CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Saiyan Imperial Guard
Part I — What the Night Held
Location: Beacon Academy | That Night
The briefing room, after Tarro and the others had finished with it, held the specific quality of rooms that have been used to deliver significant information and are now processing the aftermath. The holographic table was still running, its thermal images cycling through the five crash sites in the Emerald Forest with the patient impartiality of a system that recorded everything and judged nothing.
Glynda had reduced the display to a single composite view. She stood at it for a moment after the last of the students had filed out, looking at the spread of impact sites with the expression she wore when she was doing the mental work of someone who is preparing for something she cannot fully prepare for.
Then she turned off the display and went to do what needed doing.
The students dispersed in the specific way of people who have been given orders and a timeline — with purpose, but also with the particular weight of the hours between now and when the orders would need to be executed. The weight was different for different people. For Nora it registered as energy, which she converted into wanting to do several things simultaneously. For Ren it registered as quiet, which he used to think. For Pyrrha it registered as the specific quality of attention she brought to anything that was about to be important.
For Nova, it registered as something he carried on the inside without showing the outside.
Ruby noticed.
She was still learning the full vocabulary of his expressions — had been learning it for a year and a half, and had accelerated considerably over the past months of proximity and training and the specific calibration that came from choosing to see someone clearly — and she had learned, over that time, that the absence of expression was itself expression. That when Nova carried something quietly, it was because the thing was significant enough that he did not want to process it loudly.
She stayed beside him.
She did not ask.
She let him find the moment for it.
The moment came when the main group had separated toward their respective dormitories and they had the corridor to themselves — the specific privacy of a late hallway with the kind of quiet that came at a certain hour.
"The full prophecy," Ruby said.
"Yes," he said.
"You knew there was more."
"I suspected there was more. Knowing is different." He looked at the wall ahead of them, at the specific middle distance that people looked at when they were organizing something inside. "The two warriors. The silver light and the golden fire."
"Tarro said—"
"I know what Tarro said," he said, which was not dismissal but the specific tone of someone who has heard a thing and is still finding the container to put it in. "I'm not disagreeing with any of it. I'm just—"
He stopped.
She waited.
"It's different," he said finally, "when the thing that makes you significant is something that was already in you before you had any say in it. I didn't choose this. I didn't build toward it. It was just there, waiting."
"That's true of most things about yourself," Ruby said.
He looked at her.
"Your strength, your instincts, the way you think about protecting people — you didn't choose those either," she said. "They were there. You just decided what to do with them. The prophecy doesn't change that part."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"You're right," he said.
"I know," she said.
He looked at her with the expression she had catalogued under specifically Nova.
"You're very calm about being the silver light in an ancient Saiyan prophecy," he said.
"I'm absolutely not calm about it," she said. "I'm being calm about it until I have time to be not calm about it, which is going to be after we deal with the Imperial Guard." She looked at him. "One crisis at a time."
He exhaled — the specific exhale of someone whose internal architecture has been reorganized by a conversation and is noting the improvement.
"One crisis at a time," he agreed.
Her tail intertwined with his, which it did now with the easy frequency of something that had decided this was simply what tails did.
He did not say anything else.
Neither did she.
They walked.
Part II — In the Forest
Location: Emerald Forest, Impact Site Alpha | That Same Night
The largest pod had settled into the earth with the specific quality of something that had been moving at very high velocity and had arrived at a very sudden conclusion. The trees around it had formed new opinions about their positions relative to the impact point. The ground had developed several craters of its own in the area.
Inside it, the five members of the Imperial Guard stood around a holographic tactical display in the specific configuration of people who had arrived somewhere with a mission and were organizing their approach to it.
Commander Zephyr had silver-streaked hair that carried the specific quality of black gone early gray, which in a Saiyan was not age but battle — the specific biological response to sustained engagement with things that were trying very hard to end you. The crimson cape he wore bore the royal insignia with the matter-of-fact confidence of someone who had been wearing it long enough to stop thinking about what it represented.
He studied the energy readings with the focused attention of a person for whom data was a language and the data in front of him was saying something that did not fit a familiar sentence.
"The signature is confirmed," Lieutenant Frost said. She had the pale, precise quality of someone who had trained her instincts to record rather than react — the specific discipline of a reconnaissance specialist who had learned that the best observation was the one that didn't change what it was observing by being noticed. "Legendary status. But the anomalies remain consistent with what we detected on approach."
"Anomalies," Zephyr said.
