Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Chapter 30

Cinder was not having a good day. Of all the days, of All the days she had spent working towards her plan something just had to happen today. 'Or someone.' She thought darkly.

"Excuse me, but are you Cinder Fall leader of Team CMEN?" A voice spoke up from behind her.

'It looks like it's about to get even worse.' She thought recognizing the Atlesian general's voice. "That would be me, yes." She said with a slightly strained smile. With her teammate unconscious and short an arm, she didn't even need an excuse.

"Might I speak to you for a moment in private?" He asked with a grave tone.

She hesitated briefly, but nodded her assent, nonetheless. The two left the general stand area of the arena and moved to one of the unused locker rooms.

"May I ask what you'd like to discuss with me?"

"It's about your teammate." He started.

"Yes, I just left her bedside a short time ago. She hasn't woken up has she?" She dared not let any hope bleed into her tone.

"No, unfortunately I'm here to talk about one of your other teammates. Mercury Black." He said with an odd stare. She struggled to place the look on his face, but if she had to guess she'd call it sympathetic… What would he be sympathetic about?

As her mind pieced together the look on his face and the tone of his voice, her mouth muttered a brief "What about him?"

"Two days ago, we received an anonymous tip about the remains of what seemed to be a fight." He said pulling up a few pictures on his scroll. "When we arrived, we found these" He brought up a picture of two familiar prosthetics covered in blood. "which as you can see were covered in blood. After checking the blood at the site, we concluded it matched your teammate. Just to make sure, those legs did belong to Mr. Black did they not?"

"Yes, those are his." She thought numbly. 'So that's where he went… who… how…?'

"Yes, well I'll get to the point, it seems that your teammate has gone missing and with the evidence found it is highly possible that he has either been kidnapped or killed. When did you last see Mr. Black?" He asked narrowing his eyes slightly.

"It would've been a little over two days ago now." Cinder admitted. "If you're asking why it wasn't reported, it's because he's pulled off disappearing acts in the past. Usually he'd show up after a few days." She lied easily.

"Then it seems there are no other questions for you right now. I am sorry for the losses your team has suffered in recent days, but rest assured the Atlesian patrols and Vale's police force are scouring the city for your missing teammate." 'Or his body.' He added on silently.

"I appreciate it general." She offered as evenly as possible.

Without another word the general turned and left the girl to her thoughts.

'Why now of all times is everything falling apart?!' She seethed. At this point she wanted to pull her hair out in frustration. The plan hinged almost entirely on Emerald and her illusions… at least the newest form did… 'No, the old plan wouldn't work now, I've missed that opportunity.' She thought with a frown. Had she wanted to act on the other plan she would've needed to take advantage of Ruby and Emerald's fight immediately.

"What am I supposed to do now except hope for an accident?" She muttered to herself. Both her loyal subordinates were out of commission and while the White Fang was ready and willing, she wasn't sure where Neo stood at the moment. If she were to skip out on her part as well then Atlas would be able to save the day like the general would like. It wasn't even supposed to have started yet, and everything was crumbling around her.

A few years ago, before she'd met Salem, before her eyes had been opened to the cruel reality of this world, she might've cried, but at this moment she took a deep breath and straightened up. 'It isn't over until it is over. It's bleak but there are still moves I can make.' She thought taking out her scroll.

C: Are you ready for your part?

A few seconds passed before she received her reply.

N: I'm ready whenever you say go. Losing Emerald didn't mess up anything did it?

She could feel her eye twitching at the audacity this girl had, but then it dawned on her. The only ones who knew of Emerald's role was Mercury, Emerald, and herself. 'Is it possible… that this happened because they didn't know? No… they did it on purpose… right?' She stared at her scroll for a long minute before replying.

C: Unfortunately, yes it did.

N: Oh… What's the plan then?

C: For now, hope for the best. If it comes to it the plan will adjust.

With that she switched to a different contact.

C: Be ready to go at my signal.

A: Ready and waiting.

Closing her scroll, she took another deep breath and walked towards the exit. Things weren't going according to plan, but never let it be said that she couldn't adapt.

With Ruby, Neo, and Kyle

Neo looked up from her scroll with a grimace.

"What's that look for?" Ruby asked with a frown.

"It seems that Emerald was rather important to the bitch's plan." She signed with a frown. If things didn't go according to plan, then it'd be that much more difficult to free Roman. Well maybe not free but get away with him.

