A phantom dropped noiselessly from a suspended shipping container, landing with catlike grace on the hard ground many dozens of feet below.
The autumnal Vale night had breathed a thin mist over the mostly-abandoned dockyard, dropping the ambient temperature by a few degrees and leaving the dew-laden ground slick and slippery. Occasionally, a breeze would drift in from the sea, carrying with it a salty tang and gently stirring the whorling haze.
It was in the ephemeral moment when such a breeze parted the foggy veil that she espied her target. Tukson's information had been accurate after all.
Rakish and impeccably dressed, the thief wore the same gaudy, white suit that she had last encountered him in, all those months ago. He was currently locked in combat with two faunus. They were younger, around her own age, by the looks of it. All around them, masked mercenaries—the White Fang, she presumed—jockeyed for a position to land an opportune blow upon the two teens.
Hand over foot, she prowled and sprung, fluidly, effortlessly, weaving between light and dark with practiced ease. Here, the echo of a person flitted across the periphery. There, a shade darted into the shadows out of sight, methodically, steadily, surely, towards the dapper crook with a cane. When at last, by the sheerest of chance, one of the henchmen had taken note and sounded a warning, it was already too late.
She flowed, a transient wisp in white, betwixt gun and blade, bestowing an abrupt and sound sleep upon each member she visited, courtesy of the dented, metal bat in hand. Her strikes, brutal and precise, had little trouble dispatching those that barred her path.
Casting stealth aside, she dashed the last few yards to the scuffling trio and entered the fray, announcing her presence by bludgeoning the makeshift weapon with enough force to shatter the asphalt underfoot.
The fighting paused then. Roman scrutinized her warily, eyes flickering between the abused bat in hand and the shattered ground which he had been occupying moments prior. The two faunus mimicked his reaction, gauging a new, potential threat.
Roman recognized the newcomer, naturally. After all, he had emerged from a briefing mere hours ago in which the vigilante had been a topic of interest.
His colleagues seemed to view her with ridicule and disdain, but he did not share that same derision. Where Cinder and Emerald had seen an overly-ambitious child trying to play the role of hero, he saw a pertinent threat. Admittedly, this sentiment was mostly fueled by the warning his enigmatic associate had offered just days prior:
"I would suggest you refrain from engaging the Moonlight Huntress. She is an existence similar to myself. Should you force her hand, it would end poorly for you, I think."
The warning had come unprompted, out of the blue. It was almost as if she had expected this to happen.
He backpedaled, almost stumbling over his feet in his haste, reassessing his standing as he retreated. The situation was not looking particularly favorable. Verdant eyes flickered to the unconscious heaps strewn about the ground. These mutts just could not pull their weight.
Roman could handle himself in a fight. That much, at least, was necessary in this line of work. But it had never been his forte. He prided himself more on his charismatic points than the physical. Unfortunately, the two he had been fending off didn't seem the type to be swayed by a silver tongue. Judging by the way the third teen eyed him, he doubted honeyed words would stay her hand, either.
Details on how the Moonlight Huntress dispatched her foes were sparse—the news outlets tended to focus more on sensation than actual specificity—but if Phoenix had been seriously comparing the huntress to herself, then the situation that he was currently in was very, very bad.
The brief staring contest was broken when the interloper darted forward, swinging ferociously and prompting a hasty block.
Roman grit his teeth.
His shoulder, the one that had been injured so many weeks prior, had begun to throb anew at some point earlier in the fight. The ugly, gnawing pain burning in his shoulder flared from a mild annoyance to a corrosion that set his nerves alight. It was an unseen, caustic acid that conferred pain but left flesh unmarred.
Exacerbated, significantly, by the further abuse he was now forced to subject it to in order to merely deflect the onslaught of attacks.
The Huntress hounded his retreat with unnatural furor, swinging the metal bat with zealous strokes. It was a far cry from the precise, measured countenance that he observed in the Phoenix, but he could not doubt their efficacy.
