STRQ

Chapter One: Beyond

Ruby won't get up here in time. I can't watch this. I hear the glass arrow pierce the heart of my daughter's friend. I'll be here to meet her, I guess. It's the least I can do. After all, she and I have something in common: We both died hopelessly, fighting a foe we were fools to even attempt to defeat.

Another sound… Dare I look? I will.

The girl is gone, the sound I heard had been her circlet clattering to the floor at Cinder's feet. Her soul now lays where her body had been, curled up as if asleep. I find myself struck for a moment at how utterly still and tranquil her face is as her consciousness transitions from her unfairly short life into the Beyond with me. Her aura glows warmly about her silhouette, a shimmering red reminiscent of the flames deep within hearth of a welcoming fire. Ruby had finished her climb to the top of Beacon Tower just in time to see the girl die… The look of heartbroken devastation on her face stings my heart.

You're too late, sweetie. I'm so sorry. I'll be sure her passing is… easier than mine.

The Maiden who just murdered the poor girl to my left is now staring at Ruby. For a moment, I can't help but think helplessly that she is next, and I'll be forced to watch her die as well. After only a moment more of breathless observation, however, I see my daughter shut her eyes and I feel it: a force, like a powerful shockwave rippling across time and space, emanating from deep within Ruby's as-yet untapped, near-fathomlessly powerful soul. It's happening. Even across dimensions, I can almost see the pure rage and sorrow shimmering like waves of intense heat from her body.

Her eyes snap open and a blinding flash, the manifestation of a power unlike anything Cinder has ever seen rushes forth. Even I have to look away from the dazzling display for a moment.

"PYRRHA!"

The scream echoes through the vast emptiness of the beyond around me. The raw emotion… I don't think I'd ever seen a Silver Eyes take to their Light so ferociously before. The entire scene washes out, nothing but blinding energy radiating away from Ruby's form. The enormous grimm seems to recognize what was happening. I can sense an emotion radiating from its consciousness that most people don't believe grimm are capable of feeling.

Fear.

Its eyes dull from blazing scarlet to gray as it begins to petrify, its screech of dismay freezing in its throat as the effects of my daughter's Light set in. That same fear I felt emanating from the now-frozen wyvern washes across the formerly smug, triumphant face of Salem's pet Maiden as she struggles to comprehend what she is seeing… This girl, this young, innocent, supposedly harmless girl… My daughter. My Ruby. Her eyes are glowing, a pure-white energy radiating and curling away from her tear-drenched face as she lifts her chin to face down her friend's murderer.

"WHAT!?" Cinder's eyes dart back and forth from the stone monstrosity to Ruby. "That's… That's impossible!" Squinting against the painful glare of Ruby's stare, Cinder begins to hurl blasts of flame towards the young warrior before her. To her dismay, Ruby's movement to avoid the fireballs is so instantaneous, so effortless, I don't think that anything could even touch her. Scarlet rose petals filled the air wherever she had been moments before, sucked into the vacuums left by Ruby's darting motions and scorched to embers by Cinder's misaimed attacks.

Screaming in frustration, Cinder re-constitutes her twin black glass blades. The wickedly keen short swords burst into flame as Cinder's eyes glow with rage and confusion. Lunging forward, Cinder swung wildly, an undisciplined and desperate blow aimed straight at Ruby's neck. I know well the sense of perfect focus that my daughter's mind has entered as she lets the strike fall. At the last possible moment, Ruby flashes into action, deadly scythe arcing through the air as she feints back in a movement quicker than any eye, human or otherwise, could have tracked. Nigh-indestructible steel alloy and magical conjured obsidian meet. The impact rings out across the plateau upon which Beacon is situated… punctuated by a sound like shattering glass and a scream of agony that is cut short into a strained, horrible choking cry.

