Alarm

The Games We Play

Alarm

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My grandmother just looked at me then, watching as I swept a finger across my status screen and became a Faunus. Of all the poker faces I'd seen in the past few months, I'd say hers was the best; in the face of what must have been an extraordinarily shocking revelation, she reacted only with slight twitches of the lips and eyebrows, by all appearances taking it in stride. My grandmother wasn't stupid, either—from that single piece of information, I saw her start to put things together, making connections. She didn't even react with disbelief or shock as she stared at me, simply staying silent.

But the look in her eyes had changed, becoming something calculating, contemplative, and…something else. She glanced down at the stained skewer in her hands and cast it aside dismissively, the clattering of it against the floor an almost deafening noise after the quiet—but I stood still and said nothing, allowing her time to think and consider.

At last she spoke.

"Does your mother know?" Was her first question, eyes locked on my face.

"Yes," I answered immediately, nodding slightly. "I told her."

"Before or after?" She asked without specifying—not that she had to, I suppose.

"After," I said. "I promised Mom and Dad I'd explain everything after I came back, but there was something I had to do."

"The mining town up in Atlas," She stated.

"Yes."

"That was reckless of you," She continued. "Foolish. Did you have any idea what you were getting into at the time?"

I hesitated before shaking my head.

"I…I thought I did, at the time," I said. "But…no. No, I didn't. But I had to."

"'But you had to,'" She echoed, voice growing heated. "'But you had to.' Stupid boy, don't you realize that it doesn't matter what you have to do if you fail? If you'd died, nothing would have changed. Nothing. Your sacrifice would have been utterly meaningless."

"I didn't die," I replied. "I didn't lose. I went there to save them and I did."

"And it was that simple, was it?" She sneered. "You walked in and won easily, without any danger or risk, did you? You survived—wonderful. But how close did you come to failing? How many times?"

I was silent for a moment at that, bearing her words unflinchingly. My grandmother had never yelled at me before and seeing her do so now…it hurt, but…

"Very close," I said back. "And many times. You're right; there were a lot of times I could have lost, could have died. But thousands of lives were on the line, grandmother—and I was the only one who could have saved them. What else could I have done?"

"Walked away!" She snarled at me. "Left and fought a different battle. Thousands of lives are on the line every second of every day—that's not a reason to throw your life away pointlessly!"

"I couldn't do nothing!"

"And why not?" She demanded but didn't give me a chance to reply. "Because it would have been cowardly? Because it would have been dishonorable? Oh, or let me guess; because you couldn't live with yourself if you didn't? Well let me tell you something, boy. If you throw your life away pointlessly because you can't accept a world where you aren't perfect, where you can't save everyone, that doesn't make you brave. It doesn't make you honorable. And it doesn't make you a hero. It makes you an even bigger coward, for choosing to die instead of face the world—and in dying, you sacrifice all the lives you could have saved otherwise. That's not heroic; it's foolish. Do you have any idea what you were risking, you ignorant child? Do you have any idea what your life is worth?"

I looked down at that, unable to meet my grandmother's eyes—partially because they'd turned a misty, glowing white, but mostly because of the feeling her words incited.

"I…" I trailed off before I could even give the words voice. It was probably for the best, because I wasn't sure what to say to that.

"And oh, and I bet Isabelle and her fool husband praised you for it, too," My grandmother laughed cruelly. "So proud to see their little boy risk his life for what he believes in and nearly get himself killed. That's just like her—all her talk of preparing you for what's ahead, of teaching you how to stay alive, but does she teach you anything important? Does she teach you when to walk away or run? When to compromise or give up? No; she just tries to make you strong. But you'll find no victory in strength, Jaune. No matter how strong you think you are, no matter how well prepared you believe yourself to be, you can't always win. You get outmatched, you get unlucky, you lose, and you die. So you pick the battles you can win and run from the ones you can't. If she really wanted you to survive, she'd teach you that. Because that's how you live in this world, Jaune; not by pointlessly risking your life for every fool thing!"

"It wasn't pointless—" I barely kept my tone indignant, indignant at the words towards my parents, but she cut me off before I could get any further.

