiation, I could check against a norm, all souls were different and Ozpin's looked the same as it always had. Which it would, of course, if he'd been infected long before I was born. No, the only way I would really know for sure is if I used Usurpation again and dove into his soul to check.

But I didn't dare to. I couldn't. What would I do, even if I found something? There were a lot of possibilities for how that story might end and none of them were good. If he was infected then he might not know consciously, in which case the attempt itself risked awakening it fully. And if the Rider was already in control, already running things, then…well, then he was running things. Beacon, Vale, and just about everything else he laid his eyes on, in some way or another. Even if he wouldn't kill me, I didn't dare face Ozpin alone and if I released everything I knew in front of every Hunter in the world, I was still a hundred percent sure who just about everyone in that crowd would side with. If Ozpin truly was a threat, if he truly was infected, I couldn't even risk finding out.

Not yet, at least. Not until I was strong enough to see for myself—or else to take the risk and bear the danger.

But until then, I couldn't trust Ozpin. Not completely. He was my greatest ally to be sure, but he could easily be my greatest enemy as well. I'd just have to live with that possibility, play along, work with it, and stay sharp until I knew more and got stronger.

But seriously, though—I hate my life sometimes.

XxXXxX

"Jaune?" My mother asked, sounding groggy as I entered her room. She looked like she'd just woken up, but with her injuries and the amount of drugs they had probably pumped into her, she might just be in a general daze. I honestly wasn't sure how much of the last two days she'd spent awake, but all things considered it probably wasn't a whole lot.

"Hi, Mom," I said, taking a seat beside her bed and giving her a smile. "How are you doing?"

She was silent for a few seconds to long, like she was trying to get her thoughts in order but they were fighting her. When she turned my way her eyes couldn't quite focus on me and looked a little glassy.

"I'm okay," She said at last, drawing a deep breath before speaking as she tried not to stumble over her words. "You're fine?"

"Yeah," I answered. "You know me—I take a licking and keep on ticking. As long as I'm alive I won't stay down for long. Even fixed my body, see?"

"I see," She replied, eyes drifting closed for a moment too long. She shook her head slightly and forced them back open, meeting my eyes again and shifting her arm as if to touch my hand with her own in an unconscious gesture of support—only to freeze at the reminder that she had no hands. It was something at once so large and so easily taken for granted that I could see the pained realization dawn in her eyes as she realized that she'd forgotten and was reminded of what it meant. I could see it and I could feel it, as the knowledge struck her and pierced her deeply and so I spoke without hesitation, interrupting the words I knew were coming.

"Don't worry about it," I said, making sure my smile was gentle. "I'll fix your body, too, I just need some time. I've been practicing while you were asleep, so it shouldn't be long now, just…bear with it for a few weeks, okay? I just need to train a little more."

"It's fine," She answered immediately, looking embarrassed and feeling worse. Barely pausing to take a breath, she continued speaking, almost rambling, as she just tried to put her thoughts into words through the haze of…everything. "It's just that I…its odd. It all happened so fast, it barely feels real, so it's like I went to sleep and had a dream, but when I woke up I realized it was all real. Everything's different and I keep forgetting."

I nodded in understanding.

"It all happened in something like thirty minutes," I said. "Even counting the fight before Conquest. Everything went to hell and then it was over as quickly as it began. It's understandable that it would take a while to sink in—it almost seems like a dream, doesn't it?"

"Or a nightmare," She sighed slowly and then gave me a lopsided smile. "I just feel…stupid when I forget things that are so important. I bet you were one your feet and working the moment you woke up, without even skipping a beat."

True enough, I suppose.

"I wasn't on any medication, though," I said aloud. "And I was also fully healed. I heard they have you on enough drugs right now that you invited Grandmother over."

She chuckled a little bit at that.

"I need to speak to her," She said after a moment. "Better now than later, I suppose."

I nodded in acceptance of that and didn't ask any questions when she didn't volunteer any answers.

"I spoke to her this morning," I said. "She's on her way, as are the others. They'll be here soon so I'll make sure the house and everything is in order, so you just concentrate on resting."

"Yeah," She said, smile turning sad. "I suppose we've all put this off long enough."

I assumed she was referring to my sisters and how they never seemed to come home, so I nodded slightly and waited when I felt that she still wanted to talk.

"It's stupid, but…I don't know what to expect," She whispered, looking up at the ceiling. "It's been so long…I don't even know what they look like now. I drove them away even as I made them strong and now…look at us all now. I'd hoped that strength would keep them safe, even if they were miserable—but strength couldn't even keep me safe."

"Do you regret it?" I asked patiently, because she wanted me to.

"Maybe," She said and there was a relief in her that made me wonder how long she'd wanted to say this and if it was exhaustion or the drugs pushing them out. "I do and I don't. The power I gave them, without it they may be dead right now. I knew, still know, that they have to be strong if they're to survive in this world, that every bit of strength I can give them matters. I told myself that if it makes them even a little bit more likely to survive, if it improved their chances of survive by a single percent or a fraction of a percent or at all, I didn't care if they hated me. But I do care because they do hate me. I never gave them a chance to be children, to be happy; I reduced them to weapons I had to reforge and make stronger again and again, no matter how much they hated it. It was for their own good, I told myself, but is it any surprise they ran away and never came back? They never even wanted to look at me again. But they loved your father—"

She paused again, closing her eyes as a flash of pain went through her. It was bright and hot, so vivid it felt like the touch of a real blade, and I understood. The last time we'd spoken had been in the immediate aftermath of the battle and though the emotion wounds might have been fresh then, so had her physical ones. With both arms and a leg missing, the pain must have served as a barrier against anything that tried to strike deeper but…that was gone now. There was nothing left to keep her from facing that reality, nothing I could say to change what had happened.

