"You were gone all that time together?" Shine said when Qrow and Winter finally made it back.
"She wouldn't leave me alone," Qrow said.
"We were just finishing the mission," Winter said, with a glare at him. "Whatever that buffoon says."
"I think Shine is just surprised you didn't decapitate each other," Wally said.
"Winter!" Weiss cried. "What happened, you look like you were in a fight."
Winter looked at her clothes. "I was going to have to replace these anyway..." she sighed.
"That wasn't a no..." Wally said.
"Oh shut it, West." Winter walked past him haughtily.
"Good news, I think we found somewhere to hide," Qrow said.
"Good, I hope that Roman was just as successful," Shine said.
"Why do you trust him to do it?" Qrow said. "He's probably going to set up something on the side."
"Well, whatever he does, he's usually reliable if you're paying him," Shine said.
Mercury thought that was kind of funny in a cynical way--then he realized she'd said "Roman."
"Wait a minute," Qrow saw him. "What the h-- is he doing here?"
"Who?" Winter hadn't even seen him, but she turned back and looked.
Mercury tensed.
Emerald stepped in front of him and held up her hands. "Remember we were going to find him?" she said. "I thought we were cool with this."
"I was never that jazzed about it," Qrow said. "But after all that work, what did he just walk in here?"
"No, of course not," Emerald said. "I ran into him in the market area, some punks were trying to shank me and he stepped in."
That didn't sound suspicious to them, but Mercury's sullen look wasn't very reassuring.
"Still we should at least give him a fair chance," Ruby spoke up. "I mean, Emerald and Hazel are both with us now."
"Where is the big guy?" Wally asked.
"Not far," Raven entered the room looking as downcast as the day before, but she stopped and stared at Mercury.
Mercury stared back because he hadn't experienced her to walk right in like that...She was here? And Theo hadn't noticed...what a moron.
Of course if Theo hadn't spent so much time spying on them outside the school, he probably would have spotted her by now, but no one knew that was the reason.
Raven's eyes flashed fire.
"You," she said, springing across the room.
"Hey stop it," Emerald said, but Raven went right past her.
"Were you part of it, punk?" Raven slammed Mercury into the wall before he could even move.
"What's going on," Hazel walked in right then, hearing the commotion. He'd been dealing with some strange grimm outside the kingdom, but of course he wanted to come back in time to hear about Watts.
But seeing this, he said. "What are you doing to the boy? When did you find him?"
"Hey Lady, get off me," Mercury said. "I didn't touch your d--- tribe, all right?"
"But you knew about it," Raven said.
"Like as of yesterday," Mercury said.
Raven frowned.
"Raven," Shine said quietly. "It's not his fault. Please."
Raven sniffed and dropped him, he scowled up at her.
"Well, he can't leave now," she said. "He'll go right back to Salem and tell her where I am. If he does, I'm gone."
"Please try to stay calm," Shine stood back up. "I don't think Mercury will much want to go back after he hears what happened...if he's sane."
Mercury didn't like that remark.
"Look, all I want to know is how the heck people are just not dead all the sudden," he said.
"You know, this whole thing has been one great conversation starter," Pyrrha said.
Wally laughed.
"But I'm okay with it," Pyrrha said. "I'm accepting my fate...at least it's a change of pace from being a world renowned fighter...as I recall, you didn't want to fight me anyway." She frowned at Mercury.
"Oh that? I was just messing with you to get information," Mercury said.
"Shut up," Emerald hissed at him.
"Seriously is she a ghost or is Cinder just really bad at her job?" Mercury asked.
"No and yes," Shine said.
"Look before you do your whole spile about how you bring people back to life and all that," Raven waved her hand. "I think we should talk about this. The giant and the street rat were one thing, I can buy them leaving...sort of. At least I think they're dead if they go back. But he just happens to show up now? After what happened to my tribe? I think he's looking for one of us."
"Well, we knew that already," Shine said. "What's your point?"
"Who's going to watch him?" Raven said. "Because I know you're going to say just killing him is wrong. Even if it's smarter."
Mercury glared at her.
"Hey I don't have to stick around here," he said.
Qrow stepped in front of the path to the exit, and Winter frowned at him with her hand on her sword.
The other kids looked ready to blocked him too.
"Okay, the tension in this room is getting pretty thick," Wally muttered. "Shine, what do we do?"
"Well they're right, we're not sure he's convinced yet," Shine said. "But I think we could give him a little time to process this before we start making threats. And no one is killing 17 year olds on my watch."
"I'm 18," Mercury said.
