RWBY: Dual Eclipse
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
Scene Change
Chapter 20: Second Spanner
At the Yoshitsuna's landing site, a Dimensional Gate opened up, allowing Farris, Sonin and their new acquaintance, Zotia, to step through it. Brutus was on watch this time.
"Hm, there you are Farris... and you brought friends."
"I said I was gonna find a pick to replace me, and, well..." She motioned with her head towards Zotia. "Here she is." She then tilted her head towards Sonin. "This is my apprentice."
"Right." He pulled out his comms unit. "Mita, Farris is back, and she's got her replacement."
The door leading to the bridge opened up, and the trio headed inside. Brutus remained outside, keeping a vigilant eye out for any possible trouble that wanted to head their way.
"Oh~" Mita looked pleasantly surprised to see whom accompanied Farris, first looking at Sonin. "Now Farris, you never told me you had a sister."
"She's my apprentice, no blood relation."
"Oh." Now Mita sounded profoundly disappointed. "Anyway, new girl, your name?"
"Zotia. Take it you're Mita?"
"Got it in one." Mita shifted in her chair slightly, leaning forward to put emphasis on her next statement. "Just a fair warning - you're going to be cooped up in here for an undetermined amount of time as we sail the cosmic seas on this trip to find our missing people. Last chance to back out if you trend towards claustrophobia."
Zotia thought on this for a moment more...
"I'm in."
"Very well." Mita leaned back a bit, relaxing the atmosphere. "Have to say, though, it's been ages since I saw one of your kind roaming about. A lotta people I know thought you all went extinct or something."
"We do tend to be a little reclusive." Zotia admitted.
"Anyway, what all can you do? I know your kind are prolific spell-casters, but I like to get a bit more information right from the source."
"Ah, fair enough. Well, I did pick up a few healing arts from one of my older sisters, and if need be I can use a spear or a bow." To aid the latter point, she reached into the confines of her dress and withdrew what looked like a twig, only for it to expand into a spear that had thistles lining its head.
"Very interesting. I'll be keeping a close tab on those skills." Mita turned her attention to the main console as Zotia put her weapon away. "Systems are green, no anomalies detected... unless you've got some last-minute things to attend, we're ready to depart."
With that, Farris and Sonin exited the ship, the former telling Brutus to give York her regards as they headed back through the Dimensional Gate. Zotia, in turn, followed Zio to the back end of the ship, where the personal rooms were located, so she could make use of one.
After double-checking to make certain that everyone was aboard, the supplies were stocked, and the Engine Room was clear, Mita fired up the engines as she opened a ship-wide announcement.
"It's that time, ladies and gentlemen. Our operation is underway! Sit down, strap in, and try not to scream!"
The replica Yoshitsuna Warship lifted into the sky, passing through the atmosphere and into the reaches of space. The Warp Drive kicked in, and soon enough they were off.
The Base
11:35 A.M.
Nelius had his Scroll opened, checking out the request boards for any Grimm Extermination missions. He was about to refresh the feed when a chime played.
"Hm?" Closing the feed down for the moment, he flipped over to a function he hadn't yet used, seeing that a regular call, of all things, was coming in. 'Unknown Number?' He was considering letting the other end conclude that he wasn't available, but it kept ringing for a few solid minutes.
"Talk about persistent." Epsilon piped up.
"Probably a spam caller." The unknown number continued to ring, slowly wearing down his patience as he tried to focus back on checking out the Extermination requests. Even if he hit "Reject" it was only a temporary reprieve, since the number would start back up again. "By the Seraph..." There was still the danger of that unknown data packet to consider, but if this caller was so insistent on getting through to him, then it was on their own heads for that. "Hey, is the vault working?"
"Right now, it's running as best it can. If need be I'll work with it some more to keep that packet from spreading."
"Be at the ready, then. No telling what it'll do." He tapped on the "Accept Call" button, but when he put the speaker end of his Scroll to his ear, the voice on the other end was one he wasn't expecting.
"He..p ... hem..." The voice on the other end was filled with loud static and glitchy noise, forcing Nelius to pull his Scroll away from his ear as he waited for it to quiet down to a more acceptable level.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Sa... my... ddy..."
"Can you hear me?"
".lea.. ore...ul... ined..."
"If this is a prank I'm hanging up." The line went dead. He simply stared at his Scroll, not quite able to make heads or tails of that strange call. "What the hell..."
