Through Victory, CH13 (Patreon)

The post goes public Wednesday.

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By the time Silba had donned the Apprentice’s outfit, the sun had begun its long trek towards the horizon, heralding the coming night.
As she ghosted along the rooftops, she reflected on past recent events. Her Apprentice, slowly healing beneath the school. A satchel full of power cells, stowed away with Ruby’s stuff for the moment. And a Headmaster’s decision to limit and isolate her to the grounds of the school, ostensibly for her own safety. One question out of many that lingered on her mind was that of Dr. Watts, the brilliant former Atlesian scientist and current traitor of his people. On her way out, the good Dr. Frieze had shown her a picture of the man in question, who more or less fit the image Silba had had of him: a respectably mustached man, unassuming and otherwise uninteresting. Silba wondered why such a man would willingly turn on the human race. Money? Power? Recognition? Something else? Regardless, the answer would likely be one she could understand. It would be hard to surprise someone as old as her.
For now, she flowed unseen along rooftops and above city streets, using her Scry-sight to search for a suitable location for her next task. Not since the bathroom, the night she returned to Remnant, had she had a chance to sit down and properly meditate. Every waking hour and a fair few of her sleeping hours had been dedicated to either training her Apprentice, looking for murderers and their conspirators, or pretending to be a schoolgirl. Once upon a time she could have sent her Scythes to carry out her will, but that had been a long time ago. Searching was tedious, but part of her couldn’t help but find hunting quarry herself to be refreshing in a nostalgic way.
Complicating matters for her was that her targets had gone to ground. She had spent the past few hours criss-crossing the city proper, searching and Scrying from the shadows for any trace of the former scientist and psychotic murderess. But despite her efforts, she had come up empty. They were nowhere to be found, not within the city walls at least. They might have had some sort of safehouse located beyond the walls and far out in the wilds, but if that were the case, then that investigation would have to come later.
Thinking on it for a moment, she recalled from her past memories a failed settlement, an expansion by Vale into a subterranean concourse called Mountain Glenn. She also remembered it being used as a hideout used by the White Fang, one that her team had helped to wipe out. She also remembered the train loaded with explosives to ram the walls of the city in a foolish attempt to flood the city with Grimm, a plan that was no longer viable thanks to her actions days prior. It had failed, for the most part. When she got a chance, she would have to Scry that location properly.
As she traveled across the seedier parts of Vale’s warehouse district and back towards her stash, she slowed to a stop. Something caught her eye, an ideal spot to meditate. It was a narrow, rickety wooden pier, near the edge of the waterfront proper and within eyesight of the city’s inner walls. The pier terminated in a platform, on which stood a weathered wooden gazebo. The pier looked like it might have once served fishermen and mariners by letting them fish in the deeper waters, but it had long since seen better days. Now, it stood abandoned and forgotten, a weathered relic of happier times. But within the gazebo, she would be hidden from prying eyes.
As Silba set foot onto the pier and began walking down it toward the end, she could see the buttress where the city’s wall terminated, jutting a ways out onto the sea. Beyond the wall lay wildlands riddled with the Grimm. In no time at all she reached the end, strolling into the darkened interior. The interior was every bit as dilapidated as the exterior, bits of trash and traces of graffiti here and there. The only sounds that reached her ears were the lapping of waves against the pilings and the creaking of the boards beneath her boots.
Silba checked in on her alibi. Back at Beacon, her double continued to read in the library, undisturbed. She went through the motions of closing the book and putting it down on the table next to where the double sat, before getting up to fetch another from the shelf. With her alibi still solid, she could afford an hour or two to meditate. She sat down cross legged on the floor, unclipping her lightsaber as she did. Silba willed it to float before her as she began.
Slowing down her breathing, she let it all go. In. Out. She untethered herself from her worries, her fears. In. Out. She left behind concerns for her friends, her family and her Apprentice. In. Out. She put aside her frustration at the lack of answers for the many questions she had. In. Out. Focusing on the here and now, everything else just… slipped away, as time seemed to slow down for her. All of it, save the anger. That would always be a part of her.
Freed of the vexations of the past few days, Silba truly lost herself to the Force. Her mind’s eye wandered, tugged and pulled by the eddies as it glimpsed countless things all at once. Water, bubbling in a brook, a deer grazing in a meadow. A bird building a nest. She glimpsed her classmates going about their routine. She passed across virgin forests and grassy fields. All of it slowed to a trickle, yet passed by in an instant, with either being entirely up to the incomprehensible whims of the Force. She let herself wander, just for a bit, then she focused. She had something to do after all.
She reeled herself back in, back to the pier and the gazebo upon it. Back to her corporeal form and the lightsaber before her. The lightsaber was a question in and of itself: how did it land on Remnant, and whose hand had cast it here to start with? Silba regarded the lightsaber for a moment, its beskar hilt and elegant form. The way that the specter of Bane had flowed from it… Could she coax the entity out of it?
It was worth a try, Silba decided. Smoke coalesced, flowing off of her body in waves. It wafted up and into her lightsaber. As she expected, the weapon seemed to be drawing in her presence, moulding and reforming it into something else. Silba knew that it was a long shot, but for it to actually work, and beyond her expectations? It was interesting to say the least.
After a moment, the lightsaber began to expel the smoke, and it flowed and pooled opposite of her. A moment more and the smoke thickened, flowing upward into a vaguely humanoid shape opposite of her. The smoke continued to collect, to solidify, before resolving into a very human male sitting cross-legged on the weathered wood, his eyes closed to the world.
The man before her was far beyond the smoky specter from before. Here was Darth Bane, Master of the Sith, looking every bit as hale, hearty and human as she was. He was dressed in simple clothing, his bald head and pale skin accented by facial tattoos around his closed eyes. Eyes that opened, revealing a pair of yellow orbs staring back at her.
Darth Bane, the creator of the Rule of Two --- or at least an approximation of him --- focused on her and spoke. “Well, this is unexpected.”
“It very much is,” Silba replied, her surprise plainly visible.
“Darth Bane left… mechanisms, to provide guidance to those who would follow in his path. A fragment of his spirit, encoded into the structure of his blade,” the ghost of Bane answered a question before Silba could even think to ask it. “I suspect you have questions, and are in need of guidance.”
“Several, and I am,” Silba answered in order. “But I suspect there will be a catch for those questions.”
“Indeed.” A pause, before the ghost of Bane continued. “I doubt that Bane in life would have cared much for those between him and you, the apotheosis of his rule.  I feel he would have wanted to know about you, learn about you. And while he would have been interested in the story of the Empire you helped to build and then rule, he would have been far more interested in yours.”
