Reviews:
Gabe2000: I am glad that you enjoyed the last chapter. I would love to take you delicious treats, but I already have two bags full of treats for trick or treaters who did not come to my forge. Maybe it was the blood covered servitors that scared them away, but who knows. So, I will sadly decline.
Janne Rolfe Jalandoni: While the losses were high, the reward was worth it. I am pleased that you found the chapter entertaining. All the chapters I create will hopefully be worthy for the Omnissiah.
Speech Syntaxes:
+Speech+ Lingua-Technis
"Speech" Low Gothic/English
"Speech" Amplified Low Gothic
Chapter's Pre-Readers: JVMMM
Notes: Welcome back to plot of the story; I know that this chapter is under my 3k word standard, getting flashbacks to my first few chapters, and that is really irking me. But I posted this shorter chapter as to get it out before I leave to visit family for the holidays.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Eyes in Many Places
It was a week after the convoy mission, FOB Wraith was finished in construction. The entire battalion was living inside the base, and now everyday a pair of Valkyries would land on the dirt landing pad to drop off supplies. Ranging from medical and spare parts, ammunition, and static heavy weapons. The FOB itself had 3 meter tall walls made from compact dirt -which came from the trenches surrounding the outside walls- and inside the walls was a ramp 1.829 meters above the ground. The trees surrounding the FOB were slowly being cut down to create a kill zone. At any point in time, there was at least two squads of Skitarii stationed on the ramparts on a constant patrol. Pugnus allowed Precision and Eights to oversee the construction of watchtowers and the heavy weapon emplacements. The gate to the FOB was controlled by the servitors with the Kataphrons stationed on the inside incase anything broke through.
But currently Pugnus had more concerned matters to focus on, the Council of Vale. The Magos Dominus started a call with the council. "Council members, I am here to talk about the safety of Vale."
"That is General Ironwood's job. Not yours," berated the first councilmen.
"Councilmen, I would prefer that you see reason. The General is on Ozpin's leash, which holds him back from taking complete action. Your recent action by making him head of security allowed him to breath for the time being. But what I am concerned about is not a repeat of the Breach. Rather I am talking about an assassination attempt on the council," warned Pugnus.
The second council women asked, "How would you know about this before we did?"
The Magos Dominus carefully explained, "After the infiltration of the CCTS Tower, I took the liberty to check if any files had been tampered with. As it turns out, the traitor accessed certain files containing the location of the Council members and their families. I can only assume that the assassination attempt will happen within the month, and probably sooner than we expect."
The first councilman was still suspicious of the tech-priest. "If this is even true. What do you recommend we do?"
"If Vale should lose all of their councilmembers and suffer another Breach-both of which our enemies are planning-then it would descent into anarchy. Without all of you, Vale would be nothing. I recommend you leave with your families to a village while disguised as nomads. It does not matter what you do, just inform as few people as possible. I assume that all of our means of communication have been tampered by the enemy. Remember, go into hiding before the end of the Vytal Tournament."
After Pugnus finished his warnings he ended the call, but only to start giving out orders. +Logis Nemo, I want you to monitor the locations of the councilmembers. Once they all leave Vale, enact the Caede Protocol.+
Team RWBY walked together out of the hospital into the busy streets of Vale, Tai and Zwei had left for Patch three days earlier. The dog was surprisingly unharmed by the Breach, almost like there was a higher power protecting him. Ruby pointed to the barely visible Beacon Tower far off in the distance. "To our dorms!"
"Shouldn't we meet up with team JNPR as planned?" countered Weiss. The team leader rocked on her heels while twiddling her thumbs, the crimson reaper could not bring herself to meet her partner's gaze.
Yang whispered a short message into the heiress left ear, which caused the snow queen to sigh in exasperation. Weiss relented "Fine, we will not see our friends and instead check on your-" The blonde bombshell elbowed her gut with her good arm. "Our weapons." Ruby squealed in glee as a silhouette of rose petals replaced her.
Doctor Oobleck was finally released from the hospital, but he still had to keep the cast on his foot. With the aid of a pair of crutches, the professor waddled out of the building and onto the busy streets of Vale. The sun was high in the sky, leaving no shadows created by passersby. While Bartholomew was trapped in the bed, he messaged Professor Port and organized to meet each other at the deli place they frequently visit before the Breach.
Oobleck had to stop himself from shuddering while remembering what happened. 'All of that is in the past. And we learn from the past to prevent it from repeating.' The words repeated over and over again in his head, like a litany for a zealot in a time of need. As the history teacher hobbled down the streets, he felt eyes glued to the back of his neck, gazed upon his weakened form, soaking in every last inch of his back. The professor snapped his head around to catch the culprit dead in his tracks. But the civilians ignored him as if he was not even there. Nobody was watching him, at least from what he could see. A rough shoulder bumped Oobleck out of his though, as a gruff voice accompanied it. "Keep moving ya bloody idiot." The teacher stammered out a response, but the buff man did not stop walking to hear him.
'All of that is in the past. And we learn from the past to prevent it from repeating.' The mantra was in a constant repetition. It helped Oobleck not focus on the imaginary person stalking him. He could feel his eyes and nothing else, he is not there but his gut tells him that he is 'He is just a figment of my imagination due to what happened during the Breach, which will not repeat because next time it will be different.' A silky voice spoke in the dark recesses of his mind. 'What if nothing is different the second time?' His eyes laid upon the deli shop, with Port sitting at the window. The plump professor waved to him and gestured to the seat open seat next to him with his usual order already there. The history teacher whispered under his breath, "What is different next time is that I will have my friends supporting me."
