"Archmage Septim. Thank you for visiting as soon as you could,"
"There is no issue with that, Professor Ozpin. One must always be punctual, after all," Valeria replied crisply, conjuring a floating cushion of ice in front of Ozpin's desk and seating herself, "Is there a reason for this meeting? I would not think that you would be one for idle chatter; after all, you are a busy man,"
"Yes, that would be correct. There are...quite a few things that we must discuss. The first is that while I understand Alchemy can result in some rather dangerous products, yesterday's explosion was perhaps a little much. Do try to avoid blowing up the school with your experiments. Miss Belladonna had already almost done so in her own dormitory,"
Valeria smiled wryly despite herself. That little potion crafted of highly refined Fire Dust and purified Fire Salts was quite something else. The yield of the explosion was far stronger than what she had expected, but the shielding that she had installed in that amphitheatre was fit to resist even asteroid impacts. It would hold, even if she had thrown in ten times as much. Still, the headmaster had a point. While the shielding on the sides of the amphitheatre had been sufficient, the building had an open roof – and a floor that wasn't made of magickally-damped composite materials. No doubt the blast could have been seen and felt from Beacon, if not Vale itself.
"The second is that it appears that you have had a break-in at night, in your rooftop laboratory. Whoever the culprit is was thorough; every single surveillance camera had been disabled for almost a full eight hours,"
Valeria held up a hand to stop Ozpin from saying anything more. "I am well aware of that, Professor Ozpin," she spoke calmly, "And it was entirely to plan. Given the pattern of thefts of military-grade Dust crystals and munitions from all the shops all throughout the Kingdom of Vale, and Roman Torchwick's own admissions, I suspected that whoever is behind the attempted assassination of my apprentice is after a very significant amount of firepower. What better lure do we have than an explosive that may well level most of Vale if used in large quantities?"
Ozpin frowned and shook his head. "That would be too much. Was that really necessary?"
"No, not really. I simply wished to test a sample that I had crafted. No other sample exists at this moment. The thief, whoever he or she is, has taken the bait, however. Both the cases under my desk have been stolen, though nothing else was taken aside from...an ingot of silver,"
"Silver?" asked the headmaster, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, silver. An important ingredient in curative potions, where it serves to catalyse the removal of all negative residual essence from the initial extraction. And if I am guessing correctly, it is as valuable on Remnant as it is in my Empire. Whoever our thief is cannot resist the lure of wealth,"
"I see. So our thief lacks sufficient self-control to keep him or herself from taking other objects, even if it would deviate from their main objective. What about the stolen cases? You said that there were no other samples of the highly explosive compound that you had created. What were in those, then?"
"Orbital strike beacons. Both have been already activated with my authorisation," she replied, grinning when Ozpin's eyes widened, "Do not worry. I have informed my troops that they are to hold fire until I say otherwise. My personal vessel, however, can pinpoint the exact location of these cases,"
"Hmm. Interesting. A homing device that the enemy is unwittingly carrying. What if they open the cases and discover them?"
"Then our thief will be swiftly introduced to the afterlife," she replied simply, shrugging, "Opening the magickal combination lock requires proper training in Destruction. Failing to disarm the locks with the correct combination will cause the entire case to detonate in fire, frost and shock. In any event, we will either discover where they are taking the explosives, or at least one of our culprits will be very much dead,"
Ozpin took another sip from his coffee cup, his expression still inscrutable. Given what her students had said, however, Valeria was certain that he disapproved of how little she regarded the potential killing of a thief. Not that she cared in the least. After all, while the road to Oblivion was paved with good intentions, the road to Sovngarde was paved with much action. Some of which were bloodier than others.
"Can you tell me where the cases are, at this moment?"
"An excellent question. Let us see," she hummed, pulling out a dataslate from one of her robe pockets. "Hm. It appears that whoever our thief is, they are moving quickly. Six hours ago, both were still in Beacon Academy. Four hours ago, I was informed that they had started to move towards Vale's harbour. And now, I am informed that the beacons are now quite some distance southeast of Vale. Surface scans confirm that the signal is coming from underground, under what appears to be a ruined city that is thoroughly infested by Grimm,"
"Mountain Glenn," Ozpin commented, deep in thought.
"If that is the name of the location, then yes. Are there any civilians still living there?"
The professor raised his eyebrow. "What are you trying to suggest?"
"If there are no upstanding citizens residing there, I would recommend simply erasing the target from existence. A half-mile wide blast should be sufficient. After all, it would also remove a potential Grimm habitat as well, saving your huntsmen and huntresses from risking their lives there,"
Ozpin blinked in disbelief. "Absolutely not. You will do no such thing," he replied, "We do not know for certain what is there, and erasing a reminder of the past is not something that is to be taken lightly,"
Frowning, Valeria stood up, dispelling the icy chair that she was sitting on. "Very well then. As difficult as it makes my task, I shall respect your wish as Vale is ultimately under your government's jurisdiction, and not mine. However, make no mistake; if there is a dire threat that lurks there that threatens many citizens of Vale, and I am unable to destroy it on my own, then I will call down an orbital strike on it. The lives of those living in the present are more valuable than those who have died in the past,"
"Fine. I trust that you will exercise proper restraint in use of force," sighed Ozpin, taking another sip from his coffee.