"Whatever," Shine said. "Would you all stop acting like that, if he runs, why does it matter? We knew they'd assume all of us were here. We have a Maiden here already, what's Salem going to do, send more than one hound this time? We'll kill them like we did the last one. If she wants to show her gross self here in person, I welcome the challenge."
She looked at Qrow. "Come on."
Qrow sighed. "I still think it's a bad idea, but fine. You want to try to do this, it's on you if it goes south."
"I'm thinking is was a mistake to listen to you," Mercury said to Emerald. "Clearly they're not feeling too trusting. Are you sure you traded up?"
"Look, just...once we explain what happened, it'll all make sense," Emerald said. "Right Hazel?"
"If you're here you should know the truth," was Hazel's contribution.
"And right on time," Shine glanced at the doorway.
Roman and Neo had just walked in.
They stopped when they saw Mercury also.
Mercury turned to look and he blinked. "Wait, I thought the short girl died."
"Just how many kills did Cinder lie about?" Wally wondered.
"How many did she?" Winter asked.
"Well so far she claimed allegedly that Ruby, Watts, and Neo died," Shine said. "And since Pyrrha and Roman have come back to life, she's kind of 0 for 5. While that's not a reason to do it, I can't pretend I'm not enjoying this."
"Oh me too," Torchwick agreed. "Just so long as I'd have to fight her. Well, that cat's out of the bag is it. I assume this other brat here is joining us too? Getting quite a collection of orphans, aren't you?"
"I mean, counting you and Neo, certainly," Shine said.
He frowned.
"Wait a second," Mercury registered him. "You're...wait, but..." he looked at Emerald and Hazel.
"Yeah, it's true," Emerald said.
"A lot to discuss," Hazel said.
"And now that we're all here," Shine clapped her hands. "I suppose it's high time we filled Roman and Neo in on the rest of what we know about Salem. I'm not going to have them helping us without knowing the full story. Fair enough?"
"I don't suppose knowing the truth could hurt them," Winter said. "Or help her side. But only the truth about Salem and Ozpin."
She meant, of course, that she wasn't about to tell Mercury or the other two more than that until she was more sure of them.
Emerald was pretty convinced that once Mercury got the whole thing confirmed by this many people, he'd have to admit Oscar wasn't lying about it.
* * *
One very long conversation later there were some very shaken up criminals.
"Are we really supposed to believe this?" Roman said, though he believed it, Neo certainly wasn't contradicting it.
Still even she'd learned a few things this time around.
No one told them about Alicia, though. That info would be dangerous if it got back to Salem before the right time.
"Salem and Ozpin were...a thing?" Mercury was more disturbed by that than anything else he'd heard.
"Doesn't it kind of feel like you both should have seen that coming and it's also totally gross?" Wally said.
"Right here," Ozpin muttered.
"I told you it was legit," Emerald said.
"But she can't be killed," Mercury frowned.
"That is the theory," Winter said coolly. "Until we have enough evidence to question it."
"And you people are still going to fight her?" Mercury said, incredulously. "Isn't that crazy?"
"Crazy is thinking that serving her is going to benefit anyone in the long run," Shine said. "She'll kill everyone in the end."
"Isn't that just your opinion?" Mercury said. "Are you sure that's what she wants."
Everyone looked at him like he was stupid.
"Was the three kingdoms getting hit hard not enough for you?" Wally said. "I mean, dude, read the writing on the wall."
"No one has ever heard her say what she wants," Hazel spoke. "But she seems eager to get those relics...now that we know they'll summon the gods..."
"Wait, when did Salem find that out?" Shine said. "Ozpin, you were the only one who knew that."
Ozpin took control for a moment to answer.
"When I told her of the gods mission to me," he said. "A mistake, I now see in hindsight. At first she didn't want them to return, but in centuries, it's no doubt become tiresome to live so long...I know it has for me."
"But she's never said," Shine mused. "Well, I still think it's what she wants...but clearly she wants to destroy the world also. Mostly to get back at you, I suppose, but also so the god will have nothing left to salvage...not that it would work."
"And you all have some brilliant plan to stop this?" Mercury said.
No one answered that.
"Well, sounds like you know nothing," Mercury sat back and crossed his arms. "Real heroes of the world you are."
"Shut up," Yang leaned forward.
"He's not wrong," Jaune sighed. "We still have no idea what to do...but if miracles are possible, I'm willing to think there's some way to pull this off. We have you guys here now." He looked at Shine and Wally.
Wally gave him a thumbs up.
He looked a little nervous though.
"So what's their brilliant plan?" Mercury said. "Let's hear it, the people with the answers."
Shine smiled quietly. "Sorry, but we're not disclosing any solutions yet. The time isn't right."