A raven faunus slowly strolled through the streets of Vale by himself. It was rather congested due to the Vytal Festival, but that only provided him more pockets to pick. His focus flowed from person to person, his fingers from pocket to pocket. It was almost as smooth as a dance, a dance of crime if you will. The faunus knew he was not the only one moving to the tune, and he was not even the lead dancer. But that is all the better. For when the criticizers of the dance come, they will take the leader of the group away to deter the rest. 'They would be taken away like Mead-.' The bird froze for a second in his movements and he retracted his hands to his own pockets. 'Thinks-talks about that is a bad idea. Yes yes. Follow-obey flame wrench's orders. Yes yes. Kill-stab later. Yes yes. Steal-take now. Yes yes.' His hands flowed again as the rejoined the rhythm of the song of theft. Birdman was going to enjoy this year's Vytal Festival. Yes yes.
Ruby blew the dorm door off its hinges as she slammed into her bed. The teen started to hug desperately unto the unknown bundled up object as if she would never see it again. Yang, Weiss, and Blake watched on as their team leader descended into baby talk with Crescent Rose wrapped in a spare blanket. "I know she was attached to her weapon, but I never knew it was this extreme." commented the Faunus. Drool fell unto Ruby's pillow as she caressed the metal frame of her weapon. Blake questioned, "How long will she be like this?"
"Not any longer if I have any say in this," threatened Weiss as she approached her partner. The Atlesian sat beside her team leader with a gentle hand placed upon her shoulder. "Ruby, we are going to meet our friends for lunch now. You are going to have to leave your scythe here."
The crimson teen slowly turned her head to look at her partner in her eyes. "No." Weiss glared at her partner, Blake felt as if the temperature of the room lowered by a few degrees.
The Heiress growled, "What did you just-"
"No!" screamed the team leader in defiance as her grip on Crescent Rose increased.
The Atlesian sprang onto her feet as she argued with the child in the room. "Don't you want to meet your friends that you have not seen in a week!"
"I have not seen my baby in a week either! And dad always said that family is more important than friends!" quoted Ruby as she began to toss and turn on her bed in a show of resistance.
Yang interrupted the conversation, "Rubes, dad never said that. How about this, we all go and meet team JNPR and you can bring Crescent Rose along."
Ruby's eyes beamed with joy as she leapt out of her bed. "Great idea big sis! Let's go now!" The team leader blew past her team for the second time today leaving a mess of rose petals in her wake.
"So then stood above the pill of beowolves corpses with my blunderbuss raised to the sky. And that is how you get a grandmother's secret recipe." While most people would be put to sleep by Port's inconsistent and over exaggerated stories, Oobleck actually enjoyed them. It allowed him to practice his ability to separate fluff with the facts, a skill that is important when looking back at historical records. Also, the long stories came with the benefit of being humorous. The history teacher took a sip from his water as his friend tried to recall another story to tell. Oobleck stopped drinking but kept the glass to his lips as he felt it again. Somebody was watching him. The teacher used his peripheral vision to glance at the other guests, but they were all absorbed in their meals. Nobody was looking in his direction, but his gut said otherwise. His eyes returned to his friend how was concerned. "Bartholomew!"
Doctor Oobleck snapped out of his search as looked Peter in the eyes. "Apologizes, drifted out there for a bit. Did you say something?"
The plump professor sighed as he reclined in his seat. "You scared me there Barty, I have been trying to get your attention for a few minutes. Is something on your mind?" The professor in question on pursed his lips. Port pressed on, "You know you can tell me Barty…Whatever is going on I will do my best to help you get through it. All you have to do is just tell me what is happening."
Oobleck opened his mouth, only to close it as the words took a moment to properly form in his head. 'All of that is in the past.' "It's nothing Pete, just my brain still stuck in combat mode."
His friend chuckled deeply as he lightly slapped a hand on the table. "Ah, you had me worked up over you being stressed about what happened. Hehehe. You know, this reminds me of a time when I was a young and ambitious huntsman in Vacuo…" Oobleck sighed in relief as the topic changed, maybe all of his worrying was over his gut still imagining itself still in combat.
General Ironwood sat in his private office aboard his flagship stationed in Vale, while it lacked the luxury of his actual flagship that was in Atlas, it made up for it in capability. In front of him was piles upon piles of paperwork ranging from the smallest of dust robberies in Vale to political maneuvers occurring by the members of the Council of Atlas. His eyes shifted across every page, scanning for any significance. The headmaster finished with a report about the Breach when he received a call on his scroll. "How well timed," comments James as he looked at the caller id. "Doctor Polendina, I will assure you that your…daughter Penney is doing perfectly fine and was not harmed in the Breach."
The ice-cold voice of the scientist came from the scroll, and for a peculiar reason there was no visual display of him. "I am wasting my precious time to talk about one of my recent projects, not to bother about my perfect daughter." Ironwood could have sworn that his voice was more monotone than usual. "I have just designed a defense mechanism against the trump card of the Adeptus Mechanicus, their space fleet." The scientist allowed his words to float through the air and fill the empty room, the General opened his mouth to speak but he was cut off by Doctor Polendina. "All I require to build it is large amounts of dust. The exact amount would require a significant decrease in the SDC exports."
"Give me the number Polendina," ordered the General.
A slight tutting could be heard from the other end of the scroll. "I do not trust the security of this call for that critical information, I expect the required amount transported to me before the end of the Vytal Festival." The call was ended as Ironwood stared in disbelief at his scroll, 'When did Polendina became so abrasive. The only other time this happened is when he finished the design for Penny. Something is not as it seems.'
Afterword: If you did not get it from the first Pugnus scene, I skipped the week that team RWBY was stuck into the hospital. And now the Vytal Festival is upon us, which also means that other important events are coming up soon. Do you guys want the Christmas Special released between 15th-19th of December or the 12th-18th of January?