Something was off with Neo.

Ever since she had stepped out of that freaky pod thing, well, the first time she’d stepped out of the aura transfer machine, really, but it was more noticeable this second time, she’d seemed different.

She was still a bloodthirsty little maniac who had no problem with sticking her boots where the sun doesn’t shine if he so much as looked at her funny, still a mute who refused to communicate in a way that actually got relevant information across to the other party that he was only able to decipher the intent of through years of practice, and still the best partner he could ever ask for, but…

As her eyes glowed with the power of the Fall Maiden, conjured fire streaming through the air, Roman noticed things that the others didn’t.

The way that she actually listened to Oz and Ironwood, directing her power towards the target set up for her instead of somewhat playfully, somewhat menacingly setting fire to the ground at their feet.

The way that her lips curled ever so slightly into a smirk as she saw the destructive power that she had gained, filled with a self satisfaction that was different from her norm, born from holding the power itself rather than the cruel things she might do with it.

The way that she seemed to hesitate, if for only a millisecond, where before she would not.

It worried him.

She still responded to her own name, still remembered everything she did before, and seemingly nothing more, and for all intents and purposes was the same girl that she had been, just with a bit of an upgrade in the ass kicking department.

But aura was a person’s soul made manifest.

Such a nebulous thing, really. What exactly was a soul? Sure, people talked about it a lot, but did they really understand? Sometimes it felt like all these huntsmen and doctors were little more than people who had listened to a single lecture or even just a podcast and proclaimed themselves experts.

Roman sighed.

What was he even doing? Nebulous? Proclaimed? Getting all worried about his assistant was making him think like he was the one who’d had two souls implanted into him. Maybe it was being stuck in this stupid school, having to listen to old farts like Oz and book worms like Bart.

It wasn’t like him to worry. He had to make sure to look out for himself, and maybe Neo as well, but not like this.

“While I do appreciate the demonstration, perhaps you could not melt our training equipment?” Ozpin chided.

Neo gave the man a knowing smirk as she turned away from the glowing hot mess of melted metal.

Roman felt reassured by that. That was the Neo he knew and lo… well, the Neo he knew.

“Miss Politan,” Ironwood started and Roman scoffed. When was this guy gonna get the stick out of his ass? Nobody called Neo Miss Politan. He either needed to shape up or Neo would remove that stick for him. “While you were put in this position due to exigent circumstances, may I remind you that we are fully capable of taking the power away from you as well.”

How like these bastards to hand her the weapon and then threaten to take it and more away. If they were really so afraid of her using it in a way they didn’t like, why give it to her in the first place? Yes, technically the blond and blue brats had assisted in stealing it, but you didn’t just keep that sort of thing around in the same place you kept him and Neo and expect it to not get stolen.

They’d been asking for it!

And if they really thought they could take it away at this point, no matter how they’d reached this point…

Glass shattered, and Winter jumped, pulling out her weapon when she realized that Neo suddenly had her boss’ neck at the tip of her blade.

…they really had another thing coming.

Point made, Neo stepped back, putting Hush away.

“Could we perhaps continue the tests without any threats?” Ozpin looked at both Neo and Ironwood disapprovingly.

A group like this without any threats?

Roman didn’t think it likely.

----------------------------------------

Cinder’s head felt like she had just gone through an ice pick lobotomy.

Everything about waking up was overwhelming. The light too bright to open her eyes, the sounds too loud to hear anything properly, everything in her body aching with a dull pain at a minimum or a sharp stabbing sensation at worst.

She… where was she? She remembered… fighting that Maiden… but things must not have gone how she planned…

Had Emerald and Mercury retrieved her? How embarrassing… but a bit of embarrassment was nothing compared to the worry she felt about how Salem would react when she found out. Could she conceivably cover it up? Perhaps, so long as Watts didn’t watch any of it.

She just couldn’t show any weakness, and she’d be able to salvage the situation. Though first she needed to take stock of what the situation actually was. She made to sit up–

And promptly smashed her face against some glass.

Panic shot through her as she forced her eyes open even through the pain and discomfort.

On the other side of the glass was a smirking Glynda Goodwitch.

“Good morning,” Ozpin’s henchwoman greeted her. “Roman wanted to be here for this, but I thought I’d spare you that… Oh, who am I kidding. I just wanted to relish in this moment all on my own! Do you know how hard it is to find small moments of joy like this doing the work that I do? Impossible, really. The students make it so hard, and then there’s all the work behind the scenes dealing with you people.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Cinder wasn’t listening to her though. Being in enemy hands was a worst case scenario, and she needed to get out of here immediately. She was in, what was this, some sort of glass topped coffin or something?

No matter, she’d just break the glass and kill Goodwitch before… before…

Her panic quickly morphed into a deep seated dread.

“Oh! How foolish of me, I forgot to mention that!” Glynda said, her tone dripping with amusement. “You no longer have the power of the Maiden. Or any power at all, really. We tried to figure something out to transfer just that power, but unfortunately the best that James’ men could come up with was an aura transfer machine.”

“You… what have you…” It was a rare instance that Cinder did not feel in control. Around Salem, undoubtedly, and recently when that accursed semblance was involved, but this… this was…

The blonde’s smirk turned cruel. “What have I done? Well, Cinder, it’s quite simple really. We turned you into just a normal girl. You can probably still do well in combat… against a normal civilian. Assuming you don’t forget that your aura is no longer there to protect you, that is. Quite a fitting punishment for all you’ve done, don’t you think?”

