Teams RWBY and JNPR

The stunned silence continued as the seven hunters and huntresses processed what had just happened in front of their eyes. If not for the ash floating in the air and the large burn marks on the pavement, the death of two humans might as well not have happened. Nora opened her mouth to speak when everyone jumped as Pyrrha's scroll rung and disturbed the almost silent atmosphere. She fumbled her scroll but eventually got it under control. She tapped the answer button to be greeted with Ozpin's emotionless face, but there was both mirth and sadness in his eyes. An odd mixture.

"Team JNPR and Team RWBY. I am sorry for what has just occurred. One of our shuttle launch stations was hijacked by the White Fang, led by one Adam Taurus. It is for that reason that a ship full of humans was destroyed above Vale. Do not blame yourselves for this disaster, but use that energy for the defense of life and nature. Now for the future."

The seven students glanced at each other, each thinking the same thing. Is he not going to say anything about…y'know. The dead terrorist and the now twice-dead Jaune?

Ozpin seemed to read Pyrrha's expression and chuckled, confusing the students further. "Ah yes, the not-so-late Jaune Arc. He has some tricks up his sleeve and his sleeves are some of the largest I've seen. Everything shall be explained in due time, but what you must do now is return to Beacon immediately. The city is lost and we must concentrate our defenses at Beacon. I have issued a full retreat of…"

"A full retreat?" Ruby leaned over the scroll. "Sorry Headmaster, but aren't we never supposed to retreat all at once?"

"Apology accepted Ms. Rose. Your concern is valid, but we have received some unexpected help which you have already had a taste of. Your retreat shall be covered, but your mode of retreat will be left up to you. Beacon cannot spare any of its Bullheads. Good luck."

Ozpin's video disappeared and the scroll's screen turned off. Pyrrha closed the scroll and put it away, trying to think of a plan of action and failing. Pyrrha may have the most experience fighting, but Jaune was the leader for a reason: he could strategize.

Pyrrha glanced sidelong at Ruby to see her deep in thought. She looked around to see everyone staring at the two team leaders, driving up her stress levels even higher. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, using the techniques she had been taught to minimize pre-fight nerves.

A full retreat, helped by an unexpected source of help that we have met? She turned her head to look at the burned road. That certainly qualifies as unexpected. But who was he? He looked and sounded like Jaune, but how can Jaune still be alive?

She looked around once more, but noticed Blake staring at the skyline. She followed her line of sight and saw a queer looking black painted airship flying their way. It was smaller than a Bullhead and had a cockpit, but that's where the similarities ended. This airship had long smooth wings that looked like those of an overly large crow. The bottom of the ship and the wings had long spear-like projectiles as well as mottled hemispheres attached to it. A low hum emerged imperceivably from the quiet of the ruins of the city.

"Cover, now!" Ruby's shrill voice pushed everyone into motion. The seven scrambled to hide behind the rubble on the highway. The airship did a low sweep over the bridge and came back around but slower. It came to a stop above the bridge and started coming down. The engines barely made a sound even in the near silent surroundings.

Blake slid her cleaver out of its sheath and the others followed suit, ready to fight. The cockpit's hatch slid open and a man hopped out. Nora squinted, trying to make out the identity of the individual through the dust the craft's landing had thrown into the air.

Weiss was about to cast a Barrier but a hand stopped her. She looked over her shoulder to see JNPR standing up with smiles on their faces.

"Alfred!" Ren ran after the excited Nora as she half-hugged half-tackled the figure. Pyrrha stayed back and smiled at the sight.

"Pyrrha, is that really Alfred?" Ruby put Crescent Rose away and stood next to Pyrrha. "What's he doing here and how did he get an airship?"

"Ah Ms. Rose, it is good to see you." The robot stopped a few feet away, smiled, and inclined his head at her. "And the rest of Team RWBY, it is quite excellent to see you all again, for sure."

"Hey Alfred, "Yang gestured at the plane. "Where did you get that sweet ride?"

"Ah, yes, the plane. Mr. Arc instructed me to bring it to this location for an escort assignment. Where shall I set our destination?"

"Beacon. Is there enough space for all of us in there? It seems kind of small."

Alfred shook his head. "Unfortunately this was the one plane air-capable among all the ones Mr. Arc was building. It is only a gunship and as such will be providing air support for you on the way back as Master Arc cannot help himself."

"Wait…" Pyrrha cocked her head.

"Are you saying…" Weiss blinked.

