Thus far, Phoenix had spent the better part of eternity simply traveling. Sure, when conflict arose or help was needed, she would always be there, but she certainly didn't throw herself into such situations. She simply became embroiled in them as a natural consequence of her character. This was why she now found herself in the bar of a small village in the Anima countryside. For all her power, Salem had been human, once. Even she could not keep track of every single errant grimm that prowled the lands of Remnant. Though they were creatures of darkness, with no reason or purpose they had reverted to their more beastly instincts. In short, with no direct intervention from their queen, their main concerns had been to simply feed, sleep and breed, regardless of how ineffectual such an endeavor wound up being.
Phoenix had taken it upon herself to exterminate the stragglers that inevitably plagued the world's many independent villages. Villages that were too remote or too inconvenient for huntsmen to patrol regularly often found themselves besieged by the beasts with little recourse. She had just alleviated one such village of a roving pack of beowolves. The alpha had been an older specimen—stronger and shrewder than its brethren—but ultimately nothing that posed too much trouble. The job done, she planned to depart at dawn's first light. For now, however, she found herself in the village's sole eatery, which also doubled as the village's pub.
The establishment wasn't unpleasant, per se, but it wasn't exactly the sort of place she was used to frequenting. For a small bar, it was remarkably clean. The glassware had been spotless and the counter immaculate, if worn from frequent wiping. The walls and counter were covered in dark, wooden paneling—possibly walnut or some form of oak. Varnish had been applied in heavy, uneven coats, leaving the material streaked and non-uniform. The smallness of the building was exacerbated by the low ceiling, dim lighting, and throngs of people—not unusual, as the workday had ended and the sun had begun to fall low in the sky. Fortunately, she was not one prone to claustrophobia, so the cramped conditions didn't really bother her.
A tattered looking man had taken residence in the seat to her right. Spiky, greying, black hair fell lazily around unfocused, scarlet eyes. Several days worth of stubble adorned his face in messy patches, which he scratched at incessantly. His white and grey coat bore various stains of dubious origin, and the trailing, crimson cape was frayed and ragged. He was, in a word, a mess.
The man had been conversing loudly with the bar's other patrons before turning his attention to her. "Hey there, you from round these parts?"
"No, and I'm not interested."
"What? Gods, no! I'm just trying to make conversation! Besides, you're like half my age." He actually did seem rather scandalized at the insinuation.
"That is a horrible way to start a conversation." The words were blunt, but she didn't care to spare the man's feelings. He positively reeked of booze. It was as if he found merely drinking the stuff to be horribly inadequate, and had instead chosen to infuse the substance directly into his very pores.
"Hey now, don't be like that, I just thought it was odd to see someone kinda young out here in the middle of nowhere," he waved his hands in a placating manner. "Name's Qrow. You?"
She gave him one of her aliases, "Jingwei." A brusque answer. Wary.
"Jingwei," the man repeated, rolling the word over in his mouth before making a face. "Odd name. Sounds Mistralian. You from Mistral?"
"I came from Mistral, yes."
"Mistral, huh? Some awful stuffy folks in Mistral. I bet a backwater town like this one's really giving you some culture shock"
"Not really, I'm used to it." She remained reticent, to his consternation.
"Geez, kid, lighten up, why don't you? How 'bout a round, on me?" The disheveled man had already signaled to the barkeep before he had finished speaking. "Whiskey for me, Margarita for my friend here."
Turning back to her, he flashed a somewhat apologetic look. "Sorry, wasn't sure what sorta stuff you like. Girls like fruity drinks, right?"
Jingwei quirked a brow, "Weren't you just saying that I looked 'kinda young?'"
"Oh. Right." Qrow waved it off, "it's fine, what's a year or two, anyway? Besides, if you're allowed to be traveling the countryside all on your lonesome, you ought to be allowed to drink." He retrieved a flask from his coat pocket, took a quick swig, and then stowed it again before the barkeep could see. "Traveling without drinks just sucks, ya know?"
"I do not." The distaste for the substance evident in her voice. Alcohol muddied the mind and inspired foolhardy decisions. Not that she was particularly affected by alcohol at this point, but it was the principle of the matter.