She seemed to wield some form of strength-based semblance, as her physical capabilities were clearly superhuman. He dodged, and the ground beneath was swiftly reduced to rubble. He shifted, and rather than a sharp whistling, the arcing path of the weapon emitted a harsh, tearing sound as the air was savagely displaced. Catching a glancing blow set the metal of Melodic Cudgel's shaft creaking and tremors crawling throughout his body and aggravating the sensations that threatened to leave his afflicted limb a limp, leaden weight. The fact that his aura struggled to mitigate the impacts was a testament to the sheer force behind the blows, and Roman was forced to marvel at the resilience of the otherwise unremarkable tool she used.
Poor as his condition already was, the situation was looking quite dire. He had not doubted himself when faced with the two faunus children; he had faced taller odds before. But something like this was something else entirely. Roman Torchwick was not a fighter by profession, and he was paying dearly for that fact now.
Blake could not help but be impressed by the sheer tenacity the unexpected stranger displayed.
While she did keep up with current events out of necessity, that did not mean that she took every news bulletin at face-value. She hadn't quite lent credence to the rampant gossip circulating about Vale's resident vigilante. Least of all, she doubted her intentions. It was far too easy, she knew, to wield a blade and lash out in the name of righteousness while burying ulterior motives beneath the public's adoring eye. She had done the exact same thing herself, once.
After witnessing the brief exchange of blows, Blake was fully convinced that the accolades in the papers held merit. She still had her reservations, of course, but of the Huntress's combat prowess, there could no longer be any doubt.
The woman moved as a wraith, her speed causing the white of her cloak to bleed into the pale, misty night; a formless monstrosity whose figure was simultaneously ethereal and very, very tangible. When her prey strayed too far from the cruel range of the makeshift club, she pounced forth with the grace of a cat, lithe limbs belying the savage strength behind her strikes.
For all the brutal force that she seemed content to unleash, there was no trace of wild abandon in the punishing blows, no animalistic wildness. Though not meticulously made, each swing held purpose, and succeeded in either jarring the criminal or sending him tumbling back several paces.
It was like watching a cat bat curiously at a mouse.
The skirmish proceeded at a pace and with an unpredictability that made it difficult for Blake or Sun to jump in, for fear of winding up on the wrong end of those vicious blows. Nor could they fire at range upon the altercation, as the likelihood of hitting the wrong target was quite high. No matter what they did, they would surely get in the way. Instead, they were forced to merely watch as the famed vigilante pushed back the notorious criminal with ease, matching his speed and technique with almost insulting effortlessness.
It was enough to make the pair feel almost sorry for the man. Almost. Though, they did both let out an involuntary wince when a particularly punishing strike nearly found its mark.
Fortunately for Roman, he managed to catch the club with Melodic Cudgel moments before it would have left a sizable dent on his face. The finely manufactured steel in his hands did little to dampen the shock, and he found himself facing the full fury of her force, once again sending painful reverberations through his impaired arm. This time, however, he did not allow her to escape, and wrapped his free hand around her weapon-wielding wrist in an iron grip.
In response, she drove a hard knee into his gut, the crook accepting the blow with a pained grimace. Forcing her bat away, Roman clumsily reeled his cane back before swinging wildly downwards in an exaggerated, overhead arc.
It was a foolish move. Utterly absurd in that it left his flank glaringly open, and that it was heavily telegraphed. Only a fool would fail to block a blow as obvious as that.
Predictably, the Huntress easily defended, raising the bat into a horizontal guard and catching his weapon mid-flight, halting it at eye-level.
Roman's finger pressured the trigger. The end of the cane flicked open, revealing a rifled barrel.
The hammer fell, striking the primer and igniting the propellant. A radiant bloom of heat. A hefty kick as the cane jerked wildly in response. A soft click, unheeded by all, as the spent cartridge was ejected from the chamber.
A roar of flame and noise as the projectile exited the barrel.
Mismatched eyes widened, and the world slowed to a crawl.
To Blake, the Huntress's reflexes were nothing short of miraculous. The shell, mere inches from her face, whistled harmlessly past as she whipped her head with a reaction and speed that outpaced even Ruby's by a significant margin.