"Well that's what happens when each of your subordinates knows part of a plan, but not how the others fit into it." Kyle said from his seat. Noticing the gazes of both girls on him he sighed before explaining. "Emerald probably had an essential role in this operation, but now that she is unconscious and aura-less for the foreseeable future, the plan is on the cusp of failure. Probably at least. And this happened because you didn't know how important a part she played."

"The only thing that stands out about her was her semblance… I'm not sure what she would've done with it that'd pass what I did out there." The mini reaper said thinking aloud.

"Her semblance is definitely useful, but I don't know either." He admitted with a shrug. If Cinder's plan doesn't work out, then his job becomes that much harder.

"Nothing we can do except hope for the best apparently, and if needed, be ready to adjust the plan." Neo added with her own shrug.

"How delightful." The reaper muttered turning back towards the TV. While doing so he sent an annoyed thought to his partner.

With Pyrrha

Deep breath in, and out. In. Out.

Pyrrha was in the locker room mentally preparing for the upcoming fight. 'I've done this before plenty of times, yet that prefight anticipation never disappears.' She thought. After a final check that all her equipment was ready, she started walking towards the exit. As she entered the arena she came face to face with her opponent.

"Salutations! Let's have a good match!" Penny greeted with a smile.

Pyrrha merely nodded with a smile of her own. 'This fight isn't just about me anymore is it? Even worse she's one of the ones to look out for.' She mused as she thought back to what Jaune had said when she returned to the floating arena.

Flashback

"Pyrrha!" Came a shout from her right.

'I just arrived.' She thought in exasperation before seeing the speaker. "Do you need something Jaune?"

"We were looking for you after the first… fight… but you kinda ran off." He said with a sheepish chuckle.

"I'm here now, no worries." Pyrrha said with her usual smile. "Was there something you specifically needed me for?"

"Well I've watched the matches of the other finalists like you asked, and after that last match I thought it best to make sure you're ready. I mean if Ruby was able to do something like that, then I don't want to imagine what some of the foreign teams are capable of." He said with a shudder.

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. "In all honesty Ruby's brutality in matches is nothing new." 'Though this is the worst she's done by far.'

"I know, but she might not be the only one. One of the other finalists who caught my eye for that kind of thing was Penny Polendina."

"Penny Polendina? What about her stands out?" She asked.

"Her weapons are dangerous. Like more than your average weapons. Hers aren't as visibly intimidating as say Ruby's, but she's still one of the ones to look out for."

"Explain." She said in a serious tone. Gone was the polite doormat of a girl Pyrrha. What stood in front of him now was the Invincible Girl, the multi-time tournament champion, and as far as most people knew, the real Pyrrha Nikos.

"She uses multiple swords as you've surely seen, and after a closer look I noticed the wires attaching them to her backpack. I don't know how exactly she controls them, but the wires are nearly invisible at a distance. If she wanted all she would need to do is whittle down someone's aura, then wrap them up and pull." He responded in equal seriousness.

Pyrrha for her part didn't outwardly react, but internally she blanched. 'That is far more dangerous than I imagined. If the wires are able to cut through flesh... while she seems like a nice enough girl, so does Ruby. I can't go into fights like this blind.' She thought before nodding to Jaune. "Walk with me and give me what you know on any of the other finalists."

"Sure thing. You're repping our team and school, so do your best. Especially after that first match." He said falling into step with the amazon.

Flashback end

Watching her opponent for a few more seconds Pyrrha could easily tell the other girl wasn't worried or even nervous over this match, and while in any other setting she'd be thrilled, in this venue, in this tournament, on this stage where she could still see blood that didn't wash off during the intermission from the match previous, the other girl's attitude put her on edge more than she already was.

"Welcome back everyone!" Professor Port's voice boomed over the speakers once again. "After our brief intermission we're ready to get back into the swing of things."

"Yes, quite right, and joining us to help prevent any further incidents we have Beacon's own Headmistress Glynda Goodwitch down at ringside." Professor Oobleck added.

"Now onto our competitors for this match! From Atlas Academy we have Penny Polendina! Her team has been coasting through the tournament so far, but for this match she faces Beacon's own Invincible Girl, Pyrrha Nikos!" Port cheered rousing the crowd. 'Formerly invincible? Does the name lose credit after her loss to Miss Rose? I suppose in the end it doesn't matter; the crowd is plenty excited.' He mused as Barty went over the rules of the match once more.