The broad strokes then, she decided. “I see. Well, it is a very long story, and a story that lasted generations. In regards to the Empire, I think he would have liked what I did with the place. It was not the Sith Empire he might have known or known of, but it was an Empire in its own right. Sidious may have forged it, but it was my Master and myself that would reforge and refine it into something… greater, than any that came before.”
“Greater,” Bane echoed her, thinking for a moment. “The mantle of Empress, to you it was more than just a mantle, wasn’t it?”
Silba thought about his question. “Yes, I suppose. It was a mask, and a mask I eventually became.” Hearing herself say so after so long seemed to ground her, with so much of her life had been tied to one mask or another. What had started out as something akin to a glorified coping mechanism had become something stranger, and something that was somehow fundamentally necessary to her existence. Even Silba, the face behind the mask of the Empress, was essentially a mask of its own, merely swapped out when the Empress became inconvenient. A mask, hidden behind a mask.
But then, what lay beneath that last mask? It was a question she had never had the courage to answer.
“An act then? Like a mere street performer?”
“Ruler of the galaxy was far and away from a common minstrel. But you wanted to know where I started? Well, before I ever became the Empress, before the Apprentice, there was a little girl that dreamed of fighting monsters and being a hero. And then that girl lost everything she ever knew and loved, and it shattered her forever. My Master, what he did to me? I could argue that it was a kindness.”
“Torture, punishment,” Bane’s eyes narrowed. “He went beyond mere training. He broke your spirit, shattered your soul.”
“And then he reforged me into something useful, better,” she countered. “That little girl failed everyone she knew and let them die. The Apprentice, however? She was someone powerful. Where Ruby Rose failed, Silba succeeded in every way and more.” A pause, as she drew a breath. “And my Master? Well, he himself was broken. In any case, I forgave him a long time ago.” A distant memory of a throne room came to her mind, and a meeting secretly Scryed upon. Of her Master’s Master, quipping at his Apprentice for finding the one person in the galaxy as damaged as he was. “After my Master found me, reforged me into someone worthy of being his successor, I felt for the first time in my life that I had agency, a purpose. One that would drive change.”
Bane was quiet for a moment. “I find it interesting that your Master decided to take an apprentice while still being one himself.”
“His own master did the same with one of his predecessors, apparently. Lord Vader,” Silba told the specter the name of her Master, “took a risk. But his own master saw through the ruse. He simply did not care, because he found me more interesting and amusing than threatening. He had been under the notion that if I showed promise, he would do away with his current Apprentice and replace him with me.” Silba allowed herself a smile, as she remembered that throne room on Coruscant, the surprise that flashed across his face as his mask of confidence broke. “When that day came, and he tried to pit us against one another? It was his last.”
The spirit chuckled, before the chuckle turned into a hearty laugh. “Most would have killed their Masters in their sleep. Rarely would aspirants ensure themselves a promotion in that manner. Even rarer that it ever succeeded.”
It had been the third, perhaps second hardest fight of her life. Even then, she wouldn’t have killed Sidious without unexpected help in the final hour. “It was reckless of me, to fight him head on like that. My Master made sure that it would just be the two of us, but still.”
“And with the Master gone, and the Apprentice became the Master, and the Novice became the Apprentice. The more things change, the more they stay the same,” the ghost of Bane laughed. “I wish that you had been alive in Bane’s time. Had he taken you under his wing, the Jedi would have come to fear you in their last days. And I suspect there would have only ever been two of our line.”
“You flatter me Master, but I doubt I would know. The Jedi were gone by my time, save for a few stubborn exceptions. And the one Jedi I did meet, despite being his enemy technically speaking, somehow befriended me in the time I knew him.”
A flicker of recollection crossed the specter’s features, as it touched upon her memories. “Ah, he was one of their kind,” Bane spoke. “Living mysteries, they were. There had always been at least one of their kind on the Jedi Council, since perhaps the day their Order was founded.”
“You mean of Yoda’s species?”
Bane’s specter nodded, a hand rising to his chin, which he scratched in contemplation. “I know not even what they called themselves. I crossed paths and blades with one in my youth, and knew of another on the Council. Few Jedi have been stronger in the Force than those little green creatures. A few Sith have tried to find the world from which they hail, but all failed. Bane chose not to follow their path. One of their kind was a significant threat all on their own, but an entire planet of Force-sensitive, Light Side adepts finding a reason to go to war? The Sith would not have lasted the week.”
Silba recalled Yoda, the little green alien she had met on that swampy world so long ago. In her long life, the old Jedi Master had been just one of two of his kind that she had ever met. “Tell me Master Bane, did they have the same verbal tic?”
The specter chuckled. “Backwards they spoke, with short sentences, they did.” The specter chuckled again, and Silba suppressed a giggle with a smirk as the specter fell silent for a moment. “However, I do find it interesting that the Sith persisted for so long after the downfall of their Order. I expected the last of our line to die in the act of their final destruction.”
Silba spared a thought to Sidious, the old man that had been her Master’s Master. He had died laughing that day, by her hands. “Sidious paid lip service to the ideals of the Sith, but no more than that. He had his own plans, to conquer not merely the galaxy but the universe.”  
“Bold,” came Bane’s reply. “Foolish, but bold.”
“I agree. To attempt to control such a colossal empire would be beyond the skill of any mortal man or woman, sane or otherwise. Believe me, even the ten thousand worlds within my Empire stretched the limits of my capability, and it was a task I would not wish upon any other.”
“Is that because you sought that power for yourself?”
Silba’s eyes narrowed. “You glimpsed what I was, what I did and what I built. So you should know why I sought to hold it and maintain it.”
“To protect what you loved, what you had left. And again, such fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds, of annihilation.” The specter smiled. “The path you walked to get here, I doubt even Bane would have had the fortitude to follow through as you did.”
“Yeah,” Silba’s face darkened. “There were times I didn’t think I could stop them all. The century of peace that followed my trials were an earned reward. A century of quiet after one horror after another descended upon the galaxy every few decades. But in the end… I let it all go.”
“Ah, yes. The power to let power go,” Bane spoke. “You certainly provided an… interesting answer to that age old question. ‘Does one have the power to let power go?’”
“I didn’t need visions of the future to see the path I was heading down, being forced down,” Silba explained. “An Empress is one thing, but a God Empress?” She shook her head, remembering the hordes that prostrated themselves before her. “I am not a god. I am just an old woman, too strange to truly live and too stubborn to truly die.”
“But die you did.”
Silba closed her eyes, remembering the sadness and melancholy she had begun to feel as years turned into decades, and decades into long centuries. As she outlived all of her close friends. It had taken a heavy toll on her, from her. And toward the end, some began to interpret her rule, the long years of peace, as something more, something divinely inspired. They had begun to believe her a goddess.
