The plot is shaping up, as Ruby makes it clear who's side shes on, but whats a story without drama eh?
there is a text log later in the chapter and since I'm publishing this on mobile, and there doesn't appear to be a right indent option, I'm underlining outgoing texts, which will probably be the way it happens from now on.
as usual I don't own anything but the story.
"Ok, what happened in there?" Qrow asked the trio as they exited, "We could feel the pressure out here."
"Ozpin asked me why I hadn't told him about the WMDs, and I gave my reasons," Ruby replied curtly, as they strode towards the elevator.
"Which were?"
"I didn't feel like it would become important, considering how destructive they were, this world wouldn't really have a use for them, and that I don't know much about the internal process. As well as the fact that I don't trust him."
"And why don't you trust him, I've been working with him for quite some time, and he's-"
"Because, Qrow, when you have worked in what I have for as long as I have, you learn things, and I can tell two things about Ozpin," Ruby told her uncle and Tai.
"1, he is much older than he seems, his eyes give that much away, and with this world throwing things out of the window with semblances, I am willing to say that my judgment isn't wrong there. And 2, he has secrets, lots of them, many I am willing to believe not even you, are privy to. So until he either explains himself, or gives me a very good reason why he hasn't, I have made it very clear that I am willing to cut ties to him."
Qrow and Tai looked at Ruby for a moment, seeing the glare, and immediately averting their eyes, as they rode the elevator down.
"Look, Ruby," Qrow said, staring at the floor, "You may be right on both those accounts, but I'm sure Ozpin has his reasons, he hasn't lead me astray so far, and I've been working for him longer than you've been alive, even with the space shenanigans." The elevator slowed down as he continued, "So trust me when I say, we're the good guys,"
"I'm sorry, but I'll have to be the judge of that." Ruby replied, "ONI, may have been 'The Good Guys,'" she said in air quotes, "But I sure as hell don't know any organization so twisted or corrupt. Even it what Arbiter says is true about the Covenant, about how controlling and manipulative the Prophets were, I can assure you ONI was 10 times worse, and I am not making my team have to witness that."
"I see…"
Blake, Yang, and Tai were sweating bullets right at this moment, with Ruby digging into them as she was, so nervously, Yang tried to change the subject.
"So, uh… What do you think is going to happen with Arbiter and the Chief?" She managed, with a weak smile.
"My honest opinion?" Ruby asked, "We're probably going to investigate the Forerunner facility that I arrived in, before heading to Atlas to negotiate with General Ironwood."
"We?" Tai asked, worried,
"Well considering I know the facility best, and will probably be asked to join as I presume Ozpin told Ironwood about me, I will need to be there for negotiations."
"Well, I'm coming with you," Yang told her sister, "You're not going off on any adventures on your own."
"I should go to keep them out of trouble then, shouldn't I?" Blake said to no-one in particular, though it was more of an excuse as she wanted to stay with her team.
"Thanks, guys," Ruby smiled, "You do realize this could be dangerous right?"
"Yup!" Was Yang's enthusiastic reply, "All the better!"
"Having your sister back has changed you a lot huh, Firework?" Qrow, hummed at her niece, and taking a swig from her flask.
"Yeah, having her back has taken a weight off my mind, I feel like I can finally do the stuff I wanted to, nothing's holding me back."
"Well, don't go too crazy," he warned, smiling.
Weiss' day had been going on as best as she could have hoped, her father teaching her business, and getting irritated at her 'lack of manners' ever since she started at Beacon, despite it being identical to when she left, Whitley was as condescending and annoying as ever, her mother was holed up in her room again, they had exchanged a brief conversation when she had arrived, but unfortunately, it was cut short when Weiss had been dragged away on 'more important matters.'
As always, the little solace she found in the Schnee Manor, at least when Winter wasn't visiting, was in Klein, who always did his best to keep her spirits up, no matter which personality was in control at the time, each of them, just having their own ways to go about it. Weiss was honestly worried that one of them would get him fired one day, with how wreckless Red could get with his jabs and anger sometimes.
So she sat in her room, thinking about her team and how much fun they were probably having right now, when she got a message. Checking and finding out it was from Blake, she was curious, and seeing the message said 'Check the news, but don't worry, much to Ruby's discomfort, apparently we're cool now.' only made her more curious.
So she opened the Vale news app on her scroll, seeing as it was probably there this was happening, and on the front page, there was an Elite standing next to a Spartan, as well as Professor Goodwitch, and Dr. Ooblek he newscasters taking photographs as the whole thing was being streamed. Sitting up straight, she unmuted the feed and began listening in.
"-Am Arbiter of Sanghelios, and this is The Master Chief of the UNSC, We come in peace." The deep voice of the Elite was heard through her tinny scroll speakers. "Our ship experienced an accident in slipspace, our method of travelling between the stars, and crash-landed in the Ocean. We managed to get in contact with Headmaster Ozpin, who has said that he will arrange a meeting with General Ironwood of Atlas, to see about building a replacement ship for us, so that we may return to our worlds."
They were assaulted by questions, but one reporter managed to get the floor and asked,
"How can you travel in space if Dust doesn't work in a vacuum?"
"We did not have Dust on our worlds, nor Aura, semblances or Grimm," Arbiter explained, "And so we adapted different ways of producing energy, and propulsion. We are willing to trade this information if it will get us a ship back home."
"What is space like?" Another reporter asked,
"Aside from your species, are we alone?"
