Two airships manufactured in the sub-kingdom of Pandu landed around the same time not too far away from one another. They were of different models; a smaller one designed for complicated maneuvers in remote locations and a larger one built for luxury and comfort while cruising along well-established airways. From the smaller of the two airships emerged Nicholas "Nick" Arc and his brother in arms Arjun Sarkara. From the larger ship came their wives Isabel and Saia. The two pairs converged in the space between the airships, with Nick scooping up his wife into a hug while laughing in excitement. Isabel hugged back, though her own hug was tenser and her expression anxious.
"Grandparents eleven times over!" Nick grinned as he pulled back from the hug. "Our son is winning at life!"
"Winning?" Isabel smacked Nick's arm, "Our boy's about to have more responsibility placed onto his shoulders than he can imagine! And that's if everyone agrees to play nice! There could be lawsuits! A public smear campaign! A hundred other nightmares you can't stab or shoot your way out of could be barreling down on our son at this very moment!"
"Well, he could always crash on our couch if he has to flee the country," Arjun half-seriously joked.
"Now isn't a good time to joke about such things dear," Saia admonished before a small smirk graced her lips, "Though we do have a nice couch."
"We do? Good. That's why I made you Queen, you know all about such things," Arjun said with a gentle smile for his wife.
Isabel closed her eyes and took a calming breath. She had gotten a LOT of practice keeping calm with her team back in school, after all. "Let's just find our son and talk with the headmaster before we're accosted by angry parents."
"NICHOLAS ARC YOU SON OF A BITCH!" All four of them flinched from the intensity of the bellowing voice that was approaching. They all turned to face the caller, and a snarl escaped Nick's throat.
"TAIYANG XIAO LONG YOU RAT BASTARD!" Nick yelled back. The two blond men of different heights aggressively strode toward each other with raised hands ready for an open-palm strike. Those hands came together with enough force to produce the sound of a small thunderclap and clasped each other in an arm wrestling position. The two men then tried to push the other's hand out of position, savage grins were mirrored on their faces as laughter escaped both of their lips.
Sauntering up from behind Taiyang was the familiar, if significantly messier from the last time they saw him, Qrow Branwen. The dark-haired scythe wielder took a sip from a flask he stored in a shirt pocket before nodding in their direction, "'Sup?"
Tension left Isabel's shoulders with the recognition that she was dealing with old friends instead of irate parents. "Qrow, Tai, it's good to see you again," She greeted the pair.
"It's good to see all of you too," Qrow replied as Nick and Tai's impromptu arm-wrestling match ended in a draw. "It's been quite a while."
"It has," Arjun agreed right before the passage of time hit him. "Was the wedding really the last time we were all together as a group?"
"It was," Tai affirmed with melancholy in his voice. "We still use the coffee machine you guys got us."
"We're sorry we couldn't attend the funeral," Saia bowed her head with a look of shame.
"You guys had a lot on your plate then," Tai excused, "What with that gang boss trying to sneak back into the country."
"That may be true," Arjun allowed, "Yet we still regret the fact we weren't able to honor Summer's memory with you. We placed a statue of her in the Hall of Heroes, but it felt hollow without those who were closest to her."
"You mean the Hall of Heroes in the royal palace?" Qrow asked. When Arjun and Saia nodded Qrow let out a low whistle, "That's one hell of an honor; I remember hearing a report in the news that your Hall of Heroes is almost out of room."
"Yes," a small smile grew on Arjun's face, "Adding any more statues will require a remodel of that wing of the palace. Some of our advisors were upset that we used some of our last remaining space to honor a foreigner that never stepped foot in Pandu, but Summer deserved it."
"That's, that's," Taiyang sniffed and wiped away a tear that threatened to spill from the corner of his eye, "Thank you. I'll have to make time to come and see it."
Nick placed a hand on Tai's shoulder and rumbled, "We're sorry the funeral was the last time we spoke with you."
"That's not your fault," Tai shrugged. "You guys live on the other side of the country, and I was enough of a mess after everything that we would have fallen out of contact even if you lived down the road."