On the platform

Match Begin in

3…

2…

1…

Begin

As soon as the match started Pyrrha rushed her opponent. With Milo in its spear form she made several thrusts towards her opponent, hoping to deal some damage before the girl's swords were deployed. Was it a cheap tactic? Maybe depending on the point of view, but the sooner this match ended, the better in her opinion.

Penny weaved around the attacks as best she could before one struck her in the stomach sending her several feet back. With a moment's reprieve she deployed her swords and frowned at the champion. "Now that wasn't very nice."

Just like the greeting earlier Pyrrha didn't respond verbally. Instead she readied her shield and sword. The next thing she knew there were a flurry of blades attacking her from all different directions. Knowing she'd need her semblance for a fight like this she blocked each blade she could, minimally redirecting the attacks. When she saw an opening, she pushed through the hail of blades and rushed the girl behind them, but to her rising ire, she couldn't land any solid hits.

When she paused for a moment in her assault, a sword that had gotten behind her knocked Akouo from her hand. Left with only Milo for a moment she shifted it into its spear form again and knocked any nearby blades away. With that done she tried pulling Akouo back, but it got knocked away by another sword. Before she could face that frustration, Milo was knocked away from her as well. Now weaponless Pyrrha looked to the other girl who had formed a semi-circle of the blades in front of her.

Penny lifted her hands up and made a forward pushing motion sending the blades at her. A small glint in the light reminded Pyrrha of just what situation she was about to be in, the last thing she wanted was to be caught between those wires. All of this passed through her mind in the blink of an eye. She tried once more to bring her sword and shield back to her, but one of the outer blades on each end separated and foiled her attempt again.

With the blades coming closer she knew she was out of options. She brought her hands to her chest and pushed out with her semblance sending everything away. As the wave hit her opponent, she watched the scene with a morbid sense of confusion. The girl herself also froze as her own wires started wrapping around her. She quickly realized something was wrong when the girl didn't even react, and likely wouldn't, in time to save herself. Before the wires around the girl tightened any further both students and their weapons were surrounded in a familiar purple glow. Pyrrha looked to the right as much as she could towards the scowling professor holding everything in place.

With the smallest wave of her riding crop the swords still suspended in the air were lowered to the ground. Unfortunately, one of the wires around Penny's left arm was much tighter than it appeared, and the additional tension caused the wire to cut through the android.

Glynda immediately realized her mistake and rushed over to check the girl only to pause in confusion when the girl didn't react and there was no blood coming from the wound.

The crowd on the other hand was shouting, whether it be in fear or outrage depended on the individual. Then the lights in the arena dimmed and a red glow came over all the screens in the arena. In the center of the screen sat a black queen piece.

"I never originally believed it, but it would seem that magnetic forces are able to affect computer systems. You'll have to give Ms. Polendina a moment to… reboot." A voice said over the system. "Now I'm left to question what exactly we've seen here tonight. This ultimately wasn't a tragedy. It wasn't an accident." 'It totally was.' "What we've witnessed tonight is what happens when we give our trust, our children, to people who claim to protect us. The headmasters of huntsmen academies have nearly uncheckable power and sway over the kingdoms they reside in. One of these men had the audacity to combine that with his kingdom's military as well. Speaking of the good general, what was the purpose of the creation of a robot child? The makings of a synthetic army? If so, why choose the form of an innocent girl? I don't believe the Grimm can tell the difference, so what is the true nature of this creation?" She paused letting the crowd stew for a moment.

"We can't question one headmaster without the other, can we? What exactly is Beacon teaching their students? Well I suppose part of that problem lies in their choice of faculty. The girl from earlier is the prodigious talent trained by an infamous criminal who has taken up residency on the very campus beneath us. As shown in previous matches she is completely capable of ending matches safely, so why did her opponent this time get dismembered? Boredom? Was it personal? I think it is safe to say she was in complete control of that match, so what changed? And the other star talent from the school almost tearing apart her opponent with their own weapons. Were it not for the timely interference from the Headmistress herself then we'd be seeing more than a simple repeat of the last match. That brings us to the 'why' of it all. Was this planned on Ozpin's part as revenge for the Atlesian invasion force the general brought with him under guise of protection? Or was this perhaps the general's reason for coming at all, to observe his pet project in action. Blending in and fighting with and against the future 'huntsmen and huntresses' of tomorrow. Truthfully, I don't know who is right and who is wrong. As someone hailing from Mistral, I can say the situation there is equally… unsatisfactory. Our unsteady peace has been risked with no word of explanation from either party. If this military force is truly here for defense, then what exactly are we fighting? And can Atlas truly afford to be missing this chunk of the army?" She paused for another moment, her smile falling slightly. "When the chips are down and the cards all fall… where will you be, and who do you think you can trust?" She asked before cutting the connection. In her head Cinder was blank for a moment. 'It worked… the plan came together, in a slightly less impactful way, but came together nonetheless.' Looking around for a moment to make sure no one else was around she let out a small 'whoop'. 'It is odd being alone for the first time in so long.' She thought as she sent texts to Adam and Neo.

