Chapter Text
Years and years past
Project Argentum.
Those were the two words resonating endlessly through James Ironwood’s mind as he stood in a lone Manta flying low over the desolate tundra of Solitas. Somewhere amidst this glimmering snow, there laid a superweapon.
That was the only thing which could explain the urgency in Pietro Polendina’s tone when he’d implored Ironwood over the phone to come see the situation as soon as possible.
Ironwood had departed without hesitation. After everything revealed in the past week, it was impossible to say what might be hidden in the personal laboratory of Arthur Watts. The man had chosen to climb into a Paladin and walk out into the tundra in the middle of a blizzard to his death, rather than face justice for his newly revealed crimes. And soon Atlas was discovering that one of the kingdom’s brightest minds led a life filled with deep and sinister secrets. Ironwood and Polendina were doing their best to piece together the mysteries he’d left behind.
All that brought Ironwood to this moment, watching a dark blot in the distance grow larger, resolving itself into a dark gray slab of a building set against the slope of a mountain. It was the only sign of life for miles amidst the vast landscape. An ideal place for hiding a secret that could change the world.
Soon the Manta was touching down in a whirlwind of kicked-up snow. When Ironwood felt the jolt of the landing gear meeting the ground, he stepped out into a wall of frigid white. Raising his hand to shield himself against the wave of stinging ice blowing into his face, it was a long moment before he could make out anything. A familiar clanking noise was the first sign of someone else. A few seconds later, an outline of a short man clad heavily in winter gear and seated in a mechnochair appeared, and Pietro Polendina emerged from the flying snow.
He raised his snow goggles, revealing friendly eyes, and waved with a gloved hand. “James.”
“Pietro.” Ironwood drew his coat tighter around himself and watched the Manta take off, returning to the warmth of Atlas without hesitation.
“I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you, but… these circumstances are far from ideal.”
“Indeed.” With the snow now mostly settled again, Ironwood found his gaze drifting higher. An Atlesian cruiser loomed overhead, the barrels of its cannons gleaming in the late-morning sun. Ostensibly, its purpose here was to protect and serve the task force sent to comb through Watts’s compound and seize his assets. However… it was also the first line of defense, if Watts had been playing with forces beyond his control here, if something unthinkable might be unleashed, if the secrets here were truly as terrible as they seemed to be.
“The project?” he said finally. His question needed no elaboration; Pietro immediately knew what he was asking.
He nodded, turning his mechnochair back toward the laboratory. “Shall we go in?”
Ironwood was only too glad to. The entrance—if it could be called that now—was a pair of blast doors blown open and buckled inward. They had to step past twisted metal beams and pass through a hastily constructed plywood wall before they finally met warmer air.
A squad of soldiers saluted as they passed, Ironwood following Pietro deeper into the complex. It was a slow journey. In some places, bullet marks littered the walls, or debris nearly blocked their way, or they had to wait at a locked door for Pietro to type something into a keypad. He had the sensation of moving downward as the hallways gradually grew more intact, emergency lighting giving way to still-functioning ceiling lights. It was at this point that Pietro stopped, shimmying his mechnochair to shake off the last bits of unmelted snow still clinging to it, and reached into his jacket. He produced a folder and handed it to Ironwood.
“What’s this?”
“A summary of everything I’ve recovered from Arthur’s files. Unfortunately, he was quite thorough in erasing his server bank. Data recovery has been arduous and mostly unsuccessful.”
“Hm.” Ironwood leafed through the dossier, catching phrases such as Hardlight Dust and intelligent surveillance network before he met Pietro’s gaze once more. “I know you didn’t bring me here just for a dossier.”
“Correct.” Pietro started forward again. “Read the last printout in there.”
Ironwood obliged as he followed. There was no heading—it only seemed to be fragments of some sort of data log.
“October seventeenth: test unsuccessful,” he read aloud. “October twenty-fourth: test unsuccessful. October thirty-first: test… successful...” He trailed off as he processed the next words on the page, the meaning of them perfectly clear yet also incomprehensible.