"Jaune's alive?!" Ruby stared at the robot in shock, not daring to hope.

Alfred's face took on a confused shape. "Yes, of course he is. I assumed he returned from Team JNPR's trip to Atlas to attend to some important business."

"He personally spoke to you?"

"He remotely activated and instructed me from the hallway outside of his lab per the location signature on the message." Alfred looked around at the shocked and doubtful faces of everyone around him. "I could forward the message if you wish to verify my account."

"No Alfred, we trust you." Nora's beaming smile cheered the robot back to his normal self. "It's just, never mind."

"Where is Jaune? Do you know, Alfred?" Pyrrha couldn't believe her ears, but she let hope fill the void left in her by Jaune's death nonetheless.

"I am sorry Ms. Nikos, but that is information classified by Mr. Arc himself. His instructions were for me to escort you all back to Beacon where he will rendezvous with you."

Pyrrha sighed and rubbed her eyes. More of Jaune's secrecy about his activities. All this was getting to her, the stress of fighting for her life twice in a day, the stress of losing her partner and close friend, the stress of knowing what awaited her back in Beacon, the real reason for the retreat.

"I am ready to begin the escort assignment at any time. Simply begin moving in Beacon's direction and I shall provide aerial support should the need arise."

"Everyone ready?" Ruby looked around at the set faces of her fellow students, seeing determination in each pair of eyes. She had never felt so proud. "Mission: back to Beacon. Let's go team!"

…

The last Ursa was dispatched with a quick shot from Alfred's airship. The metal projectile skewered the monster through the eye, came out its lower back, and embedded itself in the ground. The Grimm's body leaned back on the metal pole, appearing as if the hulking creature was simply standing.

Pyrrha pulled her sword from the neck of a Beowolf and her shield from another's head. The impromptu clearing they had created was filled with craters and the bodies of the Grimm equally. She could see Beacon's towers above the tops of the trees, which meant they were only half an hour away from safety. From answers. From the future. Sometimes she wondered if she made things too melodramatic.

"My sensors do not read any more significant Grimm presence on your route to Beacon. I shall take your leave now teams and wish you a safe rest of the journey." The engines of the airship buzzed as the ship flew away. She already missed its comforting presence, which came mostly from the twin chainguns that used large caliber Dust rounds and from the wing mounted railguns.

The seven of them were tired and didn't speak a word as they gathered themselves and continued the trek back. The walk, or rather climb, up to Forever Fall had been a nightmare, with waves upon waves of Grimm assaulting them every so often the entire way. It was only thanks to the airship's sensors that they had any time to prepare; it felt as if the Grimm were preparing ambushes to stop them from making their way back to Beacon.

Twenty minutes later, her eyes had started to droop. It had been hours of almost non-stop fighting all the way from Atlas and it had taken a toll on her, physically and mentally. Her tired eyes continued to habitually scan the trees for any more threats, but the monotonous greenery dulled her senses. She blinked and started monitoring again, seeing nothing but trees, tress, a face, more trees, wait a second. Her eyes flicked back to the spot where she had seen the face to see a flash of blonde hair and shaking leaves.

She drew her sword and jumped into the forest, leaving the others staring dumbstruck at her sudden departure. They waited for a minute in a silence before Pyrrha reemerged from the forest.

"Pyrrha, what happened?" Ruby peered up at the taller girl in confusion.

Pyrrha smiled unconvincingly. "Nothing, just thought I saw something. Let's keep going."

Everyone shrugged, too tired to put in any effort to investigate further. Time passed uneventfully as the two teams made their way up the mountain, using the many trails carved into the rock. The sun was high in the sky when they finally reached Beacon grounds. A few large airships were landing at the landing pads, dropping off Huntsmen teams who hurried through the main doors.

RWBY and JNPR ran towards the doors and into the Great Hall, where other teams were already milling about, glancing up at the stage and whispering. RWBY and JNPR went to the left wall and stood by, waiting for Ozpin to take the stage and explain exactly what was happening.

"You guys look pretty confused." Cardin Winchester's loud voice turned heads towards their location. "Guess Ozpin kept even you guys in the dark."

"Good to see you in good health Cardin." Pyrrha smiled her plastic smile that she used for the endless commercials and public appearances back home in Mistral.

"Same, to all seven of you. Where's Jaune, still in the city?" Cardin scanned the faces of the crowd.

"We don't know, really." Ruby grimaced at the truth of the words.