"The signature has something in it that isn't Saiyan," she said, with the specific tone of someone reporting a measurement they've checked twice because they didn't believe it the first time. "I don't have a category for it in any database the Empire has given me access to."
"Something native to this world," Sergeant Blaze said. He was large in the way that certain Saiyans were large — not just physically, but in the sense of presence, the specific density of someone who occupied their space with conviction. The ritual scars on his forearms had the character of things that had been earned rather than decorated. "Something local mixed with legendary power."
"Which should be impossible," Frost said.
"And yet," Sage said, which was the specific response of someone who had spent their professional life studying patterns and had learned that impossible was often an instruction from reality to revise the model rather than discard the observation. He was reviewing ancient texts on a separate display — hand-annotated copies of records that the Empire kept in very restricted archives, the kind of records that required specific clearance to access and specific understanding to read. "The texts do describe something like this. Not in the legendary Super Saiyan traditions, but in older accounts — accounts of what happened when the legendary power emerged on worlds with their own ancient power traditions."
"What do the older accounts say?" Zephyr asked.
"That the legendary power doesn't simply exist in a person," Sage said, looking up from the texts. "It responds to its environment. To the people around it. To what the person who carries it values and what they're willing to protect." He paused. "On this world, there is something called Aura. And beyond that, something older — something I suspect may be related to the anomaly in the signature."
"Silver-eyed warriors," Frost said.
The room received this.
"You've heard of them?" Zephyr asked.
"It's in the reconnaissance data," she said. "A specific type of warrior on this world, rare, with an ability that affects Grimm — which are the dominant dark creature species of this planet. The accounts describe silver eyes as connected to something ancient and significant in the mythology of this civilization." She looked at the display. "If the legendary Saiyan on this world has formed a bond with a silver-eyed warrior—"
"Then the signature would carry both," Sage confirmed. "Two ancient powers, in proximity, beginning to resonate with each other."
Venom, who had been quiet in the specific way of someone who was listening to everything and recording it for later use, spoke from the corner. "That changes the threat assessment."
"It changes everything," Zephyr said.
Blaze looked between his teammates with the expression of someone who wants the conversation to arrive at an action point. "How?"
"Because we came here expecting to find a legendary Super Saiyan in the early stages of awakening," Sage said. "Isolated, possibly frightened, likely unaware of the full scope of their heritage. That's the profile the Crown prepared us for." He gestured at the data. "What we've found is a legendary Super Saiyan who has been developing for months, surrounded by a support network of other Saiyans and loyal companions, bonded to a complementary power source that may be enhancing his development in ways the ancient texts specifically described as significant." He looked at Zephyr. "The Crown's profile was wrong."
"The Crown's profile was based on incomplete intelligence," Zephyr corrected, which was a diplomatic way of saying the same thing.
"Whatever we call it," Frost said, "the approach the Crown authorized assumes a compliant subject who can be guided or compelled. The approach for someone who has already formed deep bonds, who has people he's chosen to protect, who has—" She checked her data. "—fought off and defeated at least two Saiyan-level threats in the recent past, is different."
"Blaze," Zephyr said.
"Commander?"
"If we attempted to compel this person by force, accounting for what we've just discussed — what is your combat assessment?"
Blaze was quiet for a moment, which was unusual. He was not someone who hesitated on combat assessments. "With the full unit, we might be able to extract them. Might. Without considering the other Saiyans who appear to be present — the secondary signatures we detected, at least two of which showed significant development. Or the silver-eyed companion who is apparently also developing Saiyan ki."
"Might," Zephyr repeated.
"Might," Blaze confirmed.
"Which is not the margin the Crown expects from the Imperial Guard."
"No," Blaze said. "It is not."
Commander Zephyr looked at the display for a long moment.
"Then we don't compel," he said. "We engage diplomatically. We find out who this person is, what they've become, and what they're willing to do." He looked at his team. "The Crown wants an asset. An asset who is willing is considerably more useful than an asset who is not."
"And if they refuse entirely?" Venom asked.
"Then we have a different conversation," Zephyr said. "But we don't have that conversation first." He turned to Frost. "We make contact at dawn. The two of us, openly, under the terms of the Guardian's Banner."
"The Banner hasn't been invoked in decades," Frost said.
"Then it will be notable," Zephyr said. "Which is appropriate. This situation is notable." He moved toward the pod's interior, where the preparations for morning were already being laid out. "The rest of you maintain overwatch. No engagement unless I give the order."
"And if the locals initiate?" Blaze asked.
"The locals are not the mission," Zephyr said. "The legendary Super Saiyan is the mission. Keep that priority clear."
