The channel being at least 20 miles wide, it wasn't the work of a few minutes to cross it.

The water in front of them was pushed about 20 feet high and then closed behind them at a lower point, like a large egg.

Inside it they saw fish, and some of them hit the wall and swam away.

Vara and Raven were flying instead of walking, and they could see the grimm howling at them from the other side.

"I've seen a lot of different things since I joined their campaign," Raven said. "I can't decide if this makes the top 5 or not."

"It does for me." Vara was baffled. "Even if we used magic to do that, it wouldn't happen so neatly. It's like a wall around them."

Winter flew ahead to survey the far shore.

"No sign of trouble yet," she reported.

Sun put his hand into the water wall and pulled it back out.

His hand was wet, sure enough... but he made no impression on the wall at all.

"It's just like the book," Pyrrha said in a hushed voice.

"Not exactly." Shine was checking her book and looking up. "I think it was more like a tunnel of dry ground, and it took all night... We're more of encased in a single point of it--but I'm not going to complain. Wow..." She touched the water also.

A fish looked at her judgmentally.

"Is that a Grimm?" Blake saw a different creature on the other side.

There were, in fact, some aquatic Grimm coming their way. They eyed the Relics and the people menacingly--but they didn't seem to dare to leave the water, or they couldn't.

Nothing big as the Hydra that could have just stepped over the wall and crushed them.

Neptune was trying to look dead ahead.

"So much water..." he whimpered.

"I don't think it's going to do anything to you, mate," Meridian said. "This water ain't like other water."

"I don't think it's the water that's different," Weiss mused in a quiet voice.

 "Em, this is a really weird quest," Mercury said.

"Yeah..." She was gawking.

"Uncle Qrow--" Ruby tugged his arm. "I'm starting to think we might be underestimating how much we've got going for us. Maybe Salem isn't as powerful as we thought--I can't see her doing this."

"I doubt she would bother." Qrow was a little puzzled himself. "Sheesh... this is something else."

"You could have just flown across," Hazel said.

"I'd be missing the view though." Qrow eyed one of the fish swimming away.

"Hey, watch this." Meridian tied a string to one of his arrows and then shot it into the water. He yanked a huge fish out. "This could take care of supper tonight."

"EW!" Weiss jumped back as the fish thrashed.

Meridian just killed it using his sword edge.

"That was actually really cool," Jaune admitted.

"It's gross. There's blood everywhere now," Weiss said.

"A little bit is not everywhere," Meridian said. "And that's what happens when you kill something. Don't tell me you're against fishing now?"

"Well, no, but watching it..." Weiss said.

"How do you people even call yourselves huntsmen?" Cinder was disgusting. "You call that blood? Please."

"Did I ask you?" Weiss asked.

"Shh." Pyrrha looked back. "This is no time to be arguing. Are you missing what we're seeing right now?"

They shut up.

"I almost wish the General saw this." Winter landed next to Shine. "He had no faith."

"Perhaps he's fallen too far," Shine mused. "Faith is hard for men who disappoint themselves, not just ones who do evil because they don't know any better--sometimes they believe faster. They haven't learned to judge themselves or others so harshly yet. We put up these standards for ourselves that we can never meet, and then once we realize we can't, we give up on ever being any kind of good. I pity him."

"I would think you'd be angry," Winter said.

"I was, but in light of watching this, I'm just thinking he's a sad, disappointed man," Shine said. "Whatever he said to me, he doesn't understand what's real. I wouldn't mind what he said to you either, Winter... You're not a disappointment--only to someone whose standard was too low. We can disappoint people by exceeding their limits also. Remember that."

"I know that," Winter said. "My father, you'll recall."

"Yes," Shine nodded. "What is bothering you anyway?"

Winter wasn't that surprised Shine had noticed--though she hoped she'd be too busy to be as observant.

"I don't want to talk about it." She glanced at Qrow, who wasn't looking their way right then.

Then she frowned.

Shine didn't miss the gesture.

"Maybe we should talk about it later," she said, mercifully. "More privately."

"You don't need to concern yourself with me," Winter said.

"Of course I do. We're friends," Shine said. "It's better to concentrate on things I can help... I'm impressed, Oscar--this kind of faith, considering what's been going on, is really remarkable."

Oscar glanced at her nervously.

"I didn't feel like it was really a matter of faith," he said. "It's just what happened, and I dropped my spear."

He'd retrieved it by now. It was in the sand where the water had left it. "But it worked. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing."

