“Well, I had hoped that you would. Having forgotten to mention her would have been a problem, but perhaps the actual situation we’re dealing with is more of a problem than that,” Ozpin continued.
“I mean, to be fair, a lot of people as presented weren’t exactly memorable…” Second Thoughts hedged. “It’s entirely possible that they simply didn’t play a major role in any of the stories I’m familiar with. If you had a picture you could show me then I might recognize her? I’m better with faces than names.”
“I highly doubt that someone like her would be a character so easily forgotten, but if you think it might help.” Ozpin nodded as he typed away at his computer, quickly pulling up a photo.
When Jaune leaned in to get a closer look, he was surprised to see Qrow in it, smiling wide with his arm wrapped around an unfamiliar woman. The blonde seemed to be begrudgingly accepting it, rolling her green eyes with the slightest of grins on her face. They weren’t alone, however. Thanks to the visions that Jinn had shown them, he recognized the other subjects to be Qrow’s old team, Ruby and Yang’s family. Raven was stood next to Qrow, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else while Taiyang hung off of her. Summer, meanwhile, was on the other side of the mystery woman, holding her fingers out in a peace sign.
This picture was obviously pretty old, what with Summer being alive and team STRQ still being together.
“Hmmm. Yeah, I’ve never seen her before…” Second muttered. “Who is she then? An agent from the previous generation? Though she doesn’t really look that much older than team STRQ, so maybe…”
Ozpin let out a sigh. “You could say that. Samantha was the last Summer Maiden we knew of, until she died the year after Summer Rose met the same fate. Or at least, that is what we were led to believe.”
“Hold on,” Jaune interrupted. Summer had died a long time ago at this point, hadn’t she? “Why are you asking us,” or at least Second, with him serving as an afterthought, “about a woman who’s been dead for so long?”
Second hummed. “He’s implying that she didn’t actually die. So, what, Qrow or whoever ran into her over in Vacuo or something? What’s the situation? Had she been held captive this whole time? Amnesia that made her forget who she was? Though I suppose something like that probably wouldn’t take so long to make itself known and you’re only asking us now…”
Ozpin seemed to age as he answered. “I don’t know. Miss Goodwitch and Doctor Oobleck had more pressing concerns to attend to when they were making their report, but apparently Qrow is under the impression that Samantha faked her death and neither of them seemed to rebuke that claim. It’s a mystery that I wasn’t expecting to suddenly have thrust upon me on top of everything else going on at the moment.”
Jaune could imagine. Even if you pushed Second’s bullshit aside, Ozpin still had to deal with Vacuo being breached and Salem and her minions being on the loose.
“So I’d like you to think back on anything you know regarding the Summer Maiden,” Ozpin continued. “I am not a fan of blindly feeling out situations like this, and the more we know, the better.”
Second frowned. “There isn’t much I can tell you. The Summer Maiden for whatever reason is one that rarely got touched on. The only instance of one appearing that I can recall was… I think it was something like an orphan girl from Vacuo who got it without knowing what it was, accidentally killed her family, and then became delusional? She lived in an abandoned settlement outside of the city alone with the mental faculties of a child, believing herself to be a god of some sort until…”
“Until?” Ozpin prompted, eager for information.
Second’s eyes slid towards Jaune warily, and Jaune found himself frowning. Was this going to be yet another instance of his semblance’s secret keeping?
Second winced and looked back at Ozpin. “Until she, uh, was killed quite promptly after her introduction in the story. It wasn’t pretty. She had very poor control over her power, but if I recall correctly she was able to hide her presence by summoning sandstorms… that’s all I can tell you, though.”
Ozpin took another sip of his coffee. “I see. Well, that was all I needed from you two, you may return to your dorm.”
They said their goodbyes and made their way to the elevator, an awkward silence forming between them on the trip back down.
The breach of Vacuo may have taken the sails out of his burning anger, but Jaune’s bubbling resentment towards his semblance wasn’t going anywhere.
Even in that short conversation, Second and Ozpin had referred to this Samantha woman as a character.
Oobleck may have had a point or two in their discussion before the man’s sudden departure, but it was clear Jaune was right and his stupid semblance still saw them all as mere characters in a story.
“There was clearly more that he wasn’t telling us,” Second broke the silence.
“You’d be an expert in that, so I guess you’d be able to tell,” Jaune snarked back.
“Jaune, that’s not-”
“I don’t care.”
Second let out a frustrated groan. “Jaune, how am I supposed to fix things between us if you won’t even listen to me?”
Jaune wasn’t sure that things could be fixed.
Yet at the same time, the two of them were probably going to be stuck together for life. Hating his semblance that whole time would be… a problem.
But as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, Jaune stepped out and pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, not responding to Second’s question at all.
He heard a defeated sigh behind him.
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“Fine. Have it your way.”
----------------------------------------
“–of course! That’s wonderful news, we’ll be there right away!”
It was almost disturbing, seeing her commanding officer smile like that as he gestured for her to follow along.
