AN- Thank you to the reviewers of last chapter!
Soda-fiedpsycho- The Ruby/Hector moments are coming, don't worry I promise, but thanks alot for the 9/10 plot comment!
Justus80- I believe I covered you in a PM, but I'll put a little hint for everyone else. A new weapon, may or may not be in the works.
Astra- Im glad Im not the only one who agrees with that, took so long for me to find a good age for the Maidens to pass at. They had to run out of luck some time, but yeah you know how some NPC's in video games are dumb as shit? I went for that here, but of course it can't last forever. As for your Off topic questions, I think that is something that could be done, this is a futuristic kingdom that both RNJRR and RWBY got caught up in, maybe I can have Hector make fun of the names of some things and get on Winters nerves. Alright now with RNJRR, you know how some teenagers tend to bottle things up? Well, Hector is no stranger to that and I'll leave it at that. The adult feelings I hope I did alright with, but thank you for enjoying it, call it practice for a future couple ;). Hector does have some magical properties yes, but he is not a girl… you'll see what I have planned for him. Knolly is definitely going to be making more noises now within Hectors head, and yes new characters are on the way, whether they are good or bad though… you'll have to find out. I could totally just make this chapter all Merc, Qrow, Marcus, and Ilia, or I could go for literally everyone. But if I do that, then it's going to be like a 15k word chapter and my eyes and hands need breaks for time to time, so you'll see what I do. Thank you for your support! I look forward to your next review!
Zeldawolffang- Me neither Zelda, they're coming either this chapter or the next. Stay on the edge of your seat!
Tigervolcano5000- I'll explain what Winter has been doing in the beginning of this chapter, and her reactions to everything that has been going on, so look forward to that. She knows about the Maidens, but not about Salem. Ironwood trusts her a good bit, just not THAT much. About Salem and Hector and the whole dark magic summoning thing, that will be fully explained in the future, once a certain something happens… Yeah, in my headcanon I believe that Ozpin was created to stop Salem, but Salem killed him, which brought upon his curse and first reincarnation, and thousands of years pass and here we are, also I didn't get to mention it last chapter, but the magic within Hector is the reason why Ozpin can't take control when he wants to anymore, so there's that. Whew, I'm glad that the Tai and Raven scene got positive feedback, I was honestly hoping I didn't butcher the whole thing. Now something that's going to be even harder to write is writing about the feelings of a daughter and her estranged mother and that whole emotional talk. Oh boy… I was going to wait longer to reunite RWBY and RNJR, but with the idea I just got for the Atlas arc requires all of our heros together. There Mercury and Qrow vs Marcus fight, if any of them emerge from that fight without a few scars even I'll be surprised. Thank you for another review!
Now that all the reviews are out of the way, I have to ask you guys something that I have been holding back on for pretty much the whole story… Lemons, sex scenes, stuff like that. We all know that relationships lead to that kind of stuff. I implied Raven and Tai having make up sex, but I didn't actually write it out. It's not that I am uncomfortable with writing that kind of stuff, I just don't think i'd be good at it, so my question for you guys is do you want me to write lemons in the future of this story? If I do Im probably going to make a separate folder of one shots that show pretty much all of the sex scenes that can be canon or non canon to the story. Like Idk, Hector and Ruby for the first chapter, then for all you Yang, Weiss, and other female characters of RWBY fans, I can write out those non canon scenes in other chapters. Hell, I might even have him fuck some of the Maidens, (Not Rhea though, she is way too young in this story.) So yeah tell me what you think, In the actual story if I do decide to write out a Lemon, I'm only doing it once for this story, and all others will be in that one shot folder. Probably going to put a Poll up to for this topic as well.
Now to the story!
Chapter 27- Smoke and Feathers, along with some Ice
Solitas, Mercury and Qrow
Qrow and Marcus have just clashed together, Qrow with his Scythe and Marcus with his bionic legs. The shockwave resulting from the collision almost knocks Mercury over, if it wasn't for his own bionic legs he would have fallen. A stone faced Qrow pulls his scythe up and flips Marcus, but he uses the momentum to flip in the air and land on his feet, with a crazed smile he dashes right back at his aggressor. At speeds Mercury can barely keep up with, he watches for an opportunity to help out Qrow against his father as they dash around the area in red and gray blurs, only visibly for a second at a time. But he can't help but think about how his father is managing to do this, he was at a point where he was almost killed by his own son, and now here he is taking out one of the best huntsman in the kingdoms as equals, but judging from the smile on his face Marcus looks like he is toying with Qrow. His judgment is proven correct as Marcus finally lands a crushing kick to the gut of Qrow, making him slide back along the ground while using the blade of his scythe to stop his momentum. Mercury chooses this moment to get involved and kicks off the air with hs smoke semblance to propel himself into the side of his father, he goes for a kick to his back but to his surprise Marcus jumps over the attack without looking, and slams down on his leg, pinning him to the ground. He looks down at Mercury and smiles sadistically.