Back at the Arena

The screen returned to its normal green hue for a few moments before the alarm system started blaring.

Emergency: Grimm contact imminent. Please evacuate in an orderly fashion.

Emergency: Grimm contact imminent. Please evacuate in an orderly fashion.

Emergency: Grimm contact imminent. Please evacuate in an orderly fashion.

By the end of the third repetition a large nevermore landed on the forcefield on top of the arena, and from that point the shock of everything wore off and chaos ensued.

With Ruby

"I may not like her, but the speech was pretty good." Ruby muttered to herself before hearing the 'ding' of a scroll. 'Well I guess things worked out in the end.' She thought when she saw Cinder's latest message. "Drop me by my room before you go up to the ship?" She asked her girlfriend.

Neo just held out a hand. Grabbing it they disappeared from Kyle's room in a flash of white. When she opened her eyes, she found the familiar setting of her team's dorm room. She noticed Neo's semblance flash from the corner of her eye as she looked for her scroll. 'That's one part down, so now to my team. Weiss is with Melanie and Miltia somewhere, and last I heard Blake and Yang were headed for the city.'

Once she found her scroll, she took a moment to look out the window of the room. Off in the distance she saw ships landing near or around Beacon's landing ports. Taking her baby out and looking into the scope she saw the familiar colors of White Fang mooks getting out. 'Right on time.' She thought with a grin.

She quickly opened the team group chat, rarely used as it was, and sent a call to all the others. It didn't take more than two seconds before she heard Yang's furious yelling.

"Ruby! Where are you!?"

When she saw that everyone had connected, she answered. "I'm in the dorm right now. For anyone not already up to date we have Grimm and White Fang running amok around the academy. The Grimm are also probably terrorizing people in the city, but the Atlas security should be able to handle that." 'Key word being should.' "Where are each of you right now?"

"I just finished helping the twins get to safety. I'm around the dorm area now." Weiss answered quickly.

"Yang and I are in the city. We were looking for you, but it seems we have bigger things to worry about at the moment." Blake said. "Orders?"

She knew she liked Blake for a reason, while usually overbearing or aggravating, her vendetta against the White Fang would always overrule anything the young Rose may've done, and just the mention of her old group had her complete attention.

"I will be here defending the school or head up to the arena where the Grimm concentration is the highest. You all have choices. Either help in the city in whatever way possible, come back to the school and fall in line, or try your luck up at the coliseum."

"Wait right there for another thirty seconds and I will be with you. Now is not the time to go gallivanting off on your own." Weiss said leaving little room to argue. "We can stick with our partners for the time being. Whatever action you take, do not go off alone, while they haven't been the biggest issue in recent times the White Fang alone are dangerous. Add in Grimm and there are no second chances."

"Wow… I'm surprised you were passed up for the leader position Weissy." Ruby drawled before hearing the door slam open. Turning around with wide eyes she found a furious heiress glaring at her.

"Do Not call me that." She said before hanging up. Once Ruby did the same her glare softened. "If you must call me by a nickname of some sort do it when there aren't others around. The last thing I need is Yang thinking she has some sort of free pass."

"Yes mam!" Ruby gave a mock salute before walking to the door. "Melanie and Miltia didn't want to join us?"

"Neither of them has had huntsmen training, so up against the Grimm they'd be guessing at best. As far as the White Fang go, since they work for a guy named Junior, who is a neutral party in the underground, they can't directly get involved. Politics and whatnot." She said with an annoyed sigh.

