Chapter Nine: Oculus Tempestate

Tuesday, the 5th of November, 1889.

Qrow, contrary to popular belief, wasn't the sort to scarper off to the nearest dive bar when his shift officially finished. Instead, the Special Branch investigator tended to stay an extra hour or so before calmly going home, and duly opening a bottle of top-shelf scotch at home – after all, men of the Special Branch had standards when off the clock. He'd just donned his jacket when his desk phone went off.

"You're through to Special Branch; Inspector Branwen speaking."

"Inspector, it's Jaune Arc here. I've just been informed by one of my men that the Eye of Ra just got stolen."

"WHAT?!"

"Additionally, Mr. Lie Ren just told me that there's an unnatural storm occurring over Westminster; according to him, something really nasty is going to happen there in short order due to the Eye's removal. I'm on my way down there, and you'd better send some regulars in to cordon off the area."

Qrow sighed. "Very well, Arc. I'll get on that."

Hanging up the phone, Qrow poured and downed a glass of the second-rate swill his employers provided, then ran downstairs to rally all the unoccupied policemen within the Yard to converge on Westminster.

After tonight was done with, he was going to try forgetting it as much as possible.


Naturally, the Houses of Parliament was in the thick of this unusual, narrow storm. The lightning was an unusual shade of teal, the thunder was louder than normal, and the very air around the Houses had become thick and viscous.

None of this perturbed one of the most senior politicians in the building, who was impatiently waiting for a meeting to commence. He was busying his time by completing the rest of the paperwork his position had saddled him with for the rest of the day.

Come on, he thought impatiently, I haven't got all day to wait for passing on urgent news. Suddenly, as the middle-aged politician signed off the last few orders, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he called out. In strode the man he was set to meet.

"Ah, Chief Inspector. How good of you to come in such a ghastly state of the weather."

"Wouldn't do any less for the Home Secretary," the policeman replied, taking a seat opposite the politician.

"Well, old friend, I've got some disturbing news to reveal to you about some rotten anarchists."

The policeman cocked his right eyebrow. "Really? Tell me all about it, Secretary."

The politician was so caught up in his urgent delivery, he didn't notice a small girl slipping in and locking the office door.


Meanwhile, a rather out-of-breath quartet boarded an empty carriage on the next tube heading for the city, and they opted to catch their breath as the train took off. When the train rounded Sloane Square station, Jaune turned towards his companions with an agonised expression.

"Before I forget to ask, what's happening at Westminster?"

"Remember what Dr. Watts's diary said about the Eye?", Pyrrha responded calmly.

Jaune concentrated for a moment before he remembered.

"Whenever it got stolen, it summoned storms?"

"Yes," Pyrrha said, "but when I took the Eye last month, it didn't happen."

Jaune and Nora both looked perplexed.

"That can't be right," Nora stated.

"Wait a minute," Ren interjected. "The only time someone else tried to take the eye was when Emerald attempted it as a youngster. Given her personality, it's likely that the Eye reacts badly to the intent of the person who wields it."

Pyrrha's eyes flashed in realisation. "Of course! I didn't have any bad intentions when I took the Eye to London, hence the lack of storm."

"In that case," Nora remarked as they stopped at Victoria station, "how come the storm's hovering over Westminster?"

"I'm not too sure," Pyrrha replied uncertainly.

Jaune and Ren, for their part, looked equally unsure about the question as the train picked up again. However, as the train went past St. James's Park station and approached Westminster, Ren's eyes widened again as he remembered why they traveled to this area.

"Oh no. Not him!"

As one, the other three turned to their frightened friend.

"Who's getting attacked, Ren?", Jaune enquired blankly.

Ren let them know as the train stopped at Westminster station.

"WHAT?!", the three cried out.

"There's no time to waste; let's move!", Jaune urged as he ran onto the platform with Pyrrha hot on his heels.

"It's now or never," Nora spoke dryly as she sped off. Ren nodded, and duly brought up the rear.


As the quartet emerged from the tube station and started running across the road towards Westminster Palace, a train from Dover pulled up at Charing Cross Station. Departing briskly, the albino woman was instantly drawn to the Eye's power. Making her way outside, she saw the narrow storm over Westminster, and moved with an unnaturally fast speed down the Victoria Embankment.

