Vale.
Once a populous and lively city with citizens going about their daily lives, Vale is now a ghost town full of raiders and chaos - and this transformation took place in just one night. The only building that is not devoid of life is the base of the Imperial Shadows on the cliffs across to Beacon. Erected in two nights, the metal fort became full of hundreds of civilians brought by the scouting patrols of Huntsmen and remaining units..
While the streets are being combed again, in the dark metal tower that overlooked the premises of the city, Mordred and Qrow watch as tanks roll in with survivors and scavenged medical equipment. Ships landed with fresh supplies and troops, as well as medical equipment for their own brethren.
"It's nice of you to stay behind, Mordred." Qrow commented at the unarmored skeletal frame of Mordred with dozens of wires to his back to the generators in the room. "I'd thought your men would drag your body and leave Vale altogether."
"It takes a lot more than a hot sword to kill me, Qrow." Mordred shrugged his metal shoulders as he walked slowly to the balcony of the tower as his ships landed or lifted high into the air. "Beside, Ozpin wanted us to do so if anything were to happen to him or the city."
Mordred sighed and looked at the dragon on the CCT. Frozen without signs of life. Just there.
"Your niece is someone special." He comments, the metal joints creaking as he shifted his weight onto the other leg. He clenched his hand experimentally after the semi-repair.
"Ruby?" Qrow asked, looking at the remains of the CCT. "None of us knows what she did up there. If it's enough to stump Argus, it's interesting alright." Mordred chuckled before his features settled into a scowl once again. "Ruby's something, Qrow. Something even we may have to watch out for since it's developing."
He grabbed a silver bottle on his desk, and a copper cup and a shot glass. He poured the silver contents into the cups and slid the smaller one to Qrow.
The young Huntsman lifted the cup to his nose and cringed instantly.
"Smells like hard liquor mixed with gin, spirits and motor oil." Qrow looked up to see Mordred placing the cap on the bottle again.
"Well is is liqour," Mordred chuckled, swirling the contents. "Our own to be exact."
Ripple Corruption rests on the steel workbench of her hideout deep in Vale , strewn about in various stages of rebuilding with wires and rods sticking out.
But almost complete.
Kelly gives her arm a simple tug, testing the new, lighter and stronger metal that the Order uses for their own weapons. The new metal held its own dirty blue glint with a touch of teal glowing from between its masterfully crafted plates. Aron and Auriel's influence were very apparent on her new prosthetic. The graceful, smooth and flawless shine and curves that mimicked muscles is Auriel's crafting; and the hardiness and the sharp edges of her extra forearm plating speaks of Aron's work.
Speaking of her next mission, the RFP was ultimately dismantled after the events of Beacon, and with only one team and a leaderless team- the Patrol was gone, all rogue in efforts to keep the secrets from hitting the public on the secret organization.
Kelly follows her own agenda. Staying in Vale after having a replaced arm, she is following the strange entity that has made its way into Remnant, the same evil she and the RFP have encountered in the mines of Mountain Glenn months prior. She sat in front of countless screens written in a code that only those in the RFP would be able to decypher. Images of a human skin-bound book written in blood would display on the far right monitor, occasionally flipping pages to show strange runic words.
Argus has called it the Tome of Arion, but the Atlas Military called it the Tome of Corruption. The thing her team and HLTP encountered in the mines of Mountain Glenn was one of the so-called failed human transmutation experiments of the Atlas Military.
A pretty gory display of fused human and metal that is not like Akaia or Mordred.
Most of all- what was the Tome that the Order kept secret for, how did Atlas end up with possession of it, and why were the human transmutation experiments carried out?
At 5:30 AM, the clock blinked.
Kelly closed the holographic classified documents with wave of her hand. Her left hand rubbed the bridge of her temples, unconsciously running over her metal lower jaw as she sighed. The data she gathered from the ruined supercomputer of the CCT was useless as any information was either generic or probably typed by someone in their sleep. A hologram of the floating Tome rotated in the air in front of her as if it were taunting her with unseeing eyes to find it. Though it is the only source of light in the dark studio apartment in the better areas, it still felt pretty dark in for being nearly six in the morning.