"I don't know that Moses knew what would happen when he did it either," Shine said. "We tend to assume people were confident, but one story that makes me feel better is one of our most famous of prophets, Elijah. Guy slew 400 prophets of Baal--that's a false god not unlike the god of darkness--"

"He just slayed them?" Winter interrupted her.

"These people offered profane sacrifices and did all kinds of evil," Shine said. "Baal is a terrible god, makes the god of light look nice. You wouldn't have blamed Elijah."

"What happened?" Oscar prompted. "I haven't found this story yet."

"Oh, it's in Kings somewhere, I believe," Shine said. "I told Salem to look it up. I wonder if she has yet." She smirked. "Anyway, after he slew them, he ran to a mountain and told God he wanted to die."

"What a strange thing to say," Winter said.

"The thing is," Shine said, "the power by which we do these things is a gift, and once it accomplishes what we need to do, that confidence for it goes. That's how we know it's not our doing. A little secret I'll let you two in on: I feel unsure after every decision we make and every time I confront someone or do something remarkable. The feeling leaves me. While I do it, I feel fearless, usually--but that's the grace. Afterward, I'm just me. Not sure what's going on. Still human. If I have more moments of confidence, it's because I have more tasks to accomplish. But when this mission is over, I'll go back to being the same as before--a little wiser, a little stronger, maybe, but nothing like invincible. It's just not how it works. We are just humans, after all."

"Well, that helps a little," Oscar said. "I'm still worried that Ozpin will...take over. He won't even talk to me hardly at all now--I don't like it. I feel like he's just waiting to pounce."

"His curse will get heavier as we get closer to Salem," Shine said. "Not that being around her does it, but all the Relics being so close to each other, the dark lands being the gods' country, it's bound to be all kinds of magical. If we could do without you, I'd have left you back in Vacuo to spare you the experience, but we can't, so... we will try to help as much as possible."

Oscar sighed. "But if we win, it's over finally," he said. "That's what matters, right? A few more days or weeks of this, and I'll know one way or the other."

"Yes... we're so close." Shine sounded somber. "It always heats up then, but keep that thought in mind. Anything can be endured if you think it will end."

Winter supposed that was true. She wished she could stop thinking about last night. Maybe that would end at some point also...

Not easy when she couldn't actually get away from Qrow.

But she had more important things to think about. Oscar's struggle was going to be hers also if the magical spasms persisted. Would Ozpin hold back at all? Could he?

* * *

The group tried to speed up their walk by using summoned animals, and they probably cut the travel time in half, but it still took a couple hours of walking to even see the other end of the shore.

The Maidens soon gave up using magic to scout ahead, since it was too exhausting to do so.

Vara felt like she was getting tired faster anyway, using magic. Whether it was getting close to Salem land, the Relics, or part of the Vault being gone, it didn't seem quite the same anymore.

About midmorning, they noticed some more Grimm flying overhead. They looked like birds but smaller than Nevermore.

Everyone thought they would have to fight, but none of them attacked. They just glared at them maliciously.

Shine, ever the staunch and unintimidated one, waved at them.

"Smile," she said. "Salem's watching."

"And you want her to think you're being cheeky?" Theo said.

"Well, I am cheeky," Shine said. "And it wouldn't do to have her think we're slogging along, would it? Look upbeat."

Theo made a very fake looking smile and pretended to wave. "Wow, this is so effective."

One of the Grimm cawed at them, and Theo jumped, which got a round of laughter from the students that annoyed him.

* * *

Salem, who was watching their progress with one of her surveillance Grimm at the moment, was flabbergasted.

Tyrian, back by now, since there was nothing much for him to do except wait for the Relics to come to them, couldn't understand why she kept muttering things to herself.

"It's not possible!" she finally said loudly.

Some of the Grimm that always lurked around the castle twitched.

"Whatever have they done now?" Tyrian asked.

Normally Salem wouldn't bother to answer his question, but perhaps she was too puzzled to not want to vent.

"They're actually doing it," she said, in a tone of derision. "Those fools are on their way here... walking through water. They have more magic tricks than Ozpin himself does."

Not that it wasn't something she probably couldn't have done if she cared to, but Salem never particularly enjoyed elemental magic.

"Well, if they're really foolish enough to bring those here, that takes care of our problem." Tyrian was not bright enough to see why that was kind of suspicious.

Salem didn't bother trying to explain it to him either.

But she frowned.