"Oh?" She questioned. "Then you accomplished what? After all, you risked your life countless times, alarmed the entire world by waking Ziz, held a young girl from a very powerful family hostage, and stole countless Lien worth of property, so you managed to do something, right? You made Jian Bing infamous the world over? You improved the power, standing, and image of the White Fang? Oh, and wow, you saved a thousand Faunus from some mine somewhere? Congratulations—now, did you accomplish anything of value in the midst of all that? Or do you honestly believe that mine wasn't full again in a week? You scared people and, in time, that'll cause ripples throughout the Dust and Airship Industries, raising costs, prices, and security. But what did you manage to do? You went there to save the Faunus, right? Do you think that by doing all of this, you have improved their situation? That the lives of the countless Faunus in a hundred or a thousand other mines have been helped by your actions?"

That kind of took the wind out of my sails. After all, I…

I already knew…

"I…" I looked at my hands and then back up at her as she strode towards me, cupping my head in her hands.

"Jaune," She said. "You have to understand what your life is worth. It's not something you should throw away or put on the line for every little thing. I understand how you must have felt; every Hunter stands where you stood eventually, in their own ways. We all face that choice eventually, find ourselves facing horrible odds on one side and an awful choice on the other. But however horrible it may be, you have to think. I know it's awful, but when you find yourself facing a battle you can't win, just walk away. Whether it's an army or the Grimm, if you die, it'll make no difference; they'll keep going as if you'd never been there. It's only by living that we can accomplish anything, Jaune—and that's why living is harder than dying. But you keep going, Jaune; you have to. I've seen dozens of villages die, whether to tooth and claw or to the sword. I stood back and watched, because I knew I couldn't win. And you know what?

"What?" I asked, pretty unenthusiastically.

"I went on to save thousands more," She answered. "Because I was alive to save them, instead of dead in a ditch. I saved more lives than everyone in my graduating class at Haven combined, because I chose to live when I could have died, Jaune. And people have said it was the easy way out, but it's not, Jaune; life is never easy. It's terrifying and painful and beautiful and sometimes it hurts so much it makes you think you are dying. There are times when it'll hurt so much it'll make you laugh and is so wonderful it'll make you cry, because you lose things and you gain them, again and again and again. And you're young, Jaune, but I want you to know what that's like—I want you to live to see it for yourself. So I need you to understand what you risk giving up. You can live, Jaune, and you can fight, too, but understand. If you can save lives, save them, but if you can't, then isn't that a big enough tragedy without adding onto it?"

She dropped her hands from my face to my shoulders, looking at me steadily as she waited. I closed my eyes silently and took the words in, hard as it was—I'd long since known my grandmother wasn't one for saying what people wanted to hear, but it'd never been directed my way before now. And now that it had been, now that I'd heard what she had to say…it wasn't easy to take in.

But after a minute, I nodded. My grandmother wasn't one for saying what people wanted to hear, but whenever people had complained about it, I'd always thought that that didn't change the merit of her words. Maybe I should take my own advice, even if it left me feeling sick at the implications. But then, from the very beginning…

"I'm sorry," I said when I opened my eyes to see the honest concern on her face. I felt off, suddenly; uncertain. "I've done a lot of stupid things and I've caused a lot of trouble along the way. I know that and…I'm sorry. I wanted to save those people so much but…maybe you are right. Maybe it was for my sake that I did that, at least in part. I knew…I knew it probably wouldn't change anything in the end, but I thought that if I could save them, I…I'm sorry, Grandmother, and you're right. I'll do better next time."

"There's nothing wrong with saving people, Jaune," She said, pulling me close. "But as with all things, if you're gonna do it, do it well. You're a smart boy, Jaune, but if you want to do the right thing, you have to do things right."

"Yes, Grandmother. I will." I said, hugging her back slowly. "I promise."

She inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly.

"At least you're still young enough to learn," She said. "You stop learning, you start dying—remember that, too."

I nearly smiled at the words. That, at least, wasn't something I had to worry about too much.

"Yes, Grandmother."

"What's done is done," She declared firmly. "We'll just have to live with this. Who else knows your identity, besides your parents?"

"Three friends I can trust with my life," I said.

"White Fang," She guessed and sighed when I nodded. "I'd like to meet them. Anyone else?"

"Ozpin," I said after a moment. "Dad had him looking after me, though I didn't know it at the time. He figured it out somehow."

"Of course he did, that old voyeur," She snorted and caught my look. "The old bastard has cameras all over Vale and much of the forests surrounding it. Be careful with what you do there; it's only paranoia if they aren't constantly watching you."

