Author's Notes: Hey there! I'm Friend, and this is Eclipse, the third installment of the IWNS series. If you're new here, welcome! You can try reading this story starting from here, but there's a lot of shit going on, especially right now. IWNS is a rewrite/re-imagination of the RWBY universe, starting with the story of team STRQ, before eventually turning over primarily to the girls. Eclipse is largely from Raven's POV, as she and the rest of STRQ return to Beacon for their second year; there are a few flashbacks and forwards, and several chapters with other character's perspectives, including this one. If you're a veteran, welcome back, and thanks for carrying on with me. lol. So without much more ado, let's get into it.

Music Choices: Earthbound by The Accidentals, Saw Lightning by Beck

Eclipse

Chapter 1

Ozone

It was going to rain. Ruby could smell it coming, from miles away. On Patch, rain always brought out the greatest smells. Trees, flowers, fresh soil, Dad's herb garden: the rain brought out the land's best attributes. She'd always loved that.

Here in the Kingdom, though, all she could detect was asphalt and oil; and if she was really lucky, the trees from Forever Fall forest. That and the crackly, hair raising taste of ozone. It only rarely stormed, like, storm stormed, in Patch, save during the spring. At Beacon, however, every rainfall was accompanied by lightning, no matter how brief.

Ruby sat cross-legged on one of the dorm roofs, watching the horizon turn green. The Kingdom of Vale stood out against the backdrop, a glittering metropolis, made to look toy sized by the distance. Sometimes she liked to pinch her fingers over the images of the grand skyscrapers, pretending she could pick them up. Today, she sat still, the feeling of her cloak tugging at her shoulders; she wasn't in the mood for her own childish games.

Thunder. Ruby looked up, watching the clouds spread overhead, picking out the colors. Grey, green, indigo, steely blue; no white. Ruby knew she should go back inside, but frankly, she needed to be away from everyone right now. So instead, she waited.

She glanced down at the silver necklace in her hands, turning the pendent over, and over. She'd had it for most of her life; as long as she could really remember, in fact. Her mother, Summer, had apparently given it to her. It was on the day that Yang started to really believe in ghosts, insisting that Summer's spirit had gifted Ruby with it.

Before that day, Yang and Dad had said that Ruby used to talk to 'people' in the mirrors; until the necklace, they had thought it was all in her head. Afterwards, they always took her seriously. It was a shame, because Ruby couldn't remember any of this at all. She knew she had always liked mirrors, though. They made her feel less alone.

Now, it seemed that Summer's ghost had gifted them with something else. That something else was much, much darker than a pretty necklace; and it wasn't even originally intended for them at all. Ruby could feel its burden weighing on her soul like an anchor, dragging her along the bottom of a crushing sea.

A cool, wet breeze drifted over the rooftops, tossing her short locks. Ruby could see the rain now, in the distance, moving over the buildings and sparse trees. She exhaled through her nose, feeling the weight a little less.

When she had been little, she was actually very afraid of storms, considering their rarity on Patch and their severe noise during the spring. She remembered thinking there was something living about them, sentient even. A big, dark predator, crouching overhead. She used to hide under her bed, absolutely certain that something large and hungry was circling above her and the entire land. That is, until she started to play with them.

One day, for whatever reason, she had gone outside instead of hiding under her bed; and she had seen the sheets of rain, coming in the distance, and decided to race it. It was a game like those cute little birds at the beach liked to play, chasing the ocean waves back and then running desperately from them as they gave pursuit.

Ruby had wound up soaking and giggling, dodging between the trees, a red blur as the raindrops tried to catch her; the thunder would rumble, lightning would flash, and Ruby had run madly with the wind and leaves, laughing wildly all the while.

After that, she wasn't afraid of storms, and they became some of her favorite animals. Storms weren't evil monsters; they were just big, and powerful, things that created and healed as much as they destroyed. The world needed storms.

Yet today, Ruby didn't feel like chasing the rain. A part of her was tempted to sit there and get completely drenched, just to feel cold and wet; and not this hole in her chest, that brimmed with ice and pain.

And anger...

