We're Calling it a Success
Chapter 10: Remnant's Frontier

NOW

"..."

Goodwitch's gaze flicked over to the faunus as Blake opened her mouth, then closed it. "Something you would like to add, Miss Belladonna?"

"Um…" she looked over at her partner and then shook her head, mortified. "Yang, if I'd known that you were literally tied up and paraded through the streets while people threw things at you, I… wouldn't have been as much of a hardass about you stealing the second bike."

Yang's mouth quirked up at one corner, "I told you about the lynch mob."

"We cleared that up later. The first time we reconnected, I thought they were trying to hang you because you kept stealing their motorcycles! I didn't catch on that you'd taken it to get away from them after they tried to execute you for saving them from the Grimm."

"I guess I was pretty out of it when I tried to explain that part."

"I'd actually like to jump back just a second and review a couple of details." Glynda looked up from the notes on her oversized scroll. "Miss Xiao Long, how long did it take you to get this boy through that exercise?"

The blonde scratched at the back of her head with her free hand, causing a bit of debris to tumble free. Ruby, still working on detaching the wrecked prosthetic, made a noise of complaint when it bounced off her head, but couldn't vocalize it due to having a tool in her mouth at the moment. "I dunno, maybe five or ten minutes once we were in the alley? It was obvious what he was doing wrong."

"Not to his instructors. If your account is accurate, they were going in circles for weeks prior to your arrival."

"I guess? I mean, Heath definitely said that, yeah, but..." Yang shrugged with her organic shoulder, but kept the right one still for her sister. "What are you getting at, Glyn… um, Headmaster Goodwitch?"

"Mmmm… nothing at the moment. We'll get back to it if any of you are still not in prison by the end of the night."

The brawler's wrecked arm finally came free, and Ruby gave it an unenthused look. Her expression didn't change as she carefully removed a mostly-spent and badly cracked Lightning Dust crystal from it with a tool that looked like a cross between a pair of calipers and a wrench. "Sis, I can try to repair this, but I think it might just be completely shot."

"I figured you would say that." The elder sister didn't look too bothered, and gave another, more cheerful shrug. "It was worth it."

"I'll say. The look on that guy's face-"

Glynda wasted no time in interrupting. "Let us return to the debriefing. You said this day contained the big reveal?"

Ruby nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yeah, Wednesday was almost as nuts as Thursday, which was almost as crazy as Saturday."

"It just kinda kept escalating." Blake deadpanned, though her face colored a bit.

"What happened on Friday?" Goodwitch asked before she could stop herself.

Weiss's face worked for a moment. "Friday was intense too, it just had fewer explosions."

The group's scout cleared her throat, "Speak for yourself."

After a quick glance at the faunus, Weiss amended, "Friday had fewer explosions inside city limits."

"That's better."

"I knew I was going to regret asking, but I did it anyway." Glynda didn't grunt - was too proper to grunt - but there was a distinct grunt-like quality to the sentiment nonetheless. "Very well, Miss Rose, would you care to get us started on Wednesday? I can scarcely believe we aren't halfway through the week yet."

Ruby's Log, Day 4, 8:00 a.m.
Mission Status: Soon to make a discovery.
Update: ?
Personal Status: It's eaaaarrrllly.

On the fourth day, Ruby awoke to find that Bifrost was a sludgy mess. It had snowed through the night, starting during her departure from the landing platform where she'd sparred with Violet. Despite the heavy fall, the sidewalks and streets were already clear, save where it was now piled up on corners or in alleyways, a testament to the city's readiness for cold weather. Even so, the snow continued to come down steadily - albeit with disconcerting black snowflakes mixed in that rendered the snowdrifts themselves a dirty grey. The huntress frowned as she stared out the window at the skyline, no longer sparkling and altogether far more bleak than when she'd last seen it. "Eugh, gross."

"It does seem less 'winter wonderland' and more 'cold, industrial hellscape,' doesn't it?" Weiss moved up beside her to look out at the tableau, grey urbanity against a grey and overcast sky. "The giant gears are a nice touch."