"Well whatever. You gonna drink that?" The man gestured to the glass that had been placed before the girl mere moments prior. His bleary eyes lit up when a terse shake of the head was his only answer.
"More for me," he shrugged gleefully, reaching over to grab the glass and downing its contents in a single go." He sighed in contentment, and failed to repress a belch. "Been on a bender for the last few days, needed something light to clear my head."
Jingwei didn't even bother contesting that point. The man's inebriation was clearly evident, and any words were bound to fall on deaf ears.
He sighed heavily, "Getting late. Should be getting back, I think. You staying in town, missy?"
Upon hearing her provide the name of the lodging house, his face brightened, "Oh, I know the place, I'm staying there too. How 'bouts I walk you back? Consider it my apology for making you talk to this drunk, old man." He rose, but almost immediately slumped back into his chair. "On second thought, you might need to walk *me* back."
This time, Jingwei actually did let a low grown escape her throat. She really didn't wish to accompany the man any further, but she was not so heartless as to leave the barely conscious dullard alone in the bar. The barkeep was a courteous man, she couldn't do that to him.
The village was not large, and though the lodging house was on its outskirts, the two reached it in a matter of minutes. They would have made better time if the man hadn't stopped to dry heave into a plot of flowers along the way. Quite similar to what he was doing right now, in fact.
Qrow straightened, stretching his limbs and taking several wobbly, but significantly more stable steps ahead. He wiped sweat and residue from his face with his sleeve, "Nothing like some fresh country air to sober you up a bit." He allowed his arms to fall limply at his sides. "Now then…"
The man's unfocused, red eyes sharpened. The slur was gone from his speech. He maintained a conversational tone, but she noticed his muscles tense and ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. His right hand lowered, innocently straying down and behind him. "You said you came from Mistral, but you aren't from Mistral, are you?"
Jingwei bolted, rushing straight into the surrounding woods and cursing her rotten luck. She had known who Qrow Branwen was, but had hoped he wouldn't know who she was. Ozma kept his people well informed, it seemed. Expertly weaving through trees and underbrush, she sprinted for several minutes before coming upon a clearing in the woods. Her flight had been swift and sudden, any normal human would have trouble keeping up. A drunk had no chance. Stopping to regain her bearings, her attention was seized by a harsh squawk from above her.
"Man, you run really freaking fast, you know that?" From seemingly thin air, the man dropped from the sky, landing with a minor stumble a fair distance from where the girl had stopped.
"You know what they say," he called, mockingly wagging a black feather between his fingers, "birds of a feather, and all that."
"I doubt phoenixes and crows could be considered 'birds of a feather'" she corrected blandly, shifting her weight and lifting her arms into a combat stance. Any attempt at secrecy had long since been forgone.
Qrow blinked. People usually reacted more dynamically in response to his sudden appearance from nothingness. It was one of the small pleasures of the job. He masked the surprise with humor. "Well, don't go picking apart the joke," he complained, "it's poor etiquette."
The lazy grin on his face melted and his voice hardened, "I'm taking you in, girlie. Let's not make a fuss and come quietly, yea?"
The girl's stance remained ready, her eyes focused and determined. Her mouth was a tight line, as if it had been drawn onto her face. She made no move to stand down.
"Yea, that's about how I expected it to go." Without further preamble, Qrow launched himself forward, drawing and shifting his weapon in a single motion. For several minutes, the two were locked in a deadly dance of fists and blade, with each side cautiously testing the waters.
The girl had formidable martial prowess, that much was clear. Every blow was either dodged or turned aside with contemptible ease. She had even managed to keep the red glasses perched atop her nose from slipping, despite her rapid movements. Even so, Phoenix seemed reluctant to go on the offensive, instead opting for a more evasive approach. Several times, a parry had left Qrow open to counterattack, and she had chosen instead to pull back. He was slowly gaining the sense that she wasn't straining herself too terribly hard.
"You can't beat me," the warrior warned, ducking into his guard and delivering a blow to his sternum—her first real attack of the fight. The force of the hit blew the man back, and though aura prevented any serious injury, he was still left winded.
