Chapter 2 - Rupture
The members of the erstwhile team RWBY sat around Ozpin's desk. It was a strangely nostalgic feeling, given how long it had been since they had all been together in that place. Ruby had been more than thrilled to see her former teammates and despite the gravity of the situation, she found it hard to suppress some enthusiasm at the prospect of all of them working together again. The mood at the moment was serious though, as they discussed the events of the past month and what Ruby and Weiss had found at the village.
"They were really old Ursa, it was obvious from the way they fought," Ruby said as Weiss nodded in agreement.
Ozpin furrowed his brow, "that is… unusual."
"How were you not aware of Grimm this powerful lurking so close to human settlements?" Blake asked.
He sighed. "That's what worries me, there was no way we could have not been aware. Especially since reconnaissance efforts across Vale have been increased significantly since these attacks began."
Weiss frowned, "well, clearly they managed to remain hidden somehow. Grimm aren't really known for being sneaky though… especially not Ursa."
"Well, guess we can all agree something's fishy," Yang said.
"You think something intelligent is behind this, don't you?" Ruby asked, leaning forward, eyes narrowed slightly at Ozpin.
He nodded, "it's hard to see it otherwise, Ruby. These Grimm attacks are too… thorough and coordinated. For this many attacks to leave no eyewitnesses, to overcome highly competent hunters, for Grimm of such strength to have escaped notice for this long? It simply is not likely. So, yes, I do suspect there is an intelligence at work here. Someone is attacking Vale with Grimm."
"Uhh, last I checked, Cinder's still locked up," Yang said. "Please don't tell me there's more psychopaths like her around. I don't think the planet could deal with two Cinders."
"It may have to, at this rate," Blake murmured. "Either the Grimm spontaneously grew highly intelligent and organized, or someone's behind this. We all know which one we'd bet on."
"Well, I guess the only question then is how we proceed from here," Weiss said.
Ozpin leaned back in his chair. "That's one of the big problems, we don't really know where to go from here. We've scoured the countryside, hidden places, even Cinder's old bases and found nothing. Our antagonizers conceal themselves and their tracks well."
"Why don't you show us a map and the areas you've looked at in depth," Ruby shrugged. "We could see if there's anything you missed or might be worth looking at."
"Well, there would certainly be no harm in it," Ozpin replied. "Also, keep yourselves available at short notice. There will always be a transport ship waiting for you at Beacon. We will call on you if any other attacks take place."
Charon struggled against his restraints lightly. Finding them more than satisfactory, he cast his head down as the transport began to descend. He glanced briefly at the two soldiers next to him who nodded. For now, he was just a prisoner, a leftover White Fang terrorist being transported to an Atlas military facility to await trial. His 'captors' had been bought years ago. Sleeper agents, waiting for the right moment. They would get him in and get him the few things he needed. From there, it was up to him.
The Bullhead neared the landing pad and finished its descent. The facility's compound was fairly large but the layout was simple enough. One end of the facility consisted of hangars and landing pads and runways. The central region was dominated by the administrative buildings and the detention facility. The armory and the troop barracks were located at the other end. It was heavily secured though, and close to unassailable from the outside by virtue of its fortified walls and automated defenses. Not to mention the large number of robotic sentries and soldiers stationed there. From the inside, though? It was far, far more vulnerable from there. The main door of the Bullhead opened and the soldiers shoved him down the ramp. He played his part well enough, silently but reluctantly passing through security checks. He let them take the knife that he had hidden on his person when they found it. Eventually, the checks were finished and his clothes were swapped out for regular prison clothes. His arresting officers checked him into the system with a false set of identification before escorting him into the main prison building.
They traveled some distance down the main hallway before one of the soldiers with him swiped open the door to a maintenance room. He shoved open the door and yanked Charon inside, the other soldier following, quickly shutting the door behind them. They removed Charon's restraints as he straightened himself.
"You're sure this is fine?" Charon hissed. "I'm positive we were caught doing that by a few security cameras."
"Don't worry, the person monitoring them this shift is one of us," one of the soldiers, named Villiers, murmured in response. "Ben, watch this door. Anyone comes in… Well, bash them in the head or taze them or something, I guess."
Ben nodded dutifully and took up a safe position from which he could see the door. The room itself was small, with several racks and cupboards filled with tools and a ladder that led down to a lower level. Charon glanced around briefly.
"Down this way," Villiers whispered. "We really do not have long in a place like this."
