"Headmaster Goodwitch!"
One of the newly hired Huntsmen at Beacon, Taiyang Xiao Long, was sprinting to carry dreadful news to Glynda, but was stopped by Peter Port, who thought there was a problem
"Woah! Easy there, Tai. What's the hurry?"
"Salem is here, she's sent her people inside the Exclusion Zone"
"How can you tell? We already know the Grimm are in there thanks to that thing froze on top of the tower"
"Unless the Grimm can turn lights on, we surely shouldn't be taking this lightly, Pete"
Then, Peter allowed Taiyang to continue forward, reaching Glynda's office at new Beacon
"Headmaster Goodwitch"
"What could possibly bring you storming into my office right at this very moment, Tai?"
"Salem. Or one of her people. Somebody is at Beacon"
"What?!"
"The lights went back on for no reason, but there is no activity in the electrical grid"
"Rally up who you can, I will send the alarm. If what Ruby said on that broadcast is true, then Salem has gone on the offensive...just what we needed"
Several Huntsmen began preparing for what looked like a battle. They scrambled some transport ships in order to cross the lake into the Exclusion Zone
Taiyang teamed up with Peter Port and Bartholomew Oobleck
"Ahh..."
Oobleck and Port sensed some concern in Taiyang
"Tai...about Ruby" said Oobleck
"I'm fine...She's a Huntress now. But...that is not exactly what concerns me. I'm more worried about what will happen to her if we let Salem defeat Atlas"
"But...you heard her. If what she said is true, then...we can't trust Ironwood" replied Port
"If what she said is true then we will deal with that later but we are better off helping him than just...standing here, doing nothing"
The ships slowly approached the ruins of the campus, landing with normalcy and striking down any Grimm nearby
"They are all concentrated in this shore...What is going on?!"
The battle was fierce...but in the end the Huntsmen came up victories with minimal casualties. Then, the search commenced
"Fine. We are clear. Let's go. They must be commencing the search now"
Pigmallion shut down the terminal and unplugged everything, while Crystal ensured that they wouldn't be seen as they covered up
"This...suitcase really is heavy" said Cipher
"Cipher, a teenage girl carried those things with one arm, don't be such a wimp" replied Pigmallion
"Screw you"
"Alright. Don't fight. Bookshelf is back in place, we can leave"
Everyone walked away in complete silence. As they walked, they would meet the Vale Huntsmen face to face, but thanks to Crystal they would go unseen
"Nothing here" said one of the Huntsmen that passed them
"Well...Aside of some hastily made bunk beds, we can report that we found no trace of anyone" said the other
"Wait... Look at the carpet..." said a third Huntsman
"Footprints..."
"Somebody was here...I'm telling Goodwitch we have intruders confirmed but we don't know if they are still around"
Team Raptor kept on silently traversing the school, passing by one huntsmen team after the other, until they found a Canis Faunus Huntress just down the hallway
Crystal immediately diverted the group down the auditorium, where they found another group of Huntsmen
"So...This is where you used to teach guys?" asked the blonde Huntsman
"Yeah. I still remember fondly the days in front of this chalkboard" said the chubby one
"Well, we are not in a alumni party here, we are searching for intruders, and if what Miss Mulberry said is true then we have intruders here" said a third one wearing glasses
"And I think they went through here. There's footsteps in the door..." interrupts the blonde one, who starts following the trail of footprints, until he's inadvertedly standing right next to them
Crystal is having a hard time with diverting the reflected light away from those Huntsmen's eyes, and then...he slips. For a split second, the three of them get a glimpse of ... a floating suitcase
Gambit immediately shoves a smoke bomb on the ceiling
"WE HAVE HOSTILES!" yells the blond one, while all of the Team begins running
While everyone ran, Cipher began trying to put some thoughts together
"Don't try it, Cipher. We have to get that Dust back to Osterheim"
The alarms would go off immediately, which would help the conversation be fairly muffled
They would run right into the cafeteria, where, once regrouped, Pigmallion detonated the power cells, cutting off the power at Beacon once again. Making use of the darkness, Crystal would camouflage them back again. Even then, the group of Huntsmen present in the place was too big for them.
Gambit played a clever move and placed a small firecracker where they were, leaving the fuse chord on it be long enough so that it took a while to burn, but it wasn't just the firecracker
All of the Team snuck as best as they could between the Huntsmen, making sure to not split that much, otherwise Crystal's Semblance wouldn't be able to encompass them
After what was 15 eternal seconds of sneaking slowly between the crowd, the firecracker went off, which cleared their path to an open breach in the wall
Tai and his team were just about to catch the intruders when the lights were cut off.
After a while, they would keep running, following the sounds of footsteps only until they reached the cafeteria...Where all they would find would be the rest of the Huntsmen were just rallying up to leave
"Ah...They escaped" said Peter, obviously frustrated
"Well, its obviously our fault for not shooting at them" said Oobleck
"Can't blame you for that. I wouldn't have shot them either...Tai"
Taiyang was reading something he had picked up from the floor, a burnt piece of paper
Congratulations...You have set the foot in the fire on your own and allowed me to find what I wanted
On the paperback, there was a glyph but...it didn't look like something Salem would do. The glyph was hastily drawn. The language in the paper was too ... normal, too close to that of a normal person's that...it didn't seem to fit
"Something isn't right...like...it wasn't Salem...but someone else entirely. We are taking this note to Glynda..."