"How do you know when the time is right?" Yang said with an annoyed hand gesture.
"How do you know the right thing to do?" Shine asked her, standing up and stretching casually.
Yang glanced up and then shrugged unknowingly.
"When you can answer that," Shine said, "the time will be right. Or close anyway. There, you can't ask for a clearer answer than that. Stop complaining about it."
"That wasn't clear at all," Yang said. "That's just another riddle."
"You could actually try to learn instead of just saying that," Wally suggested. "Live and learn, my friends always say."
"Some of us are old dogs to be learning new tricks," Qrow said.
"Qrow, you're not old," Shine said.
"If he's old I'm middle-aged," Wally said. "And I'm too young and too hot to be middle-aged."
Shine choked on a laugh.
"Mr. West..." Some of the girls rolled their eyes. But they weren't really mad.
"I should use that," Qrow muttered.
"None of you are old to me," Ozpin said.
"Well, no one is old to you Oz, except God Himself," Shine said.
"Quaint," Torchwick said. "But how does it help us. I'm not risking my neck for some mad scheme if there's not even a basic strategy."
"I can't understand why you worked for Cinder, then," Shine said. "Oh, right, she bullied you into it."
That embarrassed Torchwick enough to shut him up for a moment.
"Well, I'm not going to bully anyone into helping us," Shine said. "No one should join us who doesn't want to, at this stage. But we do have some strategies. Our job for now is to save Vacuo from the upcoming attack."
Mercury supposed he shouldn't be surprised that they already suspected one was coming.
"Now that I know just what we're up against," Torchwick said, "I don't see how you think you can win. Unless you can just resurrect a whole army."
"Not really my forte," Shine said. "I do have some ideas for saving Vacuo...but of course it would help us to know what Salem is planning at all."
Everyone looked at Mercury.
Well, this was going to be tricky, he thought.
"She hasn't exactly let me in on all of her plans," he said slowly. "I'm not high up enough, really. Tyrian probably knows more about it. All I know is what he orders me to do."
"Well, it's true that she hardly ever told us her full plan," Emerald said. "Hazel?"
"It would have to have changed by now," Hazel said. "You already know that she wants the Maiden and the Relic. All I know is that the headmaster here held out on the location of the Maiden. I thought he had probably cooperated in some way because of how sure she was about getting the Sword. But now that you're here, it'll stall those plans, but not forever. I'm sure she'd want to get rid of all of you first."
"That much we know," Qrow said sourly. "So how do we avoid it? We have two Maidens here already to protect, and once we find the other one..."
"Have you stopped to think that that's not enough?" Raven spoke up. "Thinking about it, sooner or later, she's going to figure out how to get that Fall Relic. She's got the Fall Maiden with her. We don't know that they aren't still looking for it right this second. We should be talking about how we can get rid of Fall and give someone else the Fall powers. She cannot get the other two relics."
Silence.
"Ruby could kill her," Yang spoke. "Maybe...if she had help."
"Wait, I don't know about this idea," Emerald said. "I mean...Just killing her in cold blood like that? Isn't that just kind of what you guys don't do."
"I'm with her, I don't want to plot someone's death." Shine said.
Neo made some motions.
"I know that she's crazy," Shine said. "But it's still murder."
"It's an act of war," Qrow said. "You know how many of us she's killed or almost killed?"
"Most of them are sitting right here," Shine gestured around.
Pyrrha stood up.
"I'm not going to pretend like Cinder doesn't make me uneasy," she said. "Or that I wouldn't kill her, if it came to it, in self defense. But hunting her over these powers seems like doing the same thing they did to me, and it's never worked. Aren't we about ready to consider a different strategy? We have two Maidens now, Cinder is outmatched as long as we work together. She's not going to be our problem, Salem is. I think we should focus on her instead of fighting each other."
"Cinder is just like Salem," Qrow argued.
"But would this be an act of revenge, or for the greater good?" Winter asked. "And I thought we had all reconsidered that killing anyone in the interest of the greater good alone was even a viable option."
"Well, what do you think?" Ruby asked Shine and Wally.
"I don't kill," Wally said. "And I don't do revenge. The thing is..." he shook his head. "When you have power, it's so easy to take out your anger on you enemies. And you can tell yourself they had it coming, but at some point, it's just going to be about you. And that anyone who ticks you off is going to be your enemy. My buddy Supes always said we shouldn't do that to people, and I'm with him. You have to hold back when you know you could be a monster if you didn't."