He moved to his position.
Around the five impact sites, in the specific quiet of a Remnant forest at night, the Imperial Guard prepared for morning.
In Beacon, thirty-seven people prepared for the same morning in different ways — with varying proportions of sleep, thought, conversation, and the specific internal work of people who know tomorrow matters and are doing what they can to be ready for it.
The forest held them apart.
Dawn would bring them together.
Part III — Before the Sun
Location: Beacon Academy | Before Dawn
The specific quality of the hour before dawn was the quality of the last of the night's permission to be uncertain.
Nova had not slept much, which was not unusual in the aftermath of significant information. He had sat with it — the prophecy, the Guard, the specific combination of large things that the past twenty-four hours had assembled — and had arrived, by the hour before dawn, at something that was not quite peace but was adjacent to it.
The thing he had arrived at was: I already know what I'm going to do. I knew before Tarro told me. The prophecy is a description of what I chose, not an instruction for what I must.
He had checked this from several angles.
It held.
He went to find the others.
Ruby was already awake, which did not surprise him.
She was sitting on the window ledge of the common room with Crescent Rose across her lap in its collapsed form and her tail curled around the sill beneath her, and she was looking at the forest in the specific way of someone who was looking at the forest but was thinking about what was in it.
She heard him coming and did not turn, which meant she had already sorted him from the ambient noise of an early building.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.
"Did sleep," she said. "Woke up at something-o'clock and decided sleeping more was less useful than thinking."
He sat beside her on the sill. "What were you thinking about?"
"The Guard," she said. "What they want. Whether they're going to negotiate or whether we're going to have to fight."
"Zephyr will negotiate first," he said.
She looked at him. "You seem sure about that."
"If they wanted a fight, they would have moved last night. Five impact sites, five warriors who could individually level significant amounts of terrain, and they sat in their pods." He looked at the forest. "They're being cautious. Cautious means they're uncertain. Uncertain means they're not leading with force."
"Or they're waiting for something," Ruby said.
"Or that," he agreed. "But I think the first one."
She looked at the forest.
He looked at her.
The tail moved between them — his settling beside hers in the easy way it had settled beside things that mattered to it.
"Ruby," he said.
"Yes."
"The prophecy—"
"We talked about this last night."
"I know. I have more to say."
She turned to look at him properly, with the attention she gave things she was going to take seriously.
"The silver light and the golden fire," he said. "I don't want you to think of yourself as something I need to complete me. Or as something the prophecy drafted into service without asking." He looked at her directly. "You're Ruby Rose. You made a choice to be where you are. The prophecy describing that choice doesn't unmake it."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Did you spend the night working up to saying that?" she asked.
"Some of the night, yes."
She looked at him with the specific look she had when he had done something she found specifically right.
"I know," she said. "I figured that out on my own, around midnight. But I appreciate you saying it."
"Okay," he said.
"It's a good thing to say," she said. "Very you."
"That's what I was going for."
She leaned her head against his shoulder. He put his arm around her. Her tail curled around his.
They watched the forest as the specific gray of pre-dawn began to arrive at the edges of the sky.
Part IV — The Formation
Location: Beacon Academy Grounds | Dawn
The teams assembled with the specific efficiency of people who had been told to be ready and had been.
NDTSA in the modified configuration that combat had suggested — Nova at the point, Turuk and Scarlett on the flanks, Daikon and Aiko covering the approaches. Team RWBY arranged to support — Ruby immediately behind Nova, the others distributed through the group in positions that had been chosen for visibility rather than protection.
Team JNPR had taken up positions at Beacon's outer edge, Pyrrha and Jaune anchoring the northern approach while Nora and Ren covered the route back from the forest. The arrangement was Tarro's — the product of a mind that thought in terms of overlapping fields of responsibility.
Tarro himself stood slightly ahead of the group with Rhubar. The two full-blooded Saiyan warriors had the specific quality of the point of a very large needle, and the visual was intentional.
"If they come openly," Rhubar said, reviewing the arrangement with the evaluating eye of a former soldier, "they'll come to us. They won't want to be seen forcing a meeting."
"If they come openly," Tarro said.
"The Guard operates with honor when honor is strategically viable," Rhubar said. "This situation gives them reason to be strategic."
"Then we give them a clear approach," Tarro said. "Open ground. No ambush positions visible from the forest edge." He looked back at the assembled students. "Though less visible doesn't mean absent."
Sala was standing with her sons.
