This is my Monty Oum tribute, such as it is. It's a little late and not that great. And it's definitely not the same kind of send-off that a lot of authors have been writing.
I've kept the same style and tone as the rest of Emergence, which means its visceral and real, depicting a tragedy as a tragedy. I make no apologies for this. I think that continuing on in the same way is a much better tribute than shoehorning in a chapter that doesn't match the story.
My writing style is strongly influenced by Tom Clancy's works, and I think that shows in this chapter more than a lot of the others. He was also an inspiration for me, and he's been dead for over a year now.
Maybe I'm pushing this a little too far. But this is a story that's built around real events, deriving much of its deliberate contrast from them. I've already shown the chaos of Donetsk and the terror of ISIS-controlled Syria. I have plans to bring up Ferguson and QZ8501 and MH370. If you've followed Emergence up to this point, you probably have a good feel for what it's about, and you're probably at least okay with that.
And despite all that I am showing, I have not actually depicted Monty directly, unlike several other fics.
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. It does blur the line between fiction and reality perhaps more than it should, but it is not a factual account and should not be taken as such.
HVI deceased TOD 1634L COD TBD
Special Agent Todd Costello mashed the send button harder than he should have and tossed his BlackBerry carelessly onto the table.
The cold steel of his SIG automatic was a cold comfort holstered under his jacket. Like many FBI agents, he'd joined with the admirable goals of protecting the innocent, saving lives and catching criminals. It was quickly bogged down by tedium, pragmatism, and a cold hard dose of reality, but he still held on to that sliver of meaning.
The agent never knew the man he'd spent a week protecting. He'd read the file, and though the man's accomplishments were impressive, they meant little to him. Crucially, they gave him no idea why he was guarding him or what he was guarding him from. They'd briefed him on that, and he thought that it was some elaborate inter-agency prank before the goddamn President walked in and asked for an update.
Realistically, he knew that there was nothing he could have done. He was a cop, not a doctor. He fought criminals and terrorists. Usually that meant sifting through leads, often a fancy term for shuffling paper. Once, that had meant putting a bullet through the bastard's head. His world was one where people were harmed by other people, not a fucking allergic reaction. But as the orderly wheeled the covered body out of the room, he still couldn't help but feel that he'd failed.
He sighed and rose from his chair. They would be announcing it soon, and his job was to make himself scarce before the shitstorm brewed up.
He needed a stiff drink anyway.
10 days earlier
"How much do we know?" Iverson asked as soon as the line connected, not waiting for an acknowledgement. He'd received an ominous message a minute earlier and needed to know exactly what was going on, immediately.
"Not much- our agent was a couple blocks away when it happened." The agent at the other end paused. "We know he's incapacitated, possibly a drug reaction... or a poisoning."
Iverson took a moment to think before replying, "Okay, we're treating this as an assassination attempt until we know more. I need you to increase security around the RT offices, increase your own security, and post a twenty-four hour guard on the HVI."
"We uh, we don't have the people to do that down here."
"Then bring some in. Bring in new people if you have to. Coordinate with this office and Washington."
"Will do."
Iverson continued, "Get samples and ship them off to Quantico for toxicology. Find out who treated him. We'll start looking into possible threats up here."
"Okay. How discreet?"
"Keep it discreet, but do not compromise security," Iverson replied after a moment. "You may inform his family if necessary. Otherwise, something vague about a terror threat. We'll have a full cover over to you within the hour."
"Okay. Got it."
"Keep us posted." The line disconnected.
"An assassination attempt?" Commander Watson asked after his superior hung up the phone. "Isn't that a bit paranoid?"
"It's our job to be paranoid."
"You know, if there really is a threat out there, I'd prefer him to be at Bethesda," Watson suggested.
Ryan shook his head. "Can't. We don't have enough plausible reason to bring him there."
"I think the threat is fairly remote," Iverson allowed. "We need to look into it, of course, but for now, I think there are some people we need to inform and some information we need to get a hold of. Let's get to it."
"The news will be public shortly, but we thought you would like to know," the FBI agent finished.
"Uh, thank you, I guess," Ruby replied, hanging up the cordless phone.
"What is it, Rubes?" Yang asked from the couch, noting the concern in her sister's voice.
"Monty's in the hospital," she replied glumly.
"Oh," Yang replied in a similar tone.
"That's unfortunate," Blake said from behind her book.
Weiss crossed her arms. "So?"
"Weiss!" Ruby screeched.
"What? I don't really see how this is our concern."
"He kind of did help us get here. And he did create the show that is about us... boy that sounds awkward when you say it out loud."
"We should send a card!" Ruby suddenly exclaimed, getting excited again.
"Uh..."
"Come on, everyone, into your old outfits! We're going to send him the best get well card ever!"
"Truly her enthusiasm knows no bounds," Weiss half-grumbled.
"That's my sis!"
"As you may know, security is established, tests have been sent off, and investigators are looking into the medical staff," Iverson said to the assembled agents and analysts. "In the meantime, we must assume the worst. If this is an assassination attempt, who'd want him dead?"
