RWBY Through Worlds (End)

212: Pull Me From The Grave

Shine reviewed some verses with her core group of students while they waited for Ozpin... Oscar was at the forefront for a short time while Ozpin was sulking.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [Hebrews 11:1]

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." [ 2 Timothy 1:7]

"For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.'" [Romans 8:15]

"'Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.' 27 Now this, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire". [Hebrews 12]

"Can I ask what that 'consuming fire' part means?" Emerald raised her hand.

Shine looked up from writing something in her notebook. "God is not tame," she shrugged. "He is good, but He's not safe. He will have all of us or none of us at all. He is a jealous God."

"I thought that was a bad thing," Jaune said.

"No, in its proper place, it's not," Shine said. "Jealousy is a reasonable reaction to someone threatening to steal away your beloved, to take what should be yours. But not if they take what shouldn't be yours. Often we're jealous over the wrong things in life. But jealousy itself is not a sin. It's not like envy. You envy whatever you don't have--you are jealous to protect what you do have. I suppose it's not used that way much anymore."

"Where did you learn this stuff?" Yang was listening in on this one, oddly enough. "Is there some school for it in your world?"

"There is, but I never went to it," Shine said. "Just to church... Oh, church is what we call buildings and groups of people who meet to talk about this stuff. I grew up going to it. But most of what I know really is from books and teachers outside the churches we went to. They usually aren't as exact as I want."

"Imagine growing up being taught these things." Pyrrha leaned on the book. "Even being taught anything. We know so little of our own gods, lacking as they are... It would be so reassuring to have something to believe in other than our own opinions."

"It would shock you how few people think so," Shine said.

"No," Jaune said, "it wouldn't. But how many people really want to think they're wrong?"

"I don't spend that much time thinking I'm right about stuff," Sun commented from where he was sitting.

"Anything yet?" Ruby asked Oscar.

He shook his head and rubbed his temples. "It's just giving me a headache. I know he's stewing over it... I mean... we're asking him to do something he's tried to avoid... and I'm not crazy about it either. Salem was pretty scary to deal with before. Though I agree with Shine--somehow she wasn't quite like what I thought. She creeped me out, but something about it was so familiar. I guess because of Ozpin. It wasn't the same as the Grimm."

"Isn't she worse, though?" Emerald shuddered.

"Oh, she's not so tough," Mercury declared. "She just wants you to think she is. I totally realized that while she was torturing me."

"How is that a thing you just said?" Yang said.

"Sometimes you realize stuff about people while they're beating the s--- out of you," Mercury said. "Like my old man. In the end, they're just more afraid of you than you are of them. I never thought Salem would remind me of that, but she did. I guess one thing I know how to read is psychos who are beating me up."