More thunder. A familiar scent, enhanced by the humidity, caught her attention; something flowery mixed with incense, orchids and patchouli. Ruby couldn't hear her teammate approach her, because Blake's ninja skills were always on autopilot unless she thought about it. Yet, Blake couldn't mask her scent without trying.

Blake sidled up next to her, hesitating when she didn't turn, before sitting down. Their elbows were touching. Any other day that might have made Ruby a little shy, a little giddy; but right now, she just appreciated the gesture.

"You like thunderstorms, too?" Blake asked her after a moment.

Ruby nodded, pulling her not very normal knees under her chin. Blake watched her from the corner of pretty amber eyes.

"If we go under that overhang, we can watch it, you know? Without getting totally soaked."

Ruby's mouth twitched, but it didn't meet her eyes. Blake didn't move, even as the rain approached them, coming up the sidewalk towards the dorms. Finally, Ruby climbed to her feet, pulling Blake up with her. They crept under the overhang, right in the nick of time.

Thunder boomed heartily, shaking the windows. Ruby watched the lightning dancing miles above her and wondered if she would ever be able to move so quickly. She doubted it.

The teammates didn't speak for a long time. They simply huddled under their shelter as the storm embraced Beacon, blocking out the view of Vale, the smell of asphalt, the terror eating at her rib-cage. Rain poured off the overhang's tiles, creating a small waterfall around them. Ruby closed her eyes, sighing in relief. She felt safe, hidden.

Blake glanced at her again, bow twitching freely.

"So. You know we have our first mission tomorrow?" Blake prodded. "Are you going to be able to rest?"

Ruby hummed softly, barely audible over the cracking booms. She knew, and as leader, she also knew she should care more, should be preparing herself and her teammates. There was still the plan to sniff out the White Fang hideout and discover what the Dust thieves were planning; a million, bazillion things she needed to be doing, thinking about. Ruby knew she was failing right now, even though she wasn't allowed to fail.

She knew Weiss was probably having an absolute conniption looking for her, and that Yang was also having her own version of a conniption, and that those reasons were why Blake had finally come up here. Not that the faunus probably hadn't already known where she was. Blake always knew where to find them, even if she respected their privacy; faunus senses plus ninja tracking skills meant as much.

Blake studied her. Not just her face, but all of her.

"...I'm sorry," Blake said finally.

Ruby opened her mouth and shut it gently.

"I can't imagine what this must feel like for you. And I'd be a liar if I said I didn't kind of regret finding that thing in the first place, considering how much this is hurting you and Yang. But..."she trailed off briefly. "No matter what happens, what comes from all of this, I need you to know that I'm here for you. For all of you."

Ruby felt herself smile a little; it was a sad smile, but that was ok. Blake understood sad. Ruby had always felt the need to hide that emotion. Dad had his own grief eating at him, and Yang, Yang always wanted to fix it and would get distressed if she couldn't. Weiss understood sad, too, but it was a different mixture than Ruby's own; and Ruby didn't want her partner to worry about her as well as the other trillion things that Weiss worried about.

"I'm not going anywhere," Blake insisted. "Neither is Weiss. And we're going to stop the White Fang together, and we're going to find who's responsible for what happened to your and Jean's moms. And we'll fucking stop them, too."

Ruby stared at the faunus, who looked so uncharacteristically serious, so passionate. After a moment, her smile widened a little.

"I feel like I'm the one who should be saying those things," Ruby confessed. "But thank you, Blake. I needed to hear that."

Because I am so, so scared...

Blake paused, bow fidgeting, before hugging her gently. Ruby let herself be hugged, before returning the gesture. The weight of the knowledge that had been pulling her down seemed to lessen. They sat there for a while longer, talk subsiding, listening only to the voices of the wind and rain.

...

Thunder shook the panes of the dingy, sparsely decorated apartment. Raven did not look up, focused on translating the leather bound journal in her hands. Retrieving it had meant entering the spirit planes, guided by the mirrors from the library, and had cost her a lot of energy.

She flipped a page, intently focused on the words written in all too familiar, looping scrawl; it was in Old Vacuon, but Raven had taught herself the language years ago. They had all learned it together.