"I should probably go get breakfast." Kelly gives a wide yarn, her forked tongue flickered once as she stands up, stretches to remove the notches in her back.
She reaches to the workbench and grabs her service dust revolver, checking the ammunition and slips it into her left thigh holster. She slips her dark blue shirt on, then her mask and slips it snuggly into place over her lower face before grabbing her key card and walking out the door.
She can always study it more later.
What a mess. Jade rubs her forehead as she watches her section of the town from a small room at the top floor of a ruined series of apartments. There's the occasional unrecognizable military unit and scattered groups of huntsmen as well as packs of Grimm appearing from time to time.
The tournament is in shambles thanks to some unknown lady, some dragon had knocked the CCT down, and her team took that great opportunity to flee to their respective homes. Not that Jade could blame them – but to top it off, she hasn't even found a single lead on soul or memory fragments.
The situation isn't good, but the state of the city at least seems to have improved from the start of the invasion, when the city was nothing but Grimm, panicked citizens, and falling airships. Now, it's just an uncomfortable stalemate-like feeling, with the Grimm concentrated mostly around the edges of the city now that whoever it is has set up their base not too far from Beacon is taking charge of trying to fix things.
Jade pokes her head out of the window and clambers outside to get onto the roof and admire the skies. She'd never been too great with people, but she had actually been looking forward to a good time after Beacon as a graduated hunstwoman with her team. It wasn't much time - four years isn't exactly much to go on, at least in Jade's opinion - but the experiences built here had been nice and the other teams were fairly enjoyable presences as well.
"Team KSTL, the team by birds, for birds, of birds! Would've been a great time." Jade mumbles to herself sadly. She shrugs at nothing in particular as another minor skirmish takes place on a far-off road.
"The more important thing is to focus on the mission. I bet Azaeas is just slacking off as usual in their assigned worlds, so. Hey. Wouldn't hurt for me to do some sight-seeing. They've had hundreds of years to live and I've barely had any time for myself." Jade continues. "And it's not my fault everything's gone to the... Grimm. And whoever those guys are."
Jade tilts her head, placing her hands on her hips as she stands on the roof, pondering over if she should go for an early morning flight or simply take a walk.
Rio pointed in the direction of the rubble, a few of his own white-helmeted veterans running to the concrete deathtrap, the scanners in their hands beeping once every milliseconds or so as they neared.
"We got a blood pool here." Tarkus' voice rings through his helmet. Moments later, the sounds of crashing concrete echoes the ruined city and through his hemet.
"Anything or anyone alive?" Rio asks, his huge armored form taking a few steps towards his fellow combat siblings. Tarkus can be seen shaking his head as he stands over a severed hand in front of him.
"No," He answers, placing the auspex back onto his thigh and turns back to the heavily armored captain. "Three dead, one child crushed head by stone, the parents are…."
Rio has just about walked up to him when Tarkus paused his sentence, the silver eyes of the helmet trained down on the two bodies in front of them. The adults were clearly torn apart by something than stone and metal bars. The faces of the male was shredded beyond recognition, bits of bloodied flesh hung on the cleaned bones. The arm bone of the female was crunched off in a vicious fashion. A part of her head was seemingly ripped off. They would've explored more, but the lower and other parts were buried in the rest of the concrete.
"Well, that's pretty morbid." Rio commented,planted Vanquisher into the ground and kneeling down on one knee he leaned forward to see the closer details on the strange wounds. "Definitely not Grimm."
"You don't say much there." Tarkus shrugs, holstering his pistol and sheathes his power sword on his hip. He kneels down on the ground next to his leader. "What do you think caused it?"
"Looks like something man-made." Rio commented, picking up the severed hand, his retinal scanners along his helmets scanners to see the abnormal wounds.
"Captain, there's something you should see." A female voice enters his helmet right as his helmet assessed the 'bites'. It is Healer Yinufe.
Rio turned around to see the white armored, chainsword wielding healer of his search group. Her red helmet was a marker in the gray background. She was kneeling over something, her hand touching something hidden behind a chunk of concrete. Both Rio and Tarkus hurried over to her.
"What is it?" Rio asked, looking at what the Healer is looking at with concentration.
Yinufe's fingers were dipped into what seemed like a pool of silver and black fluids. She lifted her hand and some of it clung on and dripped steadily from the white armored fingers.