Fire flashes from Cinder's left eye as a shard of her own weapon slices across her face and embeds deep into the socket. The resulting cascade of scarlet blood literally sears the flesh on her face as the maiden briefly loses control of her stolen powers and their ever-ravenous flames betray her. A second flow of scalding-hot blood issues from the Maiden's throat and mouth as another razor-sharp fragment of her blade tears through her larynx and lodges itself inside her neck.

Ruby does not let up, relentlessly pressuring Cinder towards the edge of the tower. Crescent Rose continues to spin through the counterattack, and Ruby flows around the whirling weapon arc like river rapids around stone, one with the blade. Cinder is struggling to back away, eyes wide with shock and pain as she regains control of her magic and summons a gout of flame from her left hand in an attempt to cover her retreat. Ruby easily dodges the blast and, before the maiden can react, pirouettes close to Cinder's left. A pull of her weapon's trigger, and the recoil from the specially made 20-millimeter magnum round blasts Crescent Rose's blade up in a low-to-high strike that cleaves the maiden's arm, still spewing flame, cleanly off just beneath the shoulder. The severed appendage sails through the air, flames sputtering and finally dying as it plummets over the edge of the tower. Cinder didn't even have a chance to register what had happened, before Ruby followed the strike up by slamming the twin back edges of the scythe squarely into her chest.

Cinder tumbled to the floor, her severed vocal cords incapable of forming any sound beyond that horrid choking, retching cry. She clutched at her neck, trying to stem the flow of blood from her throat with her remaining right hand while dragging herself away from the vengeful warrior before her with her elbow. Tears from her remaining eye mingle with the blood that still flows freely from her wounds. I watch her crawl to the edge of the tower, looking desperately to the skies for an escape. As if summoned, a screech tears the air above the shattered tower. A greater nevermore. No trouble for my daughter…

…But as I turn, I realize something. Ruby is fading. The Light is receding back into her soul. She cannot yet control her gift; I remember how exhausted I would feel in the early days when I'd first learned how to tap into my own nascent silver-eyed abilities. I can almost feel the wingbeat of Cinder's escape and as I look, I can see its talons extend down to carry her away… back to her Queen, broken, bloodied, but still very much alive. The fight is over, but I know my daughter's war is just beginning. Turning back, I wish I could run to my baby girl. My little warrior. She's propping herself up with Crescent Rose, breathing heavily as her eyes fade from white back to silver and flutter open and closed as the power surge abates.

Ruby is weeping. On the ground before her lay a few pieces of a shattered sword, a dented matching shield, and that bronze circlet: all that remains of the girl whose form now stirs next to me. I look back to Ruby as her exhaustion overpowers her will and she falls into a deep sleep.

I never wanted this for her.

If only I had been stronger.

If only we'd won 13 years ago.

None of this would have had to happen.

"Wh-Where am I?" I turn away from the scene to face Pyrrha, who is now shakily standing as she tries to decide whether or not she recognizes me. "R—Ruby?"

"No," I answer, which seems to reassure her for a moment that another of her friends isn't already waiting for her beyond death.

"Who are you then? Are you an… An angel?"

"No, Pyrrha. Nothing like that." I can't help but smile comfortingly—A motherly instinct, perhaps—and reach over to place a steadying hand on the brave young huntress' shoulder. "That was very heroic, what you did. You should be proud. What do you remember?"

"I… It all happened so fast. I know I'm dead. I remember the arrow but I don't… I can't… Jaune!" A single, ethereal tear drips from one of her brilliant green eyes, and now another, and another. I see the change on her face as grief overwhelms Pyrrha's features. Between sobs, Pyrrha stammers, "I just… I left him. I loved him! How? How could I do that? Why? For what?"

"Sshhhh… Sssshhhh," I hush as I hug her. "I used to ask the same questions of myself when I first met my end." A pang of regret and pain stabs me now as poignantly as ever as I hear a desperate, rapid wingbeat and turn with my companion to see a new figure arrive in a burst of black feathers atop Beacon Tower next to my unconscious daughter. Pyrrha starts, noticing the scene for the first time.