"Hey."

Crimson eyes flicked up briefly from the page, irritated.

"Any mention in there of that Hazel guy?" Becca Forzani asked. She was perusing several security photos from one of the asylums on the outskirts of Vale.

Raven stared at the page again. There was still a lot to read, but Raven had already deduced that certain things were missing. Summer was currently talking about chasing the funding for Merlot Industries through a labyrinth of red tape and front businesses. How she believed the trail was leading her to the culprit behind not only the missing people from the private prisons, asylums and homeless shelters, but also the people responsible for the fall of Mountain Glenn.

Summer believed that Arcene's assault on the lab had caused said culprits to panic, and attempt to bury all possible connection with Merlot and anything else they had been up to in Mountain Glenn. Summer had been scouring the ruins, apparently, searching for clues; and she referenced several files and documents that listed different holdings and businesses tied to Merlot. All of them had been conveniently destroyed during the fall, to point that retrieving anything from them was all but impossible. Amidst this, Summer had also been attempting to get the morgue's reports on the cause of death for Murt Thompson and team OBSN, inspired by Joan Arc's attempts to do so. The date of the entry had been six months before her death.

"Not yet. There's things missing here," Raven muttered, scouring the journal once again. "She keeps referencing copies of documents she's listed by serial number. But those aren't in this book and they aren't in her notes provided by the BTF."

Not that those hadn't been clearly edited; Summer knew there was a mole there, apparently, and had kept her official reports sparse. Dust, she'd even blatantly lied on a few of them, contradicting herself in her real investigative writings; Raven felt that perhaps it was a direct supervisor who had raised her suspicions.

Leo hadn't been said supervisor, considering he was a little after Summer's time. So whoever it was was not only colluding with both Salem's minions and the group that seemed to be in partnership with her, but was also responsible for ratting out both Arc and Summer.

We need the names of every one of her colleagues on the force. I'm going to have to go on another little field trip, it seems.

"Maybe she squirreled them away somewhere else?" Becca suggested.

Raven's temple pulsed. Her migraines had been getting worse as of late; it made it hard to concentrate.

"Was there, I dunno, any more of those trippy fucking mirrors that you could have missed? It is a big Library."

"I didn't have the time to search as well as I'd have liked," Raven gritted. Becca picked her chipped tumbler off the desk, pounding bourbon; the woman drank more than her brother, if such a thing was possible.

"Yea, good going with that, by the way. I mean I did offer to go look around myself-"

"Shut up, Forzani," Raven sighed. Her temple throbbed, and she rubbed it absently.

"Oh, excuse me, your feathery fucking majesty," Becca raised her hands. "But I'm not the one who tripped Ozpin's alarms. Or tipped off your daughter's partner of all fucking people. I mean, I thought that was the opposite of what we were going for?"

Raven glared venomously at the P.I. across from her. Blake being there was definitely not something Raven had planned for, or ever even predicted.

Who the fuck reads at four in the Dust damned morning, besides other insomniacs?

"And I'm not the one being tailed by Summer's killers. Would you have rather led them there yourself?"

Alerting said killers that perhaps not all was well, and that there was a potential stockpile of evidence against them, hidden away in Beacon. If these people were willing to kill an entire city to hide their crimes, then there's little doubt that they would be opposed to destroying an Academy of hunters in training.

Becca glared back at her, before sighing and looking down at the photos.

"Alright, touche. But look. We need help, Branwen. Like, way more than your merry band of miscreants and some dusty old huntresses. Have you at least contacted Tormund yet? Or ARSN?" Becca raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the mountain of information between them. "Because at this rate, feather duster? We're gonna go the same way."

Raven schooled her face, biting back the retort that had sprang up automatically, before glancing at the book cradled in her hands.

"No. We need concrete evidence of who is responsible first. Not just Lionheart's prattling, considering his confession was under...duress. You don't just waltz into a real lion's den with only yourself as an offering, you know. And ARSN has been awol for nearly a decade. It would take months to track them down without utilizing Tormund's resources."