"That's been going around," I said, frowning. "Grandmother, I need to speak to you about what I saw today. Raven Branwen…who is she?"

My grandmother exhaled slowly at that, looking away.

"You met Raven Branwen?" She asked. "You're sure? It couldn't have been a trick or imposter?"

"I'll tell you everything about my power in just a sec," I promised. "But trust me, it's her."

She was silent for a minute before nodding.

"She was a Hunter from Vale," She said. "One of their best, at the time, along with the rest of her team. She disappeared a long time ago, though, around when you were born. She's back, I take it? She's working for the White Fang?"

I nodded before pausing, considering that.

"Working for them…" I mused before shaking my head. "I can't be sure—my power has limits I'll tell you about—but…I listened in on the leaders and the way they mentioned her…I don't think she's working for them."

"Shit," She said before mouthing something to herself and shaking her head in annoyance. "I never would have associated them, but…that makes sense. Sixteen years ago—the revolution and the White Fang…I can see it, damn it."

"She can make portals, Grandmother," I continued urgently. "I don't know what limits there are to it, either. Not yet, at least."

"I know," She nodded. "She's always been able to do that. It's a very dangerous ability and part of why she was so successful, but—"

"She can use them to spy on people, too," I interrupted to add. "Without any of that glowing stuff, either—as far as I know, I was the only who noticed, and it was only because I got tipped off to look with my powers."

"Fuck," My grandmother swore after a beat of silence. "Damn it, but that explains a lot, too. They always did seem to know a bit too much, but if she could do that…"

She looked around, almost nervously.

"We're clear here," I said. "I'm sure of that much at least. But this…"

"This changes things," She agreed. "You better tell me everything."

XxXXxX

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I did. I broke it down pretty quickly—how my ability worked, what types of things it had led me into, and so on—but I told her everything I thought might be important. When it came to the possibility of someone who could be watching us at any time and who may very well be able to bypass all of our defenses…well, I wasn't taking any chances.

"The Gamer," She repeated, tilting her head at me with a slight frown. Shifting her tea cup ideally, she considered me for a moment before taking a sip. "A rather strange power, but an undeniably useful one."

I nodded, sipping from my own cup. I wasn't all that surprised at how calmly she took it, given that the outburst I'd just witnessed was pretty much the only time I'd ever seen her get truly emotional. Still…

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" I asked curiously. Semblances were so personal—and thus so varied—that it was hard to take an account of such things, but I thought that if anyone knew, it was probably her.

"Mm…maybe once," She said. "Julius had an ability that was similar…in a way. A Semblance called 'Emperor;' he gained power from his followers and those loyal to him. The larger his army, the more power he could draw, until he began manifesting all sorts of strange powers. His power was very group focused, but…I saw him once, when he returned to Mistral with his army. It was…"

She shook her head and sighed slowly.

"Even compared to that, the way your ability manifested is still unusual," She continued. "If you can keep yourself alive, you'll be very, very strong someday. You're potential is perhaps the greatest I've ever seen—just don't forget that it won't matter how strong you could become if you die before you do."

I weathered the pointed words silently, acknowledging them but not reacting. I already knew that, after all.

"Raven's our biggest threat, at least for now," I said instead. "I've heard there's at least one unknown party negotiating with the White Fang—unless that's the Families?"

"We're always negotiating, but it's almost certainly not us," She answered. "While we'll deal with the White Fang in return for services rendered, we've little to profit from allying with them officially. If they were a little more…"

She clicked her tongue, pausing to think.

"You may already be aware, but the White Fang has two faces. Much of it is simply composed of desperate or angry Faunus united under a famous banner, who take orders from those higher in the organization…in theory, at least. In practice, it's more of a movement than an organization, and anyone can take up the name and go bomb a store or something. In that regard, asking what the White Fang stands for is largely meaningless; it has as many answers as it does members. With a hundred 'branches' in a hundred places, it's a group of upset people standing up for their individual beliefs, which can create very…contradicting results. Most of the time, it's a joke to accuse the White Fang of doing something—more often, a father sees his daughter get beaten for her ears, gets a mask, and takes revenge under the excuse of doing it for…whatever they happen to think the White Fang stands for. The thing is, that's pretty much working as intended."

I frowned at her and she smiled at the look before continuing.

