Ironwood was sitting in front of his computer, fuming. He always fumed on days where nothing happened. He slammed the left armrest of his chair. He was about to just call it a day early and knock back a cold one when his he saw he was getting a video call on his screen. 'This had BETTER be important,' he thought to himself as he answered the call. "Yeah, Ironwood here. Go ahead and give me the scoop." He said to the scree. It was his spy in the woods. "Sir," the person on the monitor said, "I just saw a blue alien running through the woods!" Ironwood leaned back in his chair, but it wasn't in anger. he stroked his beard as he leaned back. This was rather intriguing. Time to get some more details. "Excuse me, did I hear you right? Did you say blue alien?" Ironwood looked at this screen, making sure he wasn't hearing things. "You heard me right, sir," The spy on the other end said, "I'm sending you photos right now!" Ironwood pulled the photos up on his computer screen as they came to him. 'Well, well, well… what have we here?' Ironwood thought to himself as examined the photos carefully, informing his spy to await further instructions. "And here thought we'd be wasting the day away."
After he ended his call with the spy, Ironwood heard a knock on the door. Quickly, he closed the photos of the alien on his monitor. Then he turned around and answered the door "Ah… Qrow…" he said with an eye roll. "Is there anything I can help you with?" Qrow said "Actually you can. You see, I was in the woods and…" Qrow wasn't even finished before he was cut off by Ironwood. "Wait, you were in the woods? Don't you realize the woods are dangerous? Especially with grimm lurking out there?! Have you lost your mind?!" Qrow grabbed his flask and said "Well, my nieces and I heard a crash coming from the woods not far from our house. We went there to investigate." "Oh, those woods," Ironwood said as he sat down, "Okay, makes sense now. Anything interesting?" Qrow took a sip of whiskey from his flask and said "Well, yeah. we ran into this blue creature that we thought you created." Ironwood knew what he was talking about, but he chose not to reveal that he knew about the thing Qrow told him, and he chose not to tell him how he got the information before Qrow told him. "Blue creature? That I created? Ha! That's a laugh. The army of Remnant does not create things. The duty of creation falls on the scientists of Remnant and you know that, Qrow."
"Well, I just thought I'd ask if you knew anything." Ironwood kept his cool as he said "Of course, I know nothing. This is all news to me too. Look, the best I can do is just get my men on it and the best you can do just try and keep a low profile to avoid the out come of people thinking you're crazy". Qrow leaned against the wall and scoffed "As if people don't think I'm crazy as it is…" he muttered to himself as he took a drink. "As for you and your nieces," Ironwood said as he stood up and walked over to Qrow, "I recommend you all stay out of the woods, theses woods are dangerous, especially in these times with the grimm lurking around every corner." After Qrow said not to worry about him or his nieces because they could take care of themselves, he left. "Well, that wasn't helpful at all," Ironwood said to himself as he sat back down "I am a busy man, and I have work to do." and with that, he went back to work, ordering his military around and making sure to get as much information about Sonic as possible when he remembered that he had to give further instructions to his spy in the woods.
He made a video call to his spy in the woods. "Sir," the spy said upon answering the call from Ironwood, "the alien is not in the woods anymore! ! lost sight of it while setting up the spy-drone!" Ironwood leaned back in his chair, scratched his head, and then he said to the spy "Listen to me. soldier. I want you to head to town and meet up with the spy i have there. Find a good location and see if you guys can find the alien. Just remember to keep a low profile and beware of any grimm on your way to town." The spy left and was headed to town per Ironwod's orders.
Meanwhile, traveling down the road way ahead of the spy, Sonic was walking. To him, walking wasn't a foreign concept, but he sure wasn't used to it. He'd rather be a un-catchable blur blasting off at the speed of sound. But if he did that, chances were that group he encountered in the woods would go after him, and they knew he was fast. Of course, he also wasn't sure of where he was either, so one move could be the difference between getting information and having the whole world go against him. Once he arrived in the city, Sonic made it his mission to obtain information from the locals, starting with where exactly he was. Little did he know, it was going to be derailed, but not in the way he expected. In that town, team RWBY was at their favorite dining location and they had just placed an order of food. "Okay," Wiess said as they waited to get their food, "I just talked with my family about the blue creature, and they deny having anything to do with bringing it to existence. I have half a mind to doubt them." Ruby wanted to give Wiess' family the benefit of the doubt this time, but Wiess wrote off what Ruby was about to say with the fact that her family could be lying about having no involvement.