"Well, it's a hellscape we'll have to, uh…"

"Traverse?"

"Yes! Traverse. We have to traverse it anyway." Ruby rubbed at her eyes, willing herself to finish waking up. "So, are we finding your sister first today, or…?"

"I'm not sure we have the time to track her down prior to our appointment at the blacksite." The fencer checked the clock on her scroll and shook her head slowly. "No, it doesn't look like it. That said… she's probably going to the same place we are."

The not-yet-cloaked huntress gave her a look. "You think so?"

"I know so," Weiss put her scroll away and looked back up at her partner. "Winter doesn't have any friends, relatives, or superiors out here. There aren't enough Grimm to warrant serious huntress activity. Not counting the location and the odd administrative situation, Bifrost has one unique thing going on, and I'm pretty sure we're about to go visit it. I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into Winter there as well."

"That makes sense." Ruby moved away from the window and to the hotel drawer. She and Weiss had made use of the hotel's laundry service last night, so at least they would be going in looking presentable. Well, presentable by huntress standards. "What to wear, what to wear…"

"Really?" Weiss deadpanned.

Ruby looked at her partner with false innocence. "What? I thought you wanted to see me take an interest in my appearance."

"Ruby, you have one outfit. If you actually wanted it, I could throw you your very own huntress-themed fashion show."

"I know!" Silver eyes danced as the scythe-wielder shook out her cloak. "But I like this look. It's all iconic and stuff now."

"It certainly is." Weiss conceded with a faint smile. "So make sure the wrinkles are smoothed out and the cape is straight. Whatever Wisteria is presenting, we need to outshine it."

"For the security of Remnant?" Ruby tilted her head, although her eyes gave away that she wasn't confused in the slightest.

The dust mogul's face froze. "...yes. Definitely that and not just to make her look bad."

Blake's Log, Day 4, 8:41 a.m.
Mission Status: We are in so much trouble if no one is checking on the CCT.
Update: Was not expecting a road trip when I signed up for this mission.
Personal Status: Pretty good, for this much driving.

Blake climbed out of the car and stretched luxuriously. It had taken quite a bit of driving at not-entirely-legal speeds, but Anne had gotten them a fair distance in a hurry. Now the sheriff had pulled over at the side of the road, right at mile marker 99 on… whatever highway they were traveling. The two faunus had taken turns driving and napping to conserve energy, and Anne had taken the last segment, so Blake wasn't quite caught up on exactly where they were.

There wasn't much traffic on this particular highway, not that Blake was surprised. They were far to the north of most of Chamber's settlements now, almost directly at the center of the continent, at that. It was a still morning, with barely even a breeze to rustle the nearby foliage. Anne had pulled them a short ways off the highway, on one of those dirt roads in the country that never seem to go anywhere important, and had parked out of view of the actual road. "This way. We'll have to go on foot for the last bit, but it ain't far."

That was relative, of course, but the walk was peaceful and Blake certainly didn't mind the fresh air. The ground was just level enough that Blake surmised that this had all once been part of the same dirt road, until time and neglect had buried it in debris and the forest had begun to reclaim it. This forest was a bit different from the ones around Vale, and certainly nothing like the tropics and outbacks of Menagerie. It even had a separate character from the wilds of Animas that Ruby had told her about, being mostly coniferous and, at this time of the day and year, sleepy enough that it seemed incongruous with sudden Grimm attacks. Nonetheless, it also had an ancient feel to it, as though the great misty woods held some secret, and the huntress felt her pulse pick up a little despite the lack of apparent danger.

Within a few minutes, the sheriff once again stopped, then pulled aside a curtain of ivy draped over a nearby rock formation, revealing nothing but a slightly moldy plastic cover over a still-functioning electronic keypad. Blake, despite doing her absolute utmost to at least appear nonplussed, felt the weirdest thrill. She'd consumed one adventure and romance novel after another growing up, and even with all the conspiracies and horrible events of the Autumn War, she still retained just enough innocence to get excited about a secret door in the middle of nowhere.

