TheMadmanAndre
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Through Victory, CH16
🕑 Added 2021-08-09 19:28:45 +0000 UTCChapter 16. A bit overdue, to be honest. I should have posted this a while ago.
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Silba’s plan was simple. Just send a specter in her stead and watch from afar.
She had arrived half an hour prior to the designated time, Weiss in tow. The trip there was uneventful, thanks to the Sith Cloak she had placed around herself and her partner that hid their presence from prying eyes both near and far. She had expected her partner to refuse the idea of following along, and yet Weiss had not. Even with uncertainty clouding her mind and faced with something like a bona fide Grimm Queen, Weiss had chosen to stay by her side. That told Silba that Weiss was trusting her to protect her at least.
For a moment, she thought back to what they had talked about earlier, about Weiss telling others about her. While she had brought it up in a bid to better gain Weiss’s trust, it had also at the same time been the truth. Ruby being outed as the Red Blade and being forced to flee from Beacon would hinder many of her plans, but it was something she had accounted for. Fortunately, it was turning out to be more and more unlikely.
Silba looked down at the meeting spot. She had chosen a spot above the designated area, a rocky outcropping overlooking an arrangement of ruins below. The old initiation grounds, the center of which Salem had chosen for their parley. Little had changed since she had last visited the place during her second day at Beacon, and the damage to the nearby ruins had long been repaired. The plinths upon which the chess piece relics had stood were bare, and the whole area seemed desolate and forlorn.
Silba thought about her counterpart’s potential actions. She and Weiss had arrived early, and there was no sign of anyone else in the area that Silba could sense. The outcrop was well-placed to overlook the meeting discreetly, and a hidden agent like her would consider it a good place to eavesdrop. Or for an assassin to hide and wait for a signal to attack from the shadows. She would need to be especially mindful of her surroundings and take care to avoid detection. If she had thought about it, so had Salem.
“So, what exactly is our plan here?” Weiss asked her.
“Remember earlier, when I made that double of myself?”
“Yeah?”
“Watch.” Silba held up an arm, and once more smoke billowed off of her form. Once more it coalesced into the cloaked figure of the Red Blade.
“I’m never not going to be creeped out by that,” Weiss muttered. “It’s a little different too.”
“Ah.” Subconsciously, she had given the specter her old mask, the one that she had once worn as Vader’s Apprentice, in lieu of the cold weather lower face mask she had been relying on. The specter looked over to the two of them, before giving a friendly wave and dropping down the cliffside to land in the clearing below.
“And now for our position.” Silba relaxed, channeling the Force into their surroundings. A blanket of the Force Cloak variant Silba had used earlier settled over the cliff face around her, the sensation oddly comforting to Silba’s senses. A moment of consideration, before layering atop it a field of Force Stealth as well. Her companion did not seem to be aware of what Silba was doing, only that she seemed to be doing something.
“Ruby?” Weiss asked.
“I used the Force to hide our presence here,” she grinned. “We are completely safe now.”
“How does that work?”
“There is a technique, multiple techniques actually, that lets you hide things from the perceptions of others,” she explained. She skipped most of the details, as the full truth was unsettling to those unfamiliar with how the Dark Side of the Force worked. “Or in this case, people. Quite useful for when you want to hide from a pursuer without physically doing so or simply when there’s no handy box lying around.”
“Right,” Weiss deadpanned.
“Trust me, anyone standing in the clearing?” she gestured toward the space below. “They would not be able to see us here, even in broad daylight. So long you remain close to me, we are completely hidden to any onlookers.”
“That seems impossible.”
“Such is the Force,” Silba replied. “The only thing that is impossible is impossibility itself.”
“And what about the other senses, or Aura?” She asked. “What if someone were to come up here?”
Silba considered it. “The fields I put up influence a person’s overall perceptions, so yes. And as for anyone poking around here, I will be aware of them long before they are aware of us.”
“You’ve got magic powers now, right.” Weiss turned to look down at the plinths and the specter walking toward them. “So this is your entire plan, just sit up here and watch?”
