CHAPTER 12:

DISCUSSIONS AND DEMENTIA

"D'you think it's wise letting Jimmy's little helpers know about this stuff, Oz?" Qrow asked as he sat opposite Ozpin in the headmaster's office, Glynda watching disapprovingly as Qrow toyed with the hipflask in his hands.

"James trusts them, Qrow. I told you about Talon's exploits, both against the White Fang and the SDC," Ozpin said. "James trusts them enough to tell them about both Amber and Salem. And without Neo's undercover work working under Roman Torchwick, we may not have gotten the extra leads."

"I still can't get over the fact that Jimmy let those kids become part of a special ops wing of Atlas. Still, I saw that Penny girl doing pretty well, both dealing with those White Fang idiots and protecting the security personnel. Hell, I didn't need to do much beyond finishing the fight. And you sent me that footage from their initiation. I'm impressed. But you know how I feel about Jimmy."

"Indeed. But given Amber's incapacitation, Jimmy felt that Talon's presence may deter her attackers from making another attempt. Instead of sending masses of military materiel, with all the fear and unease it could cause, he has sent us people he trusts, and people he thinks I can."

"Okay, I get that. Jimmy's actually thinking of preventing the Grimm from getting too frisky. Colour me impressed, he's not usually that restrained. But I'm worried, Oz. Worried that you may be trusting them too readily. Worried that they're too close to my nieces. Especially if this Neo girl's loyalties are no longer to Atlas or to us. Don't get me wrong, I'd sooner trust them over Jimmy, but…"

"I have to say, I do agree with your assessment," Glynda said. "Professor Ozpin, what if you're wrong?"

"Then I have invited disaster upon us all. But trust and unity is the greatest weapon against Salem and the Grimm," Ozpin said. "If James trusted them enough to tell them about Salem, then I do. And I should point out that, if my reading of the situation is correct, that Neo's loyalties are not to Atlas, or to us, or to Roman for that matter. It is to Harry Potter, personally. She wouldn't betray him, or her friends. And I am sure Harry's loyalties are not in question. He'd be more likely to be suspicious of me, but he'd focus on Salem. And he is also the sort of person, James told me, that I need to be frank with. He was lied to by his relatives about his parents' character and the manner of their death. Not to mention his powers."

"Yeah, this magic thing. Seriously, he has magic? Like, Maiden power?" Qrow asked.

"Not exactly. On his world, mages are born. Their power is weaker and less controllable than that of the Maidens, more prone to fluctuating with emotion and requiring a focus, but considerably more versatile. There used to be mages like that on Remnant, before Salem put paid to them. Aside from the Maidens, the closest we have to such abilities in modern times include both Semblances and Dust manipulation. By sending more mages to us, James is showing us more trust. The key question is, how to deal with any problems from the other kingdoms. Qrow, did you manage to find out anything about Leonardo's affairs?"

"Not much," Qrow admitted. "It's not like I could rock up to him and ask whether he's working for Salem. I did visit him to say hello, make some small talk, and left. He's nervous. I mean, he's always skittish, but…he's even more on edge than usual. I spoke to a couple of the students there, and, well, I heard something that was a little disturbing from one of them. Someone matching Hazel Rainart's description has visited Haven a couple of times."

"…Oh dear," Ozpin said, flinching at the memory of one of the most powerful fighters in the world, one who had a grudge against Ozpin thanks to his sister Gretchen dying in the field as a Huntress. During a training mission, no less. He'd heard rumours that Hazel had joined some mysterious, powerful backer, whom Ozpin thought to be Salem. "And Dr Watts?"

"They didn't mention him, and I didn't probe about it, in case any of it got back to Lionheart. As for Cinder, I've tried digging around for any information. There's nothing, beyond identity documents that could have been faked by a decent hacker. And Watts, as you know, is not just a disgraced biologist. He's an excellent software engineer and hacker."

