Disclaimer: I hereby declare that Roosterteeth studios RWBY production crew may freely use any ideas, characters, or events written in this story free of charge and without any threat of lawsuit for any production, though it would be preferable to inform me of the use of the idea if used.

Mansion of Frozen Blood ch5

"Havarti fight too!" shouted Havarti who attempted to leap forwards while holding the knife Lan had given him.

"Back," said Lan, who grabbed him by the top of the head and pulled them back into the chaff smokescreen just in time to avoid several shots from the turrets that were continuing to pop out of the walls.

"Alright now, you know you can't hide in there for long" said Celsus, as the bio soldiers behind him slowly began to rise off of the ground. "Hmmm, I guess I should probably turn the heat sensors on or switch to manual mode."

He began entering in commands on the main terminal, but stopped as his eyes drifted to the hacking device at the side.

"Oh, right" he said, as he reached out to remove it, but before his hand could touch it, the acorn shaped device split open and with a loud snap, lodging itself into the side of the terminal with a large metal clamp that tore into the composite plastic the terminal was made of.

"Oh what the—" started Celsus, exasperated as he tried and failed to remove the device from the terminal. He then turned to one of the bio soldiers behind him. "Hey could one of you get this off?"

The soldier closest to him grunted and raised its fist into the air.

"Never mind" said Celsus, who stopped the creature before it could smash the terminal. "Let me see if I can get a laser to shoot it off."

Before he could try however, another chaff smoke bomb landed at his feet and exploded.

"Ah, yes, should probably handle you first" said Celsus. With a few quick commands, the hard light barrier in front of the prison cells deactivated, and a few moments later, dozens of other experiments poured out of it towards them. Most of them were humanoid in shape. But others, were absolute monstrosities appearing to have been heavily mutilated or modified.

"Ah! Crap!" shouted Lan, who saw this over his shoulder. He was at first stunned on seeing them, wondering what could lead a person to twist and warp other people like this, but as he saw the blood lusted fury in their eyes, he decided he would have to confront Celsus about this later, and decided to focus on the current confrontation. However, the momentary confusion did lead him to make a strange opening move. "Uh, uh…! Havarti! Attack!"

"Huh?" said Havarti a moment before he began sailing through the air towards Celsus's face. Unluckily for the small furry creature, he sailed clear out of the smoke for one portion of his aerial path and was immediately blasted by a variety of lasers and fire arms, altering his trajectory and sending the screaming burnt little fluffball crashing into one of the bio soldiers that had just gotten back up.

"Woah!" said Celsus, who ducked right after Havarti had sailed by, bounced off the wall and landed on the bio soldier that was still prone on the ground. "For the love of—You guys get them already!"

The two bio soldiers that had gotten back up quickly rushed towards Lan again, while the one on the ground brushed Havarti off and began to get back up.

"And let's not have a repeat of before happen" said Celsus, who hit a few commands on the terminal.

With a roar of the rage, the bio soldiers suddenly increased in speed. Thrown off beat by their sudden change in pace, Lan missed his timing with releasing a concussive orb. It struck the front bio soldier only a few feet in front of Lan, sending it flying backwards but also causing Lan to stumble backwards. This opening allowed the second soldier to dart forward, pin Lan's arms to his sides, and lift him into the air. But as it was about to slam Lan onto the ground, the boy shot a concussive sphere from his foot into the creature's face causing it to loosen its grip. Taking advantage of this, Lan grabbed a container of fire dust from one of his pockets and combined it with Veritas's crystallization semblance to create a few shuriken which he threw at the Bio soldier's head. The blades embedded themselves in the soldier's metallic helmet, and a second later exploded, shattering its helmet and throwing the bio soldier backwards onto the ground where it rolled back and forth as it covered its face, screaming in pain. Lan was also sent flying a short distance by the blast, but managed to control his fall and roll back into the smokescreen before the turrets blasted him.

"Oooh, not bad, and I even increased their stimulant dosages and upped their aggression." Said Celsus "Hmmm, looks like I'll have to do something about their pain receptors too, but at the same time inhibiting their sense of touch too much would reduce their effectiveness 'mutter' 'mutter'"

Seeing Celsus start muttering himself and getting lost in thought, Lan prepared to rush forwards and press the attack but stopped as the second bio-soldier got back up. With the helmet gone, Lan got a full view of its head. He appeared to be man in his late 30's and had the freckle like scales that were characteristic of lizard Faunus, likely a Chameleon due to their cloaking capability. But the thing that drew Lan's attention the most was the large mass of electronic wiring, chips, and other apparatuses that covered where the man's hair should have been.

