The party erupted into chaos seemingly out of nowhere while the kids were still hanging around downstairs, and Wally's disc track was still playing over the speakers--
--when reports that Mantle's heating system had been turned off started flooding people's scrolls.
There was some argument going on upstairs, according to Weiss, concerning what to do now.
Oscar rushed up there to help sort things out.
People were being sent home, and Wally had to round up the other kids to make sure they were all still in touch.
Most of them were not allowed to join the discussion, but they went up to the hall to listen at the door.
"So what happened is Weiss's father was making a deal with this man named Watts," Pyrrha was giving Ren and Nora a run down. "He works for Salem. He helped to design the security system of Atlas, but they thought he died in a fire. He must have been the one who hacked the robots at Beacon. Now he's turned off the heat, and he also rigged the election."
"Does that make Robyn the rightful winner?" Nora asked.
"No, they'd have to hold a re-election," Shine answered for them. "They have no way of knowing how many votes he tampered with. No doubt, if nothing else goes wrong and they get things up and running, they'll hold another one. For now, she's still not an official."
"That sucks," Yang said.
"Does it?" Shine said.
"Yeah," Yang said.
"Fine," Shine said. "From the sound of it, they're telling James to finally let the Council in on Salem...and Robyn too... This ought to be good..."
It was.
The Council came out of the room and just paced around for a while. They were sure he wasn't lying, because why would he with Robyn right there to check his story?
"But how...?" Camilla said.
"Is it so hard to believe?" Shine wondered aloud, where they could hear her. "The Grimm attacked in such order at Beacon and have in many other places... Why couldn't they have a master? How else do such creatures pose such a threat to humans? If they can't think."
Camilla shot her a strange look. "But this? A person?"
Shine shrugged.
"Amateurs," she said to the kids in a lower voice. "In our faith, we believe that there's been a master of the evil ones since the dawn of sin. In fact, that he was the first."
"So you have a male one," Pyrrha said. "Ah, yes, I remember reading that now."
"It's no matter--you have a male one too," Shine said. "The god of darkness is male. Salem's powers come from him. She is the perfect blend of the god of light's strength and his. And we see through her that it's as our Bible says: 'What fellowship can light have with darkness? What do righteousness and wickedness have in common?' In another place, it says 'a little leaven (that's yeast) leavens the whole lump', meaning that a little evil will spread and putrify everything around it. Evil and good are both contagious, but evil is certainly more so to us weak beings. So Salem, rather than being half good and half bad, is all evil. Even if you divide it up logically, that doesn't make sense. There is no equivalent exchange for evil."
[And thus the show's own lore proves that the gods' dualist approach cannot work. Otherwise, Salem would not be pure evil just because of the Grimm pond. The life pond didn't make her purely benevolent... No consistent internal logic is more like it. But it also serves to prove that you can't rationally make the case for it. She can't be both good and bad at the same time and still be the antagonist of this show.]
"That's fantastic," Ren said sarcastically. "So what does that mean for us? She really cannot be reasoned with?"
"If she couldn't before she was Grimm, do you think she can now?" Shine said. "Not by you, at least."
"You think you could do better?" Yang scoffed.
"I've talked to things like her before." Shine said this easily enough, but it made a chill go through all of them except Pyrrha. Though even she found it a little uneasy to think about. "I'm not afraid of her."
"You're not afraid of Salem?" Yang scoffed openly. "You haven't seen her."
"I have seen her." Shine looked away carelessly.
They all stared at her.
"In person?" Jaune asked.
"No," Shine said.
"When?" Nora asked.
"Perhaps when you have," Shine said. "In a vision."
"And you weren't scared?" Jaune said.
"I suppose the first time you see something that's been turned into a monster, it's jarring," Shine said. "But when it's been as many times as I have, it becomes less impressive. Darkseid was uglier, and honestly, more intimidating for the most part. Not that a scornful woman isn't frightening enough on her own."
"See, if I said that, it'd be sexist," Wally said. "I gotta say, Salem is kind of freaky, but I don't think she's the scariest thing I've ever seen either. I've seen a lot of weird stuff."
"Who is Darkseid?" Blake asked.
"You don't want to know. Besides, he's dead now," Shine said.
"How did you kill him?" Ren asked.