A moment passes as she surveys the ruins, the stone dragon, and the two still-living figures utterly unaware of our presence beside them. The new arrival is one we both knew, though the man he used to be was quite different from the one Pyrrha had met in this very office some time ago. Tousled black hair shot through with gray, a brow care-creased by sorrow and regret, red eyes the same as his sister's and the massive transforming scythe he used to call Harbinger attached to the mag plate beneath his tattered old cape. Qrow stares warily for a moment at the colossal beast locked in brittle stone before turning to kneel by Ruby's side. I can see his wedding band, and my rings, glinting silver upon his right hand. He wore them as a constant reminder of the promise we'd made each other… A promise that neither of us ever got to keep.

I can hear his voice. "I gotcha kiddo. I gotcha." He gently scoops the daughter that should have been his off the floor and turns towards the elevator shaft, but not before shooting a pensive second glance at the bits of Pyrrha's old accoutrement strewn about the ground. He knelt again, scooping up the circlet and letting it dangle from his wrist. Hefting Ruby over his shoulder and gripping the elevator cable with his free hand, he leapt and disappeared down the shaft. The scene faded away, leaving Pyrrha and I alone in the featureless white void of the Beyond.

"What… What is this place? What did I just see?"

"This? I don't know exactly what it is. I call it the Beyond. It's certainly not what I imagined the afterlife would be. It's hard to explain but… It shows you things. Your life, people your life touched in some way. Allow your mind to center on any one memory or person for more than a moment or two and suddenly you'll find yourself there, whether you want to see it or not."

"I could see anyone?" Pyrrha asked.

"That your life touched. Yes."

"I want to see Jaune." Immediately, the featureless void about us shifts into the shapes of rubble, of buildings, of a city street… I recognize it immediately Downtown Vale. Sirens are sounding, but seem far off, as if we are hearing them from underwater. There are people milling about, the entire scene gives off an atmosphere of tense apprehension and fear. Beside a fountain in the center of the crowd sits a boy to which Pyrrha is immediately drawn. Scraggly blonde hair and fair skin, sporting a black hoodie and battle-worn armor from a bygone era. Jaune.

I've seen him before, here and there as I visited Ruby from the other side of the Veil over the last year or so. His elbows rest on his knees and his hands repeatedly tense and relax as he anxiously runs them through his hair, his head hung and the tracts of drying tears staining his face clear down to his chin. He looks up, reaches out and asks to borrow a scroll from someone nearby, takes the device, and dials a few numbers. With each failed call, he grows more agitated. Handing the scroll back to its owner, he stands and paces for a few steps. A call from the crowd that I couldn't quite make out causes him to look up. A young girl with shocking red-orange hair and a boy in a green silk kimono not unlike Mistraline High-Society people wear trotted up to him.

"What happened?" The girl asks as she hugs him. "Are you okay? Where's Pyrrha?"

"I'm here! Nora! Jaune! Ren! I'm right here!" Pyrrha screams at her team.

I remember when I first passed. My own screams, to Qrow, to Tai, even to Raven. Everyone. It is truly heartbreaking to witness someone else go through the same pain. "They can't hear you, Pyrrha."

"No! They have to! I'll make them!" Pyrrha reaches out to grab Jaune's shoulders, but her hands pass right through the vision as if it wasn't really there. She tries again, but it's useless. She looks back at me, as if I'd betrayed her. I haven't, of course, but the wounded glance causes me to flinch all the same. After a moment Pyrrha stood, moved opposite Jaune from me and continued to watch.

Jaune had been quietly shaking his head, fresh tears running down his cheeks once again. "I don't know. I don't know. Nobody is answering their scrolls on the local channels, and the tower is… She was up there… She went after some woman, the one we heard during the tournament. I…" Jaune paused, trying in vain to clear his face of tears. "I couldn't stop her. She shoved me into a locker and sent me to go get help. She doesn't stand a chance against…"

"You don't know that Jaune! Pyrrha's the best fighter of any of us, maybe she found a way…"

"You didn't see what I saw, Nora! Professor Ozpin is dead!"