She was no goddess, and she went out of her way to prove it.
“The Empress, Sternn,” Silba said. “In the end, that was a mask I had to kill.”
“Faking one’s death to walk away from it all? Rather brash, wouldn’t you say?”
“It was the only way to truly cut all ties.”
“That is true. Death does cut many of those.”
Death. Silba… didn’t remember hers. Until now, her apparent death had been something she ignored, put aside. Her last cognizant memories were of the Falcon, of where she parked it on that tropical world to enjoy her remaining days in peace. Whatever killed her? It had to have been sudden to the point of instantaneous. Because had it not, there would have been a battle. Whatever the cause, that was the past and this was the present. She had been given a chance to do it all over, and to do things better.
“You spoke of mechanisms,” Silba said. “Well, I left some of my own behind in the event I were to die. Procedures, contingencies to transition the Empire back into a Republic. Even in my absence, I trusted those few closest to me to carry out those contingencies, to make sure the galaxy did not descend into chaos and civil war the moment I wasn’t there to micromanage. It worked, for the most part. In the end, they merely needed an entire High Council to take my place.”
“‘Workaholism’ would be the term those corporate-obsessed races would have used,” Bane noted the implication.
“Yeah.” A workaholic described her most accurately. Half of it was because she needed a goal to focus on, while the rest was because she needed a distraction from her past failures. “I was married to my job, in a way.”
“And what a job it was,” Bane smiled. “This has been a good talk, Silba. And though I cannot answer some of your questions, I can provide you a modicum of guidance.”
Silba perked up. “I am listening.”
“This hated enemy of yours, the one you seek? Know this. You cannot kill her, not from where you stand currently.”
She blinked. “You woefully underestimate what I am capable of.”
“You misunderstand me, Silba. Sure, you could cut her down,” Bane grinned, “But that would be inappropriate for someone in your position. What I mean to say Master Silba, is that it’s no longer your role to kill her.”
Silba opened her mouth to reply, but she closed it. She didn’t need to, because she understood. She was the Master now. And as a Master, she had a specific role to play. Bane was right. As much as it would please her to go after Cinder and kill her slowly and excruciatingly…
“My Apprentice,” Silba said.
“Yes. She has her role to play, as you have your role to teach her.”
Silba didn’t need to reply. She already knew and understood all she needed to.
“What about my question then?” She changed the subject for the better. “How did your blade fall upon my world? I have dwelt on it at length, and to my knowledge of my time on Remnant, I knew not of any relics from the Sith nor the Jedi.”
“Hmm,” Bane hummed. “I… I do not know.”
“You do not know, or you will not tell me?”
“The former, I am afraid.” Bane drew a breath, before continuing. “That information, I simply do not have. It is an unfortunate turn of events that my saber was lost so quickly. It seems that the last to wield it was Bane’s own apprentice, Zannah. But what became of this after it left her hand,” he gestured to the lightsaber, “Has been lost. After her, another hand tried to claim it, but its owner was struck down for her insolence. And after that, it was your hand that laid claim to it.”
“Unfortunate,” Silba spoke. She recalled the flash of sight when she first found the saber, the image of a pale hand reaching for it. The impression of a woman struck down with lightning and hurled across a room. Had that been Salem? She silently mused. It probably was.
“It is. Perhaps the Jedi would have met their end far sooner, had Bane’s saber remained within the fold of the Sith.”
Silba grimaced. Disappointment upon disappointment. But still, at least she had a clearer goal now. “It was a nice talk, Master Bane,” Silba said.
“You know where to find me,” he smiled warmly. And with those parting words, the specter poofed back into smoke.
Silba sighed, reflecting on their exchange as she closed her eyes to further meditate and the smoke returned to her. She had much to think about.

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The sun had just begun to slip beneath the horizon when Silba stood from her place on the pier. She remained on the pier for a while, standing at the very end by the railing and watching the sun set. Sunsets and sunrises had been something she often spent time watching in her previous life, at least whenever she had a moment of spare time to do so. And she had done so ever since that first sunrise, so long ago on that rooftop on Jakku with Ez and Syl by her side.
Her previous life. It… really felt like that. She supposed it was a technical truth, all things considered. After the sun disappeared beneath the horizon in a blip of green light, she turned and walked away, back towards the way she came. All the while, she reflected on Bane’s words and what they meant.
She was a Master now, he had told her. And as a Master, she had a role to play. The rational, logical part of her mind told her he was correct, that of course she knew what that all meant. Her own master had taught her well, and she’d learned all she could from him. But she had somehow forgotten the proper tenets after so long being alone, regarding where the Apprentice ended and the Master started. And then waking up in her past life, and everything that had happened since, not to mention her schemes and plans of revenge? It had conspired to distract her from the obvious, in a way.
Peace is a lie. She recalled the moment she spoke those words to Amber, and set the path she would follow for the rest of her life. She was the Master now, and she needed to change her mindset in a fundamental way. An Apprentice? An Apprentice kills their opponents, brutally and efficiently by Force, by blade or both. But the Master? The Master is the one that gives that order, signs that death warrant. Rarely should the master be forced to draw their own blade, save in self defence or instruction. And what did that mean for Cinder? Silba smirked. It was almost poetic, what was going to happen to her.
And she couldn’t wait to enjoy every minute of it.
Silba ghosted across the buildings and cranes along the waterfront, back towards a shop she had visited days prior. It was no doubt closed by now, but that hadn’t stopped her in the past. Besides a new state of mind, she also needed a wardrobe change, sort of. Her current attire had done well so far, but now it needed a little something extra and she had in mind just what she needed.
But that could wait until certain pests were taken care of. She had noticed one earlier trying to follow her, for a given value of “follow”, anyway; she’d known Imperial Security agents who were more discreet. She had escaped their notice long enough to commune with Bane’s shade, but now was as good a time as any to learn more about her unwanted company. Silba slowed, coming to a stop on a narrow roof to focus on the stranger. There, standing atop a nearby loading crane by the waterfront was someone she recognized.
Qrow, her uncle. Why was he out here in the middle of the night? She wondered.
The answer was obvious: Qrow had come back because of her. Not Ruby, but Silba, the Red Blade. He’d come to Vale from wherever to fight her, because he thought she was dangerous, a threat to Vale. And there were others. Two more, concealed a hundred paces to Qrow’s right, Her Scrying showed her. And another, concealed the same distance to his left. They were mostly hidden from her Scry-sight by the gloomy dark between shipping containers. A trap then, she realized. She got the impression that these three were all people she had met before, but who exactly they were she felt she would find out soon enough.