"That's classic Jaune. Keeping us guessing, eh?" Cardin laughed aloud. "Last I saw him he was leaping around downtown. Saw him pin a Nevermore to a wall using that railgun of his. Anyways, gotta get back to my team, they'll poke their eyes out with their swords within 2 minutes, the idiots."

He didn't hang around long enough to see everyone's jaws drop at the nonchalance of Cardin's statement. That pretty much confirmed Jaune was still alive and kicking, even after falling into the ocean and blowing up. Somehow. That son of a gun.

Jaune Arc

Oh good lord that hurts. Jaune groaned as he lay on the metal shelf inside the morgue. Feeling the pain of one body while fighting was painful enough; feeling the pain of nineteen different bodies was another level altogether.

Ozpin had contacted his scroll halfway through the fight telling him to cover the retreat of the other teams. Jaune had never been recruited as a suicide bomber, but this feeling was close to what he imagined.

It didn't help that each body of his was underperforming due to split attention and inexperience. His scroll carrying body was killed while putting away the scroll by a supersonic arrow from a passing Giant Nevermore. Another had died when he stumbled and fell off a bridge onto an Alpha Deathstalker's stinger while low on aura. Two had succumbed to their own chemical weapons, and eight had blown themselves up. The last seven deaths had been the least embarrassing but their deaths had still hurt a lot.

He groaned and slid off the metal table. His head swam with the remnants of the pain of dying twenty times and hurt like hell to boot. Taking deep breaths, he headed out of the morgue and through the bustling hospital. All kinds of injuries were being treated, from simple cuts to severed limbs and more. This was just the start of the fight; the real threats still hadn't revealed themselves yet.

Jaune sprinted through the hallways, drawing the attention of older students busy with battle preparations, to his lab. He dressed and equipped himself with his usual garb, the sword at his waist, his miniaturized chemical launchers on the inside of his arms, the Dust channeled armor, and his pouches filled with goodies.

He walked back into the hallways and pulled his scroll out. He navigated to the tracker he had put on the scrolls of his friends, who were all currently in the Great Hall with expectedly low auras. Nothing that liberal usage of Aura Dust couldn't cure.

He turned the corner before the door to the Great Hall and knocked on the backstage entrance. The door opened to reveal Port's girth. "Jaune my boy! Come in, come in." Port shut the door behind him and led him through another door into the teacher's lounge. Ozpin and Glynda were sitting at the central table, the latter talking hurriedly into a scroll and the former staring rather impressively at a dust mote. Oobleck was nowhere to be seen.

"Headmaster, Jaune is here." Port took his seat at the table. Ozpin gestured Jaune to the fourth.

"Well done guarding the retreat, Jaune." Ozpin turned his attention to Jaune.

Glynda put her scroll away. "You've improved by leaps and bounds since you left for Atlas. You've even come back from the dead."

Jaune grinned guiltily. "The headmaster told you?"

"He did. I didn't believe him until I saw two of you killing an Alpha Giant Ursa together." Glynda's eyes bored into him over the top of her glasses. "What you did with the clones is punishable by death, did you know that?"

"Which won't affect him at all, so I think we can keep that moral matter for later."

"Of course Headmaster. I was simply asking if he knew the dangers of his experiments."

"I am fully aware of what I'm doing Headmistress, there is no reason for concern." Jaune knew Glynda cared for him and didn't want her to be angry at him.

She just nodded and went back to her scroll. Ozpin grinned slightly. "Now Jaune, do you want to explain what was the ship you launched earlier this day?"

"It is what I call a rocket, a ship that can go beyond the atmosphere."

Ozpin leaned in closer. "Beyond?"

"Indeed. Dust of course cannot be used past the reaches of Remnant's atmosphere and so an alternate fuel source is necessary."

"And what did you use?"

"Solid propellants mostly like ammonium compounds, polymer binders, high energy nitramides, aluminum flakes, plasticizers, stabilizers, and metal oxides. Mixed together and assisted by Gravity and Scorch Dust in atmosphere."

"And you managed to discover these reactions by yourself?"

Jaune hesitated. "I will not deny I may have found vulnerabilities in the Valean military's intranet and used that to gain access to their research servers." Lies upon lies.

Glynda and Port both swiveled their heads to meet his eyes, eyes wide in surprise. Ozpin simply chuckled. "Wouldn't expect anything less Jaune. Not a single thing less."

"You what?!" Glynda bounced her attention between Ozpin and Jaune.

