RWBY: Dual Eclipse
Author: Master C.V.G.
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
Scene Change
Author's Note: I really ought to apologize for how long this one took. Real life matters have been completely taking up a lot of my free time, and every time I get some ideas for this I end up losing motivation to actually sit down and begin putting those ideas to work.
Chapter 25: Decisions made
"Well, this has been a rather enlightening exchange. Much as I would like to stay and iron out the finer details, it is getting late." Ozpin had gotten up from his seat, preparing to head upstairs and back towards Beacon. His scroll showed that it was 8:53 P.M. already.
"Well, assuming nothing else goes awry, take it you'll be back to get those finer details ironed out?" Nelius had asked, mostly to be certain.
"As you said, assuming nothing else goes awry. I'll be in touch." With that, Beacon's Headmaster headed up the stairs and out the door.
After about two minutes to ensure Ozpin was out of earshot, Epsilon spoke up.
"Yeah, that signal from before... it had to have been following Ozpin, 'cause it almost started heading right for him after he left. It stayed right at that spot until he started heading back to Beacon."
"Though who would be stalking Ozpin? Cinder and her minions shouldn't know about this plan."
"Honestly, I would've thought it was that one chick that attacked us, but the signal is way different. It also isn't that Qrow guy, and after what happened last year I doubt Amber would be allowed to come down here unsupervised... still, I dedicated a moment to locking its signature in, so if it shows again we'll have a chance to track it."
"Excellent. I can only hope it's friendly... Ozpin's already had enough shit piled on his plate."
With a few hours remaining before he would head to bed, Nelius decided on doing some maintenance on the Dual Diver. What neither of them noticed, though, was a certain bird looking in on them.
The bird turned to leave with this new information in mind, only to immediately do something of a double-take as its eyes widened. In the time it took to blink, the sight it had beheld was gone.
Saturday, September 24
8:44 A.M. Mistrali Time
Agate took a moment to stretch as she roused herself from her bed, having not even bothered with covers thanks to the warm night. Changing out of her usual set of pajamas and into another combo of white blouse and green skirt, she headed downstairs to find Azura.
'Huh... she's not down here.' The living room was empty, the kitchen untouched from the previous night, and the bathroom door upstairs was still wide open... 'Front door's locked, maybe she went out to get food?'
Sound began to filter up through the floor, and a few sudden vibrations as well, alerting her to what was really going on once she felt out a pattern to the vibrations.
'Mystery solved~' Now thoroughly intrigued at what she knew was going on, she quickly moved back over towards the stairs, but instead of heading back upstairs, she opened the door on its side, revealing another stairwell headed downstairs.
The basement floor of the house was home to a large anatomical model that was held up by a weighted stand, and the floor proved to be a concrete base, one that looked to have been recently touched up on within the past few months.
Azura herself was clad in a dark-green pair of training shorts with a matching sports bra, a combination that answered any question related to her physical condition.
'Man, should've grabbed my Scroll~' Agate's attention was firmly focused on Azura as the latter practiced several combination strikes against the model, seamlessly flowing from focused hits on many weakpoints on the human body, to wild blows that were meant to cripple and disable. While most onlookers would've been focusing on Azura's strikes against the model, taking notes of where and how she struck, Agate's eyes were roaming across the latter's physical details, from her toned legs and abs to how her sports bra was putting up quite the fight to keep her sizeable chest from bouncing around due to the near-constant movement.
After about another five to six minutes of this, Azura grabbed her nearby towel from a small table to wipe away her sweat as she circled around to the model's back. She reached in, and disconnected her Scroll from multiple wires within it, withdrawing and opening it up in one motion. Information flowed across the screen, showing areas where Azura had improved on her stances, and of course where she could stand to improve.
'Speeds's good, accuracy is up about two percent compared to yesterday...probably should redirect my focus more towards a better one-two knockout pattern...'
However, she was about one-third of the way done with her review when she began to get a sinking feeling, like she had eyes upon her, ever-so quickly taking in her appearance. She whirled around on the spot-
"Hi hi Azzie~" - to find Agate sitting there on the steps, attempting to pull an innocent face, which would've worked better if not for the tiny line of drool escaping the right corner of her mouth.
"...Aggie, how long were you sitting there?"
"Oh, not too long."
"Somehow I doubt that." In response, Agate immediately put both of her hands over her heart with a sharp, overly dramatic gasp.