Charon followed the soldier into the lower floor of the facility. There was a network of hallways that seemed to grant access to a number of critical components of the facility that may need repair. Villiers quickly negotiated the passages, stopping at one of the doors.
"This leads to one of the power supply lines. We mess it up and it'll turn things off for a bit, although mind you reserve power will come on pretty quick. We have five, maybe ten minutes tops."
"You know the way to the cell?" Charon asked.
"Yeah, but it ain't lightly guarded, and we couldn't exactly get everyone in this place to be working for us."
"Leave that to me, you have the supplies I asked for?"
He nodded. "Aye, here you go. Two medium sized knives, as many dust canisters as I could reasonably sneak around with and a small set of explosives. You fight with knives?"
Charon laughed and shook his head as they entered the power room. "Oh, heavens no, those are for Cinder. She probably won't be terribly much help, but she should be able to hold her own to an extent. Where's the dust kept at this facility?"
"Armory, I know the way, though it's a bit of a walk from the cell. How do you intend to get us out of here?"
"Don't worry, just stick to what we discussed. We kill the power now, you take me to the cell. I'll conjure a distraction for the facility and a way through any security we run into. Then we break for the armory. Once we're there, I'll stir up enough of a storm that we should be able to slip out easily."
"We cause a stir, and reinforcements will pour in from across Atlas, and probably elsewhere considering who we're breaking out," Villiers muttered.
"Then we'd best stop wasting time and be fast. Now, plant the explosives, but wait to trigger them."
Villiers nodded and started planting the explosives around the room. Charon moved a safe distance away and raised his hands and the dust swirled from the containers as complex glyphs appeared around him. There wasn't quite as much as he had hoped for. Which meant he would have to take the summoning slowly. As much as his nervousness grew with every passing second, there was little choice. A distraction of insufficient scale would peter out too quickly. Almost ten minutes passed, Villiers arrived next to him and was fidgeting increasingly more.
"Come on," he hissed. "We're going to be found."
"Fine," Charon muttered. This would have to do. "Blow the power."
Villiers took a deep breath and pressed the detonator in his hand, covering his ears. The explosion was deafening and the world shook around them. Charon barely managed to keep his concentration. The lighting immediately switched to red emergency lights. Most of the facility's electronic surveillance and automated defences would be offline for a short period of time. He let the power in his glyphs loose as Grimm appeared around him. Villiers yelped and scrambled back as a half dozen King Taijitu burst into existence, tearing through the roof and slithering into the upper floors and surface levels. Charon could already hear the panic. He released the remainder of the glyphs, summoning four highly capable Beowolves around them.
"Save your questions, Villiers, let's just go. These things will clear the way for us."
The soldier shook his head, cursing under his breath, but ran, leading the way. They picked up Ben on the way out, leaving him with no time to question and just a brief order to not worry about the accompanying Grimm. The chaos became truly apparent when they emerged back onto the surface level. Soldiers and android robots were rapidly organizing to help stop the rampaging Grimm. Villiers and Ben shot any Atlas troops they saw with no hesitation, the Beowolves cleaving through a couple of squads, having taken them by surprise. Charon distastefully grabbed a discarded rifle and followed his escort as they blazed a trail of death through the prison block.
The checkpoints leading to maximum security had long since been decimated by one of the King Taijitu. They tore past those, getting a brief view of the battle. Charon knew he had conjured a potent set of the serpentine Grimm, but three had already fallen. It had barely been minutes. He cursed as they pressed their pace, the Beowolves leading, slaughtering everything in their way. They eventually turned into a hallway filled with soldiers who had taken up fortified positions behind cover. Securing Cinder's cell had apparently been a priority. Ben tossed a grenade down the passage, the Beowolves charging in after the explosion. In the subsequent battle they lost all of their Grimm escort and Villiers took a stray bullet, but nothing lethal. Charon took a deep breath, the path was clear.
Villiers tugged free his last explosive, destroying the cell door in front of him. Charon suddenly slowed his frenetic pace. He walked slowly into the room, finding Cinder rising to meet him with a smile. A grin crossed his face as he gave her a quick hug.
"Took your time, didn't you?" Cinder whispered.
"Came as soon as I could, I promise. But we're not out of this yet. We have to go. Now."
She nodded and emerged from the cell as Charon tossed her the pair of knives. She inclined her head gratefully. Charon turned back to Villiers and Ben.
"To the armory, fast. How long do we have?"
"Maybe five minutes till power and automatic defenses come up. We can get to the armory in a couple, but how are we going to get out? This place is big and on really high alert now."
"How soon will reinforcements be here in?"