"Glynda…"

"Someone needs to monitor the students anyways." Glynda walked out of the office.

Port burst out laughing after seeing Jaune's nonplussed face. "Dear lad, do not be scared. The headmistress is quite stressed dealing with the defense of this wonderful academy."

"That brings us to the point Jaune. We are going to need you to coordinate the defenses of the building proper. Your previous blank check for permissions is still applicable."

"So I still can…" Jaune dared to hope.

"Yes, you can use any tool you want to stop the Grimm from reaching the school grounds." Ozpin opened the laptop sitting in front of an empty chair and clicked around for a second. "The only thing I cannot promise is backup from another Hunter team. Plan smart, fight smart. Your team is almost here by now, Glynda does work fast. Impresses me even after all these years."

The door creaked open and Jaune turned around to see Pyrrha's face staring back at him, her face oddly blank.

"Hey there Pumpkin Pete's." Jaune didn't think Pyrrha could've looked any more confused. She was an expectation smasher like that.

"Jaune how…how are you still alive?"

"Sea turtles, mate." Jaune stood up and shrugged. He hoped making jokes would make them feel more comfortable, make the atmosphere closer to what it was like before the Promethean screwed everything up.

Nora stepped into the room and the temperature dropped two degrees. "Jaune, tell the truth. We saw you explode! We were worried!" Jaune had never seen Nora this serious and it hit him hard.

"Sorry guys." Jaune nodded at Ren as he stepped in, but the tall boy just shrugged and stood next to Nora. "I…I uh don't know where to start."

Nora's voice was icy. "You could start with telling the truth about how you survived blowing up over the open ocean."

Jaune pretended to gather himself. He had thought it would be easy to make something up, to surprise them in a brilliant way and explain everything. But now that he was standing in front of his teammates, he had no idea how much he wanted to reveal. Should've prepared earlier. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

"Before you start, I would advise your teammates to sit down." Ozpin got up, coffee cup in one hand and the laptop in another. "And I would advise you to keep the drama to a minimum. Good luck Mr. Arc. And JNPR, you need to be battle-ready within an hour. Keep that in mind. Pyrrha, meet me after you are done planning." The door closed behind the headmaster, leaving Jaune in a room with three quite angry dangerous teenagers.

"So, uh, how much do you guys know about Project Aquiline?" Jaune didn't expect them to know about it and his expectations were met. "It was a secret Valean military project to try and create soldiers for the war effort. While Atlas focused their research on robotics, Vale's efforts were more human."

"What do you mean?"

"You guys have felt aura's healing properties first hand." Jaune didn't wait for acknowledgement. "Concentration and focus lead to aural energy speeding up healing, sometimes in miraculous ways."

They all nodded.

"What if this process could be accelerated artificially, regardless of the state of the user? This research led to the invention of the healing machines that started popping up in war camps. Saved thousands of lives and turned the war in Vale's favor."

They nodded again.

"What happened next is still classified. Don't ask me how I got access to it. After the success of aural healing on the unconscious body, funding was increased to the department and they got to work pushing the bounds of this technique.

They could heal smaller and smaller pieces of a person's body as the war went on, improving their methods and equipment until they could regrow limbs in a matter of weeks with a 60% success rate. The program had the theory cemented all the way to spinal cord regrowth, but that was where the war ended and peacetime politics took over.

The funding was erased from the books, the approval documents disappeared, the legal impunities stripped, and then the scientists were tried and executed. All in secret of course."

"But why? This research sounds like it would improve medicine by leaps and bounds. Why was it hushed up?" Pyrrha leaned in, completely focused on the story like the rest of his team.

"Exactly. I dug deeper and deeper until I hit the goldmine. The scientists weren't just experimenting with injured patients; they were producing human clones to test on."

"Oh Dust no…"

"Oh Dust yes. Human clones, braindead of course, were being injured in lab conditions and then experimented on. Most of the procedures didn't work and resulted in countless mutated bodies being buried in secret. The rate of burials exceeded the influx of patients, which is what brought my attention to it.

Not content with simply boosting the clone's innate aura, they smuggled in aura experts from around Vale to attempt to catalyze the clone's dormant aural healing with the experts' own highly potent aura. The results were less than stellar: most of the experts lapsed into madness while the others died or fell into comas.

The mad ones were interrogated during periods of lucidity, and the only thing common in all the testimonials was that they all were trapped in a large building of varying descriptions that was utterly devoid of any color or detail. They spent their time wandering the endless featureless hallways searching for the exit, catching glimpses of the wonderful world outside.

