"Tell us what you know about Kanap," Winter said to Watts, firmly.
"Be specific," Robyn reminded her, grabbing his hand like he was a slug.
Winter thought.
"All right, why does she want Raven?" she began.
Watts didn't seem that adverse to answering this question.
"In a nutshell, she wants a person who contains some magic inside them in order to run her tests," he said. "Now she has no knowledge that I know of that Raven Branwen is a Maiden, as I did not tell her. I wanted to have a back up card in case my plan didn't go smoothly. I like to have an ace up my sleeve--"
"Just stick to the facts," Winter interrupted.
"So far that was true," Robyn said. "I'm surprised you volunteered that."
"You'd have asked me about it anyway, I'm trying not to waste time," Watts said, in a bored voice. "And I care little about Raven Branwen's secrets."
"We know she wants her for that," Winter said. "But why her, why not Qrow?"
"That I can't answer, but perhaps she thought you'd all be less likely to go after someone who is a confirmed traitor, I was not privy to this plan," Watts said, sounding offended at it.
* * *
"We settled on Raven because she's dirty," Vara was sipping some water now. "I don't like traitors. Personally, I don't care much if she lives or dies. But I thought capturing her would be quite the trick. Theo suggested using bait and I said I didn't want to. He clearly has ignored me. Vic wouldn't be above it if it got her what she wanted. She's wanted her hands on a magical being for years. But for a long time she tested me. Now...Victoria is...crazy, but she's not totally without principles. She'd prefer a willing subject, so while I was willing, it was fine with her to use me. And I guess you could say that wasn't wrong, but I always felt like if I stopped, she wouldn't. I don't like the look in her eye when we think we're getting close...and she says she's already learned a lot about magic. She can make it activate, she can dampen it, she said she learned a lot from taking blood samples from me, other samples too. Magic apparently affects the DNA of whoever uses it, in some way...but so far, she's never cloned it. She said that the amount she could get from DNA never multiplies with magic, if she multiplied the DNA. The magic level stays stagnant. It's a lot of stuff I don't understand very well, but basically it's like growing a mold sample in you biology class, right? The mold will grow, but you can't grow a mushroom on top of it...and I guess the magic mushroom in this analogy, is sterile."
"Huh?" Mercury said.
* * *
Yang thought she was done listening to Victoria after she had Raven taken away, but she instead moved Yang--easily enough after draining her aura again--to a different room where she said she'd be more comfortable.
Well, she was sitting down this time--in a glass tank. Sure it had a sofa in it and a glass of water, but it wasn't that much better.
Ir was also a different level of the werid lab...which made Yang wonder how much of it Neo had actually seen when she was here.
"I want to put you quite at ease about your mother," Victoria said. "I really thought you looked a little horrified earlier. I've been studying magic for years, you see. I've learned a lot about it, I can do almost anything with it except make more of it. No matter what I try I can't...but the problem is, I can never get any sample that lives longer than a few days, even frozen. Magic seems to somehow have to have transfer through aura alone, at least so far. But if it can move between auras, it has to have it's own variable. I call it the M variable. My theory is that the DNA of people with magic has been altered slightly. If ordinary people are XY or XX, people with magic are XXM or XYM, in Ozpin's case--he's the only other male magic wielder alive...and you see, I've never gotten a sample from him."
She looked disappointed. "If I could there might finally be a way to clone it. I need a male and female...because I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that any transferable magical gene is inherently sterile if it's transferred to someone without magic in their DNA to begin with. Which means unfortunately that only Ozpin and Salem's DNA is capable of providing another human with magic, naturally."
Yang made a grossed out face at that.
"Yes, I think none of us want to see that," Victoria said. "At least not with Salem in charge of the...child rearing, shall we say. Anyway who could get a sample from her? But to clone it, I need more than just small bits of sterile magic...I need a way to isolate the magic itself, and bond it with different DNA. Or with aura itself. Whichever come first. So far, I've not made a real breakthrough in either direction, but I have learned a lot about how magic effects the bearers themselves."
Yang wished she'd shut up--at the same time she had a kind of morbid curiosity to find out what Victoria was planning to do to Raven, but the more she heard, the less she liked it.
