The Willful Children
Ozpin barely had time to sit behind his desk after introducing professor Callows to the entire student body, one year at a time, before Salem came bursting into his office.
Honestly, there was a reason he placed his office in a tower to be accessed only by elevator.
And so people could burst into his office whenever they wanted wasn't it.
"What is-" he started, signalling Goodwitch not to ready her weapon. It wasn't as if Salem would have waited until now to attack him even if that was her plan.
"There's a Grimm you need to destroy. Immediately."
It was hardly what he expected to hear from the Queen of the Grimm.
"If this is about Drei-"
"Why would I be talking about a Beowolf? The... what did they call it..." Salem muttered to herself, "Nukelvee?"
"A Nuckelavee?"
"You mean more than one survived?"
The disbelief in her voice was surprising.
"Why are you so intent on the destruction of the Nuckelavee? I am hardly going to commit Huntsmen to trying to kill one of the most dangerous varieties of Grimm merely on your saying they need to be killed."
It was clear Salem was warring with herself about whether to explain or not.
Finally she came to a decision. "You," she stated, pointing at Goodwitch, "out. I don't know how much he has told you, but I can't trust you with this."
Ozpin nodded to her. It may not be the best idea he'd ever had, being in a room alone with someone who had wanted him dead for generations, but it had been a long time since he had been able to use his knowledge of Salem as a person to predict her actions. Getting an explanation from her about this would, hopefully, change that.
It was clear Goodwitch had her own reservations about leaving the two of them alone, but in the end she trusted his judgement to do so.
Salem waited impatiently until the elevator had started on its way before speaking.
"The Nuckle... whatevers, they aren't natural. Not even to the same degree as other Grimm."
"That was quite apparent from their appearance. Many Grimm look similar to animals after all, but none besides the Nuckelavee have a... human component. Well, them and Apathy. I'd always thought they were created when you..." he trailed off, no wanting to remind her of the time he was... missing.
Salem snorted. "Ah yes, the workers," she began, clearly ignoring his unfinished sentence. "They seemed so useful to begin with, it was only once they began to multiply that it became clear they were too hungry. But if you've given them a name, some must have made use of the cell not having a door."
"Interesting. I'd always believed that the way they drain all motivation was deliberate. And that they'd been released deliberately..."
"If it was, they'd be immune to their effects. But the Knight-"
"The Knight? Is that what you called the-"
"Let me finish!"
Ozpin was taken aback by her outburst. It wasn't as if he didn't already know Salem had a temper, but since she'd arrived at Beacon she had been keeping it in check.
"As I was saying, the Knight project, my attempt to create a Grimm that could act as my kingdoms knights, is how they came to be. A skilled warrior on horseback, man and mount as one, is that not how you explained them to me?"
"My memories so far back are... blurry at best," Ozpin admitted. It was something that still concerned him from time to time, how only the memories forged since his revival by the god of light were entirely clear.
"The plan was to have a Grimm that could fulfil the role, one who would be entirely loyal to the kingdom of Grimm," Salem continued, clearly unconvinced. "But there were, complications."
"Like the Apathy?"
"I thought I'd learned a valuable lesson from the Workers, that my creations might work fine alone, but fail in a group. I knew I'd fixed their hunger, not making the Knights quite so... human."
"What do you mean?" It was surprising to hear the Apathy being considered anything close to human, aside from their appearance.
"There is a reason most Grimm run on instincts. They need too much aura to mimic intelligence. I avoided this with the Knights, binding the horse and rider intellects closely, so that only the areas dealing with individual actions, the arms or the legs, needed the separate 'mind', if you will. There was to be communication about the intentions of course, so that they would work together, but that was the source of the problem."
Ozpin couldn't see it. "Where did it go wrong?"
"The resonance. It cut through my control. And the Knight didn't have any instincts beyond fighting, why would it when it was meant to follow my commands above all else? So without that control-"
"The went mad, attacking everything," Ozpin finished in shock. "I always thought-"
"That I released them deliberately? That I sought to pointlessly tear down the civilisation you had wrought?" She snorted. "No, back then I was..." Salem suddenly seemed to remember who she was talking to and stopped. "In any case, I sealed the testing grounds and sent all my other Grimm to destroy them. Wiped out my new Worker model," she grumbled, "but the surviving Grimm reported that the Knights were gone. They reported that they'd gone," she finished in a tone of horrified realisation.