“And guide my double. But yes, pretty much. We do not have the resources for additional… insurance, unfortunately. That being said, there is also less chance of something going unrecoverably awry with simpler plans.” Silba’s double strolled past the plinths, hopping onto a section of ruin to wait.
“Speaking of, is that what you meant when you said we both had alibis?” She pointed down at the specter. “You made more of those, didn’t you, of us?”
“Indeed.” At that moment, their body doubles were both soundly sleeping in their beds back at Beacon. This close to the school and to them, she easily could manage the strain of running four doubles simultaneously. In her prime she could have raised a small army of them without breaking a sweat, but now, just three were enough to start taxing her reserves. However, the alibi doubles were both doing the exact same thing at that moment which was pretending to sleep, which made things much easier for her.
“That is insane,” Weiss said. “Can you show me how to make one?”
“Show you, yes. But being able to use it may take much longer.”
“Really?”
“It took me decades to get the hang of it,” Silba explained. “Specters are an incredibly advanced Force technique. It might take you less time though, since your family is able to do something similar with your Semblances.” At some point in her past, Weiss had mentioned her family’s Semblance. Besides the Glyphs she could manifest, members of her family could manifest duplicates of Grimm they had slain in battle. It was a novel technique that did not have a perfect Force-based analog, though it shared intriguing similarities with a few.
“Huh.” Weiss fell silent, no doubt thinking about the possibilities and implications. If she was serious about learning, there was much Silba could teach the girl one day. “My sister can make full summons. But I can’t, not yet. I can’t even make partial summons, let alone people. And even if I could, our summons are too conspicuous to be able to pass for the originals.”
“Tell me, has your sister experimented with different types of Dust to find out if those summons can be modified?”
Weiss stilled. “No. Not that I heard of, at least,” she mused.
“Heads up,” Silba told her, “we have company.”
Silba didn’t even need her Scry-sight to see them clearly either. She could see through the night sky the dark forms of two Nevermores, gliding low and silently from the direction of the ocean. They set down in a small clearing about a quarter-klick from the plinth clearing, and Silba could make out a lone figure astride each of them.
The ad hoc flying mounts weren’t the only company. Flying alongside them had been another, much smaller form she almost missed. It was the Grimm messenger bird from the night before. It remained high overhead, circling in the darkness.
“Remain quiet, Weiss,” Silba whispered to her companion. She scrutinized the creature, Scrying it in detail as best she could. She realized it was likely acting as a sort of sentry of sorts, scanning for signs of trouble. Its head looked to and fro, jerking this way and that. After a moment it landed and perched in one of the nearby taller trees, before turning its gaze to focus on the specter in the clearing.
“Ruby?”
“Salem is being cautious,” Silba whispered an explanation. “She also sent a miniature Nevermore, smaller and more concealable than most. It is perched in that tree on the far side of the clearing.”
“Oh.”
“It has failed to notice us, so we are safe for now.”
The pair riding the larger Nevermores dismounted, and a short while later they were striding into view. The first of the pair was a giant of a man, muscles rippling from head to toe. The other in contrast was lanky and thin, almost animalistic in his movement. Silba could tell through her Scry-sight that he was a Faunus, with a black and chitinous tail tipped with a scorpion stinger at the end. Thinking back, Silba realized she recognized these two from the description that the security guard at the lab she had raided had given her. They zeroed in on the specter standing calmly out in the open.
“Is that her?” the scorpion Faunus asked his companion.
“Maybe,” the big one replied. They were still too far away to be heard normally, but a little bit of Force manipulation and her partner could hear them as well, their voices sounding as if they were right next to them. Weiss, expectedly, flinched in surprise.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Them,” she explained. “Just a party trick, really.”
“Can they hear us?”
“Stealth field.”
“Of course.” Weiss looked at the pair. “They look pretty tough,” she noted.
Silba agreed. No doubt both were seasoned killers. She wondered how long they had been in service to their master, as such roles tended to, how would a Nemoidian say it? Have a high turnover?
“Ruby, do you think you could take them?” Weiss asked her.
“Without a doubt,” she assessed. “But they are not the issue.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are familiar with politics, no?”
Weiss scoffed. “Dust company heiress, remember?”
Silba chuckled.
“But yeah, yeah I do unfortunately.”
“So when the head of an organization has a meeting, what does it mean when she sends in thugs or guards ahead of her?”
Weiss frowned. “It’s a power play, isn’t it?”
“Precisely. Salem intends to set the tone, so to speak. She requested a meeting with me, and brought along two lackeys, at least one of whom seems like the sort to torture tookas in his free time. She wants to signal she can resort to violence, while coming off as a reasonable yet superior figure.” Silba paused for a moment, thinking about it further before continuing. “She likely wants me off balance and on the defensive right from the outset. And should talks break down, those two would only act as a distraction or a way to tire me out for her to land a critical blow. Either way, they are just a sideshow.”
Down below and as the two came closer, the bigger of the pair called out to the specter. “Are you the Red Blade?” He asked.
Silba’s specter turned its head to acknowledge them. “You are early,” it said.
“We weren’t expecting you to show.” the big one continued. “Not yet, at least.”
“And yet I am here nonetheless,” the specter answered. “Neither of you look the type to write in flowery cursive, so where is your boss?”
“Our goddess is coming,” the Faunus said. “We just came early to make sure you were,” he giggled, “properly accommodated.”
“How kind of our host then.” Silba instantly decided she didn’t like him. She could recognize a chained attack dog when she saw one. A barely sane killer, kept tight on a leash and only let loose when the leash holder had a point to prove or really wanted someone dead. Him being there was like a rancor being displayed by a Hutt to petitioners. “Pray that I do not have to wait long then,” the specter said dismissively. “I suspect it would not do good for any of us.”
As if on cue, something else floated into the clearing from the direction the pair had come from. Again, Silba instantly recognized it. It looked to be another of the jellyfish-like Grimm, identical to the one she had slain in that hidden lab days prior. She remembered seeing a glimpse of a face in the orb as she killed it, and thus the pieces began to fall into place. So, it is a form of communication then? Clever.
Her suspicion was almost immediately confirmed. The Grimm’s orb-like body glowed and its movements stilled, the legs turning rigid and immoble as the creature settled onto the ground. A billowing black smoke, eerily similar to her own, issued forth out of the creature, and also like hers coalesced into a form all its own: a pale woman, clad in an archaic black dress.
Silba’s first impression was one of unease, at seeing a technique she had mastered over decades being used so casually and easily. And more bizarrely, she sensed no usage of the Force there. The only distinct adept-presence she felt was her own, which seemed to imply that there was something else at work there. To see someone else using a technique so similar to hers was unsettling to her, and if the appearance was merely coincidental, then it would have been quite the coincidence. Silba almost wished that Salem had been of the mind to attend in person, if only to probe her being properly and in depth.
Weiss too had become unsettled, shivering at the sight of the pale woman. At second glance, Salem’s skin wasn’t merely pale but alabaster white, so translucent that black veins were clearly visible through her skin. The sclera of her eyes were pitch black, blood-red irises scrutinizing the specter’s ancient Mandalorian mask. Her hair was done up in a style that Silba couldn’t quite place, but likely a style that was old all the same. Silba could almost understand why Ozpin would have been apprehensive of the woman, if she made a first impression like that. Even in the absence of enhanced senses, the woman could come off as frightening.
“Is that… her?” Weiss whispered.
“It seems like it,” she replied, returning her focus to the meeting below.
“Greetings,” Salem’s apparent specter spoke to her own. “It’s good to finally meet you face to face. ‘Red Blade,’ I presume?”
Behind its mask, the specter narrowed its eyes. “It is,” the specter answered with a nod. “And you are?”
“Oh, where are my manners?” Salem asked. “I am Salem, Queen of the Grimm, and the rightful ruler of this world.”
“An interesting title,” the specter replied. It looked to her two henchmen, before returning its gaze to Salem. “Quite the entourage for a simple face to face meeting, would you not agree?”
“Oh?” Salem raised an eyebrow. “Ah. If you mean Hazel and Tyrian here, they’re merely present as a precaution. After all, we wouldn’t want Ozma’s minions snooping around, would we?”
Ozma. So that is most likely Ozpin’s alias after all. “How… thoughtful, of you.” Silba flexed her power, and two more specters stepped out from behind the ruined wall and walked toward the first, the Taskmaster to its left and the Inquisitor to its right. “Nevertheless, it would be rude of me to leave you to shoulder by yourself the burden of ensuring the security of this meeting.”
Salem said nothing in reply, but Silba noticed a quick irritated glance at the now named Hazel and Tyrian. The two henchmen in turn shifted and looked around nervously, wary of the two newcomers and any other people lurking about. Salem nodded at Silba and put on a smile that did not reach her eyes. “But of course, Red Blade. Far be it for me to decline an offer to make things even more fatal for any of Ozma’s lackeys.”
The Inquisitor and Taskmaster took up flanking positions to its left and right, mirroring those of the now-named Hazel and Tyrian. The specter nodded, “Indeed.”
“With that said, would you like to use a proper name? While conversing by title can be useful, it can also be cumbersome. I suspect it would be prudent for both of us to be on a first name basis, wouldn’t you agree?”
Silba considered that for a moment. She needed to give a name to Salem, and hiding behind a dramatic and silly nickname typical of the media’s nonexistent naming abilities only weakened her image. However, using her real name was not a good option either. She was not acting as an agent of the Empire, nor was she in power anymore. She could not carelessly throw around her name uncaring of the consequences. As if to validate this decision, she felt a twinge of warning from the Force when she considered telling Salem her name. That settled it then. She would use an alias, one she had used quite a few times during her time in the broader galaxy.
“Grey,” the specter said. “You can use that if you wish to. So, what is the reason you sought a meeting with me? I was expecting violence, not peace.” The specter cocked its head, moonlight glinting off of its narrow visor. “I still am, mind you.”
Salem gave a hearty chuckle at that. “Grey, I feel that we have gotten off on the wrong foot. After last night when you fought his minions in Vale, I realized you truly were not one of his wayward pawns but another player of sorts. And despite any misgivings you might have of me, I am hoping we can come to an understanding of sorts.”
For a moment, the specter was quiet as Silba’s mind raced. She was going to have to be careful here, and extremely careful at that. She was having a conversation with one of her own world’s established players, albeit one that seemingly worked from the shadows. Salem was claiming to be the Queen of the Grimm. Capital Q. What Silba sensed had been left unsaid in that introduction was that Salem was the only Queen of the Grimm. How long had she been around? The Grimm had been a fixture on Remnant since, or perhaps before, the earliest surviving records. Has Salem also been around since then? Such a feat was not unheard of, and she could name quite a few Sith lords who had managed something similar in some form or another. Did Salem do something similar? Was she responsible for the ancient ruins, including the one they were currently standing in?
“Perhaps we can,” Silba eventually chose to reply with.
“Excellent,” Salem replied with a nod. “I must admit though, you have made quite the explosive debut by going to such lengths to thwart my subordinate. Did you by chance have a personal grievance against her?”
Is she grasping at straws, or does she know something? Silba also took note of the past tense Salem used. It would have been a shame if she’d dealt with Cinder before she herself had gotten the chance to. Regardless, she chose her next words carefully. “As impressive as it was, I cannot claim credit for that explosion. No, that was entirely your subordinate’s doing. She fired an arrow at the Dust and used the explosion to escape.”
“Did she now?” Salem’s projection narrowed its eyes. Silba smiled. So she still lived. Good.
“It is just a guess, but perhaps she panicked upon seeing me carving my way through those White Fang scum?” Here, Silba’s specter affected its best Imperial sneer, calling on old memories of some of the various Moffs she had once had the displeasure of meeting. And what was best, was that she was not even lying there either. She had made short work of the White Fang manning the warehouse, and while she sympathized with the Faunus, that sympathy did not extend to those who had a hand in causing the Breach. And while she was not one to brag about taking lives, it could serve as a misdirection. After all, it was easier to believe someone was targeting the White Fang, rather than a particular individual who by all accounts had been keeping a low profile.
“How interesting. Are you saying the White Fang were your target that night?”
“They were.” They were a target. Seizing the opportunity, Silba added, “I will just say I was doing a favor for certain… interests.” Those interests being everyone who would have died or had their worlds shattered if the White Fang and Cinder had been allowed to continue unimpeded. And if Salem took her words to mean Atlas, the SDC or some human supremacist group? She could hardly be blamed for such a conclusion. After all, she was telling the truth… from a certain point of view.
“I see.”
Silba doubted that Salem did.
“Of course, I did not expect the White Fang to be willing to work with humans, let alone for humans. Then again, you do not fit the definition, do you?”
“Most astute. No, I am something less than human, but also something more.” Salem seemed lost in thought for a moment, before snapping her attention back on the specter. “And how about you?”
Silba thought about what Salem had said. It was disconcerting, to say the least, for Salem to so readily admit that she had lost her humanity. It also confirmed some of the unease she had felt when seeing the projection. Of course, she herself hadn’t survived so long without prudence, and she was not about to change that now. “And what is ‘human’, I wonder? If a man loses a limb, and replaces that limb with an artificial one, does that mechanical limb make him less human? How about an organ? Is there a point at which one is no longer a man and becomes a machine? I am me. Nothing more, and nothing less. I consider myself human and ultimately that is all that matters.”
“Well, that is as good an answer as any.” A beat passed in silence, and a thin smile came to the Grimm Queen’s face. “Speaking of questionable humanity,” it was her turn to ask, “Have you ever heard of King Ozma the Hero?”
“You keep saying that name,” the specter spoke, “Do you speak of the Headmaster of Beacon? His name is similar, but I have not heard that one before.”
“I thought not.” she said with a chuckle. “It’s a story largely forgotten to time. Ozma was once a great man, powerful and kind. He had much knowledge of the history and mysteries of the world, and stood for justice as best as he could. He even found a woman who loved him and started a family with her, and together they ruled a kingdom side by side. For a time, he and his kingdom had peace. But peace was not what he wanted. He wanted more. Perhaps he sought conflict, or perhaps it was a lack of glory. One day, his wife caught him trying to take their children with him on a dangerous adventure. They quarreled, and in his anger, he struck her down as well as their children. Since then, he has taken many names. You may have heard of his time as the Great King of Vale. In his current life, he calls himself Ozpin and fancies himself a teacher. It’s almost… endearing.”
Silba’s mind screeched to a halt. What did she just say? “What do you mean by ‘his current life’?”
Salem laughed. “Only that it is one of his best kept secrets. Each time he dies, he goes on to possess some new poor soul, convincing them over time that they are one and the same as he consumes everything they are, mind, body and soul. It is a flawed immortality, but it is immortality nonetheless.”
For a moment, time all but stopped for Silba. A few of her questions had just been answered.
And of course it would be Sith at blame.
Silba, days prior, had sat across from the Headmaster. She had talked to him, had let him rope Ruby into his web of conspiracy or so he thought. The only explanation that Silba had for what Salem had just described, had just explained to her, was the dark technique of Sith Transference. A dark, selfish art, and one she never saw any value in.
Ozpin was a Sith. And, in a roundabout admission, so was Salem.
Kriff.
Did either of them know what she was? Did Ozpin suspect? Did Salem? Silba no doubt would have disturbed the Force with her return, the same way she had at the time disturbed it with her arrival on that desert panet centuries ago. And despite all of the precautions that she had taken, there would have still been a brief window when her presence, and more importantly her location, would have effectively been broadcast to local Force-sensitives.
Was this the cause behind the week she had? Thinking back on it, the week since her sudden return home had been more bizarre than when she had lived it the first time as Ruby. More had happened in a week than what had happened in whole years of Ruby’s life. Finding a secret lab that was connected to Salem, finding that Bitch, Ozpin suddenly warning her of Salem’s interest in her, running into Ozpin’s enforcers and then Salem’s sudden invitation to a meeting. If Ozpin and Salem were Sith, then could it be that they already suspected her as also being a Force user? She had taken care during this meeting to hide any uses of Force powers, but that was no guarantee that Salem did not know. Pretending to be unaware of another’s tricks was a classic tactic, after all.
And Ozpin. When they had met back in that tower to discuss Salem, the man had been downright pleasant and amicable. In fact, delving back into Ruby’s memories, he’d never been anything but. Nothing in his mannerisms or his demeanor struck her as being steeped in the Dark Side of the Force. On the other hand, so had her master’s master been to him, once upon a time. She thought about what Salem had just told her about the man. Yes, he was unusually young for a man in his position. But he was apparently a prodigy of his generation, much as Ruby had been of hers, though his cumulative experience could explain much of his “talent.”
And if what Salem had said was true, then he was also the one who founded the current Huntsmen Academies, which for almost a century had been churning out young men and women to fight Grimm. Come to think of it, despite the Academies, there had not been much, if any, success in reclaiming territory from the Grimm for long. She was suddenly reminded of the similar nature of the Clone Wars, how hundreds of thousands of clones and at least hundreds of Jedi died in a carefully staged war that saw no side gaining a significant advantage over the other.
Silba recalled how Amber had talked of the powers of the Maidens being based on magic, but those had been Ozpin’s words, and not Amber’s. And while the Force could very well be called magic by narrow-minded people, it was fundamentally an established and reasonably understood phenomenon. Then again, it was possible for one to independently discover and hone their own Force techniques, and there had been precedent she had known about in her time. And if Salem and Ozpin had lived as long as Salem was suggesting, they would have more than enough time to perfect Force techniques that seemed… magical.
Silba frowned. It was actually enough to give her a headache. Thinking of Amber again, she recalled what her Apprentice had told her some nights ago about what she had become, how she had become some sort of vessel for these Maiden powers that had been passed onto her. Said powers had made her a target the moment she had gotten them. Thinking back, Silba had sensed something at work within Amber, but it had been fleeting, ephemeral to her senses.
She returned her focus to Salem. Silba probed the apparition standing across from her double with the Force, and as she expected, she sensed nothing at all. The Salem before her was something akin to a hologram, wholly a product of the strange jellyfish-like Grimm. In her own current state, the effective range of her Scry-sight was not enough to find Salem’s location. More worryingly, her attempts at probing for the real Salem kept sliding off the Apparition, almost as if…
No, it couldn’t be.
Could it?
“I’m not surprised you might have fallen silent for a moment at that. Quite a surprise, is it not?”
Silba had let the silence drag on for a moment longer than appropriate. Perhaps a faux pas to some, but Salem seemed to allow it to slide as it were. “Forgive me if I doubt your claim. Unless, of course, there is more to it.”
Salem sighed. “If I were physically present, I would ask Hazel to help me demonstrate. After all, he has tried harder than most to kill me.” She glanced over to the larger of the two men, who averted his gaze. Silba assumed there was more there that was left unspoken. Glancing at Hazel, she got the scattered impression of a beloved sister, of intangible threads of a desire for revenge. But that was all she could glean at that moment. “I could have even let you try and kill me, if you so wished.”
Silba didn’t reply to that. The woman was either crazy, suicidal, or, more disturbing, telling the truth. It could have been a combination of all of the above, but it would be unbecoming of her to accuse Salem of the first two here. Regardless, she spoke with such conviction that it wasn’t a lie, not to her at least. If Ozpin and Salem were really immortal like Salem claimed, that would complicate things. And if they were delving into dark arts they poorly understood? Silba would deal with them when the time came. It wasn't because of Bane’s rule that she had sworn off, or because of some archaic and outmoded notion of rivalry, but because they put her world in danger with their petty squabbling.
“Immortality is quite the party trick,” Silba eventually said. “How did you gain it? Or more accurately, dare I ask, what cursed you with it?”
Salem laughed. The normal and human action almost caught her by surprise, when coming from something that was anything but. “Now, that is a story for the ages,” Salem chuckled. “And one ill-suited for a late night such as this.”
“I am sure.” Silba suspected that her counterpart would act cagey about the true nature of the source of her apparent power, but not asking about it would have seemed more suspicious to someone like Salem.
“There is one other thing I am curious to know,” Salem asked, her visage turning serious. “Why did you attack Doctor Watts’ lab?”
Silba’s specter cocked its head. Salem was talking about that hidden lab, the one she had gained her lightsaber from. Thinking back, another version of the Grimm that Salem was now using had also been in the lab. It clearly had a communication function, and she also remembered the shadowy impression of a face within that orb, right before she had destroyed it. Had Salem eavesdropped on Silba’s chat with the late Sith Lord? And if so, how much of it?
“You mean that secret little science lab?” Silba’s specter answered dismissively. “I had almost forgotten about that. I presume that this Watts is another associate of yours?”
“In a way,” Salem explained. So, he was just another henchman then. “You stole something from him, and I do believe he would like it returned.”
The specter chuckled. “I am sure.” Her specter’s hand went to its webbing, detaching its faux lightsaber and igniting it. To their credit, both Tyrian and Hazel didn’t react to her apparently hostile action, nor did Salem’s avatar. “A fine weapon, isn’t it? Powerful, but it exacts a price from its user.”
It was almost imperceptible, but Salem actually flinched. Silba recalled that mental image Bane had showed her, of another hand reaching for the blade. Only to be flayed alive by a blast of Force lightning, before the corpse was hurled across the room.
“Only those worthy may hold it,” the specter explained as it extinguished the blade and returned it to its webbing. “If Watts wishes to have it returned, I may hand it back to him. If he is willing to hold it, of course.”
“I will pass along the message.” Salem sighed. “I was wrong about you, you know.”
“Oh?”
Salem chuckled. “Indeed, this night was most productive.”
“I see. Is this the part where you offer recruitment or threats?”
Salem smirked. “Nothing so crass, Grey. When you do join my cause, it will be because you choose to, not because you are forced to. Well, I should go. I suppose I just wanted to meet the one who had been causing so many waves lately.”
The scorpion Faunus snarled. “That’s it? We came all the way here just for a little meet and greet?!”
Even as a projection, the glare Salem directed at Tyrian immediately silenced the Faunus. Looking back at the masked figure, Salem smiled. “I suppose I also wanted to confirm something. And I did. We will meet again.” And with that, Salem disappeared into a cloud of black mist. The jellyfish-like Grimm shuddered and died, and it too evaporated to nothing.
Silba’s specters turned and walked away, disappearing out of sight behind the ruins. Silba dispelled them all once they were hidden from view. Had either of Salem’s lackeys sought to pursue any of them, they would have found to trace, nor of any quarry to be had. Hazel and Tyrian shared a glance, before they too turned and left the clearing, going back the way they came toward their waiting mounts. The mini-Nevermore was the last to leave, the creature taking flight and soaring toward the wilderness.
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“Well, that was horrifying.”
“Quite.”
Silba and Weiss had remained there on the ledge, long after Salem and her minions had departed. Silba had watched them fly back the way they had come by Nevermore. Even then she felt uneasy, and several times she Scryed her surroundings, looking for any voids or distortions in the Force that were the tell-tale signs of Grimm lurking around. There were none thankfully, but one could never be too careful.
“So, that was her,” Silba said. “That was more or less what I expected.”
“What did you expect Ruby?” Weiss asked her.
“In regards to the Grimm having a central authority? I am not quite sure Weiss, but it was not that.” Salem’s parting words had upset her. Silba had played this game of song and dance numerous times throughout her life, and she understood every bit of hidden subcontext that had been communicated to her. In short, Salem knew what she was, or at least very strongly suspected such, and had made plans to recruit her. If Silba had been the sort of person to baselessly speculate, she could have even envisioned Salem trying to manipulate her into killing Cinder, in the same manner an aspiring apprentice would slay the current. That exact situation had occurred with her own master, when he unwittingly cut down and replaced Dooku.
