RWBY: Dual Eclipse
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
Scene Change
Chapter 24: Groundwork Lain
"Suppose you do find those outside the influence of the one whom stole your body..." Raphael continued his conversation with Hadiya's soul. "..if their last memory is of you, or the one in your guise, turning tyrannical and dragging the Overlord's title through the mud, then even if you have the capacity to communicate with them, they may not be willing to hear you out."
"I'm more than aware that it'd be a long shot, but at this point it's the sole option I have left." Hadiya gave a firm response. "At the very least, if my body cannot be reclaimed, then I wish for one of my vassals to at least kill that monstrosity and rid my Netherworld of it. Perhaps then my soul could be at peace."
"You feel quite strongly about this."
"Of course I do. I worked my ass off to ensure my succession as Overlord, and I will be damned to Hades if I'm going to let some random parasite use my body to cause any more trouble for my people."
To that, Raphael chuckled a little.
"If only there were other Overlords with that kind of dedication..."
"I've met a few, but given how long ago that was, only the Seraph knows how they're doing. No doubt they're all puzzled as to the sudden changes surrounding me."
Maximov, Floor 485
1:32 P.M.
Nelius allowed his wings to fully fan out, dark violet-colored energy gathering within them. With one mighty flap the energy balled up and fired out, seeking several Notorious targets to obliterate.
The Notorious didn't get much of a chance to escape or fight back, as the bolts of energy simply moved that quickly, attaching to them in various locations before erupting into spheres of dark energy that tore them apart. Some were lucky to have their upper torsos targeted, but others got hit much lower, and had they not been hidden facets of the weapon, they'd have had a very nasty exit to the next life.
The few that remained on this floor knew that running was off the table, and so decided to retaliate as best they could.
As Nelius continued taking out more enemies, Epsilon was busy trying to clean up the audio file from the news report she had taken a look at earlier, since the video part of it was largely obscured by the wind and sand.
Nelius focused his wings into a sharp blade, bisecting several at the waist as he swiped his arm. Once his wings shifted to his back he brought up his gun and sniped several more in their heads.
'Even with just the audio, it's making cleanup a real chore.' Still, she continued, trying to find some kind of clue. 'I swear, that voice sounded familiar...'
For a moment, one of the bits in the audio sounded like the words "passing by", which only spurred her on to continue figuring it out.
Once the floor was cleared, Nelius took a moment to pop the random treasure boxes that often appeared. So far, nothing of interest, but he did manage to snag a few Stealing Hands.
'Gonna need these for later.' He quickly headed to the gate to the next floor. Maybe once they were done here he'd pop back into his soul-world to start learning how to steal better.
Somewhere in Mistral
Unknown Time
The ghostly woman slowed down, unable to contact anyone around her.
Everything and everyone around her was so different... some of the people had animalistic features about them, and while some of them did look kinda cute, it only raised more questions.
She tried to focus, thinking back to her last actions before everything went blank... but it was of little help.
'Why can't I remember? Where am I? What am I?!'
Slowly, the ghost stumbled off, trying to find some place that looked familar enough to begin jogging her spotty memory. Something around here had to work.
Unbeknownst to the ghost, this was only the beginning of her new troubles, as she could feel something akin to a pull, trying to guide her somewhere... a feeling that was intensely familiar, yet almost alien at the same time.
Truly, this was a crossroads... find a hint to her former life here, or follow the pull and see where it leads?
'If I can find nothing here, then perhaps my answer lay elsewhere.'
Off she moved once more, following the pull to hopefully find those answers... but after a few hours of walking, she soon found herself staring at the ocean, the pull trying to take her across it.
Tentatively, she placed a foot upon the water, and to her amazement it didn't sink below the surface.
'Now, to find what that sensation is leading me towards...'
Beacon Academy
3:23 P.M.
With classes finished up for the day, Ruby headed right back to her team's quarters, her mind still occupied with that strange dream from last night. She didn't even hear Yang trying to call to her, which rightly put some extra worry into the blonde's mind.
Was it appropriate to even try to call it a dream, though? It felt far too real to be one... and how did that voice know about her? How did it know about Crescent Rose?
She tried to dismiss the thoughts, but no matter what she tried, it kept creeping up. It was almost enough to drive one up the wall... and then back down it. The more she attempted to figure it out, the worse the entire mess got.
Several stories up, Ozpin was mentally reviewing how he would explain the nature of the Dual Diver to Ruby, alongside whatever she had likely experienced as a result of it. Due to his own limited experience with such, finding the right way to word the situation was becoming rather difficult for him.
'Yet at the same time, knowing how Team RWBY's dynamics have been, this information will end up making its way to the other members... and potentially to the other teams, like JNPR... there has to be a way to ensure Cinder doesn't catch wind of this, lest she make strides to sabotage it, or turn it towards her own ends.'