"As I thought," She muttered, shaking off the drops on her hand. "It's like blood. Even smells like it."
She takes out a small syringe from her waist-pack and plunges the needle carefully into the mixed sludge.
Kelly yawns as she opens the door to the rustic, warm cafe that was only a few blocks down from her place. The oak door creaked slightly and the moment she stepped in, a warm cinnamon reaches her nose. She still recognizes the old lady behind the counter, she is a deer faunus. She never knew the woman's name, but she has always been nice to faunus and the few humans who tolerate them. She closed the door to the near empty cafe and walked up to the counter.
"Good morning," She greeted with a smile. "The usual will be fine."
The usual being a nice cup of three shot coffee and a plain muffin with the side of a large chunk of meat.
Kelly placed ten lien on the counter and told her to keep the change as tips before retreating to her secluded corner of the cafe. She took out a small worn notebook that has clearly seen wear and tear trough disasters of all times. With a quick hand she flipped the page to the tome she is hunting.
"Eh, wouldn't hurt to go flying for a bit. It's not like anyone would have any real reason to question me." Jade shrugs and with that, she moved her feet into position, as if readying a jump. A light wind curls around her and she unclasps the back of her half-cloak. Black wings emerge, first as limbs, then fully-fledged. The half-cloak fits neatly around them and she wiggles them, as if testing them out.
A few powerful flaps later, Jade takes to the sky and heads along the nearby river, flying west. There's no point in going further into the mess that's the military activity of the base and the dragon on top of the broken CCT tower isn't exactly a comfortable presence to be around, so it'd be better to explore the other parts of the city.
Not too long later, Jade notices what seems to be a small café that is still somehow in business despite all the ruckus. Jade lands on a nearby building and blinks in confusion. She was pretty sure all citizens had gotten the order to evacuate – or something. Then again, not everyone listens to evacuation orders in times of emergency and some decide that it'd be better to just wait out the crisis.
"Or maybe they're going to leave a bit later." Jade wonders out loud. "Kinda nice of them though, they might be helping out the stragglers who're still stuck in town."
Jade leaps off the building again and flaps over to the café, carefully folding her wings down and dispelling them in a flurry of wind and feathers before entering. The last thing she needed was a bunch of people asking her how she was a literal, physics-defying bird.
Kelly is deep in her research of her cryptic text that she failed to notice the plate of food being placed on her small table and the voice that tried to talk to her.
"Excuse me," A soft, gentle voice finally pulled her from the depth of her reading with a gentle hand on her metal shoulder. Kelly jumped a little from the gentle touch.
"Huh- oh, sorry." Kelly apologized as the old faunus took a seat across from her, wiping her hand on her apron. She watches the old deer clear her throat. "My apologies, i didn't see you or hear you."
"It's all right, I was going to close the cafe down later today due to the dragon thing." She sighed, her green eyes looking at the book in Kelly's hand. "It's nice of you to come here, I remember when you were still a student here and would come here everyday before class."
"And you look like you haven't aged a day since then." Kelly smiled, her mask pulled back to show her mismatched smile. She gently raised the steaming cup of coffee to her lips to take a long sip. "I don't know when this'll let up, but I'll miss the coffee you make here."
"Why thank you." The old woman smiled, deeply touched by Kelly's kindness that she doesn't show much to others. She sees the glimpse of the worn pages of her notebook.
Kelly just caught her state before the old woman looked back at her.
"I recognize that from anywhere." She said in a hushed voice as she gently pluck the book from her metal hand.
"What do you mean, what are you talking about." Kelly hissed about to lash out and grab the book back.
"The Tome," The shopkeeper gently flipped through the pages. "It's what the Council was trying to retrieve when I was young and still in the Patrol."
"You- were in the Patrol?" Kelly was surprised, how can this sweet old woman be a part of the most ferocious secretive corps of Remanent? But the Tome is what occupied her mind more than the thought of her.
"That was almost 40 years ago, sweetie." She paused on the page of the describing contents of the book. "The Council also said of the experiments Atlas tried to do with them."
"And what happened to those experiments?" Kelly asked, resting her elbows on the table. Could one of those 'experiments be the one encountered in the mines?