"My thinking is that someone is trying to get at our extraterrestrial friends." He strode over to a whiteboard and picked up a marker. "But who would that be?"
"Could be ISIS or an associated group, going after the Bride indirectly," Johnathan Ryan suggested. He reconsidered and shook his head. "It's not likely, though. They would have to make a lot of assumptions to link him to the Bride."
"It's the wrong kind of attack," the Commander added. "You'd expect them to walk into the office with a bomb vest or a machine gun. They wouldn't go for poisoning. I don't think we can dismiss it entirely, but it's very unlikely to be an Islamic group."
"Industrial sabotage? A competitor?"
The naval officer shook his head. "We're talking about a little production house here, not a massive defence contractor."
"A rogue government agency?" Iverson suggested, then shook his head. "No, if it were the case, one of us would have heard something about it by now."
"Angry fans, perhaps?" one of the analysts asked. Though it sounded like a contradiction in terms, some of the people in the room remembered when Mark David Chapman fatally shot John Lennon, putting four bullets into his back.
"Again, generally not a poisoning, but it could be."
"It might not be an accident, but it might not be an attack, either. It could be simple medical malpractice. Keep working on it. We need to know more."
Sam, Cliff, Isaac, Ben, and Jen gathered virtually, as they did almost every night. As students, they lead busy lives. They lived apart from each other, all with different schedules. Still, there were times when they were all free. Living in the information age meant that they could communicated instantly regardless of distance or time.
"So have you guys heard the news?" Isaac asked. Though his microphone was bad and his voice distorted, they could tell by the tone that it wasn't good news.
"Monty Oum, right?" Cliff half-asked.
"What about him?" Sam asked.
"He's in the hospital. That's pretty much all we know."
"Link?"
There was some clicking from Isaac's microphone, then a link to the Rooster Teeth website appeared in everyone's chat window.
Sam said quietly, "Well, shit. That's it? Anyone know more?"
"Well, I heard from an unconfirmed source that he's in a coma," Isaac said.
"That's terrible," Jen said through Ben's microphone.
Cliff immediately asked. "And by unconfirmed source you mean Rubes?"
"Uh, maybe?"
"Well, shit," Sam said. "So, who's up for League?"
It had been a sleepless week for Special Agent Michael O'Reilly. As soon as they had heard the news, he'd been dispatched to the severely understaffed Texas office. Then he'd screened files and personally briefed new agents on the situation while trying to run an actual investigation. The last twelve hours had been spent flying to Vancouver, being debriefed, then flying out to Washington to brief the National Security Advisor, something that should have been done days ago by someone else.
And now he in a little-known corner of the White House, feeling like shit and looking the part, briefing the National Security Advisor on a matter that ultimately had little to do with national security.
It could have been worse, though. He could have had to brief the President.
"So, it was not an assassination attempt?" Though she was trying hard to suppress it, O'Reilly could tell she was annoyed with him.
He nodded. "To be honest, we never put much stock in that, but until we could prove otherwise, we treated it as a possible assassination attempt. Better to be safe than sorry."
"Your suggestion is to relax security, but not remove it entirely?"
"Mine and Iverson's," he replied.
"Okay," she replied. Her voice softened. "How's he doing?"
"Honestly, I don't know." O'Reilly was so busy with organizing everything that he only had a vague idea of his charge's actual condition. "But I've heard it's not good."
The four girls and four guys sat together in the middle of the cafeteria, various lunches spread around them. Their idle chatter inevitably converged on the same topic.
"So... how's that animator guy doing?" Gavin broached.
"No news," Aaron told him. "A huge amount of support, though."
"Oh yeah!" Connor said. "There's lots of RWBY pictures. I started watching that and I'm kind of sad I didn't see it earlier."
"I told you," Aaron muttered.
"Hey, did anyone notice that Ruby kind of looks like Ruby from the show and Blake is always wearing a hat and-"
"Connor?" his older brother warned.
"Yeah?"
"No. Aaron spent the better part of a month trying to prove that coincidence. Eventually, Blake got fed up and-"
"Hey!" the man in question snapped.
"We're right here, you know," Yang reminded them.
"I still don't understand what the big deal is," Gavin groused. "I mean, it's some animator for some little company. None of us have met him and he's not even really famous-"
"Hey, remember when Robin Williams died and you started-"
Gavin raised his hands defensively. "Hey, that guys is famous."
"So? You still didn't know him."
"Okay, okay, point taken. But it's not like he's dead or anything. He probably just got in a car crash or something."
"I dunno, man, the announcement seemed pretty serious," Aaron replied. "He said they don't know if he'll ever recover."
"Okay, that is pretty grim," Gavin admitted. Behind him, the bell rang. "Well, looks like it's time to head to class."
HVI deceased TOD 1634L COD TBD
"He's dead," Watson announced bluntly, his true feelings betrayed by the way he tossed the phone down.
The everpresent tension in the room was immediately replaced with a sense of loss and a sense of failure.
They had prepared for the possibility of a misplaced vengeance attack. They had prepared for the possibility of a psychotic fan with a gun. They had even prepared, or tried to prepare, for a sudden interdimensional Grimm attack.