"We should have a couple of hours, I think. There hasn't been much reason to be on high alert and they'll need to organize. Although, hunter teams from Vale, Mistral and Atlas could be here in an hour to an hour and a half. Depending on how fast they move."
Cinder looked at Charon, "we'll be out before that, right?"
He shook his head grimly. "We'll see, there may be too much security, it isn't safe. The Grimm will be subdued soon."
"Did you rescue me just to get us all killed? You're smarter than that."
"Hope you're not too rusty, Cinder. We get to the armory and we dig in. There's dust there, so much dust. I'll make this a prison break to remember. We should be out just as the first set of reinforcements begin to come in."
"I see," Cinder nodded. "More extreme than I would have gone with, but let's just go."
With that they moved towards the armory. Charon knew word would have spread by now, his other teams would have been alerted. Hopefully their jobs would end up easier than his.
"See anything?" Ruby asked, yawning slightly.
"Nothing big they missed," Blake replied, shaking her head.
They were poring over a map of Vale, looking for something that stuck out. Ozpin had left a little while ago to take an urgent call. The door to his office suddenly swung open as he returned, walking quickly and purposefully. His voice was frank.
"There's been an attack on an Atlas military facility. The one holding Cinder."
Every member of team RWBY was up in an instant.
Weiss grimaced. "Well, there's our lead. We're going, right?"
"Your transport is waiting," Ozpin nodded. "We can have you there in an hour, maybe under if the pilot presses for time. Try not to let her escape… if she hasn't already."
They nodded, rushing towards the elevator to depart.
"Eight and a half years," Yang muttered, "is a long bloody time to wait. I honestly thought our problems with this woman were over."
Ozpin watched the elevator doors close and turned to make a few more calls. Before he could get to it, more urgent calls were coming in. Breaches at two Vale prisons and another Atlas prison. He closed his eyes, thinking of the best way he could contribute to contain this crisis. It would seem their hidden enemy had made the first move.
Cinder looked at the devastation around her with a smile. Charon's abilities at summoning had not diminished in the least, if anything they had improved significantly. With this much dust at his disposal, he had summoned a veritable legion of Grimm. Creeps, Goliaths, Ursa, Beowolves, Nevermore, King Taijitu… Anything he could think of. They were surrounded in glyphs that were spewing more and more of the beasts. Cinder could also seem him losing control of the vast majority of the creatures, leaving them to their own destructive devices. She and the two soldiers accompanying them had been forced into killing several of the Grimm in self defense. She could also see that Charon was exhausted. It had been nearly half an hour and he looked ready to collapse. But he had done it, he had opened a way for them.
"I can see transports on the horizon," Villiers muttered. "We'd best get out of here fast."
"Charon, I need you to take control of your Nevermore again, send them to harry the ships," Cinder said in a soothing voice, placing an arm on Charon's shoulder. He seemed to barely register her, lost in a mad trance. But acted on her words anyway. Eventually he stopped, collapsing to the floor, glyphs dissipating.
"I'm… done…" He muttered.
"You did perfectly," Cinder murmured. "You made us our way out. Come, let's go."
"Clean up… the loose ends…" Charon whispered.
Cinder smirked and spun around, hurling her knives through the air. They ripped straight into the necks of Ben and Villiers who had been expecting nothing. She then grabbed Charon and ran, supporting part of his weight. She couldn't help but laugh. Eight and a half years in a cage. But now she was finally going to run free of that place. And better yet, she had left it burning and inundated in Grimm.
The door to the Bullhead flipped open and Ruby leaned out, gripping the rim tightly. She narrowed her eyes, trying to keep them open as her face was battered by cold air. She could see the military compound now. She pulled herself back into the ship.
"It's covered in Grimm," she said.
"Excuse me?" Weiss asked, her eyebrows raised.
"You heard me," Ruby replied. "The on facility soldiers seem to be doing a fine job of containing it but a helping hand certainly isn't going to hurt."
"How did Grimm get into the base?" Blake asked, pulling out Gambol Shroud and readying herself.
"That's my point," Weiss said as she checked Myrtenaster. "The compound is heavily walled and defended by a number of automatic defenses along with the soldiers and robots on site. There is no way a Grimm even made it to the wall."
"The wall wasn't breached. At least, it didn't look like it," Ruby said quietly.
Yang gave her an incredulous look. "You sure, sis? I don't think the Grimm spontaneously teleported and tunneled in…"
"We can figure this out later," Blake interjected. "When the Grimm are all dead."