"Oh, such an accusation~ I'm wounded, wounded I say!"
"...Aggie, it is too early in the morning for this." Grabbing her belongings, Azura began heading upstairs, passing Agate. "Give me a moment to get cleaned up and we can go get food - and no, you're not joining me in the shower. I don't need a repeat of what happened before."
"Rats." Defeated, Agate pouted as Azura headed upstairs. It wasn't her fault that the previous apartment's shower suddenly fell through the floor and scared the crap out of their old neighbors.
Beacon Academy
9:21 A.M. Vale Time
Ozpin, thinking back on what Epsilon had told him the other night concerning the strange data packet, began connecting the dots.
'According to what Epsilon mentioned, this data packet showed up around the time their machine was brought to the meeting, and just over a week beforehand was the intruder at the CCT that Miss Rose intercepted... undoubtedly there ought to be a connection.'
If the intruder had uploaded malicious software to the CCT tower, then it was more than possible that it could've spread to nearly everyone's Scrolls in Vale by now, if not to the other towers. They'd need to work quickly to get this sorted out, especially before the Vytal Festival kicked off in earnest. With Amity Colosseum synched to Vale's CCT, that would turn the arena into a ticking time bomb, able to spread the malicious coding to the other towers with impunity.
Reaching into his desk, Ozpin got out a sheet of paper and a pen, and began writing. If he were going to get people on this matter, he'd need to do so in a discreet manner, one that should bypass the potential means of being traced.
'I can only hope this works as intended...'
As he continued writing down his request, something in the back of his mind was becoming more active, trying to urge him to finish his letter as soon as possible and find a private spot to begin working on regaining mastery over his old skills.
'...haven't felt like this in a long time...'
Several floors down, life around Beacon was continuing as usual... nobody had the capacity to notice the new visitor to its halls, one that passed by and passed through many, yet recognized none.
'So young, and yet so devoted to battle...' The spirit watched the various students, feeling their heart sink. Slowly, they wandered the halls, listening to small bits of chatter here and there.
In one of the early classes, Cinder was doing her part to look interested in the lecture... yet one could make out subtle tells that she was distracted by something... and if they had the capacity for mind-reading, they'd see images flashing through her mind, memories of a time she wanted to bury.
Her hands were beneath the desk, and they were tightly gripped, tight enough to cause her fingernails to begin digging into her palms. It was actually taking her some effort to keep a neutral expression as the rotund professor kept rambling on and on...
Emerald could see Cinder's clenched hands, how the knuckles were starting to turn a bit whiter than they normally were. She wanted to say something, anything... but with how distant Cinder had been as of late, part of her was hesitant.
Mercury and Neo, being seated closer to the back of the class, had a bit more leeway in letting their boredom show through; Mercury was balancing a pen on his nose, whilst Neo had snuck her Scroll out and was busy tapping through a small game she had downloaded. Thanks to her Semblance, nobody else but her would even notice she was busy playing.
On the other side of the classroom, Ruby looked like she was about to fall alseep, and it was only through a thankful nudge from her older sister that she was able to snap to attention a few seconds before Professor Port's gaze would've met her team. Weiss, as per usual, was attentive to the professor's lecture, though Blake had to give a small jab to herself with a fingernail to keep her mind from wandering.
Team JNPR was in a similar situation; Jaune had Pyrrha periodically poking him to keep him from drawing the teacher's ire, whilst Ren had his hands full keeping the tightly wound bundle of energy known as Nora from preparing to cause an outburst.
Warship Yoshitsuna
Unknown Time
"And now for you, Arthur! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
Zio clicked to a new channel.
"FFFZZZZTZZTZTTT - llo? Hello hello? Uhh, if you're hearing this, congratulations on your new job as a security officer-"
Another click, another channel.
"Hey there Dreamers. We're up and ready to party!"
Deciding this wasn't working, he worked on attuning to a new frequency, hopefully to cast a wider net, so to say. First attempt-
"01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101001 01110010 01100100 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110111 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001 00101110 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001100 01001001 01001011 01000101 01000100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01100100 01110011 00101110"
What came out was an unintelligble screech, one that made Zio immediately change the channel. After about a minute or so to let the ringing in his ears die down, he decided to step away.
"What the hell was that..." He decided to go visit the auto-doctor machine in the medbay, mostly to make certain that outburst didn't cause any hearing damage.
At the helm, Mita and Aika were continuing to exchange information.