Part of Silba wanted to just give them a wide berth, to let the trap be unsprung. Another part of her wanted to talk to the man, to find out why her uncle wanted to find her. It took her only a moment to come to a decision. Silba spun off another doppelganger, the double of her materializing on the roof next to her. She had it take off, leaping in her place toward her uncle and the obvious trap. Silba cloaked herself in a stealth field, following it to a spot on a nearby rooftop.
Qrow didn’t react at first to the doppelganger’s arrival. He continued to look out to sea, the last dredges of reddish sunlight fading to black. But then something alerted him to it, something that no doubt made the hairs on the back of his neck rise in alarm. He turned to face her, his surprise at her presence nearby causing him to briefly lose his otherwise collected composure.
Despite not wanting to fight her own Uncle, old instincts of facing a worthy and capable opponent surfaced. Of wanting to brandish her lightsaber, to charge said opponent and test them to their limit before cutting them down all the same. Silba restrained herself, keeping her lightsaber clipped to her webbing. Her shadow could fight for her if it came to that. While she was reasonably sure her shadow could match her uncle in a fight, four against one would likely tip those odds out of her favor. But she had a plan to account for that.
She tapped into both her recent and ancient knowledge of her uncle. How he fought, how he worked as part of a team. The memories about him came more readily than most, as she had once based much of her fighting techniques on the man she long admired. And all told, there was a good reason he had a reputation of being one of the best Huntsmen in the world. Ultimately, Silba simply didn’t want to fight him. Not because she wouldn’t win, but because any win condition would likely result in his serious injury or death if she wasn’t careful. The man was known to be quite stubborn in a fight, or so she had once heard. There was a reason her past self had idolized the man, even going so far as to build such a complex weapon and learn such a complex martial style to mimic his.
While she watched the dockyard from the rooftop, the shadow dropped down toward the concrete ground below, using the Force to slow its fall. Her uncle followed her down, and the points where they touched the ground were a few dozen paces apart. Never did the shadow break its gaze from the man - she wanted to surprise his compatriots when the time came, whoever they were.
“Well, hello there,” her uncle called out to her. “Fancy meeting you all the way out here.” His voice was filled with confidence, of self-assured victory, though his face a moment ago betrayed the truth of the matter. “Care for a chat?”
Silba said nothing in reply, merely continuing to size the man up for the inevitable fight. His body language was passive, at least for the moment. He didn’t give the impression or intention of a sudden surprise attack. No, those would come from the others.
“A woman of few words then?” He said with a grin. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with being shy.”
It was all she could do to keep from physically recoiling. Was he flirting with me? Really? Silba knew he was sizing her up all the same, and would be using this exchange to gather information about her. Her words, her mannerisms, and how she fought. She channeled the Force, dipping into her Sith stealth training. It had been something she had learned from the old man, her Master’s Master, and it was perhaps the most useful thing she had ever learned from Sidious. She shaped her double’s eyes and face, and altered its voice to something more regal and deeper than even that of the Empress she had once been. Qrow wanted an answer, but for the moment, Silba decided to remain quiet.
“A quiet one huh?” Qrow said. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with quiet.”
Silba gritted her teeth. For kriff’s sake Uncle Qrow. Come to think of it, this reminds me of the times Master had to deal with “That Fool’s” attempts at humor. Perhaps I can do the same here. Yes, yes, that would work here. Smirking inwardly, Silba continued to impassively stare at Qrow in silence.
“I know I’m ruggedly handsome, but there’s no need to be shy,” her uncle tried again. At the lack of reaction, he sighed. “My boss wants to talk to you, because he has questions you might be able to answer for him.”
Ozpin. Silba was going to have to be careful in how she proceeded from here. “The old man in the high tower? What would he want with me?”
For a moment, Qrow seemed surprised, before shrugging and continuing to speak. “An old man? Yeah, that sounds about right. Look, me and him, we know you’ve been up to trouble here in Vale. Sure, it’s aimed at the people that deserve it, but still. My boss just wants to talk with you, one-on-one. He seems eager to meet you.”
For a brief moment, Silba contemplated her very first meeting with the Headmaster of Beacon Academy, all those years ago. It had just been his deputy and herself in a police interrogation room, with her being scolded by said woman. And then he walked in, carrying a plate of cookies and wearing a warm smile on his face. “Interesting,” her double replied. “Pray tell, what is it he could ask of me?”
“That’s between him and you. I’m just the messenger,” Qrow shrugged, “delivering a message and a request.”
“The message I have heard,” Silba’s double said. “And the request?”
“That you stop.”
“Oh?”  “Your attacks on the White Fang,” Qrow explained. “The destruction caused people to panic, and caused a fair bit of fear. And that fear? Well, I don’t think I need to explain.”
“I see,” Silba made her double sigh. “Unfortunately, my actions were necessary. Left unchecked, the Fang would have attacked the city and the Academy up on its hill. And at that point, I would have been the very least of your problems.”
Qrow’s expression darkened. “That would help explain the Dust stockpile.”
“Yes, it would.” Silba smiled, recalling an adventure from her childhood, one she noted might be of relevance here and that would assuage some of the fears against her. Just some, not all of them. “How about something in return? A message of my own?”
Qrow raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“It’s a measure of intelligence, to pass on to whoever would make the best use of it,” Silba’s double began. “The White Fang have a base within Mountain Glenn, beyond the walls of the city. They planned to use the stolen Dust to blast their way from there into the city using a train on an underground track as their ram.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Qrow asked suspiciously.
“I have my reasons,” Silba’s double replied. How Ozpin or Ironwood used the information would tell her something about how they functioned, and how seriously they truly took the White Fang and their masters. If the good General sent some of his airships to bombard their positions, or Ozpin sent teams of his Huntsmen to wipe them out? All the better.
“Well, it’s good to know we have a mutual enemy then. The Headmaster-”
“No,” Silba quickly cut him off.
“No?”
“The headmaster, and all those he’s tangled up in his web of conspiracy? Him and I will never be anything other than him and I.”
“I don't understand,” Qrow said. “Why-”
“Because,” Silba cut him off, “The enemy of my enemy is most certainly not my friend. At best they can be an ally of convenience, and at worst an obstruction to your own efforts. That, and I simply don’t trust Ozpin.”
“We don’t have to be enemies Silba,” Her uncle pleaded.
Silba kept from reacting to her name. How did he know that? Silba made her double lean forward, made it widen its eyes now glowing that Sith yellow. “So, I must be either your friend or your enemy? That is quite… absolute of you, Branwen. My goals are beyond your understanding, but they do not revolve around you or your master. We are merely… neighbors. We each have our own paths to follow. Just as I would not dictate to you how to lead your life, do not presume to dictate me mine.”