"Oh, my, shit" said Lan as the man fixed Lan with a stare that was simultaneously blank and full of rage "He's one of the missing workers."

"Well of course he is" said Celsus, "You thought he was a private mercenary I hired or something? Oh no no no, these stealth troopers were made using rare Chameleon Faunus, their abilities enhanced using the latest in optical camouflage materials fused with their own skin."

"Huh?" said Havarti, who had stealthily rolled himself back to Lan's feet "You mean those not suits?"

"Oh, no no, that's their actual skin" said Celsus. "And my, you truly are durable 4060, I should really increase the level of durability testing for your series after this."

Almost immediately as the last word left Celsus's mouth, a throwing knife whizzed by the side of his face and struck the metallic wall behind him.

"So, you were heartless after all" said Lan, his arm extended from throwing the knife. "Not to mention a monster and a liar."

Celsus fixed Lan with a blank stare that soon broke into a gentle smile. "I agree with many of the things you said" said Celsus with a somewhat resigned nod "But so far, I haven't lied to you about anything. I truly do want to be with Willow and her children…which is why I can't let you ruin what I've built so far."

"Like them?" said Lan who turned and pointed to the horde that had almost arrived at the raised platform they were standing on.

"…Yes" said Celsus, whose face lost its usual pleasant confidence as it gave him an emotionless stare. "But I will make sure that they only see the finished product."

Lan turned back towards Celsus in an attempt to neutralize him and use the terminal to stop the horde that was continuing to surge towards his position, but he was stopped in his tracks as he noticed the cloud of smoke and chaff that he was hiding in was beginning to disperse much more quickly than usual. Celsus had apparently turned up the ventilation system, which was clearing the chaff and allowing the turrets, which were now firing randomly and intermittently into the smokescreen, to get a better shot. Lan threw out a few more chaff bombs to create a path to Celsus, but two of them were intercepted midflight by the stealth bio-soldiers, exploding and creating two large clouds of smoke in the air. Seeing as he didn't have a clear path to Celsus, Lan decided that he had to subdue the bio-soldiers first. Hoping to do so without harming them now that he knew that they weren't attacking him of their own free will, he quickly launched some small crystal shuriken embedded with ice dust at the 2 bio-soldiers' feet, freezing them to the ground briefly, this opening let him fire 2 concussive orbs that he had combined with almost all of his ice dust. The orbs hit the ground between the bio soldiers' feet and froze the 2 soldiers up to their waists. After that, Lan pulled out his last few chaff smoke bombs and used them to complete a path to Celsus. Celsus attempted to switch on manual targeting for the turrets, but was interrupted as Havarti leapt onto his back and began smacking him with his stubby little arms. However, Celsus responded by grabbing the little puffball by the back of the head, and throwing him screaming off the platform.

Lan dashed through the path he created towards Celsus, however the last bio-soldier which had its helmet removed earlier lunged towards Lan, releasing a violent angry howl. Attempting to subdue them without harming them, Lan attempted to parry most of the attacks thrown at him while attempting to dislocate joints or strike pressure points.

However, not only was the bio-soldier now more aware of Lan's capabilities which prevented the boy from landing the technique that sent it flying earlier (which required a channeling period to properly combine spiritual energy and aura together to create a more powerful blast), but Lan was also horrified to discover that the creature had a carapace like armor growing on the areas of its body that both protected its more sensitive internals and reinforced its joints. Lan knew he could possibly break through them using Dust or burning more Aura to augment his physical strength, but he was just as likely to deal a fatal injury or tear off a limb if he did so. Especially since he found that none of the soldiers so far had been capable of projecting an Aura.

As if reading his mind, Celsus responded to this.

"Yes, I have not incorporated any Aura-capable individuals into any of my experiments thus far." He said as he continued to type into the terminal "Due to their scarcity relative to other populations, I believed it to be in my best interest to reserve such subjects for after my current experiments yield more stable and feasible results. Especially since those individuals are much more cost effective to recruit rather than forcibly conscript. And people tend to not accept recruitment when they believe death or some kind of irreversible mutation is certain."