Curses, she thought, I may be too late to prevent whatever manner of evil is happening there. However, her bad luck struck again as she neared Westminster Palace; a number of Black Marias sped past her and blocked off all the entrances to the house, and a lone gunshot was heard above the cacophony of horses and shouting.

As she stood angrily on the northern end of Great George Street, she spied a quartet of people running into the building's northern entrance, as both politicians and civil servants were departing at speed. They're here to stop this as well, she quickly realised. Perhaps they could succeed on my behalf, and then I'll ask them to hand back the Eye.

The lightning storm cast a penny dreadful pall over the quartet as they caught their breath in the courtyard.

"Ren," Jaune said eventually, "care to lead us to the Secretary's office?"

Ren nodded, drawing his weapons and motioning for the others to do the same. The quartet made a beeline for the doorway, with Ren out front, Pyrrha and Nora in the middle, and Jaune covering their rearguard. Recognising Jaune, the guards on duty let the quartet past, surmising that they were a squad of hunters called in by the Met to help solve the disturbance.

Before long, the quartet found the Home Secretary's office door. Naturally, it was locked tight, but a piece of paper was taped to the wall.

If you need to see the Home Secretary, he is meeting with a police bigwig at the top of Big Ben.

"Well," Jaune said with some annoyance, "we may as well head there."

For the next seven minutes, Ren led his friends through a labyrinthine morass of corridors, stairwells and underused state rooms. Finally, tiptoeing up the clock tower's limestone stairs as quickly as possible, the quartet made their way to the top of Big Ben; again, they found themselves in front of a locked door.


From the other side of the doors, indistinct chanting could be heard.

"Not again, not again," Ren muttered in agonised tones.

Nora looked at Pyrrha, and nodded towards the key hole. Without a word, Pyrrha jammed a modified version of her SNC charge, wherein the crimson dust was replaced with violet Dust. Pyrrha set it off and backed away slightly. The lock melted silently into a ball of hot metal, and Pyrrha then pushed the door – which didn't budge an inch.

Growling nigh-inaudibly, she jammed a standard SNC charge in the hole and ducked for cover, with the other three doing the same a split-second later. The door completely blew up, disrupting the chants coming from within, and the four stormed into a grisly scene.

The Rt. Hon. Leonard Lionheart MP, the Home Secretary in Lord Ozpin's third ministry, lay dead on the ground. He'd suffered a bullet wound in the middle of his eyebrows and a dozen gashes all over his body.

The three litres of blood he'd spilled had been arranged on the floor, in a perfect representation of the Eye of Ra's hieroglyphs. And standing over it all were two slightly surprised assailants.

Neo had blood spattered all over her pantsuit and boots, but her genial smile adorned her face as usual. The other man, bearded and burly, stood tall in an olive green suit. He turned to face the intruders, and Jaune gasped when he recognised the true villain of the whole debacle. His anger then surfaced as he snarled out the name of the perpetrator.

"Chief Inspector Hazel Rainart, prepare to die."

"WAIT!", Hazel cried out as the other five occupants raised their weapons. "Let me explain everything that's happened here."

Hesitantly, Neo lowered her umbrella, and the quartet holstered their weapons as Hazel stood in front of his accomplice.


"First thing's first … why did this all have to happen?"

"Well, Jaune," Hazel replied, "it's a long story, but it started after the Clockwork Disaster. Once it became clear that the SDC were going to hunt us down, Emerald ordered me and Miss Politana to dismantle the remaining Grimm when the Tenebrae Club blew up. As I understand it, she wanted nothing to do with the cult any more, and neither did the other two leaders.

"Now, assuming what Emerald Sustrai told me was accurate, I knew that the Eye of Ra was far too dangerous to be removed from its resting place. So when Neo told me she'd successfully tricked Dr. Nikos into taking it to Exham, I knew there and then that I needed to tie up any and all loose ends that could've created a mess. Unfortunately, that meant killing the man who'd started it all; Dr. Arthur Watts.

"He was an old friend of mine, and he'd personally allowed me to lead the Grimm on his behalf. But he knew far too much about all this, and the shield showing up at Exham sent his sanity off the edge by the time Neo dealt with him. And when Mr. Lionheart complained about his old bodyguards getting involved in the Clockwork disaster and the mystical stuff, I tried to dissuade him from the truth with the news that they'd all been arrested. When he refused, Neo killed him before I could try anything else."

"What about Tyrian? Kill him too, did you?"