"I didn't," Shine said. "He killed himself...or Luthor did, really. He got what he wanted. It was death. Literally."
"Kind of like Salem," Wally said thoughtfully. "Except he didn't take the whole world with him."
"He would have, had we not intervened," Shine said. "I still think about that sometimes... It was so deeply unpleasant."
She leaned on the wall.
"So it was close," Jaune said. "But how have we never heard this story?"
"Ozpin doesn't know everything," Shine said. "But I'd rather not explain it now. It won't concern you."
"Maybe you shouldn't be the judge of that," Yang said. "Enough secrets... We're even finally telling everyone else. Why don't you follow our example?"
"I'm not stupid enough to do something just because you are." Shine looked up. "I never had the same reason as you to keep that secret. But tell you what--Wally and I will consider telling you more information, if you follow through on being more honest with your teammates."
Yang frowned at her. "Say what?"
"A word, Yang." Shine pointed down the hall.
"I'm not going to talk to you," Yang said.
"Maybe you should," Blake hissed. "What if she gives you information?"
"Are you serious? She's tricky," Yang said.
"Yeah, but, maybe that's it, and Oscar and Pyrrha haven't told us anything about what they've learned, so you're the only the option, if she wants to talk to you," Blake said.
"Good point," Ren said. "You should do it."
"Ugh...fine, but don't expect me to like it." Yang put her arms behind her head.
Wally followed them too.
"What?" Yang asked, when they'd gone out of earshot of anyone else.
"I won't say this in front of your friends." Shine folded her arms. "But this attitude of yours is going to stop, right now."
"Excuse me?" Yang said.
"I've had enough," Shine said. "You may not like me, or Wally, but you do not have the right to try to push us to do things when we've made ourselves clear. We didn't force you to share your secrets with Ironwood. I don't want to hear one more word from you about what we should be telling you."
"Hey, I can have my opinion," Yang said.
Wally rolled his eyes. Yang annoyed him too.
But he didn't think Shine would do what she did next.
She put a hand on her hip and said clearly, though not loudly, "If I hear it from you again, I'm going to ask you in front of everyone why you didn't share who the Spring Maiden was."
Yang's mouth dropped open...then her eyes narrowed and turned red. "I didn't see the fight."
"I know that," Shine said. "And I also know who the Spring Maiden is."
Silence.
"And I know that you know," Shine added, when Yang still said nothing. "Because it's your mom."
Well, if Yang thought she was bluffing, that did it.
"If you tell anyone--" She made a fist.
"If you raise your fist at me, young lady, you will be falling out that window." Shine pointed behind her. "Into the fountain, perhaps. I'm not going to tell them, but you're a hypocrite for criticizing us when you are no different. Maybe we have people to protect too. Now, if that's not good enough for you, tough, because that's all the explanation you're going to get until both of us feel that you can handle the truth. Your attitude so far has done nothing to reassure me that you can handle it. Or anything else we might have to offer. I don't know what happened to you--you used to be different, trustworthy. But now?"
"Wait, did Pyrrha run her mouth to you?" Yang said.
An odd silence.
Yang thought that meant yes. "Hey, it's not like we did anything wrong. We just don't think Robyn deserved being arrested, and you said so yourself. So if this is about that--"
Wally shot Shine a strange look behind Yang's head.
Shine held up her hand to cut her off. "Stop. Pyrrha never said a word."
Yang bit her lip. Oops...
"And you should learn to be more tactful if you're going to keep secrets at all," Shine added, frostily. "But this has been quite informative for me. If you want to keep your secrets and sneak around behind Ironwood's back, that's your business. But don't blame us later if you pay the price for it. I'm warning you now--you should come clean."
"Like h---," Yang said. "It doesn't matter now. She's in the clear."
"Fine," Shine said. "I suppose you won't listen to us anyway. I'll just add that to the list of reasons I do not trust you. If you won't follow his instructions, you certainly would not follow mine. So, you will never find out about us, not from our own volition, unless that changes. That said, shut up about it. I don't fight dirty, but I won't tolerate this from you when you know you're guilty of doing the same thing. Perhaps if you were one of the few people here who is not so crazy about lying, I would hear you out. But you're not. You lied to Qrow about your mother, and you helped lie to Ironwood. You are no different than Ozpin, and if that pisses you off--I don't care at all. "
"Like you're different?!" Yang's eyes were red again. "You're just like Ozpin also."