Fluidly, she pivoted, shifting her weight and transitioning the dodge into a spinning kick, lashing with a lithe leg. Her heel connected painfully with the man's exposed flank, rocketing him into a shipping container with a strangled cry. The crackle of shattering red light signified the depletion of his aura and the end of the battle.
Almost immediately following Roman's spectacular defeat, the roar of twin sets of engines and a sudden, violent updraft arrested the attention of all present. Apparently, the few members of the White Fang that remained conscious had finished packing away the dust shipment while the combatants had been distracted, and the pair of bullheads had now entered the early stages of liftoff.
Desperately, Blake shifted Gambol Shroud into its firearm state, emptying a clip futilely into the air. The echoed retorts of Sun's shotgun-staff informed her that he had reacted similarly, to no avail. The dust rounds plinked harmlessly off of the armored shell.
The Moonlight Huntress took a slightly different approach.
With a heaving yell, she chambered her arm momentarily before explosively flinging her bat, sending it careening towards the departing crafts.
Defying all expectations, the makeshift weapon impacted the hull of the ship, easily tearing through reinforced metal with the shuddering screech of steel, and nearly shearing off an entire wing in the process. With a wailing drone, the craft and its precious payload plummeted into the shallows of the port.
Just what was that thing made of?
"Tch. Only got one of them."
Blake's gaze shifted from the waterlogged wreck. Pointed, feline ears twitched as they picked up the soft click of a tongue and a quiet mutter.
Upon noticing her watcher's gaze, a sheepish grin kissed the exposed bottom-half of the stranger's face for a passing moment before melting as quickly as it arrived. Quickly, urgently, her head snapped to glance behind. A low growl escaped her throat upon finding only a heavily dented container where her adversary had lain seconds before.
The roar of a third engine sounded, and the final bulkhead shot into the air at a dizzying speed. Even as it rose, the trio could make out the rapidly diminishing form of Roman, stumbling and nearly pitching out of the craft, as he struggled to shut the door to the hold. In moments, it was gone, disappeared beyond the cloudy firmament.
Amber eyes traced the departing vessel with a mixture of relief, disappointment and triumph until it vanished from sight. Sighing, she turned to thank their enigmatic companion for the impromptu aid, only to find that she, too, had vanished. Blake wheeled about, attempting to find any trace of the Huntress. She shot a look at Sun, though he appeared to be equally baffled.
They were not permitted to contemplate the mystery, as a familiar voice abruptly brought their ponderance to a halt.
"Blake! What happened!?"
A red blur careened into the faunus girl, grasping her close as if fearing she would disappear. In the same instant, she was overwhelmed with a tide of words.
"I'm so sorry, we were looking for you all day! But then Penny disappeared and then I had to go looking for her, but then I heard an explosion so I followed it here, but by the time I got here it was already too late and I'm so, so sorry…" The small girl's face had begun to adopt the color of her cape as she attempted to surmise the recent events of her evening in a single breath. Eventually, she was forced to pause for a large gulp of air, ending weakly with, "Please come back."
Blake's expression, stunned by the sudden onslaught, softened at the plea, and she awkwardly patted the head that was buried stubbornly against her midsection. However, the look of uncertainty returned in full force as she peered over her friend's shoulder to find another familiar face, stern and quite cross, approaching impatiently several paces back.
Gently, she placed a reassuring hand on Ruby's back, halting the near-incomprehensible babble that still spilled forth from trembling lips. With a pacifying smile, she ushered the smaller girl gently to the side and strode forward, bracing to meet the icy wrath of the heiress. Ruby shifted uncomfortably, hands nervously wringing in trepidation as silver orbs flickered between white and black.
"Weiss," Blake began, the words she had rehearsed threatening to tangle themselves into unintelligible knots in her throat, "I want you to know that I'm no longer associated with the White Fang. Back when I was with the-"
"Stop!" The heiress cut off her explanation with the curt command, disregarding the tense, unsure looks being directed at her. "Do you have any idea how long we've been searching for you?" Weiss paused, though whether for effect or for a response was unclear. "Twelve hours. That means I've had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours, I've decided…" She took a breath, seemingly steeling herself. "I've decided I don't care."