He tried to reconnect to whomever or whatever the caller was, only to be told the number didn't exist.
"Non-existent number?" Now Epsilon was curious about this. She went to tap into the Scroll's systems and see if she could backtrace the number herself... only to be met with a similar result. "Hey... right now, it's only Ozpin and his people that know of us being here, right?"
"Aside from the chick in goth colors that ambushed us and said to stay away from Ozpin, that ought to be the case." He shut his Scroll down, pocketing it in the meantime. "We made certain to keep our identities secret from Cinder, so barring a fluke Salem's forces shouldn't know about us yet."
"Still, that was some weird shit that just happened... thinking on it now, it sounded like a cry for help."
"But until we can parse out who was calling, and from where, unfortunately there's not much we can do on that front."
White Fang HQ
Unknown Time Zone
A large Airship descended near the HQ, and once it had settled, Sienna Khan disembarked, followed shortly by the pilot, Corsec Albain, and several of the soldiers.
"Welcome back." Fennec Albain was there to greet them. "I trust all went well?"
Sienna didn't respond, instead moving past Fennec to head to her living quarters. From what he had managed to see of her face, she looked incredibly displeased.
In turn, Fennec regarded Corsec with a questioning look, the latter of whom motioned for his brother to follow him elsewhere so they could converse.
Meanwhile, further within, Sienna had slipped into her private quarters. Once more, she reached for the Scroll that was hidden within her dresser. Withdrawing it, she read over the messages Ilia had left for her, along with a new one that had been sent just a few days prior.
Sender: Ilia Amitola
Subject: Vale Investigation
Breach-charges and disabled bombs located on old underground Vale trains. Still getting inkling reports of you apparently giving Taurus's team orders to continue stealing Dust from the SDC. Will be preparing to return soon.
Her eyes narrowed. Someone had the audacity to forge her orders, and especially while she was trying to smooth out relations down in Kuo Koana. Now came the question of who was undermining her authority.
'I have a feeling I know who it might be, but I can't be overt about this...'
Placing the Scroll back in its hidden compartment, she headed over to her desk to sit down and take a moment to parse out a plan. At the same time, Ilia should've returned to base by now, so she'd need to seek her out soon.
Meanwhile, the Albain Brothers had found a small, out of the way alcove to speak with each other.
"The High Leader seemed quite stressed." Fennec started off. "Did the talks with our people in Menagerie not go as planned?"
"The people of Kuo Kuana heard about the failed breach in Vale." Corsec elaborated, "And many of them have begun to question whether or not she is fit to lead the Fang."
"Hmm... this is troubling, on many accounts... yet at the same time..."
What neither of the Albains had noticed was another White Fang member walking by, whose spotted ears happened to catch a small bit of their conversation.
Vale, Commercial District
12:13 P.M.
Having seen that most of the Grimm Extermination requests were already taken, Nelius decided to simply walk around Vale for a bit more, largely to retread some old ground and make certain his information was still up to date, and partially to window-shop for a bit concerning Dust Crystal prices.
Notably, a few of the shops had their prices increase just a bit from the other day.
'Apparently, more White Fang raids have been happening elsewhere, so Dust prices are gonna be in flux again.' Epsilon had tapped into their Scroll once more to do a little CCT-surfing to find which stores would be the most cost-efficient to visit.
'Not gonna lie, if not for the memories in Ozpin's mind showing how the Faunus were treated long before he got back together with Salem, combined with what we read up on this past year, I'd have imagined their actions as a divide and conquer tactic on her part.'
Another shop close to the edge of the district had also raised prices.
'Wouldn't surprise me if it were. She's still the ultimate beneficiary if they decide to really come to blows.'
'True. The Grimm would easily consider it an all-you-can-eat buffet of negative emotion, one that only got riper with better picks as the battle continued on... that Great War from 80 years back is easily a big reminder.'
'I know it isn't exactly our place to be making decisions about another world's fate, but if things keep going like this I can't reasonably see it ending well...'
'Well, the Gods already abandoned this place to its fate, so if they do somehow return - aside from the Relics being gathered - and decide to pitch a fit about Remnant's current state of affairs, that's on them for not having a better fail-safe.' He let out a small huff of irritation as he headed back towards the center of the district. 'Reminds me a bit too strongly of the jackass we fought before landing here...'