“Four Grimm vaporized. Two petrified. First successful deployment of Project Argentum.”
A Grimm could be shot. It could be stabbed. It could be decapitated. It could be blown apart. It could be burned to a crisp. It could be frozen in place. Its body, given enough time, would dissolve. But Ironwood had never, in his entire life, done anything to a Grimm that he could accurately describe as vaporization, or petrification.
“Keep reading,” Pietro said, correctly guessing what his silence entailed.
Argentum. An Old Mantle word for silver. A curious choice, but he didn’t dwell on it for long as he began scanning an increasing number of ‘Test Successful’ entries. This time, he was too engrossed in the words to spare the time to say them aloud. Months flipped past—February, March, April—
May fourth: Test successful. Stage One testing complete. Proceeding to Stage Two. Concentrate.
That was the last entry. After that was nothing but months and months of blankness and the occasional contextless number or word.
Ironwood raised his head slowly. The final word struck him as odd—a seemingly personal note in what was an otherwise dispassionate record. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Ah, we’re here.” At an intersection, Pietro pushed aside a tarp hanging from the ceiling, and Ironwood was greeted with the sight of a short dead-end hallway, its only feature a foreboding metal door. Actually, it didn’t quite feel right to call it a door. A vault would be more accurate. A crew of technicians was clustered around the vault, tapping away at a bevy of computers which had been plugged into a nearby entrance.
“We’ve cleared every part of this facility except the lowest level… and this. If the partial blueprints I recovered from Arthur’s scroll are accurate, then this vault holds whatever force is behind this Project Argentum.”
Ironwood stared at the sealed vault, taking note of how sturdy its construction was. It had been built to keep anything out… Or keep something in. As he watched the technicians trying to hack their way in, he wondered for the first time if this might rise to the level of needing Ozpin’s attention. That man was the only one Ironwood could think of who would have the power to simply vaporize a Grimm.
That line of thinking was interrupted by a rapid chiming sound suddenly erupting from one of the computers. Immediately, the technicians crowded around its screen, conversing animatedly, and then—
The sharp click of something unlocking was impossible to miss. And before Ironwood could even think to call for additional soldiers or prepare a plan for entry, the door was slowly swinging open.
He drew Due Process, stepped forward, and barked an order at the technicians to retreat to a safe distance. He heard Pietro’s mechnochair pattering closer, but was fully aware that no order would stop him from seeing what was inside this vault. So Ironwood let him follow, and peered around the door into a mostly dark room.
One of the only sources of light was a computer terminal on the far wall flashing something he couldn’t make out from this distance. There was also a large glowing tube to his right—the purpose that served, he couldn’t even guess at. At the very least, nothing was leaping out of the shadows at them.
“I need a light,” he said, holding out a hand without moving his attention away from the vault’s interior. Almost immediately, Pietro placed a portable floodlight in his hand, already turned on. Ironwood swept the light in a slow arc across the room, the barrel of Due Process parallel to the beam, and saw cabinets, shelves, unknown technology—
The beam of light caught what seemed like a face, and Ironwood tightened his grip on his pistol, but after a moment, he realized it was a drone of some sort, plugged into the wall and dormant. There were two more next to it, and they didn’t look like the reprogrammed Atlesian Knights found throughout the rest of this facility and already dismantled.
That was all that he could see. He turned to the left, searching the wall next to him, and found what he was hoping for—a light switch.
With a touch, electric lights quietly hummed to life, and he had his first clear look at the vault.
It was… surprisingly understated, for a chamber that was supposed to hold such a powerful force. Yes, there was specialized equipment, the banks of tech, the oddly constructed drones, and the yet-un searched cabinets, but somehow, Ironwood had expected… More.
Pietro followed him into the room, and his gaze landed on something. “An electron microscope?” he said, frowning. “That’s…” He turned his chair in a slow circle, and the confusion in his tone only grew. “This appears more set up to be a biology laboratory, but…” He moved over to the still-flashing computer terminal and began typing.