Qrow sighed. “We don’t have to be that either. But it’s a shame that you believe that.”
“Belief? No, it is a statement of fact,” Silba’s double replied. “Chessmasters such as your master, such as Salem? They do not have friends. They have enemies, pawns, and marks. After all, I am sure your twin Raven would share my opinion to some degree.”
“W- what?”
“Your nieces do not know, do they?” the double spoke, its head cocked to the side. “Why their mother and aunt ran away all those years ago, why she abandoned her teammates?” Silba was throwing out guesses, and watching Qrow’s reactions to them. “She was afraid, wasn’t she? Of the truth.”
“Shut up.”
“Tell me, did Summer Rose know?”
“I said shut up!” Harbinger shifted and transformed in Qrow’s hand, extending to its full size. And that struck a nerve, she noted. “Using force to try to get what you want,” The double chided. “I can see the family resemblance.” Well, that confirms that, Silba concluded from her perch. Her father had been in the dark, but Raven knew. But had her mother known about Salem?
Silba’s face darkened. Was Salem why she died?
“I’m nothing like Raven,” Qrow snarled as he lowered Harbinger and shifted it back to its compact form. “We’re the ones trying to save the world. We just want to have a friendly chat. Don’t try to fight us, lady, it won’t turn out well for you.”
“Does ‘we’ include your friends skulking in the shadows?” Silba’s double spoke up, making sure her voice carried.
His eyes widened. “What?”  Silba gestured to her left and right. “Come now, do not be shy.”
Seemingly taking that as their cue, three people walked out of the shadows. Despite having suspected their identities, Silba felt a chill run down her spine at the confirmation of the reach of Ozpin’s inner circle.
From her left, Glynda Goodwitch walked into view, her heels clicking on the pavement and her crop in hand. To her right, a woman Silba identified as an older version of her partner came, her sword drawn and ready. Winter Schnee, Weiss’s sister. And accompanying her…
Accompanying her was her own father. How? Why was he here? Taiyang Xiao Long, her own dad, was someone she was going to have to fight, and someone who likely had the best shot at seeing through her Mask. Had Qrow roped him into this? Silba wondered. Of course he roped him into this.
Silba stilled her movements, her heart and breathing. She schooled her features, letting the Empress wholly to the forefront while little more than hiding behind the mask. “Well, this is hardly sporting now, is it? Outnumbering me four to one? How like Grimm you are.”
“Says the criminal terrorizing Vale. Surrender and come with us, Red Blade,” Winter ordered coldly. “Don’t make this harder on yourself.”
So she says. Four versus one, they… Well come to think of it, they actually had a chance, here and now. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. Sure, Silba had faced worse odds, but she had grown wise from those victories. And wisdom had taught her a long, long time ago to never fight multiple peer opponents at once, especially when surrounded. She wasn’t going to run from this though, because the Empress didn’t need to. After all, she had minions to fight her battles. Not that she was going to totally sit this one out.
It was time to spring a trap of her own. From the shadows that the newcomers began to emerge, three pools of black forming on the ground. “I disagree with that assessment, Specialist,” Silba’s double said. “You all came here spoiling for a fight. And thus far, the only thing separating you from the Black Queen’s pawns has been a palette swap. So, how about I give you a taste of what I will do to her?” The pools flowed up, solidifying into a trio of humanoid shapes that solidified further into distinct specters.
The first was lithe and slender, rising from a crouch and looking about her through an Inquisitorial helm. The second was adorned in the attire of her Scythes, her pale white boat cloak concealing her more feline features beneath it. The third and final was much larger than the other two, Her distinct six-eyed helmet rolled on her broad shoulders as she flexed her neck in anticipation of the coming fight.
Echoes of the Inquisitor, the Hunter and the Taskmaster, once more back at her side.
“Well, now that the stage has been set,” her double spoke, “do not kill them and do not hurt them either.”
Qrow moved to speak, but he never got the chance. Her double snapped its fingers, and the four specters drew and ignited their lightsabers in unison, six searing beams of light lighting up the docks.
Silba watched with a smile on her face as her specters and her double fell upon their prey.
After all, this wasn’t about a fight. This was about a statement.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Winter Schnee. The young woman held a special place in Weiss’s heart, as someone that her partner looked up to and admired. Silba could easily relate to her partner’s idolization of her older sister, as she herself had once admired Yang in the same way. But that had nothing to do with why Silba sent her minions to fight the others and chose Winter as her double’s opponent.
The reason was that Weiss needed to get stronger. All her friends and family did, but while she had experience with Mandalorians, Inquisitors, Wookiees, Force users and many others to draw from, Weiss’s Semblance was something the likes of which she had not encountered in all her years in the broader galaxy. And now, as if drawn here by the Force, was a person who was more skilled and experienced in using the Schnee family Semblance, and who was a better fencer to boot. Of course she would take advantage of this opportunity to study how Weiss’s repertoire could be developed.
The lightsabers of her specters were pale imitations of the real deal, comparable to the less lethal and less destructive training mode Sith often built into their lightsabers. Such modes were reserved for the instruction of novices and apprentices, at least as far as powerful shocks and nasty burns could be considered training. The Sith had been far less gentle with their aspirants after all, when compared to the Jedi. The weakened, false blades were a benefit in this situation though; her opponents might end up underestimating the power of real lightsabers, which would be useful when they cross paths again.
Winter to her credit was quick to defend - as she and Taiyang saw Silba and her Taskmaster charge them, they split apart. The Taskmaster went after her dad, while Silba’s double focused on Winter. And as their blades clashed, Silba couldn’t help but feel glee at once more fighting in a serious manner - or at least vicariously through her double.
Swing, slash. Parry, slash. Dodge to the left, block, slash. It all blended together in a riot of activity and a blur of fighting. Winter was truly talented at swordplay. Silba didn’t exactly know what one had to do to earn the title of Specialist, but the woman had more than earned it. She was every bit the fencer and duelist that her younger sister praised her to be, and clearly lacked the weakness to melee combat that Weiss had. For a few moments, she even managed to have Silba’s shadow on the defensive.
“Typical degenerate!” Winter shouted at her as she slashed. “Criminal scum like you don’t care at all about the consequences of your actions, they just leave death in their wake!”
Silba’s double said nothing. Let your enemy banter, her old friend’s advice reminded her. Less breath with which to fight you, they have. Free action, talking is not. Instead, it merely replied with a riposte. She channeled what she remembered of Makashi into the double, drawing on her past knowledge of the combat form to counter Winter’s own fencing style. To an outside observer, their duel would have no doubt come off as elegant, or something akin to a dance.