"You don't care?" Incredulous, disbelieving.
"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?"
"No, I-I haven't been since I was younger-"
"Ah-bah-bah-bah-bah!" Weiss cut off the hasty explanation once more. "I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up, you'll come to your teammates, instead of..." Her eyes flickered momentarily to the monkey faunus, who waved awkwardly, having been entirely excluded from the reunion. "...Instead of someone else."
Stunned, a wave of relief and gratitude overtook Blakes features, "Of course."
Immediately, the expression of all present broke into beaming smiles. For a moment the restored team basked in the glow of their returned camaraderie.
And then Ruby dispelled the moment by whooping gleefully, "Team RWBY is back, baby!"
The girls collectively broke into light chuckles at this, and began to make their way back home.
"You know, I met the Moonlight Huntress," Blake mentioned offhandedly, leading the way out of the dockyard.
"Whoa! No way!" Ruby gushed, following excitedly, stars dancing in her eyes, "How was she? Was she as badass as the news says?"
"Well...Met isn't quite right, we sort of just fought together."
"That's even cooler! How did she fight? What sort of weapon does she use? What…"
Weiss's lips found themselves lifting into an unfamiliar position—a fond smile—as her two teammates walked off, Ruby chattering excitedly all the way.
"That was a pretty good thing you did, back there."
Weiss sniffed haughtily, collecting herself and schooling her expression into something more appropriate. "I promised Ruby that we'd all get stronger. As a team. A Schnee does not go back on her word." She turned on her heel and marched after her teammates, albeit in a more reserved manner
Yang chuckled softly, her soft words barely reaching Weiss's reddening ears. "Sure thing, Miss Heiress, you big softie."
From the rooftop of a building several streets away, Fu Hua nodded in satisfaction. All had gone as well as she could hope. Roman had succeeded in planting the tracking devices in each of the shipments. Wherever they went, she should be able to find them. Ozma's next generation of hero-hopefuls were looking promising as well. The Silver-Eyed warrior, particularly, had piqued her interest, though she had not been fortunate enough to personally gauge her abilities on this night.
Seeing, admittedly from a distance, that Kiana was in good health and keeping herself occupied had been a pleasant bonus.
Her ruminations were interrupted by the sound of footsteps alighting on the rooftop not far behind her. She did not need to turn; she knew who it was.
Normally, the power of "Sentience" would only apply to its namesake. Things like machines and artificial intelligences lacked a proper soul and thus fell outside the scope of its domain.
But this particular machine was different. It contained the vestiges of an aura, the nascent seed of a soul, and thus fell within the jurisdiction of her power. It was, at the moment, incomplete, but in time, it had the potential to flower into its own being.
The person strode up until it was standing at her side and mirrored her actions, gazing out towards the docks. To an average observer, the port would have been a distant collection of lights in the night, indiscernible from any other of the city. To the pair, however, the dark and the distance proved to be no hindrance. Phoenix threw a sidelong glance to confirm what she already knew.
Medium, copper locks framed a pale, freckled face. Eyes that should have been a vibrant, emerald hue were currently blazing electric blue. The face of Penny Polendina, normally so expressive and cheerful despite her status as an automaton, was currently set into a stoic, deadpan expression. She looked every bit the machine that composed her body. She opened her mouth, and the voice that issued forth was flat and robotic and younger than her appearance would have suggested.
"Subject Designation: Phoenix."
Fu Hua hummed softly. She supposed that counted as a greeting. "Watching as always?" She asked rhetorically, casually crossing her arms and allowing her stoic facade to fade ever so slightly.
"Affirmative." Penny nodded, the movement jerky and mechanical. "Query: What is your objective?"
She allowed a slight creasing to mar her features. "I have noted a potential candidate in the vicinity of Vale. I have come to find them, and excise them, if need be," she surmised succinctly.
"Anomaly detected."
Fu Hua got the impression that a frown would have been appropriate here, but the other girl's face retained its expressionless visage.