Proper restraint in use of force. What a foolish idea, Valeria thought to herself. There was only one acceptable level of usage of force. Enough to completely annihilate a threat. If the threat still existed afterwards, one simply did not use enough force. And judging by the fact that the Grimm had overrun most of the planet, perhaps it was a good time to remind them of that simple fact.
"Oooh, so this is the day! The day when we go on our FIRST PROPER MISSIONS!" squealed Ruby excitedly. "Come on, guys! Come on! Let's go and see what we can choose,"
"Well, she's starting the day with a Yang," grumbled her sister; Ruby had squealed very loudly, right next to her ear, "But yeah! Let's go and check it out. First one gets all the good ones and all that, right guys?"
"I suppose that's true," Blake mumbled, yawning widely as she pulled up behind Yang. The blonde suddenly turned around and pulled in the cat faunus into a tight hug. Or rather, tried to; Blake hissed and slapped Yang on the cheek out of reflex. Hard.
"Oww. No coffee makes Blakey grumpy," Yang groaned, rubbing her stinging cheek. Judging by how Ruby was giggling, there was probably a red handprint there.
"Sorry, Yang. I'd prefer to...wake up first before doing anything like that," Blake apologised, crossing her arms, "You know that I've been up all night, right?"
"Yeah, we know. Making healing potions again. Thanks for that, Blakey, we really love you for it,"
This time, a scratch behind her bow elicited a very quiet purr. Just loud enough for Yang to hear it. When Blake wasn't paying attention, Ruby took a peek inside the satchel that she was carrying.
"Uh, Blake? What's...all these? I thought healing potions were always red?" Ruby asked curiously, pulling out a strange large vial containing a brightly-glowing ice-blue liquid. There were seven crudely-marked lines on the side in permanent marker, splitting it into doses.
"That one's for Yang," yawned Blake, covering her mouth with a hand, "Seeing as she was keeping me awake-"
"-More like all of us awake at night. Except Ruby," Weiss grumbled under her breath, recalling the loud purring and shaking that came from Yang and Blake's shared bed every night for the last week. Among other unmentionable noises. Why she was not a heavy sleeper like Ruby, she would never know; but now, she hated being a light sleeper more than ever.
"-She's going to be carrying our stuff. And I mean our stuff. Otherwise...well, let's just say that she'll be losing a few privileges at night,"
Now it was Yang's turn to gawk at Blake. "Oh come on, Blakey, you can't be serious? That's a lot of camping gear that I have to carry! Four bedrolls, two tents; water, food and potions...and...whatever Rubes is carrying?"
"You don't need to carry this!" Ruby answered quickly, holding up her hands and waving frantically as she stepped back, "I'll...uh, I'll just keep it on me. Yeah,"
Yang looked strangely at her sister for a moment, but eventually shook her head. If she was going to carry that herself, that was fine.
"Still, even without that, that's a whole lot of gear. And you want me to carry all of that, for the next what, a week?"
"Which is why I've read up a bit further into the Alchemy manual and made some strength-enhancing potions. After a bit of trial and error, it looks like Gravity Dust and some of this glowing purple jelly works for that effect. Well...aside from...some minor side effects,"
"Wait, Gravity Dust?" Ruby asked, cocking her head to one side, "Where'd you get that? I mean, Weiss doesn't use any Gravity Dust, and Yang uses mostly Fire...wait..."
"Uh...I might have taken a few Gravity Dust magazines from Crescent Rose...and emptied out the propellant from the cartridges..." Blake said cautiously, watching Ruby's shocked expression with more than a little bit of fear.
"You touched Crescent Rose? Without telling me first?! And took apart some cartridges?!" shrieked the team leader, scandalised, "HOW COULD YOU?!"
And thus began a nearly endless game of tag; the red reaper's Semblance of speed allowing her to almost reach Blake, but never quite quick enough to catch her before she left behind a shadow clone; yet Blake was never able to run quickly enough to properly escape from the very fast-moving red blur that was tailing her. Eventually, however, they were both brought to a halt when Weiss decided enough was enough and froze their feet with judicious use of Ice Dust and Myrtenaster.
"Alright, you dolts, enough is enough. Ruby, you still have enough gravity ammunition to work with, and if you don't, I can always order some more when we come back. Blake, you need to ask first before you take things. So, put this aside for now, and we can sort it out later. Otherwise, I'll have to cool both of you off. Deal?" she spoke, conjuring a misty ball of frost in her free hand and letting it coat the ground in a menacing slick of icy spikes. The black and red girls both gulped and hobbled slowly back towards Weiss, their boots still caked in ice. She made a mental note to thank Valeria for teaching her that little trick about intimidation later. "Good. We have to be assigned our missions first, before everyone else gets the good ones,"
"Hey Blakey, when you said...minor side effects," Yang asked slowly, stroking her own hair, "...What sort of side effects are we talking about here?"