"What?" Ren and Nora exclaimed while simultaneously exchanging shocked looks. "How?"

"He stayed down in a vault beneath the school to fight this woman off, to give us a chance to escape and find help… But by the time Pyrrha and I got back up to the courtyard we saw her flying up to the top of the tower."

"But you never saw him die?" Nora asked, perhaps a little too optimistically.

"Jaune's right, Nora." Ren hesitates as Nora turns her gaze forlornly at him, as if begging him not to crush any more of her hope, but then continues. "Only one of them would've come out of there alive. The professor must be dead."

"But that doesn't mean Pyrrha is! You of all people—" Nora shoots a pointed look at Jaune "—You of all people know how strong she is. She trained you!"

"Nora, I want to believe she's okay. I want to believe somehow, someway she survived, I just…"

"What about that flash? Think that might've been her?"

I see the look on Jaune's face flush with frustration. I can hear the brokenness in his voice as he shouts, drawing looks from among the crowd. "Dammit I don't know, Nora! I don't! I…"

"Jaune!" A new voice from somewhere in the throngs of people. People moved aside as Ruby's teammate Weiss came into view, followed by Qrow, still carrying an unconscious Ruby.

"Weiss!" Jaune and the survivors of JNPR run up to Weiss and Qrow. "What happened? Did you find Pyrrha?"

"What happened to Ruby?"

"Did you see Professor Ozpin?"

Weiss freezes at the sudden volley of queries. None of those questions have good answers, and she knows it. Finally, she looks at Jaune. Stepping forward, she hugs him tightly. "I'm sorry," is all she manages to say before breaking the embrace and stepping away, extraordinary grief written all over her normally stoic and elegant features.

"Is she…?" Jaune is loath to say the word.

"She's gone, son." Qrow steps in, laying Ruby down gently against the curb and putting a hand on Jaune's shoulder in an unusually empathetic gesture, especially for him. Of course, he knows exactly what Jaune is going through; I watched Qrow go through the same grief 13 years ago. From behind his back, Qrow withdraws the copper-colored circlet and hands it to Jaune. "She went bravely. Followed her destiny right to the end."

Jaune stares at the circlet for a moment, running his finger along its length as if he were brushing Pyrrha's bangs over her ear. His lip quivers. His voice shakes. "This… This isn't what she thought her destiny would be." Jaune drops to one knee, then down to both, finally sinking to all fours. Gripping the circlet tightly in one hand, he balls his other fist and punches the sidewalk angrily, again, and again, confused, frustrated, and utterly devastated. His whole body begins to shake as Nora and Ren kneel to comfort him, and his anguished wail, the sound of pure, soul-crushing denial draws even more looks from the crowd.

He doesn't care.

"No… No! NO! Jaune! I'm right here! It's okay! I'm right here with you!" Pyrrha hurls herself to her knees, trying in vain to throw her arms about the boy's now quaking shoulders as heavy, painful sobs wrack his whole body. Eventually, she collapses completely to the ground next to him, balling into a fetal position and trying to see into his eyes even though his head is pressed firmly to the ground, whispering as much to herself as to Jaune, "It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here… I'm…" Her whispers fade into sobs of her own. There's nothing I can do except stand beside Qrow and watch the two young lovers, one utterly stricken with grief and the other doomed to be forever tormented by regret as I am, separated by death but bound by memory. Time slips by. I completely lose track—minutes, hours—however long the piteous scene went on is inconsequential. Finally, however, Pyrrha lifts her head and looks up at me. Her dead, bloodshot eyes are completely out of tears to cry.

"I'm… I'm so sorry," is all I can manage.