* * *
"We've worked at it for years," Vara continued, while the others glanced at each other. "And I tried to ignore the fact that Victoria seemed a little too into it, but if we're stooping to this, I think that we've gotten past the bargaining stage, don't you? But what does she really do...the truth is, she's been interested in magic, but it's not just magic. She's never fully explained it to me, but one of her mentors at Shade, Henry Rhodes, introduced me to her when I was in my last year as a student at Shade. Seems Henry was into the idea of making a better huntsmen--withoyt relying on Atlas' stupid tech, he said. He thought there might be more...organic ways to improve our fighting. Well that's Victoria's specialty. She's some kind of alchemist. She's not bad at it either, weirdly enough. She can use dust better than anyone I've ever met. She kicked my a--- in a fight using her brains alone with her chemical and dust reactions. At first, I was kind of down to try it, I have..." she paused. "Well reasons I could use some insurance. And she was really interested in me...back then I thought it was just out of goodwill. But now I wonder...Then she married Derek Damien Kanap, another of the huntsmen-turned-scientist who discovered his true calling was the research field--that's common, you know, in Vacuo. Students who come to Shade get a better education than other citizens and some of them end up becoming more interested in learning than in fighting, and move on to other schools. That was both of them. And we were friends back then...but then...they got weirdly obsessive."
"What do you mean?" Oscar asked.
"It seemed like they had good motives at first," Vara said, leaning on one hand with a moody look. "Grimm take out so many of us, they would say, what if we could fight with more than just weapons. Humans are more powerful when they inject dust, but it's dangerous too, what if we could modify it. I think both of them were passionate about that, the project to find a healthy way to merge dust with humans and amp them up. And if they succeeded, it would have revolutionized the way we fight, the grimm would have been weaker...I lost touch with Victoria and Derek after they moved to Atlas to continue their research. They took their son with them, they had one by then, but he was kind of sickly. I met him a few times, cute kid, sweet-- he didn't seem to have a crazy streak like them. I mean Vic is worse but Der was kind of nutty too. A little more responsible after he had a kid though--and after he found out he had a degenerative disease. But by the time he figured it out, it was too late. Vic dropped her research on dust for a while and started working on biology itself, trying to figure out a way to extend his life...if it worked, it wasn't for long."
"Wow...that's really sad," Oscar said.
"And it was our doom if you ask me," Vara said. "Because she came back to Vacuo, alone, at some point, didn't even drop me a line, but Henry told me later, she was frantic...Henry always had a soft spot for her, favorite student and all that, and he was getting kind of...well, careless, in those days. Somehow he ended up telling her about Ozpin. Maybe she suspected it already, the old Maiden, she was still around at the time. And she knew Vic too."
"What was her name?" Oscar asked.
"Vienta Calour," Vara said.
"Another V- name," Emerald said.
"Yeah, it's not that unusual in Vacuo, just a weird tradition we have," Vara said. "Personally I think it's so we can put V twice on our ID. But anyway, he let it slip. Magic, you see, boosts your aura. In a weird way. And about that time, Ironwood started his project that would allow people to transfer aura, some guy named Polendina came up with it first, apparently he had an aura you could give away...he figured out how to get a machine to take it...and then they made copies of that machine...time went by and they made new machines...which you probably know about by now."
"The ones in the vaults," Oscar said, swallowing.
"This much I knew," Ozpin said. "But I never knew that it came from this. All James ever said was that a scientist in Atlas developer it."
"Geez, Oz, ask more questions," Oscar said.
"I suppose I always felt I had to respect other people's secrets if I kept my own," Ozpin murmured.
Hard to argue with that...unfortunately.
"Well...it was like a red flag in front of a bull," Vara said. "Vic wouldn't rest until she learned how this was possible. Transferring aura, and if magic could magnify someone's aura who was failing. She rushed back to Atlas and tried to get assigned on the project--but she didn't have the credentials...and that was when, Arthur Watts stepped into the picture."