Ironwood holstered Due Process and stood in place, sensing that Pietro was the more able investigator right now. However, his attention eventually returned to the most curious object in the room: the tube. It rose out of the floor, and ran parallel to the ground for several meters. Metal at the ends capped off a midsection of opaque Hardlight Dust.
It looked strangely familiar, and it took Ironwood a few moments to realize why. It resembled the life support pods equipped on certain Atlesian fightercraft to be used in case of survivable crashes into hostile terrain. In other words, they were meant to house living things.
“Pietro?”
“This computer hasn’t been fully erased! I might be able to access some of the recovery files—”
“Pietro. Is there a way to open this?”
“Hm?” There was a pause, and then Pietro muttered to himself, “Oh, is that what this panel is meant for? One moment—What does that mean—Ah, there.”
There was a quiet hissing sound, and then a hardlight panel slowly retracted into the tube. Ironwood looked inside, and a chill ran down his spine.
His line of work and duty meant he’d seen the worst of what the world had to offer, and his Semblance meant he’d long since learned how to be perfectly numb to such horrors. But there was no repressing the acute and genuine unsettlement he felt right now.
“James? What is it?” Pietro joined him, and a moment later gasped sharply.
A child.
There was a child in there.
It was fast asleep, curled up inside what was most definitely a modified life support chamber, and cuddling something tightly—some corner of Ironwood’s stunned mind noted it was a stuffed Beowolf toy.
“So that is why the computer warned me that opening this chamber would end stasis,” Pietro said softly. “Arthur… What in the world were you doing?”
The child couldn’t have been older than five years. Still sleeping, with an incongruously peaceful expression, chest rising and falling in slow breaths. Completely unaware of the surrounding chaos and mystery.
As Ironwood stared, Pietro returned to the computer. “…We’ve found Project Argentum,” he said after a moment, dazed.
“That can’t be possible.” For a moment, Ironwood didn’t know how to react. “This is the project? This is what Watts went to such great lengths to hide? This is how he vaporized Grimm?” he asked finally, moving closer to Pietro’s side.
“The terminal makes it clear.” Pietro tapped the screen. “It has a full copy of the directory index, and it’s the only thing in here labeled as Project Argentum.”
“How? How is…?” Ironwood leaned closer, trying to make sense of the blocky green words displayed on the screen. “The superweapon is… a toddler?”
“I’m not a superweapon!”
Ironwood spun around, his hand going to Due Process, only to immediately lower it as his brain caught up with his reflexes and he realized that the source of the disturbance was the child. Who, in the few seconds that his back had been turned, had somehow climbed out of the stasis pod and snuck up behind them without alerting him. And was now directing a stormy scowl at Ironwood, arms crossed and not appearing frightened in the least.
Ironwood stared. Why… Why were there rose petals fluttering through the air right now?
“Not a project!” the child snapped, stamping a foot and baring teeth at Ironwood. “My name is Ruby!”
Ironwood blinked. He’d thought this was a boy, but Ruby was most definitely not a name associated with boys. So, a girl after all?
“Ruby?” he repeated, letting the hand which had nearly drawn a pistol on a child fall to his side.
Ruby didn’t reply. She turned away, arms crossed and staring resolutely at the far wall with her chin raised defiantly.
Ironwood looked at Pietro for help, but he seemed just as confused.
“Ruby?” he tried again.
“Ruby!” Ruby snapped, so violently that it made her red-tipped hair shake. That hair—shoulder-length and shaggy and unkempt—made Ironwood wonder if she’d ever had a haircut.
Pietro let out a quiet chuckle. “I think Ruby wants an apology, James.”
“Er. Of course.” Ironwood bent down, reaching a hand out to her. “Ruby, I—” he started to say, only to be cut off when Ruby whirled around, grabbed his outstretched hand, and chomped down on it with what had to be every ounce of force that could be mustered in a toddler’s body.
Ironwood had been shot repeatedly by White Fang grunts, mauled by Grimm on multiple occasions in his career, and fallen off a motorcycle twice, but damned if a child biting him didn’t somehow hurt more than all of those things combined. And Ruby wasn’t letting go.