"Politics always seem to ruin everything don't they?" Ruby asked shaking her head before shrugging. "I'm good to fight whatever, so what do you want to do? Head up to Amity, defend the school, head to the city, or flee for our lives?" She finished cheerfully

Weiss merely rolled her eyes. "In case of a Grimm attack the standard procedure for Amity is to evacuate everyone, so going up there would be a waste of time. The best use of our abilities would be to defend the school."

"Grimm, Fang, or both?"

Weiss fell thoughtfully silent as they walked through the dorm halls. "Well as much as I've tried to curb it for Blake's sake, I still hate the White Fang with a passion, but the Grimm are a problem as well." She thought aloud.

"How about this, unless something else comes up we just go through every obstacle in our path. Whatever we choose you were right earlier. You're fully capable of handling yourself, but I'm not leaving you alone with all the White Fang out there."

"Thanks." Weiss offered with a small smile. "I suppose that plan of action works. What is your teacher doing in all of this? I thought you'd be with him or Neo at the very least."

Ruby grimaced at that. "Well that might be one of those 'something else's' I just referred to." She said getting a questioning look from her partner.

"You know who Neo is, and who she works for. Once he's out you know Torchwick won't just sit still in all this chaos."

The heiress stared at her partner in silence for a long minute before pinching the bridge of her nose. "Ruby. Am I correct in assuming you knew this was coming?"

Ruby awkwardly scratched the back of her head. "Heh heh… maybe?" At Weiss's stern look she caved. "Yes, I knew it would happen."

"And you didn't think to tell me beforehand?! If I had some warning, I might've at least been able to use this situation to our advantage."

"Uh… what?" Ruby asked cocking her head to the side. She knew Weiss probably wouldn't be happy about this whole mess, but this wasn't exactly where she saw this argument going.

They both stopped their walking and looked at each other. "Ruby you know I'm here to become a huntress, and while that's been my goal for the past few years, I've been raised with the strict purpose of taking over a multibillion-lien company. Just because I'm following a new path doesn't mean I've suddenly forgotten what else I've been taught. I'm not supporting any of this, but whoever was talking earlier brought up some very good points. Some people have access to much more information than the rest of us do, and I am fairly certain you, Neo, and your teacher know far more than you really should. For whatever reason you and certainly the other two at least, knew this was happening and you let it go. Why? I haven't the foggiest idea, but if something like this is going to be happening, I want to know beforehand." She said giving her partner a stern look.

"You're… taking this much better than I had imagined you would." Ruby admitted. If she were honest with herself, she should've expected it. Weiss was never easy to predict for one reason or another, hell that's probably one of the reasons they got along so well! 'At the end of the day though Weiss prefers logic over most other methods of thinking, so give her a reason and she'll make do. I guess anyways.'

"Whenever a situation arises assess, address, and use. I hate my father almost more than the White Fang, but I've grown up around him and I certainly understand his methods, even if I don't support most of them." She muttered the last part. "Anyways as I was saying, we're assessing the situation now, next we need to address the situation itself and see if we can make use of it. Whether it be now or in the future."

Ruby nodded to show she was following along. "How do we make use of it?"

"Well you know what's supposed to happen right?"

"Part of it, yes." She nodded again.

"Well what's the plan with Torchwick?"

Looking around the empty corridors Ruby couldn't help but think this was a terrible place to be discussing this.

"From what I know Neo will get onto the ship, take most everyone aboard out and free Roman. He's got some virus thing that'll hijack the Atlas drones and mechs and stuff."

"One virus can do all of that?" Weiss asked in slight surprise.

"That's what I'm told." Ruby offered with a shrug. "The plan is to show footage of Atlas robots attacking people before cutting down the CCT."

"Whoever planned this was very thorough." The Schnee mused while thinking to herself. 'Assuming I get out of this situation then I may be able to find out more about our apparent lack of strong cyber security. One virus causing this much damage is definitely a strong pushing point.'

Ruby just waited prepared for anything. She didn't want to have to chase her partner down if she ran off and stopped things before they could really begin, but she knew it was a definite possibility. She was taking a Huge risk telling Weiss this much, but she wanted to truly trust her friend, so this was another test as it were. 'First was Neo and I letting her know I have relations with the "bad guys". Now I'm letting her know I may have helped or been prepared for this but didn't alert any authorities. Hopefully, it could get to the point that I can tell her about the reaper-informant thing, but it's too early to really tell right now.' She thought to herself.