Lan attempted to respond to this, but was quickly finding the last bio-soldier was becoming harder and harder to deal with as it began to adapt to his fighting style.

"You know you're really giving me good data right now" said Celsus, who hit the last few keys with a flourish. "I've downloaded the movements of some of the best hand to hand combatants I could find, but they really hadn't been able to use those skills to their fullest potential until you started pushing their limits like this."

Lan could also see that the bio-soldier's movement were becoming more refined as they fought. Steering away from its previous animalistic savagery and moving towards more practical hand to hand combat techniques. Lan didn't have time to marvel at this however, due to the first of the experiments from the holding cells having finally climbed up onto the platform, closely followed by the rest of the horde. Seeing this, Lan immediately made his decision. Deflecting a punch from the bio-soldier, he grabbed a small piece of explosive dust out of one of his pockets.

"Sorry!" shouted Lan, as he created a crystal spike with a concussive orb fused with the dust at its flat back end near his palm. He then drove the spike into the bio-soldier's knee, detonating the orb and send the burning hot crystal spike through, essentially blowing its knee apart and searing the wound closed at the same time. As the bio-soldier collapsed onto the stump that was left of its leg, Lan dashed past it and charged towards Celsus while throwing crystal spikes and concussive orbs at the man. However, before any of them could land, they were all shot out of or detonated in the air by a variety of ballistic and laser-based projectiles.

"And that's manual aiming turned on" said Celsus, who tapped his fingers on the screen to fire while a happy smile spread across his face. At that moment, dozens of turrets on the laboratory wall behind him all turned and targeted Lan, their muzzles glowing. Seeing this, Lan was just able to form a large crystal shield in front of him as a barrage of turret fire slammed into it, pushing the boy backwards as he attempted to both maintain durability of the shield and root himself in place by using all the earth and hard light Dust he had on him to enhance the shield, create spikes on the bottom his shoes, and create extra durable chains that wrapped around his body and anchored himself into the ground.

"Oooh, quite the versatile semblance you have" said Celsus, who diverted 30% of the turret fire to destroy the metal plating that Lan was anchored into. "It's going to be a pleasure to work on you."

Detached from the ground, Lan was flung backwards by the turret fire, and slammed into the crowd of experiments that had finally crawled onto the platform. The boy flew backwards off the platform, sending the experiments that had first made contact with him flying off into the air. The boy then fell downwards into the mass of experiments still at the base of the raised platform. Celsus turned off the turrets at this point, as his army of biological soldiers and monsters began to swarm Lan. The boy attempted to fight them off at first, but he was far too debilitated both by his subconscious fear of hurting them and his own mental fatigue to maintain his aura level and properly use his semblance to fight back.

Lan's fighting style was quite simply an extremely exhausting one. To augment his comparatively low physical abilities, Lan had been using large bursts of his own Aura to augment his physical strikes and movement, and then using the esoteric techniques head had learned in Meng's temple to quickly replenish it by pulling in the ambient spiritual energy that is constantly spread throughout the world and converting it into Aura. However, not only would it take a significant amount of time for the ambient spiritual energy in the atmosphere to return to levels that would be able to restore Aura after being depleted, but the process of converting it puts significant strain on the user's mental state. He was also only able to convert small amounts at a time when in active combat, the technique was technically supposed to be used in conjunction with meditation which would make the whole process far more efficient and less mentally taxing. Thankfully, Lan had been able to connect his own Aura storage with Veritas's expanding his maximum reserves to levels far higher than normal. However, because of this he had adapted his fighting style into one that consumes massive amounts of Aura so that he could output enough raw power to go toe to toe with larger Grimm and older opponents. This was of course very inefficient on Lan's part, as using Aura to directly create physical force was far more inefficient than proper use of one's semblance. A lesson that he was paying for dearly at this very moment.

He had already recharged his Aura a few times now: once after ambushing the guards, once after sending the three bio-soldiers flying, and a few times while protecting himself from the turret volley (albeit less efficiently than the other times due to not having room to breathe). As a result, after a few moments of attempting to parry the dozens of appendages flailing at him he found himself too weak to properly defend himself and was quickly swarmed and surrounded. As he hesitated using all the explosives at his disposal to dislodge himself from the writhing mass of flesh, he suddenly found all his limbs seized by the limbs surrounding him. He was then slammed onto the ground, as the dozens of experimental victims dogpiled him, a few of them grabbing his head and slamming it onto the floor. Quiet filled the room for a moment, only broken by the moans of the experiments and Lan's muffled groans as he tried to get back up.