"All failed, like the one you encountered in the mines." She gently set the book to the side. "There was one that I heard about that escaped the facility about 30 years back. Me and my team tried to track it down, but were unable to because it shot white fire at us."
The café is unsurprisingly mostly empty, save for a handful of people. Jade glances around before approaching the counter. There's nobody there so Jade mills around a bit before noticing the aproned deer faunus talking to some person in a corner.
They must work here. I think. I should ask. Jade walks over to the deer faunus and stranger. She didn't exactly go out often – or well, she did go to places with her team but didn't regularly explore civilian areas for the sake of normal activity – so she wasn't familiar with the townsfolk. Though, for some reason, quite a few of them know her, possibly due to the effects of the assignments she and her team had taken on.
"Ah... uh... hey! Sorry to interrupt but are you the one in charge here?" Jade asks the deer lady. Her head feathers bristle a bit – she can't help but get nervous talking to unfamiliar people. Sometimes, people mistake her for being angry, especially with the feather crest deal which didn't really help her fear of social situations much. It's earned her a bit of a reputation for having an ominous presence.
The shopkeeper turns to the young woman behind her, she shut the book and pushed it aside.
"Why hello," She slowly stood up, brushing dust from her apron. "What brings a polite young lady like you to my shop?"
Kelly looked at this strange newcomer, her tongue flickered once to catch her strange scent. She didn't seem like she is from here, much like Akaia and her team. They have a special, otherworldly scent to them. Her left hand brushed against her revolver's rubber grip under the table.
"Are you interested in my house coffee, it's a favorite." The deer offered. "Or should I interest you in tea?"
In their haste, the notebook sprang back open to the page of the Tome beside them.
"Oh, uh… couldn't help but notice that you're still sticking around. Not that it's a bad thing or anything." Jade scratches the back of her head. She notices the Tome, but she doesn't want to seem rude or prying and abstains from raising any questions about it.
"I actually am not a fan of either - is it possible to get any kind of juice? Or just water, that works too. And scrambled eggs." Jade adds. "Oh, and I can help you pack and get the heck outta here if you like, whenever that's gonna be happening. Someone might be handling the Grimm out there but it's still not a great situation."
The shopkeeper was scribbling notes on her notepad that seemingly came from nowhere.
"You can take a seat anywhere you want, the food and drink should be here soon." She said while walking back to the small kitchen to prepare the breakfast. Before walking through the door, she shouted; "Packing can wait to later, dear."
Kelly shrugged in the back, and took a bite of her muffin while eyeing the avian closely. Her mechanical eye focused on her, trying to determine her species and some minor details.
"Sounds good. Thanks." Jade calls. She turns again to look at the apparently lizard person (or some sort of reptile).
"So… uh. Couldn't help but notice you have an interesting book there." Jade motions at the Tome. "Some kind of research?"
At that moment, one of Jade's detection equipment decided to emit a series of muted beeps.
Advisory: relevant temporal energies detected. The device beeps. Jade sighs and unclips it from her belt. It seems to be getting a reading of sorts from the lizard stranger and the hologram.
"Sorry about that. It's uh… long story short, a project of mine." Jade says apologetically.
"I… see." Kelly tilted her head, her tongue flickered once. It tasted strange. She flicked her tongue again.
She looked away to see the other four people looking at them strangely as if they were focused on them with a glazed look.
Kelly's hand gripped her revolver tightly as she slowly stands up to face them. They did not look natural at all. They seemed strange and had a strange, menacing aura that she did not notice before.
The room felt cold.
"What are you staring at?" Kelly growled. Her mask slipped over her face.
"What you are after…" A deep, monotone voice came from all of them. A chill ran down her back.
It's strange that they did not move anything, but stare at them.
"What? Uh… can we help you?" Jade tilts her head at the other four. Her feather crest raises noticeably. She's not exactly keen on starting a fight in the middle of a cafe, especially when the lady in charge seemed so nice, but the strangers aren't exactly giving off the friendliest of impressions.
Kelly only growled again and pulled her revolver from her holster and pulled the hammer back.
"I'd stay back if I were you, birdie." Kelly raises the revolver slightly.