Shine smiled and nodded. Then she added. "When you are what we are, you can't make life or death choices like that, with playing God. But these people are certainly evil...it's going to be up to you what to do. But I believe the reason to do something matters. If Ruby had killed Cinder the first time, unintentionally, in defense of her friends, I wouldn't have called it murder. But anything like hunting her feels like revenge to me. It would be easy to be led into a trap if we think that way. We know what she'll do. She'll come for the Maiden. We had better keep a look out for any attempt to divide us enough to take us out...and given that, Raven, Winter, I think you two should probably stay close together for a while."
"What?" They both said, with distaste.
"I know you're not happy about it," Shine said. "But think, even if you're easier to find that way, you're not easier to take down. There is safety in numbers sometimes. Salem's got very few fighters on her side now. She'd have to come herself to beat you. At that point we could hardly miss it. It makes the most sense."
"Why didn't you say that before?" Raven said.
"You hadn't decided to stay with us before," Shine said. "Now we can move on with our plans."
"I see your logic," Winter said very unhappily. "But in practical terms, I have duties to attend to, and she is supposed to be in hiding. Is there any other way to split us up?"
"That's a fair point," Shine said. "Only a few of us can compete with the magic or skill level of Tyrian and Cinder. But even if we split you up differently, you're both going to have to consent to being guarded most of the time. But we can talk about that later. For now, I'm sure you're all wondering about how the chat with the Quack Doctor went."
"So is he just being allowed to sit in on this?" Yang pointed at Mercury.
"Yeah, aren't we rushing this a little?" Weiss agreed.
Shine shrugged. "Mercury, go wait outside."
"I guess I'm not so welcome," he said snidely.
"You haven't proven yourself yet," Hazel said gruffly. "We already defied Salem openly."
"If he needs to know anything later, we can fill him in," Shine pointed out. "Gives you a chance to think about what you want to do, Mercury."
Mercury sullenly left the room.
"And you think he's considering joining?" Qrow said.
"If he's not he's a fool," Shine said.
"Are you sure none of what we just said could hurt us if he does run?" Winter asked.
"He had to know most of it except that Watts was alive--and the other two," Shine said. "Anyway, consider, if the enemy outs themselves by coming to get Raven, they will not have the time to mount as large a Grimm force unless they had it waiting already. Either way, we know what we're up against."
"But we're far from ready for their attack," Winter said.
"The attack from three people and a Grimm army?" Shine said. "I'm not sure how much more ready we could be. Anyway, it would only take one message now to get help from the other kingdoms. And Mercury doesn't know we can do that yet. No one tell him."
"But he's going to join us," Emerald said. "He's dumb, but he can't be this dumb. He can't possibly think we're making this up after all that, so what's his excuse for it?"
"Not everyone is brave," Hazel said. "The boy is going to be scared to defy Salem when we already know she's here. He might just stay out of it."
"If he wants out, that's his choice," Shine said. "We can't make him fight her, like I said."
"But at least he'd never keep working for her," Emerald said, in a tone of some relief. "No way."
* * *
Mercury took the chance of being left alone to make sure no one was following him.
Then he messaged Tyrian that he'd collected some intel, in that he knew where the Spring Maiden was.
That part was almost too easy.
But he wasn't happy to find out none of them seemed to know where the Summer Maiden was, who was the biggest concern. Did Theo really have them this much in the dark? What were they good for it not sniffing her out for them?
Unless they did know and hadn't said it in front him... It would take longer to piece this together than he thought.
And clearly they were all buying that he'd just join them...well, he needed that, and he was pretty sure he could make it convincing.
That bit about Salem's plan...geez, he really thought they'd have something more creative than the same BS Pine has spouted before to convince him.
Not that it wasn't pretty detailed, but they admitted they didn't know if Salem had ever actually professed this to be her goal...so they just assumed the dumbest option?
Idiots.
Emerald was eating this up, though, he could tell. And Hazel... This was what they were staking their lives on? A group of wannabes?
The whole...not dead people thing was weird, but hey, he'd seen some weird stuff in the last year. It's not like they were the first people who could come back to life. Did they really think that proved anything?
Emerald was kind of dumb anyway, but Hazel being this gullible was more surprising.
* * *
"So he did what I thought he would," Shine explained to the others about her talk with Ironwood and Watts. "Once he thought I was focused on James, he was all eager to get his oar in and present himself as the better option. I played a little hardball with it, but I didn't want to overdo it and make him catch on, so I said I'd talk to you all about it. But, like I said, he's going to want his release to be on the table, and I am convinced we can make that work for us."
"You manipulated him that easily?" Raven was impressed despite her dark mood. "Not bad. Pompous peacock."