Anne punched in a number, and upon hitting the enter key, a portion of the rock slid into the ground. In defiance of secret passage tropes as old as time, the tunnel beyond was relatively clean and well lit. A tiny commercial cart, like the kind used in big metroplexes to patrol parking lots, was parked just inside. "Come on," Anne grinned. "It ain't far now."

Weiss's Log, Day 4, 9:29 a.m.
Mission Status: Situation Normal... for us.
Update: Arriving at the blacksite now.
Personal Status: Fine.

Weiss did not consider herself to be an impatient person. Sure, she could lose patience with the antics of her teammates, and she had virtually none for the most reticent members of the SDC Board of Directors, but to say that she was impatient in general would be to ignore how long she had spent waiting for all manner of things. Not just waiting, either, but actively working to obtain what she wanted.

It was curious, in a way. In terms of material things, she had never wanted for anything. No one would be awarding the title of 'father of the year' to Jacques Schnee, but the man valued his own time enough to buy his children whatever they desired in a bid to get rid of them so that he could have more of it to himself and his work. Small businesses and competitors weren't going to crush themselves, after all, and there was only so much time he could spend directly controlling their lives. Leaving that home had been her dream for as long as she could remember, but here she was as the face of the family business, if not quite the way her father had wanted.

It had been right at the end of the war that she'd seized control of the Schnee Dust Company. The opportunity had presented itself - some fairly damning evidence had fallen into her hands, enough to get her father indicted on charges of corruption, unethical war profiteering, several civil rights abuses, and a whole smorgasbord of associated charges. He'd been arrested, gone to trial, faced his accuser - her - and had ultimately been convicted, though his small army of lawyers had whittled the sentence down to a comfortable house arrest.

Then the ugly and convoluted legal snarl had begun. Atlesian corporate law was heavily shaped by the tremendous influence their military had on all walks of life. As a result, it included a number of ethical provisions, known colloquially and cheekily as the Honor System, to determine what would happen to business resources if the owner's legal status as an Atlesian citizen was tainted or compromised. While the Atlesian military couldn't seize his estate, car, etc., it could - and did - seize his shares in the SDC.

When that happened, they were passed on as though he had died – just the tiniest bit of poetry written into the law, a clear statement by the authors who had founded Atlas in accordance with their guiding beliefs: if you lived without honor, without integrity, you were effectively dead to them. The basic principle was fairly simple: a felonious soldier didn't get to keep his weapons, and a felonious businessman didn't get to keep his business. There were hundreds of nuances, thousands of technicalities, and loophole upon loophole, of course. Politics was a fluid thing everywhere in Remnant, but Atlas prided itself on sophisticated technology and uncomplicated bureaucracy. Whether it succeeded in either endeavor was debatable, but that was the ideal.

And ideally, that would have meant that her father's shares would have gone to Weiss without any fuss – she was, after all, 'the heiress,' despite her brief fall from grace prior to sneaking off into the night. However, her father's will – having to dig that out and read it had been a macabre little twist in the saga – had stated that she was to get the shares to the company unless she had yet to reach the age of 26, the age he apparently deemed that she would get over this foolish huntress business and pursue a real career. It did not include Whitley, as Jacques Schnee had been… persuaded to roll back to the old one after a chaotic mission carried out by Blake during the height of the war. That mission was a story all by itself, but to this day seeing her father's reaction to it remained one of her fondest memories.

As for the old will, Weiss had not yet reached twenty-six years of age when it was read, so Winter was to get the shares for safekeeping. Her sister, wanting no part of any of it, offered to simply give them to her. Weiss had wrestled with the decision for days, wondering if taking it would betray who she was. Ultimately, she decided to take one shot at seeing what she could do to put the company back on track, one shot at trying to regain some measure of grace and honor for the Schnees. She told herself that if it was a lost cause, she'd sell the damn shares and be a huntress full time, like she'd planned. That was when she'd stumbled over the final snag: the same package of anti-corruption laws that had been her father's downfall also heavily taxed massive transfers of valuable property, including business shares. The result had been that Weiss, having not inherited the vast personal wealth that her father still held due to not actually being dead yet, had found it necessary to sell a chunk of them in order to pay the tax on the rest. Her friends had offered to help her raise the funds to stay in control until she'd told them the amount needed, at which point Team RWBY was forced to acknowledge that saving the world, fighting armies, and killing an immortal witch and her monsterous creations was more doable than overcoming the local tax code.