"Won't know unless you try," he grunted, immediately rushing forward to close the gap once more. He feinted with a large, arc of the scythe, but quickly turned, reversing the direction of his swing. Gears screeched in protest as Harbinger was forced into its more compact, sword form, the sudden shift in mass increasing the blade's speed.
The combination of unexpected speed and direction should have been enough to catch most people by surprise. Phoenix, however, was not "most people." She possessed strength and reflexes that far surpassed any normal person, or even huntsman, for that matter.
"Why now?" Phoenix demanded, even as she parried the blow, metal sparking as she allowed the blade to slide off of her gauntlet and away. "Ozm...Ozpin has never been one to take the initiative, so why are you here? For you to show up in this village, of all places, can hardly be a coincidence." She danced around a flurry of pellets, deflecting those she could not avoid.
"Oh like you don't know," the man spat sarcastically, allowing the shotgun barrel to recede into the weapon as its blade shifted back into position. "That fire girl seemed to really live it up while she was sucking souls. Don't slip on that rock, by the way."
An unfortunately-positioned stone slipped from it's spot beneath the girl's foot as she shifted her weight, throwing her off balance and sending her tumbling backwards. Qrow made to capitalize on the opening, swinging his blade in what was sure to be an incapacitating blow, but the girl recovered quickly. With fluid, practiced ease, she transitioned her fall into a neat handspring, flipping and, in the same motion, kicking the approaching blade as she righted herself.
"What? Sucking souls?" She questioned, as if nothing had happened.
Qrow paused in his assault to study her face before giving a short, barking laugh, "Hah, you really don't know? I guess you're not as much of Salem's pet as you thought you were!" The man sneered, "maybe if you run off to your master and ask real nicely, she'll tell you herself."
Phoenix gave a small, mental sigh. This was going nowhere. The man was clearly not going to give her any straight answers, and he was likely to pursue her for a time if she attempted to flee again. There was only one option, she supposed.
"Enough." The girl cut off the drunk's taunting. Electricity sparked to life along her arms, though they left the arms of her blue tunic unharmed. Bounding forward, the fury of a storm roaring in her wake, she seemed to cover the distance in an instant. The air crackled and burnt. The grass black and smoking as she passed over it. The roar of unrelenting, impending, implacable force resounded; It was an overwhelming show of power, unequaled and unrivaled in its might.
"Ah, shit." Seeing the impending catastrophe, Qrow braced behind his scythe and…nothing. All was still. In the moment when he had swung his scythe to defend, obscuring his vision, the girl had vanished. The clearing was quiet and devoid of any present beside his own. The evening sun, which once hung low in the sky, had now dipped halfway below the horizon, seemingly in that same errant instant when the girl had vanished.
Cursing, he warily stowed his weapon, exchanging it for the ever-present silver flask in his pocket. He raised the small container to his lips before pausing. His hand was shaking. Rather violently, at that. The rapid sloshing within the half-filled canister only served to confirm this fact. Qrow had faced many a foe before, but never had he faced anything like that. In that moment before the world went still, he had seen death. Unyielding and uncompromising. He had the distinct feeling that, if that strike had landed, he would've been a goner, aura be damned. Whatever that girl had been, she was far more than he could have ever expected.
With a sigh, he stowed the flask once more, instead fishing out his scroll and dialing a number. "Hey, Oz? Yea, she was here, just like your man said. She got away."
A grimace parted his lips, "This one might be trouble."
The door to the Evernight Castle's conference hall thundered open, quite literally. The unassuming door had been blasted off its hinges, charred and smoking, to reveal the steely, azure gaze of the Phoenix.
"What did you do?" the girl hissed. Her expression was flat, her voice hard and monotone. The smell of ozone permeated the room and stung the nostrils. Sparks of yellow lightning intermittently arced between her fingers. The other inhabitants of the room could feel their hair beginning to stand on end as the very air seemed to become charged.
Salem rose from her throne. "Whatever do you mean, my dear associate?"