They had not prepared for an allergic reaction. They had general plans for a medical emergency, but those were more concerned with preventing someone from putting a bullet in the patient than saving them from the medical condition itself. It was all they could do, and it was not enough.
They had failed, even though they could never have succeeded.
In their line of work, people sometimes died. Sometimes people they knew died. Sometimes it was a stray bullet or a smart bomb. Sometimes they disappeared and never showed up again. Sometimes they were executed by a hostile power. Usually it was someone who had no name or face on the other side of the world. Often it was someone labelled as the enemy, whether they were or not. Occasionally it was collateral, depicted as a number rather than a person.
But in a way, it was different this time. It was an innocent, one they had known perhaps too well, one that many in the room respected greatly. One they'd been charged to protect, whether the threat was there or not. One they ultimately failed, or at least seemed to have failed.
Death was something most of the people in the room had learned to live with. But they didn't have to like it. They'd never like it.
"I understand," Ruby sniffed. "No, that's okay, we don't want people to ask too many questions."
She hung up and slowly turned to her team, tears streaming down her face. "Guys, I have bad news. Monty... Monty's dead."
Silently, Yang wrapped her arm around her in a tight hug. She understood why her sister was crying. Ruby had a big heart, but there was a downside to it. Yang was feeling it too. But she never even knew the man, and she'd seen plenty of death much closer to her.
"It's a shame," Weiss said after a long silence. Even though she was a lot warmer than before, she still kept her words curt and controlled. "He worked hard and pursued his dreams. Not many can say they've done that."
"Even if it was a coincidence, I still feel somehow connected to him," Blake added. "We do owe him for getting us here. It's probably just romanticism... but I feel we owe him more."
"He was innocent, he made movies!" Ruby bawled. "He wasn't supposed to die, not for such a stupid reason!"
"People die for stupid reasons all the time."
She sniffed. "I know, sis, but it still stinks."
"So, are we going to make the best condolence card ever?" Yang asked her sister, slowly releasing her.
"Yeah," the crimsonette replied quietly.
"It's the same pub," Cliff remarked dryly as they took their seats in the dimly lit venue.
Isaac looked up. "Huh?"
"Remember that night when we ran into Ruby? We were coming home from here."
"Well, yeah, we always go to the same pub," Sam reminded them.
Ben shook his head. "This is the third time. Doesn't count as always."
Around them, most people were talking about the Super Bowl, with a few discussing the beheading of a Jordanian pilot or the election of Syriza in Greece. The five students all had a different event on their minds. Sensing that this group was in mourning, not celebration, the server was more subdued, asking quietly for their orders. Guinness. Budweiser. Martini, dry. Rum and coke, dark rum. Vodka, two shots-
Sam looked up in surprise. "What? I thought you didn't drink."
Cliff shook his head grimly. "Tonight I drink."
The server soon returned with their drinks. Sam took a quick swig of his Guinness. Ben took a slow drag from his Budweiser. Isaac sipped a few times on his Martini. Jen sipped her rum and coke, looked at it again, then drank half of it in one gulp. Cliff downed one shot of vodka and cringed.
"So... I'm just... what was he to us?" Sam turned to his friend on the left. "Ben?"
"I'm not really feeling anything."
"Ben!" his girlfriend snapped.
"Look... I'm sure he was a great guy. But I never knew him. I didn't even know of him until six months ago." He paused and stared at his beer contemplatively. "I know what you're feeling. But I can't say I've been feeling it."
"Well, that's a fucking horrible way to start things off," Cliff told him. "I guess I'll say my piece then."
He picked up the other shot, swished it around, then put it down again. "Monty... I expected himself to work himself to death. Even if he technically didn't, well, if that wasn't a complicating factor, I will eat this shot glass.
"But... I do admire his resolve... did admire his resolve. Sometimes I was a cynical bastard and I thought he had way more going for him. But he worked hard, and I looked at that whole can you match my resolve and I said yes I can. I don't think I ever did, but I tried. I guess I figure if I work hard things will work out, even if they don't. But maybe he got lucky. Maybe not so lucky."
Cliff smiled a thin, ironic smile. "Fuck, I don't know, I'm not good at this kind of shit."
Isaac shook his head mournfully. "Monty was awesome. I wanted to be like that- minus the dying part. That's like, my dream job. I want to work with those people, animate amazing stuff, mocap myself dancing just for the fun of it. That's something, something we all inspire to."
"Aspire." Cliff corrected.
"Whatever." Isaac took a long sip from his martini. "I wanted to meet him, I mean, I've seen him on the internet and we even had those emails- now that I think of it, he was there with us, wasn't he?- but I wanted to meet him some time. And that's... yeah. Shit."
"There's really not much I can say that other people haven't said," Jen stated quietly. "He was great. He was Monty. He was the one and only. He created RWBY. He helped us. He's gone. I never really knew much about him, but the more I learned, the more I respected him."
"I didn't really know him either," Sam admitted. "But he did help us, and he did do a lot of awesome stuff. So now I'm kind of... disappointed, I guess, that I never did."
They raised their now half-empty glasses and clinked them together. "To Monty."
I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death.
Monty Oum 1981-2015