After a few minutes, an idea then cropped up... a dangerous idea, to be certain, but one that was outside his usual plans. However, it would need some refining.
Time to pay a visit.
Warship Yoshitsuna
Unknown Time
Mita let out a low whistle as new information came in from Aika's vessel.
"You guys and gals have been busy."
A number of TDF vessels had been scouring nearly every inch of the greater cosmos to track down the missing Rhodonite heir. This, combined with the relative area that Mita's group had searched, had mapped out a fair bit of the sector.
Of course, space is a LOT bigger - we're talking pretty much infinitely big, so they still had quite the adventure ahead of them.
"Hm?" Mita had seen one area that looked very strange. "Hey, what's this location?" She pointed to what looked like a large landmass surrounded by all sorts of items - ships, libraries, gardens, pool balls, shops... you name it, this place seemed to have it. On that landmass, one could see what looked like a eastern-style castle surrounded by a town.
"I believe that area is called 'The Netheruniverse', its capital city 'Empyria'." Admiral Aika responded. "There used to be a large gravitational disturbance there that drew in plenty of drifting objects. Even with the cause terminated, there are still some objects that enter their airspace, though far lesser than before."
"Used to be... any idea what the cause was?"
"According to the report, an old monument made to help broker peace between two clans was the cause. It had been secretly sabotaged, causing the gravitational disturbance and forcing its ruling family to take strides to try and deflect the incoming objects. Once the cause was properly identified, the monument was promptly destroyed, and the culprit behind the sabotage taken down."
"Huh... might have to stop by there once this whole thing is finished."
Zio continued trying to tune the receiver to hopefully catch any extra information.
"It was you, Mr. Black! In the Dining Hall with the Shoehorn!"
He clicked to another channel.
"-fzzzt- EEEEEEEEEEEEEE- OOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"
Fiddling with the receiver some more, he tried to find ways to increase the reception range and strength.
The Base
7:12 P.M.
"Hm? Odd - I just picked up on a life sign outside the base." Epsilon reported. "-no wait, there's two of 'em."
"Relative locations?" Nelius had gotten up from his seat, putting away his notebook.
"One's real close, pretty much about to open the side door. The other one's much further away."
"Any familiarity?"
"The far-away one... I'm not entirely certain yet, but it does feel familiar. Though, as for our soon-to-be guest... is that Ozpin?"
"What's he doing this far out?" Now curious, Nelius grabbed his weaponry before heading up the stairs. Sure enough, when he opened the door...
"Apologies for this sudden visit." Lo and behold, one Headmaster Ozpin was standing there.
"This really is sudden. What brings you here?"
"I was hoping to have a private discussion about that machine of yours, away from potential prying ears."
"This way." Nelius motioned for Ozpin to follow him downstairs. 'Epsilon, if that signature from earlier gets any closer, let me know.'
'On it.'
Ozpin followed Nelius downstairs, his eyes quickly looking around to take in the room.
'Hm... interesting.'
"So if I had to take a guess, Ozpin..." Nelius had stopped right beside the Dual Diver, "...this concerns that student of yours being randomly selected by the Diver." He began bringing up the logs.
"Indeed. Miss Rose's teammates and instructors have noticed a sudden change in her behavior; her usual chipper demeanor being dampened by quite the dour outlook."
"The logs say her dive was registered at 10:48 P.M. last night, so I'd wager it happened in her sleep. More than likely she's thinking it was one weird dream, but that'll be hard to determine without speaking with her. I'm guessing you're here to parse out a way to ensure that meeting without having Cinder eavesdrop on it."
"Correct. Ever since you had pointed out Cinder's attempt at taking the Autumn Maiden's powers, it's lead both James and myself to wonder what else she could be up to. We've checked all of our sources, but nothing so far leads to any kind of evidence."
"Before that..." Epsilon quickly appeared via hologram, "..when we came up to visit the first time, we found something that infiltrated our Scroll - an unknown data packet that began to settle within some of the Scroll's key programs. I wanted to extract it, but at the time I feared it'd cause a widespread corruption and cause a total system shutdown. For the time being, I've been trying to parse it out and decrypt it."
"Any progress on that?"
"Right now, not a whole lot. If you happen to cross paths with General Ironwood again, maybe direct him towards also trying to figure this out? I figure someone from Atlas should have the know-how."
"A fair enough request, but back to the matter at hand. I do wish to ensure Miss Rose's mental stability, yet prior experiences with her team have pointed to one conclusion: once Miss Rose undergoes another dive and gets her mind sorted out, inevitably she's going to end up not only telling her teammates, but also team JNPR, whom have become something of a sibling-team to RWBY."