Becca's face shifted, an expression as close to compassion as Raven had ever seen there.

"What?" she snapped.

"...Does he think you did it? Is that why you're hiding out in the Dust forsaken sticks?" Becca scoffed. "He sicced his trigger happy lunatics on you?"

"Don't be absurd," Raven drawled, flipping another page. "He knows I didn't. He does, however, hold me ultimately responsible, because I should have been there. I am..was, her partner after all."

Raven stared at the words, without absorbing the information there, remembering the conversation they'd had years ago. The one where she thought she really would, actually, die; the one where on bleak sleepless nights, she kinda wished she had.

"And he's right. I should have been."

Becca snorted, folding her scarred forearms.

"Well that's crap. What about Taiyang? Or fucking Qrow? They were around too, you know? Hell, they lived in the same fucking house, they had to have known something was up-"

"Don't you dare blame my husband," Raven hissed, anger mounting. That was another conversation she'd rather not recall. "Or my brother."

Idiots that they are...

Becca was not impressed by her patented death glare.

"I'm not, I'm just saying. You're letting your ego get in the way of your head," Becca took another sip of bourbon. "If you failed, then shit, so did they. So did the whole fucking force, Oz, everyone. Hell, even Tormund. Even me. You can't take all the credit from us."

Raven contemplated throwing the journal at the P.I. She was not in the mood for this crap. You know your life is garbage when Becca Forzani is the only one willing to call you on your bullshit.

"Can I ask you something, like, stupid personal?"

Raven grimaced.

"I dearly wish you wouldn't, but I have a feeling you're going to anyways."

Becca set her tumbler down, face serious.

"Why'd you leave? That, out of all of this, makes the least amount of sense. Because you obviously didn't want to; hell, from what I remember you would have gone to prison for life for that fucking woman, for any of them. So what changed?"

Raven exhaled, trying to focus on the journal pages once more.

"Summer had her monsters hunting her. And I had mine."

Becca made another face, incredulous.

"What kinda monsters scares a huntress so much she ghosts her whole world?"

Raven felt the barbed reply spring into her mouth, ready to flay the stubborn prick across from her, when her scroll vibrated. She paused, pulling the device from her pocket, reading the name there. With an impatient huff, she accepted the call.

"I told you not to call this number," she growled into the scroll.

There was a heavy pause on the other end, before a male voice responded.

"I know. But this is an emergency."

"Is the Kingdom burning to the fucking ground? Because if so, good."

Becca snorted, rolling her eyes. Raven flipped her off.

"No. Two of your kids are here, asking for you."

Raven's eyes widened and her heart froze instantly; Becca's eyebrows rose at her expression.

"...Which ones," she asked, keeping the tremor from her voice.

"The hyperactive ginger with a coke problem and the quiet nerd that puts up with her-"

"IS THAT HER? LEMME GET ON THAT, PAL, CUZ VALE? WEEE GOTTA PROBLEM-"

"Nora, no. Leave the nice man alone."

"Piss off you fucking crack addict," growled the man on the scroll.

Raven's temple pulsed, and she rubbed her brow, willing the frustration away. She'd nearly had an aneurysm.

"Seriously, Morrigan, they're very insistent that they speak with you," the man grumbled.

"IT'S CODE RAVIOLI - no wait, wrong one - CODE MOM'S SPAGHETTI!"

"If you touch me again, you're turning into a pin cushion," the man snarled.

"Carlos," Raven droned.

Carlos went silent on the other end.

"Put Ren on."

Shuffling, then a quiet voice.

"Morrigan," Ren greeted. He sounded tense, which boded ill.

"Ren, I'm assuming this important," Raven asked dryly. "Because right now is a very, very bad time."

"I know," Ren said. She could practically hear him bobbing apologetically. "But this is quite serious."

"Alright, well, go on then," Raven sighed.

"It's about Yang and Ruby," Ren continued.

Raven was tempted to smack her head into a wall.

"Go on."

"You were in the library at school this morning, yes? That was you?"

Raven squinted. She knew there would be repercussions for running into Blake, but she had hoped that she would only get a passive aggressive call from Qrow over the matter. Something she could play off.