One of the people in the cafe stood up suddenly, throwing the chair back as her head turned a full 360 like an owl. Kelly cringed. The lady's eyes turned black and then red like blood with her nails and her skin turned pale.
"Wow," Kelly reeled back a little. "You look…"
Her jaw practically detached from her head when a scream resonated from her mouth at them. She began moving at such speed that did not seem normal to a human. Her arms turned into long blades with her legs.
"Freaking hideous." Kelly finished and raised her revolver to eye level and fired. The red bullet shot out with a bang so powerful the vibration could be felt through her arm.
Except the bullet didn't do much except set her on fire instead of causing her to explode.
"Well, shit." Kelly stepped back. She looked over to the lady behind her. "If you know how to fight, now is the time."
The other three exploded into black masses, each hideous in their own way. Detached jaws, extended necks and bladed arms with pale skin. Except one of them looked much taller and bigger than the others, nearly touching the ceiling with his hunched back.
"We want the Tome…" They whispered in a voice so eerily that the lights above seem to flicker. Their demonic presence was so strong, Kelly felt a bit sick at the voices trying to penetrate her mind.
Jade had been at a loss for words up until then and snapped back into reality. She took note of the creature's reaction to the bullet and wondered if bladed weapons would have just as much of a dulled-down effect. There was fire around to use, so at the very least she wouldn't have to use up any dust for that particular element, but it didn't seem to affect the creatures much. At least, not visibly or immediately so.
Focusing, Jade forms a panel of blue energy and shoves it at the group of creatures, forcing them back. Immediately after, she forms shard-like projectiles and throws them in rapid succession at the creatures, particularly at the biggest one.
"Do you know anything about these guys?" Jade manages to ask, while throwing energy projectiles. "Oh yeah, and uh. I'm Jade. Great setting to be meeting new people, yeah?"
"Names Kelly." She grunted, firing a white bullet this time. The strong air bullet punctured the white body like paper, blowing a hole in the back, splattering the old wood with black and silver blood.
And you kept walking closer to her.
"They're not Grimm…" she recognized her situation quite quickly. Kelly switched to her defensive stance. "They're demons from the darkest minds and the darkest magic."
"Well that's just fantastic." Jade mutters sarcastically.
One of them lunged at her from the back, Kelly the blades arm deflecting off her metal arm. The one day she didn't wear her armor and she almost got impaled. She punched it in the face with enough force to throw it back into the table.
"Well sweetheart, let's dance." She says to Jade before kicking another away. These monsters are durable enough to survive her revolver…
Her arm glowed behind the plates before it moves in synchronization. Her arm became mores slightly larger, armored, dirty blue in color, with the tips of her clawed fingertips black. The smooth design soon turned into a jagged weapon of murder. A pauldron rested on her shoulder as a blade curated from her elbow, down her forearm to stop at the base of her wrist.
She liked the new sleeker and lighter design of Ripple Corruption. Even without the bulk of the gun attachment, it was almost bliss to see it again.
"Oh how I missed you." She smiled at her new weapon. She turned her attention back to the monsters in front of them. "Now come at me."
Her hand was engulfed in green fire with dancing electricity under it.
One of them were foolish to jump directly at her. She cocked her arm back, meeting her plated knuckle to soft flesh with electricity dancing- the soft flesh was sheared off as her hand clenched down on the skull. The bones crunched under her mechanical grip.
Another latched onto her left arm, blades arm cutting into her quite painfully. She turned her head to them, her mask cracking open in a series of hisses and creaks.
And spat a gout of green fire in its face. It shrieked in pain as it disintegrated into a pile of ashes. Kelly hissed at the burning stab wound as she whipped around to impale another through the mouth with the blade of her elbow.
Since when were there another two?
She looked up and was sure as hell there was not three more plus the large one.
"Nice, uh… arm." Jade had put a bit of distance between herself and Kelly now, unsure of if it'd be a good idea to be sticking too closely while she was unleashing bullets, fire, and punches to the creatures around her. It's going to take some time for the two to adjust to each other's fighting styles. Jade turns to the remaining creatures and their apparent leader and mows down the smaller ones with blue energy projectiles.