"Quiet," Shine said sharply, scaring her a little, because even if Yang was scary when she was angry, Shine had that cold, commanding tone that older women have that made it even worse.
"How dare you accuse us of that?" Shine said. "But fine, if you want to. I couldn't care less what you think, under the circumstances. Now, here's what's going to happen. You are going to walk back to your team and tell them you're going to stop asking us about ourselves. I don't care what reason you give them. Lie if you want to. But you're going to tell them that. And that is going to be the end of this."
"Or what?" Yang said.
"Do you really want to find out?" Shine replied.
Yang frowned at her...but she was stuck.
"I thought so." Shine pointed. "Go."
Yang clenched her fists and looked like she already wanted to punch her...but then she walked away, hitting the wall as she went.
"Wow..." Wally said. "Are you...sure that was a good idea?"
"No," Shine said. "But I am sure of one thing: Yang's attitude is going to be a problem for all of us if it's not checked. I can't cure her of it, but I can give her at least some motivation to curb her mouth herself. "
"But would we really sell her out?" Wally said.
"Would you?" Shine asked.
"I don't know... I feel like the stuff she's hiding is going to come back to bite them later," Wally said. "But exposing her seems mean spirited. After all, we're keeping our secrets."
"I concur. I'm not going to tell them," Shine said. "But if the idea of us doing it is enough to make her think twice about this, I'm willing to use it."
"To manipulate a kid?" Wally said.
"Wally, in all seriousness, it's not like she's only a problem for us," Shine said. "If she keeps this up, she's going to say something in front of the people who will find it suspicious, and not only us, but Oscar and Pyrrha will get dragged down with her. She can't keep herself in check...but if she's worried about us, she'll have to. I'm not sure what choice I have...though it does make me feel icky to try to scare someone into submission...but I have to."
She looked at the floor moodily.
Wally was on the point of saying maybe not...but then he realized that Shine had a point... There was no way Yang wasn't going to get them in hot water if she didn't stop saying stuff like that around them where other people could hear it.
He might not like this, but Shine was handling it...and it was better than if they all got in even bigger trouble... At least this way, only Yang had to be bothered by it.
It wasn't ideal, but he thought that, instead of arguing, he should just make the best of it.
He took Shine's hand. "Okay," he said. "I think you did the right thing."
Shine smiled slightly. "Really?"
"Yeah...she didn't leave you much of a choice..." Wally said. "I guess we have to. But let's just try not to threaten anyone else unless they really drive us to that point. Maybe Blondie can't be reasoned with--she is pretty hot tempered--but I think the others maybe could be without us bringing that up..."
"I agree we should try not to rely on fear," Shine said.
* * *
Surprisingly, not long after that, Ironwood apparently unified the Council enough to send people out to start dealing with the Grimm problem that was now in Mantle.
Pyrrha got sent with them, but she saw Ruby and Oscar having a brief, awkward looking exchange before then.
Marrow shook his head at them and muttered, "Kids."
Robyn, who was just outside waiting for them, cast a look back. "What's eating you, Wags? Forever alone?"
"No..." Marrow turned red.
"Cute kids." Robyn shrugged as Ruby hurried by. "But time for that later."
She walked away.
[Yeah, I know--I changed it. Who cares?]
"Oscar, you're going to tell Ironwood the truth?" Shine had heard what they said.
"Yeah, it feels like it's time, and you said we should," Oscar said.
"Now?" Shine said.
"Yeah... Why?" Oscar said.
"People are already freaking out," Shine said. "The time to tell him the full truth would be after getting this situation under control. You don't need to give him more to worry about. There's nothing he can do about it immediately. Might make it worse."
"Yeah, but he trusted the others," Oscar said.
Wally was helping the others hurry onto the planes, but he came back and heard what they were saying.
"He did?" he said. "Was that your idea?"
"Yeah," Oscar said.
"Oscar..." Shine put a hand to her head in perplexion. "I agree with your motives, but not your timing. Throwing more fuel on this fire of contention isn't going to solve the immediate problem of heating. Might give the enemy more power if people are afraid of them at this moment."
"But didn't you say it was our responsibility?" Oscar said.