'Still, though, Salem being made immortal doesn't help Ozpin's odds either, since he can't simply end her, and from what we've seen she's pretty clearly past any phase of diplomacy.'
'Would be an immense boon if there was another method with which to break her immortality...or at least remove the essence of Destruction from her so she's not a complete nutbar.'
As the offworld demon made a turn to begin heading back south towards the base, he never noticed the quartet of Beacon students that passed right behind him, heading into Vale for their own purposes.
Atlas Academy
Unknown Atleasian Time
Ironwood was in the middle of mentally reviewing what all he had learned from that unscheduled trip.
He had known of Ozpin's one-man war against Salem, a battle the two had been locked into since ancient times, given that Beacon's Headmaster had told him of several of the events. What he hadn't told of was Salem being made immortal, and with that any means of simply destroying her was out of the question. Adding to this was the fact that the legend of Creation and Destruction was no mere fairy tale; the two Brothers were indeed real, being the ones responsible for Ozpin and Salem's respective means of survival... and if Ozpin's efforts weren't up to what they wanted, Remnant and all of its inhabitants would be no more.
'And to think, if not for that machine... the Dual Diver, Raoul called it? If not for that, Ozpin's secrets would've been closed off to us... potentially until a disaster struck.' He did admit to an amount of disappointment that Ozpin would've kept such a vital part of the story secret, yet if the look he had seen when Qrow reported that Lionheart had thrown in his lot with Salem was any sort of indicator... how long had he been silently dreading a betrayal? Did previous people he had worked with decided to turn upon him, just as Lionheart had?
He knew, though, that simply mulling this over wouldn't do any good - just as he had said yesterday, they would be in need of a new strategy, something that Salem wouldn't... couldn't see or anticipate. At the same time, being able to find a stable solution would be easier said than done, especially if Salem had more followers in other locations.
At the same time, if someone this time last year had told him of a machine that let you literally walk into someone's soul, he'd have either dismissed them or asked them to be put into a padded cell. Having seen it at work, though, completely flipped any ideas he had about it.
His personal Scroll blipped, indicating a message coming in. He checked it, seeing a reminder that Amber had been re-submitting her request to depart Atlas for warmer areas, since he had been incommunicado yesterday.
'Hmm...' Much as he wanted to grant her request, there was also the issue with Cinder being within Beacon's walls, and possibly waiting to strike with that insect again. 'I know there's a fair bit on her plate, but perhaps she could be that necessary element.'
He flipped over to another number saved on his Scroll, and after a moment of consideration, hit send. Before the first ring could complete it was answered.
"General?" A woman's voice promptly responded.
"Specialist Schnee. An interesting tidbit of information happened to come my way yesterday..."
Item World, Croixshot Floor 265
1:03 P.M.
Nelius punched a hole through the torso of a Wood Golem, immolating it from within to ensure it wouldn't regenerate. A Warrior tried to decapitate him with an axe to the neck from behind, only for Nelius to flip forward, causing the axe to pass overhead... and for one of Nelius's heels to come up hard, smashing into the Warrior's chin and knocking several teeth out. Springing off of his hands, the second he landed back on his feet he hurled a stronger Wind spell at that Warrior, flinging his target into a statue shaped like a gun, shattering it upon impact.
Epsilon, in the meantime, was busy analyzing the data coming in.
'So far, no anomalies. Everything's going as planned...'
Nelius drew his axe and swung it, the head finding purchase in the neck of a Dragon, spilling its blood.
'Hmm... I wonder how we can improve the efficiency...'
The Dragon roared in pain, and in retaliation tried to bite Nelius's head off. Nelius quickly wrenched his axe free from its scales, spilling more of the Dragon's blood and some of its muscles as he did so. He took this moment to bury a fist between its eyes, fracturing its scales and bones in one blow.
With the Dragon dissolving into a pink mist, it appeared that all of the Notorious on this floor were finally taken care of.
"How's the data collecting going?"
"Pretty much same as last time, though I can't help but feel there should be a more effective method of doing this..."
"I bet there is, but given our current circumstances, unless we happen to somehow luck out and get another replica Yoshitsuna or a Pocket Netherworld to show up... this is what we have to work with at the moment."
Still, with no more business on this floor, they headed down to the next level - floor 266.
As Nelius took in the general population of this floor, he quickly noticed a figure flying in.