As the reality of the situation started to set in for Cinder, it felt like ice was running through her veins.

Killing her would have been more merciful.

Though having failed Salem and with no power to fix it… perhaps death still awaited her.

A bright flash blinded her for a moment.

Glynda put her scroll back down, having taken a picture.

“I think I’ll have that one framed.”

----------------------------------------

When the students were finally officially free to roam from their dorms, teams RWBY and JNPR were quick to meet up, making their way to the training fields.

“...so you really have no idea?” Yang asked.

“Not a clue.” Second replied. “Well, not a clue that’s specific to my knowledge,” he clarified, “but Ozpin seemed to know a thing or two. Just not enough since he asked for info from me…”

“That’s worrying,” Weiss chimed in. “I’m aware that you were trying to avoid the butterfly effect, but for something to happen so quickly after your… information was revealed to us…”

“We can’t blame Second for the way things are playing out, he’s done his best.” Pyrrha defended. She’d had enough of her partner going after the semblance, she didn’t need more division being sewn.

“I’m not accusing him of anything!” Weiss rebutted. “I’m just saying it’s unfortunate, is all.”

“It’s certainly a painful reminder of what our foes are capable of,” Ren agreed, “but if you take the emotion out of it then this is a much better result than what could have been.”

“Hold on a minute,” Second held up a hand. “Don’t start going all our foes. You guys are just students, it’s not your job to be dealing with this shit.”

“So you’re saying we should just sit back and watch it happen?” Blake questioned, her eyes narrowed.

Second sighed. “Blake, this isn’t the White Fang. Criminals being criminals is an entirely different situation than whatever injustices you may have witnessed against faunus. The fully trained huntsmen are dealing with the situation, and rather well if the speed at which the mess was cleaned up is any indication.”

“Just because we’re not fully fledged doesn’t mean we can’t help!” Ruby declared. “Being a huntress is all about helping people! Ozpin let me in early because I stepped in when Roman was robbing a dust store!”

“And it’s not like Sun and Neptune are sitting around, so why should we? I say we blow up some crooks!” Nora exclaimed.

Team RWBY gave her a confused look.

“What do you mean?” Yang asked. “Are they up to something? I know Sun is a bit of a bad boy, monkeying around as a stow away and all that, but did they really go off to help?”

The group groaned at her pun, but Second was quick to push the conversation forward before Ruby or Blake got any big ideas in their heads to follow in their faunus friend’s footsteps. “You guys are missing my point! I’m not saying to sit around doing nothing. You can use this time to train, and get stronger, and become formidable huntsmen and huntresses who can actually hold a candle to someone like… I don’t know, Qrow, on an individual basis. That’s what you’re meant to be doing. There’s no sense in rushing ahead to getting into dangerous situations when you don’t need to.”

“We get it, Second. That’s why we’re on our way to do some training.” Jaune sounded annoyed, though it was hard to tell if it was from this conversation or his previous frustration carrying over.

Second lost some wind in his sails at that remark. “...yeah, I guess you are. You guys have actually been pretty reasonable, but I keep expecting the worst… Sorry about that.”

Weiss scoffed. “What reason do you have to expect the worst from us? Do these alternate versions of ourselves really get into so much trouble?”

“Well, I did have to be on Blakey duty for a while, remember?” Nora smiled, holding out her arm to pull said girl into a hug, but Blake hissed and jumped away.

“I don’t need a reminder of that! You people are ridiculous! I’m not some crazy person who’s going to run into trouble at the drop of a hat!”

Yang, perhaps taking pity on her partner and wanting to draw attention from her, changed the subject. “Still, though, if we’re planning for the future… How do you think this will change things? Is there even any way to know if Second has never seen anything like this?”

“Well,” Pyrrha considered the possibilities, “Though Cinder is laying low for now, we’ve really not heard anything from the rest of her group. From their perspectives, we probably shouldn’t even know that they exist.”

“Right,” Ruby nodded. “That huge guy, and the scorpion faunus, and the weird tech guy… and then there’s the final boss.”

“The human opponents will probably be a pain, but doable if we can get enough people on them. Salem, though…” Jaune wondered.

Second winced. “That’s…I’ve got a few ideas regarding her…” He didn’t sound very convinced. “But worst comes to worst, we can just use Jinn’s last question. We’ll just get Weiss’ lawyers to look it over to ensure we get exactly what we need out of the answer.”

Weiss looked bewildered. “My lawyers? Whatever do you mean by that?”

“Weiss you’re from the richest family on Remnant, you definitely have an army of lawyers and even if you’ve been cut off from family funds we could just have Atlas or Ozpin or whoever pay their hourly rates. When dealing with a genie in a bottle you have to be careful in your wording, and that’s the domain of lawyers.”

“I thought her name was Jim, not Jeanie,” Nora questioned.

The group turned to look at her.

“Her name was Jinn, Nora.” Ren corrected. “But I’m afraid I’m also confused by that comment.”

Blake looked thoughtful. “You mentioned something similar before. A genie in a lamp who grants wishes or something?”

Second was confused by their comments, before it dawned on him. “...right. You guys have a completely different history and set of cultural stories. Though you’d think Jinn would become a similar legend at the very least… ah, whatever. You guys wanted to know a bit about my world, right? Well, in an area mostly comprised of desert, they have a legend of magical beings that can grant any wish you desire, but that have a habit of twisting your meaning…”

And so the group went on to train, sharing ideas of what may come in the future and stories of Second’s past.