* * *
"I met Victoria while I was still working in Atlas with Pietro," Watts said. "The man is a genius, I admit, but no imagination. I got kicked off the project before it went big time, once we got close, Ironwood cut everyone off of it who didn't have at least a certain level of expertise and his personal confidence, he believed they were qualified I suppose, the fool. I knew enough though, to know it would be big. But before I was knocked off, I happened to discover there was a female scientist who had been try to get added to the project. She was making a nuisance of herself to the staff, I was intrigued by anyone with such scientific fervor and I took pity on the woman...perhaps I knew a little of what it felt like to be underestimated. I invited her to tea one day and with my usual charm, I soon had the whole story. She was trying to research something to save her dying husband, and fellow scientist--who had also come to be outshone by his wife in their field. At the time they were researching dust, which we think aggravated his condition that he already had. That was right when they began introducing more safety measures into the study, but even that exposure was too much for him. Some genetic disease or something. But she was convinced that aura enhancement was a way to save him--who knows, she might have been right. But again, she lacked the seniority. But after she laid out her theories, I thought there might be something in them, I did learn a lot about imitating bio-engineering from her, came in handy on Pietro's project. And on remaking Tyrian's tail, but that's another story."
At this Winter and Robyn both winced, but they waited for him to go on.
"The trouble is, a project like that takes years to really test," Watts rubbed his chin. "She did her best with what she could work with, it's possible Pietro's work might have helped her...and I slipped her what I could of our research, in exchange for her explaining some of hers to me. A nice thing we had going. But then her husband got much, much worse. He couldn't keep working, and he insisted on going home. I'm not sure what happened but I knew that he and Victoria had some great falling out. Something she wanted to try that he wouldn't agree to. I wouldn't call Derek Kanap the most scrupulous of people by your standards, but for a mad scientist type, he was bit too much of a goody two shoes. He didn't want to go beyond dust, I suspect, or he thought they should stop the research because it was too deadly. James used to provide subjects from from Atlas' prisons...oh don't look so shocked Schnee, it was a common practice in many kingdoms."
[And still is in the real world, I believe.]
"I'm sure it was voluntary," Watts said, with an unpleasant smile. "But they were all getting sick, so many people pulled out of the project. Victoria was adamant that it would all be worth it, I'm guessing Derek didn't feel the same way. He went back to Vacuo, and she gave up being angry and took her son and joined him. I suppose she then took care of him until he bit the dust, if you'll pardon the expression, a few months later. Then she came back to Atlas, in a flurry, because she'd detected the same disease in her son."
"Oh..." Oscar said, horrified.
"Yes," Watts said. "I don't usually pity people but even I felt fate was just a little too cruel to the woman. But the woman won my permanent respect by sayng "no" to fate. I helped her, I was invested by then...and I was also beginning to be a little suspicious that I was being kept out of the more important aspects of the Penny Project. But then, I was booted off of it. You can imagine my fury. Oh they said they had better uses for my talents in other areas, but I knew the real reason was I didn't make the grade of who they thought they could control."
Winter rolled her eyes at that.
"Interestingly," Watts said. "Victoria took pity on me in return for my help, and told me that an old friend of hers had let her in on something a little radical. That magic was real...she said she even knew of someone who had it. Her theory was that she could find some way to harness it to save her son, and then, who knew, maybe she could cure other conditions, maybe she could create humans who could again wield magic...at first I thought the whole thing was bunk, and she'd lost her mind due to grief...but then she had a lot of facts. I believe it came back to this very school."
Winter raised an eyebrow.
"Well, say no more," Watts said. "I faked my death and left Atlas, vowing to get revenge on it later. I went to Vacuo, and there I met dear Hazel, didn't I Hazel?"
Hazel nodded to this.
"He was looking for the Maiden at the time, and I happened to run into him," Watts said. "At first he wanted to kill me, but then I made it clear just what kind of help I could be, and eventually I got introduced to Salem. She liked my intelligence and edge and I got a new job. Also that was when Victoria and I had our falling out. See she didn't take the whole faking my death very well. Oh I let her know it was all a sham, but she thought it was disgraceful to do it, and then to devote my energy to Salem, well...I offered to get her in, and that who knew, Salem had magic, we might be able to go on with it. Salem was even all for the idea--I never named any names however, I just said I had a connection. But Victoria refused to work directly for Salem, and also said some very unkind things about me, I must say. I even tried again when I visited Victoria to check in on things here, but I got the same answer...and then she took up with Theo...well I soon got in on that as you already know. I knew from the success Victoria started making and from Theo's secrecy about the Maiden, that she had to be using her for testing. She was getting close. She found a way to save her son. It was like losing her husband was the last straw. Even I don't know the full extent of her successes, though I did my best to wheedle it out of her. I daresay Salem would be interested in some of the other results dear Tory has gotten since. But it's all very off the record."