"Oh Merky, did you really think that would work on me?" Marcus smirks as he is about to bring his fist into Mercury's face. But is promptly stopped by a shotgun blast that drives itself right into his unguarded side. Luckily for Marcus, his aura defended him from any damage, but sends him flying and tumbling along the ground. He pushes himself back up to look at Qrow, who has a small smirk on his face as he holds out his still smoking shotgun part of his weapon. Realizing that his scythe for an enemy this fast is mostly ineffective, he transforms back it into its swords form, and charges right back toward Marcus with a sword slash intending to cut him in half, and… it lands, slicing right through Marcus' head. Qrow widens his eyes in disbelief as he witnesses Marcus not even attempt to dodge the attack. However, Marcus' split head and body fades away into smoke and quickly flies to the blind spot of Qrow, before he can react, the smoke transforms back into Marcus as he prepares to land another crushing blow into Qrow's spine. Mercury sees this and blasts himself toward Marcus, tackling him and making his kick barely miss Qrow by a hair. The two Blacks wrestle with each other as they tumble along the ground once more, but despite Marcus' superior skills, Mercury is the one who ends up on top as he prepares to punch his face in.
"HAAAAA!" Mercury yells as his fist closes in.
However, once again, the blow fades right through Marcus' head. As Mercury gets disoriented by the blast of air getting blown right into his face. Marcus takes a blade out of his pocket and tries stabbing it into Mercury's side, but his sons aura deflects the blade, but not stopping pain from getting through to Mercury. He winced at the pain and that gave Marcus the opening he needed to blast more smoke into his body, launching him into the air while also gaining distance from both of his enemies. Qrow dashes through the smoke screen and powerfully slashes his blade blindly into the general area of Marcus. The shockwave of the attack disperses all of the smoke around them, but doesn't find it's mark. A few meters away and Marcus reforms his physical body, standing with his arms crossed and a cocky smirk on his face. He cracks his neck and rolls his shoulder as he taunts them,
"Is that all you got? Really? I expected more from the both of you." Marcus insults.
"That barely could be called a warmup." Qrow bites back as he gets back in his stance.
"How are you doing that with our semblance?!" Mercury asks angrily, the stab attack still hurting in his side.
"While you were running around with Cindy, I was training. I've gotta say son, you've actually gotten weaker than before, you're barely a challenge." Marcus says in a bored, scolding tone.
Mercury growls in response, and moves closer to Qrow and gets into his own stance, prepared to fire off or deflect any incoming projectiles.
"Kid, let me handle this guy." Qrow says, holding his sword out in front of him.
"What?! No way! He is mine." Mercury growls back in response, the look in his eyes reminding Qrow of what he used to be like.
"You're way out of your league kid, he's right about one thing, you don't stand a chance against him." Qrow points out, pushing Mercury back further with his blade.
"Like HELL I AM!" Mercury screams,blinded by rage as he jumps over Qrows blade and using his semblance to his maximum potential to launch five powerful smoke projectiles his way before using the last blast to launch himself toward his father. This is a killing move that he taught himself over the years as a assassin for Cinder and Roman. The five projectiles are meant to break the aura or at best damage or disorient his opponent, and his final kick to break their skull or deliver any kind of fatal blow required to finish off his opponent.
"Damnit kid!" Qrow yells as he rushes in to save him from his inevitable defeat.
Marcus, to Mercurys surprise, blocks or deflects all of his projectiles, and when Mercury comes in to attempt a fatal blow, Marcus surprises him once again by simply catching it with his arms. The shockwave of the attack makes Qrows hair and clothes whips from the force, but does not deter him to save he new ally. Mercury widens his eyes as Marcus' grip tightens around his ankle, actually denting the metal by how hard his grip was. Mercury winces as he feels phantom pain run up his steel leg, and spits up blood when he is slammed into the ground. Just after he hits the ground Qrow appears once again, and slashes horizontally at Marcus as he is in mid attack. Marcus doesn't have enough time to turn himself into smoke, and settles for blocking the attack the best he can with his arms. His Gray aura flares up from the force of the attack, and grunts when he is thrown back and skids across the ground on his feet.
"Just as I suspected. You can only turn to smoke as a defense and reposition tactic, but in mid attack you can't use it." Qrow surmises as he quickly dashes toward Marcus once again.
