RWBY Through Worlds (End)

213: When It's Hopeless

"Salem said to let her think about it," Pyrrha said. "Does that sound like her? I mean, I don't know her at all."

"No," Hazel said.

"So, either it's a trick or she's serious." Cinder tapped her chin. "Which is more unlikely?"

"I do think seeing us might have given her pause," Pyrrha said. "That is why Roman and I both came, isn't it?"

"Yes, I figured I'd be crucial." Roman tilted his hat.

Neo shook her head at him.

"But can we talk about how you scared us by going off alone without telling us?" Jaune looked at Shine. "The first day? I mean, you really need to start giving us a heads up."

"But it all worked out," Shine said.

"But you could have died," Weiss said. 

"I'm still convinced it was the right course of action," Shine said. "What can I do about it?"

"But... uh, it can seem like then you just don't need us," Nora said. "You can do it all on your own."

"Of course she can," Cinder said. "You really haven't figured that out yet?"

"And what is your stake in this anyway?" Roman said to her.

"Simply the realization that this whole thing could have taken hours if they did it alone," Cinder said. "I can't believe they slowed themselves down on purpose to drag all of you along. But you did want to save the world. I certainly wouldn't have bothered."

"Yeah, we know," Mercury said.

"That's not true, is it?" Emerald asked them. "You couldn't have done it in one day?"

Wally and Shine exchanged a look and shrugged.

"Seriously?" Ruby said.

"I mean, if we're talking speed, sure," Wally said. "And the Grimm ignored us mostly, and we could have just taken the Relics..."

"But the fastest way is not always the best way," Shine said. "And you all wanted to come. It's your world. What we can do and what we should do are not the same thing."

"This didn't have to be this hard?" Theo said.

"Only for us," Wally said. "For you guys, I think it would have been hard either way."

"Oh, thanks," Yang said. 

"What do you want from us?" Shine burst out. "An apology that we are DJs? We have done our best to work at your level since we got here. You act as if having these gifts and power of ours is somehow our problem. And like we need to fix it. I have an idea--what if we were just like everyone else? Then we'd never have taught you how to handle things any different, which has allowed you to help each other when we are not around. All that would have been lost. And you know we will not be here forever. So yes, we could have done things alone, but that's not fixing anything. It's the old 'if you give a man a fish' vs. 'if you teach a man to fish'. Teaching someone takes longer, but it makes them no longer need your help. Does it offend you that we have to go slower? Every teacher does."

"Yeah, literally," Wally said. "And I'm not really a teacher. I mean, heck, Shine had to stop me from doing more things for you before because I kept thinking like a hero... but we're not just heroes."

"Oh, really?" Yang said. 

Shine threw her hands up. "Did you want to go talk to Salem? You all have said sometimes that you don't want to do that, you want to stop her. I think I got the message. I wasn't going in there to threaten her or make some dumb speech about how we could beat her."