"He learned from Dr Merlot(1)," Ozpin remarked. "In any case, I still need you outside of the Vale. You're too well known as my operative, and if Cinder and her followers are here, they may get nervous about you sniffing around. I have a few more missions for you, but there's a key one. Did you manage to get in touch with Raven?"

"Yeah. It went better than expected. She's still her usual self, but I told her what you told me: to keep from Salem anything she could use. She's agreed. That's probably the only thing we agree upon nowadays. Incidentally, she noticed Jimmy's kids. Apparently she was watching Yang when she went into Junior's club and met Talon."

"And she was using that chatroom earlier today under Nevermore," Ozpin observed. "Subtle. Did you manage to get anything out of her regarding the Spring Maiden?"

"Nothing verbal, but she's hiding something, I can tell. Actually, I'm glad Harry told Yang about Raven. That was a pretty fraught topic between Yang, Taiyang and I. I doubt it's stopped Yang from looking altogether, but she's at least thinking about it."

Ozpin nodded. "Good. While it's a pity that Raven won't cooperate with us beyond opposing Salem for her own reasons, I can understand her reluctance to work with me. It's her insistence on attacking those villages and leaving them easy prey to the Grimm I despise. But onto a different topic. James has revealed, thanks to the three adult mages who came to Remnant, that there is a magical ability that might be able to solve the Amber issue."

"What, like some sort of magical healing?" Qrow asked.

"Well, I intend to try that first," Ozpin said. "Professor Lupin and Mr Lovegood are both healers to some degree. But if that fails…I intend for them to use something called Legilimency."

"Legili-what now?"

Glynda cleared her throat. "Crudely put, it's a form of magical mind reading. Mr Lovegood is apparently a decent Legilimens. Professor Lupin is more of a dabbler, and only learned it because it was paired with Occlumency."

Ozpin nodded. "My reasoning is that someone entering Amber's mind may be able to restore it, and help her recover from her coma. Many Legilimens are also studiers of Occlumency, a form of mental protection as well as organising the mind. If the Legilimens is unable to restore Amber's mind enough that we can take her off life support…then maybe we can engineer things so that the remaining half of the Fall Maiden's power does not go to Cinder, that Amber's thoughts are of someone else, one of the candidates I have in mind. Also, we still don't know enough about Cinder and her two followers' abilities, which allowed them to subdue her. Legilimency may allow us to access her memories of the incident."

"All good points, even if I'm still uneasy about you trusting a bunch of strangers like this," Qrow said.

"They don't get much stranger than the Lovegoods, believe me…" Glynda muttered.

The most common thought going through most of the minds of Teams RWBY, JNPR, and HPIN was, Oh dear merciless Oum, there are TWO of them. Well, save for a few.

Penny Pollendina's mind was currently rebooting after crashing from the sheer insanity. Eccentric though she was, her processors were unable to process the sheer weirdness these two were producing just by close proximity. Meanwhile, the usually stoic Lie Ren was shooting nervous glances at the sky, looking for any signs that reality was collapsing in on itself, or that horrors from beyond known existence even the Grimm were afraid of were reaching through cracks in time and space to lay waste to Remnant. And had anyone known at that time that, deep in her dark fortress, Salem felt a faint thrill of apocalyptic uncertainty at a sense of chaos and insanity about to be unleashed, well, they would have believed it.

"…And that is how Nargles are born," Luna Lovegood said, the blonde, dotty-looking blonde the very picture of serenity, but not sanity.

Nora Valkyrie nodded enthusiastically. "It all makes so much SENSE! I've had so many things disappear, and I thought they were falling through cracks in the space-time continuum like all VWORP! VWORP(2)! Do you think these Nargles are dimension-jumping Grimm?"

"It's a theory that merits further investigation. As is your idea for pancakes fused with pudding," Luna decided.

"Is she always like this?!" Weiss hissed at Blake. Her teammate nodded resignedly, and Weiss put her face in her hands with a moan of despair.