Cinder was still accompanying them. Either she thought this was a legitimate offer, or she'd gone over to their side. 

Shine had said otherwise, but Salem, a liar herself, didn't entirely believe people, no matter what they said. Certainly, she did not trust Cinder. But she'd not need her anymore once the Relics were here. It was imperative that they didn't change their mind about that and put them back in the Vaults... She knew that if Cinder actually ditched her, she'd be in trouble unless she got the powers into some other willing host--and she wasn't likely to find anyone that reckless any time too soon. Not now that the whole world knew about her.

She almost regretted that display of power. Who knew it would take this long to make them see reason? But none of it would matter soon.

One might think Salem would just decide to leave them alone so that they'd come her way.

But actually her objective was to whittle down the group as much as possible. She knew if they all made it to her house, she'd have a hard time holding them off, even with all the Grimm, since Ruby was with them. She still wanted to capture Ruby on her own, but with a whole team protecting her--especially considering that the two newcomers seemed to have some kind of power over Grimm--it wouldn't be so easy.

The Hydra hadn't worked. She'd have to try harder than that.

Actually Salem hadn't sent the Hydra. It had been guarding the coastline for centuries, and she'd never given a care about it, since it just kept people away. 

She didn't really make the Grimm that affected the mind, despite what Ozpin probably thought. She didn't actually quite understand how they worked, though she'd not have admitted that to anyone. Her magic didn't control people's minds, not like that. It was a species of the Grimm that she thought must be from the gods.

Even then it puzzled her, as the gods were supposed to have given humans choice, so why would any of their creations strip choice away? But Salem had long ago given up trying to make sense of the gods' creations or decisions.

[It is a little odd, isn't it? But I'm convinced that Salem can't use the mind-numbing powers, or she'd have done it to make Ozpin or the others stop fighting her a long time ago.]

That turned her mind to Shine's offer to tell her how to stop them. It was probably a trick...but according to their book, it was something that they did.

She didn't think she'd just kill them...the team certainly, but then it might be hard to get them to cooperate if she killed them all. Maybe just thin the herd a little.

* * *

It was perhaps because of Salem's reasoning on this matter that there weren't more Grimm waiting for them when they finally reached the other side. Oh, there were some, but not nearly as much as they'd thought.

However, Shine, always the perceptive one, figured out the reason.

"After all, she wouldn't have had all those other ones follow us if she didn't want to make a point," she said. "The clear message is that she's only holding back because we have what she wants. Isn't she coy?"

"Not the word I would use," Ozpin said. "We should have turned back already."

Even standing on this land made Oscar feel weird. Though it looked normal enough, he could feel magic pulsing through it.

"Is it just me or does this area feel different?" Wally must have picked up on it too.

Pyrrha put her hand on the ground.

"It seems oddly rich," she said. "And yet... there aren't as many creatures here as you would think."

No one saw so much as a bee or butterfly.

"I've been wondering something," Weiss said. "We know that the god of light had an immortality pool, just like the Grimm pond thing. So where is it? Why is there only one?"

"Garden of Eden rip-offs, I suppose," Shine noted.

"I can't explain that," Ozpin said. "When I reincarnated, it was gone already. I assume he took it with him when he left."

"Oh, I get it," Oscar said in his own voice, with no visible transfer happening. "The two trees. One was of good and evil--and it led to death, and the other was of eternal life. They were... What happened to them?"

"In my world," Shine explained, while the others gave Oscar odd looks. "I guess you could say the gods were copying that also. Poorly, but there it is."

"I think there were trees by the pool anyway," Blake recalled.

"I bet if you ate off them it would do special things," Wally said.

"Ew." Yang frowned. "So... what happened to them in your world?"

Cinder gave them an odd look. "What are they talking about?"

"I suppose you might as well know. The time when it would have been dangerous for you to is past," Shine said. "Wally and I are from outside this world, just like that prophet of old that Ozpin knew once."

Cinder stared at her blankly.

"Oh, you don't really think it's that far fetched, do you?" Vara said, though she hadn't heard it fully till now herself. "We know there's another world under this one. Why else are they so weird?"

"Thanks, Var. At least that's the only reason," Wally said good-humoredly.

"I didn't say it was the only one," she said mischievously.

"Forget that part." Yang was not interested in enlightening Cinder about it. "What happened?"

"Delighted that you're finally interested." Shine couldn't resist that sass. "I assume the garden was destroyed in the worldwide flood."

