Chapter Text
“What are we even guarding?”
“Hell if I know, the General just said to stop anyone from coming to or from this location without ID.”
“Huh. Weird. Did you ask what was in here?”
“Classified.”
“Of course.”
The sound of clattering was heard down the hall and both guards stood at attention, snapping up. A man rounded the corner in a huge, incredibly advanced, six-legged wheel chair. His skin was dark and he had a greying beard, and a very much rushed demeanor.
Both guards stepped in front of the door, blocking him. “We’ll need to see some identifi-” He cut himself off as the man shoved his scroll forward.
‘Pietro Polendina’, maximum access… They stepped out of the way. “Alright, sir, you’re free to-” Before he could finish the wheel chair had already carried the man through the door quickly.
“Well… That was weird.”
—
Ruby tried to pry her eyes open, but they seemed too stubborn to listen to her… God, she felt… exhausted. She could just go back to slee- Was that Professor Ozpin?
“How is Miss Rose doing?”
“Well, Headmaster, we’re not entirely sure why she passed out. It wasn’t from any of the… confidential reasons you suggested, we know that.” Huh? Oh yeah, the docks… Of course she passed out right before she was gonna take that jerk out! “But there’s another thing we’ve noticed. See here, she-”
“How about you tell her herself?” Ruby could hear the smirk on Ozpin’s face.
“What do you- Oh… Of course! How do- Ruby, can you hear me?”
Ruby sluggishly turned her head to the doctor, giving a nod. With great effort, she pried her eyes open. The room was fuzzy no matter how hard she tried to focus and her eyes… god they felt tired. It was worse than when she first used the magic part in them! Not the… Whatever, it was worse!
“Do not worry, Miss Rose, you can keep your eyes closed, if you like.” Ruby quickly obliged.
“A-Alright. Headmaster, Ruby… Based on your heart monitor, we’ve been able to diagnose a very, very minor heart arrhythmia, and based on the descriptions your friends gave, it seems like the most likely reason for your sudden unconsciousness. Do you remember anything?”
Ruby opened her mouth, but the words came out slightly slurred. “I… vision went… dark… no color… then… nothing…” Wait… what had… Penny! “P-Professor…! I-Is Penny-”
“Do not worry, Miss Rose, Miss Polendina is currently aboard James’ flagship. She’s receiving the best care she can.”
Ruby sighed in relief. Thank the brothers… Wait… “W-What’s… heart… arrhythmia?”
“Oh- Well, Ruby, it’s… what it sounds like, more or less. Your heart isn’t beating quite like it’s supposed to, occasionally a little bit ahead, occasionally a little bit behind. I’m not an expert in Faunus medicine, most people aren’t, but if it’s close enough to humans-”
“And I believe it is.” Professor Ozpin’s voice came from her other side.
“-then you have some sort of medical condition. Though it really shouldn’t affect you enough to pass out, the symptoms line up. Given the headmaster’s description of your… unique position, I believe that the heightened emotions at the time could have contributed.”
“Oh… cool…”
“Now… I recommend you rest, Miss Rose. You have as many days off as you need until you are cleared, and Miss Schnee offered to help you with any notes and material you missed.”
“Oh… How long was I out…?” Words were a bit easier, now. Maybe it was just the haze of waking up…
“It’s just past 6 AM, so… About 5 hours, Ruby. We determined that a lot of what kept you asleep was exhaustion and natural sleep from a long day, though I’ve already explained the catalyst. You’ll be free to go by the end of the day, probably.”
“Cool…” Ruby felt the atmosphere in the room… change. It was weird, but definitely noticeable. Through her closed eyes she could have sworn she saw a flash of forest green, about where Ozpin was, before it calmed down.
Then his voice came out, almost forced and with an impossible sort of clarity. “Doctor, could you leave us for a moment? I wish to speak to Miss Rose in private.”
“O-Oh! Of course!” She heard the sound of him quickly scrambling out of the room, followed by Ozpin sighing and stepping closer.
“Miss Rose. Can you look at me for a moment?”
Slowly, Ruby turned her head over and opened her eyes, looking at Ozpin. Something about him made him feel impossibly old in certain moments.
“I- Can you flare your Aura across your whole body for me?” Ruby raised an eyebrow, Ozpin faltering? But she obliged, focusing and flaring her Aura. It was harder to do than normal, but it was also probably not fully recovered by now, anyway…
“As I expected… Well… Miss Rose, I haven’t been… Entirely forthcoming about the true nature of the Maiden powers.” Ruby levelled the closest thing she could manage to a glare in his direction and he leaned back.
“When the Maiden powers were formed, they were made by a sentimental old man who had more magic than he needed. So he granted each Maiden a piece of that magic. But he’d seen things, learned even more. And one of those things that he’d learned was the saying ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’, and he took that to heart.” That flash of green appeared over his body again, centered around his throat and mouth, but quickly disappeared.
“So he wove in a weakness to each of them, and it would be unique to all of them. This weakness manifests in an absence of Aura around part of their body. No matter how much you try to cover that part of your body, the Aura will refuse to go there, and covering it up with traditional armor feels… Wrong. Uncomfortable.” He sagged a bit, then stood up.