Marcus smirks at the cunningness of his old rival, and blocks the next attack with his legs, the blade cuts through the his pants to reveal his own bionic legs. That has been constantly upgrades through the years. Marcus throws a right punch to Qrows face, but mid punch surprises Qrow by turning into smoke mid punch, and in a blink in an eye, seemingly teleports to his unguarded side, and lands his punch. "It's not that I can't use it while Im attacking bird man." is all he says as the punch connects. Qrow recoils back but keeps his stance up and blade ready to guard. This isn't good for him, his opponent's semblance has multiple abilities to it. While all his does is give himself and everyone around him bad luck. He truly doesn't know if even himself and Mercury can beat him even if they work together. So he does the best think he can think of at that moment, pumps up to power of his bad luck to maximum, while it is essentially a double edged blade, ironically it is still up to luck to see which one will give the other an opening for an attack. All Qrow needs to do is break his aura, that way he won't be able use his semblance to attack and would be forced to retreat, he guesses that Marcus should be around 70-80 percent after the shotgun blast and slash he received from his weapon. But he is at 70 percent himself, so they are still evenly matched. His train of thought is cut off as the stand off between the two rivals is interrupted by Mercury. This time his attack is more coordinated as he gives a glance to Qrow as he dashes by, Qrow notices this just in time to react and charge Marcus from a different side, the plan is to divert his attention and attack him from different sides, under the assumption that he can't attack and defend at the same time. Their assumption is correct as Marcus' cocky expression turns into one of slight concern as he is forced to jump back to avoid Mercury's kick, just as he lands Qrow swings his sword at him, which he leans back just in time to avoid. But before he can think to attack, Mercury comes in from his side and swings his leg to his side, which Marcus is forced to block this time, which gives Qrow the opening he needs to stab his sword through his back. However, once again, the blade passes through smoke and nearly stabs Mercury through the chest. Luckily he got out of the way just in time for the blade to just cut a single hair of his head off.
"Damn it! We were so close!" Mercury frustratedly says.
"You did better this time."
Marcus is the one to be the aggressor this time, as he dashes toward the two from behind, but Qrow's bad luck finally kicks in, and his foot gets caught on a root sticking out of the ground by a nearby tree, making him almost fall to the ground, Qrow and Mercury think of the same thing, and fire off their ranged attacks at the same time, however Qrow's semblance kicks in once again, making his weapon jam. But Mercury's semblance does fire off, and manages to soot his father in the shoulder, but he is protected by his aura once more. But as he twirls his body from the momentum of the shot from his own son, he kicks two projectiles out of one leg toward the two. They duck under the shot and push off with their legs for more close quarter combat. But Marcus turns into smoke again and reforms above the two as the wildly miss their attacks, and uses gravity plus the momentum from his blast, to slam the two down into the ground, and then kicks them both away into a nearby building, easily breaking down the wall and creating a large dust cloud. After a couple of moments Marcus calls out to them,
"Oh come on guys, I know you wouldn't have died from something that simple, come back out and keep entertaining me!" Marcus shouts as he holds his arms out invitingly.
On the inside of the building, Mercury is crouched down while constantly emitting just enough smoke to make it look like the dust around them. "So got any other bright ideas?" Mercury asks his ally.
"Zip, this guy must have done some serious training to get this strong. Don't you two have the same semblance?" Qrow asks as he loads his gun.
"As much as I hate to admit it, yes. But not nearly as evolved as his version is… I have one thing left up my sleeve." Mercury says as he rips off the parts of his pants below the knee.
"Kid how is that going to help?" Qrow asks, confused.
"Trust me, this is something he won't expect." Mercury promises with a smile on his face.
"I hope so for our sake, I'll crank down the bad luck meter to give you the time you need, and I'll distract him." Qrow declares as he stands up and prepares to jump out.
"Wait!" Mercury whisper screams to regain his attention. "If you're too close you will get caught in it, it's impossible to miss so when you see it, dodge please, I don't need another reason for the girls to hate me."
"Sure kid." Qrow replies with a smirk on his face, kinda impressed with Mercury's newfound ability to care about what others think of him.
They nod to each other then Qrow dashes back out and clashes with the older Black once again.
"There you are! What happened to Junior?" Marcus asks through grit teeth as they fight.
"Out of commision." Qrow lies as he swings his sword as fast as his body allows him to.
"Already? I was hoping to kill you in front of him but I guess killing you will be good enough for now."
While Marcus is distracted Mercury begins charging up his semblance to its maximum destructive capability, what he is planning to do is create something similar to what he did to Yang in the Vytal tournament, but about 100 times deadlier. He lets the smoke rise up into the sky and blends it in with the grey clouds above them, he grits his teeth as he releases the most smoke he has ever let out before. After this attack, his aura will be nearly drained, and his heart will take a beating, but it will at the very least break his crazed father's aura. The huge downside to this attack is that he needs time to get it ready, if Qrow wasn't here he is sure Marcus would be having his way with him by now, which would probably involve a lot of torture.
Marcus and Qrow are now in a relatively even fight. Qrow decided it's finally time to go all out, and their speed can easily surpass the speed of Qrow and Tyrians fight that feels it was so long ago to Qrow now. Marcus barely has time to use his semblance to reposition himself, and when he does Qrow predicts his movements and either blocks or counters the attack. Marcus notes that the little trick he came up with isn't going to work anymore, and goes back to his old ways. Good ol fashioned punches and kicks without cheapshots. Marcus primarily uses his kicks when he fights just like his son, but his style his much more aggressive and punishing than his counterparts. He manages to break Qrow's guard and attempts to axe kick him right on the top of his head. Seeing that he can't avoid it, and can't really block it either, Qrow decides to do the unexpected, and headbutts the absolute fuck out of Marcus, disorienting him, and nearly breaking his nose.