'My my... a world that shattered, a whole place where four goddesses had to balance their influence...' To say that Mita was quite fascinated by this was understating it. She knew that once this extraction was over, she was going to have one hell of a spree visiting these new locations!
The Base
10:15 A.M.
"OK, that should do it." Nelius stepped around to the Dual Diver's control panel, and began running a diagnostics check. The machine hummed to life, data flowing across the screen as it showed the results of a recent dive back into Shatterpact.
"So far, no anomalies." Epsilon reported. "When do you imagine Ozpin will return?"
"Might be after he's gotten affairs sorted on his end, what with being Beacon's Headmaster and all. Probably also wrapped up in a lot of political drama, given what the Fang did."
About two minutes later, the diagnostics check completed, returning zero issues. Now came the question of what to do next.
With the tension from Torchwick's crime wave dropping off, and people starting to level off from their fears of the White Fang trying something else, Grimm attacks around Vale were starting to lessen at a fair rate. Of course, the number of attacks would never hit zero so long as at least one person still remained in the Kingdom, but the fewer attacks the better.
Epsilon had hit a bit of a stall in her investigation of the data packet that found its way into their Scroll. At that current moment, it was mostly them hoping that General Ironwood would find a lead on how to remove it without causing any issues. The identity of whomever planted it was also a good question, but one that would have to wait.
As things stood, his current weaponry was starting to slow down significantly in their advancement, so he could try to focus on getting himself some better items. Then again, there was still some lingering curiosity as to what the Notorious of Remnant-based weapons would look like, assuming their weaponry would be recognized by the Diver...
'Probably would end up being more species of Grimm, like the Subconscious inside of Ozpin's soul.'
Epsilon's mind, though, had turned to their encounter with the Unlosing Ranger over in Anima. It undoubtedly proved that others from their side of the cosmos had landed here, but at the same time also proved a blind spot in their idea - the Unlosing Ranger had always registered as a human, while they had been searching for other demons or angels.
This made her wonder: could other humans have landed here as well? How long ago did they land here? Were they still alive in that case?
Nelius switched the Dual Diver over to Soul Diving, and did a quick check to see if there were any new targets it might've picked on of its own accord. After the incident that caused everyone to delve into Ozpin's soul he wasn't taking any more chances.
"Two of 'em... wait a damn minute!"
One of the recent targets, clocked in at around 10:33 P.M. last night, was one Cinder Fall.
"...Cinder was targeted? Isn't this bad for us?"
"Might be, especially if she begins to piece it together.. then again, depending on what we know of how she acts, this could work against her, especially since the Soul Diver is meant to help sort out and overcome one's faults."
"Though the other one's still not giving a name... who could be on Remnant that would be nameless in this day and age?"
Suddenly the screen went blank again, displaying a message.
"It's happening again..." Nelius observed, preparing to read the message.
[I ASK THIS OF YOU, ONE WHOM IS NOT OF THE GODS]
[THE ONES I LEFT BEHIND ARE IN GRAVE TURMOIL AND DANGER]
[I CAN ONLY ASK THIS OF YOU; USE YOUR MACHINE AND EMPOWER THEM TO SURVIVE]
"Do you even have a name?"
[IN LIFE I DID, AND THOSE CLOSEST TO ME STILL KNOW OF ME]
[YOU HAVE SPOKEN WITH AT LEAST TWO OF THE ONES THAT KNOW ME]
[I WOULD LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN TO APPEAR, TO SPEAK WITH MY PARTNER AND MY FAMILY, BUT IF MY FATE IS TO BE SEPARATED FROM MY LOVED ONES AGAIN, THEN THIS IS THE ONLY PATH FORWARD TO ME]
[I DULY APOLOGIZE FOR THIS IN ADVANCE]
"Are you the one from Thursday?" Epsilon asked.
[I AM NOT]
[THERE ARE FOUR OTHERS WHO SEEK ASSISTANCE]
[YOUNG SOULS WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE EXPERIENCED WHAT THEY DID]
"Might we at least know what your purpose is?"
[...TO FINALLY PASS ON]
[TO FINALLY DISPEL THE CURSE AND HELP REMNANT PROSPER]
At that, the screen immediately changed back to its default menu.
"...this is getting weirder and weirder." Epsilon thought aloud, still confused by this event. "Still, this does confirm that we are getting contacted from beyond the grave."
"If only I knew how to use Confinement. That'd give us a much clearer picture of who we're talking to."