Silba spread her awareness out, moving her focus from one specter to another, to her father and the Taskmaster. Thinking back, Ezra had always been something of a brawler herself. She’d had a soft side, and outside of combat she was nothing but warm and friendly despite her frightening appearance. Perhaps that softness was why Silba unconsciously aimed her at the man. The specter kept her father on his feet, Taiyang barely managing to dodge her lightning quick jabs and strikes from her saber.
Despite the Taskmaster’s aggressive style, her dad still managed to land hits of his own, striking glancing blows where he could. Her dad’s expression was cold, focused. She’d recalled that look from Ruby’s memories, from when he was taking a fight seriously and when lives were on the line. It was one he would never wear to a friendly spar with his daughters, that was for certain.
Elsewhere, the shade of the Inquisitor dueled her uncle. Qrow liked to think of himself as an agile fighter, showing off his skill with Harbinger with a grin while dancing around the battlefield. But he might as well have been standing still with how the ghost of Sieben danced around him. Every swing of his scythe was effortlessly parried by the specter, every shot deflected with ease. At least until Qrow managed to slip past the specter’s defenses, planting a boot in its side and sending it sprawling to the ground.
The Inquisitor was quick to its feet, brandishing its saber as it stood up. “Not so tough, are you?” Qrow taunted.
The specter cocked its head, holding out its saber and igniting the second blade. And then the circular segment shifted to complete a circuit, and the blades began to spin. It’s better if it spins, had been the ridiculous justification so long ago for the equally ridiculous design the Inquisitors had opted to go with for their weapons.
Qrow’s reaction was… amusing. “You gotta be shitting me-” was all he managed to get out before the specter charged the man with renewed vigor.
Qrow jinked to the side, feet planting on the side of a container as he leapt away and up. The blades spun on the specter's saber as it used the beams as an impromptu propeller, chasing after her uncle. Their fight moved to the tops of the containers, hopping from one to the next and trading blows all the while.
A series of crashes drew her away from the fight between her uncle and the Inquisitor to Professor Goodwitch and the last of her specters. The echo of Sylva, her first Scythe, was currently dodging containers raining down from above. The missiles were being controlled by the Headmistress, who stood atop a floating container of her own. Sylva once upon a time would have no issue redirecting the projectiles, but this wasn’t Sylva. Just her ghost.
It was here that she opted to intervene, having been satisfied with the battles of the others. One glaring weakness her specters possessed was in how weak they were when it came to the Force. Even in her refinement of the technique over the decades she’d been practicing it, her specters could barely match a novice in terms of power when using the Force independent of her.
Well, there was one notable exception to that rule, but he wasn’t coming out tonight.
Still hidden, Silba focused on the falling containers, arresting their fall and giving the Scythe some breathing room. Now with a clear path to her opponent, the Scythe turned and charged at Professor Goodwitch, her yellow and green sabers in hand. The Headmistress immediately abandoned her platform, leaping clear and sending it at the specter below. The Scythe simply leapt over it, actually running up along the top as it fell toward and crashed into the ground.
Goodwitch swore as the Scythe reached her, suddenly having been forced to close quarters. Silba had long gotten the impression that the woman found personal combat distasteful, instead opting to fight from behind a team of other Huntsmen. Her Semblance lent itself more to battlefield control than direct fighting, and it showed.
As the First Scythe duked it out with the Headmistress, Silba was forced to turn her attention back to Winter, who was trying a new trick. A slash of the air between the two of them created a glowing white Glyph, from which burst a colossal, armored hand and forearm that reached towards her double. Weiss had mentioned it to her a long time ago, her inherited Semblance that was unique to the Schnee family: the ability to create ‘summons’ of slain Grimm, on top of the exotic effects that Weiss could create with her Glyphs. Silba didn’t know what monstrosity Winter had defeated to be able to summon something like that, nor was she keen on finding out what the rest of it looked like. She reached out through the Force to the shipping containers on either side of her double as it dashed backward and away. With it clear, she slammed the steel boxes into the arm from both directions in a cacophony of screeching metal.
Her double hopped over the crumpled containers, dashing across the uneven surface toward her opponent. Winter snarled and summoned yet another Glyph, this one glowing black. Before it could react, her double was promptly sent airborne as the glyph powered up, a field of anti-gravity catapulting her skyward, over and above Silba. And she knew just how to respond. She reached out toward Winter and pulled, yanking the Specialist toward her and her own Glyph, copying the trick she had used in training with her Apprentice and applying it here.
Winter was yanked forward into and through her own Glyph, and she too was sent sailing into the sky. Silba slowed her velocity, trying to angle herself down near the cranes where it had started. Winter sailed past her, her gaze still fixed upon Silba. Another glyph appeared midair in front of the woman, and she used the impromptu platform as a springboard to launch herself back at Silba’s specter.
All at once the entire fight dynamic had changed. A battle on the ground had turned into a battle in the sky. As Silba’s double and the Specialist fell back to the ground, Winter repeated the trick over and over. She bounced around from airborne Glyph to airborne Glyph, trying to find an opening to exploit. Winter seems to be using her Semblance much more frequently now. Even if she’s better than Weiss, her Aura must be being depleted quickly. She’s likely setting up for something big. Silba focused more of her attention on the fight. She carefully took note of what Winter was doing, or trying to do, with her Glyphs. Silba’s double gave her no quarter, keeping itself facing the woman and parrying every single strike.
But all things that go up must come down. The two of them landed, both of them rolling to a stop beneath one of the towering cranes, weapons raised and ready.
“You,” Winter panted, “Are too dangerous to be left alone.”
Silba’s double said nothing, silently rising to its feet, its gaze burning into Winter’s.
“Who even are you?” Winter demanded. “I’ve never heard of anyone able to do what you do.”
Her double remained silent. You’re not getting information that easily. The ISB would have been appalled at such an amateurish effort.
From elsewhere amidst the shipping containers, sounds of battle drifted to her ears. “You’re insane,” she said. “Completely and utterly insane. That’s the only explanation.”
Her double remained silent. Winter narrowed her eyes. “Fine, then. Take your secrets to the grave!” Abruptly, the woman smirked as she thrust her rapier into the sky, toward the upperworks of the crane above. Small, previously inconspicuous Glyphs suddenly began to glow red, then white-
Light. Heat. And a sound so loud that she could hear it even over the soundproofing she had set up around herself. The blast threatened to send her flying from the rooftop she was invisibly perched on, but she held herself fast with the Force. In a titanic crash, a mountain of scrap came down atop her double, the specter poofing out of existence from a hundred tons of burning wreckage landing on top of it.