"Record Log 827-1A indicates previous Honkai incursion occurred within the past ten years. Current rate of Honkai influence on Remnant has seen no significant increase within the last century to warrant an increase in incursion frequency. Hypothesis: Additional information is needed. Please advise."
"A source of Honkai energy has been unsealed."
"Theory acknowledged. Collating known information. Updating Databases. Assembling requisite equipment."
The vibrant orbs shone brighter still, and a crackle of azure energy radiated for the briefest moment before condensing into a small, featureless box. The girl depressed a button—the singular interruption on the otherwise plain instrument—and Fu Hua felt an unpleasant tingle as a familiar energy pulsed from the device.
"Compiling."
Penny remained silent for a few moments, the eerie glow of her eyes pulsing lightly.
"Results:" She finally intoned. "Perfunctory scans indicate Honkai emissions in the locality of Vale. Signature is analogous with the passive emissions of a Herrscher-class entity. Conclusion…"
"She is a beacon," Fu Hua softly interjected, concluding the android's analysis for her. "A beacon and a font of latent energy."
"Affirmative. Her presence is predicted to have adverse long-term effects on the locality. Additional Notes: Global honkai accumulation is approaching critical mass. Action is recommended."
Fu Hua sighed. "It would appear that the 'wait-and-see' approach has run its course. Our position has become untenable. In a way, it is quite fortunate that Kiana was awakened at the current time."
Penny didn't offer any thoughts of this assessment, instead posing her own question, "Query: Has humanity reached an acceptable state?"
A troubled look. "I do not know." Fu Hua admitted. "Individually, they are powerful, but their numbers are small, and they stand divided." She shook her head. "It does not matter anymore. We have long since passed the point of no return. Please initiate the first contingency plan. We simply have to hope for the best."
"Request confirmed. Deploying Awakening Protocol. Verifying status of all sealed entities...Error."
Fu Hua quirked a brow.
"All seals have been partially disrupted. Entity locations cannot be accounted for. Manual location and retrieval is necessary. Rerouting to backup protocols. Backup protocols are now underway."
"Thank you."
The android turned to acknowledge her, but now found herself alone on the rooftop. Faux olfactory receptors picked up the slight, lingering scent of ash and smoke—the only indication that there had been another person here at all.
Something that could almost be called a smile seemed to tug momentarily at her cheeks before being smothered. The electric blue faded from her eyes, returning them to their verdant hue, and leaving a very confused Penny standing alone atop the empty roof.
Arthur Watts pressed his palms against tired eyes, blotting out the lonely glow of the screen and enjoying the relief that the slight pressure brought to the overtaxed orbs.
Moving the timeline up, he groused. As if his job hadn't been compromised enough.
Having been denied his preferred entry point for the digital contagion, he had been forced to reroute to his backup plan of accessing the Vale tower directly. Though, as it turned out, this decision proved to be a boon rather than a bane when his...less-than-competent...associate had come to him with a request:
She needed the Valean permutation of the virus, and she needed it by tonight.
While the CCT systems throughout the kingdoms operated on the same underlying standards, each had naturally developed their own, diverging protocols for security. Whether this was a result of latent distrust between kingdoms or the sheer disparity in the competence of technicians, Watts was unsure, though he suspected it was a bit of both.
In any case, this meant that the program he had meticulously crafted to attack Atlas's system would likely not be effective in Vale and would need to be rebuilt. He at least took solace in the fact that no other kingdom could hold a candle to Atlas's technological prowess; breaking in would be child's play.
Nevertheless, even the simplest endeavor took some amount of time, and time was something that he had suddenly found himself severely lacking that morning.
The call had come just shy of noon. Eleven fifty-four, to be precise. With all the entitlement she could muster, Cinder demanded that the retrofitted virus be delivered to her no later than eight that evening. Eight hours to rebuild everything from the ground up. It was simply unreasonable.
"I'm sure the great Doctor Watts will figure something out," she had said when he told her as much. "You wouldn't want to disappoint Salem, now would you?"
Even just the memory of the sheer derision dripping from her words made him seethe.