"Don't play games, Salem," the warrior warned, "you've been going beyond orchestrating simple grimm attacks on settlements, haven't you? A certain bird told me as much."
"Branwens," the queen derided. "I will never understand what Ozma saw in those simple street urchins."
"That urchin informed me that you've gone and done something which inspired our adversary to become more 'active' in our pursuit. What did you do, Salem?"
The queen sighed. "We are doing what you suggested, Phoenix. We took one of Ozma's toys away from him. We took one of the maiden vessels and we broke it."
"Broke it."
"Yes, broke it. In order to release the Maiden's power into a vessel that is more favorable for our cause." Salem spoke slowly, as if she were explaining to a particularly inept child. Though, if Phoenix took any offense, it did not show.
"And where is this new vessel?" she asked instead.
Salem idly waved a hand at a lithe girl in a red, gold-accented dress to her right. Her amber eyes, partially obscured by wavy, ebony hair, were widened in surprise and staring at Phoenix. "Cinder, here, is the new wielder of the Fall Maiden's powers. In a sense."
Phoenix quirked a brow, but said nothing.
Letting out an exasperated breath, Salem elaborated, "She was...interrupted in the process. She only retains half of the Maiden's powers."
"So somewhere on Remnant, there is a woman with a sundered soul, likely comatose, who contains the other half," Phoenix surmised.
A nod.
"And this," she gestured to the assembled group in the conference room, "latest campaign is a bid to obtain the other half of that power before it can be transferred to a more suitable vessel."
"Among other things," Salem stated simply.
Phoenix glared at the witch, as if she would be able to read her true intentions if she stared hard enough. "You're up to something," she decided.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," Salem defended. "This was your idea, to begin with, was it not? Thoroughly crush anything that may give humanity the power to resist us, that they may forever stay as they are?" Salem returned Phoenix's intense glare, "Everything is going according to plan, wouldn't you say?"
The staring contest continued for several moments before the grey-haired girl relented. Turning on her heel, she made to stride out the doorway. She paused for a beat before speaking, "You are treading a very fine line, Salem. Don't forget our agreement." Then, without waiting for a response, she departed, leaving only lingering static in her wake.
It was several tense moments before anyone was comfortable enough to reclaim their seat. This had hardly been the first time the inner-circle encountered the enigmatic Phoenix, though any knowledge they had on her was sparse and unspecific.
Regarding the girl, Salem had given them a single rule: do not antagonize her. Some took to this advice more readily than others, as a certain faunus's thrice-bruised ego could attest to. The scorpion had seemed to take an immediate dislike to the girl upon their first encounter and sought to aggravate her at every given opportunity. Where most would have promptly learned their lesson after the first thrashing, Tyrian had only grown more incensed. It was only after the third beatdown and a stern reprimand from the Queen herself that he acquiesced. From then on, the grimm queen's forces and the Phoenix found themselves working in tandem in tense, uneasy cooperation.
Salem settled back into her throne and sighed, glumly scowling at the remains of wood and steel littering the ground.
"Watts."
"Yes, my queen?"
"Be a dear and fix the door."
"Yes, my queen."
Solitas was a cold region. The ever-present snowstorms at the mountain's peaks would always invite a chill to the lowlands, regardless of the season. The summers would always have a slight nip underlying the sun's warmth and the winters always found bitter cold that seeped straight down to the bones. Few had ever visited the peaks of Solitas, and fewer still actually cared to make the unforgiving climate their home.
Even so, at the highest point of the tallest peak in Remnant, a small encampment existed. It was sparse and neglected, consisting of a decrepit stone shack situated on a barren outcrop of stone. Enshrined within, a radiant, golden feather pulsed—once, twice, thrice—before the form of a young woman coalesced from shimmering light. Phoenix stepped from the building into the biting frost. She took a hard breath, filling faux lungs with frigid cold. Gazing into the gloom, she imagined that if the storm would let up, she would be able to see Atlas from here. It would merely be a small, single patch in the massive patchwork of Solitas's topography. She could recall it well. In the old days, before the climate had changed, and the perpetual blizzard encased the peaks, she would oft gaze upon the land from on high. She watched as the small settlement flowered into a bustling hub of commerce, and then into a world power. Occasionally, she would lend a hand during particularly dire times, and the people came to revere her for it.