This figure looked to be humanoid, but clad in white, and had four feathery wings extending from what looked to be its shoulders and mid-back. It had a puffy white hat on its head and a large cloth around its neck, and hanging within that cloth was an egg with red-brown splotches upon it.
The egg was dropped as the figure flew away, and as it shattered upon impact with the ground, a dark mist swirled up. A large, menacing figure arose from that mist.
This figure stood anywhere from two to three times Nelius's height, and was largely monochrome in color. Its feet had three-digit toes, and its hands were little more than serrated claws. Due to the armor's design, it appeared as though it had eyes and a mouth on the torso, and unwieldly grey hair flew everywhere from its head. Milky-white eyes focused on its new targets.
"What the hell is that?!" Epsilon quickly got a lock on this new figure's power... and if she had still retained her old body, would've felt her blood run colder than Joutenheim on a summer day. This thing... whatever it was, it was giving off power that easily exceeded the Item Gods, and might've exceeded the enemy they had battled prior to landing upon Remnant.
"...aw shit. A Proto-Darkdeath." Nelius answered in a tone that belied more resignation to fight than any amount of worry.
"Darkdeath? I know my database is likely outta date, but are you talking about THE Darkdeath Evilman?"
"The very same. Someone had the bright idea of making their own mass-produced versions, according to an old rumor I remember." The other Notorious had taken notice of Proto-Darkdeath's emergence, and many of them were choosing to run, with some foolhardy ones actually trying to attack the world-conquering machine.
"...I'm not even gonna try to ask why someone thought that was a bright idea." Epsilon was quickly trying to find the quickest route to the Dimensional Gate. In the meantime, Proto-Darkdeath was easily slicing through the Notorious, bisecting several of them at the waist with a few unlucky ones also being decapitated. Whatever attacks they managed to land simply plinked off its armor, giving them reason to back away.
"Trust me, you're not the only one whom has wondered that." Unfortunately, the Dimensional Gate was behind the maniacal monster, and it had already affixed its gaze upon him.
"...please don't tell me you're gonna fight that thing."
"Don't believe we have much choice at the moment." Clicking his gauntlets into place, he readied himself to do battle with Proto-Darkdeath.
Warship Yoshitsuna
Unknown Time
The gigantic ship passed over another planet, its newly repaired sensory units going to work as they gave the planet a once-over glance, silently analyzing the billions of lifeforms inhabiting it.
As Mita was busy gathering the data from the units, Brutus and Zio were lending her their aid. Information was coming in at a tremendous rate, but they were busy looking for at least two certain signatures... and right now signs were pointing to a negative.
Further back in the ship, Zotia had selected an open room, and was taking a moment to make certain everything she had brought was properly placed where it needed to be after she had quickly cleaned a few things up. Whomever had last been in this room placed everything haphazardly, as if either in a rush or simply uncaring of where their items were placed.
'Let's see... weapon over here, spare clothing there... and that ought to do it.' With the rearranging finished, she went to take a seat on the provided bed-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
"By Veil!" Zotia practically leapt back out of her room as the scream of pain registered from right beneath her. Quickly turning around, she bore witness to a shape trying to untangle itself from the covers... whomever it was, they were small enough to have been practically undetectable through sight. Almost immediately Zotia had grabbed her weapon, ready to fight.
"Oooowwwwwww..." The person that emerged was what appeared to be a young girl in violet-colored clothing that tried to emulate a cat, as evident by the cat-eye goggles, paw gloves and boots, and the hat which tried to stick out like a pair of cat ears. "Hey, I'm not a cushion!"
"How was I supposed to know you were in this room? You were buried beneath all those blankets well enough that I couldn't see you."
"What's all the commotion?" Raphael had heard the scream from another part of the ship, and had arrived with Hilde to investigate. "...Sif? Why are you still on the ship?"
"Oh, hey Raph, Hilde! How've you been?" At hearing Sif's cheerfully oblivious hello, he let a sigh loose.
"Sif, you do realize you missed your stop with Atreya, right?" Hilde stared the Thief down.
"...wait, I did?" Sif blinked... and then it hit her. "Oh Magog-nuts."
"Magog-nuts indeed... Mita's gonna have a field day with this."
"Eh?" Sif tilted her head. "Why's that?"
Vale, Beacon Academy
3:54 P.M.
Another day, another set of classes completed.
Cinder was back in her shared dorm room, feeling her patience slipping away ever so subtly as she had to count down the days before Amity Arena was finally within Vale's airspace. Once it finally linked up with the CCT, then she'd get full access to everything she needed for the next step in this plan...