The sound of slow clapping filled the room after that, a moment later a part of the part of the pillar supporting the platform slid open, revealing a screen which showed a live feed of Celsus.

"Bravo my friend" said Celsus who clapped his hands, his usual pleasant smile on his face. "Phew, you actually had me worried there for a moment. If I hadn't been able to activate manual control of the turrets before you got to me, well, I might have been the one on the ground at this moment…oh my and look what you've done to the stealth trooper." He sighed as he stared at the now crippled bio-soldier which was currently dragging itself across the ground "Finding chameleon Faunus is quite the difficult task you know. Ugh, I might have to deal with those Vacuan traffickers again if I can't develop a proper prosthetic."

For a moment, Lan caught a flash of guilt cross Celsus's face, a chance he didn't let escape.

"You hate everything that you're doing, don't you?" yelled Lan "What's all this for anyways? You know Willow and Weiss would never accept what you've done! I've seen the corpses! I've seen the piles of decaying bodies just left there, broken and violated in a forgotten cave in the snowy wastes! Each of them had lives like yours, like Willow and her kids! How can you expect to hold them knowing what you've done with your hands?"

Celsus looked at Lan for a moment, then sighed and hit a few keys on the Terminal. A chair popped up behind him and he sat down.

"Well, it's not like Willow can hate me much more at this point, and it might be good to discuss this with someone who's not inside a test tube." Celsus suddenly looked very tired as he contemplated for a moment, after which he flung his hand up into the air and shrugged his shoulders. "What the heck!? Might as well get this off my chest." He hit a few buttons on the panel and a table with a bottle and a glass rose out of the floor. At this point he noticed the hacking device again, and shot it off with one of the mounted turrets. "Well, now that that's taken care of, where to begin?... Ah yes, I believe I left off when I was trying to find some financial backing. Well, at that point in time there was only one organization in Atlas that could truly compete with and in some cases subjugate the Schnee Dust company. The Atlesian military."

He took a long swig from the alcohol at his desk before continuing.

"But the Atlesian military already had top robotics and programming specialists like Watts and Pietro. Attempting to sign up normally for their R&D department and rise through the ranks while having to compete with robotics specialists like them would never have gotten me anywhere near where I needed to be. To that end I had to find a way to leverage my own strengths instead of directly competing in an area that I was unfamiliar with. In order to do that I had to learn to militarize the genetics and cellular alteration technology that my company had already been developing."

"The Atlesian military's purpose is to protect the people of Atlas" said Lan as he looked up at a woman who seemed to have limbs from various Faunus types growing from her body in addition to her own bovine horns, "Isn't what you've done to these people the exact opposite of that mission?"

"…I won't deny that what I've done is inhumane" said Celsus "But the resulting work could save millions of lives in the coming years." He sat back and his chair and readjusted his glasses as he began to think back on the past "In order to have a better idea on what I could develop that would be valuable to the Atlesian military, I began to read into the history of warfare itself, starting from the oldest technological blueprints from the Great War. But as I began to look into weapons development history in regards to protecting the kingdom from Grimm and other threats, I noticed something peculiar." Celsus adjusted his glasses, a somewhat concerned look on his face. "It seems as though the Grimm are able to quickly adapt themselves to new military technologies that come out, far more quickly than their normal adaptive evolutionary process. Yes, it is my theory that something out there is actively working to strengthen Grimm in the war against humanity. And not just some kind of force of nature, something sentient and capable of complex thought."

Lan pursed his lips and nodded his head as he heard this, already fully aware of Salem.

"I reasoned that if something like that existed, then humanity needed every advantage if they were to have a chance against what was coming. The likes of Pietro and Watts already handled the development of Atlas's mechanical and robotics development well enough, so I thought about what I could do. How I could both benefit the world and seize the glory I would need to get what I wanted out of life. I realized however, that Atlesion development team's work mostly involved improved the combat abilities of the rank and file, raising the floor so to speak, by replacing Atlas's troops with automated drones to reduce the cost of human life. However, as the history of Remnant has proven time and time again it is the heroes who are the ones who ultimately win battles, the huntsman and huntresses who have sharpened their skills. And after speaking to many huntsmen who have had experience on the frontlines of both anti-Grimm operations and combat with criminal organizations, I concluded that the most important things for a huntsman were their semblance, their training, their weapon, and the body that wielded them. One's skills and semblance are up to the individual to improve. Weaponry, engineering geniuses like Pietro and Watts will have them covered. But the body…that was something that I could help with"

Celsus straightened back in his chair as he began scanning the mass of experiments that were currently holding Lan down.