"Move now!" Mercury screams as he launches his attack. Qrow doesn't hesitate to go into his bird form and fly off to Mercurys side right away. Marcus looks toward his son as he holds his face, and widens his eyes as he recognizes the move, it's his own move, except there is something different about it. Mercury performs an axe kick and all the hundreds if not possibly a thousand of smoke projectiles in the shape of spears and various other types of throwing weapons, all converge on Marcus while he is dazed. Marcus finds himself surrounded by the weapons made of smoke and sees no openings to get away from the attack, although he knows he can't anyway because this attack was developed to be impossible to dodge. He can't focus hard enough on transforming his body to smoke either, and even if he was able to he doesn't know what would happen if a smoke spear can damage him while he is in that form. So he does the best thing he can think of, and turtles up, getting low to the ground and uses his legs to block as much of his torso as he can. Just in time because the weapons all hit him from all sides at once, exploding in a dark gray cloud of mist. Mercury falls to his hands and knees after the attack while holding the left side of his chest. But despite the pain he laughs to himself, assuming that he has defeated his father once again.
"Hahaha, got the fucker again." Mercury mutters to himself between laughs.
Qrow however, has his sight locked on the smoke cloud, expecting Marcus to jump out any time now, soon the smoke dissipates away, and Marcus can be seen in a standing position, his red shirt now completely ripped in every which way, his pants ripped on his right leg and his left leg sparking a little bit. Blood trickles down his head as he stares at his son with both anger and crazed happiness.
"You little shit, almost killed me again! With my own move no less! If it wasn't for using my semblance at the last second I might have died!" Marcus shouts psychotically at his son.
"What?! There's no way Marcus survived that! I put everything into that final attack…" Mercury says as he begins to get a little emotional, believing that he failed to avenge his mother once again, and combined with the fact that all this time his father has been alive and kicking and getting stronger to the point that he doesn't stand a chance against him. His falls face first into the ground, unconscious after over exerting himself and his aura is down.
Qrow looks down at the unconscious Mercury and sighs. "Well, at least you managed to kill his aura, or at the very least put it down to critical levels." Qrow says as he transforms his weapon into it's shotgun form and fires it at Marcus with no hesitation.
Marcus barely has enough time to react in time and dodges the attack, and before Qrow can ready his gun again, he starts dashing toward him with an even more psychotic look on his face then before. Qrow gets ready to counter but suddenly he changes course to the downed Mercury, Qrow can't aim his weapon fast enough to stop him, and he doesn't this kid who is finally going down the right path for once to die yet, so he jumps in front of Marcus and takes the blow for him, causing him to cough up a bit of blood. As the foot is lodged in Qrows gut so hard that he drops his sword, he grabs Marcus' boot with one hand to keep him in place, and delivers a kick of his own to the side of Marcus' head. It hurts him, but it isn't enough to deter him from attacking again, Qrow barely saw his aura break with that last kick. Knowing that he still has a good amount of his aura, he allows himself to be kicked away. Marcus looks back down to where Mercury was but chuckles when he sees that he is no longer there. He looks over to where he kicked Qrow and sees that he has Mercury in one of his arms.
"I got to get this kid out of here, I can't fight to my fullest while constantly protecting him. Damn, I might have been able to get rid of this guy now if that wasn't the case." Qrow mutters to himself as he jumps to up to the buildings roof. Before he leaves he looks down at his long time rival as he laughs maniacally.
"Where are you going man?! I thought we had something going here!" Marcus taunts, he tried using his semblance to transform into smoke to chase after him, but with his lack of aura all he'd be doing is injuring himself further. As much as he wants revenge on his son for almost killing him, he can't do it if he is dead himself.
"Next time we're fighting one on one Black, I'll finish what we started today." Qrow promises.