"Yes, that was me. What happened?"

"Um. Blake found what you were looking for?" Ren supplied softly.

Raven's eyes widened. She looked down at the journal, immediately thinking of the missing references.

"...what, precisely, did she find?"

Becca took a long drink of bourbon, straight from the bottle. Her clothes steamed.

"A data stick containing investigative documents and letter's from Ruby's mother. Addressed to you."

Raven could feel static building in the air and Becca gave her a careful, sidelong look. Raven took a slow, deep breath.

"Tell me it was encrypted."

Ren was an accomplished code breaker. Perhaps, gods perhaps, he had been the one they went to with it.

"Written in Old Vacuoan. Jean...Jean translated it for them," Ren continued solemnly. "They read everything in our dorm room. They know she was murdered for what she was doing-"

Raven slammed her fist on the table, causing a crack in the wood. Her aura was burning, the Maiden's powers crackling around her as she wrestled to get a hold of it. Becca sat down, shaking her head. Ren had fallen silent on the other end. Raven gritted her teeth, reigning it in.

This is the absolute worst possible outcome, how could I have been so fucking careless?

"They want to speak with you," Ren continued bravely. "And, well, we told them why we are here. And that we could contact you."

Raven counted to ten, slowly.

"Ren. You had explicit orders to not tell them, them specifically, anything at all. I remember that conversation very clearly, do you?"

"I do. I also know your daughters and team RWBY quite well," Ren said. "They would have looked into this on their own; they're already trying to stop the White Fang activities that have been spiking in Vale, and I feared for their safety considering what the files said. So we made the call. I am sorry, but I feel it was the best choice."

Raven sighed again, considering his argument. She knew he was acting in the best interests of his friends, and that ultimately, it was her own hubris that had allowed this to happen in the first place. Ren and Nora were good kids. They were good Branwen. That's why she had chosen them to go to Beacon in the first place. In his situation, she likely would have done the same.

Would have? I spilled everything to Summer in my first semester. And I didn't even have an excuse, other than the fact that I was a lovesick little idiot.

"What should I tell them?" Ren asked after several long moments.

Raven closed her eyes, forcing down the dread that was clouding her judgement.

It's your job to make the best call and to fix this. If you even can fix this.

"Arrange the meeting. We need those documents immediately."

Ren gave her a quiet affirmation before the line went dead. Becca was staring at her.

"...You're not gonna explode my apartment are you?" Becca asked after a tense second. "Because my renter's insurance is already through the roof."

"Don't tempt me," Raven sat down heavily.

She stared at the bottle in Becca's hands. The private investigator offered it to her after a moment, and Raven grimly accepted it, taking a rough swig. The burn made her cough, but she drank several swigs before slamming it on the desk.

"Welp. Boarbatusk's out of the bag, eh?"

Raven nodded darkly.

"Maybe we can just, I dunno. Lock them in a tower or something? Until all this is over," Becca suggested, leaning her elbows on her knees.

Raven snorted, her mouth tugging ruefully.

"Yang would turn anything other than a high security prison to rubble in minutes."

"Ok, fair point. So, we give them a hot cocktail of aura suppressants too-"

Raven glared at the suggestion immediately, and Becca trailed off awkwardly.

"Yea ok. Look, maybe this is a good thing?" Becca tried again. "Not like, at the moment, but it could turn out ok-"

"How in the Dust green fuck is this a good thing?" Raven droned.

"...It could be a bonding experience?"

"Shut up, Forzani," Raven groaned, wiping her face.

Gods, how did I even get here?

"No, seriously! You could introduce yourself, get all the awkward shit out of the way, I mean. It's not like you've been off being an alcoholic deadbeat for twenty years or whatever, maybe they'll see you in a better light for all this?" Becca continued, dreadfully uncomfortable. "You're renegade mom number two, off trying to avenge mom number one and topple an evil cabal murdering innocent people. Could be worse, you know? You could just be boring."

Raven glared at her.

"It doesn't matter how they see me," she said finally. "They could think I'm the dark god incarnate, and that wouldn't actually matter-"

"Tch, then why are you so freaked?" Becca tossed her hands.