It was a prodigious task. Some might even say it was impossible. But the title of "genius" was not one that he simply held for show. He had managed to cobble together a workable, though, admittedly scuffed, alteration to the program. It certainly was not up to his usual standards. It lacked the elegance, the nuance, of a finely honed, efficient formula, but it couldn't be helped. He had been asked to perform the impossible, and he had done it. It would serve, and that was all that mattered, as much as the end result insulted him to his very core.
The soft beep from his scroll signaled his colleague's receipt of the requested program. Not so much as a word of thanks, simply the tactless: Received. Insufferable whelp.
Watts disliked Cinder, that was no secret. Frankly, Watts disliked the great majority of humanity, and the members of their little circle were not exempt from that fact. They were all just so stupid.
But something about Cinder, specifically, irked him. Even Tyrian had not managed to aggravate him to the degree that she did, and he found just the man's voice to be unbearably grating. He was a nuisance, but he was a useful nuisance—when the situation called for it, he could perform. The same could not be said for that woman.
Arthur Watts was an intellect of the highest caliber. In his field, none could match him. But even he had had to strive to bring his accomplishments to fruition. Nothing had simply been handed to him. From the moment he had become cognizant of his standing in life, he had striven to prove his worth, to earn that which ought to be his. That drive to prove oneself was one of the few qualities he could bring himself to respect in other people. If they could not match him in intellect, at least they could be of use in other ways.
Cinder was the utter antithesis to that. She was untested, unworthy, yet demanded the world. She had suffered, true, but hadn't they all? Precious few chose to serve beneath the banner of the Grimm Queen because they were satisfied with their lot in life—Tyrian, lunatic that he was, notwithstanding.
In the midst of bitter, near-delirious musings, Watts almost missed the sound of another chime coming from his scroll. Breaking from his reverie, he focused his attention back on the dull, blue glow of the screen. Bloodshot eyes noted the time. Nine forty-two. Had he really sat there doing nothing for nearly two hours? He must have been more tired than he realized.
"Have you seen it?"
The notification pinged to life in the bottom-right corner of a monitor. The small, blue box indicated a program he was unfamiliar with. It seemed to be some form of chat client: "Eris".
A quick check revealed that the application had been installed recently—just now, in fact. In the span of time when he had been lost in his own musings, someone had gained access to his device and left this program, seemingly for the sole purpose of contacting him.
That alone had him on high alert.
CCT networks were one thing. Atlas aside, the communications arrays were riddled with vulnerabilities, and any imbecile with excessive amounts of time and patience could eventually make their way in if they were determined enough.
But his systems were different. His security was immaculate. Impenetrable. The mere thought that anyone could infiltrate his personal device to such a degree was nigh-unthinkable. To top it all off, he was supposed to be dead. There should be no reason to contact a dead man.
Nevertheless, he had certainly never installed any such drivel. Yet there it was, the notification blinking cheekily at him from the digital incandescence of his hard-light screen. His eye twitched as an impatient demand followed up the previous question.
"Don't ignore me. Have you seen it."
"What." Against his better judgement, he responded curtly.
"Wonderland," came the answer, equally curt.
Ah. So that's what this was about. Well, he had most certainly seen it. The problem was that the information contained within those files had left him ambivalent on various points regarding the matter.
As authentic as the images had seemed, much of the written information was impossible to corroborate. Liberal censoring of places and names left Watts with very little to investigate, and that which was readable tended to reference things alien to even his prodigious troves of knowledge. After wasting away an afternoon performing a rigorous search through all of Remnant's known territories, he was forced to come to the conclusion that there was no such place as "Nagazora," and that the things referenced in the documents simply could not have happened.
Even breaking into the secretive databases of the increasingly xenophobic territories of the Eastern Mistral Coalition—the architecture and visible signage implied a Mistralian origin—had failed to produce appreciable results. Not that he had expected anything from that gathering of backwater settlements to begin with.
"RABBIT?" He hazarded a guess, rather than provide an answer to her query.
"I am not RABBIT," it denied, "I am an acquaintance."