“Pietro... please… help...” he said through gritted teeth. He didn’t trust himself to try to pull Ruby off without flinging her into the ceiling.
“Er, Ruby, could you—” Pietro’s request was cut off by Ruby unleashing a truly ferocious growl, only slightly muffled by Ironwood’s hand, and then somehow biting even harder, making his Aura pulse violently.
Pietro sighed and shook his head. “Try the apology. I don’t think anything else will work.”
Ironwood nodded tersely and made a titanic effort to keep his voice even. “Ruby, I’m sorry.”
Still growling quietly, Ruby didn’t budge. “Why?” she said, her tone clearly sulky despite still being muffled by Ironwood’s hand.
“I’m sorry for calling you a project,” Ironwood said, and he meant it.
Ruby flicked her eyes up to Ironwood, radiating suspicion, but at least she’d stopped making feral noises. “My name’s Ruby!” she said firmly. Although, it sounded more like “Mrrrrrnnnrrrrryyyy,” given her current preoccupation.
“You’re Ruby,” Ironwood repeated, reminding himself to be patient. “I’m sorry for saying that you weren’t one.”
And then, just like that, it was like Ironwood had never said anything in the first place. Ruby finally released his hand, a brilliant smile breaking over her face. She gave him a cheery wave. “Hello! Nice to meet you!”
“…Hello.” He stood back up, staring at the angry red tooth marks on his hand. It was a miracle the skin hadn’t been broken. He decided to keep his Aura active around her.
Pietro brought his mechnochair closer, coming to Ironwood’s side. He leaned forward and gave Ruby a warm smile. “Hello, Ruby. I’m Pietro, and this is James.”
Ruby swiveled to look at Pietro, and then her eyes went very wide. “Whoaaaaa.”
Ironwood was confused, until she slowly reached out and poked one of the legs of Pietro’s mechnochair. Then, emboldened by a lack of negative response, she shuffled closer and began inspecting the metal appendages from every angle, making little noises of amazement.
“Oh, you’re a fan of robotics, are you?” Pietro said, a bit of mirth slipping into his tone despite the surreal scene. “Careful with the joints—you don’t want to get your finger pinched!”
Ruby giggled, and then, suddenly—there was no other way Ironwood could describe this—she disappeared with a faint shwoop.
“What?” he said, staring at the empty space in front of him. Then he heard her giggling again. From behind Pietro’s mechnochair. His confusion only grew as he saw the same rose petals as before drifting through the air around her as she prodded the robotic machinery. In fact, the rose petals seemed to be originating from her, slipping off her skin like scales being shed.
He reached out and caught a petal in his hand, staring at it. After a few moments, it dissolved, leaving nothing behind.
Ironwood gave Pietro an alarmed look as he reached the only conclusion that made sense. “She’s already found her Semblance?”
Pietro voiced the second part of that realization. “If she has a Semblance, that must mean she’s unlocked…”
“Ruby.” Ironwood knelt down on one knee and brought himself near Ruby’s eye level, making sure to keep his limbs safely out of reach this time. “Can you do this?” He closed his eyes, let his Aura flash over his body, and looked questioningly at her.
Ruby looked confused for a moment, but then nodded eagerly. “Yeah! But mine’s red!” She closed her eyes and screwed up her face in concentration, which would’ve been a heartwarming sight if not for the red shimmer flashing all over her body, which meant…
Why did this child have an unlocked Aura at an age when she wasn’t even old enough to understand what it was?
“What happened to you?” Pietro murmured, sounding exhausted and fearful, and also angry.
That was a question Ironwood wanted answered as soon as possible. He waited for Ruby to drop her Aura, and then asked what would be the first of many questions.
“Ruby, what’s your last name?”
Ruby’s only response was to tilt her head in a way that made it clear Ironwood’s question made absolutely no sense to her. Which, unfortunately, was about what he’d expected.
Still, he tried again. “Are there any other names that you have been called? Other than Ruby?”
Ruby made a thoughtful face and then nodded rapidly, creating a brief crest of hope in Ironwood, which was immediately extinguished by her next word: “Subject.”