That had landed her in her current predicament. The shares that she had sold had removed her from primary shareholder status before she'd ever attained it. While hers was the biggest voice on the board of directors, she didn't technically have total control of the company. Thus, the nightmare had begun. She could guide and suggest and demand, but ultimately, she had to convince at least a fair minority of the old guard that any given change was for the good of the company. As a result, the reforms that she'd wanted to introduce, the changes that might pull her family name out of the mud, were coming through in tiny increments… or not at all. Even worse, some of their objections did have legitimate business grounds. As it turned out, being vicious and amoral was a fairly effective tactic in a competitive corporate environment. So, day by day, she adapted to her father's world. She was making enough progress that she'd feel guilty about quitting… just not enough.

None of this was something she could resolve on the way to the black site, but the trip was long enough that her thoughts drifted to it anyway, especially since Ruby was too busy getting updates from Blake and Yang to converse. Given that ruminating on her company never did much for her mood, it was a relief when the black site finally came into view.

Well, the land the black site was built on came into view, anyway. Weiss slowed their rental car - a nice one, as she was still a Schnee - to make sure she had gotten the directions right. There just didn't seem to be much to the place beyond a few metal sheds, ventilation pipes, and a big stretch of concrete. As she got closer, she saw that there was indeed a fairly substantial hole in the ground, right in the middle of the grey slab, but she couldn't imagine what sort of operation this was that it could figuratively employ half of Bifrost.

It was only after they had parked their car in the visitors' garage - a structure that was mostly underground - and walked up to the entrance right by the pit that the sheer scale set in. While the hole itself was no bigger around than Vale's old CCT, it stretched down and down and down for a distance that no six towers that had ever existed on Remnant could possibly fill. Oddly glowing lines, dark bands, and windows dotted the structure as far down as she could see, and while the tunnel was lit, it was still deep enough that atmospheric distortion kept the bottom from clear view.

Weiss had frequently observed that the more impressive a creature or physical structure was, the more banal the commentary on it became. With that in mind, she was - just barely - willing to forgive herself for blurting out, "That… is a long way down."

Ruby, of course, was leaning a little too far over the safety railing and making the kinds of vaguely obscene whimpers and gasps that she usually did when coming across massive construction projects. "What are they doing with this thing?" The caped huntress bounced from foot to foot until her excitement overcame her, and the heiress found herself being dragged along by the sleeve. "Oh, this is fantastic, Weiss! Come on, we're going on the grand tour!"

"I know, you dunce! Let go so I can walk properly and we'll get there faster."

Blake's Log, Day 4, 9:39 a.m.
Mission Status: Nothing has changed in the last hour.
Update: This tunnel is endless.
Personal Status: Need some answers soon, to be honest.

Anne's statement was… technically accurate. While a look at her scroll revealed that the little cart drive had barely taken fifteen minutes, the total lack of landmarks, signs, or changes in direction made it feel much longer. Because of the remarkably straight passage, the door they were destined to stop in front of became visible long before they reached it.

Reach it they did, though, and Blake marveled at the new obstacle. While the previous door had been designed for secrecy, the architect had no doubt assumed that anyone who discovered the place was serious about getting in and had built this second portal with that in mind. Circular and designed to swing - ponderously - on a pin that made the support structures for dreadnoughts look puny, this particular locking mechanism was all mechanical after a small scanner popped down to take Anne's biometrics. Blake was instructed to turn around while Anne turned the giant tumblers, and finally the vault-like structure swung open with a hydraulic hiss.

"Finally!" Anne grunted, voicing Blake's hidden thoughts. She quickly set off, guiding the huntress through a maze of corridors. "Welcome to Slate Ridge. It's a lil' facility we've got built up in the central mountains of Alo."