"Next time we fight Qrow, there won't be anything left of you." Marcus promises, placing a fist on his chest as if he is saluting his rival. Funny enough Qrow does the same thing, the two promise each other to end each other the next time they fight, and only one of them will be able to keep their promise. No more words are shared as Qrow jumps from building to building and eventually out of sight of the black. Everyone has been taken a large amount of damage, Mercury more emotional than physical, Marcus physically but evidently not enough, and the biggest blow dealt to Qrow was the blast to his pride when he was forced to run away. He would never admit it to Marcus or even himself that he would have lost if the fight continued the way it did, he doesn't know about Marcus but he knows that age is finally catching up with him judging by his slower than usual movements. Qrow himself is also hating himself for leaving these Atlas people behind, sure they are not the most pleasant people to be around but no one but a few select people actually deserves the kind of death that they are getting. Qrow swallows down his emotions and pride and gets away from all the chaos, now all he has to do is find a way to Atlas…
Sanus, Ilia
Three days after her encounter with the Summer Maiden
An update on Ilias whereabouts
After her run in with the Maiden, Ilia has achieved a new goal beside the one she left Haven with. When she gets to Vacuo and later Shade, she will speak to the headmaster about the White Fang activity first, and then the about the Maiden that she ran into. Right now she is near the kingdom of Vacuo, in the village just before Vacuo itself. This is her last stop before Vacuo, and she stocks up on food and water as much as her pack can hold, and departs, not bothering to converse with any of the villages inhabitants despite some of them trying to speak to her. She has been thinking a lot about the Maidens recently after her encounter with one, and resulting from that a bit of an existential crisis, all this time the worlds biggest problems were the White Fangs terrorism and Grimm. But the whole time there was a war that no one even knew about that could decide the fate of Remnant itself, and it has discouraged her from looking for Adam. The White Fang isn't even being talked about in this part of the world on top of that, she is thinking that she is just wasting time over here, but if that is the case she might as well get at least some information on the Maiden that is hiding in plain sight. Her thoughts everywhere, and a many hours later, she can see the kingdom of Vacuo in the horizon. It's high walls higher and thicker than any other defensive walls in all of the kingdoms, and still has buildings that can be seen peeking over the walls.
"Finally." Ilia says as she exhales with a smile.
Solitas, Literally everyone else.
"Oh gosh." I say as Yang points to me and tells me to explain what is going on, they did not expect me to find the Fall Maiden so quickly and then get over here before they even get to Atlas. After Ruby is finished reuniting with her father, she turns her attention back to me and my team, tears of joy threatening to spill from her eyes. She has been worried ever since Mercury told them all that a enhanced Tyrian was going after me. But since I am here an healthy brings joy to her heart. But as much as she wants to bury her face in my chest she knows that this is neither the time or the place to do so, especially with all these people around.
"So am I supposed to start in the beginning? Because that would take way too long." I continue.
"Before any of you speak I would like to know exactly what is going on here." Winter interrupts. Making her presence known and breaking the touching reunion moment. "Weiss, do you have any idea what has been going on here?" Winter continues now that she has everyone's attention.
"Well I just got here so no." I reply honestly, despite the question not being directed to me.
"Quiet you! Answer the question Weiss." Winter says bitterly.
"Winter… what's going on?" Weiss squeaks, very uncomfortable by the uncharacteristic tone coming from her older sister.
"What's going on is father making crazed and irrational decisions, did you really think that everything would be just be fine over here while you go off on a random mission to save the world?" Winter asks again in an even more bitter tone.
"What are you talking about?" I bud in, impatient with this squabble already. "Enough with all the vague questions, just tell us what's going on."
"... Very well." Winter states as she calms down a bit, recognizing her own unnecessary behavior. "I'll start from the very day that Weiss left Atlas…"
Flashback, the day that Weiss ran away from home
"What do you MEAN she's gone?!" Jacques asks one of the poor maids that went to go check on her.
"S-s-sir, she is not in her room, a-and it appears that she took some of her belongings with her, i-including her weapon." The maid answers in a scared tone.
"Ugh! That stupid little bitch! I want every security officer and camera focused on finding her!" Jacques screams as he pushes the maid out of his way and toward his office. Of course on the way he is met by General Ironwood himself before he can enter his office. "Ironwood…" Jacques greets bitterly. "You wouldn't know where my daughter ran off to now would you?"
"What? She is missing?" Ironwood asks with widened eyes, shocked with the revelation.
"Yes, she apparently decided to run off. I noticed how gentle you treated her despite how much of a failure she was so I figured It would be a nice start to begin with you."
"If it were me I would have arrested you for child neglect and abuse long ago before it got to this point." Ironwood fires back angrily.
"Watch your tongue General! I could still take that badge from you whenever I want, remember who is in charge here." Jacques yells as he weakly pushes past the general.
However the General has other plans, his presence here is not helping anyone, and it is not in the slightest helping with the near complete construction. Furthermore, the main reason he was here was for personal matters, such as making sure Weiss was not abused in more violent ways, and looking for a way to put Jacques behind bars where he belongs. So he does the next thing that even he would not have expected himself to do.
"Jacques." He calls out to the Schnee family leader, who turns his head to look at him before he enters his office, he barely has the reflexes to catch the item that was thrown in his direction, he looks down at it and widens his eyes, it's the badge that he gave the General when he became the head of security of the Schnee household. He gave him the position after the attack on Beacon out of fear that Atlas would be next, or at least that what he told himself to make himself feel better. The decision received backlash from the public because the General was needed in both the military and the school, despite of his past failures in Beacon. But since the Schnee's so much pull in the council, he managed to get them to turn a "blind eye" of sort and allow this decision to be made.
"I am no longer the head of security for this facility, take that has my resignation." The General states as he turns around. "I have more concerning matters to attend to as the headmaster of Atlas academy and as a holder of two seats of the Atlesian council. Good day." and with that the General makes his leave, leaving the stunned Schnee who can barely think straight, he squeezes the badge given to him and grits his teeth, then enters his office and slams the door shut, making all the stewards and maids wince at the sound.