Pyrrha responds slowly, her voice laden with the weight of her utter heartbreak. "I can't watch this anymore. Please… Please, make it stop." She sat up, arms still hugging her knees as she faced away from what lingered on behind her, rocking back and forth as her shoulders continued to quiver quietly. The veil remained open, likely because Pyrrha has not yet learned to clear her mind and will it to close. I watch as Jaune finally stands, hugs his remaining teammates, and helps Qrow lift Ruby and carry her away, leaving the scene of the city street and hushed murmur of frightened civilians as the only sound in the still air of the beyond.

After a few moments, I make my way over to Pyrrha, who hasn't even looked up since turning away. She flinches when I drape my arm and cloak across her shoulders. A few white rose petals drift off of the hem of the garment and bounce gently across the ground as if they remember doing so in even the slightest breeze back in the world of the living, though indeed there hadn't ever even been so much as a breath of wind in this plane the entire time I'd been trapped here. I notice Pyrrha shift as her attention is drawn to them.

She says nothing for a moment, but after the petals are almost out of sight she looks back to me, standing and taking a step back. "You're not the first person I've met with a cloak like that."

"I would imagine that to be so."

"Are you…"

I nod simply. "My name is Summer. Summer Rose."

"I knew you looked familiar. Ruby is—was—a good friend."

"She did her best to avenge your death."

"Is she okay? I saw her unconscious a moment ago."

"She'll be fine. Seeing your fate gave her the strength to beat Cinder, but tapping into power like that is taxing. I remember when I'd do it, I'd be out for hours, even days, before I finally learned to control it."

"Do… what? I don't understand."

"It's… Well, it's difficult to explain, Pyrrha. Ruby and I both belong to a line of very powerful warriors. We have abilities—or, powers—call them what you like. Our silver eyes are the only outward sign of them. I don't know how true it is, but my father always used to say that the things we're capable of are gifts from the Elder Brother, the god of creation. We were meant to be the protectors of Humanity, the perfect foil to the creatures of grimm during the early years of our kind's existence. The Silver-Eyed Warriors, the guardians that can slay those monsters by the dozens with just a glance."

"Silver-Eyed Warriors? That sounds…" Pyrrha stands, perplexed. "If… If your lineage was so powerful, what happened to them all? Why have I never even heard of them?"

I look away. "The same reason you went after Cinder, even when you knew the odds of winning were beyond slim. We have something in common, Pyrrha. We both died for something bigger than ourselves. I suppose you'd call it destiny. My kind, the Silver-Eyes, were stronger, faster, the most naturally skilled warriors in the world—the living embodiment of hope— and now we're nothing but a line of dead heroes, whittled away by the servants of a darkness most people will never learn about the existence of. Once, there were thousands of us. Now, hundreds of generations later, Ruby is the last that I know about."

"I suppose that explains her exceptional gifts, for her age. And it always seemed like she was born for the warrior's life, I mean, nothing ever seemed to bring her more satisfaction than a good fight."

"I know," Pausing, I look around at the city street, now full of strangers and shadows. I will the scene to dissipate, and the veil closes. Pyrrha and I are alone once again. "Ruby and I are a lot alike. She's following in my footsteps, perhaps a little too closely. It reminds me of my days at Beacon."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Well, I am dead." In any other context, I probably would have thought that funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way.

I thought I saw the corner of Pyrrha's mouth twitch upward, but she checked the motion and simply replied, "Point taken."

I don't even attempt to conceal the wistful sigh that escapes my lips. "My daughter deserves better than… This." I motioned to the emptiness around me, a featureless white void as far as the eye could see. "My sacrifice only delayed the inevitable, all those years ago. A moderate inconvenience to Salem. She returned, just like she always has, just like she always will… And now that Ozpin's dead, she has a chance to make a big play. It took him years to come back the last time. Even he can't control when he reincarnates."

"Salem? Professor Ozpin… Reincarnation? What are you talking about?"