Winter, during their midair dance, had been casting much more than those fancy jump pads. The Glyphs were in fact ad-hoc explosives, positioned to blast apart the crane’s upperworks and bring it all crashing down with maximum efficiency. She had placed them during their descent, while fighting Silba’s double in pitched combat. Silba was a little impressed by the woman, both for thinking of such a clever trick and for pulling it off. Against anyone else, it would have probably worked too. Too bad someone had already used a similar trick. Silba dismissed the other specters, deciding to just go ahead and end things there and then. She was starting to get a little bored, if she was being honest with herself.
Winter was panting, clearly exhausted as her Aura flickered from depletion. All around the docks there was blast damage, crushed containers and scorched concrete, not to mention a large pile of burning scrap in the center of it all. The two adjacent cranes had completely toppled over in opposite directions from the explosion the elder Schnee sister had triggered.
“Winter!” She heard her uncle Qrow shout as he came running, hopping over containers and debris. “What happened?”
Silba walked to the edge of the container she stood upon, to get a better view of the discussion and to listen with her own ears. “I… I had to,” Winter got out between ragged breaths.
“You killed her,” Qrow realized. “Damn it, Oz needed to talk to her! You knew that, Winter!”
“Ozpin’s not my boss, Qrow, General Ironwood is,” Winter shot back.
“What?”
“I had orders, Qrow!” Winter shouted at the man.
Her father and Professor Goodwitch arrived at that moment, both of them looking worse for wear. Her father had been scuffed and scorched a bit but was otherwise unharmed from his bout with Silba’s six-armed minion. The Headmistress looked equally disheveled, her clothes slightly crumpled and her glasses were missing. She would have to reflect later, review the memories and actions that her specters had taken in depth.
The Headmistress looked to the wreckage, then back to Winter. “Ms. Schnee, what did the General order you to do?” she demanded.
Winter regained her composure. “After he,” she thumbed over her shoulder to Qrow, “and Ozpin roped me into this mess, General Ironwood gave me orders to neutralize Red Blade if she was unwilling to cooperate or turned violent.”
“He- why would he do that!?” Qrow shouted.
“Because this city was being attacked, Qrow,” she shot back. “Between her massacring its people and the panic that’s caused drawing in Grimm? Use your damn brain for once.”
Qrow remained visibly angry, and Professor Goodwitch didn’t seem to have anything else to add. Her dad remained silent, crossing his arms in quiet contemplation. “I feel like I’m missing a lot of context here,” he spoke up. “Who’s this Salem, and what does she have to do with any of this?”
“I-” Qrow sagged, suddenly visibly defeated. “Godsdamnit. Tai, you’re going to have to take that up with Oz.” He looked at the pile of wreckage once more, toward whom he thought was buried beneath it. “Well, this turned into a mess. Oz isn’t going to like this.”
“He can take it up with the General.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s just leave.”
Silba had seen and heard enough. “Leaving so soon?” She spoke from where she was still hidden, her voice echoing throughout the dockyard.
She reached out through the Force, grabbed a hold of Winter and sent her hurtling with a surprised shriek across the docks into the sea. Such was Winter’s abrupt flight that she lost her grip on her sword, the weapon clattering to the pavement next to where she had stood an instant before. As Silba tossed Winter she channeled the full breadth of the Force into herself. It was overkill in a sense, but apparently she needed to make her point more emphatically.
Once more the others had their weapons out and readied, but Silba was done being soft on them. They had tried to kill her. Without bothering to draw her lightsaber, she dashed from her concealment, crashing into her father and shoulder checking him into a nearby container. She’d go easy on him, but only him. He had a look of genuine surprise on his face as she impacted him. He crashed into the container and fell to the ground in a heap, a dent in the corrugated wall where he had impacted it. Her dad wheezed as his Aura flickered, before collapsing. One.
Before her dad had even impacted the container, Silba had already snatched up Winter’s sword and was rushing towards her next target. Qrow tried to get a bead on her with his Harbinger but all he ever saw was a zig-zagging blur. With her strength reinforced as it was, a single swipe of her borrowed weapon was all it took to rip Harbinger from his hands and send it careening through the air towards Professor Goodwitch, the curved blade cracked from the vehemence of her attack. Before Qrow could even process the fact that he was unarmed Silba was simply there, a spinning back kick sending her uncle crashing hard into the same container her dad had crashed into. Qrow landed on the ground in a daze, his Aura as shattered as her dad’s. Two.
Professor Goodwitch shifted her focus from gathering up the debris towards the impromptu missile. Silba ripped the woman’s riding crop from her grip and slapped her in the rear with it. The sheer shock of the sudden spanking caused the strict Headmistress to release her hold on the debris, including a piece of the crane that crashed back down onto her head, dazing her and shattering her Aura.
With a roar, a soaked Winter barreled towards Silba, the furious scowl on her deepening as she recognized the weapon Silba was holding. Without turning around, Silba grabbed a hold of the staggering Headmistress’s cape and whipped her into the incoming Specialist. Winter could only widen her eyes in panic as her momentum carried her face right into her ally’s head, the sudden impact sending her tumbling into the air in a barrel roll. Before Winter could hit the ground, Silba hurled her human-sized bludgeon at the Atlesian, sending the both of them crashing into a pile on top of Qrow and her dad. Three and four.
Silba surveyed her handiwork with grim satisfaction. On the ground where he lay her dad coughed, holding his left side. He was mostly unmoving but okay. He might have a nasty bruise to show later to his daughters, but that was the worst of his harm besides his depleted Aura. Above him, Glynda was out cold, while Winter just moaned in pain from where she was sprawled across the Headmistress, face planted squarely in Glynda’s chest. Her hair tie had come undone, and her previously well-kept bun was reduced to a sodden, tangled mess festooned with kelp and crabs.
Only Qrow seemed to have any fight in him still, despite it all. He pushed Winter’s legs off of him, before shakily dragging himself to his feet. Stubborn, Silba remembered.
“This fight is over.”
“Who…” he wheezed, trying to draw a breath to speak with. He was shaking. Whether it was from his failing strength or anger, Silba couldn’t quite tell. “Who are you? What are you!?”
“Just a person trying to take a walk,” she replied. Now to hammer the point home. Drawing on all the frustration, loss and rage she had felt since she had returned, Silba channeled the Dark Side into the air around her to press down on Qrow from all sides. “I am beyond your comprehension, Qrow of Tribe Branwen. Out of all the people you come into contact with, you choose to approach me like a common bandit. Me. All that self-righteousness, all that arrogance, none of it could save you and your little posse today. Your luck had run out right from the start.”