"Before this, yes," Shine said. "When it would have been preemptive. Then it could have messed up Salem's plans if you told about it. But now that it is too late, and Tyrian could be long gone, and will be if he's at all smart, your immediate concern is stopping the heat loss and other issues. In this case, knowledge of the foe won't help the people at all. It will distract them from doing what they need to do instead."
That...did seem like a good point.
But he'd told Ruby he was going to do it.
"I think I should, though. We agreed it's a good idea, and Ruby is the leader," Oscar said.
Shine and Wally exchanged a look.
"Maybe it won't be so bad," Wally said.
Shine's better judgment told her that was not the case--but she couldn't stop him.
"Do what you think you should, Oscar," she sighed. "It's my opinion against everyone else's. I'm outvoted."
Oscar wouldn't have the chance to talk to Ironwood until later anyway--he and Robyn were busy broadcasting (using one of the news vans outside).
But once he came back in, Oscar asked to talk to him.
In the meantime, Shine and Wally decided to go back to the school--well, Wally wanted to stay and help, but Shine pointed out that they wouldn't likely be allowed to.
"What about the Grimm?" he said. "Those creepy things, we could help with that."
"Team RWBY literally got arrested for doing that without a license," Shine said.
"We can't just do nothing," Wally said.
Shine tapped her chin. "If you want to go now, while I go and try to find out what's going on back at headquarters, maybe I could get permission...if you stick close to the kids so you'll be able to keep in touch."
"Really?" Wally said.
"It does seem like doing nothing here is a waste of our energy," Shine said. "And if Winter went back there, which I suspect, I want to beat Ironwood there."
"Why?" Wally said.
"If he's the first person to tell her that Salem can't be beaten, I'd hate to see him overreact," Shine said dubiously.
"You don't think..." Wally said.
"I don't know, but one of us had better be there to keep an eye on the situation. I'll open a doorway if I need you," Shine said.
"Okay, good luck." Wally kissed her.
Shine made a doorway, and he went through.
* * *
Wally came out near where Pyrrha, Jaune, Ren and Nora were fighting Grimm and rounding people up.
Robyn and Ironwood's broadcast was happening right about then.
Wally didn't pay much attention to that, but he caught bits and pieces of it while he was zipping between them and the Grimm.
"If she can incite hatred in us, we will lure in Grimm and destroy ourselves..." That was Ironwood.
"Salem herself does not work alone," that was Robyn. "Her minions have invaded our very city."
"...Instead we must unite and fight back together," Ironwood was concluding, just as Wally came back into ear shot.
Jaune started yelling at people to get in line, to Ren and Pyrrha's surprise--Nora didn't seem to care.
"Where did you learn that?" Ren said.
"Uh...doing the escort thing with the kids?" Jaune said.
"I meant when did you learn to take command like that of a crowd," Ren said.
"Same answer?" Jaune said uncertainly.
One of the moms waved at him.
"You seem popular." Pyrrha was smirking.
"Uh..." Jaune turned red. "You know, they're just...nice..."
"Ah, that takes me back to when I was just starting out helping kids cross the street and stuff." Wally paused next to Jaune. "But they aren't moving fast enough."
"I can mask them," Ren said.
"Even that's not fast enough," Wally said. "Not if things are in the way. You should save your energy. I'll scare the Grimm off dead ahead. Just follow the same route as me."
"Okay..." Jaune said. "But watch it. Those Grimm are dangerous."
Wally nodded and ran off.
"Even with his help, where can we take all these people?" Pyrrha worried. "We're running out of room. If we could just take them to Atlas..."
"Until we get the orders for that, this is our job," Ren said, almost irately. "Let's just do it."
Pyrrha didn't remember Ren ever using that tone of voice before. But she nodded.
People at least started moving faster.
Wally got some of the Grimm running, but they were getting a little bolder with more targets out here than him, and he had to kill some...but his running method wasn't working too great on all of them.
One swiped out and tripped him, and he slipped on the icy street again.
"Mr. West!" Pyrrha was close enough to see.
She took off.
"Pyrrha, wait for us!" Jaune called. "There's too many of them."
In fact, now that Wally was down, suddenly 4 of the Grimm turned to him and charged.