"Worldwide...flood?" Neptune said nervously.

"Thousands of years ago there was a flood that covered the whole earth," Shine said. "The world was so wicked, everyone's thoughts were all evil all the time. God felt sorry that He even made man, which is the worst tragedy possible for a Creator. So He ended the world with water."

[And scientists actually don't disagree with this, by and large. The evidence is all over the planet of there being water all over, even on the top of Mt. Everest. Not just ice either. Also there's at least 200 known flood legends from all over the world. Look it up--there's fascinating stuff. People disagree about why it happened, but actually most of the legends say it was a judgment from the gods or God.]

"That... is terrifying," Neptune said.

"It is," Shine said. "One day the world will end with fire--bringing everything full circle, you might say--and we'll get a new one. That's what the word says."

"A nice fantasy," Cinder said meanly.

"It's a better one than your power-mad ones," Shine said. "At least ours promotes hope."

Cinder made a face at her.

"And I thought your God was supposed to be kinder than ours," Ozpin spoke again--it was freaking everyone out that there was again no change visibly. Oscar had been doing this more and more lately, and it seemed to indicate the curse working more strongly. "That is exactly what the god of darkness did. Your God just represents both light and dark."

"The word does say He rides the darkness," Shine said, "and makes the night His cover, but also that He finds the night as bright as day. It blinds us, not Him. God made light and dark; they were both good once. If people misuse darkness now to hide their deeds, it's because it's more convenient. Haven't you seen the same thing? We're afraid of the dark when we learn to fear evil. Before we have a sense of evil, we're not bothered by darkness. Innocence makes darkness and light all the same to us. Or, in the words of another prophet, 'to the pure all things are pure.' As for God being the same, that's not true. Your gods destroyed the world because people rebelled. If God did that every time, none of you would be here. And neither would we. And yours did it for what a portion of the world did. Ours did it for the entire world, and they were horrible to each other, not just to Him. It must have been disgusting. When I see how much evil God tolerates in us, to think what would push His Patience beyond its limit is something I don't think I'd ever want to see, please... Besides which, unlike your stupid story, God left 8 people to start the world over, and animals--not just one Salem--the only righteous man in the world at the time, Noah. It's a great story. Of course, they still had sin in them, but thankfully, He's always preserved some righteous people no matter how bad it gets. He also promised never to flood the earth ever again. That is why we have rainbows, according to the word. They're a sign of promise."

"They're a natural phenomenon," Theo argued. 

"And can you tell me why that is?" Shine asked. "I know the science for how it works but not why it does. You can't really explain why, only how."

"So you'd rather believe some strange, archaic story like that," Cinder said, "and bind yourself in all these strange rules to this God you've never even seen, than just believe it's random and we're free to do what we do."

"Cinder, we're not free to do anything," Shine said. "Only to choose what to do."

"What?" Cinder said.

Shine shrugged. "If you're thirsty, you're free to either drink water or remain thirsty. Once you drink, though, you're not free to remain thirsty. There is no going back from some choices. Even if they were made freely. It's the same with us. One choice will have one outcome, no matter what you do about it, so it is critical to make the correct choice."

"Do you do anything but preach?" Cinder could think of no more clever retort than that.

Shine elected not to take any notice of her, which annoyed her more than a retort would have.

"I guess judgment is a part of this, no matter how you look at it," Pyrrha noted. "What would our world be judged by if God were to judge it?"

"I don't buy it," Mercury said. "If God hated evil, the world wouldn't be the way it is."

"Perhaps not," Pyrrha said. "Or perhaps there's another way to look at it."

"And what way is that? " Mercury scoffed.

"Perhaps God cares about something else more than evil," Pyrrha siad.

"One has to be cautious making evaluations on that level," Shine cautioned her. "God is good, and evil disgusts Him much more than we can imagine. I've heard many a foolish teacher contradict that, but the Bible doesn't leave much room for dispute.

'These six things the Lord hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
17 A proud look,
A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
19 A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren.' " [Proverbs 6: 16-19]

"Hey, you're 7 for 7 on that one," Mercury noted to Cinder, who gave him a murderous look.

"'For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing', " Shine quoted again. [Isaiah 61:8]  "But that's not all there is to it. In another place it says God is angry with the wicked every day, but He's also not willing that any should perish. So He leaves us on the earth longer than we deserve, hoping that we will repent."

"Jonah," Yang muttered without thinking.

 Shine smiled and nodded.