“Subject?” Suddenly, his blood was boiling, and from the angry noise that Pietro made, it was clear he was feeling similarly. How dare Watts—
“And Argentum,” Ruby said.
At that moment, she turned, meeting Ironwood’s gaze, and for the first time, he noticed her eyes. Her irises were the color of pure liquid silver.
Silver. Argentum.
An eye color that, as far as he knew, did not exist except in an old legend.
“By the Brothers,” Ironwood whispered. “She is the experiment.”
Until now, he’d been able to cling to some bizarre hope that this was somehow Watts’s daughter being kept in his twisted idea of parental care, but… it couldn’t be denied anymore.
“But how?” Pietro said. “We’ve already seen her Semblance.”
“I don’t know.” Ironwood rubbed his forehead, and then refocused his attention. “Where did the name Ruby come from?”
Ruby gave him a look that made it clear she thought that was a stupid question. “Me! I’m Ruby!”
Fair enough.
“How long have you been here?”
She shrugged. Ironwood paused, thought through the implications of that, and asked a more specific question.
“How old are you?”
Shrug.
“Where are you from?”
Shrug.
“Do you remember anything that isn’t… here?”
She squinted in thought, and then nodded. “Something bright. And warm.”
That could be any number of things. Including the sun, he realized with a fresh wave of horror. When was the last time this child had seen the sun?
There was no point in questioning her further for the time being. Although—he did have one more question for now, just to clear up something he was still confused about.
“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asked.
Ruby stared at him, blinking slowly. “What’s that?”
Ironwood closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself calm. Well, a medical exam—which would be given as soon as possible—would answer that question, at least.
“Pietro,” he said, starting to stand up. “Call the cruiser. We—”
He cut himself off abruptly as he heard shouts coming from deeper in the facility, and then gunfire, rapidly coming closer.
“What the—” He stepped out of the vault just in time to accost a fleeing soldier. “What’s going on here?!” he said, catching him by the elbow and snapping into his battle mindset.
“Grimm! Grimm! There’s a Grimm—”
A tremendous roar echoing through the hallways drowned out the rest of his sentence.
“Arthur kept Grimm in here?!” Pietro said. “What was he thinking—”
At that moment, two large Beowolves bounded around the corner, big enough that they had to follow each other single-file down the hallway. They slowed to a prowl when they saw Ironwood standing in their way with his pistol drawn, but kept advancing.
“Pietro—” Ironwood started to say, only to stop short when he heard a new growl, much smaller and quieter, from behind him.
He spared a glance backward, and saw Ruby standing there, her fists clenched as she bared her teeth at the Grimm, snapping her jaws together like she might actually try to bite off their heads.
“Bad doggies!” she shouted before growling again, louder.
Ironwood only understood the next thing that happened because he was looking back at Ruby when it occurred. He’d been about to tell her to get back in the vault—and would’ve picked her up and thrown her inside if necessary—when suddenly, Ruby’s eyes flared with a brilliant light which exploded outward and enveloped everything. For a moment, all he could see was silver.
Several interminable moments passed before his vision cleared. The first thing he noticed as he blinked away the bright afterimages was that there was one less Grimm in the hallway. A few dissolving black particles on the floor were the only trace of it. The second thing he noticed was that the second Grimm was not moving. This Beowolf had somehow changed color to a single shade of dark gray—
As if it’d been turned to stone.
Ironwood lowered Due Process and slowly turned back to Ruby, who was bouncing up and down, giggling and looking extremely pleased with herself.
He stared.
Pietro was staring too, with a look of pure shock that Ironwood was sure was reflected on his own face.
It was incomprehensible. But they’d both witnessed it. A child who could vaporize Grimm with a single glance.
The world would never be the same.
To anyone who happened to be in one of the rooftop gardens of Atlas Academy one day during a winter storm, there would be nothing unusual about the sight of a small child rolling around delightedly in the snow, dressed in a fluffy red parka and a black winter hat and fuzzy mittens. What would be unusual to see was the most powerful man in Atlas standing at the edge of the garden, watching quietly while he conversed with the smartest man in Atlas.