So instead, I touched her shoulder just to let her know I was here.

"They loved your father," She said, taking a shuddering breath. "They came to visit him from time to time. Never when he was in the house or near me, but I always knew. He told me about it sometimes and kept others a secret to try not to hurt me, but he was always the they liked best, who interfered when they were tired and hurt and who they went to when they were happy or sad or, or sick. They went to him about everything that daughters should go to their parents for, because I was never a mother to them, after the training started and they never thought of me as such. I was someone they at once hated and feared, something they wanted to run away from. I think they might have tried, even, if not for each other; that if Violet hadn't been born, Bianca would have tried to leave. They only visited to check up on each other and even then they never stayed for long. And you…I don't think he ever really knew I was aware, but they came back when you struggled early on, and asked him not to let me train you or get you involved with any of this. If they could have, I think they might have tried to take you away by force. They…my own daughters, trying to rescue my son from me."

I listened silently, even though some of the words came as a surprise. I wanted to say something, ask questions, but I knew that more than anything else, she needed me to listen to her, so I held off from satisfying my own curiosity.

"That's part of why I stopped, in the end. Why I never really tried. Your grandmother…I spent so long hating her for everything she was, for everything she did, but I realized then that despite everything she was a better mother than I'd ever been. They love her, too, maybe as much as they loved your father, because if nothing else, she loved them and would be there for them. She's done horrible things, looks at the world in a way I can't even understand, but she believes in family and she's…she's good at it. She'll kill and backstab and exploit and extort, but then she'll come back home and listen to your problems and make fucking cookies and help you when you're worried about even stupid things. She can insult you and tear you down with words when she's mad, make you feel tiny and stupid and awful, hurt you in ways I can't believe, but she'll…she can be…"

She was openly crying now and I dress a cloth from my Inventory to wipe them away before pausing when I felt her humiliation at being unable to do even that. Instead, I folded it and put it down on my lap, letting her cry for now.

"It doesn't change anything. It shouldn't change anything, that she can be nice and kind when she's still a monster, when she's a…a wolf dressed up in a woman's clothing. The things she's done…but they love her. Even her men love her, her friends, when she's so…her. I don't understand it, never understood it—in the end, I even ran away from it. But sometimes I wondered when I'd be if I hadn't, if I'd stayed Isabelle Roma and stayed in Mistral. Would I have learned from her? Would I have been a better mother, if a worse person? I told myself that's no real trade, but sometimes I wonder what it matters if a hundred people I've never met love me if the child I gave birth to hate me."

"I don't hate you," I said immediately. "I love you, Mom."

She smiled a bit at that, but it looked forced around the edges.

"I know," She said. "You were…the only one I was a good mother to. Bianca picked your name, did you know that? I let her pick, before she left for Signal, and she chose Jaune, for my mother's name. That…that hurt, but…maybe it's a good thing, too. There was a lot of stuff that hurt, but it's what kept you safe and…and now here you are. When you fought, Jaune, you did well. Better than me—better then I'd have ever been able to. You've gotten strong."

"Because of your training," I murmured.

"We both know that's not true," She said. "You…even if you'd been alone, if no one had helped you, you'd still be strong, Jaune—because of yourself. My teaching methods might have helped a little, but you'd have trained anyway and never have given up. Even when you fought your father, you did everything and kept fight long after I gave up hope and you reached when I couldn't. Even with everything that happened, for a moment, you got to him and stood with him at the end, when I…I just fought, knowing I'd lose and just trying to give you time to get away. I never even considered wining, but you believed it was possible until the very end. You're your father's son, Jaune."

"I am," I nodded, meeting her eyes. "But I'm your son, too. You kept fighting for my sake, even when you lost so much. Even if you thought it was hopeless, you kept fighting, Mom. Don't forget I got that from you, too. Whatever else would have happened, I'm glad you trained me and I'm glad you're my mother. And even after everything, everyone's coming home now."

She swallowed and closed her eyes.

"They're coming for your father's sake and for your sake," She said. "I'm sure of that."

"Are you?" I asked. "You said you hadn't seen them in years. If so much could change for us in half an hour, imagine how much they could have changed in the time they've been gone. We can't be sure of anything."

She took a deep breath, held it for nearly ten seconds, and exhaled slowly.

"Perhaps you're right," She said doubtfully.

"Perhaps I am," I smiled. "We'll find out soon enough, right?"

"I suppose so," She said, leaning back against her backrest, eyes still shut. Already I could feel her falling asleep and decided to heal her after, to let her rest. She probably needed it and definitely deserved it. "At least for now, it's over."

"Yeah," I said, lying to her face with that same smile, because it seemed kinder than telling her the truth. "It's over."

XxXXxX​