"We still could have found some excuse to swing by and check up on you," Isabel objected. "Both of our jobs are flexible enough for that."
"Well," Qrow smirked, "If you really want to make it up to us you can tell your son that Tai's officially his favorite in-law."
Isabel's eyes darted back and fourth between Qrow and Tai before she buried her face in her hands with a groan, mentally kicking herself for not entertaining the possibility that Tai's kids could be among those her son had shacked up with. "Yang or Ruby?" She asked from behind her hands.
"Yes," Tai smiled.
"BOTH OF THEM?!?" Isabel's head whipped up with wide eyes.
"Ye
p," Tai popped the p as his smile morphed into a grin. "So I'm morally obligated to give your boy a hard time, but I think we can skip that if he marries my girls first."
"Breaker above," Isabel moaned, "Why?"
"Hey, it's not my fault your son inherited his father's harem powers," Tai replied slightly put out by Isabel's reaction.
"What are you talking about?" Nick asked with confusion on his face, "I'm married to the only woman I've ever dated. How could Jaune have inherited harem powers from me?"
"You can't tell me you never noticed how many girls were gunning for you?" Tai elaborated. "I mean beyond Isabel you had Mombi, Glynda, Snezana, that weird tiger faunus girl, and that was just at Beacon. I'm pretty sure that Schnee lady you played bodyguard for had the hots for you, and the whole reason Vermilion Pullet gave you a fifty percent discount on all her baked goods was because she was trying to reach your heart through your stomach."
"But I only dated and married one girl," Nick insisted. "That makes me as monogamous as possible. You're the person who married more than one woman, doesn't' that mean you had harem powers?"
"I was in a love triangle," Tai explained. "If you check with your local bookstore they'll tell you that isn't considered a harem story unless the guy marries both girls
at the same time. You my friend were part of a love
octagon; and that's considered a harem story even if only one girl gets with the guy."
"Oh, I see," Nick grinned, "You're trying to pin this on me because my son's gone beyond your greatest accomplishment of knowing the touch of two different women!"
"What! No!" Tai squawked before trying to give Nick a noogie, something the taller man easily avoided while laughing.
"I must admit I'm confused as to why both of you are avoiding the harem accusations," Arjun observed. "I was under the impression that Vale's laws allows for bigamy under a wide variety of circumstances. You would think more people would embrace the convenience those laws provide." The royal archer then noticed the side eyed expression his wife was giving him and so he hastily added: "Though the strict monogamy of Pandu's laws is something I'm personally quite happy with."
Saia rolled her eyes before kissing her husband on the cheek.
Isabel heaved a mighty sigh before she muttered to herself, "Alright. I'm going to be related to Taiyang now. That's fine. Tai isn't a stranger who'll try to take advantage of Jaune." Her face then contorted with self recrimination, "Oh! Where did I go wrong? Jaune's now the fourth child of mine to run away from home to find their destiny elsewhere! And do they talk to me and tell me what their doing? No! I only find out what they're up to after they get themselves into trouble like this! Trouble they could have avoided if they just stuck to the morals I tried to teach them! But no! They just put their morals aside in their quest to find themselves and then I have to help untangle the knot! Was I too hard on them? Not hard enough?"
"Well," Qrow interjected, "You're batting 50/50 right now, so I wouldn't say you're doing everything wrong."
Isabel turned her gaze to the dark haired man. "Thank you Qrow, for reminding me why I've never gone to you for a sympathetic ear."
"What's wrong with what I said?" Qrow asked without really expecting an answer.
"Isabel, I doubt the situation is as dire as you probably think it is," Arjun reasoned. "Jaune isn't the type to go after frivolous women. Their parents are probably decent folk like Taiyang and we'll all be able to find the best path forward
together. Really the biggest obstacle is going to be the expense of raising so many children, yet if all of our families contribute I'm certain we'll be able to afford not just the current batch of children but any future children Jaune and his girls decide to have."
"Wait, you're including yourself among the families who are going to chip in?" Isabel asked.
"Well of course," Arjun smiled, "Jaune is my godson after all! It's only fitting we provide all the help we can."