"You've seen the other side of the White Fang, though," She said. "The part that isn't disorganized, which has some very powerful members—apparently more than even I'd believed. That part does things for a reason, planning things out, and striking where they think it can do the most damage. They quietly encourage the actions of the first 'group,' because it gives the impression that anyone can be a member of the White Fang…which is completely true, as all it requires is a mask. And because any Faunus could be in the White Fang, or join it at any time…"

"People get scared," I finished, understanding. "They worry about what could happen, about who they might be offending. And since the White Fang seems to be everywhere and appears to be enormous…well, who even knows? What the White Fang is is so vague, attempts to target it inevitably splash over onto Faunus as a whole—and in doing so, pushes them towards the White Fang. The leaders might step in and give a little guidance here, get some resources there, and generally fan the flames until something big happens, but…"

I shrugged.

"It's an action that has advantages and disadvantages. Certainly, it makes any attempts to 'war' with the White Fang difficult at best, as they could be any Faunus. But on the other hand, publicly allying with such a group…" She shook her head. "No. I'll check to make sure none of the others are doing anything foolish, but there's more to lost then gained by standing with them—especially with the hatred of the Dust Companies."

"Then there's at least one unknown involved here," I said, frown deepening until I shook my head. "We'll have to handle that as we come to it, but for now, let's focus on the monster at our door. What else can you tell me about Raven?"

"Little," She shrugged. "We only met a few times and didn't do much talking. Swords seem to be her preference—a mix of Vacuo and Valian design, at least back then—and they always had a very long reach. Fast, strong, smart; what you'd expect from a Huntress, only more so. She was part of a team, like I said, but it broke up."

"What happened?" I asked. "Do you think it has anything to do with…well, what she's doing now?"

"Almost certainly, but I don't know any specifics. I remember thinking that they'd kept it suspiciously quiet, but then the Rights Revolution kicked off and there were more pressing concerns. Her team…" My Grandmother closed her eyes for a minute, recalling something. "I only saw them all together once, but I remember one of them even better than I do her. Her brother, Qrow."

"A brother?" I blinked in surprise—I'd never really considered that the supervillain might have siblings. Which was probably silly of me, thinking about it; after all, Jian Bing technically had seven sisters. "Is he…?"

"No," She answered before I finished. "Or if he is, then he's done a remarkable job keeping it quiet. Qrow is one of Ozpin's most trusted allies, with ties to many other powerful man—the Headmasters and Generals of Atlas and Vacuo just being a few. If he was in league with his sister…"

She let that thought linger for a moment.

"Still, while treachery is surprising by its very nature, I'd be shocked if he'd been a traitor for years and Ozpin had never noticed. More than that, if he was a traitor, he'd likely had a fair number of chances to ruin everything, given his position. I think it's more likely they've gone their separate ways, but you may need to be the judge of that." She continued, tapping her lips. "You can Observe them if they're within fifty levels of you, no? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't levels in most games go up to ninety-nine or a hundred?"

"It varies, but generally, yeah." I said. "My power does what it wants, though."

"Assuming for a moment that it is," She said. "If you were level fifty, you would be able to see anyone, correct?"

"Unless there's something I don't know, yeah. I can't make any guarantees about what I'll find, but it should be enough to tell one way or another. At the very least, I should be able to figure out the limits on Raven's portals at that point, which would be really nice. Keeping my senses on max all the time is…uncomfortable."

The HP damage was easy to fix, at least. The rest…I'd live.

My grandmother nodded.

"Then you'll need to train," She said. "I assume your mother was going to take you Hunting at some point?"

"When we got back, yeah," I said.

My grandmother snorted.

"You'll come with me, instead. From what you said, it's uncertain how many levels you'll be able to gain in the time we have, but if killing a Giant Nevermore and some foot soldiers was enough to get you two…" She said. "We'll leave once we're done here and make up an excuse for your mother."

I hesitated before reminding myself that this was to keep her safe and nodded.

"What about the rest of Raven's team?" I asked.

"Taiyang Xiaolong now serves as a teacher at Signal alongside Qrow, if I recall correctly. If I read them right, I believe he and Raven were sweet on one another at the time. Something might have come from it; we'll both want to check. The other was a woman named Summer Rose, who went missing on a mission six or seven years after Raven disappeared and was presumed dead. I vaguely remember some kind of confirmation, but given the circumstances, I would look into that as well."