She had not said much since the briefing — had been in the specific mode she adopted when she was managing a large number of concerns simultaneously and had decided that the managing required more resources than the expressing. She looked at Nova. Then at Turuk. Then at the group around them — at the specific collection of people who had assembled around her sons over the past year, who had become the constellation of them.
"Whatever they want," she said quietly, to Nova specifically, "remember that the decision is yours. Whatever the prophecy says, whatever the Guard demands — you decide. Not the Empire. Not the Crown. You."
Nova looked at her.
"I know," he said.
She squeezed his shoulder briefly.
Then she moved to her position.
Yang had taken her place in the group with the specific determination of someone who had been uncertain the night before and had arrived at certainty by morning. She was standing beside Turuk with the particular quality of someone who has decided that a particular arrangement of people is the right one and has committed to it.
Turuk noticed.
"You're ready," he said.
"I'm as ready as I'm going to be without several more months of training," she said. "Which is ready enough."
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"When this is over," she said, in the tone she used when she was saying something genuine rather than performing something genuine, "you owe me a real conversation."
"About what?" he asked.
She gave him the look.
He gave her the look of someone who knows exactly what about what means and is stalling.
"All right," he said.
"Good," she said.
Scarlett, who had caught approximately half of this, filed it under finally and redirected her attention to the forest.
Weiss was reviewing the modified frequency equipment Daikon had spent the night constructing with the specific focus of someone who has offered to help with a thing and is making sure the thing is working.
"It's stable now," Daikon said, from beside her.
"It was stable an hour ago," Weiss said.
"You keep checking it."
"I check things when I'm nervous," she said, which was a more honest answer than she usually gave him.
He looked at her. "You don't have to be nervous."
"Five elite Saiyan warriors," she said. "Who don't leave witnesses."
"We're not witnesses," he said. "We're a response."
She looked at him with the expression she had when she was deciding whether to say something.
"Be careful today," she said.
He was quiet for a moment.
"You said that last night," he said.
"I'm saying it again."
"Weiss—"
"Don't make it a thing," she said, with the specific sharpness of someone who is doing something that matters to them and would very much prefer not to have it observed too closely.
He did not make it a thing.
"You too," he said.
She returned to the equipment.
He watched her for a moment, with the specific expression of someone who has been carrying a thing for a while and has not yet found the right place to set it down.
He returned to his own preparations.
Part V — Contact
Location: The Emerald Forest Edge | Shortly After Dawn
They came openly.
Two of them — a woman with pale eyes and the specific controlled movement of a reconnaissance specialist who has been trained to be seen as exactly what she is when being seen as something else is not strategically viable, and a man whose crimson cape marked his authority as precisely as a flag marked a position.
They stopped at the forest's edge.
Commander Zephyr looked at the assembled group — at the Saiyan profiles, at the humans mixed among them, at the specific configuration of people who had arranged themselves around a center without calling attention to the center.
He looked at Nova.
He had expected power.
He had not expected the specific quality of the person who had it — the directness, the stillness, the way he was standing with his weight evenly distributed and his hands at his sides and his expression carrying neither aggression nor submission but something that was its own category.
"You are the one," Zephyr said. It was not a question.
"I'm Nova Belladonna," Nova said. "A huntsman in training, a student at this academy, and whoever else I am beyond that." He met Zephyr's eyes. "And you're the Imperial Guard."
"Commander Zephyr," the man confirmed. "This is Lieutenant Frost. We've come under the Guardian's Banner."
Tarro stepped slightly forward at this. "The Banner hasn't been invoked in years."
"It hasn't been needed," Zephyr said. "It's needed now."
The Banner was, Rhubar would explain to those who needed it, a Saiyan military protocol for contact that precluded immediate hostility — a signal that the arriving party had come to speak rather than to fight, that the first exchange would be words, and that the response to words was expected to also be words.
It did not guarantee anything beyond the first exchange.
But it guaranteed that.
"All right," Nova said. He looked at Tarro. Tarro nodded. He looked back at Zephyr. "Then we'll speak."
The forest stood around them, and the morning stood over them, and for a moment that had the specific quality of moments that were going to matter for a long time afterward, the two groups looked at each other across the ground between the trees and the school.
Then Nova walked forward.
Ruby took one step with him — the half-step of someone who has stopped themselves at the edge of going further.
He glanced at her.
She held where she was.
He kept walking.
He stopped at the midpoint.
Zephyr and Frost closed the remaining distance.
The conversation began.
★ END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ★
Next: Chapter Twenty-Six — "Negotiations/Power Beyond Compare/The Vytal Festival"