Ironwood stared at Ruby and tried once more to answer an increasingly baffling question.
“How did one of Atlas’s most prominent minds abduct a child without anyone noticing?” he said to Pietro.
All the searching he’d done so far had not brought him any closer to answers. A check of every kingdom’s missing child database yielded nobody matching Ruby’s name or description. He’d even contacted the chieftain of Menagerie to check the records of the island nation, with no luck.
Their situation wasn’t helped by the complete dearth of information they had, either. What remained of Watts’s records revealed nothing more, not even a name; and further questioning of Ruby hadn’t brought anything else to light. Even exercising simple logic seemed like an insurmountable task in this context.
“You’re sure that Watts couldn’t have taken her from somewhere outside of Atlas?” he said.
Pietro sighed. “It’s been a long time now, but Arthur used to be as invested in my Aura research as I am. It was the chief endeavor of our scientific careers. If he’d left the kingdom, that would’ve been a long enough absence to disrupt the timeline of building Penny, and I most definitely would’ve noted such an occurrence. As such, I have known everywhere that he’s been for a long enough time that I know he has not left the kingdom since before Ruby could’ve been born.”
Ironwood nodded. And yet, it seemed impossible for Ruby to have come from within Atlas. He knew that the Atlesian missing persons database was more exhaustive than any other kingdom’s.
He was quite aware of the possibility that someone else had brought Ruby to Watts, but that was an investigative dead-end. And yet, the dead-end was the most plausible explanation.
A peal of laughter carried across the garden, and they turned to see Ruby tumbling head over heels down a snowdrift. When she came upright again, her face was caked with snow. She immediately shook her head wildly, flinging the flakes off like how a dog would dry itself.
He had to wonder if Ruby had ever seen snow before. She was certainly enthralled enough for it to be a possibility.
Or rather, he was enthralled. The medical examination had confirmed what Ironwood had initially thought in the laboratory: Ruby was a boy. Although, knowing that for sure hadn’t stopped Ironwood from continuing to get it mixed up. And any attempts by him to get Ruby to consider a non-feminine name were met with startlingly fierce resistance. So the name was staying for now, and… Ironwood had given up on figuring out what to do about the rest of that for the time being. This was a near-feral child who didn’t know what gender was and would need several years of learning how to be a part of human society before any of that could be addressed.
Pietro had suggested perhaps this behavior meant that Ruby, when older, would choose to be transgender. But that subject was decidedly not Ironwood’s area of expertise. Matters of gender were quite beyond him. To him, there was nothing particularly significant about what Ruby wanted to be called. She was—no, he was—
She, Ironwood decided, with a defeated sort of acceptance, since that was what his own memory had apparently decided to default to. That would be something to be resolved later on. The important thing right now was her eyes, anyways.
He was familiar with the legend of silver-eyed warriors. So was Pietro. Ozpin had never mentioned whether or not there was any truth to that legend, and Ironwood didn’t feel comfortable approaching him with that question right now. He needed to gather more information first, understand the situation more clearly. Which might take some time.
“There is another explanation.”
Pietro’s voice drew him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see him taking off his snow goggles and slowly massaging the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been reluctant to suggest this until now because of… how immeasurably sad it is. But…”
“What is it?”
Pietro fixed a faraway look on a point somewhere near Ruby. “What if there never was a family or a home which was robbed? What if Ruby was just… made, in that laboratory? What if she was engineered to be the perfect weapon, created and grown artificially for the sole purpose of experimentation?”
The now-recognizable shwoop of Ruby’s Semblance momentarily caught their attention. Neither of them could actually see her moving through the garden, but what was plainly visible was the trail of her Semblance. The shedding rose petals mixed with the falling snow, leaving a floating crimson trail through the intensifying snowstorm wherever she went.
“James, I’m beginning to genuinely think that’s actually what happened. Everything about Ruby feels like a direct rebuttal to our work. Did Arthur start all this in response to how slighted he felt? Perhaps he intended this as a twisted sort of insult against us—was he hoping to create a weapon to rival Penny, or even surpass her?”