"Did you know that there are mutations out there that can increase the rate of muscle growth and development, increase density and durability of bones, and halve the needed hours of sleep a person needs? And that's just for humans, just look at all the Faunus out there, with their hundreds of thousands of physical adaptations from their animalian counterparts. From hard carapaces to claws to internal poison sacks, they have thousands of possible ways to improve one's combat capabilities. And if multiple such capabilities could be transplanted into an individual." Celsus chuckled "Just imagine the kind of soldier that could be born. Ones that could take the fiercest of strikes from the largest of Grimm and rise back to their feet, even if their Aura had been fully depleted. Ones that could tear through even the hardest of Grimm carapaces with their own. Ones that could detect any disturbance using combinations of echolocation, ultra violet vision, and biological heat sensing pits. With individuals capable of more physical feats than ever before and gaining more physical variability, engineering and robotics technology could also greatly adapt in ways that took advantages of this. For example, have you ever thought about what the ideal design would be for a gun fired using a tail instead of a hand?"

As Celsus blathered on and on about the many possible innovations involved with biological research, Lan nodded his head as if understanding something.

"Ah I see you're beginning to understand!" said Celsus.

"I understand the value…but why the need for all this?" said Lan he gestured to those around him and the room they were in. "Why abduct people off the streets? Why force them to go through inhumane experiments? Why not follow the code of ethics expected of a researcher?"

"…That my friend is a 2-problem question, with both having the same answer" said Celsus. "The first problem is that I had no idea how this unknown entity operates, it could be gathering forces as we speak, preparing for a war we have no way of knowing when will begin or what kind of monstrosities they would be unleashing. Unless I can rise high enough in the ranks to bring this to the attention of those in charge without being treated like a madman and then create the forces we would need to combat it I'd say humanity survival is, excuse me for the play on words, Grimm. And as for the second…well, I admit that one is a little more personal in nature. It's true that Jacquess has increased security in recent years, but I've still managed to get information about the household." Celsus sighed as a sad look came over his face "Things are growing worse for Willow and the children with each passing year. And with Jacques's hold on the company growing ever tighter and his power ever growing, the chance that I'll be able to save them from him is worsening with every passing day." Celsus suddenly looked very tired as he slumped back into his chair "I see it in her eyes every time I see her. The growing exhaustion and despair. And all because of that goddamn bastard!" As he clenched his fist and shouted this last phrase, Lan noticed that his voice changed. Focusing his vision, Lan also noticed that the color of Celsus's eyes had turned a sickly yellow.

Also noticing the change in his own demeanor, Celsus closed his eyes, sat back in his chair, and began taking deep breaths until he had calmed down.

"The answer to both of those issues is time" said Celsus, as he finally opened his eyes, which were their normal color "There simply isn't enough time to do things the right way. Make no mistake child, I understand just how important it is to maintain an ethical standard in scientific research, both to prevent ourselves from accidently destroying ourselves and making new scientific discoveries when creating workarounds for ethical dilemmas…but we simply don't have time. At the pace the Grimms' evolution is accelerating, by my estimates Atlas will fall in the next decade or so…and there's even less time for Willow and the children."

He straightened up again and looked up towards the ceiling.

"At the rate that their relationship is deteriorating, in around 2-3 years the marriage will have completely collapsed. And after that Willow will be trapped in a loveless marriage and the children will be torn apart by a broken family…and knowing Jacques, he'll block any legal avenues they can use to escape, so he can maintain the prestige of the name, forcing them all to live a life of emptiness and pain…I can't let that happen to them."

Celsus then sat up straight again.

"You know, that was actually quite therapeutic, perhaps we can have this conversation again in the future. But I'm sad to say that you may not have all your cognitive functions after the procedures. But a boy of your potential, well, let's just say I'll do my best so you can work for the Celsus family for a long long time. Weiss could always use a friend to talk to…oh what the heck, I'll hold you in storage until I can do a proper memory wipe. I don't know why but you've really grown on me kid. Perhaps I'll have you join the family as Weiss's warrior butler or something."