"Let's make it a point not to anger him today." The head steward says, everyone can agree to that statement.
"Wait pause right there, how do you know about the parts you weren't there for?" I interrupt with a question, trying to see that logic in all this.
"I was thinking the same thing…" Thinks everyone else in the Bullhead.
"Shut up and you'll learn how I do." Winter scolds, making me shrink in my seat, and my face heats up from the embarrassment of jumping to conclusions too fast.
"There, there." Ruby comforts as she pats my shoulder.
"Alright, sorry about that." I say as I rub the back of my neck with my free hand.
"Who are you anyway?." Winer asks me, ignoring my apology.
"Well you know that Haven was attacked right? And it was saved by a certain someone and his friends?"
"Yes…"
"That was me."
"I see, you do fit the description. Well I thank you for your bravery to stand against such powerful enemies by yourself Hector Rivers, now please be quiet until I am finished." Winter surprises me with the sudden polite tone of voice she allowed me to hear.
"I uh… thanks." I respond as I rub the back of my head.
And then the story continued...
Back to the Flashback
General Ironwood is on his personal Bullhead just after he resigned from his position as head of security of the Schnee household.
"Put me in contact with Specialist Schnee, I must inform her myself of the stunt her younger sister has just pulled." He demands from the pilot who follows the order right away.
With barely any ringing time Winter picks up the scroll. The reason that they are still able to contact each other is because of the advanced technology that Atlas has kept to themselves for the most part, long range communications would only work on their continent though, anything beyond that and it would get too staticy and incoherent to understand. "Sir," Winter greets right away in her military voice.
"Specialist Schnee, abort your mission to find the Winter Maiden, I need you in Atlas for something more important that can only be spoken of in person." Ironwood orders.
"Of course, I'll be there as soon as I can, but it may take some time." Winter replies.
"As long as you get here it is fine, but know that you are on a undetermined time limit."
"Yes sir!" No more words are shared as they hang up at the same time.
Time passes and the Battle of Haven has just ended, since news travel slowly because of the destruction of the CCT tower Atlas has just heard of the attack just a few days after it happened. During that time Winter has arrived to Atlas, since she was deep in the snow mountainous lands of Atlas without any reliable meaning of transportation, and the harsh snowy weather prevents any air travel, she was forced to hike it back toward an area where she would be able to travel by air. The results of her mission were… unproductive to say the least. The only lead she had was that she was deep in the frozen uninhabitable mountains of Atlas, she made the assumption that the Winter Maiden is able to survive there is because of two things, Magic, and well, being the Winter Maiden in the coldest part of Remnant. After some time like she said, she was finally able to make it back to a Military base in Atlas, the very one Ironwood happens to be in. During all of her traveling she is still oblivious to what has been going on ever since the Fall of Beacon, all of RWBY's and RNJR's actions at Haven and even the attack on Haven itself is not known to her at this time. Soon after searching the base for the General, she is called to his office.
"Specialist Schnee, Glad you could finally make it." Ironwood greets as she shuts the door behind her. "Did you manage to make any progress on her whereabouts?" Ironwood asks, referring of course to the Winter Maiden.
"On the information I was given, I was not able to even find a trace of her, and even with my natural resistance to the cold I was not able to search for longer than a couple of days before I was forced to rest and warm back up. All in all, the mission was a failure." Winter reports as she hangs her head in shame.
"No worries, I had my own skepticism that it would be that simple to find her anyway." Ironwood says with a small smile on his face, but it fades away as fast as it came and he gets much more serious, preparing for a potential snap coming from the usually stoic Schnee. "Much has happened while you have been away, take a seat and I will inform you of everything."
Winter does as he asks, and listens intently on what the General has to say.
"Your sister has left her home." Ironwood gets out right away, Winter widens her eyes out of worry and fear for her younger sisters safety. "What!? When!? How!? Where is she now?" Winter stammers.
"As far as I know she is fine, now get a hold of yourself." Ironwood gently scolds, making Winter calm down ever so slightly. "Furthermore there has been an attack on Haven academy, similar to the attack on Beacon a year before, but it was thwarted before it could get too out of hand… by none other the remaining members of Team JNPR, an unknown but very powerful huntsman, Qrow, and none other than Team RWBY." Ironwood reveals.
Winter sighs in relief at the news, now all she has to worry about is the rash decisions that her father is no doubt making. "Where is she now?"
"Unknown, we sent a small team to look for her but she was long gone and apparently no one knew about it, but apparently Qrow is acting as the temporary Headmaster for Haven at this time."
"Sir… with all due respect, you must be joking about that last part." Winter says with the same shocked expression after hearing the news.
Ironwood lets out a small amused chuckle. "I'm afraid that the rumors are true. That is an update on the state of the world as of now, Vacuo is still relatively unscathed even after everything but we can't rule them out as potentially our enemies next target, but we can't rule out our own kingdom as their next target. Now I know that you are not exactly fond of your father, but I need you to make sure he doesn't do anything to rash and compromise the security of the kingdom or academy."