"Either way, we have something to work towards... if only we knew who this was."
"They said we heard of them from someone else..." Nelius thought back to the previous week or so, to think of any names that would've been dropped.
Mistral, South of Kuchinashi
Unknown Mistrali Time
Somewhere south of Kuchinashi was what appeared to be a large encampment, with sharpened logs functioning as walls for the people inside. The walls were reinforced with more logs lain in a x-shape.
Small tents were propped up with what looked like animal bones, with supply crates and cages laying over in another corner. The standout structure was a much larger tent with a red-roofed drapery discerning it from the smaller ones.
Within this encampment, several people were busy looking over rations and water, whilst others were carefully looking over their weaponry. From the look on at least one's face, they didn't like the current outlook.
Within the larger tent, however, sat a single young woman with slightly tan skin, brown hair cut into a short style, and light blue eyes. She had a tattoo of a bird rising from flowers on her left arm. She wore a light brown vest with dark brown panels on the top and a dark brown buckled strap on the back, overtop a torn white shirt that was partially unbuttoned, and a collar that appears to be slightly turned up behind her neck.
She also wore maroon-colored jeans with the right side rolled up to her thigh revealing dark pink lining, alongside a brown belt with a pouch attached to the right side, dark brown calf guards with one having a garter styled strap that went under her rolled-up pant leg. On her feet were a pair of beige and dark brown lace-up boots with folded over sides, and a pair of maroon socks that partially covered her calf guards.
She wore dark brown fingerless gloves of different sizes, with the right being wrist length with a large cuff whilst the other was elbow length and covered with a dark brown vambrace. Lastly, she wore a narrow dark brown choker strap around her neck.
Idly, she tapped her fingers on the table, waiting for something to happen... or in her case, for someone to arrive. She didn't have to wait long, as a crimson-eyed corvid appeared within the tent, and in the blink of an eye it transformed into a human.
"Welcome back... you don't look happy."
"Not much to be happy about, Vernal." The voice was identified as a female's, and as she reached up to take off a familiar Grimm-esque mask, flowing black hair framed a set of red eyes that were focused on the one called Vernal. "This makes at least ten times this week alone our tribe has been arrested."
"It's because of that V-character, isn't it? They've been a serious pain in our ass since at least last year or something..."
"Not just them, unfortunately." At that, the raven-haired one tossed down a picture, which Vernal immediately took a look at. "This one also took out three of our own."
The picture depicted a tanned young woman with dirty white hair and green eyes.
"Wait, you mean to say this chick's also given our tribe hell? She looks far too much an offshoot of those prissy Schnees, maybe a disgraced member or something."
Another picture was placed in front of Vernal, showing the aftermath of last night's "attempt" to rob her.
"...it ain't like you to joke." Silence followed for about a minute. "...you're not joking."
"Precisely." The woman took a seat at the small table. "I don't know where this V-character came from, nor do I care, but if we could figure out what gives them their monstrous strength it'd benefit us. Clearly it couldn't be Aura, and there's no way Ironwood would ever let a machine out of his sight for so long."
There was one other guess forming in the back of her mind, but it was one that was almost immediately dimissed.
'No way it could be related to her... she wouldn't restrict one of her underlings to just mopping up bandits... unless... no, no that'd make no sense whatsoever.'
"Boss?" Vernal noticed that the raven-haired one had unfocused her gaze, as in internally weighing on something.
"Never mind it, Vernal." She got up, adjusting the large sheath at her side. "It's about time to relocate. Get everyone who's able to begin breaking things down."
The Base
1:42 P.M. Vale Time
Nelius closed the side-door behind himself as he made his way into the basement, his right hand occupied with holding onto a bag with some food inside it. Setting it down onto the table, he pulled out a large covered bowl of noodles from within.
Undoubtedly, the man who ran "From Dust 'til Dawn" was the one running the noodle cart he stopped at, as they recognized each other.
'Gotta stop by the Dust Shop one of these days and see how it's doing...'
Bowl uncovered and utensils in-hand, he began to eat, taking note of how the noodles' texture seemed to be made to hold in the broth's flavor.
He was already about done with the bowl when-
"!? The hell?!" Epsilon suddenly exclaimed, about a split-second before a new voice spoke up.
"Gotta admit, for a run-down kinda place you made it look pretty nice." Nelius whirled around on the spot, Croixshot in hand-
"?! Qrow?"
Chapter 25: Complete