Eyes flickered to the user tag for verification. "Bunny," it read. How trite.
"Answer the question, please."
Clearly, whoever was on the other side of the screen was not going to let the matter rest until Watts properly responded.
"Yes," was all he typed.
"And?"
"And what."
"What do you think?"
"I think," he began, but paused, the caret blinking expectantly from his screen, awaiting further input.
He didn't want to give the satisfaction of admitting intrigue. In his mind's eye, he could already picture the ugly, superior sneer unfurling on an otherwise featureless face. Gods how he hated that look. The Atlesian brass had been full of people with that look.
"I think that you have a lot of time on your hands, crafting such a meticulous farce."
"Don't be stupid. Do you think I would make contact with the supposedly deceased Doctor Arthur Watts for a joke?"
He huffed. It had been a long time since anyone had had the nerve to call him stupid.
"It is almost insulting that you would attempt to pass this off as something more than mere fiction. There is not a single point in this nonsense that can be substantiated. It is all meaningless fantasy. The location, for one, is quite impossible."
It truly was. A sprawling metropolis, one which spread further than the eye could trace, bound between mountains and endless sea. Watts knew of no such place. The closest thing he could think of was Atlas, but if the documents were to be believed, even his former homeland paled in comparison to the urban expanse described.
"This 'Nagazora' does not exist on Remnant."
An irrefutable truth, stolid in its simplicity.
"No," his unknown interlocutor agreed, "not on Remnant. But it did exist elsewhere."
Watts scoffed audibly, the sound falling flat in the darkened, empty room. Aged features contorted into a derisive sneer. The sheer absurd audacity of the insinuation was something even he hadn't quite expected. Quietly he bemoaned allowing such a nonsensical matter to waste his time.
"Am I to believe you are an alien?" Mere text could not hope to convey the amount of scorn he felt at this point, tinted as it was with a hint of disappointment.
"No. Of course not. I have only ever existed on Remnant. But I know of aliens. And more."
"Preposterous. Aliens do not exist."
"Many things can be said to not exist, yet they do. You didn't believe that something like Salem could exist before, either."
Immediately, Watts's waning attention returned in full force. He had been toying with the idea of ending the correspondence and washing his hands of this mess then and there. Needless to say, that option was well and truly off the table now. For this "Bunny" to know that name…Ally or enemy, the implications were worrying.
Nimble fingers rapidly contorted across the keyboard with fluid, practiced urgency. "Who are you? What do you know?," he demanded.
"I know everything about you, Arthur Watts. I know where you were born and who you were born to. I know you wet the bed until you were seven and that you were bullied in school until you were twelve. That you falsified your way into the engineering program of the Atlas Institute of Technology, and that, after your supposed death, you were enlisted by a certain shared acquaintance into your current circle. By my recommendation, I might add."
For the first time in a long time, the doctor was left without an adequate response, mustering only a disbelieving:
"Why."
"Because you are an asset, and one does not let promising assets go to waste. Yours is one of the most brilliant minds that Remnant has ever produced. There would be no sense in not utilizing it."
With each word that appeared on his screen, the icy incredulity that had frozen his faculties melted away. In its place, a furious heat simmered in his gut, stoked to flame by the brazen statements. He was not a tool to be manipulated at the whims of others.
"What do you want."
The demand came across sharper than he would have liked, even through text. He was losing his composure, but at that moment, he could not bring himself to care.
"Isn't it obvious? My investment has paid off. I want to cash in. As it so happens, I will have a use for an intellect such as yours in the near future."
"What makes you think I will agree to have any part in your plans," he demanded. "If you knew me as well as you claimed, then you would know that approaching me in this manner would only serve to antagonize."
"Take the red pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Bunny repeated the cryptic text that Watts had found nestled deep within Atlas's system security.
"There is still much of Wonderland left to explore, Alice. You've already made your choice, there is no turning back now. Or can you really bring yourself to abandon your own curiosity?"
Arthur wanted so badly to deny it.
"The trap has been set, and an incomparable bait has been placed at its heart. Can you resist? Do you truly wish to?"
