Hello everyone! How are you doing? As I promised, Chapter 30 is up with only two days delay XD
Jokes aside, I hope you all enjoy it! Next one will be on Wednesday 27th, as usual. Thank you again for following and favoring, or for just reading it!
Alizar had a mere second to react before the library door slammed open. A furious Cherry strode in the room, throwing her mask on the ground before she raised her arm.
The gravitational pulse from her semblance smashed the boy's rock wall in smithereens, allowing her to slam him on the ground. Before he could even react, she sat on his belly, green eyes staring at him in fierce hatred.
"Wow, I would say this position is very appealing, if you were not seething with killing intent" he smiled, seemingly unfazed by the situation.
"You have only one chance to explain to me what the fuck was that stunt you pulled." To his credit, he didn't gulp, nor flinch. He merely smiled even deeper.
"Didn't we agree on me trying to give Azure's concoction a shot? I would say it turned out pretty well" he chuckled, pointing at the circle. The green light had stopped pulsing, but the thick, viscous goo was still spread all over it.
"I managed to control the pulsing magic seeping out of Avyssos that permeates the entire island and shape it to my will. If anything, that gives us even more-"
His voice got cut off as a lean, soft arm grabbed his mouth. The faunus' pink lips got closer to him, as she bent over his body, locking her pulsing eyes on his- a very enticing image that would steal the breath away from many men.
But Alizar knew better than this; Cherry didn't have a single erotic bone in her body. The only reason he could imagine her kissing him would be to bit his tongue off- something not very unlikely at the current situation.
"And since when was you testing this while I am outside and compromised part of the plan, you soon-to-be Grimm food?" she whispered menacingly "unless… you intended of getting rid of me the only way you could think."
He scowled. This girl was truly intimidating, true, but… "Do you really give me that little credit? Sending Grimm to take down you, of all people? I am not stupid, Cherry- I would have a better chance poisoning your water."
"I would never accept food or water from you" she spat her words as if throwing them away. "Exactly" he merely said, still calm and composed.
A few seconds passed, without the girl getting off him, or finishing him off. Alizar took it as his chance to continue "if you can't trust me- which is very wise- then trust on the fact this is the worst time for me to pull this off."
Cherry's grip lessened "I have been planning this for years, Cherry. It is the sole reason I joined the cult to begin with! Why would I do something that stupid now, of all times, when my revenge is just a few hours away?"
The faunus' gleaming hatred vanished from her eyes and she stood up after a few seconds. "If you are telling the truth, it means you can't still control the power. Which means it needs more testing."
She offered him her hand and, visibly surprised, he took it. "I am telling the truth; honestly, I didn't even realize the Grimm went after you until I heard your chanting."
She knelt and picked up the mask from the floor. "Then, as I said, it needs more testing. Azure will not like such an explanation" she eyed him in suspicion "please tell me you didn't spend the entire barrel?"
"As if- only three cups were used. I transferred the rest to the altar, along with Jaune Arc's body. I erected another barrier there too- just as you instructed."
An eyebrow rose, before the faunus closed her eyes and sighed. "I suppose a 'well done' is in order. You saved me a lot of work and I have been exhausted."
"Not even an apology for nearly strangling me?" he grinned widely. "Don't push your luck, boy. Intentional or not, the one at fault for the attack was you" she replied, eyes narrowed.
"I guess I can accept that" he replied back, his voice not losing the carefree tone. "So what happened down there? Did you not find Rose? Or did she escape your skills?"
"I fought Schnee and Xiao Long. They are good; much stronger than I expected them to be." The man smirked "did they force you to retreat?" "No, but they forced a draw until the tide came."
The smirk vanished from his lips. His father's words, spoken to him in this very library, flashed through his mind. "There is only one apex predator in the island my boy. The ocean. Respect it, for you are always in its mercy."
"Then I can't even joke to you. Did you notice them?" he asked the girl who nodded. "Yes. And as you observed, the waters are going even deeper in the land every night. They reached up to the village's north end yesterday."
Ok, that was bad. It was good for their plans, but very alarming for his. "Is the barrier around the mansion still standing?" he asked. "If not, we will have to-"
"The barrier is fine and standing. Schnee and Xiao Long failed to pierce it already. I am positive it will stand for at least two more days."
"That's good. It also means team RWBY now knows they can't enter the mansion. Which means they will try to enter the mansion" he stared at the girl "and we both know the only way to do so is from the tunnels" she finished for him.
His grin returned "and with the tide rising, they are as good as dead the moment they step inside the underground passage- well, that's a bad thing. You may have to help our sacrifices survive."