Qrow arrived a few moments later and ordered a drink. Ruby was optimistic that Qrow had something to go off of. "Any luck with getting information from Ironwood, Uncle Qrow?" Qrow shook his head and told the whole tale of his conversation with Ironwood. "So, we're batting 0 right now," Blake said when she saw a mysterious cloaked figure walk by them. She decided to try and talk to the figure. "Excuse me," Blake said as Sonic stopped walking and looked in her direction. He hesitantly turned and faced Blake. "Yeah, can I help you?" Sonic asked trying to think of a way to get out of this situation without blowing his cover. "Your voice sounds familiar to me. I just can't place it," Blake said as she looked the blue cloaked figure, "anyway, I was wondering if you knew anything about this strange blue creature that was in the woods not long ago." Sonic, taking offense to being called a creature, responded in a rather calm manor. "Blue creature you say? Well, I can't say I know any for sure, but if you give me some more details aside from the creature being blue, I might be able to help you."
"Oh, I'm sorry for wasting your time," Blake said blushing, "oh, by the way, watch out for grimm." Grimm? Sonic's heard that name before, so now he would be get something he can use : information. "I've heard his name before. I don't know who this Grimm character is, but I appreciate the warning." Ruby looked over and corrected him. "Sir," she said to the mysteriously cloaked figure, "grimm are giant monsters. They feed off people's fear. Us hunters and huntresses are trained to take them down at schools like Beacon." Sonic, taking a step back part in surprise of hearing Ruby respond to him and part surprised to find out that grimm wasn't a person. "Well, thank you for the advice, m'am. I'll heed your warnings." after he said that, Sonic left the group behind and he was sweating bullets. That was way too close for his liking. 'At least they didn't try and take the cloak off.' Sonic thought to himself as he walked on down the road.
"That voice sounded familiar to me, truthfully," Blake said as the food everyone ordered was set in front of them, "it's almost as if I heard it before." Ruby looked at Blake and nodded in agreement. Come to think of it, Blake was right, that voice didn't belong to anyone they knew, and it only left one possibility. "You don't suppose that mysterious cloaked figure was th- oh, hello Ozpin!" Everyone looked at Ruby. Ozpin? Here? Wasn't he back at Beacon getting things ready for the next semester? Well, now was as good of time to see what Ozpin knew. "It's good to see you, Ruby," Ozpin said as he sat down, "How is the break between semesters?" Yang was the first to respond, as she said "It's going good. Hey, Ozpin, I have a question." Ozpin looked at Yang with curiosity. What was she going to ask him? Everyone waited for Yang to ask her question and then Yang said "Well, actually, I have two questions. The first one being what are you doing here? We all thought you were back at Beacon getting everything ready for the next semester." Ozpin simply nodded and ordered a cup of coffee. "Well, I was," he said as he adjusted his glasses, "but it was just so nice outside, and I just had to get out to enjoy the beautiful day. So I'm taking a break. What was the other question you had?"
Yang scratched the back of her head as she said "Well, you see, the four of us were in the woods with Qrow and we ran into a very unusual creature. It's blue, has green eyes, wears white gloves and red and white shoes, and we've never seen anything like it before. And topping all of that off, it can move fast, faster than anything that Remnant has seen. Would you know anything about it?" Ozpin was rather puzzled by the description that Yang gave. "Sounds like something that Ironwood would have military researchers create." Qrow looked at Ozpin and replied to him. "So you would think, except when I talked to Ironwood about, he said me telling him about it was the first time he heard about such a creature. Of course, I left out the small detail about how fast it can go." Ozpin nodded and said to Qrow "A very wise idea, if this thing moves as fast as you say it can, Ironwood would have the scientists try and replicate the speed and use that to try and put Remnant under military enforcement. Of course, we can't afford military rule at any given time, especially in these times when people are beginning to show more and more fear."
Ozpin wasn't wrong. Military rule would be harsh to live under at any given time, and these times when fear was becoming more and more prominent, the harsh conditions of military rule would be multiplied to the empt degree. