Chapter Text
“Robyn, you shouldn’t be so rude!” Susan paused just long enough for dramatic effect, “Calling Mr. Schnee a snake with a mustache is an insult to snakes.”
“So what do you even teach?” Nora asked, leaning across the table, “Like, I know you said ‘logistics,’ but what does that even mean?”
“To put it simply, logistics are the practicalities,” Susan said, “I started off the semester with a unit on personal finance, followed by how to coordinate a team over a large area without the benefit of scrolls and how to evacuate a building. From there, I built up. How to manage finances for a team rather than an individual. How to coordinate multiple teams. How to evacuate a neighborhood or small town.”
“That sounds very useful,” Ren nodded as the train car rumbled away beneath them.
“I rather thought so,” Susan smiled, staring wistfully at the landscape rushing past the window, “I would have loved to partner with one of the nearby settlements to let my students get practical experience, but Headmaster Lionheart rather put a stop to that.”
“Fascinating,” It was still highly disconcerting for Susan to hear the tones and inflections of a grown man coming from the mouth of the youngest person there. The situation between Ozpin and Oscar was something that she strongly suspected would be one of the first things Aslan fixed when he arrived.
His eyes flared gold, and Oscar was back, “You mean you never thought of that, old man?” He asked. Everyone laughed.
From the whiteness, Aslan appeared.
On one side of him walked Summer Rose. On the other walked Ozma’s first host, Owen. Each of them was hauling one of the brother gods by the ear.
Aslan came to a stop, and his two companions shoved their burdens none-too gently to the ground before Salem.
“Apologize,” Aslan ordered in a rumbling growl.
Salem drew herself up in affront, “You must be out of your mind if you think…” she hissed.
Aslan shook his head, “Not you. Not yet,” He nodded at the two on the ground, “Them.”
The so-called brother gods stayed stubbornly, petulantly silent.
“Don’t make things worse for yourself than they already are,” Summer scowled at them, “Salem may owe me an apology for what she did to me and to my family, but she wouldn’t have been able to do it at all if you hadn’t doomed her to an eternity of torture. Apologize .”
The two of them grumbled like children. “We’re sorry,” the brother of darkness finally managed.
“I apologize,” his brother folded his arms like a recalcitrant teenager.
“Good,” Owen folded his arms, “Next you get to apologize to my old roommate and disentangle him from that poor kid.”
“What!” the brother of light started, but was cut off by Aslan’s snarl and subsided, grumbling under his breath all the while.
Ruby stared at the whole spectacle with her mouth open.
Susan leaned over and gently closed it for her. “I told you they were only stewards.”
The screen on the wall of the airship port flickered to life.
“Atlas, Mantle. I know you're scared. I'm here with General Ironwood, and we have a message for you, “Robyn announced, the camera zoomed out to show that she was holding hands with General Ironwood, both their hands glowing green, “What he has to say may sound unbelievable... but it is all true.”
“An ancient and terrible evil lies outside of our Kingdom,” Ironwood announced, hands still glowing. Susan had only learned what that actually meant tonight. Robyn’s ability was to detect truth and lies, and green? Green meant the truth. “It was responsible for the destruction of Beacon, the attack on Haven, and for the recent attacks on Mantle. This powerful force goes by the name of Salem.”
Several of the refugees had stopped, staring at the screen in bewilderment. The students who were supposed to be keeping them moving had also stopped, not that Susan blamed them. This was a massive paradigm shift. Even still…
“Come on you lot, we have work to do!” Susan announced, shooing them all back to their posts and another ship of refugees came in.
“More popcorn?” Lucy asked, holding the bag out to her cousin.
“Um,” Eustace said, “Are we sure this is…”
“It’s all in good fun,” Lucy said cheerily, “No one is getting hurt, and as I’m sure Edmund and Peter can tell you, it’s nice for them to be able to use their skills without any risk.”
“Well, yes,” Edmund admitted from Eustace’s other side, “But this seems a bit…”
“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” The crowd of Remnantians roared, going full on screaming insane as Pyrrha landed a painful looking blow to the Brother of Light’s head and Owen knocked the Brother of Darkness’s legs out from under him.
“It’s just a spar,” Summer leaned forward from the seat behind them to steal a bit of Lucy’s popcorn, “I don’t see what the issue is.”
“If the former stewards are losing miserably, it’s their own fault for being lazy,” Lucy nodded peacefully, “You really should try some of this, it’s flavored with that sap I told you about, and it’s delicious.”
The streets were clean and bright and pleasant to look at. The people however, walked with their heads down, not looking to the right or to the left and definitely not to the cameras on every streetlight and storefront. They all knew the consequences for putting a foot out of line.
A young woman, plain and boring with black hair, a black jacket, and sensible shoes, followed their lead. The only thing to set her apart from the sea of gray, resigned people surrounding her were her sharp, wary green eyes and her overstuffed backpack.
“You there!” An armored car pulled over, and a police officer stepped out and pointed at her, “Random search. Show us what’s in the bag.”
Silently and obediently, she knelt and slung her backpack onto the ground in front of her. Unzipping it revealed nothing but textbooks, a boxed lunch, and a water bottle.
The officer inspected her bag with a sneer on his face, but eventually kicked it over and returned to his car and partner, driving away. The young woman stayed silent as she retrieved her bag and zipped it back up, slinging it back up onto her shoulders and hurrying on her way. No one batted an eye. It was normal now. It would have taken a much closer look than anyone was willing to give to see the spark of irritation and defiance in her eyes.
She didn’t have much further to go, ducking into a boring looking building in a row full of them. Rather than browsing, she headed directly for the staff only door, and from there, down a camouflaged, almost invisible trapdoor in the back of the storeroom to a pitch black basement.
“Password?” A harsh voice whispered.
In answer, the young woman stuck out her tongue.
In an instant, the darkness dissipated, revealing five young people with colorful bearings and defiance in their every movement.
“Did you get the stuff?” A green skinned boy moved forward.
The young woman smirked as glowing pink shards swept over her, leaving behind pink and brown heterochromatic eyes and equally pink and brown hair. Neopolitan dumped her backpack on the floor and triumphantly began pulling out food and medical supplies to pass around.
“Patrols are moving away,” Cyborg pushed away from the computer monitors showing where the police in the city could be found. “You’ve gotta be more careful, Neo. You were one wrong step from a one way trip to…”
He trailed off as Neo pulled out the pistol of the officer who had subjected her to a random search earlier, smirking.
“Why are you like this?” Raven asked tiredly, clearly not expecting an answer. Neo put a finger to her cheek and pretended to think about it.
“You need to stop doing that,” Robin scowled, “You know if you get caught they’ll do a lot worse to you than they’ll do to someone without your powers.”
Neo rolled her eyes at him. She’d figured that out pretty quickly when she’d landed in this crazy world, devoid of grimm but just as dangerous to someone like her.
“Thank you for what you have retrieved for us, Neo,” Starfire said softly, tossing Robin a dirty look.
Her, Neo smiled at, before moving to look over Cyborg’s shoulder at the monitors.
“Checking to see if there’s anything new?” he asked. When she nodded, he handed the mouse over to let her look. Neo flipped through for a moment, but couldn’t find anything too out of the ordinary.
Just another day in the Justice Lords’ Jump City.