"You're a genius." Wally hugged Shine.
"I doubt he's quite stupid enough not to wonder a little bit if it's a trick," Shine said. "But if I'm lucky, he'll think the trick is just in what I want from him, not in getting him to offer at all. We can work with that. Just so long as he never catches on to the real reason we want him to do this, we're safe. Though, in time, I think he might realize that working for Salem is stupid, but until then, if he's going to try to get in touch with her, we might as well use it to our advantage. For instance, Cinder will be in trouble if he does. She might lie her away out of it, but Salem is bound to question how reliable Cinder really is if she's been wrong this much."
"I don't see how," Winter said, rubbing her head. "We don't know what she'll do with her."
"You ever heard of don't hate the player, change the game?" Shine said.
"Isn't that in that one movie, Think Like A Man?" Wally said.
"Yeah," Shine said. "We can't outsmart Salem with strategy. She's too powerful. But my thought is, if we just let her play herself, we can get her to do it."
"You think you can get Salem to play herself?" Ozpin said.
"The key to that is not to break character," Shine said. "As long as she thinks we learned nothing from Atlas, we're in the clear. We've been talking about how if we find the Summer Maiden, we'll end up exposing her. If we rush to get the Relic, Salem will pluck it from our hand easily. But if she thinks we're going to do that, she might get cocky and move too early. Is she overconfident usually?"
"She might be, but she's not incautious," Hazel said. "Her plans usually work."
"I'd have to reluctantly agree with him," Ozpin said. "I don't think she'll overplay her hand."
Shine tapped her chin. "But she always does," she mused aloud. "It's just that people panic so much when she does it that they don't see how ridiculous it is. All her power comes from people thinking she has power. What is Salem really? She could kill people, but even Hazel was able to stop her for a short time, and with you to guard against her, Ozpin, really, if no one cared about her, she'd be an annoyance. She wants everyone to be afraid of her. And like an idiot, you've played into that by making her a secret. But all this fanfare about it, that only amps her up. So if you hide her, she wins, and if you out her, she wins."
"Then there is no winning," Nora complained. "How does that help?"
"The only way to win is not to play." Shine put her hands together. "I've been thinking that ever since Atlas, actually. But instead of trying this launching a counter attack against Salem right now, or preparing for her attack, which we can't predict, we just make Vacuo as strong as possible. So all we do is keep working on that--we use Watts to sniff out the rats for us, because he'll go to them like a cat. We work around them or we stop them, depending on how it stacks up. But Salem can't spy out our plan to fight her if we don't have any to speak of. When she finally moves, we'll know what to do."
"That's stupid," Yang said. "Salem has all the time in the world. She'll just wait us out."
"And that works in her favor?" Shine said. "You think she'll wait forever? Cinder won't."
"But that's leaving ourselves wide open," Qrow said.
"It looks that way," Shine said. "But it's not that way. Salem always reacts to Ozpin's plans. What would she do if she had nothing to work with? Creativity is not her strong point."
"Hold on," Oscar spoke. "I think I get it... She can't outsmart us if she has no idea what we'd even be doing. "
"She'd never buy it," Weiss said. "Who would be crazy enough to have no plan?"
"Uh huh," Shine said.
Silence while she waited for them to get it.
"She'll keep trying to figure it out," Ruby said. "And that would buy us time."
"She might make a mistake if she isn't sure what we're doing," Blake said. "And then we could get the upper hand... That's what you're saying."
"I think that's what I've been saying for the last several minutes," Shine said. "My real concern right now is figuring out what that Kanap woman is doing and how it ties in to Salem."
"On that note, we have something about that," Winter said.
"We'll need to set that up with Watts, I have a feeling," Shine said. She thought. "I need to pray about it. I'm not sure what I should and should not tell him yet. But for now, Qrow, you had better let Theo know that you want to use him."
"What?" Qrow said.
"Did you think Theo wouldn't notice if we did?" Shine said, like that was funny. "Might as well say it to his face. Don't worry, he'll have to let you, since it's on Ozpin's business. Or that's just being out right insubordinate, in which case, feel free to punch him. But he won't want us to catch on to him, I don't think. Just don't back down. He'll come around. The next time we meet it had better be at one of the new locations. No more meeting inside the school if we can help it."
"So I take it we're all accepting this plan?" Winter didn't see anyone arguing.
No one did.
"In that case, what should the rest of us do?" Winter said.
"Whatever," Shine said. "Rest probably."
She left the room.
[Starting to see where Shine got that planning thing in the X-men story from.
But if you're confused about the real plan, don't worry--the characters are too. I'm sure it will all become clear over time.]