"Of course it will be easier for us to access royal funds if it's a family expense," Saia picked up where her husband left off, "So if one of your daughters married our son everything will go more smoothly."
"Oh not this again," Isabel groused as the royal couple chuckled.
As his laughter came to an end Arjun cast his eyes about to look at the things his aura sensing ability had already told him were there. It was a simple wisdom to confirm what his more esoteric senses were telling him with his more mundane senses, it had let him catch oddities that turned out to be assassins on more that one occasion. Cardboard boxes weren't supposed to have human souls in them after all...
...and neither were birds.
Arjun kept the large corvid in the corner of his eye, watching it land on a particularly large lamppost where it had a good view of most of the airfield. It was staring at a small gathering of people a good distance away with the gleam of malice in its' eye. That in and of itself might not have been odd, corvids were smart enough to hold grudges after all, but this corvid felt like it had the soul of a human woman. Something was up.
Not wanting to draw the bird's attention, Arjun began to move his hands in the old sign language Team SANI had devised for stealthier missions. Saia noticed right away, they still used it to hold private conversations in the middle of court after all. Isabel and Nick proved they weren't that rusty either as Isabel was instantly alert and Nick stopped roughhousing with Tai. The three of them were soon keeping their eyes on the bird like Arjun was.
Taiyang and Qrow had never been taught the sign language Team SANI used, but they were still quick on the uptake and noticed the sudden change in their friend's dispositions. The two of them looked in the general direction the rest were looking in and saw the bird as well. The two of them tensed, and Qrow reached for his weapon.
"Shit." Qrow cursed as he looked at the raven. Then the raven jumped into the air, "SHIT!"
Qrow shot forward and Isabel felt her eyes bug out as her friend's shape changed before her eye, the dark haired man becoming a crow in more than just name, his aura infused wings pushing him forward faster than human legs could.
"What in the-" Saia began as Taiyang shot off after his teammate, fortunately he shouted an explanation as he went:
"THAT RAVEN'S
RAVEN!"
Isabel's semblance
Total Body Control gave her access to many abilities most would consider to be
unnatural. Altering her own brain chemistry was one of them. The Arc matriarch altered her perception of time in an effort to analyze the rapidly changing events in front of her. The raven was indeed turning into Raven, who was drawing her blade and descending on a curved trajectory towards a group of important looking people. In spite of their speed Taiyang and Qrow wouldn't get there before Raven had the chance to stab someone. She knew what she needed to do. As the normal perception of time returned the command was already leaving her lips:
"NICK! THROW ME!"
There was no hesitation on her husband's part, and she was sent hurtling through the air at speeds something as non-aerodynamic as a woman shouldn't be able to achieve. Within a few heartbeats she was past Tai and Qrow, landing roughly on her feet between the group of important looking people and Raven, who's blade pierced through Isabel's aura and flesh.
The instant the blade touched her she shifted all of the vital organs and blood vessels out of its path through her flesh. As it came out her other side she grew a sheath of bone around it from her ribs, pinning it in place within her.
"Hello again
Raven," Isabel growled, "Still a crazy bitch I see."
Isabel punched Raven using all the might she could muster with the blade keeping her from putting her whole body into the motion. It was still enough to knock the black-haired woman back as she was forced to let go of her sword.
Raven stumbled for a moment, and in that moment Taiyang was on Isabel's right and Qrow was on Isabel's left fully human again with his weapon drawn. Three to one with reinforcements literally seconds away and Raven without her weapon.
Isabel liked those odds.
"
Isabel, Tai, Brother," Raven hissed. "This was going to be a stab and run, maybe grabbing a hostage or two on the way out." The black haired woman stretched our her empty hand and Isabel felt her eyes bug out again as a mass of rebar literally
tore itself out of the tarmac and then
shaped itself into a new sword that Raven grabbed out of the air. "Now? Now this needs to be a massacre with no witnesses."
The odds were not quite as Isabel liked.
For a moment something that vaguely resembled regret flashed across Raven's face before her countenance hardened, "Sorry you're about to be collateral Tai, Qrow."
She pointed her blade towards them, and lunged...