"She has too many Wrackspurts," Luna mused. "So does Penny. Are you all right Penny?"

"Warning: Divide by Cucumber Error. Please reinstall universe and reboot. MELON MELON MELON(3)!"

"She's fine," Luna said, as Ruby, trying to take her mind off the insanity, was gently poking a twitching Penny. "Ruby, if you want to purge the Wrackspurts from Penny, they're of a variety that can be purged by osculation."

"Uhh, wha?" Ruby asked coherently.

"Lip to lip contact," Luna explained patiently.

Ruby turned crimson with embarrassment. "Is she just messing with us?" Yang asked.

"You never actually know with Luna," Harry muttered.

Ruby, a little uncertain, nonetheless gently pressed her lips to Penny's own. The response was immediate. Penny convulsed briefly, and then said, "Sal-u-tations! Imprinting protocol activated! Designated master: Ruby Rose! How may I serve you?"

"UHH, WHAT?!" Ruby yelped.

"She doesn't have an imprinting protocol. Penny, stop joking around," Ilia groaned.

The gynoid pouted. "I've just been through a traumatising experience. Humour is one of the better treatments for dealing with trauma, so I have been told."

"Well, she's definitely a person," Jaune said. "I mean, she has a sense of humour. You can't be a person without a sense of humour."

"You haven't met Winter Schnee yet," Harry said. "Weiss here is a barrel of laughs compared to her."

"Hey! My sister has a very refined sense of humour!" Weiss retorted.

"Well, I guess if anyone knows, it'd be you or her boss. I've never seen it myself."

The drawling, slurred voice came from behind them, and they found Qrow Branwen walking up to them. "Uncle Qrow!" Ruby yelped.

"Hey, kids," Qrow said.

Qrow had something of a discussion with his nieces, with JNPR deciding to leave for the moment, Luna chatting merrily with Nora, and Weiss deciding to go elsewhere. Eventually, Qrow indicated for Team HPIN and Blake to come with him.

After they were a little way away from prying ears, Qrow muttered, "Why does it come to this shit? I thought it was bad when we were at Beacon. But between what happened to Amber and what we heard about people we thought were friends…oi, Harry. Do you trust Neo?"

"She is my sister. I trust her with my life."

Qrow emitted a bitter bark of laughter. "I felt the same way, once, about my sister. That didn't end well. We're barely on speaking terms."

"Yeah, but Qrow…you don't know what it was like. When I was eight, I was shoved into a cave by that fat bastard of a cousin of mine. And that was only the culmination of what my so-called loving relatives did to me. When I arrived on Remnant, I was promptly thrown into an orphanage, where I met Neo. The kids treated her like crap, Qrow. But I…I tried to be kind to her. I found her hair and eyes cool. They began targeting me as well. A few months after I arrived, we robbed the orphanage and escaped. We stowed away on a ship to Menagerie. Neo was the first person I ever trusted in my life. And vice versa. You say how you can't trust us personally? Rusty trusts you, in his own way. Oh, he despises your drunkenness and opinionated nature and your lack of decorum, but he still thinks of you as a skilled man, as devoted to stopping Salem as he is. And as we are."

"Wow. Didn't think Jimmy thought of me that highly. But you know what the stakes are here, then?"

"Being dominated, if not outright annihilated, by the Queen Bitch of the Grimm?" Ilia asked. "A woman, a thing, who delights in causing suffering and misery? Who would probably smile at the death of my parents, at the destruction White Fang and the SDC cause? Even if we can't put her down for good, we're going to make sure she stays down for a long time."

Neo then typed something into her Scroll, and then showed it to Qrow. And if she bleeds, she can die. Science fact. Apropos of nothing, if I make you bleed, what proof would your blood be? 100 proof? 200? You could bottle it up and called it Crow Blood. I can see the ads now: Crow Blood! Guaranteed to wipe out 99.99% of brain cells and bacteria!