I realized with a jolt how careless I'd just been. Things I knew about Oz, about Salem, and about the true nature of this unending war... How much should I tell her? I wondered to myself. She just gave her life in a desperate attempt to protect her friends. She thought she'd followed her destiny… And I knew all too well, that sole comfort was all she had at the moment. We'd both crossed with the thought that our sacrifice meant something. But... Everything I knew—What I'd been told, and beyond that, what I'd seen with my own eyes—We were just disposable pieces in something far bigger than either of us could've imagined. I'd long given up thinking my death had really meant anything at all. What I didn't know was if telling her would lead to the same conclusion in her mind. I thought for a moment more, before shaking my head. Her self-sacrifice is not something I have any right to take away from her, I thought. "It's nothing. We'll have plenty of time to talk about things here, Pyrrha. Just not now."

Pyrrha's piercing green gaze studied me. She could definitely tell I was hiding something from her. I felt a pang of guilt, followed by a confusing sense that I was doing the right thing. She'd understand, I hoped. Thankfully, she didn't press the issue, instead looking herself up and down, studying her new ethereal form. Her outline was blurred, just as mine was, almost like it was being viewed through the shimmering heat from a road on a summer day. She realized then too that Miló and Akoúo were attached to her back just as they had been in life. She drew them, staring at her sword as though remembering the moment Cinder had shattered it. "I thought that perhaps I'd get to put my sword and shield down in the afterlife."

"They become a part of you, over time. Part of your soul. Mine stayed with me as well," I replied, showing Pyrrha Thorn in its bracer on my right arm and moving my cloak aside so she could see Scourge affixed to my back. "I tried throwing them away from me a few times. They'd always end up back in place the second I'd look away from where they landed.

"It's as if this realm is telling us our fight isn't over, yet," Pyrrha observed. I didn't know if I believed that, but I didn't reply, for a time. The silence was broken after a few moments by Pyrrha's surprised gasp as the beyond shifted again began to form a scene around us. I recognized Jaune's shape forming again, sitting beside everyone who had been present before plus a few other new figures, some of whom I recognized. Yang was there. I'd been following Ruby and Qrow through the battles in Vale and over Beacon… I was glad to see her alive. It took me a moment to realize, however, that she was anything but whole.

"Yang!" I exclaimed, practically leaping over to her to get a better look at the girl that I'd always considered just as much my daughter as Ruby was. Her right arm… It was gone. A tourniquet and medical sleeve were cinched tightly down to the stump, delivering painkillers and healing surfactants straight to wound as she sat dejectedly next to Qrow. Of anyone here I would've expected hers to be the face that showed only determination and strength for the sake of her teammates and friends, but as I knelt before her all I saw in her downcast eyes was defeat and fear.

Blake, Ruby's other teammate, stood by Yang's side. The faunus girl winced and hissed as a paramedic treated a nasty stab wound on her waist. Sun Wukong was also nearby, leaning heavily on his bo staff from exhaustion but still staring warily away from the group, watching for any movement in the streets around the safe zone that would indicate a renewed attack by the Grimm.

"N…No! No, no…" I looked back, realizing that Pyrrha was beginning to panic. My shock at discovering Yang's injury was immediately replaced by concern for my companion. She couldn't keep her mind off of Jaune. That's why the beyond had showed us anything at all. Her thoughts had wandered in the silence following our conversation, and because of that, this damned place was showing her exactly what she didn't need to see more of. The same thing would happen to me years ago. I remember my hopelessness back then as I'd watch Qrow drink himself into a bitter stupor over my death, or Ruby crying herself to sleep as Yang would try to comfort her, or Tai sitting despondently in our room for hours, entire days even. I could never make it stop in those days, and now, I could clearly see myself reflected in Pyrrha's features as she sank to her knees and shut her eyes against the scene.

No. She's not going to suffer the way I did. I promised Ruby that much.