Hazel glanced back at Neo before he answered.

"Well, we did that together. To be honest, I didn't want Dr. Nikos harmed; after all, she didn't know about the Grimm."

A nasty look on Neo's face suggested that this rationale wasn't shared.

"So keeping him alive after his breakdown and murder attempt was not an option for you," Jaune completed.

"That," Neo added, "and sparking his madness by handing him the diary fell in line with the order Emerald gave us to wipe out the last remnants of the Grimm."

Jaune's expression hardened to one of frustration and glared at Hazel.

"If taking down the Grimm was your goal, why did you can my investigation and give Qrow the credit?"

Hazel's expression softened, coming close to remorse. "I was ordered to supplant you by Special Branch itself; apparently, they were annoyed that they couldn't get to the Grimm's previous HQ on St. James's Street, and thus wanted to take credit for removing the Grimm. Inspector Branwen wasn't in on it, in case you were wondering."

Jaune frowned. I owe that man an apology when this is done with.

"And before we haul you in, what were you planning to do with the Eye?"

"Truthfully, I wished to resign from the police force and return the Eye to it's rightful spot without incident. Once that was done, my plan was to find Emerald, Mercury and - "

No-one saw what happened next coming.


Hazel lurched suddenly, dropping to one knee as a small estoc poked out from his chest cavity. The blade was withdrawn, and an annoyed Neo somersaulted with her umbrella in hand. With one powerful kick, she sent the larger man sprawling through one of the windowpanes, which gave way and broke open.

Qrow and his men had only just finished cordoning off the area when it happened. They looked up, and could only watch in disgust as their colleague fell off the northern face of Big Ben. Hazel landed on the fence, with four of the spikes respectively impaling his right leg, liver, heart and neck. He screamed as he bled out profusely, and continued to do so after he breathed his last.

Qrow, narrowly resisting the urge to throw up at the sight, turned towards the uniformed men on duty.

"Constables Burns and Heyman, can you please remove Chief Inspector Rainart's corpse?"

The two men looked uncertainly at each other, then walked forward to the fence with heavy hearts. Needless to say, the rest of the officers removed their hats in respect.

As the cops approached the corpse, Neo turned to face the shocked quartet, and held up the crucible.

"Now that the Grimm organisation is dead and buried, I can follow Emerald's actual last order to me and summon Kifin, the dragon-god of chaos."

She's obviously read too many penny dreadfuls in her life, Ren observed snarkily; she believes she's part of one. Apparently, Pyrrha had done the same.

"Why did you have to do this to me?! To us!", Pyrrha wailed.

Neo scowled ferally at her and hissed her response. "The summoning could only be done on a solar eclipse, hence why I tricked you into taking the Eye. And Pyrrha, this is what happens when I get ignored and uncredited for assisting the work you win Mistral Prizes for, when I got passed over for promotion three times in a row, and especially when I was denied a chance to lead my own exhibition instead of you, Pyrrha."

She bowed her head and chanted quickly and loudly. "Remember remember, the fifth of November. For Kifin will come to turn the world to ember."

Surprised at Neo's jealous motive and insane rationale, the quartet readied themselves for combat. Jaune drew his sword, Pyrrha unholstered her rifle and shield, Ren deployed his guns and Nora extended her hammer. Breaking the crucible, Neo held the Eye in her left hand, and picked up her umbrella in her right. Her appearance changed dramatically, as a result of her body interacting with the ebony dust. The right side of her hair and her left eye changed colours, both turning from brown to pink with white streaks. Her genial smile changed to one that reeked of malice. She pressed a button on her umbrella, and the estoc blade sprang up through the top. Wielding the weapon two-handed, Neo shifted into a low battle stance, with the quartet doing the same.

As a bolt of lightning struck the roof, Neo only said one thing.

"Let's play."

As one, the four heroes charged forward.


A/N: The title translates to Eye Of The Storm, and the song for this chapter is "In The Lowlands" by Crowded House, if only for the imagery of the storm it provides.

On a small side note, the name Kifin is the Arabic form for Kevin - which, funnily enough, comes from a Gaelic word meaning "gentle birth". As we all know, the birth of the Grimm dragon was anything butgentle.

One last thing: I'm sorry for keeping you all waiting for such a short chapter, but I've got a longer one coming up just for you guys next. I'll make it worth your while.