"For a mute, you're a smartass," Qrow said.

That is but one of many parts of me that I am proud of, including my legs, my brain, the ability to shift my appearance at will, and my right hand. You'll never find a finer ice cream spoon-grasping appendage anywhere else. Plus, it holds my weapon, it allows me to type annoying messages to fray the sanity of mere mortals into my Scroll, and it allows me to speak sign language. I usually only need one finger for that, though.

"No prizes for guessing which one." Qrow sighed. "Well, if you really are on the level, if Oz and Jimmy can trust you, can I ask you something? Especially you, Blake. Yang and Ruby…they don't know what's coming, and hopefully, they'll never have to. But protect them anyway."

"I'm their teammate," Blake said. "That is what I'm supposed to do. That is what I will do. That is what we all will do."

Ilia, Neo, Penny and Harry all nodded. "We're not here for the sake of Atlas, no matter what Rusty thinks, or Ozpin or Beacon. We're here for the sake of Remnant," Harry said solemnly. Then, after a moment, he shrugged, and said, "Ozpin's more fun to work with than Rusty anyway."

Qrow couldn't help but laugh. "Okay. Just remember what I said. Now…I want to hear any embarrassing anecdotes you may have about Jimmy or his pet ice queen. Care to share? Only, sharing is caring, I'm told."

Harry and the others got a vicious smirk on their features. Oh, where to begin?

CHAPTER 12 ANNOTATIONS:

Where indeed?

This'll probably be the last chapter for a while. My inspiration has run a little dry. We'll probably skip ahead either to the events of Forever Fall, or The Stray for the next one. Still, we had some Luna and Nora madness, and maybe a hint of Nuts and Dolts?

Speaking of Nuts and Dolts: a quick EDIT has been made to give a message. I have just posted a challenge (NOT a full fic: this is for someone else to take up) on the forums of DZ2 and whitetigerwolf based loosely on a concept from The Fifth Maiden by Inthretis, as well as what I used for Neopolitan and the Goblet of Fire. It's called Scattered Pennys.

Review-answering time! Before we start, the guest who posted a long list of possible forum posters? They got virtually all of them right. For the ones that were unclear, FUWhiteFang was the only one I didn't have a clear canon character in mind for, though I had this odd notion after the fact it might be Whitley Schnee letting his hair down on the internet. Ashes2Ashes was Cinder, BlizzardBeauty was Weiss, Nevermore was Raven, and yes, MissAnthropic WAS Salem! Said guest drew a comparison to how the Simurgh has a PHO account in the Worm fanfic Taylor Varga, and while that wasn't consciously in mind when I did that, it was probably an unconscious reference. Incidentally, for any Worm fans, I recommend Taylor Varga. It's funny, awesome, and heartwarming in equal measure, and yes, it IS a Worm fanfic that manages to be all of those things.

VentXekart: Adam is wholly unaware of Ilia's love for Blake, but he still detests her, given that she is a Faunus working for the Atlesian military. To him, that is treachery of one of the darkest forms. If he knew of Blake's relationship with Ilia, he'd make sure to make Blake watch as he rapes and tortures Ilia.

Harmonious Arkos Sloth: And not just as the Hulk: Yang was channelling a Dalek for a moment there (and if Grimm are attracted to negative emotions like hate, how long would a Dalek last on Remnant? My guess is, a surprisingly long time, but it'd be exterminating Grimm the whole time). And Harry does take them both on dates, both separately and together, though Blake is the focus of the threeway rather than Harry. They're all good friends anyway, and protective of one another.

1. AKA the villain of RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Given Merlot's obsession with the Grimm, and Watts' own morbid fascination with at least one, it's not a stretch to infer a connection.

2. Nora is using the onomatopoeia used for the TARDIS materialising or dematerialising in comics based on Doctor Who.

3. Penny is quoting error messages Hex uses in the Discworld novels. Hex, if you don't know, is a magically-created computer.