Whenever they found an exit, they came back into the real world for a short time before being sucked back into the emptiness. That's where the reports I could find ended."

Silence filled the room for a moment before Ren spoke up. "You said that the experts merged their aura with the clones'?"

"That's precisely what I noticed too. The mind of a braindead person is completely empty by virtue of being dead, but their vitals still work. That means there is some structure inside the brain that can be measured in some form or another.

The madness started after the auras were forcibly entwined, which lends credibility to this theory, no? After this I went on my merry way and explored more of this mental real estate. Turns out it's really hard and I never could reach that level. But I did find out one thing: aura could be projected through thought. I could send out probes of aura that interacted with Dust and other aura-related paraphernalia without worrying about the physical obstructions that normal aura usage is limited to." Here goes nothing. "And so I used this technique to take over the bodies of clones of myself. Of course, the first batch were…"

"What?!" The surprised shout from all three of his teammates echoed off the walls of the room.

"I, eh, used this method of controlling my aura to take over and control the bodies of my clones?"

This time stunned silence wasn't as satisfying as it had always been. There was a sense of triumph in other cases; here there was a heavy undertone of guilt.

"And you didn't tell us?" Pyrrha sounded genuinely hurt. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Pyrrha, what could I tell you? The only thing confiding in you would have resulted in is more stress for you guys and that's the last thing I wanted!"

"We are your team, Jaune." Ren was quiet as usual, but his words were forceful. "This is absolutely ridiculous. We could have helped you do these experiments, ensured your safety."

Jaune stifled a guffaw. "Ren, there is nothing I needed help with as evident from me managing to do everything quite well by myself."

Ren's expression became hard and he sat back into his chair. Nora swiveled her eyes from Ren to Jaune. "Why?" She raised her finger as Jaune started to speak, her eyes dangerous. "Why did you do this? Why did you betray our trust and do such a horrible thing?"

"Horrible?" Jaune couldn't believe his ears. Sure, cloning carried with it some hardcore ethical concerns, but he wasn't doing anything bad with the bodies, was he?

"Cloning, Jaune. There is a reason it is banned in every kingdom. It is a gross human rights violation and just wrong!"

"Wrong?" Jaune was starting to get angry now. He had thought his teammates would have been angry at his lack of trust in them, but now they were questioning the morality of the situation? "Was it wrong for me to save your lives back on that bridge? I killed a man for you without even checking who he was! Do you understand the level of trust I have in you guys for me to do that? But no, go ahead and question me. Just remember that if I hadn't arrived at the right time, you all would all be dead right now."

Jaune didn't let them respond to his harsh words. "And the retreat that let Beacon regain its strength? That was me. Those that that Hunter on the bridge didn't kill would have fallen to the sheer amount of Grimm that were pouring into the city. Nineteen of me defended the city to my dying breaths nineteen times. I have died dozens of times defending those I love from those who wanted to hurt them."

"Jaune…"

"You have no right to judge my actions or my thought processes especially after all I've done. The Promethean, that rogue Hunter, the Grimm, all threats that I saved you all from by sacrificing myself."

"Jaune, listen to us." Pyrrha's voice was serious and earnest.

Jaune closed his eyes and motioned them to continue. The rant had left him breathing deeply and the uncharacteristic anger spiked his adrenaline levels. He didn't know why he lost control so suddenly, but he had to bring himself back to normal.

"This, this is quite a revelation. I think I speak for all three of us when I say that our feelings on this are complicated. On one hand, the reality of you cloning yourself and using them to fight is terrible and very wrong. On the other, we couldn't have made it out with the success we did if not for you. What I propose is that we ignore this extremely morally dark grey issue for now and focus on the incoming threat of the Grimm. What do you all say?"

Jaune opened his eyes and looked at Nora and Ren, who thought about it for a second and nodded. Pyrrha turned to Jaune and looked pointedly at him. "That sounds good to me Pyrrha, thank you for being reasonable. Now, we need to plan."

"Goodwitch said you had defensive plans of your own set up around Beacon?"

"That's the kind of talk I like." Jaune pulled out his scroll and placed it face up on the table, flicking and tapping until the schematics of the school's defenses popped up.

Pyrrha glanced quizzically at him. "You had this ready and waiting? We have had no time to do anything but fight since Atlas."