"Alright then, we've spent enough time chatting about this." Weiss said turning. Before she could walk away Ruby grabbed her arm.

"That's it?"

"I'm not going to be informing anybody if that's what you're worried about." Weiss waved her off. "I believe you're doing whatever it is you're doing for a reason. We discussed this earlier, you've got your reasons like I have mine, and while I want to become a huntress… I want to be sure whatever I choose to do is right, not only for myself, but for my loved ones as well. I can't in good conscience turn you in as that'd hurt you and I both. Will I come to regret that? Possibly. Is your insanity spreading to myself? It would seem so. Would I have done this for anyone else? Absolutely not. You're special to me Ruby Rose and as I said earlier, I trust you. Keep things under wraps and me in the loop when necessary and we'll be fine. Assuming you don't start doing anything extremely outlandish, I will stand by you. But! Break my trust and that'll be that. I don't deal in second chances often, so you shouldn't expect one." She finished sternly.

Ruby just looked at the girl in front of her in silent awe. "I had just told myself to expect the unexpected with you, but you continue to surprise me." She said quietly before hugging the girl for the second time that day. "There's a lot I want to tell you, but now isn't the time or the place." She whispered. "I'll admit one thing now though." She straightened back up looking to her cape with a fond smile. "I wanted to become a huntress ever since I was a little girl, but as I got older and met Kyle, and Neo, and others I think I started to realize I'm not exactly doing this to become a huntress and help people, not anymore at least. I've wanted to do this because I thought it'd make me feel closer to my mom. I don't know why I'm admitting that now, but it feels good to say it out loud for once."

Weiss just offered a small smile and thought briefly of her own mother. "Let's go you dunce. When shit really hits the fan we can go stop Torchwick and your girlfriend. You have a cover to keep, and I need to keep an eye on my troublesome partner."

Ruby's eyes widened at that. "Did Weiss Schnee just curse like us common folk? What is the world coming to?" She asked dramatically.

"From the looks of it the world is falling apart around us. I believe that counts as a pass." The heiress said regally as the two walked off.

"Whatever you say Weissy."

A/N: Well now. It seems I've done it again. This is not where this chapter was supposed to end, but once it reached this length I thought it a good stopping point.

Warning: This next part of the Author's Note is lengthy because I kind of just spilled my thought process over a few things here. You can skip straight to the reviews if you really want to.

Aside from that hello everyone long time no see. Looking at the last update it really has been a while, and I know you're all probably thinking 'quarantine = free time' but hey sometimes things don't work out, and believe it or not I'm rather busy. Excuses aside it has been far too long since I've written anything for this, and part of the reason is I wasn't really sure what to do with these last few chapters. It's happened before and I've addressed it before, but I'm not what you would call a planner. I have a start and a destination. Even I don't know how we'll get there, at least in super specific terms, so as many have seen sometimes there are contradictions or plot holes in the story. It usually works out one way or the other or I contemplate rewriting a chapter or two to fix things. One set of reviews recently had a lot of questions about this kinda stuff, so I'll explain that in the review part.

I'm getting off track. I wasn't sure where to go with this because someone very helpfully mentioned they'd be curious how Cinder's plan will work without Emerald and her semblance. In thinking of an answer out of the hole I dug for myself I thought about a lot of different things. One of them being Cinder really got lucky in canon didn't she? There were so many things that could've gone wrong with the canon plan, and apparently this fic has been exploring a few of them. Mercury not around? Sub in someone else. She couldn't do it herself, and she probably didn't trust Neo and Ruby to follow through if they fought, so Emerald it was. One thing leads to another and I couldn't think of anything to wake Emerald up to be useful short of someone attempting to push their own aura into her, and that's a whole can of worms I was not gonna open, so I continued on my journey.

What I eventually started wondering about is that old idea that magnets can mess up computers. I'll say this now, I spent much more time researching stuff for this chapter than any other I've ever written. Looking at volume seven and Pietro's explanation on Penny's return he mentioned they recovered her core, and that got me to thinking 'She is almost entirely, if not entirely, mechanical, and the worry about magnets on computers concerns the hard drive. It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine Penny has an internal hard drive of some sort. If a magnetic force stronger than the ones found inside a computer itself comes into and stays in contact with the computer, for a time, then it could theoretically mess up internal systems of the machine. I admit I'm probably buffing Pyrrha's semblance in this instance, but killing off Penny is made a lot more difficult when the illusionist is gone, part of Pyrrha's canon worries were assuaged, and Glynda is on scene to make sure nothing else happens, so I went a different route. Penny didn't need to die in order to question the true purpose of the girl's creation. Was the overall impact lessened? Most definitely, but I feel like this works for the most part.