"And like you said before," Nelius took over speaking as Epsilon faded away, "...you want to make certain to keep Cinder's team in the dark, so they can't find a way to exploit this for their own end."
"Indeed. Slowly I've been coming to the conclusion that Cinder is in league with Salem, and the more resources she is denied, the better off we can be."
"I'll admit, I never had much in what one could call formal schooling, so this idea might be a bit out there." Nelius confessed, getting a raised eyebrow from Ozpin in turn. "Suppose there's a way to disguise the Soul Dive trip as an assignment for her team - basically state that her team is to go to this area for a Grimm Hunt or something along those lines."
"A fair idea, but first-year teams are usually barred from taking on such requests..."
"I'm sensing a 'but' in there."
"And you would be correct. Usually they would be barred, but in consideration with how her team had found itself at the docks during the crossfire situation, when they went to take on an investigation into Mountain Glenn, I had to pull some strings so Doctor Oobleck would be along to accompany them... otherwise they would've tried to find a way to go there in a deliberate twisting of Beacon's rules."
"Is this related to the weird, green Grimm? Epsilon and I saw some wandering around over there a while ago, but I killed 'em and they exploded."
"If you mean the Mutant Grimm, then no, this was a few weeks earlier, relating to the White Fang using that train car. It seems they were planning on using the tunnels to supplant themselves across Vale."
"Figures as much - place was abandoned, so it'd give them plenty of access across the Kingdom."
"As for the Mutant Grimm..." Nelius could hear Ozpin's tone begin to harden, "...it was the work of one Doctor Merlot, the man whom was responsible for Mountain Glenn's collapse. Team RWBY had found their way onto an island he had set up as his personal base, and after several events they destroyed it utterly."
"What about Merlot?"
"No doubt he escaped, using the self-destruction of his island to cover such, but it'll take him quite the time to rebuild and gather, not to mention that afterwards I told Ironwood to keep eyes peeled for him trying to resurface."
"Well then, seems like we have one good idea - though who among your staff would be best for this?"
"It would have to be Glynda, given that she has prior experience with this situation, unexpected as it were though. Port and Oobleck would take a little time to be brought up to speed on this matter..."
As the conversation continued, Epsilon was putting her efforts forth towards tracking that second signature.
'So far, it hasn't moved closer...doesn't feel like it moved at all. What could they be waiting for?'
Haven Academy
10:41 P.M. Mistrali Time
Leonardo Lionheart closed down his office for the night and began leaving the Academy, already not looking forward to what was to come within the coming months.
As he left the main building and prepared to leave the campus, for a brief second he had to do a double-take. Was he seeing things, or was someone actively hanging off the CCT tower?!
'Was that-' Briefly, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. By the time his vision refocused, the apparition was long gone. '...I think I ought to head to bed immediately once I get home.'
What Leonardo didn't know was that someone had indeed been hanging off the CCT tower, though it wouldn't have been anyone he'd recognize right off the bat.
"That was fun~" Aggie made a mental note of her new favorite, and literal, hang-out spot as she walked a straightforward route back to her shared domicile with Azura. 'Now that I think about it, normally Azzie's either checking the local news or training... I swear she can never peacefully sleep without training first... though in that case-'
"Hey little missy." Aggie's attention was brought to a trio of vagabonds, their weaponry openly on display. "Ain't a safe time to be roaming the streets by yourself." From what she could see, basing things off their height, whatever figure she could see from their cloak-covered clothing, and their weaponry preferences, it looked to be two men and a woman.
The first man had some sort of club-shotgun, the slightly shorter man next to him seemed to have axe-blades strapped to his arms, and the woman made use of a gauntlet-greave combination.
'Aw, they think they're either gonna bilk me of Lien for protection or try something shady. Time to have some fun!'
"I know, right?" Aggie put on an exaggerated (for herself, anyway) pout, making certain to make herself look as airheaded as possible. "My escort home decided to flake on me~"
"Well, isn't it quite the stroke of luck you managed to find us-"
"-or was ir you who found me?" Aggie responded back with an almost flirtatious tone to her, one that even got the woman of the group looking interested. "Still, surely I could rely on the strength of such strong people like yourself to safely guide me home."
'This chick's a complete tool!' The club-shotgun wielder thought to himself, internally grinning. 'Boss'll be thrilled once we snag her.'
'Ah, that sweet, young naivete.' The second man thought. 'Truly, it's kids like her that keep the Grimm away.'
'Damn, haven't had a score this big in years.' The woman thought. 'From the looks of her, she must be into some kinda money.'
"Indeed, leave it to us. What do they call you?"
"My friends all call me Aggie, short for Agate."
"Well then, Miss Agate, kindly allow us to escort you home."