...well, almost everything. So far, very little information had come in about the Fall Maiden's whereabouts, other than her still potentially being under Atlas's security.
'Remember her words... don't get hasty, but prepare the next step...' Unfortunately, much as she wanted to uphold the stern teachings of her master, there was this itch in the back of her mind, one that seemingly refused to be quelled by any method.
It was a dangerous itch, one that Cinder had been dealing with for much of her life... and she knew of only one way to make it recede, but nothing within Vale would provide her that opportunity. At the same time, she knew that letting it get too prevalent would lead to another disaster, just like-
She stopped herself from treading back on that memory, already feeling a small wellspring of irritation arise.
'Maybe I'll take a page from Mercury's book...' The training facilities here at Beacon were fairly adequate, so perhaps working off her frustrations would do her some good... and if other students were practicing there, all the better for her to study their fighting styles. Grabbing her Scroll, she sent a message to her team outlining where she'd be for the next few hours.
Weapon in-hand, she headed off towards the training facility.
Atlas Medical Facility
Unknown Atlesian Time
Winter Schnee ended the somewhat tense call with General Ironwood. In the last few years ever since she had left her family to join the Atlesian Military, she was no stranger to keeping watch over subjects, whether to protect them from others, or to keep them from attempting suicide out of spite.
It had been sometime in the last few years or so that Winter had been asked to help keep vigil over a particularly valuable individual, the same one whom she was about to go see.
Stepping into the sealed off room, Winter approached a much older woman dressed in a green and white hospital gown whom was laid up in a hospital bed. Dark blue eyes took a moment to focus upon her...
"Ah, Winter... come to keep this old woman company again?" She chuckled, and for the briefest of moments Winter could be seen with a small smile on her own face.
"It has been a while, Fria." The smile quickly faded as a look signifying some amount of remorse replaced it. "Unfortunately, my own duties have been keeping me away." Winter took this moment to prepare some hot tea.
"Worry not, child." Once the tea was finished, she took a cup for herself, savoring the warmth as she drank. "Ah, does these old bones good."
"Good to hear." Winter allowed herself this one moment of relative ease before she got back to business. "Anyway, Vale is hosting the 40th Vytal Festival this year."
"Mmm... and if what remains of my memory is correct, the General is having you accompany him?"
"Indeed." After taking a moment to double-check and ensure no loose ears would hear her next statement, she got closer to Fria. "However, it's not just to act as his aid."
"Oh?" This caught Fria's attention as Winter nodded in affirmation.
"It would seem the Autumn Maiden had been waylayed on her way towards Vacuo, though another party saved her life. She was residing here in Atlas once more, but now wishes to resume her travels."
"Autumn Maiden.. Autumn..." Recognition suddenly flashed across Fria's face. "You mean that delightful girl, Amber, don't you?"
"The very same."
"Goodness, it's been... how long now?"
The Base
3:59 P.M.
Nelius stepped back into reality, shutting the Dual Diver down once more as he circled around to collect his gun. Upon reaching floor 300, he had opted to get healed up and return to reality for the time being.
Epsilon, in the meantime, was thinking back on the battle against Proto-Darkdeath, the recording very fresh in her memory.
Despite being a mass-produced copy of Darkdeath Evilman, the known world-conquering monster of another planet calling itself Earth, Proto-Darkdeath proved to be strong and fast enough to rival its progenitor. One such example was how merely swinging its arms created air currents with enough power to tear the ground asunder... and a few surviving Notorious into ribbons of meat before they faded away into a pink mist.
However, Nelius had one saving grace in that battle... the Proto-Darkdeath units may have been powerful enough to make even Overlords think twice about engaging one in combat, but being fully mechanical imposed a number of limitations upon them. An inability to grow stronger through training, their programming effectively limited to "Kill everything", and no auto-repair unit were just the tip of that iceberg.
This programming had left Proto-Darkdeath with the inability to judge whether or not to attack or dodge. Nelius would choose to use this to his advantage, freezing the floor and its feet to disrupt its attacks. While it had simply pulled itself free, the icy floor all around it proved more than sufficient enough to topple the machine on more than one occasion, giving Nelius the opening he needed to deliver a Big Bang right to its face.