Blake's cat-ears twitched. "Who is 'we'?"

"Cal, Vi, Wisteria, an' yours truly."

Only two of those names were even vaguely familiar to Blake, showing up in Ruby's and Weiss's reports. No matter how impressive they might theoretically be, though, she couldn't see them pulling this off on their own. "...four of you built this?"

"Well, no. Wisteria and Vi have a lot of pull with the Atlas Coucil, an' I've got some say in Chamber's budget, so we've got plenty of helpers. But the four of us are running the operation."

"Which is…?"

"Ah, right, right." Anne waved at that casually, but her eager grin belied her impatience with the revelation. "You wanted to know about the faunus in Chamber, right? Why things are different there? I brought you here because I have to show you the answer or you'd never believe me."

"I dunno," Blake deadpanned as they reached an elevator. "I've believed some pretty incredible things."

Anne laughed and hit an unmarked button on the elevator panel, letting the doors slide shut.

Ruby's Log, Day 4, 9:45 a.m.
Mission Status: Evaluating.
Update: Didn't expect this place to be a giant hole in the ground. What's down there?
Personal Status: I'm awake!

Naturally, it was a steep descent to get to the main part of the black site base, or at least the part that had been opened to visitors. Ruby was the first one down the stairs, probably because she used her semblance to skip the whole 'stairs' part and just dropped straight down the shaft, but as she and Weiss were the only ones in the stairwell at the time, there were no complaints.

Ruby quickly evaluated where she'd landed - a security cordon, unsurprisingly. The Atlesian guards on duty were wound tight; both had raised their rifles when she'd landed, then lowered them again only when they'd confirmed her identification. She noted approvingly that they hadn't disengaged the safeties, at least. They were anxious, but not paranoid. At least not yet.

After she and Weiss had surrendered their scrolls (burners rather than their operational scrolls, because they were paranoid), checked their weapons, and been scanned for additional electronics, they were led into the next area. The surprisingly cozy lounge was already half full of what looked like the well-to-do of Atlas, with a few obviously military and formerly military types mixed in.

It was among the latter, though still off by herself, that Ruby found their erstwhile target. Weiss restrained herself from shouting, but Ruby had no such concern for decorum. "Winter!"

The older huntress looked up from her drink. "Miss Rose. Is my…" Her eyes tracked to her sister. "Weiss as well." Several emotions chased themselves across Winter's face, all too subtle to track for those who didn't know her. She finally settled on an expression that was a touch warmer than when they'd first met.

Weiss walked up and, with barely restrained enthusiasm, curtseyed. "What a pleasant surprise. It is good to see you, sister."

Ruby suppressed an eye roll. All three of them knew that if given the slightest invitation, Weiss would fling herself across the room and give a great big hug to her only not-horrible blood relative, and that in private, her sister would even return it... but keeping up appearances in public was still important to both of them, and 'keeping up appearances' meant acting like they'd barely met. For her part, Winter settled on a nod. "Likewise. It is lovely to see you and Miss Rose are well, though no less mysterious. How did you come to be here?"

"We kinda stumbled over the city during our mission." Ruby shrugged. "We didn't have a lot else going on, so we decided to come have a look."

There was the faintest flash in Winter's eyes. "Ah, I'm sure your exploits in the east of Solitas will bring their customary good fortune to our citizens."

So she knew. The emphasis in her voice was so faint that Ruby doubted anyone else had caught it, but she'd had enough encounters with the Schnees to know that Winter would never let her diction slip like that at random. Which presented a small dilemma - it was said that there were no friends in the field of espionage, only interests. Truth be known, for all their talents, Team RWBY was only so-so at genuine spycraft. Even Blake was more of a scout and saboteur than an actual, secret-stealing spy.

As a result, they rarely tried to engage in it at all, opting to play to their strengths. On the rare occasion that they were called into an intrigue scenario, they tried to err on the side of caution as long as possible.