The larger one knocks the projectiles aside as its minions crumble to dust. Just as Jade forms an energy panel to push it back a bit, the final monster raises its bladed arm and smashes easily through the panel. Jade winces a bit at the minor recoil of the broken shield but stays vigilant.
The monster lunges again and slashes down at Jade, who blocks with one of her vambraces. Not wasting another moment, Jade activates her left vambrace, summoning first a sword hilt into her hand before the blade unfurls by section from the sheath-like plating of the vambrace. The blades click into place and Jade slashes at the monster's belly, tearing open a sizable gash. It bellows in pain and staggers back as Jade unfurls her other blade.
Both swords out, Jade dashes forward, slashing at the creature before her at almost inhuman speeds, blades moving too fast for most to see. The monster tries to parry but most of its counter-attacks fall on open air, one of its blade arms getting momentarily jammed in a table. Jade takes this opportunity to leap back and slash with both swords, while activating their blades' whip forms.
The two blades extend, connected by streams of energy and slice through the monster's torso like it's butter. Seconds later, the blades click back into place and Jade watches as the creature falls in two.
"That should do it… I hope." Jade nods at Kelly. "Good gods, I hope the shopkeeper doesn't mind. I feel bad for trashing her place like this, but well… we kinda gotta get the hell out anyway because of the Grimm situation."
CRASH!
Kelly whips around to see one of the bladed creatures being thrown out of the heavy oak double doors with a huge bang. She almost forgot about the shop keeper.
"And stay out you reject experiment." The deer faunus kicked the door open, and what surprised them is the fact that she has a huge combat shotgun in her old hands. She then noticed them. "Oh, hello dears."
The monster that was blown from the doors tried to lunge on her again with a missing arm and a good chunk of it's body missing. Kelly was about to shout out to her- but the old woman switched her grip to only one hand and lowered the shotgun muzzle to its head before it can even leap into the air and pulled the trigger with a resonating and vibrating bang; she was not even phased by the recoil at all, even when the silver and black blood splattered on her and her appliances.
"What are you staring at?" She smiled sweetly and winked at them. "An old lady with a shotgun- I' not that old in skills."
"Ah! Uh, sorry. I guess I wasn't expecting that." Jade rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "And it seems like the two of you know quite a bit about these things, though? What do you mean 'reject experiment'? Is this something the academies know about?"
The creatures certainly evaporated like the Grimm did, but they had oddly humanoid shapes. They were also capable of making pretty convincing disguises before revealing their true forms and natures. Their aura patterns were incredibly bizarre, too.
Meanwhile, the detector had been silent through all of this. Either the traces were gone - probably with the disappearance of the creatures' bodies, or the detector's sensors were being scrambled again as usual. This was normal though, as things were much more difficult to track in different worlds.
"Now is not the time." The shopkeeper blew the trail of thin smoke coming from the muzzle of the shotgun. She reached for the table and grabbed the discarded notebook and shoved it into Kelly's arms. "You have to go- they're hunting the remains of the Patrol too."
"Why?" Kelly asked while reloading her revolver with her spare red dust capsule.
"Ever since the fall of Beacon, I overheard a stranger armored giant ordering some weird people to target the Patrols remaining members." She said, peering out the window quickly. "I would leave and hide if I were you."
"Where do you suggest we go?" Kelly asked for the both of them, looking at the green hued road in front of them. It is clear for the most part
"Well, you can start at your place, you have security traps and porters to go to any safehouses." The old woman replied, pushing them both out the back door quickly. "I just need to notify those large armored people to go to this area, it's compromised."
"Thanks for the advice," Kelly grabbed Jade's arm with her metal hand. "We'll meet again somehow."
"Wha- uh yeah! Thanks and good luck with getting out of this mess!" Jade says, surprised at Kelly's gesture. The detector seems to be acting up again and Jade unclips it again to take a look at the messages on the screen.
External interference: previous leads may be false positives. Check distortions starting from the following coordinates… Jade squints at the readings and compares them to the map she has. The first location doesn't seem too far from where they are. But if it's potentially just nothing, then there isn't much of a point chasing after nonexistent data. Besides, it seemed like the better option was to get to a safe place with Kelly.
"I suppose once we get to your place, I could also try and explain what I'm up to. Sort of. It's actually kind of a bit of a personal mission." Jade explains vaguely.