That brings me to something else you guys probably noticed. Quite a bit of this chapter was from Cinder's viewpoint because she was the one I wanted to focus on. Maybe I'm trying to turn her into more of a character than plot device, I don't know, but I went with my gut on it. Speaking of Cinder how was her speech? Honestly after listening to her original speech again I gotta say canon speech was pretty great, and probably hit a lot harder than this one.

Review time I suppose.

Rockman: Your question is what sparked the whole drivel above, so thank you for that. And I'm being serious. Sometimes when writing I'm not thinking big picture, so when there's a problem like this it's good to question or at least ponder it aloud.

Real quick on the Pyrrha Penny match itself I know it wasn't anything spectacular like canon, so spare me on that detail. I'll stand by it til the day I stop writing, I'm no good at fight scenes. Dialogue between characters is my biggest thing even if I fail at that at times as well.

Videocrazy: Your review cemented the problem Rocky mentioned, so that was helpful. As for a plan B it looks like this time she got lucky. For plot convenience admittedly, but lucky nonetheless.

A couple comments on old chapter... hmm hmm Next one is a long one.

Ah! Rhyn3: As soon as I saw the first review I knew just about each chapter you'd review expanding on the initial one. There are plenty of plot holes in this story because as I mentioned in the drivel above I am not a big planner. I have a starting point and an ending point. I also mentioned earlier I'm not always focused on the big picture, so things happen. The scroll call from the first review is simple. I wasn't exactly sold on the telepathy just yet (or I just hadn't thought of it yet, I don't remember) so I went with a scroll call. Something to fix or adjust if I decide to go back and rewrite a few chapters? Sure. The next one actually was a little different. The way I wrote it back then was that the informant gets the contracts and the reaper completes them. Reaper doesn't create contracts just completes them. As far as the mask goes that part was confusing to reread for myself too. The mask is more of a fail safe than anything. Thinking back on it the duo would die either way either according to the mask's redirection or the whole killing rule on the reaper's part. The informant can kill who he wants though, so that's another idea around it I suppose if they're able to kill the person in question. Penny and Salem are special cases that the character probably didn't know about. Penny definitely, and Salem it was never said one way or the other. Yes, Glynda is adorable. Crack ideas are usually pretty entertaining I'll admit. Next, one of the big ones and this is directly related to the not being focused on the big picture thing. The age of Kyle and to a lesser extent the rest of their little group, Roman, Sienna, and Vernal. I might be wrong, but I believe I mentioned their age in this fic once, and that one time my only thoughts were on making a little joke at Junior's expense when they first went to his club. As they are now I think quite a few things would make more sense if that little group mentioned above was about ten years older, and the only possible issue I can think of for that concerns Vernal. Aside from that if I'm not really forgetting anything that'd make the story on that end a bit smoother at the very least. Wait I also mentioned it with the first meeting with Ozpin I believe, so adjusting a few lines from there would fix that as well. Again on the age thing I think adding ten or so years to their age would fix that, but maybe I'm wrong and overlooking something. On the other part of that review I like songs in fics as well, but only to a certain extent. When people make a title sequence type thing for every chapter or when there is a song in every chapter I usually drop whatever it is, but hey that's personal preference. Chapter 1 narration inconsistency. Yeah at some point I'll probably go back over a few of those first chapters and dismantle a majority of what I wrote back then for one reason or another. Simply put I hadn't originally ever planned on Kyle having met Summer or Ruby, but as the story continued that was changed, and that led to the inconsistencies you mentioned. I'll admit after the first few I knew what these reviews would entail and I couldn't immediately read them because, not gonna lie, I was embarrassed, especially looking back when the story is nearing its end.

Well that was a long one. I'm not sure what one guest meant by Reach reference, but maybe I'll clue in at some point. Anyways there you have it Chapter 30. The A/N is probably half as long as the chapter itself, but some things needed to be addressed and there they are.

Like always Follow, Favorite, Review, and whatever else you all do.

~Laz out.

P.S. The plan is to release this and the new updates to my other stories in rather quick succession. Will it work out? We'll find out won't we.