The rest of them nodded in agreement and double checked their weapons as the pilot's door slipped open. He leaned back from his seat, looking troubled.
"Two Nevermore, coming straight for us."
"Keep going, we'll deal with the problem," Ruby replied. "You'll also probably have a hard time landing so just get us close and a bit lower and then get out of range of the Grimm."
The pilot nodded and continued on, with the Nevermore approaching. Blake flipped open the door to the Bullhead and waited as the distance closed. She suddenly leapt straight out, throwing out Gambol Shroud and firing its pistol, using the momentum to clamber on top of the transport. She steeled herself against the heavy wind and ran forward, jumping from the ship towards the two winged Grimm. She rained bullets down on one of the Nevermore as she descended, before switching to Gambol Shroud's red dust cartridge. She proceeded to activate her semblance, sending a fiery shadow hurtling towards the Grimm. It exploded on contact, and Blake landed on the Nevermore a moment later, cleaving through its skull with her blade before hopping from the corpse to deal with the other beast.
Yang stared from inside the transport. "Showoff," she muttered.
Ruby smiled and stood up, "well, can't get shown up then, can we? We're low enough, let's go."
Ruby and Weiss then hopped off the ship, falling towards the compound below. Ruby shifted Crescent Rose to its sniper rifle arrangement, launching a series of bullets as Weiss generated a sequence of glyphs - keeping them steady despite the fall. The projectiles passed through the runic circles, shattering into a hundred icy pieces, raining down upon a group of Grimm in one section of the base. Weiss then summoned another series of glyphs, catching her and Ruby to slow their descent before throwing out another pair. One caught Blake who had just finished with the second Nevermore and the other was for Yang who was also careening downwards. They all landed gracefully within the premises, though Grimm were already approaching the newcomers, albeit somewhat warily.
Yang immediately dashed forward, angling a vicious punch towards a Beowolf. Instead her punch connected with a spinning Boarbatusk that rolled past, sending the blow and Yang somewhat off kilter and straight into an Ursa swipe that sent her careening across the floor. Growling, she stood up again, eyes turning red.
"That was impressive coordination for Grimm," Blake said quietly, raising her weapons.
"It's just like at the village. These things are experienced hunters, and they're smart," Ruby added.
"I'm fairly certain there aren't this many old Grimm on the entire continent," Weiss said. "Something really isn't right, but we can worry about that later."
Ruby took a deep breath and smirked slightly, activating her semblance. "Don't worry, we still got this."
She dashed forward, straight into the group of Grimm, extending Crescent Rose. Weiss raised Myrtenaster, creating time glyphs beneath Yang and Blake, lending them incredibly speed as they dashed after Ruby. Weiss herself stepped back, switching to Myrtenaster's red dust cartridge and sending waves of fire blossoming towards the beasts. Ruby slipped through a group of Beowolves, cutting them down, and flipped out of the way of a Goliath that Yang landed on and brutally pummeled into the ground. Blake and her shadow were making quick work of a King Taijitu as a pair of Boarbatusks dashed towards her. Before Ruby could shout a warning, the ground beneath the Grimm turned to ice, sending them sliding off in other directions. Ruby flipped back to where Weiss was, giving her a smile as she switched her weapon back to its rifle form. Weiss raised a network of Glyphs in front of her again. Ruby took the time to shout a quick warning before firing a hail of dust infused bullets. Yang and Blake dashed away as the glyph network turned the bullets into a veritable storm, annihilating what was left of the Grimm.
"Yep," Ruby nodded. "Still got it."
"We're not done yet," Blake said. "We need to find Cinder and finish cleaning this place up."
Taking a brief moment to compose themselves, they launched themselves at another group of Grimm.
An atmosphere of relative calm had descended upon the compound. The Grimm had been dealt with and their corpses had already vanished. Military companies had arrived from various parts of Atlas and were now surveying and assessing the damage. The attack had been moderately costly. The staff onsite had reacted admirably, but many soldiers had lost their lives and a lot of infrastructure would need rebuilding. This was not unsurprising since the Grimm had somehow attacked from inside the facility - something no one had thought needed a contingency plan. Ruby considered this as she approached one of the Atlas captains. Blake was searching the surrounding countryside, having left as soon as they discovered Cinder was gone from her cell. Weiss and Yang were surveying damage elsewhere, trying to figure out what exactly had happened.
"Hey, you okay to answer a couple of questions?" Ruby asked gently as she neared the captain. He turned to her and saluted lightly.
"Of course, it's the least I can do for your help back there. You saved a lot of good men," he replied.