"Plan for the worst is what I say. Anyways, this," Jaune pointed at the front promenade. "This is probably the easiest spot to defend. Long sightlines for easy coverage by the school's sentry turrets. Unless the other defenses fall, the only Grimm that can attack from here are those that can fly or climb the huge cliff."

Jaune tapped a few locations and sentry turrets came out of the ground, their sensor's ranges shown as blue areas that covered the entire cliff facing section of the grounds. "We don't have to worry about anything here. If any of the inner guns fall, we will have enough time to send Hunter backups. What we do have to worry about is here."

He highlighted and expanded the forest-facing side of the grounds. "This is a double whammy. First, the trees are tall and thick enough to hide the numbers of the Grimm from both visual and audio monitoring so we will have no idea where their forces are greatest. We must continuously annihilate all Grimm before we are swamped. The first ten meters can be cut down before the Grimm are expected to arrive, but that effort is better suited elsewhere.

The second whammy is that this is where we have the most sensitive buildings. We cannot set up large explosive traps due to the risk of setting off the underground Dust reserves below the dorms." He tapped and the area under the dorms flashed red.

"That's not good…" Nora plonked her chin into her hands.

Jaune smiled. "Don't worry Nora, I have something especially explosive for you, don't worry." They all laughed at her whoop of joy. "So the plan here is to stack as many short range defensive systems as possible. Ozpin oversees Hunter deployments and will complement the defenses with medium-range fighters. So, that means that you two, "Jaune pointed at Pyrrha and Ren, "will be situated here. You will be fighting and monitoring the defense systems, reporting each development directly to me."

"Sounds pretty straightforward to me." Ren nodded approvingly.

"Nora, here's where you come in. We've got two sides of Beacon locked down. What I want you to do is take care of this." An entire row of cannons folded out of the outer buildings along the last two sides of the school, aimed at the kilometer of open ground that contained grass and the occasional tree crisscrossed by paths. Students used this area to unwind, have picnics, and play games. "Loaded with the finest delayed explosion Dust mixtures I can produce. You can fire these things for hours before getting low on Dust."

Nora's eyes widened in joy. "Continuously?"

Jaune nodded, his grin widening as he noticed Ren's horrified expression. "The largest land Grimm can only approach from this angle, so I want you to obliterate without mercy."

"Oh, you don't have to worry Jaune. Not a single Grimm is going to get anywhere near the school." Nora's eyes twinkled evilly. "Not a single one."

Jaune, slightly disturbed, zoomed out on the schematics. "I will be overseeing all the logistics and helping out where I can. If you guys need immediate help, let me know and I'll try to arrange for something to assist you ASAP. Try not to get yourself hurt to defend Beacon property; we can lose buildings, turrets, and my bodies, but not you guys. Let's not make this a pyrrhic victory, alright?"

"Sorry, a what?"

Why brain, why? "Nothing Pyrrha, just a phrase from my childhood that's all. It means a fight where the losses outweigh the actual victory."

"Whatever you say Jaune."

Jaune winced. He had been good at not dropping too many unexplainable references, but sometimes things slipped out. The mood was somber as the four members left the room and headed to their sections of Beacon in preparation of the upcoming fight. Ren walked to the forest side, Nora to the cannon side, Jaune to his lab, and Pyrrha to Ozpin's tower.

None of them noticed the fifth occupant of the room, whose dark red eyes glimmered with malicious humor as she stopped the recording on her scroll. Can't believe none of them noticed me. She giggled silently. This was easier than expected.

The Headmaster turned off his computer and waved Pyrrha over to a seat as she entered the room. Pyrrha took the offered seat, knowing exactly how the conversation was going to go. "I'll do it Professor."

Ozpin halted, obviously surprised. He recovered quickly and smiled a weak, almost regretful smile. "I hope to not have to take you up on this offer Ms. Nikos, but if the need arises I shall contact you. Be ready."

"Don't worry Headmaster, I already am." Pyrrha said with as much confidence as she could muster.

Ozpin simply smiled sadly and dismissed her.

...

AN: And that was Chapter 26. Some more exposition and plot threads started, plus the reunion. The upcoming siege is going to be exciting!

As always, thanks for reading! I appreciate each and every one of you. Please continue reviewing and PMing me, I take every single message to heart and I think the improvement in my writing over the course of these 26 chapters is pretty evident in my writing (or at least I hope!).

Also, a cookie to whoever can get the common theme of the titles of Chapters 17-22. Terms and Conditions apply to the state of the cookie delivered. See in-store for more details.

Have a great day and see you next chapter!