He stared at the woman who simply rolled her eyes and turned around to leave "no need to. The women I fought will not die like this; if they did they wouldn't be worthy sacrifices after all."
"Stop giving them so much credit" he flatly exclaimed "you are pissing me off." A small chuckle was his only answer "that's a good thing, then. I am going in the pond to have a bath."
She opened the door when his voice made her stop. "Don't come back here afterwards- go to the temple at once and start the preparations." She turned around to face him "and what will you do?"
Alizar's face twisted in a vicious parody of a smile "you had your chance to capture Rose; now it's my turn."
-o-
"So, an energy barrier?" Blake asked Weiss as the latter patted her Nevermore in the head before dismissing it. "And it covers the entire region around the mansion?"
They were standing in front of the outpost's broken door, a few meters away from Yang who was sternly lecturing her little sister about her late behavior. Said sister provided no resistance, calmly and proudly accepting the verbal punishment.
"A pretty powerful one, yes. It spreads for quite the few kilometers and is very resistant. We tried three times to pierce through it with no success" the ex-heiress replied.
They waited for a while, chatting again over the information they had already exchanged, until they saw Yang finish her preaching. Immediately after that, Ruby jumped at her sister and both girls hugged fiercely, crying softly at each other's arms.
"Those two are so..." Weiss said, looking at them. A fond smile was spread all over her face "...stupid" she blinked her forming tears away. "You miss her, don't you?"
Weiss blushed in embarrassment. The comforting words and the sense of her faunus friend tenderly rubbing her shoulder were so much reminding her of her sister. "I haven't visited Win in a long time."
Blake solemnly closed her eyes "If you want to visit Atlas, I would gladly accompany you two when all this is over; if you are ok with me, that is."
Pale slender fingers hugged the back of her glove-covered palm. "You don't have to make it sound so formal; you know how fond of you Winter was. The only one who might complain will be Yang for not having me all her own."
Blake giggled before they broke their gesture "then we should tell Ruby too. She admired your sister a lot." Weiss nodded "she truly was a marvelous wom-"
"YOU ARE DEAD, RUBES!" the gentle atmosphere crashed down, as quickly as Yang got up from the mud and started chasing her sister around. The Checkmate duo rolled their eyes as the shouts turned into wild laughter.
"You two! Maybe you should, I don't know, take it a little more serious-" Weiss was cut off again as her partner burst past her and stopped in front of the broken door. "What are you waiting for? Let's go!" she then stepped in.
"I am going to kill them. Both of them" the platinum-haired huntress groaned in an exasperated manner to the amusement of her teammates.
"Well, that's definitely not what I expected" Yang's voice announced as she entered the outpost. Ruby was standing in front of her, equally confused, trying to understand the implications behind what she was looking at.
The outpost was nothing more than a two-storey house with an outside emergency ladder and a small watchtower on top. It was large enough for at least four people to live in and despite the mold covering its exterior seemed to be in an overall good shape.
But, when the sisters entered inside, they were overwhelmed by the sheer emptiness of the building.
The main hall, large enough to be used probably as a living room, was totally empty of anything. No furniture, no equipment, nothing- just four empty walls surrounding thin, musty air and a fungus-covered floor.
Their teammates joined them and soon enough they had searched the entire establishment. Two rooms on the top floor, the watchtower, the small cellar, the little room next to the main hall- everything was the same.
"Even the bathroom is empty" Yang said as she helped Blake barricade the front door. "Forget finding logs, there is no trace of people ever living here to begin with!" Weiss added, seated next to Ruby.
"Maybe… they all left at some point?" the scarlet-tipped girl asked. "And took even the curtains with them?" her sister half-joked "not even dad loves his household accessories that much."
"I think it's safe to assume this building was built with the intention of becoming an outpost" Blake asked while she sat down between Ruby and Yang "and the island's huntsmen simply never had the chance to use it."
"Well, weird as it might be, the question is simple- what now?" the blonde asked. "We have no clues about this place and the barrier keeps us away from getting to the Red Mansion where Vomit Boy is probably held."
"We will think of something" Ruby replied. "But while we are doing this, get some rest everyone. There is no reason to keep on wasting our stamina any more running around the place" she got up.
"Where are you going?" Weiss asked her. "To get some air at the watchtower- and to keep an eye for Grimm." Yang tried to object but Ruby smiled at her.
"Don't worry, I promised; no stupid stuff! I will just be a lookout!" Weiss raised an eyebrow "but you should rest too; you were pretty hurt. Isn't that right, Blake?"
She turned around- and saw the faunus had already fallen asleep, her back on the wall. Her chest was softly moving as a slow, cute sound escaped her lips. Yang got up and covered her with her jacket.