It wasn't just Solitas, either. In one form or another, her name had imprinted itself into Remnant's history, not so much through deliberate action, but as a matter of course. She had traveled far and done much. Her actions had been small, for the most part—matters of little consequence. But as they accumulated, they left an indelible impression on the hearts and culture of Remnant's people.
In Sanus, the name of the dreaded Phoenix passed through lips in hushed whispers. Hers was a name to evoke fear and to caution misbehaving children. An agent of judgement, she lay waste to sinners and grimm alike. Her actions were far from glamorous, but it was only fitting. After all, Sanus had been where Ozma chose to dwell. The bulk of her more ignoble deeds had taken place on that continent at the behest of her compatriot. She hadn't been proud of what she needed to do, but it was necessary.
In Anima, to the east, the legend of the Immortal Empyrea was known to this very day. Hers was a presence approaching divinity among the people of Anima. The legends spoke of a serene protector who split the earth and sundered the grimm hordes with nary a thought. It was said, at the height of the Great War, that the Empyrea had stood against the Warrior King of Vale and fought him to a standstill. She had repelled the encroaching forces and then simply disappeared. The War had ended in short order following that battle, but the people of Anima never truly believed that the Empyrean had perished. To this day, a regal, robed figure would occasionally be reported in a village beset by grimm. When she departed, so did the beasts—vanished like smoke to the heavens.
Those in Solitas would recall tales of the nomadic warrior, Jingwei, long before Atlas rose or Mantle had waged bloody war on the world. Hers was a heart of surging flames. There were those who claimed she was the mythical firebird, incarnated in flesh. Her flames had carved a brutal trench into an unforgiving landscape—a shelter in which her people could settle and thrive. For centuries, she would cleanse the land and protect their safe haven until it bloomed and prospered into the kingdom it was today. And as the continent progressed into the modern Era, the name of mighty Jingwei slowly, but surely, faded into obscurity.
The process of sowing legends among humanity, that they may sprout into a functioning culture, had felt all too familiar to Phoenix. "Humanity will need its myths," a dear friend had told her once, in another world, in another life. That friend had been the one to originally bestow the name, "Jingwei", upon the girl.
She felt a stirring in the recesses of her psyche. "The snakes were good to us," a voice sounded, as if in response to her melancholy.
"I didn't know you were awake."
"You used Fenghuang Down earlier, didn't you? I've been up since then. Thought there might be something to fight. Something happen?"
A mental sigh, "Sort of. Salem is up to something. I fear this partnership may be reaching its end."
She filled the voice in with recent events, more to put her thoughts in order than anything else. She knew the voice didn't care for the particulars as much as it did the fighting.
"What, that bothers you?" It didn't bother masking the derision in its tone. "You and I both know that we've never been that woman's biggest fans. It's about time, I say."
"You should've just killed 'em ages ago," it snorted. "They've been a threat from the start, but you always insist on playing along. I swear, even after all this time, you're still so indecisive."
"Caution is not indecision," the girl corrected aloud in a soft voice. The raging winds drowned out her voice, but there was no one around to hear her, anyway. "The witch is still an unfortunate necessity. I'd like to avoid conflict for as long as possible."
"Necessity nothing. If it were me, I'd just beat them all senseless. Grimm? Witches? Who needs 'em?" The voice was self-assured, cocky, and brimming with pride.
Phoenix cracked a minute smile at this. Some things never changed. "How well did beating down all of your problems go the last time you tried it?" she mused.
There was no response, but then again, she didn't need one. The silence told her all she needed to know about what her 'other self' thought about the events surrounding its birth being brought up again.
"Haste breeds carelessness, and carelessness turns certain victory into crushing defeat." She recited the words in practiced tones, purely out of habit. It was a nostalgic feeling. "We are in an advantageous position. There is no need to make wasteful movements, and there is no harm in staying the course for just a bit longer."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll skip the lecture, thanks," the voice groused. "Whatever. I'll leave you to take care of all the complicated stuff. Just wake me when the fighting gets started, I'd hate to miss it." The logistics of "sleep" for a being who, for all intents and purposes, had no true body wasn't something the girl ever bothered to question.