"It can be quite trying sometimes, as a people who have not been able to break their atmosphere, even more so for you, but you are not alone, there are several species of sentient life known to us, and probably more we have not discovered yet. For we have not covered much of the galaxy, at least, compared to a civilization's ruins we have discovered from long ago."
Having seen enough for now, Weiss texted back Blake,
What!!? Weren't we supposed to be at war with them?
Well, apparently a lot has happened in the 4 months Ruby has been gone, and the Covenant basically fell apart after learning their whole religion was based off of a lie.Oh, and the Spartan, he's the other Hyper Lethal.
The what?
The other Hyper Lethal Vector, remember? Ruby said there was only 1 other person to get the designation of Hyper Lethal, that's the guy.
Really?
Yeah, Ruby seems to think that we're going to investigate the ruins that brought her here before coming up to Atlas for negotiations, so Ironwood can help produce a space-worthy vessel. The Chief has the AI Ruby was in charge of delivering, and she has schematics for a ship.
…
This is a lot to take in.
Tell me about it, hopefully we can see you when we come up to Atlas, Yangs not letting Ruby go on her own, and I need to look after both of them, so I'm tagging along too.
But we have a lot to talk about.
They texted for a bit longer, explaining the crash, before her father burst into the room.
"Where have you been!?" He scolded, "I've been waiting for you in my office for the past 10 minutes, do you expect to inherit this company not knowing how to run it?"
"I was just about to start heading over," she lied, "I was just texting one of my teammates."
"..." He paused for a moment, "I hope it wasn't that Faunus you talked about. A Schnee shouldn't be seen with those hooligans, I should have a word with the headmast-"
"It was… in fact with 'the Faunus,'" Weiss cut him off, "And it was about what's on the news."
He narrowed his eyes at her cutting him off, as well as the tone, but seemed to let it slide when he asked, "What's on the news?"
"Apparently two aliens have crash-landed in the sea near Vale."
"Aliens?" He scoffed, "Preposterous, even if they did exist, how would they travel in space? Dust doesn't work in a vacuum."
Weiss just re-opened the news feed to show it was just ending,
"This has been Lisa Lavender reporting from Beacon Academy on the arrival of two Aliens after their ship crash-landed in the Vale Sea not 4 hours ago, back to the studio."
With even the short clip, there was ample time to get a good view of Arbiter and the Chief, she had held it up to Jacque for him to see this before closing it again,
"Apparently, they will be coming up to Atlas to see General Ironwood within a few days to discuss building a new ship for them." Weiss told him, "And my team is supposedly coming with them."
"Your team?" He confirmed, "Why would they want your team?"
"Supposedly their escape pod landed just in front of the house they were staying at, so Ruby took it upon herself to bring them to Ozpin."
"Again with that leader of yours, you never shut up about her." Jacque lamented, "I swear, you are obsessed with her."
"She is an admirable leader," Weiss countered, "She pushes all of us, and is one of the best people I know."
"Better than your own family?" He asked, mockingly
'By a mile,' she thought.
"It would certainly be up for debate,"
"Unbelievable." He sighed into his hand, shaking his head and taking a moment before continuing. "Well, considering this… development, we shall postpone your lesson while I go talk to James about this… thing."
He left then without a word.
'Well that went well,' she thought, turning back to her Scroll.
As Blake continued to text Weiss about what had happened, albeit a brief summary, not trusting the CCT communication signals for being secure enough to transmit that sensitive info, especially to Atlas, the group met up with Arbiter and Chief, having come back from their news statement.
"That should keep them off of our backs for a while," Cortana addressed them when they had reached each other, "So, where would the cave you arrived from be Ruby?"
"That would be Forever fall Forest," the Spartan III replied, "It spans to the North of Vale, and the Cave is about 43 miles from Beacon, I could see about getting a Bullhead to drop us off there."
"It sure beats walking," Yang voiced, leaning against a wall, arms crossed.
"I'm surprised it's so close," Cortana brought to their attention, "43 miles from the main Huntsman Academy this side of the Continent, you'd think Ozpin would know more about it considering how close it is.
That being said, considering how you said the monitor here seems to think that humans shouldn't be on this planet 'yet' probably explains it, he sent in a couple huntsman teams, they kept disappearing, he chalks it up to the local Grimm and declares it a lost cause. Though that doesn't explain why we haven't come across more people with strange weaponry, Aura and Semblances within UNSC space, unless they're part of the insurrection, or were mauled by Grimm. I'll have to check the databases when we get back."
"That or it's just another one of his secrets…" Ruby stopped Cortana mid-tangent to bring focus back to what was happening now, "Either way, You know more about the Forerunners than anyone on this planet, so he probably doesn't know anything you don't already know."
"True, but you can never be too sure," Cortana countered. To which Ruby shrugged.
"I'll Hire a Bullhead to take us out there," Ruby told them, "While I don't trust him, Ozpin has given me an 'allowance' until I get my huntress licence and can earn my own money."
It didn't take long before RBY, the Chief and Arbiter, were wandering the Forest, having left Qrow and Tai at Beacon, with the reasoning that everyone was in good hands and any more could potentially get in the way.
Ruby was surveying the area, looking for familiar landmarks that denoted the entrance to the Forerunner Facility. It was well hidden, but after a little while of searching, the group uncovered a familiar shining silver metal door, geometrical and without any obvious way to open it, until it suddenly opened itself, and a monitor came through.
"Reclaimers? What are you doing here?" It asked surprised. "I was told by the Librarian that you would not be arriving here for another 200 years, as by her Geas." It looked to the side for a moment,
"Though Since you're here, you might be able to help me with the problem in the main chambers."