I paused, zeroing in on a name, thoughts suddenly going elsewhere. Summer Rose?

I looked down at my wrist, upon which Autumn—Autumn Rose, according to her title, rather than Arc—once again clung to. If it was that long ago, it was probably just a strange coincidence, but…I couldn't help but think of why I'd named her Autumn and Observed my little flower.

Nothing. Of course, what was I thinking? Stupid.

Still…it was strange. The kind of strange that bore looking into.

"Yeah," I said aloud a little belatedly. "Will do. But wow, two members gone, the other two retired…assuming this isn't some huge scheme, that's pretty unlucky."

"Not really," Grandmother shrugged a shoulder casually. "They were the best team of their generation and accomplished things that should have been far beyond them. Unfortunately, the reward for good work is more work, and because they could deal with dangerous situations, they were sent into more of them. Do that long enough and the laws of probability will get you eventually—what surprises me is that at least three are definitely alive. Even if two largely retired and one ran away, that's doing pretty good for an elite team, in the grand scheme of things."

I wanted to say something about that, but thinking about it…I tried to remember how many adult teams I remembered seeing without missing members. Actually, I didn't even know what teams most of the Hunters I knew had been on—which probably said something in and of itself.

To distract myself from that unpleasant thought, I looked back at my grandmother as she calmly drank her tea and then glanced down at my own. It was cooling, I noted, both from the steam that had nearly stopped rising from it and from the shifting Infrared colors. Thinking of that reminded me of the scalpel in my brain that I was trying to ignore and something akin to static washed over my vision for a moment, visible light going briefly grey.

It hurt, but honestly, it was more annoying than anything else. It reminded me of how much I hated when things messed with my screen in games.

I grabbed the cup and downed the whole thing with three swift swallows. Cooling or not, it was still hot enough to burn taken that way, but that pain faded in a moment and the sudden input from another sense distracted me briefly. I healed myself, just to be sure.

"Anything else?" She prompted after giving me a moment, not commenting on my actions.

"Yeah," I said, refusing to rub my temples however foreign lasting pain seemed to me now. "I told you about skill books."

She nodded, understanding as easily as I thought she would.

"There are many books in the Library of Alexandria and I'm certain a fair number qualify," She said. "Given how quickly you learn and grow, there should be some skills that should be of use to you. Hopefully."

"Bai Hu's techniques proved pretty amazing," I said before tilting my head to the side. "But I know what you mean."

Bai Hu's art had been lost for a reason, alongside the other martial arts Tukson had spoken of—primarily time and convenience. For most people, getting as far into the style as I had would likely take decades of training, if they managed it at all. Going solely by my titles, merely learning the penultimate technique made me one of the elite, which implied most didn't get that far. And while the style was awesome, it achieved that power by trading tremendous amounts of Aura for short bursts of enormous power, exhausting the user quickly, to say nothing of the long term effects it probably wrought on the body. For people who weren't me, against an opponent as endless as the Grimm…

There was a reason they'd fallen out of favor with the discovery of Dust and the rise of better weaponry. It just wasn't practical in comparison. It stood to reason then, that any other 'lost' skills I found would have fallen to the way side for similar reasons—long training times, high costs, weaknesses, requirements, alternatives, and so on. At the very least, the librarians must have searched for ancient secrets of power at some point, and whatever they'd found evidentially hadn't revolutionized the world.

It could change things for me, though. I could learn things instantly, improve them by simple repetition, even learn related things in the process, so what was inefficient and wasteful for others could be invaluable to me. There were limits to what I was likely to find trawling through the books and scrolls that Mistral had pried from the cold dead fingers of other nations—none of them had kept them from dying, after all—but that didn't make it any less invaluable.

"Even if there aren't any secret God techniques, it's still a good thing to check," I said, partially to my grandmother and partially to myself. "Hell, I'd settle for something to make it a little harder for Raven to Scry-and-Die us."

She gave me a look at the terminology but then I saw her consider it, frowning. She shook her head slowly, whatever she was thinking of.

"Some kind of barrier, maybe?" I threw out. "Just some way of make a house or bedroom a bit safer? I might be able to work something out or level it up from there."

"A safe place," She mused and I saw her latch onto the thought. "A Haven. Or…a Sanctum."

She rose abruptly and nodded.

"Follow me," She said.

XxXXxX

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