"Kindly do~" With that, the three cloaked individuals turned to "escort" Aggie back to her place, taking twists and turns down many an alley, intentionally leading the snow-haired girl to an old dead-end they had modified to act as either a getaway tunnel or a smuggling path...
...at least, that had been the plan. When the woman turned around, ready to grab Aggie and prepare to extort her-
"-oh shit." Aggie was nowhere in sight. "How did she..."
"More like where did she go?! These alleys have nowhere else to run to-" The second man of the group began to say, but he wouldn't have a chance to finish his statement.
Something caught his eye from above, and the instant he looked up, he caught a foot to the face, smashing the cartilage in his nose and sending him flying down the alley to crash into the wall, rebounding off of it and hanging in the air for a good two seconds before gravity took its course.
A mix of horror and fury overtook the leader's emotions, and he whirled on the spot, drawing his weapon.
"You bitch!"
"Look at who's talking." Gone was Aggie's act of the hapless airhead; the woman of the group took a slight step back in fear as she could see the sheer glee present in Aggie's gaze. "Lemme guess, couldn't cut it at the Academy so you turned to a life of bandit work? Talk about a sad sack."
"You know, I was going to let you off easy with just paying a tithe of Lien, but now I think messing up that pretty face of yours will be a better payment!" He leveled his club at her, the muzzle of the built-in shotgun aimed right for her face. Of course, he wasn't dumb enough to actually try and fire a shotgun in the middle of town; that would get the authorities over here in short order.
"Wow, how long did you practice in front of a mirror to try and make that sound threatening?" Aggie's counter-question incensed the man even further, and with that caution was thrown to the wind.
He quickly rushed in, swinging his club with some amount of reckless abandon and aiming to disable one of her joints to make his next move easier for him; what he wasn't expecting was for Aggie to seemingly bend and twist around each strike, almost making this into a game for her.
Swing for the legs? One graceful side-flip nullified that motion.
Swing for the head? She merely tilted backwards and smiled, as if enjoying the breeze generated by said swing.
"Oooh, that's a brisk wind."
Now thoroughly pissed, this time he popped out a pair of spikes at the end of his club, a suggestion from one of his colleagues for when bashing a target wouldn't do. With one thrust he tried to pierce her with them... only for her to not only turn and hook the shaft within her right arm, but in that same motion used her left elbow to deliver a rib-cracking strike to his chest, knocking the wind out of him.
He wheezed as his grip on his weapon weakened significantly and his vision blurred from the pain. Both of his hands immediately went to clutch at the impact site, and he tried to remain conscious.
However, the head of his weapon was soon seen hovering just off the ground in front of him, before disappearing from his line of vision.
"Fore!" Eyes now widening, he looked up just in time to see his own weapon headed right for him in a golf swing!
With a nasty sound of metal meeting flesh the would-be robber was sent flying down the alleyway to join his unconscious compatriot. He slammed into the wall and was robbed of his consciousness, slumping to the ground once gravity took hold.
'...is she a Huntress or some kinda monster?!' The lone female of the group was left stunned by how effortlessly Aggie had disabled her two fellows. 'Do I run? No, the boss would have my head for coming back empty-handed or deserting... but I can't get arrested again, not after finally getting bailed out!'
"Uh, okay, I know we got off on a bad foot, but I think we can work this out if we just talk a little."
"Can we begin with interests? I adore gardening."
"...right, cool. You work with plants?" 'I can't believe this is working. Just gotta get her nice and unfocused...'
"Yeah, got the idea from this kinda hot redhead chick I met years ago. Green thumb for years~" Aggie turned around, spreading her arms up as if to embrace the night sky above. "With one gesture she made an burned-down forest recover with ease-"
'Now!' Seeing an opening, the woman quickly ran forth, trying to close the distance and land that ever-so-important first blow... only to suddenly be knocked backwards by Aggie flipping forward to let her heel crash into the woman's chin.
"By the way..." There was an overly sweet tone in Aggie's words that sent a shiver down the woman's back, "...I never did say what my favorite hobby was."
The woman's fall onto her fear was halted by Aggie performing a handstand to wrap her legs around the woman's torso.
"Care to guess how this'll end?"
The woman said absolutely nothing, clearly regretting her life choices. 'I'm going to die...'
With one fluid motion Aggie slammed the woman into the ground, burying her up to her chest and leaving her legs and forearms to flail about helplessly.
With the would-be robbers now thoroughly humiliated, Aggie stepped back to admire her handiwork.
"Wow, little wonder my ancestor used to do this kinda stuff - it's fun! Now to head home... but first..."
She withdrew her Scroll, and took a picture of the defeated robbers, sending it off to the Mistrali police. By the time they arrived at this location, she was long out of sight.
What she didn't take notice of was a bird that had been watching the battle. It soon took off in a different direction than what Aggie had went.
Chapter 24: Complete