Fortunately, Winter wasn't done. "Even if you did encounter the city by chance, I actually meant the question more specifically - 'How did you come to be here?' This is a secure area, and from the lack of gunfire and explosions, I assume you went through the security checkpoints the proper way."

"You give us too little credit, Winter. The city admin herself extended an invitation to us." Weiss straightened, though her grin faded at mention of Wisteria. A fraction of a look between the Schnees told Ruby that Winter's opinion of Weiss's old competitor wasn't much better than the heiress's. "How could we refuse such an honor?"

The elder sister arched an eyebrow. "Easily. I am told that your team is quite famous and well-regarded these days. This project is not the usual infantry upgrade, it-"

She was cut off by an announcement from the far end of the room, the volume amplified electronically as a young man in a crisp Atleisan officer's uniform waved to get everyone's attention. "Fantastic! We seem to have everyone here, so if you'll gather over here by the door outlined by the blue markers, we can begin the tour. My name is…"

The tour, Weiss decided, was well done. She'd seen Atlesian defense installations before, of course, and this one followed the pattern closely - barracks near essential areas, a manufacturing and refining wing for some level of self sufficiency, an android factory for on-the-fly reinforcements, a motor pool for ground vehicles and a hangar for military aircraft. She catalogued all of it mentally for review later, waiting for their guide to bring them to the meat of the tour.

She had a suspicion of who would be meeting them at the end of it, and she wasn't disappointed. As she, Ruby, Winter, and the various other invitees were shepherded out of the elevator after a long ride to the bottom of the installation, they found themselves staring out a curved window into the bottom of the immense pit they'd observed on the way in, and Wisteria was waiting for them, standing before it. Through the window, they could see part of the machine behind her, though that wasn't as much of a reveal as the heiress was expecting.

Weiss had never quite seen anything like it. A central cylinder of equipment hung suspended from a set of rails, but extending from that, out and down, wrapping around it in a cone like a cloak, were dozens if not hundreds of what looked to be either foldable or retractable solar panels. If anything, the massive but spindly array looked a bit like a badminton shuttle. Before she could remark on this to her partner, however, Wisteria spoke. "Good morning, everyone. May I have your attention, please? This is the operational floor for the project we've been working on for several years now. Final testing is complete and we are preparing to launch."

She gestured expansively, taking in the room, its occupants, and presumably the installation above. "As you have undoubtedly been informed already, Atlas is a kingdom of innovation. We are always looking for the next breakthrough, and how to reach the next horizon. Remnant is not fully explored… but it is getting there. The edges of the map are being filled in, we are more secure than ever with the conclusion of the Autumn War, and people are settling on new real estate, but no one is manufacturing it." That brought a tiny titter from a couple in the audience, and she pressed on. "Here at Bifrost, we have been doing what Atlas does best, looking toward the future and moving forward. When deciding where to go from where we are, it was brought up on several occasions that Remnant is not the be all and end all of creation." Holograms of technical readouts and conceptual models sprang to life around her, each showing the strange machine behind her blossoming, the solar panels opening up and aligning with each other before locking into place to expose numerous antennae and other sensors, all against a backdrop of stars. Wisteria's voice reached clarion tones, "There is one final frontier. This is the Pax Atlesia, the first ever electronic device developed on Remnant with the intention of operating off of Remnant. There were numerous technical hurdles to overcome, the biggest one being that Dust loses potency at extreme altitudes. This is why there is *no* Dust-driven tech aboard the Pax Atlesia. Remnant's first artificial satellite operates exclusively on alternative energy sources - great strides in solar power have been achieved recently, but there are others as well - and has chemical rocket boosters for orbital stability and maneuvering, should the need arise. It can transmit information to the extant CCT global telecommunications network and receive from same, in essence acting as a mobile signal tower - and we expect to do much more with this technology in the future."