Yang tried to pretend that she hadn't made that slip up.

"And all the people who don't repent?" Mercury wasn't liking this. "They just get off easy?"

"Well, if you can call death easy," Shine said.

Silence.

"Yeah, but they die late," Mercury said.

"If you call 100 years or less late," Shine said. "But you know, the wages of sin is death. That means that all death is a judgment. If we never sinned, we'd never die."

"But young children die," Emerald said.

"Perhaps I oversimplified," Shine said. "We would die of natural causes that are induced by sin. Most of the reasons people have health issues are because of sin in some form. Malnutrition, disease, famine, war, it's all rooted in people pushing each other down, making the world a more dangerous place to live. I don't mean that no one would ever die physically without sinning, because we all are humans--humans affect each other. We're all joined. So no one will live forever. But if mankind as a whole was not sinful, there would be no death. That's how I see it anyway."

"So death is a judgment on all mankind," Pyrrha said. "That makes sense."

"Seems a bit unfair to punish some of us for the mistakes of others." Mercury wasn't liking this either.

"It's perhaps our greatest burden that we do affect each other." Shine didn't seem to feel it was unfair. "But it is a fact. And if we could change others for evil, we could change others for good. Kill or cure, those are always our choices. That we don't often make the best choice, I don't think we can blame God for."

Qrow shot her an odd look at this stage, but he said nothing.

"On that note, what chance is there of us pulling off this mission if that's true?" Jaune asked. "If God just lets us do whatever we want to each other, then how do we know Salem can be stopped? What if that's the riddle of the gods? She can't be stopped because we can't destroy evil. She's basically the face of evil."

"That is nonsense!" Shine shot that down so fast it almost hurt his feelings. "Salem is not the face of evil. Oh, the face you've given it perhaps, and she has enough of her own sins, to be sure. But do you think it's possible that someone like her is guilty of every single sin out there? I could name 10 of them that she hasn't done. It's all of humanity together. For that matter, Salem doesn't even trouble me personally as much as people like Tyrian. You have noticed that some people find some sins easier to handle than others. But God doesn't. You think little of the sin of losing your temper with someone who's done something to wrong you, but how do you know God sees it as small? Any little injustice to us, it's agonizing to someone who cannot be unjust. If you could never be unfair, wouldn't unfairness drive you mad? It always makes children far angrier than adults because children haven't learned yet that unfairness is what we can expect from other humans. But to God? If His mercy was not as great or greater than his justice, He would never turn His anger away from us. But His anger is for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Only love can explain that."

"Or it could be he doesn't care," Mercury said.

"You've not been paying attention then," Shine said. "But if you don't want to see something, generally, you won't see it no matter how close it is to your eyes."

The word eyes made Mercury wince.

https://youtu.be/SjS3qAGPZKo

[Had to use this again. This AMV never gets old. "Savages"--Thus Kindly She Scatters.]

"You might as well learn now that she will never run out of answers," Winter said to him dryly. "If there is a question that's too complex for her, it's not one that you'll be able to think of."

"Hey!" Mercury said sourly.

"I'm not infallible," Shine denied it. "But your questions are ones that have been asked so many times that the answers to them are endless. I think it's a matter of what you believe, not not having an answer. If you accept the answer, then it's satisfactory. If you don't want an answer and only want to be angry, no answer is satisfactory. I prefer peace."

Cinder frowned at her.

"That does make sense," Pyrrha mused. "You know, I think if we felt that way, the Grimm wouldn't attack us that often. There would be nothing to attack."

That thought made some of them pause.

Ruby remembered then that she was supposed to be helping Mercury.

After thinking more about their conversation and Shine's comments on it, she thought maybe she understood it a little better.

As the group spread out more on their trek, in search of a good spot to rest--and the landscape wasn't providing them with much cover, unfortunately--Mercury and Emerald fell farther behind, and Ruby fell back also.

She was glad that Cinder was walking much farther ahead--probably because she didn't like anyone else--so she was well out of earshot.

"Hey," Ruby said to Mercury. "We need to talk."

"Are you for real?" Mercury retorted.

"I'll just catch up to Pyrrha," Emerald said at once.

"What? Hey!" Mercury said.

"Oh, stop being such a b---h," Emerald said. "You're afraid of Pint Size over here?"

She sped up.

Ruby wasn't sure whether to laugh at that or be offended, but she brushed it aside.

"Look, I wanted to say I was sorry for blowing up at you yesterday... morning," she said. 