"Just doing our job. But, if I may ask, what do you remember happening today?"
He took a deep breath, "I'll tell you what I told my superior. The day was proceeding normally. Then the facility suddenly lost power after a large explosion from the lower floors. Before we could mobilize a response team to investigate, several King Taijitu tore free from the level below. They took us all by surprise, and caused a lot of trouble before we subdued them. By the time I got coherent reports about what was going on, Cinder was already gone from her cell. Then there were Grimm pouring from the direction of the armory. So, so many… it was like they were spontaneously appearing. After that, it was too much chaos, in which Cinder probably slipped out. And then you people showed up near the tail end of the battle and helped us mop up."
"Anything else?" Ruby asked, her thoughts racing.
"Yeah, I still need to double check this, but I have some reports that all the dust in the armory is gone. Nothing else, just the dust, and there was a lot of it at that."
"Thanks a lot, come find me if anything else occurs to you," Ruby said appreciatively as she turned and headed towards the armory. She found Weiss and Yang already at the damaged structure.
"All the dust is gone?" Ruby asked, as she approached.
"Already heard, huh? Yeah, it's all gone," Yang replied. "And judging by the number of containers there were, I doubt Cinder carried it away on her back."
"The Grimm were supposedly coming from here," Weiss added. "Which makes no sense. There are no tunnels, no passages that we can see. Although, we didn't find passages or tunnels anywhere else either."
"Not just from here, the first set of Grimm came from the detention facility," Ruby murmured.
"Something on your mind, sis?" Yang asked, brow furrowing.
"Humor me for a second," Ruby said with a strangely twisted half smile. "So, the point here seems to have been to break Cinder out. Suppose our mystery terrorist infiltrates the facility, inside people or something. They start in the detention block, disable power and create a distraction. They rescue Cinder but the place is locked down too tight to leave. So they need a bigger distraction…"
"Ruby, that theory is fine if your definition of distraction isn't 'making Grimm appear'," Weiss sighed.
"You can summon things…" Ruby said softly.
"You have to be joking," Weiss said incredulously. "I mean, yes, but for one, our semblance is hereditary. And when we summon things… well, you've seen how they look. Dust and aura infused, silvery blue. These were real Grimm."
"I think Ruby's trying to say that, what if, someone's semblance…" Yang started, shaking her head.
"...Summons Grimm," Weiss finished the thought. "I don't think that's even possible."
"Well, Ozpin didn't think it was possible for Cinder to do the things she did last time, like stealing part of the Fall Maiden's power. And she would have stolen the others' power too if she had the chance," Ruby said with a frown.
"What bothers me," Weiss said, rubbing her forehead, "is that I can't think of a better explanation at the moment. We should keep looking though, maybe we will find a tunnel or some sort of answer."
"It does explain why all the dust is gone, if someone needed it to power their ability" Yang offered.
"Well, we can look for a more conventional answer, and we probably should," Ruby said. "But I just don't want to dismiss the outlandish theory either. If we really are dealing with someone who can… well, summon Grimm… then we're better off knowing sooner rather than later."
They split up again to search for any more evidence. Blake returned a while later, informing them that she could not find Cinder, although she did find a trail leading from the compound, which likely belonged to the terrorist. But it was somewhat old and vanished some distance away, indicating that Cinder had probably been picked up by some associates. The point being, she was in the wind now.
Blake was standing in a circle with Yang and Weiss, discussing Ruby's seemingly crazy idea and more conventional possibilities. Their leader returned a short time later, just having got off the phone with Ozpin to give him an update.
"Well, I've got bad news, even more bad news, and worse news," Ruby said flatly.
"What now?" Blake groaned.
"Bad news: Torchwick's escaped, initial reports seem to indicate Neopolitan being involved. Even more bad news: Emerald and Mercury were busted out too. Worse news: Adam too."
They were deathly silent for a few moments.
"We just got royally fucked," Yang muttered.
"We should… we should probably get back to Beacon to discuss this with Ozpin and the others," Weiss said, composing herself. "I'm sure the Atlas military will provide us with a report when they finish their investigation."
"Yeah, I agree," Ruby replied. "Ozpin's already sending to have the Maidens moved to secure locations. He's pretty sure Cinder's not giving up on that particular plan."
They didn't say much else as they made the return trip to Beacon. But their thoughts were all drifting to the same thing. A war that they thought was over was starting up all over again. The peace of the last eight years was not going to last much longer.
Longish update this time. Hope you guys enjoyed it!