"Sir, again, with all due respect my father wouldn't hear me out or even allow with anything regarding Schnee business, ever since I became a huntress he took away my own heiress status and practically disowned me." Winter argues maturely.
"Which is why, just between us, I am putting you undercover as a secret agent, while the public will be told that you have quit your career as a huntress to support your family full time. This way, legally Jacques will be forced to return the status of heiress to you, giving you access to his funds and since you are a full grown woman, a mandatory portion of the power of the Schnee business overall. With you on the inside we will be able to finally be able to make serious steps toward a better kingdom. I will be honest with you Winter, your name, and your status will be taken advantage of by us. But for the greater good. I can only hope that you understand, and you do have a choice in the matter, but if you decline we will have to take… different measures." Ironwood explains.
Winter stays silent in her seat, looking at the ground and not daring to look back up to his face. He says that she has a choice but in reality, the only logical choice to is to go with the Generals plan, otherwise she has no doubt in her mind that things would resort to violence, and Atlas doesn't need any more negative thoughts being made about them.
"Very well, how often must I stay in contact?" Winter asks in a monotone voice.
"Every night, you will send us a report via electronic message through a private and secured channel." Ironwood orders, he is not happy with the decision that he has been forced to make Winter choose between, he knows that it wasn't really a choice, but an ultimatum. But he is glad that Winter is able to put aside her pride to do this for the sake of Atlas and its people.
"Yes sir, when will this "news" be made public?"
"As soon as possible, it is best that you set a path to the Schnee household as soon as possible."
"Okay, I'll be there." Winter says as she gets up and places her hands behind her lower back.
"You are dismissed Specialist Schnee."
Short Time Skip…
Winter has made it back to Atlas, at this point in time RNJR and RWBY are already well into their respective missions, and Winter has just made it to the Schnee household, news have rapidly spread around the entire kingdom about Winter Schnees return to the business, and her apparent resignation from her career as a huntress. To her surprise she isn't met with hostility at the gates to the household, but is instead invited in by several Maids and Stewards. Soon she is lead to her father's office, and walks in. It has been a long time since these two has been in a room together, they haven't spoken in many years, much less form any sort of meaningful relationship with one another. She tried finding her mother first, but of course she is still locked away in her bedroom, no doubt drinking as much as she can. The room is at first full of a tense silence as they stare each other down, that is until Jacques makes a forced smile and greets his estranged daughter.
"Oh Winter, it has been far far too long. I am so glad you decided to finally rid yourself of that dream of being a huntress and returned to the real world." He says in an almost taunting tone as he gently holds his daughter's hand.
Winter want's to backhand the shit out of her father for daring to touch her hand and greet her in such a way after not seeing her for so long, but she has to stick with the plan. "Yes… It is good to see you father." Winter almost gags on the words right there. "I've come to my senses, I want my heiress status back, and I will do whatever I can to support you and this company." Winter recites with a forced smile.
Jacques actually widens his eyes in disbelief after hearing this, he thinks, 'Finally! At least one of my daughters actually know how to obey.' But what he actually says is this, "Don't worry by daughter, I will show you everything you need to do."
"I look forward to it."
After her uncomfortable talk with her father, Winter knew that it was time to go see her brother, in her mind she knows that Whitley is not going to be exactly happy to see her, since he just got his heir status removed and returned to Winter, and he just got it the day before Weiss ran away. But despite that, Whitely but on his best facade, as a command from his father…
"Hello, older sister, it has been far too long since I've seen you. How have you been?" Whitely asks in an almost robotic tone, and extends his hand out to shake Winter's hand.
Winter, having to be on the good side of everyone here to avoid suspicion, puts on a smile for her younger brother, despite his imperfections she still hopes that she can at least save him from the monster she knows as their father. "Whitley, It has certainly been far too long, I am sorry that I haven't been able to come home and see you."
"Nonsense sister, you had your duty as a huntress, and I had my duty here as our fathers son. I am certainly glad that you have returned however, I look forward to working with you in the future." Whitley replies with the same almost scary looking smile on his face. Whitley could have sworn that she saw his eye twitch for a moment, but passes it off as him just blinking his eye.
"... and for the past few months, I've been feeding information to Ironwood, and doing my best to keep the company and my father from sinking the kingdom. Which is why I couldn't go after you Weiss, I was too busy keeping father from destroying Atlas, I think he has been talking to someone, someone that is not appropriate or necessary to be in contact with. Everytime I try to get him to tell me who it is he either dodges the question or gets hostile with me." Winter explains.
Beside Tai and Raven who are standing in the back, everyone else including myself are left thinking intently on what we had just heard, except my mind immediately shifts to Salem, I have almost no doubt that this Jacques guy is talking to Salem and scheming with her, and with the information that Winter told us I can make the assumption that she doesn't know about Salem. Also it would just be plot for Jacque to be a dick like that.