Or it was all a bluff, one meant to throw her off-balance, to force her to use too much caution or to react too slowly in response to any of Salem’s own moves. Or perhaps it was a double bluff meant to make her too reckless if she called Salem’s apparent bluff. Kriff, this was more irritating than any of my dealings with Tarkin.
“So, what do we do now?”
We, Silba noted. “I take it that you are with me?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I… This is a whole lot. And after thinking about it, I don’t really think I’d feel comfortable, you know…”
“Telling on me?”
“Yeah,” Weiss nodded.
“Well, for what it is worth Weiss, I am glad you are willing to trust me.” Silba stood up and cast one more look toward the space below before turning away. “So, what do you want to do now?”
Weiss was quiet, for a long moment. “I don’t know Ruby. I feel like the whole world’s been tossed upside down. All on the same day, I find out that the Grimm have a leader, and the Beacon Headmaster isn’t who he says he is, and my partner is now a three hundred year old Empress of the universe.”
“Just the galaxy.”
Weiss scowled. “I’ve pinched myself several times over the course of the last few hours just to check to see if I’m not dreaming.”
“A top would be more useful.”
“Wh- A top? Ruby, what are you talking about?”
Silba sighed. “Never mind, I will tell you later.” She looked back up at Beacon. “We should probably start heading back.”
“Yeah.” Weiss led the way, and she followed.
“But Ruby, to answer your question? I don’t know.”
“Hm?”
“I… I need to sleep on all this,” she explained. “And… What are we going to tell Yang and Blake?”
“Do not worry about those two, Weiss,” Silba reassured her. “When the time comes, and it will very soon, I will tell them everything.” Silba had had a couple of her questions answered, but she now had a lot more. For starters, Salem and Ozpin. Or ‘Ozma,’ as Salem had called him. They were clearly both very powerful and entrenched players, whose game she had been wholly unaware of in her past life until far too late, and had stumbled into in her current one. Who were they really, and why their feud and rivalry? She suspected they were Sith, but why remain on this world, unknown and hidden from the wider galaxy?
And then her lightsaber, and by extension the handful of kyber crystals. They remained a minor concern, but it was a concern all the same. How did it end up on Remnant? And who or what put them there? To an outside observer, it was almost as if they had been placed there deliberately, metaphorically left right in front of her for her to all but trip over. Other questions, such as the subject of the Maidens, the alleged magic they possessed, and these Relics that seemed to be pieces in play all landed atop a pile of unknowns that Silba very much wanted known.
Silba sighed. Not for the first time, she wanted to tear her hair out in frustration, but she resisted the urge to vent by breaking things with the Force. Letting the Dark Side take control was childish, however cathartic it might have been. The Jedi were definitely onto something, using meditation to work through conundrums like these.
Silba smiled, her mind made up. It had been a week since she’d last done so.
The two of them returned to the dorms in silence. It was trivial to slip by the night watch, and her companion just shrugged and nodded when, at her insistence, they simply walked past the two faculty members at the main entrance. Weiss was becoming inured to her weirdness, which was a good thing, though it also meant she would have fewer reactions to enjoy.
“Are they still awake?”
“Our teammates?”
“Yeah.”
“No, they are fast asleep.”
“Are… ‘we’?”
“If you mean our doubles…” Silba trailed off, focusing on her last two active specters and dispelling them as they approached their dorm room. “Not anymore.” Thinking back earlier, neither Yang nor Blake had noticed anything amiss with their teammates, or at least not the fact that they were essentially puppets on strings.
“You should clean up,” Silba told her partner as they entered their room. “And get some rest too.”
“What about you?”
“I will go after. It will give me some time to myself.”
“Okay.” Weiss stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving Silba alone for the first time in hours. She pulled out a chair from one of the desks, and in the darkness of the room sat down to think. After Weiss had fallen asleep, she would meditate then for a few hours in the quiet of the bathroom, as she did that night she woke up. She had a lot to meditate about.
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Well, that's a wrap for now. The next chapter will be along soon.
Comments
Philip
Delightful.