Celsus straightened up and hit a few buttons on the console. "Well, I think it's time for me to get back to the party. Please enjoy your time in the cell while I—"

He paused as he noticed something, or rather the lack of something that was supposed to have happened. The commands he had just entered should have triggered the mass of experiments currently holding Lan down to begin transferring him into one of the prison cells, but none of them had moved a muscle. In fact, the only that was moving in the pile was Lan, who quickly pulled himself out from under the mass of flesh.

Confused and alarmed, Celsus opened up the console's debugging and command window to see what was going wrong. It was then that he noticed commands being entered one after another without his input, in fact from the looks of it, it had been going on for quite a while now.

"What?" muttered Celsus as he began trying to regain control of the system. "I thought I removed the hacking device?!"

"You did" said Lan, as he pulled out a grappling hook and tossed it upwards towards the platform "But you forgot the other one!"

"What other—" started Celsus, as many of the turrets in the walls had begun to retract.

"This one!" shouted Havarti, who jumped out of a crack in the wall that opened up as a turret was retracted.

To explain what is going on, we will need to back track a little bit. Back when Lan had first thrown Havarti at Celsus, the boy had also rammed a communication device into one of Havarti's ears, tiny little holes on the sides of his head hidden underneath his floof. After that, Sammy had begun coordinating with them over the course of the fight while slowly and steadily hacking his way into the lab's main control system. After Havarti had been knocked off the platform, Sammy had begun giving the little fluff ball orders, having him slip through the cracks in the damaged metal plating of the walls and begin tampering with the circuitry as per Sammy's instructions. And although Havarti had slipped up many times, he had managed to manually activate the wireless signal receiver which allowed Sammy to continue to hack into the system using the signal relays that Lan had set up in the tunnel leading up to the lab that were originally paired with the hacking device. And using the time that Lan had bought him by getting Celsus to talk on and on about his past, Sammy had seized control of enough of the system to temporarily stop the experimental soldiers and begin deactivating the turrets.

"I really can't let my guard down at all with you, can I boy?" said Celsus as he furiously began a hacking battle with Sammy. Sammy did have a good head start, but he was also coding on a laptop, albeit a heavily customized one, with his signal being bounced through multiple relays before it could affect Celsus's systems. Celsus on the other had had top of the line processing equipment and coding tools purchased from some of Atlas's best net-security providers, so although his area of specialty wasn't coding like Sammy's was, the man was slowly but surely making progress and beginning to overwhelm Sammy, if only that was the only thing he had to worry about.

"No, you can't" said Lan, who had arrived at the top of the platform. He quickly formed a few crystal knives in his hands and threw them at Celsus, who had to stop coding in order to duck out of the way. Looking at the heavily armed boy who was quickly approaching him, Celsus let out a frustrated grunt and pulled out a small switch from inside his coat pocket which he immediately pressed.

At that moment a chorus of screams and shrieks rose up from down below. Alarmed, Lan stopped in his tracks and peered over the edge, watching in horror as the experiments began writhing in agony down below for a few brief moments before turning their attention to Lan up above, their faces contorted in unrestrained fury, before throwing themselves at the column and beginning to climb up.

Lan quickly turned back around and darted towards Celsus, but in the time the boy had been distracted, the man had opened up a panel in the ground and activated a hard-light Dust shield that covered him and the main terminal.

"What did you do?" shouted Lan as he began battering the shield with crystal covered punches and concussive blasts.

"Overloaded their wireless neurological control systems" said Celsus, as he got back to his feet, his breathing heavy. "They'll attack anything on sight now, real nasty last resort."

"Then they'll tear you apart too then!" said Lan who stopped his attack as he estimated that he wouldn't be able to break through before the horde arrived.

"True as truffles my friend, true as truffles" said Celsus with a dry chuckle, "but paradoxically a man like myself never has only 1 last resort" The man then took off his upper body clothing, revealing a mechanical apparatus covering his upper back and neck. He then pulled a small cylindrical object out of his pants pocket and stared at it. "Really wish I had time to run a few more tests" he said as he pressed a button on the back of the device his neck, which opened a small hole at the bottom of his cervical spine. He inserted the cylinder into the hollow and a moment later his body want limp and he slumped over.