Feeling the presence in her head quiet once more, she felt quite alone. Here, standing atop the world, and surrounded in rushing whiteness, she felt as if she could be the only person left on this planet. A protector's work can be a hateful thing at times. It promised long stretches of solitude and endless contemplation. Humans would live and humans would die, but she would remain forever. Eternal. That is how it had always been. Still, she had her duty, and she would see it through to the very end.
The cold had done its work in numbing the unease she felt and cooling her temper. Heaving a great breath that was laden with the weight of the world, Fu Hua allowed her concentration to falter. Moments later, the projection of herself faded away, erased by the howling gales and biting chill of the Solitas blizzard.
Not for the first time, Salem thought about her long, unfortunate life. How easy things would have been if Ozma had simply listened to her all those years ago.
She almost wouldn't mind immortality. An eternity of happiness with her beloved and their children seemed like the infinitely better alternative to their current situation. She probably wouldn't even have any issue setting aside her vendetta towards the brother gods, if it meant such a thing could come to pass.
All that that happiness required was an erasure of the old, rotten humanity. It was such a simple thing. After all, humanity had been all but decimated following the Gods departure. But that was where her beloved had balked and turned against her. He had betrayed her. Her! The woman who had lost her mortality and waged a fruitless war against the gods for him. In the end, he reciprocated the gesture by siding with humanity against her. The very thought of it sent her ancient blood racing once more, and she was forced to quell the rage that had begun to bubble to the surface.
Bitterly, Salem roused herself from her ruminations. This wouldn't do at all. She wasn't a silly, little human any longer, and she hadn't been for quite some time. She couldn't afford to be losing herself in "what-ifs". What mattered was the steps she was to take going forward. The time to part with her partner was fast approaching. Phoenix was likely to vehemently disagree with the plans that her inner-circle had already begun to set into motion. A falling-out was inevitable; it was imperative that Salem act first. But how?
Salem had long abandoned any notion that Phoenix would be a simple thing to dispose of, when the time came. At first, she had thought her a human. A uniquely powerful human, but a human nonetheless. However, as the years turned to decades and the decades to centuries, Salem found herself coming to a more and more likely conclusion: this girl shared a similar condition to her own. Even now, several millennia after their first meeting, the girl remained as she did then, which certainly complicated matters.
Salem had entertained the thought of simply tossing her into one of the grimm pools and seeing what would happen. In fact, she had done just that a couple centuries back, only to watch the girl pull herself out of the blackness unscathed, if mildly disgusted. She had walked away snidely muttering, "about as much as I'd expect" under her breath while shooting the grimm queen a particularly nasty glare.
All Salem had gotten for her trouble was a now non-functioning birthing pool. The pitch liquid lay inert, refusing to produce any more grimm. Occasionally, something would pull itself from the muck—grimm-like creatures with slick, white appendages fused onto the body or replacing limbs. The material that formed these appendages was glossy and unnaturally smooth, and didn't seem to be at all organic. The uniformity of the texture would often be broken by a network of patterns of various glowing colors. Any further observations proved impossible, as the creatures expired almost immediately after wrenching themselves from the viscous liquid with apparent difficulty, their corpses quickly dissipating into nothingness.
Phoenix had seemed more bothered by these than anything Salem had done.
Thus, Salem was left pondering a conundrum. The girl needed to be dealt with if their plans were to move forward unimpeded. A show of force was out of the question. She had seen Phoenix decimate entire armies on her own over the course of Remnant's long and storied history. Her inner-circle didn't stand a chance, and she might as well not waste her time sending grimm. After all this time, Phoenix still confessed a dislike to putting down people, but she expressed a near savage delight in destroying grimm. In her more…unrestrained...outbursts, the warrior's demeanor seemed to shift violently, sharply contrasting with her usual aloof visage. At these times, Salem noted, a sanguine crimson would bleed into the icy blue pools of her eyes, and a manic expression would contort and twist her normally collected facade. Her savage ministrations over the particular beast she was attending to at the time were nothing short of sadistic—to the point where Salem heavily doubted that she was looking at the same person.