Pyrrha realized in horror that, while they were afraid of him and Shine, they still wanted to kill them--they were just waiting till they were down.
"Grimm aren't usually that smart," she mused, "but they are like predators..."
She raised her spear.
"Leave him alone." She jumped around a light post.
The Grimm turned to look at her menacingly and growled.
Pyrrha held up her weapon and took her stance.
One ran at her and swung. She side-stepped and took a swing at it.
She felt like she put a bit more Aura into that strike than she intended to, and the Grimm actually whined as she took a big chunk out of its side.
Then it poofed into smoke.
Pyrrha had never killed one of these that easily in her whole life.
"Did I just way overshoot?" she asked.
She shouldn't have gotten distracted--the others jumped at her.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune yelled.
He and Nora were running to help but were still farther back.
They would have been too late if Pyrrha had lost her head, but she put up her shield, and one of the monsters hit it with their claws.
Aura glanced out of it on impact, and the Grimm fell back, stunned.
Pyrrha stared again.
"What...?" she said.
Wally got up, rubbing his shoulder. "Pyrrha, use your dang Semblance!"
The other two Grimm sprang at her again, but then one turned and went at him instead.
Pyrrha looked around and then she clenched her fist.
One of the lampposts on the street bent and blocked the Grimm's path to Wally.
Then she raised her hands, and a trash bin flew down the street and hit the Grimm into the wall. It turned into smoke.
The last one swung at her from behind, and she ducked, then turned and swung upward.
She actually just missed it, but it backed up anyway.
Pyrrha pushed her hair back--missing her tiara again.
Without thinking about why she was saying this, she said, "Go away!"
The Grimm glared at her...then its ears went back, like an angry dog's, and it turned and raced away.
Of course it ran toward her friends.
Nora smacked it again, and it turned to smoke.
"Mr. West, are you all right?" Pyrrha asked, holding out her hand.
Wally took it and got up. "Other than I think I bruised my shoulder, yeah, I'm okay... Ice, it's like my biggest weakness environmentally. I can run on water, but freaking ice? For some reason that's too slippery."
"You can run on water?" Pyrrha was amazed. "Wow..."
"Great save, by the way," Wally said. "That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen."
"It wasn't that much..." Pyrrha said modestly.
"What was that?" Jaune ran up. "Are you okay? How did...?"
"Did that Grimm just run away from you?" Ren asked. "Grimm don't run."
"I don't know what happened. I just yelled at it, and it ran. Maybe it thought it was outmatched," Pyrrha said.
"Grimm are creatures of pure chaos. They don't run from a fight," Ren said.
"Well...there were the behemoths at Beacon," Jaune said. "But this close? Yeah, it wouldn't run..."
"Still it was incredible!" Nora joined them.
"I feel like I used more Aura than usual, too." Pyrrha took out her scroll. "Better check my levels..."
She peered at it. "Wait...this is strange... It's not decreased at all."
"But it would have to be. The cold alone along with the fight would." Ren was incredulous.
"Ours are about midway." Jaune had his scroll out. "But mine says yours is fine, Pyrrha..."
"Pyrrha, did you get stronger while you were--uh...gone?" Nora asked.
"No, I'm sure I was the same..." Pyrrha cast a look at Wally.
"Don't look at me, Victory Girl," Wally said.
"Victory Girl?" Nora said. "Wait, is that her new nickname? I didn't know about this."
"Nah, Shine told me her last name means victory in one of our languages, so I thought it was funny to call her that," Wally said.
"Nikos? I didn't know it meant anything," Pyrrha said. "That's interesting..."
"What are languages?" Ren asked. [No, I will never get tired of this joke.]
"Where is Miss Likstar?" Pyrrha asked, now that they had a moment.
"She went back to the school. She wanted to check on Winter," Wally said, with a meaningful nod.
"Oh..." Pyrrha said.
"What about Winter?" Jaune asked.
"Do you think we should fill them in?" Pyrrha asked.
"If you want to try. I gotta keep defeating Grimm," Wally said. "Anyone got some spare kind of that exploding rock stuff you have? I figure if I chuck it at those Grimm, I can save time. Trying to zap them takes too long."
"Here." Nora handed him a clip. "Be careful. Dust is dangerous if you don't handle it right."
"I've got this," Wally said.