“That does still leave the question of who, though. I completely understand your sense of urgency, but did you have someone in mind?”
Winter disliked hearing only one side of a conversation, but she was certain that General Ironwood would share the necessary details with her as soon as the call was over.
But even knowing it was simply a matter of time, that did little to assuage the concern she felt when his chipper tone suddenly left him.
“No, Ozpin, I’ve told you over and over. Winter already has plans in that regard, it must be someone else.”
The concern only grew when her name was mentioned, but she kept a professional look as they marched down the halls towards the airship hangers.
“Even beyond that, it was one thing to accept the risks with Amber, but with her of all people? I refuse to risk any side effects.”
Amber, side effects… they must be discussing the aura transfer machine. She hadn’t been heavily involved in the conversations about it back when Amber had first been attacked, given the fact that the General already planned for her to succeed the Winter Maiden, but she recalled some concerns that the machine would transfer more than just the Maiden’s power.
Aura is a person’s soul made manifest. Transferring it would transfer the powers, yes, but just what constituted someone’s soul? Would it alter the recipient’s personality? Their memories? These unanswered questions had been part of what made them delay things with the transfer of the Fall Maiden’s power so much, but with how that had gone, she supposed they might actually have some answers by now.
“I don’t care if you haven’t noticed anything in Neo Politan, Ozpin. You don’t have a strong baseline for her, would you really be able to tell if she had been affected in any way? …and you’re trusting the word of a known liar in that regard?”
That… really wasn’t reassuring at all.
“On top of that, if we want to bring it all to one person at this point, you’d be risking mixing four personalities into one body.”
Winter’s frown deepened as she reflected on that. Were they talking about the Fall Maiden? It was the only thing that made any sense. Amber’s aura had gone into Neo, so taking the power from the mute would mean 3 different auras in one body, and if you added in the other source then…
Her eyes went wide.
Had they truly captured Cinder Fall?
The General grit his teeth. “As much as I hate to say it, it would seem that we have three choices. One would be to risk turning the recipient into a husk of their former self, a mere vessel for the power. The second would be to… use means that I refuse to accept, and pass it on the intended way. And the third…”
…oh. Oh dear.
Their options were potentially lobotomizing someone they trusted, committing murder and bypassing the justice system…
…or allowing Roman Torchwick’s right hand to hold the power of the Fall Maiden.
This was the sort of dilemma she remembered facing in ethics classes. A situation where there was no real right choice, only a series of bad choices that you had to weigh the pros and cons of.
…was it bad that she was leaning towards murder?
----------------------------------------
“...I fucking hate my semblance.” Qrow all but growled.
Neptune whimpered and tried to cower behind him, but Sun simply rolled his eyes. “Look, it’s not our fault, okay? We just got turned around, that's all!”
Qrow squinted at him. “You, the kid who grew up here, got turned around and separated from the huntsmen team you were with? You expect me to believe that you’re just a little lost?”
Well, if he were being truthful it hadn’t exactly gone down like that. The huntsmen team might have gotten distracted with the missing criminal, and Sun maybe offered to guide them down the twisting, winding alleyways, and he potentially could have given them the slip with his superior knowledge of the area, thus dodging any problems with the authorities by running away from them, like he had when arriving at Vale’s dock.
You know, hypothetically and all.
But instead of mentioning all of those unnecessary details, he simply said “Yes.”
Qrow continued to squint at him before slowly closing his eyes and taking a long sip of what Sun thought was probably alcohol. “...Glynda is going to kill me.”
Walking past them, he gestured for the two to follow. “Come on then, I definitely believe your story, and am now bound in my duty as a teacher to ensure that you kiddos don’t die.”
“You’re a teacher?” Neptune asked skeptically, his gaze swapping between Sun’s eyes and the flask in the man’s hand.
“Yep,” he replied, popping the p. “I teach at Signal. And as your temporary instructor, I hereby start our lesson on how not to get your asses chewed out when doing things that you technically aren’t supposed to be doing.”
The two boys exchanged a glance. That sounded promising!
“Awesome!” Sun cheered. “You’re way cooler than Ruby and Yang say you are!”
The man’s hand twitched.
“Right. Step one. Any guesses on what that is?”
“Using a believable lie?” Neptune suggested.
“Going for pity points?” Sun added.
Qrow shook his head. “Not terrible ideas, but also wrong. The correct answer would be blackmail and extortion. That being said, I think it would be really swell if nothing that happened between us got back to anyone, and the local helped me track down that escaped criminal… and more importantly, the blonde with the crazy semblance from earlier.”
The two boys exchanged another glance.
That sounded… far less promising….
Neptune hesitantly spoke up. “You mean you want us to help you track down that psycho who brought our ship down into that lunatic who tried to kill Jaune?”
“I will deny that if asked,” the man replied.
But implicitly, and very obviously at that, the answer was yes.
This wasn’t how Sun envisioned they’d be “saving” Vacuo at all.
Maybe his teachers had been right about staying out of the way…