I had to act quickly. My mind spun as I dug for pleasant memories of my own in an effort to shift the scene. It's been so long. I couldn't focus on any one memory more strongly than any other… Until suddenly, an image snapped into my head. My first day at Beacon. 17 years old, just stepping off the transport for the first time, gazing ahead at the sprawling campus grounds. I can almost feel my own trepidation and excitement from that day, just as fresh as if I were actually re-living the event. I didn't know why that of all things had been my first thought, but I did know I had to act quickly before it became too late. Pyrrha's palms were pressed against her ears and she fervently begged the scene to go away. The beyond, mercilessly, did the opposite. Her anguish did nothing but entrench the visage even more firmly, pulling it further into focus. I had to concentrate hard, straining to will my fond memory to overpower her own runaway thoughts.

It took a long moment, but finally, the beyond responded. The change in ambient light from the dark of the night sky in real-time Vale to the bright morning a little more than twenty years prior caused Pyrrha to look up cautiously. "What… What happened?"

Barely a second after the query left her lips, I walked past. Not 'dead' me. Alive me, eyes bright, full excitement and wonder as my mind processed my new surroundings. Pyrrha gasped confusedly, looking from me to myself and back again. Within a moment or two she seemed to understand what was going on.

I smiled. "I'm not going to let you suffer the same way I did before I learned to manage my thoughts in the beyond. This was just the first good memory I could come up with strong enough in my own mind to overpower your focus on Jaune."

"I…" Pyrrha continued to look around, thoughts probably turning wistfully back to the way things were before the events of the last night. Turning back to me, she smiles. "Thanks. I don't think I'd have been able to stop it."

"It's not about stopping it, Pyrrha. It's about letting go. I realize how that sounds… And no one could expect that of anyone after only a few hours." I sighed at the bitter reality of the situation before continuing. "No one should ever have to expect anyone to let go of anything from a life that was stolen from them. But that's the way things work here."

Pyrrha nodded, wiping away the last of the tears that had started to fall moments before. Staring at the me of years past as I stood nearby, my companion marveled for a moment. "You and Ruby look so alike."

"Looked." I say simply, putting my hand on her shoulder as I step closer. "This was a little more than twenty years ago. Feels like it was yesterday, though."

I made my way down the main thoroughfare, a long, arrow-straight path of precisely cut hexagonal cobblestones, along with the rest of the first years who'd disembarked the transport ship with me. Everything was so new, so different… Patch was small and Signal, the combat school near the house my dad and I had moved to last year, had barely more than forty students across all six grades at any given time. I knew everyone's semblance, I'd seen every weapon, I'd even sparred with most of them at some point or another.

Here, I knew no one. Over a hundred students had debarked my transport alone, from all across Vale, from different combat schools all over the continent and beyond, even. Not a single familiar face anywhere in the crowd. I remember the wonderment I'd felt moments before morphing into tense apprehension, a feeling I had been very familiar with at this point, given how many times my dad and I had uprooted and moved as I grew up. I watched myself slip my headphones on and pull my hood over my head, a nervous habit that I think subconsciously helped me feel invisible. Redundant, given my semblance, but I'd do it anyway.

The scene began to fade out. I'd felt Pyrrha's mind relax and her own thoughts cease to vie for control of what the beyond showed us, so I in like fashion began to clear my own mind too. Unexpectedly, however, Pyrrha lifted a pleading hand. "Wait!"

"For what?" I asked, perplexed.

"I want to see what happens if… If that's alright."

"It's nothing you haven't seen before, though. Same story, different characters."

"That can't be true. You graduated, became a huntress. You had a daughter. Your story already ends far better than mine did. I'd love to see it all unfold."

The fading scene slowed in its diaspora, froze, and then slowly began to re-focus as I allowed the memory to take forefront in my mind once again. "Very well. If it will help you keep your mind off of things. I certainly don't mind."

"Thank you, Summer. Ruby told me what little she knew about the team her parents had been on together. What was your team name again?"

I watch as teenage me walks wordlessly along with the mix of students, content enough for now to stay absorbed with my music. "STRQ." I said finally. "We were team STRQ."