The roar of the airship's engine settled into a quiet rumble as the craft lowered itself to the ground. The pneumatics of the landing gear hissed as it came to a rest on the asphalt. The side-door opened and a step-ladder extended. The ship's sole passenger stepped down to the ground, supporting himself with his cane. His leg was causing him quite a bit of discomfort on this particular evening, and stress had a habit of making it worse. He had a feeling it would be giving him significantly more grief by the end of the night. He wished for a cup of fresh coffee.
Sheriff Han Auburn of the Vale Police Department saw Ozpin exit the airship and immediately strode over to meet him, dropping the conversation he was having with a forensic investigator. He had already given a lot of thought to how he would greet the professor, what his first words would be, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he cast doubt on all his preparation.
"Pr- Professor Ozpin, sir," He said, cursing himself for stammering, "Thank you for coming."
"Its good to see you again, Sheriff," The Professor replied, "Though I wish the circumstances were different."
"The cir- oh, did- do you know? I only asked you be summoned. We're on a policy of no information being given over scroll-"
"I was not informed of the nature of the incident. However, when one is summoned by the police to a dilapidated region of the industrial district in the middle of the night, one may infer that something unpleasant has transpired."
Ozpin spoke in a tone Han had grown familiar with, one of calmness and serenity that betrayed the seriousness of the speaker's words.
"...And given that the building we currently stand in front of is surrounded by vehicles from your department, as well as ambulances and forensics vans, I feel I was correct in my deduction."
The building was indeed surrounded by various emergency and police vehicles. It was an old warehouse that had once belong to the Schnee Dust Company. It had been in disuse for some time, and had been the site of at least a dozen crimes since it was shut down. No more than three of these incidents had come to the police's attention.
"Yes sir, I'm afraid you were correct," Han said, "We felt you'd want to be informed, especially given-"
"Han." The calm tone had quite abruptly vanished, and Ozpin spoke his former student's name with complete seriousness.
"S-sir?"
"I would appreciate if we might skip pleasantries. This is about one of my students, is it not?"
"Yes sir. We believe so."
"Are they alive?"
"Professor, uh... we believe both of the women involved were your students. One is still alive, sir, the EMTs should be bringing her out soon..."
Ozpin lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. Han stared at him, helplessly, knowing it was best to allow Ozpin to regain his composure. Eventually, the professor looked back up, looking substantially more tired than a moment ago.
"Sir, I'm not going to lie, its a mess in there. We aren't entirely sure what happened yet. I asked them to call you as soon as we realized that the dead- that the girl was one of Beacon's students. We don't have a positive ID, we figured it out because of her weapons."
Ozpin considered these words, sighed, and without a reply, began walking towards the warehouse. He was walking with a noticeable limp, putting more weight than usual on his cane. Han quickly fell into step beside him.
"We're dealing with four bodies, we think. One is your student, the rest are... well, we're going to have trouble identifying them. Like I said, we still don't know exactly what happened. We think the other bodies were the ones who tortur-"
Han stopped himself, too late. He cursed himself again. Ozpin turned suddenly and looked him in the eyes, an uncharacteristic expression of horror on his face. Han began to open his mouth, not having a clue what he was going to say, when the door of the warehouse opened and a team of paramedics wheeled out a gurney. Ozpin turned back around and stared at the girl lying on the gurney, covered in wounds and blood and attached to a variety of medical devices. Even in her horrific state, Ozpin clearly recognized her. He hurried over to her and matched the medical team's pace.
"Miss Belladonna. Miss Belladonna, are you-"
"She's unconscious." reported on of the EMTs, who was attempting to apply pressure to a massive wound on the girl's gut whilst she was being moved, "We had to knock her out after she responded erratically to morphine."
"You gave her morphine? She's a Faunus, why would you give her-"
"We didn't know. We realized afterwards, but it explains the injuries to her head."
Ozpin's eyes widened, "What injuries to her head?" The top of the girl's head were covered in a hastily applied bandage that was soaked in blood.
"Her ears were cut off." The EMT began giving orders to the other members of her team in the same breath, "I want her hooked up to a pulse monitor as quickly as possible. Make sure everybody is aware of the screw-up with the drugs before giving her anything else."
The team began loading the girl into the back of the ambulance. Ozpin watched, his mouth hanging open slightly. Han caught up and stood next to him.
"Her... her ears were..." Ozpin whispered to himself.
"I'm so sorry, I should have done a better job of warning you." Han said.