"Because I don't want them to get their chipper little butts killed too!" Raven exclaimed. "I don't want my children to fucking die! Is your brain as soaked as your liver? Because I don't understand how this is that difficult for you to process?!"

"Oh yea? Is that why you've been avoiding them their entire lives?!" Becca shot back. "Face it, Branwen, you're scared they'll hate you and that's it! Pull your head out of your broody ass!"

Raven snarled, standing up, snatching her scroll and stalking out of the room.

"Where are you going?!"

"To call my brother," she hissed, slamming the door to the kitchen behind her.

Silence, finally. Raven exhaled, her wrists burning. She rubbed them irritably, pushing past the anxiety. Grappling her emotions to floor, Raven lifted the scroll in her hand and stared at the blank screen.

She needed to tell him. Hell, she needed to tell Taiyang, too. They could even do damage control-

Oh that's right, just dump all your problems on them. This is your fault, you have to unfuck yourself. Or are you just that pathetic?

She cursed, pushing her hair back. She didn't want Becca to be right. Still, she did need to call Qrow at least. He wasn't in town currently; she could sense him on the other side of the continent. He might not even have scroll signal.

This isn't something you can explain to him over a single scroll call. He needs to know everything, so he understands the actual danger they're in.

She lowered the scroll, placing it on the kitchen counter next to the empty bottles and plastic bags of to-go food. After a few more minutes of procrastinating, Raven sighed, drew her blade and focused. With a sudden swipe, the fabric of space tore, revealing a black and red portal. The bond between herself and her twin responded, irritated, sullen; but also very curious.

Raven sheathed her blade, leaning against the counter; and waited. Minutes passed. Raven played with the feathers at her hip, refusing to grow impatient. After a few more ticked by, a dark head poked through, familiar dusty red eyes meeting her own crimson.

"Hello, brother," Raven drawled.

Qrow glanced around the kitchen, suspicious. He finally stepped out halfway of the portal, still cautious.

"What's up, Rae-rae?" he asked. Raven huffed at the nickname habitually, before gesturing into the kitchen.

"Are you actually going to come in, or keep standing there?"

"Dunno yet," Qrow smirked.

Raven rolled her eyes, turning to one of the cabinets and pulling out a tumbler. She uncorked a bottle of whiskey from the counter, poured him a healthy shot, and passed it to him. He accepted the drink carefully.

"Where are you?" he asked finally.

"Vale," she admitted. An awkward silence fell as Qrow looked at her, concern flashing briefly over his face. After a pause, he took a sip and stepped further into the room.

"Why are you in Vale?" he asked, eyeing her. "Is Ci-Ci ok?"

Raven blinked before tilting her head.

"Ciara is doing well. Not that you would know," she droned.

"Oh, don't fucking start with me," he laughed harshly, shaking his head. "You don't get to pull that shit, and you know it."

"You could try writing her. It wouldn't kill you," Raven gave a sarcastic shrug.

Qrow gave her a distinctly unimpressed look, clearly considering walking back through the portal. Raven decided to change the subject.

"Look, I didn't do this to argue with you," she continued. "But we really need to talk."

"Oh yea? What do you want, Rae?" he asked. "Cuz I'm kinda in the middle of work."

A pang in her heart. She knew she had pushed him away to begin with, for his own good, but still; she missed him.

"It's about the girls," she started, and his eyes widened. "And Summer."

"...That bad?" he grimaced.

"Yes," she said, monotone.

He finished the tumbler, striding fully into the kitchen. In the other room she could hear Becca rummaging, and Qrow's eyes flicked suspiciously towards the door. Raven eyed him, annoyed by his reaction.

"The squirts ok?" he asked. "Tai hasn't called, so..."

"They're ok, for now," Raven folded her arms. "But they're involved in something way over their ditsy little heads and...I. Really need your help. "

Qrow sighed, brushing his hair back.

"Oh boy," he drawled. "It really is that bad, huh?"

Raven's face was a stoic mask, deathly still.

"It's worse."

And it is all my fucking fault.