Weiss, using long hours of practice to maintain her pose in social encounters, managed to keep her jaw off the floor. The rest of the crowd hadn't quite caught on yet, but unless Wisteria was bluffing - and the giant machine behind her made that unlikely - then that meant…

...Weiss had thought that Wisteria had been exaggerating when she said that her new product would change life on Remnant as anyone knew it. Now, she wondered if maybe the other woman hadn't been understating it a bit. The ability to launch devices into orbit, far away from Dust accidents and marauding Grimm and the war machines of mankind, would be a game changer on every level. She leaned over to whisper this to Ruby, only to stop when she realized that her partner had almost completely tuned the city administrator out. All of the younger woman's attention was focused on one of the technical diagrams, and the fencer fought the urge to roll her eyes before turning her own attention back to Wisteria, who seemed to be wrapping up.

"...this is just our first step, our first foray into the stars. It is my pleasure and privilege to announce that we will be bringing Remnant to a new age - a space age!" Wisteria bowed as the crowd, limited in size though it was, broke out into enthusiastic applause. When it died down, she continued. "This concludes our demonstration… for now. However, we will be launching the Pax tomorrow. Every one of you is invited to remain in Bifrost and seek out an observation point - sadly you will not be cleared for the operations level here at that time, but good viewing locations have been sent to your scrolls. A more general announcement of the existence of the Pax will follow the launch. Not that I'm worried, but the Atlas council members didn't want me to announce success before we had actually attained it. Until then, I wish you all a good day, and a happy launch viewing. Our representatives and officers are here to answer any other questions you might have."

Weiss glanced over as her partner started to raise her hand, but apparently thought better of it. The heiress's eyes quickly tracked up into Ruby's own, and she felt herself frown slightly at the look on Ruby's face. She'd expected the younger woman to be in a mostly-figurative froth of excitement about the new toy, but team RWBY's leader was instead looking at the technical readouts again with the same expression she'd usually reserved for analyzing an enemy stronghold or a particularly nasty pack of Grimm.

Whatever Ruby was seeing, it was beyond the Heiress at the moment, and this really wasn't the time to discuss it. Weiss let her hand stay down while some of the others in the room asked well-meaning but uninformed questions. She knew perfectly well that any useful answers were classified and wouldn't be divulged at this meeting. The only thing to do now was wait it out.

Blake's Log, Day 4, 10:02 a.m.
Mission Status: This is like some kind of spy movie parody.
Update: What could be worth this much security?
Personal Status: I feel like I'm about to see something either really exciting or really disappointing.

The elevator ride was not quite as long as Blake had thought it would be. Given the difficulties of maintaining situational awareness inside a tiny metal box, though, it was possible that the drop was prodigious, and that the elevator merely accelerated for the entire first half of the trip and slowed for the last half.

However it happened, the doors opened, and Blake's breath caught in her throat.

The chamber wasn't even all that large, really, but it made up for it in sheer elegance that could only be described as mystical. A water feature sat in the middle of a room that had clearly been designed to draw attention to it. It was technically a fountain, but calling it that conveyed neither the ornate and perfect decoration of the marble fixture nor even hinted at the most remarkable aspect of it. Fluid infused with a lurid blue glow spilled forth from it, cascading down in three flawless waterfalls to fill a basin level with the floor, which itself emptied into a crevasse that seemed to plunge down into the earth forever. The ornamentation continued across the tiled floors, up the room's supporting pillars - all done to immortalize a time and culture Blake had never even heard of. Ivy crew up the supporting columns, apparently unbothered by the room's lack of natural light, and fireflies flitted about as though they were in on some secret plan to make the place look as enchanted as possible.

Even that wasn't the end of it. The huntress quickly noted, through sight and scent, that this room doubled as a Dust node. Blue Dust crystals, the same strange shade as the fountain's emissions, ringed the crevasse and took the place of the marbling that gave the stone its name. Like the waters, the Dust glowed faintly, and Blake could even see where some had clearly been harvested.

It was the final detail, though, that explained why Anne had hesitated to elaborate on the nature of the place before bringing her here. Magic was still not commonly accepted throughout Remnant. Much of the information about the Maidens, Salem, and more had been kept secret even after the war - the terrible truth of the matter was that Ozpin's scheme, shady as it was, didn't have a better alternative. People could and would kill for power, and the ones most likely to wind up with Maiden abilities by choice were the ones most likely to abuse them. So as far as most of Remnant was concerned, Salem was merely a very powerful, unusually intelligent Grimm, and the Maidens were just some silly code names given to key military personnel.