A troubled expression was working its way across Pietro’s face, and Ironwood had to wonder if there was more to his thoughts which he wasn’t saying aloud.
“It makes too much sense,” Pietro finished.
Ironwood sighed. “And now Ruby is in our hands.”
“Hi!”
They both jumped at the noise, before realizing Ruby had managed to walk up directly behind them without being noticed. She didn’t seem to have heard any of what they were saying. Instead, she was looking up at Ironwood expectantly.
“Are you a soldier?” she asked, once she saw him looking.
“What?” Then, belatedly understanding the question, he answered. “Oh. Yes, I’m a general.”
“You protect people?”
Ironwood nodded slowly. “Yes, that is my job.”
“I’m going to help,” Ruby said, her tone utterly serious. She looked up into Ironwood’s eyes, her silver-ringed gaze boring into him. “I will save the world.”
The tone was so utterly serious that Ironwood nearly agreed on reflex. He considered his answer. “Maybe you will,” he said finally, offering what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “You certainly have the resolve for it.”
That answer seemed to please Ruby, because she let out a giggle and spun away from him, falling over into the snow and flailing her arms around in what might’ve been an attempt at a snow angel.
“It’s true,” Ironwood said, turning back to Pietro and lowering his tone. “That power could save the world.” If only Pietro knew how sincerely he meant that. He kept thinking of Salem and what Ruby might be able to accomplish against the woman who controlled all Grimm.
He wondered, not for the first time, if he should tell Ozpin about this. But at the same time, this was a matter which desperately needed to be handled internally. One of the premier scientists of Atlas, experimenting on a child in the name of fighting Grimm? This was Atlas’s—Ironwood’s—responsibility. Better to wait to share Ruby until he had something Atlas could actually be proud of. Ozpin would know someday, when Ironwood had more knowledge of the situation and better control of it.
“What’s on your mind, James?” Pietro said.
“We—” Ironwood paused as a door opened behind them. He turned, and relaxed as he recognized one of his soldiers bringing out a thermos of coffee and two mugs, which he’d requested a few minutes ago.
“Thank you,” he said, saluting to the soldier as he took the delivery. He turned to Pietro. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
As he poured out a steaming mug for Pietro, Ruby reactivated her Semblance and disappeared to the other side of the garden. She whipped up a vortex of powdery snow as she went, unwittingly turning her snow angel into something more like a snow abomination in her wake.
Ironwood handed the mug to Pietro and resumed his train of thought. “Ruby has no past. It falls upon us to provide her a future.”
Pietro nodded once, fiddling with the collar of his coat. “I can’t even begin to imagine the challenge ahead. How do we go about finding a foster family for such a unique child? How will we balance Ruby’s needs and wants with the importance of her powers?”
Ironwood shifted his position, moving his boots enough to shake the snow which had started to accumulate around his feet. “It will be easier than you think, actually.” Pietro was thinking on a slightly different track from him, but that was to be expected. “We will take her into the protection of the Atlas Military and teach her how to defend herself while we seek to understand her powers.”
Pietro gave him an uneasy look. “Is that… fair to her?” he said at last. “After all of this… Ruby deserves to have a choice in what she becomes.”
Ironwood took a moment to pour himself some coffee, mulling over the words to use in explaining himself. “She will. Eventually,” he said finally, putting down the thermos. “When she is old enough to understand what powers she possesses and choose a future, she can do whatever she wishes. If she so desires, she may walk away entirely, leave the kingdom, take up a normal, anonymous life, and never set foot in Atlas again. But, for now…” Ironwood stared down into the blurry reflection of himself in his mug, bracing himself as he spoke the next words. “She can’t have a choice.”
Shock covered Pietro’s features, and he opened his mouth to reply, but Ironwood held up a hand, staving off the protest. He had known these words would be controversial, but he’d decided blunt honesty was the best route.