He couldn't, he realized. He was at the top of his field. Of all the things there was to know upon Remnant, he knew. Of all the things Remnant had to offer, he had partaken. Long had he imbibed from the font of knowledge; there was naught left to drink, yet his thirst had still not been slaked. He was bored. The promise of entirely new vistas yet unseen and unsullied by human endeavor set his blood ablaze with excitement.
It was almost as if Bunny could hear his very thoughts, as her next message seemed to echo identical sentiments.
"You are now privy to things that most on Remnant would find insane. If you desire, I can show you so much more. Unbelievable things. Terrible things. Things that no one in this world could hope to dream of. Not even Salem."
A demon perched atop his left shoulder, whispering sweet temptations in his ear. The angel—if angel there be—atop his right spoke not a word in remonstrance. The dulcet enticements of discovery anew fell upon his very soul like nectar upon the tongue.
"You are a logical man, Arthur Watts. Do not let the rage you are surely feeling at this moment cloud your judgement."
Of course not. He was not like Cinder. Her anger was hot, but his burned cold. Her fury controlled her, and, in turn, she acted foolishly, impulsively. They were not the same. He would not allow himself to be the same.
Watts struggled with himself, wrestling between pride and temptation before, finally, "You truly do know everything about me," he admitted, grudgingly.
"Of course I do. There is very little I don't know. Speaking of which, your friend has finished uploading that virus to the Vale tower. Fine piece of work. Could be better. Make your decision quickly, you don't want to keep your queen waiting."
Arthur bristled at the slight against his technical prowess, but did not rise to the gibe. It was not within his nature to admit inferiority to anyone, but he was forced to acknowledge that RABBIT, or Bunny, or whoever it was he was speaking to, matched, and even eclipsed, his own capabilities.
Instead, he changed tack, fishing for any information he could glean.
"If you know what she's doing, why don't you stop it?"
"Consider it a trade. I don't hinder this plan of yours, and you seriously consider my offer."
The inverse of which, naturally, was that Bunny would no longer have an obligation to turn a blind eye, should he refuse. It didn't matter. The answer was clear. He had already been enthralled.
On principle, Watts decried the very notion of "fate," of surrendering oneself to inexorable inevitability. He refused to accept that anything beyond himself could shape his path independent of his own wishes.
Yet something had done exactly that. Not some unseen divinity, nor the cruel passage of time, but a being that most assuredly existed in some form or another. And he could not refuse.
"Very well. We have an agreement."
"Good. I've sent you some light reading to tide you over. I will contact you again. Be quicker to answer next time."
With that final message, the indicator by the blank avatar in the program flickered to gray, signifying that his chat partner had gone offline.
Almost immediately, a soft chime gently requested his attention. He checked his scroll. True to their word, "Bunny" had apparently created a new directory on his desktop. He loathed having his privacy usurped in such a manner, but he resigned himself to the fact that this would likely be the nature of their correspondence for the foreseeable future. He filed it away for later inspection, but not before perusing the contents briefly.
It was much less this time, containing only a handful of rather dense text files, and even fewer images. The naming schema of the previous set had been eschewed in favor of a simple, enumerated system, preceded with an odd name:
"Quanta."
I have no excuses. This chapter is very late, and I can only apologize. I knew that it would likely be late, and opted to postpone publishing in favor of doing a double upload with the next chapter. Unfortunately, that didn't quite pan out, and now it's just more late than it otherwise would have been.
I had quite a bit of trouble with this one. No real reason why, the words just wouldn't come. As a result, I just went and wrote ahead til the block left. On the bright side, this means that there is a considerable chunk of next chapter already done. I am hoping to have it up within the next week. If I don't, feel free to flame me in the comments. I need to be held accountable for my dumbass promises.
In Meteoric Salvation, Kiana beats down mechs and smacks missiles out of the sky with a metal bat. That thing is impressive.
i do not know what sort of formatting is standard practice when communicating conversations through text. Personally, i think italics are a bit hard to read in bulk, but I couldn't figure out how to present it in a less intrusive way.