And then it would be over. Cold blue would reclaim those irises, and Phoenix would bow, professional as ever, and thank Salem for allowing her to work out her frustrations. A strange emphasis had wormed its way into the girls voice when she referred to herself, but the terse girl never elaborated, and Salem never bothered to ask.
Needless to say, anything that Salem could make in an attempt to dispatch the grey-haired warrior was likely to just be torn apart with laughable resistance. Therein lay her problem. Outside of sheer force or corruption, what other choices did she truly have?
Salem exhaled in resignation, mentally shelving the issue for the umpteenth time since meeting the girl. There was still time. She could wait a bit longer.
High above Beacon's vaunted halls, cloistered in his clockwork tower, Ozpin had been mulling over the same mug of coffee for the past hour when his scroll had sounded. He had been brooding over the unfortunate events of the last week and was quite deep in thought.
Amber had been assaulted and robbed of her power in such a way as to leave her completely comatose.
Qrow had found the elusive Phoenix, but was left thoroughly rattled as she displayed an oppressively impossible mastery of martial skill before simply vanishing.
Grimm activity along the borderlands seemed to be growing far more agitated for unknown reasons. Movements of the older grimm species had grown erratic and unpredictable.
The new term was set to start and Glynda had begun her yearly routine of stress-scolding him for minor infractions.
To top it all off, his coffee machine had finally given up the ghost after several long, hard years of service. He was forced to sustain himself with this instant coffee swill while a suitable replacement was procured.
Truly, Headmaster Ozpin's troubles were deep and multifaceted, insistently drawing him deeper and deeper into their depths. As a result, he was quite taken by surprise when the mechanical jingle jolted him from his reverie.
Pulling the device from his coat pocket, his lips twitched slightly as the caller ID revealed his green-haired colleague. He swiped to accept the call and was immediately beset upon by a veritable torrent of words.
He allowed himself to sink into the plush of his rather comfortable chair and idly picked at a loose, emerald thread on the armrest while his excitable friend talked at him through the scroll. Occasionally, he would give a noise of affirmation or acknowledgement, but was otherwise silent as Doctor Oobleck waxed on about some remarkable discovery he had stumbled upon in his latest excavation. To some, the doctor's hyperactive manner may have been irritating, but right now, Ozpin was quite grateful for the distraction.
Ozpin finally began to pay proper attention when his colleague's speech began to wane in intensity, signalling that he was approaching the heart of the matter. He now spoke slowly. Well, he spoke comparatively slowly, indicating that he was deep in thought and was choosing his words carefully.
"It's absurd, Oz. These ruins date further back than we can test for. The entrance had been sealed shut, and if it wasn't for that pulse of abnormal, resonant energy a few days ago, we likely would have skipped right over them. Nothing should have been down here. It is utterly impossible for anything to be here."
"I take it you found something quite astounding, then?" Ozpin asked dryly, taking a long sip of lukewarm coffee.
"'Astounding' is certainly an uncharitable way to put it," the good doctor huffed. "Personally, I would prefer to call it an 'archeological miracle' or the 'Mother of all discoveries.' Oz, this could completely rewrite Remnant's history as we know it."
The headmaster's interest was piqued. Doctor Oobleck was, in most cases, rather conservative with his descriptions. He was not a man prone to hyperbole or grandiose statements, so hearing such things from him was highly unusual.
"Well, old friend, don't keep me in suspense. What is it you've found?"
A ragged sigh sounded over the line. "Well," the doctor's voice cut off for a moment, as if, even now, he was doubting the scene before his eyes.
"It seems to be a person, Oz. And she's alive."
This idea keeps hitting me in the head, so it seems that I'll be continuing this fic. It's been a long while since I've bothered writing anything seriously, so expect improvements as I get back into the rhythm of things. I will figure out how to properly format on this site eventually. Ill probably do a bit of a rewrite on the prologue soon, it's certainly not at any level that I'm happy with.