When a man like Ozpin, who could be defined by his control of his own emotions, showed even the slightest hint of anger, one could only imagine what he was holding down. So when the man turned and glared at Han, and Han saw, for just a second, completely unrestrained fury, it made his heart skip a beat in fear.
"Who did this?" Ozpin articulated his words very carefully, as if struggling not to scream them.
"We think we know. Follow me."
Han lead Ozpin into the warehouse. They weaved through a short maze of long abandoned shipping crates and storage containers before coming to an area that had been cleared out. In this small section of the warehouse, roughly a 10 meter by 10 meter square, the only furniture was a single chair in the middle. The chair was metal, and had torn restraints attached to the front legs and armrests. The floor across the entire improvised clearing was almost entirely covered in blood and gore. Han's uncertainty as to the number of bodies made sense, now. Most of the blood was centred around large piles of human remains: organs, bones, pieces of limbs scattered haphazardly. Forensics inspectors were carefully navigating around the mess, placing numbered markers, snapping pictures, arguing about splatter patterns and such. Only a single body was actually intact, laying face down just 2 meters from the chair. Ozpin had looked away the moment he saw it, recognizing it immediately. It was hard to mistake a head of hair like that.
Ozpin had once again regained composure, albeit trading calmness for a very unsettling coldness.
"Han, I'll ask again. Who did this? And what happened here?"
Before he could answer, Chief Forensic Inspector Prism stepped forward, speaking around the toothpick he held in the corner of his mouth.
"Near as we can figure, these guys exploded."
"They were hit with an explosive weapon?"
"No sir. Their bodies exploded from within. Never seen anything like it."
"Have you made any progress since I was last in here?" Han asked.
"Alright, get this. We scanned the remains for residual Aura. The meter went nuts. We think it was definitely a powerful Aura-based attack, but no Semblance we know of could cause a person to just, y'know, pop."
Ozpin stepped around the nearest puddle and walked up to the body he had recognized. Han nervously hurried after him. Prism joined them with a much more casual demeanour.
"Yeah, she's, ah, she's not as interesting as the others," Prism said, looking around, "Impaled from behind -that's the wound on her back, there- which severed her spine. Aura was probably depleted, so that was likely instantly fatal. She was shot in the back of head afterwards, but it was probably just for good measure."
Ozpin again rubbed his eyes.
"You said you thought you knew who was responsible?"
"One of the... pieces... had intact skin," Han said, "There was a gang tattoo on it. They call themselves The Guardians. They're human supremacists."
"... anyway, most of the floor beneath her is clean," Prism continued, "Which means she died first, before the others exploded. See the weapon on the ground here?"
Prism was pointing at a sword laying in the middle of one of the gore piles. It was a short blade of black metal, the hilt of which was a handgun. Ozpin recognized it as Blake Belladonna's weapon.
"That's the weapon she was killed with. Its placement makes us think that this guy-" He motioned toward the pile of viscera "-was the killer. So, these three torture the Faunus, kill Blondie, then somebody crashes the party and turns 'em inside out."
Ozpin stared hard at Prism for a moment, then without a word strode towards the door. Han glared at Prism in disbelief.
"I didn't come off as too callous, did I?" Prism asked.
"These girls were Beacon academy students, you dumbass." Han said.
Prism stared after Ozpin for a moment, and then something inside him seemed to click. "That wasn't the headmaster, was it? Who was that?"
Ozpin slowly inhaled the cool, night air. Han stepped out the door and saw him, staring forward, deep in thought.
"I'm so sorry, sir. For him, for your students..."
Ozpin turned, something thoughtful in his eyes.
"Was this an isolated attack, Sheriff? Are Miss Belladonna and the other Faunus at my school still in danger?"
"We... don't know, sir. As far as we know all the instigators of the attack are dead."
Ozpin stared at Han, seemingly sizing him up. It made him slightly uncomfortable.
"Do you remember what it was like, Han?"
"Sir?" Han asked, raising an eyebrow.
"When you were training to be a Hunter. When you thought you'd live the life of a warrior. How do you think my students will respond when word of this gets out?"
Han nodded in understanding, "They'll want revenge."
"You and your department will investigate these murders. You will determine who killed these gang members, and how they did what they did. You will hold any "Guardian" you find accountable as an accomplice in these crimes. And when more of these murderers come under attack by unknown assailants... it will not be your priority to identify them."
Han looked about nervously. He looked back to Ozpin, and then nodded.
Ozpin walked in the direction of his waiting airship. Before boarding, he glanced over his shoulder.
"We both have a lot of work to do, Sheriff. I'm sure we'll be in touch again soon."
With that, he climbed into the ship, and closed the door.