While it had survived the attack (which had also caught a few Notorious in the blast), multiple parts of its internal components were exposed through the attack, alongside the armor having been totalled, giving Nelius all the incentive he needed to slam a fist into its innards, tearing out many of its components and causing its systems to begin shutting down.
One good slam from his axe into its power core put an end to this prototype for good, causing the unstable core to detonate and erase its remains. With the apocalyptic machine totalled, Epsilon figured the other Notorious were too afraid to tangle with someone whom was able to kill it... only to realize that they had been caught up in the middle of the fight, killing them all.
Oh well.
'Glad I managed to convince him to keep those components... there's so much we could learn from them, and they could be used to upgrade the Diver.'
Heading over to his notebook to jot down the results of this dive, he could hear his Scroll give a chirp, indicating that a new message had come his way. Finishing up his notes, he put the notebook away as he headed over to his Scroll and opened it up.
Sender: Headmaster Ozpin
Subject: A personal request
Raising an eyebrow at this, he opened the message up.
I duly apologize for such a late message, but after some internal debating I have come to realize there is another element to my tale that I did not tell.
For a far more effective way to tell this story, I humbly request you bring your Dual Diver once more.
'So Oz has even more secrets...' Epsilon seemed a little wary of the request.
'Like I said yesterday, he's been carrying all that baggage on his own for some thousands of years, if not longer. Still, for him to turn to an effective stranger like myself for this kind of info...'
'In fairness, you not only saved the Autumn Maiden, you also stymied a serious attempt to cripple Vale's infrastructure. Far as I can see, you pretty much earned a fair amount of trust.'
'Perhaps... still, wonder what this next tale could be about.'
Sender: Nelius Raoul
Subject: Re: A personal request
What time do you want us to show up?
After hitting send, it took about a minute before another response came in.
Sender: Headmaster Ozpin
Subject: Re: Re: A personal request
As soon as possible today. I know it's already a bit late in the afternoon, but this hopefully shouldn't take long.
'...well, that's potentially ominous.'
'Still, if it'll give us more clarity on this whole situation, no time like the present to head on up. Also, considering what went down yesterday I didn't get much of a chance to ask some more questions.'
With the die cast, Nelius packed the Dual Diver back up and grabbed a few spare Dust Crystals before heading out.
Warship Yoshitsuna
Unknown Time
"Whaaaaaa?!" Sif's eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets as she saw the vast expanse of space they were traveling through.
"Indeed, Sif." Mita was proving a bit less than amused by this situation. "You not only missed your stop, you have now been informally added to this mission. How do you feel?"
Sif was silent, merely staring at the information windows as they passed by another planet to scan.
"Somedays I wonder how Atreya gets along with you."
"Thankfully I grabbed a little extra," Cordelia piped up, "...so we ought to be good as far as supplies go."
"And with the on-board Item Divers back in top condition, generating more supplies should be easy enough." Zio mentioned.
Sif was still catatonic, realizing how her decision to take a quick catnap had unforeseen consequences.
"Looks like she encountered a fatal error and needs a restart, dood." York took a moment to gulp down a soda he had chilled with an Ice spell.
"Well, no use looking on the grim side of this..." Raphael had taken a seat. "At the very least, we've got an extra set of hands in-case things take a turn out of our favor."
"That will depend on if she snaps out of that, dood."
Zotia was starting to have more than one regret about taking up this mission.
'But I signed up for this, that was the deal... just take it slow, Zotia...'
Raphael was going to respond to the Prinny, but instead turned his attention towards the door.
"Raph?" Hilde quietly asked.
"For a second I thought I sensed something..." He waited a moment, to see if that sensation would come back.
Little did the Celestial know that he was onto something, as the spirit that had overheard his plans in Celestia had stowed away upon the ship. Knowing that the angel would be able to give away its position, it chose to retreat towards the rear of the ship for the moment.
'When he slumbers...' The spirit decided. 'When that one slumbers, I will ask.'
Beacon Academy, Ozpin's Office
5:01 P.M.
Travelling up the elevator once more, Nelius soon found himself at the doors to Ozpin's Office. They opened automatically, and so he entered. The doors closed behind him, and were remotely locked as Ozpin set his Scroll and Desktop to "Do Not Disturb".
Nelius set his case down, and began setting the Dual Diver up once more. After about a minute, it was reconstructed and powered on, an orange gate swirling into existence.
Ozpin nodded, and soon walked in, Nelius following a moment later.
Chapter 20 - Complete