Seeing this, Lan was uncertain what to do next, but seeing that Sammy was still making progress hacking professor Celsus's terminal Lan decided to focus on the most immediate threat. Probing his aura with his spiritual energy, Lan found that he had roughly 20% of his total Aura remaining. Not wasting any time, he quickly assumed the Lotus position and closed his eyes. Sensing the ambient natural spiritual energy around him, he began spreading out his own in an expanding web, and after binding as much of the ambient energy as he could, he pulled all of it into his being. This served to charge his Aura the same way increasing the amount of reagent would speed up a chemical reaction. Spiritual energy was naturally converted into Aura over time as a person took the time to rest, but by overcharging his spiritual energy stores, he was able to greatly increase the recovery speed.

However; the heightened recovery was only sustainable whilst the individual focused on maintaining the excess store of spiritual energy. A lapse in concentration would cause the excess to immediately spill back out into the surrounding environment and halt the accelerated recovery process. Of course, masters like Gruncle Meng had mastered this skill to such a level that they could make recovery almost instant, ensuring that they could almost never run out of Aura. Sadly, Lan was far from this level of skill and had barely recovered 40% of his Aura by the time the first experiment had crawled its way up onto the platform. Lan made a motion to get up and intercept it, but after pausing for a moment, he sat back down and continued to charge, not even opening his eyes as the first of the experiments began barreling towards him. The one at the front, who looked like he was once a male lion Faunus, opened its mouth, revealing long uneven sets of jagged teeth interspersed with metallic implants, and dove at Lan. However, the moment before he would have bitten the boy, a shining red blur slammed into it from the side, sending it and several other experiments flying off the platform. Almost immediately after, several light blue blasts struck the area between Lan and the other experiments, creating an ice barrier.

With an energetic howl, Ignis landed on the ground in front of Lan before running over and licking his face.

"Umph good boy" said Lan who tried to keep the drool out of his mouth as he continued to meditate. "I'm guessing George is cloaking Edel right now?"

"Oh, uh when I sent a request for backup, this was not what I was expecting." said Sammy.

"Have you found a way to stop the prisoners yet?" said Lan "Hopefully without hurting them?"

"Still getting control of the system." Said Sammy, "I don't see any commands that can restore them after being overloaded. There might be something that could help in the research files, but I'm not a biologist so I'm not sure what to look for."

"Good thing I know someone who is" said Lan, who then stood up. He then reached into his pouch and pulled out his only gravity dust crystal. Channeling around 80% of the aura he had just recovered into it, he slammed it onto the hard light barrier that was protecting Dr. Celsus. He felt the energy within the crystal struggling to burst forth, but contained and redirected it using a combination of his aura and spiritual energy. He focused it at a single point in the shield, which opened up a small hole that he proceeded to widen by using the gravity dust to bend the hard light dust around it. When the hole had opened up wide enough, Lan quickly reached inside, grabbed Dr. Celsus by the collar, and pulled him out.

"Hey, wake up!" shouted Lan, who began slapping Dr. Celsus repeatedly as cracks began to form in the ice barrier separating him from the experiments. "You tell me how to calm them down right now! Steel Squirrel's recorded everything you've told me. If you don't want the Schnee's to know about it then—"

With an unnaturally fast movement, Dr. Celsus seized Lan by the throat, interrupting the boy.

"Don't you threaten me you little shit" said Celsus, in a voice very different from before. "You and everyone involved in this cluster**** are gonna be dead before morning."

There was a strange yellow glow to Dr. Celsus's eyes, and Lan could tell instinctively that it was no longer him.

I've sill got like 4-5 arcs (not including the stories for Lan's apprentice which happen after) planned before the end but I'm not sure I'll be able to muster the time and energy to write them. I only ever started writing in hopes these would one day be canon. But that's less likely than being hit by a bolt of lightning. And I've chose my path in life now, I choose to trade happiness for agency in the world. I'll finish graduate study in the field of biology and contribute to the development of science and medicine. Hopefully I'll have grown emotionally numb enough to not feel the pain in the future.

Anyways I hope you enjoy what I've written if you've kept on reading, which by my count is at most a couple dozen regular viewers...nowhere near enough to bring attention to this story. But I guess that's to be expected, my writing isn't really that good. Just can slightly resonate with those who like depressing stories.