"Rubes is right" she yawned. "We could all use some good rest- we have barely slept since we came here and I can't even count how many days have passed."
"Possibly two" Weiss said. "But… I feel tired too. Maybe we should really get some sleep, after all." Ruby giggled "that's the spirit! I will wake you up in a few hours when I find the way to storm the mansion of evil!"
The couple shared an eye roll before Yang sat down and covered her face with her hat, as Weiss snuggled in her lap. Satisfied, Ruby added an ice dust vial behind the door as a trap and then rushed up to her guard.
-o-
Maybe if I overload Yang with fire dust and have Weiss shoot her at the barrier? No, Yang would have thought of it already. Maybe it is an Atlesian build and has weak points between the layers...
Seated at the top of the watchtower, with minimum visibility, Ruby discarded idea #23 from her mind. This is bad… she thought. Is this why they called us here? To have us watch outside the barrier while they kill Jaune? No, there has to be more than that…hopefully.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone climbing up the stairs. She turned her gaze to the staircase and saw a pair of cyan eyes looking at her.
"Hey Weiss! Slept well?" The alabaster girl nodded "yes, thank you. Did you rest at all?" She smiled in embarrassment "not really; I am trying to come up with a plan. And have failed magnificently."
Weiss took a seat next to her "I may have an idea, to be honest." The brunette shot up from her position and stared at her partner intently "tell me!"
"I actually woke up an hour ago" Weiss said. "And, since I didn't want to interrupt anyone, I decided to take a good look at this" she showed Ruby an old, dusty-looking notebook."
"This is the Red siblings' diary you told me about, isn't it?" she asked while running over the pages. "Yes- a small diary they made to recount the days they spent playing in the lighthouse with the poor keeper."
As the reaper's bandaged fingers ran through the pages, she stopped. A small photo was strapped on one of the pages. Its color was washed away and parts of it were lost to the humidity, but-
Silver eyes narrowed sadly. A young boy with long jet curly hair and black eyes and another one, red-haired with bright amber eyes, were hugging a taller girl in the middle.
She was young, barely a teenager, with short black hair and shining amber eyes. Her red lips were curved in a bright smile, shining as the sun behind her. She wore a lacy one-piece scarlet dress that reached to her ankles.
"To our sister who will be the best huntress in the world" Ruby said, despite half the letters have been washed away. "We… love you sis" Weiss added.
"I had my suspicions, but seeing this is just…" the red-clad girl exclaimed. "Looks like before life hit her, Elia Red was a kind big sis; not unlike Yang and Winter- at least to her brothers" Weiss added once more.
Fingers slightly trembling, Ruby closed the book "is this what you wanted to show me?" "No" her partner answered. "The entire notebook is merely a list of the things those three children did and wanted to do- a diary of hopes and wishes for the future."
She cleared her throat before continuing "however, there are two things that picked my interest. The first one has to do with Charlotte Red- their mother."
"About her illness?" Weiss nodded "at some point all three of them write their wishes about their mother's soul to rest in heaven- but that's it." Silver eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, that's it?"
"I mean at one point those three children wrote down their wishes to their deceased mother, even though up to this point, even two days before, there is not even one mentioning of her illness at their diary- in fact, they are talking about going on a trip with her."
"That's weird..." Ruby thought. "Yes, it is. But even this is not the important part; it's just food for thought and another weird mystery. What I wanted to show you has to do with the gold coming out of this island."
Ruby tilted her head in confusion, before Weiss elaborated. "At many times, Elia and Alizar speak about running away from the mansion to play in the ocean. Care to guess how they sneaked away from their father?"
"Hmmmm… through the forest?" the brunette was at loss. What was Weiss trying to say? She both liked and hated when her partner was in a playful mood- which was any time she knew something Ruby didn't. Which happened quite a lot.
"No." She opened the diary and showed a small, hand-written map at the last page. It showed a not very accurate depiction of the village, with quite a few houses marked with a bright 'X'.
"It appears Octavios Red had dug a few tunnels from his refinery in the bottom of his mansion down to the harbor in order to quickly transport the gold. And, as standard protocol requests, had constructed a few safety exits along their path.
"The marked houses..." Ruby's eyes lit in recognition. "Do you see any house among them that looks familiar?" Weiss gave her a self-satisfied smirk.
"Weiss, you are a genius!" she burst forth and hugged her best friend tightly. "You are incredible! Now we can go below the barrier!" The pale girl returned the hug. "Exactly- which I assume is what Alizar expects us to do."
"Well, the entire mission is us walking into a trap to begin with. It's better now that we know they are expecting us" Ruby said. "Let's wake up Blake and Yang- it's time to bring the fight to their doorstep!"