“It is important that each Maiden find what that weakness is themselves. It is always related to who they are as a person.” He began walking to the door. “Some may find themselves with an unprotected neck, others…” He turned to face her, “a bleeding heart. That will be all, Miss Rose. I wish you a healthy recovery.”
Why wasn’t that in the briefing for these!
—
Ozpin sighed, dialing a number he’d been needing to a concerning amount in recent times. “Miss Aurelionite?”
”Yes, Headmaster?”
“I have a… request. We have a student who needs some…” He sighed. He really shouldn’t say that in front of the girl. “Can you come down to the infirmary? Room 5. I trust you can be discreet about this?”
He heard a sigh on the other end as well, and some shuffling. ”Do I need to bring the Halcyon Gauntlets, or is this more… Tame?”
“I don’t believe that would be necessary, Miss Aurelionite. Just a girl who’s clearly been through a lot.”
The shuffling got faster and he heard the sound of a door opening and closing. ”I’ll be right there.” Her voice was urgent and she quickly hung up.
Not 3 minutes later the 7 foot form of Beacon’s freshmen counselor walked into an infirmary room far too small for her. “What happened?” When she found Miss Belladonna curled up on the bed, staring forward, she crumpled a little bit. Such a kind soul, Ozpin had always been glad to find a counselor like her.
“She hasn’t spoken about it, but she was there during the incident at the docks. If she mentions a girl named ‘Penny’-” He resisted the urge to flinch as Miss Belladonna actually did flinch, “-Just find a way to convince her that the girl is alive, alright?”
When Miss Aurelionite nodded, Ozpin turned to leave. “I’ll be leaving. I think she’ll be more comfortable with another… You’ll figure it out.” He gave a knowing smile and walked out of the room.
What else… Right.
—
Weiss was rudely awakened by the sound of Yang falling off her bed in a heap. When she turned over to try to get some more sleep, she was prevented from her task by the same girl stomping around the dorm and grabbing her clothes.
After 10 minutes Weiss had finally had enough, sitting up just enough to glare at Yang. “Yang… what are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing!? I gotta go to Ruby! I couldn’t last night for some reason, but I-”
Weiss resisted the urge to roll her eyes. And she thought Ruby was the one biologically set to be more protective! “Yang… Yang!” When said girl finally turned to her, Weiss continued. “Ruby is in the infirmary, right? She’s fine! They said she was stable when the ambulance arrived, anyway…”
“But-”
“Ap bup bup! Ruby needs rest anyway. Even if Ruby didn’t get injured, we got back to Beacon at 2 in the morning! It’s only…” She checked the clock, finding… She really wanted to punch Yang (though it might hurt Weiss more than it did Yang, actually…), but settled for verbally berating her instead. “Just past 6. We got four hours of sleep, can you please settle down and go back to bed? If you really need to, take a walk, but some of us are trying to sleep!”
Yang looked like she was about to protest, but soon she deflated, falling backward onto her bed. “...Whatever… Fine.”
Peace… Fucking finally.
—
Pyrrha sat in an interrogation room, staring forward. She probably should have slept more before doing this, but something just told her that she needed to speak… Maybe it was that she was the only one who actually won their fight, maybe it was just her nature. She couldn’t get to Ruby, her room wasn’t open to non-familial visitors, so this was the next best thing.
The door opened and a police officer stepped in. “Hello, Miss Nikos. I understand you’ve had an… eventful 24 hours.”
“Yes, I suppose I have.”
“Alright, well, let’s put that to an end. We’ll just be asking a few questions. Why were you at the docks last night?”
“I…” It was illegal to perform a stakeout as a huntress in training, right? “Suppose we just happened to be in the right place at the right time, is all.”
He wrote something in his notebook, then looked up. “Alright, and you fought primarily White Fang, correct?”
Pyrrha nodded, “Yes, it was just members of the White Fang aside from two, Roman Torchwick and this… girl. She was incredibly skilled, I think she could have beaten me if the situation was just a little bit different.” Just another reason she needed to train.
He raised an eyebrow and scribbled something down. “Thank you… And the slice through the buildings nearby?”
She looked down. She had a hunch that the same attack that caused that caused Penny’s… Condition. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see that one. The girl… oh yeah, her name was Neo! Or at least that’s what Torchwick called her… But Neo took advantage of Penny’s attack to get a surprise hit on me and I couldn’t focus on anything other than her for a bit.”
“I see… Alright, one more question, since you’ve already given the general summary of the incident, this is the last one.” He leaned forward over the table, and Pyrrha got a bad feeling. “We were hoping we could get a testimony against that girl with the wolf ears.” Pyrrha’s eyes widened in anger, but the officer clearly misinterpreted it. “Oh, great! If you would also give some evidence against the one with cat-”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off as he was thrown to the wall by the metal in his vest. “W-wha-”
“We’re done here.” Without another word, Pyrrha walked out the door.