But Blake knew better, and as she stared at the symbolism and iconography of the Winter Maiden, she knew that she had entered one of the old shrines. This place was literal, old-school magic, which meant her mission had just gone from curiosity to critical in an eyeblink.

Excitement and anxiety flooded through her in equal measure as questions crowded her mind. She could only hope Yang was having similar luck. At this rate they might be able to finally get to the bottom of things.

Yang's Log, Day 4, 10:33 a.m.
Mission Status: I don't even know.
Update: I've done more investigation on this mission than I did in the entire war. Hope I'm doing this right...
Personal Status: Creeped out.

Yang killed the engine on the motorcycle as she crested the last hill and came to a point in the road that was blocked off by barricades. She briefly considered hoisting the vehicle up and over the blockade, but there was enough debris littering the road on the other side that it would quickly tear the motorcycle apart. She'd just have to go on foot from here.

That aside, she was close enough to her destination that she'd be able to reach it quickly. She still had her notes from Cold Creek, and a copy of the map she needed was on her scroll, complete with the overlays showing the wind currents and streaks of Scream attacks. No one had challenged her on the way out of the county, not even in the next town, which she found odd, but she wasn't about to question her good fortune. It wasn't like she didn't have enough to look into.

Ruby had sent a status update that morning, containing everything she'd found so far, along with the doctored Atlesian maps and data. Comparing that to her own map, Yang had noticed that a small town by the name of Shinehorn had been deleted from the Atlas data. That could have been a coincidence - it seemed pretty in character for the people of Chamber to keep secrets from Atlas, given what she'd learned about them yesterday - but it was also missing from the newer maps available from the Chamber Commercial and Travel Bureau… broadcast out of Chamber's capitol.

That was slightly suspicious too, but where it got really interesting was that the town in question was the first one in the path of the Scream zone, nestled deep within a steep valley called Hangman's Gulch. On top of that, it was sitting behind this official looking barrier, apparently forgotten. Finally, when she asked the locals on the way here about it, all she could get out of them was, "No one goes there anymore."

And if all of that wasn't enough, Yang didn't really feel like going in there, either. The place felt off. No birds sang, no crickets chirped, and even the rustling of leaves in the wind felt muted. Despite the bright sun, vibrant flora, and the fact that all the clouds were far off on the northeast horizon, the place just seemed dead.

Still, if she was the type to get deterred by spooky scenery, she'd signed up for the wrong career. It was a trivial effort for her to hop the barrier, and the huntress wasted no time in working her way down the ruined road toward the little town of Shinehorn and whatever it was hiding.

A/N: Busted! Totally busted. The best laid plans of mice and men, though mostly men, went awry, and the fic sat dormant for far too long. Still, I've got another Volume of RWBY for data now, not to mention better plans for future chapters. If you're still following along, I wouldn't fault you for double checking what happened in previous chapters. If you're not, then... well, you're not reading this, so I guess I can't say anything to you. Thanks for sticking with it (or just now finding this fic) regardless! Comments are always appreciated, and I do read all of them, though I generally only respond to questions.

It took a long time to put this chapter together, though it took longer to get back into writing it at all. That aside, I'm glad for it because I've gotten a better handle on the voices for the different characters - or at least I think so, anyway. I'm also excited about the next chapters. This one contained some of the reveals, but we haven't stopped with them yet! And as the RWBY girls pointed out, things only escalate from here.

Now, how is Shinehorn related to any of this and why should Yang care? What did Ruby see in the Pax Atlesia that Weiss missed? What does the magic shrine do, and will it satisfy Blake's romance novel addiction for any length of time? Why did team RWBY find Winter's antics funny on this mission when she seems so normal? Did The Walrus ever recover his motorcycle? The answers to (some of) these questions are coming up.

See you next chapter!