In fact, the first time he tried it he almost blew himself off the street, but, luckily, none of the kids were close enough to see it. After that he was more careful.
While he was doing this, and they were leading everyone else away, Pyrrha told her team that Winter was the new Maiden, which Jaune remembered.
But also, that it might be by the same method as the one she'd almost used herself.
"I never knew that you were going to do it that way," Ren said.
"We all thought you were just going to inherit it, like everyone else," Nora said.
Pyrrha looked down. "I understand if this makes you think less of me. I regret it now."
"It seems you thought you had no choice," Ren said.
"We get it," Nora said, unusually somber for her. "It's just...a lot more to take in."
"Another thing that Ozpin did that we have a problem with," Ren said. "And I don't think it sounds like a good idea now...but then, maybe it's not as black and white as that."
"I disagree. I think it is wrong," Pyrrha said. "And I'm tired of telling myself it's necessary to do these things."
"You only did that for, like, a week," Nora said.
"That was long enough," Pyrrha said. "Aren't you tired of it?"
"Maybe, but we don't have a lot of choices," Ren said. "What if they go after the Maiden?"
"The only two we know about being here are men," Pyrrha said. "They can't exactly take the powers..."
"Yeah, that doesn't add up," Jaune said.
"Still, I'm worried that Ironwood will not want to wait," Pyrrha said. "And Winter was not swayed by what we said."
"And Weiss knows about this?" Ren said.
"Yeah..." Jaune looked down.
"Oh...that's just...wrong." Nora made a face.
"Isn't she devastated?" Ren said.
"I think she's hoping that it won't come to that, but yes, she's worried about it," Pyrrha said. "I hope Shine can persuade her."
"No offense, Pyrrha, but most of us don't find that woman extremely persuasive," Ren said. "She's rude and belligerent, especially to Schnee."
"I know she seems intense," Pyrrha said, "but I've gotten to know her better in the last week, and she's a really sweet person. She's kind... She's only like that to the Ace Ops and Winter because their methods make her uneasy... Surely we can sympathize with that."
"Not to the point where I pick fights over nothing," Ren said.
"Perhaps they aren't over nothing," Pyrrha posited. "Perhaps we just think they were."
"That's being overly optimistic," Ren said. "She's not good at teamwork. That much is obvious."
"Well, she might be new to having a team," Pyrrha allowed. "But that doesn't make her a bad person."
"Aren't you guys kind of forgetting something?" Jaune said. "It's because of them that Pyrrha is back. We owe it to them to be nice, no matter what, for that. The other things can't touch that."
"Well...maybe," Nora said slowly. "I mean...that doesn't mean they don't have issues with working with us...even if personally maybe they're okay. I mean, I like Mr. West all right. He's kind of easy going."
"He doesn't take things seriously," Ren said.
"He's taking it seriously now." Pyrrha pointed out. "Anyone can see he's concerned about saving people... He seemed very familiar with it, too. I wonder what his job was before."
"Yeah...he kind of does seem like he's done this before," Jaune mused. "But if they aren't huntsmen..."
"Not everyone outside the kingdom is a hunstman," Pyrrha said. "But they can still fight."
"Still, I'd like to know just where they trained," Ren said. "This secrecy doesn't sit well with me."
"I suppose, but neither did ours with them," Pyrrha said.
"Why do it, then? If they have a problem with it, why not be upfront with us?" Ren said.
"Perhaps there is a reason for that," Pyrrha said.
"Yes, and if one of us knew what it was, and was holding back, I would have to wonder how much they trust us," Ren said pointedly.
Pyrrha hadn't seen that coming, though she should have.
"I see," she said. "Well...this is not the time or place to discuss this."
"Of course," Ren said flatly.
"Okay, guys, let's stay calm," Jaune said. "The last thing we need to do is add to the negativity around here."
They dropped it, but Pyrrha knew she hadn't heard the last of it.
* * *
Shine came into her dorm at the school first, just so as to make sure she didn't end up somewhere unfamiliar before she had a chance to gauge what was going on.
She turned on the lamp in her room, since it was dark as pitch now, save for the city light coming in through the window.
"Hi," someone startled her.
Shine turned.
Raven Branwen was standing in the corner, where she'd blended in with the wall.
"Forgot about me, did you?" she said.
[Did you?]