From his wide-eyed stare, she got the impression that the man was realizing the gulf of power between them. Good. “That…” he trailed off, losing his balance and falling back down. “Just… Just do it,” Qrow said.
Did he think I wanted to kill him? “That will not be necessary,” she told him. “After all, you and your accomplices here have messages to deliver to your masters, and face the consequences of your failures.” Silba glanced at the unconscious Specialist, who had been steadily dripping a briny mess onto Goodwitch . “I will give Ironwood and Ozpin a second chance. However, if they continue their foolish mission of pursuing me, there will not be a third.” Silba let the anger slip into her closing words, made sure they had carried weight.
Silba cloaked herself in a Force illusion again. She spared a glance at her father, and part of her felt guilt at hurting him. At least he’ll come out of it the least injured and humiliated. And hopefully asking the right questions about what he’s gotten himself into. She left the four of them behind as sirens grew louder in the distance.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -

Silba was… sore.
Yes, that was the right word. Sore. Aching and in minor pain were also suitable. The exertion of drawing so hard on the Force it had taken metaphysical bites out of her. Small bites, but bites all the same. Bites that would take time to recover from, that would limit her a bit when it came to wielding the Force in the immediate future. Her teenage self lacked the specialized conditioning that all Force users needed to be able to wield the Force properly, and that burn was now being felt. The Force was coming to her more slowly, like a muscle overexerted. Silba managed, but it was hard. At the very least she was going to have to take the slow route back to Beacon, no jumping and gliding across rooftops to save time.
Back at the Academy, the only disturbance had been from Pyrrha of all people. Earlier, she had found her alibi in the library, and Silba had to step away from her meditation a bit to talk with her. She was troubled it seemed, and mainly about her team leader. Their brief conversation was enlightening, at least hopefully for the girl.
Silba stopped by a building and hopped up onto the roof. She spared a glance back the way she came, distant flashes lighting up the section of dockyards where she had been fighting not even half an hour prior. Long years of thwarting assassins and spies had instilled in her the habit of taking circuitous routes in case she was followed, a precaution that was all the more apt given the latest explosion. As she scanned the city, she sensed something unusual through her Scry-sight: a bird, flying low and slow over the nearby rooftops. But not just any bird, it was a bird that most definitely did not feel alive at all to her senses, and had now seen her and was flying toward her.
Silba turned to look up toward the creature, invisible to the naked eye until it landed on the edge of the roof. It resembled a crow or a raven with its jet black plumage, the only spots of color being its bony white mask and glowing red eyes. As it perched on the railing at the edge of the roof, Silba realized just what she was looking at. It was a Nevermore, but not the titanic avian monstrosities found in the wilds. No, this one was the normal size of a bird of the species that it mimicked. Silba also realized with widening eyes something else: she could somehow sense the creature through the Force, rather than it being a void like all the other Grimm she had seen so far.
Caw! The tiny Grimm screeched at her, interrupting her thoughts. Caw! Caw! It hopped toward her along the railing it perched on, keeping its gaze focused on her. It even sounded like the real deal.
Silba’s grip tightened on her pilfered weapon. Was this some kind of trick or ploy? The... Mini-more? stopped a few paces from her, before raising and wiggling its left leg with a caw. There, tied around the creature’s limb, was a piece of paper. Ah, that is what this is, she realized.
Silba walked over, still wary of the mini-more. It made no move to scratch or peck at her, merely presenting its limb and the message tied to it. Silba set her new sword down against the railing and reached out, carefully unwinding the thin strip of twine that bound the scrap of paper to the Grimm’s leg. She half expected it to take flight but it didn’t. Instead it waited, looking up at her expectantly with those beady red eyes.
Silba unfurled the paper, realizing it was in fact not paper but honest to Force parchment. The last time she had held something like it had probably been those old Je'daii texts that had been recovered from an ancient temple of their order. Who in the kriff even used parch - oh.
Silba knew the answer to her own question. “Your mistress sent you to find me, did she not?”
Caw! Cried the mini-more. For some reason Silba felt the desire to pet the creature, but ignored the impulse for the moment.
“And the battle earlier led you to me, and you followed me here?”
Caw! It repeated.
“I see.” Silba looked down at the message, written in flowing script. It was brief, just three lines long. Tomorrow at midnight, in the training grounds of Beacon where Ozma has his students fetch the false Relics. I will be waiting for you.
Silba scrutinized the message. Who was Ozma? Perhaps an alias that the Headmaster used? “Your mistress, she wishes to parley with me?” Silba asked the bird.
Caw! It answered her.
“Well then,” Silba shrugged and reached out to the bird, planting a gloved hand on its back and wings and stroking its feathers with it. It tried to move to get away, but Silba held it fast in place with the Force. “Many have said that one must not kill the messenger,” she told the mini-more. “But none of them ever said that they should not pet the messenger.”
Caw! It squawked in what Silba suspected was something akin to indignance. “Your feathers are quite soft,” she reassured it. “Does your mistress brood in a chair somewhere for hours on end while stroking them?”
Caw! Less energetic, although Silba wasn’t sure if it was a yes or a no, so she went with a maybe. At least she hoped it was a maybe, because it would fit with the mental picture of the woman, her apparent rival that she was currently constructing in her head. Someone old, angry, very skilled at what they do and most importantly, cunning. Also importantly, the kind of person that would brood in a chair while stroking the back of a pet in her lap for comfort. Sylva in her later years had kept a tooka, but Silba herself had preferred wolves to those horrifying, beady-eyed things.
“Well, tell your mistress that I acknowledge her message to me,” she told the mini-more. “And that I will meet with her. If you can understand me, that is.”
Caw! It screeched.
“I will take that as a yes then.” She released the Grimm, and at once it spread its wings and took flight, back towards the wall of Vale and the wilds beyond. Silba spared a moment to contemplate the Grimm, recognizing why Salem might have need of such creatures. Spies, messengers, saboteurs, the list went on and on. In a way, she couldn’t wait to meet her. Silba would learn all she could from the woman, one way or another, including how she controlled the Grimm. The Headmaster had claimed it was her Semblance, but for some reason Silba doubted that, like much of everything else she had been told by the man.
And after she learned all she could? Salem would die, by her hand. By her blade.
Silba continued moving to her stash spot. She was going to need to find a new place to hide her things. Salem could very likely have the whole city under surveillance through Grimm like the mini-more. And while she was at it, visit Miss Amitola’s shop. Irritating, to say the least.
But despite the annoyance, the night had been eventful. Silba popped open the panel, drawing out Ruby’s clothing and began changing, her mind elsewhere and far away on countless different things.

- - ----====| | |====---- - -