"To summarise, you created a type of Grimm to act as protector, but they went mad and an unknown number escaped and went on a rampage. Is there any chance of more being created than your original batch?"
"For Grimm to spawn, the source has to have the 'pattern' encoded. If an animal enters a spring, or is eaten by something like a dragon, a Grimmified version can be produced, or I can 'program' The Spring to create a fully tested Grimm I made. I'm not repeating the Worker mistake," she finished quietly.
"In that case it is indeed time to eradicate the Nuckelavee. It had seemed safer to merely observe and keep them away from civilians when I thought they were intentional." He was already accessing his computer, bringing up each Nuckelavee sighting to locate their most likely locations.
"Are you mad? The longer they survived the more likely I would be to send more! How many have they killed because of your 'caution'?"
"Now is not the time for such discussions. I have to find the appropriate Huntsmen to deal with each Nuckelavee."
"I'm not about to trust you to take care of this issue if it is as bad as you say."
"Huntsmen are hardly used to the existence of 'friendly' Grimm. You can't expect them to let you help. And professor Callows hasn't been on staff long enough to qualify for leave."
"At the very least I expect to be able to send watchers to confirm they are dealt with. Your people always seem to overlook the small Nevermores."
"Enough die naturally before growing to a threatening side that it's considered a waste of bullets. Very well, there's the one near Kuroyuri, which seems to have made a lair in a nearby cave..."
Ozpin quickly ran through all the Nuckelavee he had been watching, considering who to send after them as he did so. When he reached the last he paused.
"Huh, the ruins of old Vacuo. It's too deep in the desert for any huntsmen to reach in any state to fight the Grimm. It never seems to leave the ruins."
"Leave it to me. Grimm don't get dehydrated after all."
Ozpin gave her a look, then nodded. "Very well. Let's get started."
[]
"Do you think they're going to do anything?"
As soon as Ren had confronted Salem about the fate of his village she had ran off, to Ozpins office as it turned out.
The team had followed her, and was now waiting outside the office, to find out why she was there.
The doors slid open, and professor Goodwitch stepped out of the elevator. She blinked at seeing the students.
"Why are you- that's how she learned about the Nuckelavee," she interrupted herself.
"What about Salem and the Nuckelavee?"
"Normally I wouldn't talk to students about matters like this, but knowing why you're asking I will tell you this once. Salem needed the headmasters help to eliminate the surviving Nuckelavee."
The students blinked.
"Do you know why she wants to destroy them?"
"She didn't want me to know. If that is all, it would be best if you found something else to do. I doubt Salem will be happy if she finds you waiting out here."
The dismissal was clear enough that they had no choice but to leave.
They were still left the question of what was going on.
[]
The bar owner was of mixed opinion about the stranger who'd entered town the day before.
Sure he was spending a lot of money in the bar, but since he'd shown up a lot of things had broken around the bar.
If it wasn't for his insurance premiums being fully paid up, he would be losing money faster than he could make it.
It might be impossible for someones mere presence to cause misfortune for those around them, but he couldn't help but feel there was a connection.
And the way the man was supposedly poking his nose into everything going on in town...
There was the sound of a scroll call, which made the stranger start.
"Scuse me," he said to the bar at large, digging out the scroll to answer it. "Qrow speaking. Ozpin, why're you calling me now? I'm on the job already- what? Another job? What about my current one? No, you told me it was too important to wait. Fine, I'll leave what I found for the next guy. What do you want me for anyway? A WHAT!?"
The entire bar was paying attention to him now.
The stranger jumped to his feet, digging out some money to throw at the bar as he left.
"Are you serious? You've always said it was too dangerous to go after them- new information? How did you-"
The sounds of the call were cut off when he left the bar.
The owner glanced at the money the stranger had left, and his eyes widened.
It was a lot more than the man owed him for the drinks.
Good to know his luck was coming back.
AN: And so we start to see the truth behind this interpretation of Salem. Fortunately for this story, I shouldn't need to check much online so the ongoing lack of internet I've been facing shouldn't delay this story much, beyond my updating each story in turn. When the internet actually connects reliably at a meaningful speed, all my stories should be getting updates at a faster rate (and when there's no remodelling of where I write, I'll actually be sticking to my weekend updates [outside of any April 1st oneshots that I come up with the idea of beforehand]).
Also, I only noticed as I was about to publish that I doubled up on the chapter name, and had to find a new Grimm tale to use. I really should note which names are already in use.