"Well that makes things difficult…" I point out the obvious.
Jacques private office, Soon after the Battle with Tyrian
Jacques is furious, he paces around his room thinking about how foolish of a daughter he spawned into this world, "Not only did she disobey me on multiple accounts, but she has realigned herself with those girls? Damn her, that will not make things look good for me if the public finds out that she ran away." Jacques rants to himself.
All the negative feelings he is feeling attracts a certain someone, and the same Jellyfish Grimm that Leonardo fell victim to makes its presence known by glowing a vibrant evil Red color. Jacques at first is understandably terrified, "How did a Grimm get past all of my security?"
"Jacques Schnee, I have a proposition for you." The orb speaks.
Jacques is surprise, stunned, and terrified all at once after just hearing the voice, and he loses control of his legs as he falls back into his chair when the orb floats closer to him. "W-who are you?"
"Your Queen, and I have a demand to make. I need you to… make something for me." The orb speaks as it drops a certain severed Grimm scorpion tail that belonged to an old enemy. "Give me access to everything you have power to."
"Who are you to make demands of m- AGH" Jacques is cut off as the Jellyfish wraps one of its tentacles around his neck and lifts him off the ground.
"You will follow these commands like a good dog, or else I will kill you in a very slow way, tell the authorities, you die, tell anyone else without my permission, and you die. Any objections now?" Salem asks as she drops him to the ground, he coughs up a storm and nearly throws up after this is done to him.
"N-no mam." he surrenders.
"Good, I will tell you when I need you to open your gates, stay loyal to me and you get to live."
Transition
Behind the orb Salem can be seen smiling, and around her are more Grimm hybrids, the same type that I fought against before and nearly lost to. She doesn't bother saying anything else to Jacques and allows the Jellyfish to float out of the open window. She stands up and looks at all of her masterpieces, but only one stands out from the others, a work in progress, after learning of Tyrian's defeat she didn't seem to be bothered at all, and now that she is alone in her own castle she can go back to her project that she has been working on ever since she lost control of me after she was so close. This particular Grimm Hybrid is much more human than any of the others, and holds a striking resemblance to myself, except with no genitals or any unnecessary organs, 'The Perfect Servant' she calls it. She took my DNA from the blood I spilled from both the Battle of Haven, and the Battle against Tyrian, and before she gave the Tail to Jacques, she already remade Tyrian. He stands next to the pod and smiles as his brother is being created.
"When will he be done my Queen?" He asks in a raspy voice.
"Soon, very soon. He will be at the very least equal to that boys maximum power, but he will not get tired, neither does he feel any pain, and he is designed to obey me. He has no soul, and I have sacrificed a good portion of my own dark magic to allow him to use the same power that his counterpart uses. He won't stand a chance against what he was supposed to be." Salem explains as she touches the pod. The fake me twitches at the contact, like he knows that his creator is there with him. "His name will be… Hell. Fitting for a creature of his power.
Present
"How close are you to being done with this data?" Hell speaks from a dark corner of Jacques room. He looks almost exactly like me, but with snow white skin, Grimm eyes that have a small glowing red color to them, and with Veins in the same pattern as his creator, his clothes are also similar to mine, but none of the designs that I have are visible.
"AH! How do you keep doing that?" Jacques asks, his heart nearly jumping out of his chest.
"None of your business, my mother has been growing impatient with you."
"I-I-I am nearly finished with the data transfer, I had to pull a lot of strings to get this far. I am nearly finished I just need more time." Jacques pleads.
"Hmm, very well. You're lucky I was designed to be patient." The clone says.
An alert appears on the Schnees desktop, when he checks he can see a live video feed of an incoming Bullhead, full of people he is not exactly fond of, along with both of his daughters. "It seems we are going to have company, I knew that Winter was untrustworthy."
"Hm, finally, I'll be able to rid this world of my inferior counterpart." Hell says in a monotone emotionless voice. But he says it with a smile on his face. "Now is the time, open the gates." Hell demands.
"B-but it is too early! People will die and-"
"Does it look like I care?" Hell asks in an irritated voice, his eyes shining an evil red as he almost kills the pathetic man right there.
"No, I can see now that you don't, please keep your promise and allow my son to live."
"Hmph."
Every gate to the futuristic city is opened, and before anyone can realize it, they are being invaded by thousands of Grimm of all kinds. Jacques can't bear to watch any of this, and just slumps back down in his chair, thinking about what he has just done. In time, the only things that stand in the Grimm's way is an entire school worth of trained huntsman and huntsman in training.
The surprise attack on the kingdom of Atlas begins, will our heroes be able to save another kingdom?
AN- Oh boy, I'm not sure if people are going to like this one, but I got an idea in my head and I had to go with it, I hope you all enjoyed it. Not much else to say this time, but next chapter is going to be a doozy let me tell ya.
Please review and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer- I do not own RWBY in any way shape or form