"The kind that makes your...urine glow in the dark. A really, really, intense blue," she answered slowly, grimacing at the memories of testing it on herself.
A few minutes later, Team RWBY entered the Beacon Auditorium, where all the other teams had already assembled. Several computer stations had already been set up around the perimeter of the hall, around which teams gathered to select their missions. On spotting an empty one, Ruby clapped her hands together and zoomed over to it, leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake.
"Mine!" she sang, tapping a single finger on the screen. She pouted when she saw that several other missions had already been selected by other teams; mostly those that were in easier, low-Grimm-density areas, like Forever Fall and the outskirts of Vale. Scrolling down, however, she noticed that there were several missions located in none other than Mountain Glenn. One set of coordinates, however, caught her eye.
"Hey, guys," she said quietly, motioning for the others to come to her, "Isn't that...you know, the place that Torchwick said that he was storing lots of Dust? Somewhere in the southeast of Mountain Glenn?"
"Yeah. That looks about right," Blake murmured. The cat faunus pulled her scroll out of her pocket and pulled up the map of Vale. Several locations were marked with red circles; those were the ones that Torchwick had admitted to having Dust stashes. And the mission coordinates pointed squarely on one of the circles.
"Well. That's...not disturbing. Not at all," Weiss said, glancing at Ruby and Blake's questioning expressions, "What sort of mission is it?"
"Looks like it's a Search and Destroy. With lots and lots of Grimm on site. Supposedly, the level of Grimm activity makes it unsuitable for first-year students,"
Ruby fell silent, lost in thought. There were other missions in the areas next to that particular site. If they finished their mission quickly, maybe they could check out the location of the other mission. Quietly, of course; Ozpin didn't need to know about that.
"Maybe...we could sneak there? You know, after finishing another mission?" she suggested. When her teammates all frowned at her, she snapped her fingers and came up with an even brighter idea. "Or maybe, we could mail ourselves there!"
"You know, dolt, sometimes I wonder how you got into Beacon. That's...got to be one of the worst ideas that I've heard so far,"
"Good morning, girls. Staying safe, I hope?"
That was definitely not a voice that any of them wanted to hear. "Eeep! Professor Ozpin!" Ruby yelped, spinning around so fast that she smacked Blake with her backpack, "Um...hi?"
"Good morning, Miss Rose. I assume that you are so excited for your first mission, that you wish to take on a more difficult mission? One that is supposedly more difficult than what first year students are capable of handling?"
"Uh...maybe? Yeah, maybe. Um, Professor? How much of...you know...did you hear?"
Ozpin chuckled lightly. "Almost all of it, Miss Rose. Though I must admit that I am not shocked that you are aware of the locations of the Dust caches that Roman Torchwick has stolen. You are, after all, four of the closest students to Valeria, and she had brought that information to myself some time ago,"
Yang and Blake shared a look. They had helped to extract that information from Torchwick. Of course they would know! But that was something that Ozpin did not need to know.
"That particular mission is in a location that is highly infested by Grimm. So much so, that I believe that it would be nearly suicidal to send first years to such a site. However, knowing your determination to reach your target once you have set your mind on it, Miss Rose, you would find a way to reach it anyway. So, how about we bend the rules a little,"
Ozpin tapped on the console a few times, and the mission card lit up with a green light. It was still the same Search and Destroy mission; but instead of being assigned to Team RWBY, it indicated that there were two huntsmen assigned to the mission, with Team RWBY attached as observers.
"Oh, thanks Professor Ozpin!" Ruby said cheerfully. Now they would not have to sneak around anything or anyone to get to their intended destination!
"Do not thank me just yet. You must survive first," he said, taking a sip from his coffee cup, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other things to attend to,"
"Hmm, so...two huntsmen. Who do you think we've been assigned to?" murmured Weiss, cupping her chin in deep thought. Professor Port would likely bore them all to death before the Grimm could reach them; Professor Peach didn't look like the type that would venture out on a journey, and Professor Goodwitch had to be at Beacon to help Professor Ozpin take care of the academy. That left...
"Oh my Dust. Kill me now," Yang gasped, noticing the man in the explorer's khaki outfit beside a stony-faced Valeria. The shock of green hair and thermos could only belong to one particular huntsman in the entire academy.
A/N
MeleeSmasher: Exploding plans are par for the course :D
Quintain: I wonder if there's a hermit crab Grimm somewhere out there...that would be an epic seashell to run tests on.
Reaver17: But you still haven't read the book where cats can be bats can be rats can be hats can be gnats can be that's can be thises. And that doors can be boars can be snores can be floors can be roars can be spores can be yours can be mine. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack is glorious :D