"You told us far more than we demanded," Winter said.
"But you would have asked it," Watts said. "Anyway, it's not much to me if you know this."
"Just so you know," Hazel spoke. "I knew nothing about any of this other than he had some friend here that he used to visit and talk shop with, nothing of her interest in the Maidens."
"Only Salem needed to know that," Watts said. "And what do you need dust enhancements for when you already have it?"
Hazel frowned at him, certainly he must have damaged his body over time by using dust, and Watts had said nothing...just another reminder how little Watts cared about anyone on his side.
"I can't tell you exactly how involved with the new Maiden Victoria is other than that," Watts said. "I'm not sure how they met, I know Theo's uncle knew the previous Maiden, and that there was some concern about the powers transferring, but I hadn't even left Atlas when it happened."
* * *
"I don't know exactly what happened with her and Watts," Vara said. "After her husband died, she changed a lot...but she also began making breakthroughs. Probably because after I inherited the powers, I was desperate to find some way out of it, or some way to make them safer at least. Theo finally told me that his Uncle and Vic still knew each other, and that she'd sent him a card and stuff after his Uncle died--and that she might have said she was still open to working together on her research if he ever wanted to up his game. Theo thought it was all bullcrap, he thinks that people should fight with what they naturally have--but when I had problems with the powers, he reconsidered. Vic started researching me, and at first I thought it was like old times--but she seemed more desperate...and the poor son, she never let the kid go out or make friends or act at all normal. I used to play with him while she was getting her results or her stuff ready. But lately I never even see the kid anymore. Why give someone wings if you won't let them fly right? But Victoria doesn't understand how to let go. She loved Der, even if they had issues. I kind of thought that snake Watts might be after her when he died, but she seem to suddenly despise him. I think it had something to do with him faking his death. I didn't even know he did fake it till recently, I thought it was real. Then Theo told me he'd been in touch since, and the other person, Rhinehard, had been too."
"Hazel," Emerald muttered.
"Never let me meet either of them," Vara said. "But he was always worried that Watts was too smart not to put it together. I dropped out of my position once I got the powers, I moved around a lot...finally I moved down here. Theo had this whole place built--well technically his Uncle had started it, with Kanap. See the guy used to be into construction until he got more interested in robotics and in aura enhancement. I guess he drew up different contracts with his own family or something. He had his time digging a lot of the tunnels around here. Told people they were fighting grimm who were trying to dig through the ground...people stayed away from the site. We thought it was the perfect hideout--and it has been. But it's a cage."
She gripped her cup. "Sometimes I get so claustrophobic in here, I think I'm going to die...Then I have to get outside. Theo doesn't like it, but I can't help it. I'm not suited to this. I've put up with it for years because I thought it was necessary, but if it's truly hopeless...then I'm thinking, why not just face it? And then Beacon fell, Haven fell, Leo is dead...and we began to think we were out of time. Vic and Theo decided to pick up the pace...but we still didn't get anywhere close to transferring magic without aura. I began to think we couldn't...But Vic has suggested, that, if we used human test subjects who had magic, she could create something that would work as a vessel..."
* * *
"I considered transplant," Victoria said. "It might work, transplant some cells from one person who has magic to someone who doesn't they might make it their own. It's worth a shot. But for special reasons, Vara was not a good test subject for that. I could kill her if I did that. So I began to think I needed to get someone else with magic. and I knew of only 6 other people. Ozpin himself, his three other Maidens, and his two eyes, Raven and Qrow. A maiden would be best, but they are hard to find, and how would I ever get them here. It just wasn't feasible. So I thought I might capture Qrow--but then Theo is not crazy about selling out his old friend."
Yang made a scoffing sound.
"So Raven was the last option and she's perfect in a way, she's already a traitor, no one likes her, and I hear even her tribe is now destroyed," Victoria suggested. "Which is...a tragedy, but it means no one will look for her. In a way, her fall is ideal for everyone else's benefit. But now discovering she was also the maiden. This means not only can I do more with her, but if necessary I could even go the extra step."
"Extra step?" Yang said.
Victoria smiled. "There are so many possibilities. If this works it will change everything for us, as humans."
* * *
"Vic doesn't want Salem to win," Vara said slowly. "She thinks the only way to stop her is if we all get stronger. If Salem is a moot point, basically, that's her theory. It's crazy, and she's never said it's anything more than an idea. But she's not one to just have an idea and not try to prove it."