Wow, had it only been then? It felt like weeks. [I hope that won't reflect on my publishing schedule for this chapter.]

"You call that blowing up?" Mercury said. "Please, that wasn't even a skirmish."

Ruby supposed if your idea of a blow up was your father beating the crap out of you that might be true, but she at least knew better than to say that out loud.

"I wanted to try again," she said more evenly. 

"Oh, just give up already," Mercury said sourly.

"I can't," Ruby said. "It's too important. Maybe I shouldn't have said what I did, but I was serious about trying to help. I know you don't want it, but it's not just about you. You saw the Hydra? There's going to be a lot more things like that. And see how many of them are following us?"

Indeed there was a cloud of Grimm on their heels... They weren't coming too close, perhaps because of the DJs, but the impression was that they would as soon as anyone fell too far behind.

Funny, no one was even talking about this, because they'd just accepted it was inevitable at this point.

"Getting really sick of talking about this, Red."

"Too bad, Black," Ruby shot back. "I'm not going to quit until you at least give me a chance. What if it worked?"

"Yeah, sure. Remember the witch we're going to who'd love to exploit that," Mercury said.

"That's no excuse," Ruby said. "I'm doing it."

"You're stupid."

Ruby gritted her teeth.

"Maybe, but I wasn't stupid enough to work for her to begin with," she said.

She got him on that.

"Anyway," Ruby went on, more calmly, "I've thought about what you said to me before, and maybe I had it wrong about the Eyes. They don't just work because someone is a good person. Miss Likstar thinks they work because you're looking for the good in other people."

"That sounds dumb."

"You say that about everything," Ruby said. "Why is it dumb?"

Mercury had no real reason.

"I don't know what's so dumb about seeing the good in people anyway," Ruby said. "But the thing is, it's a choice to do that. I think, when people are in danger sometimes that's the time you see what you like about them, because you don't wanna lose them... but the reason I've gotten better at it is because I've started to think of that more often. I think I was off-center a little, but the idea is the same. You protect people why? Because they're important to you. Life is important because people have things in them worth protecting. And when you look at it that way, I think it makes sense how you unlocked yours, actually."

Mercury realized slowly that Ruby had a point...and he hated it. He was hoping she wouldn't say it out loud, but she did anyway.

"When you admitted that Emerald was worth protecting, that's when it happened," she said. "That's how it worked for you. I thought it had to be something in you, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's something in someone else, and you just... connect to it. You see it, I guess, clearly. Because you're her friend. So...I guess the theory is, as Weiss would say, that if you honed that for other people besides Emerald, you could probably use your Eyes all the time."

That wasn't a bad theory.

"I'm not interested in that cupcake camp way of thinking," Mercury said. "Hey, it's like Em used to say--no one is as happy as you all the time."

"Guess what? I'm not happy all the time," Ruby said. "And you're a big part of the reason for that, FYI."

Mercury almost snickered at that, but then he sobered up.

"And you're never happy," Ruby said. "That's not how it works either. That was the mistake I made before too. I thought that focusing on loss made the Eyes weaker because it was unhappy, but I think now maybe focusing on loss is selfish, like what happened to me. But when it's just about losing something valuable for its own sake, then it works. I'm still working on this personally, but that's what I've got so far. Maybe it's not all happy, but, I guess, doesn't life suck less when you're around your friends?"

"Marginally," Mercury said. "Not enough for that."

"Why are you so afraid to say it?" Ruby said. "Are you trying to be tough? Is that it? You think you're a wuss if you have feelings? Everyone has feelings, you know. It's weird if you don't have them."

"I know that."

"So that's it?" Ruby said. "You like being a freak?"

"Like it?" Mercury said. "Like has nothing to do with it."

"You know what? I think I get it," Ruby said. "Your problem is you think this is all you can do, this killing and stuff. And now that you know you can do more, you're scared."

"Hey--" Mercury began.

"Well, get over it," Ruby said. "This is your power--use it. Stop being a pansy."

"Do you really think that's going to work on me?" Mercury said.

"I have no idea." Ruby crossed her arms. "But I'm just going to keep trying this until something lands. That's what I have to do."

"You know, you're more of a gopher than a chipmunk," Mercury said, "a pest that never goes away."

"Better that than a slug," Ruby shot back. "You think about it, all right?"

She skipped ahead.

https://youtu.be/pAig1mWyrss

[Song fits RWBY very well. Nathan Wagner, "Sins of Our Fathers".]