“Even if Ruby never wants to use her powers again, she will always have a target on her back simply because of those eyes. Which is why we must train her. Did Watts tell others about his project? Are there collaborators? But even if there aren’t, word of Ruby’s power might still get out somehow. And there are most certainly people in this world who will try to take this power for themselves without care for the child who wields them. That is why she needs to be under our protection. I would genuinely fear for her safety otherwise.”
Pietro no longer looked so conflicted, which gave Ironwood hope. He wished he could show him the true danger at play, tell him about Salem. What would the Queen of the Grimm do if she found out there was a child who could destroy Grimm with a single glance? Ruby would be marked for life. Perhaps she already was.
Pietro took a long, contemplative sip of his coffee, and spoke. “You... make an undeniable point about her safety. I will concede that Ruby would need protection and proper training in self-defense. But—” New resolve hardened his features. “—How is what you want to do any different from what Arthur did? She will still be raised in a restricted environment, trained with a singular purpose, watched closely, and have her powers studied. It sounds like the same thing—just with a bigger cage.”
“And how is what we need to do for Ruby any different from how we are already treating the PENNY Project?”
Pietro’s eyebrows shot up, and he went very still and silent. For a moment, Ironwood was worried that he’d just gravely insulted him. But the brief flash of shock quickly faded from his face, turning into something more indeterminate as he rubbed his beard in thought.
“You make a very good point,” he said at last, and there was a note of defeat in his voice. “I suppose that if I object to this future for Ruby, then I would also be objecting to Penny’s future.”
“Exactly.” Ironwood felt a pang of regret at how harsh it was to frame things that way, but he needed Pietro to look past his sentimentality to see it from the pragmatic point of view. For Ruby’s sake.
“It’s similar to how a parent makes decisions for their child until the child is old enough to choose on their own. There are certain things that simply have to be done for them.”
“Parents... Yes. I know I just floated the possibility that Ruby was grown in a laboratory, but what if she was stolen from a family, and we somehow find her parents?” Pietro said. “We couldn’t possibly stand in their way.”
“And we won’t. If we do find them, I would gladly let them choose their child’s future. However, I believe there’s a very good chance a parent would choose for her to stay here.” When Pietro opened his mouth again, he held up a hand, staying his words. “Consider a parent’s point of view. What would you do if it was your child, who possessed something which put her in immense danger, and you knew you couldn’t protect her? Would you hang onto her, and risk her life? Or would you let her go, to protect her?”
Pietro went silent, his gaze following Ruby’s distant form as she frolicked in the snow. Finally, he slumped down in his mechnochair and let out a heavy sigh. Then he took a long sip of his coffee before speaking.
“Well, James, you’ve convinced me.”
Pietro’s agreement brought Ironwood no joy. He was far from happy with this situation even as he got his way.
“Pietro, I want to make myself clear,” he said as Pietro gave him a questioning look. “I do not see Ruby as Watts did.”
The expression on Pietro’s face told him that he was hitting upon something quite vital to his objections, and he plunged on, heartened. “She is not something to be molded into a weapon, and to think otherwise would be heartless. She was born with a gift that could save countless lives. All I am suggesting is that it would be prudent of us to give her the tools to make sure no one tries to take advantage of her for their own means. But I promise that I will never force her to be something she doesn’t want to be.”
Pietro stared at Ironwood for a long second, and then he broke out in a grateful smile. “Thank you, James. That puts me at ease.” He held out his mug. “A toast, then?”
Ironwood tapped his mug against Pietro’s. “To Ruby,” he said after a moment’s thought.
Pietro smiled. “And to Penny.”
They drank, and Ironwood was glad for the warmth. The day was only getting colder.
Pietro put aside his mug. “Could you make me one more promise?”
“Name it.”
Pietro lifted his head to look him directly in the eye. “Don’t let Ruby lose sight of her humanity.”
Ironwood’s answer was immediate. “I will not. You have my word.”
“Thank you, James,” Pietro murmured. “You have no idea how much that means to me.” He cast one more look across the garden to Ruby, whose red form was almost lost in the snow. “Whatever she chooses to be someday, I have a feeling she’ll be truly sensational.”