"Then I have bad news for you," Oscar said, with a horrified tone. "Raven is already a Maiden. She's the Spring Maiden."
Vara looked up, her mouth dropped open. Then she cursed and slapped her forehead.
"Of course she is! How could we not see that? We're so stupid!" She cursed some more.
"Geez lady, don't blow yourself up," Mercury said.
"Shut up!" Vara stood up. "This is bad... By now Vic will have figured it out too...this changes things...she might have let her go if she was just the bird thing...but if she's a Maiden and she's up for grabs, Vic isn't going to rest until she has what she wants. The worst of it is, I think she could succeed. She's done a lot already that we thought was impossible. But the shop is a death trap...I'm sorry, there's no way I could ever get in there and get Raven out. Vic knows my weaknesses like the back of her hand. I'd be dead weight to you."
"All that and you can't even help us," Oscar said.
"I didn't exactly say that," Vara turned around. "You know this maze? It has an exit at Vic's house...two actually. One lets out just outside it. I prefer that one, I need a few minutes to steal myself before I go in there. And then sometimes Theo and I walk back here...but I know when he goes alone, Theo usually uses the one that lets directly into the shop underground...Vic will have it blocked from the inside too, but if any of you is any good at stealth...well, you might slip in there before she sees you and unlock it, then you could maybe let in a real attack force where she won't expect it...But I have to warn you, Victoria is no slouch. She'll be prepared for you to attack her...the odds of you getting out are not great. And if her son backs her up at all, they're even less. Unless you could trade another Maiden for her, it wouldn't be much good."
"Trade yourself then," Emerald said. "This is kind of your fault."
Vara's eyes flashed purple fire and Emerald backed up.
But then Vara said tightly. "I can't trade myself. I'm not a fitting test subject for Vic...full on. That's why she's so anxious to replace me. Also I think maybe in her strange way, she still thinks of me as a friend and doesn't want to put me through that. I'm not saying that out of cowardice, I really mean it."
She gestured. "Theo will check in on me again soon enough, you all had better not be here when he does. And besides, you have only a short time to get your friends back. Once Vic begins, it might be more dangerous to move them than it would be to leave them. If she gets really far. Her goal won't be to kill them, by the way...but how far she'll go short of that, I don't know. Not anymore. If you can use the tunnels, take the one to the right of the entrance to this one from the school. But that one leads a lot of different places through Vacuo. The first turnoff is the one that will take you to Victoria's...but fair warning, lots of them have booby traps along the way to prevent people who don't know from getting that far. I'm surprised you defeated the ones on the way here so easily."
"Easy sure," Emerald said.
"About that," Oscar said. "We have one that... kind of might tip Theo off...a stepping stone."
"Oh? Well, take me there. Let's go." Vara said.
So they did.
Vara looked at the stepping stone and then she jumped in the water and wind began swirling over it.
They all watched in amazement as a whirlpool in the water pushed the stone back upward and into place, then left it there.
Vara jumped out of the water, and the wind blow dried her, making her hair kind of messy.
"I''m impressed you figured it out after just one," she said.
Neo raised her hand.
"Neo's actually pretty good at this," Oscar said.
Neo smirked.
"Vara...one more thing," Oscar said. "You sure you wouldn't just come back with us and tell the others what happened? I'm sure they'll understand."
"No," Vara said. "Sorry but it's better if I don't. If Theo knew I told you all this, he'd panic. Who knows what he'd do next. Anyway I want to get to him first."
"Oh...and...uh...how did you become the Maiden?" Oscar asked.
Ozpin wanted to know this also.
Vara looked uncomfortable. "You're going to share all this with your team right?"
"Well--" Oscar began.
"Of course you are," Vara said. "You'll have to. Sorry, kid, but, that's not something I want to tell. At least not yet. Not now of all times. Maybe if you all pull this off, I'll risk my neck to explain. Hey, you know where to find me..." she grinned nervously. "But don't tell nobody. Any of you." She glared. "I can still destroy you."
"Sure," Emerald held up her hands. "We're good."
"Then get going," Vara clapped her hands loudly. "Scram, you little brats. Here I'll help you!"
Wind shot all of them across the stream before they could do a thing about it.
[AMV to "No Place Like Home" by Thus Kindly She Scatters]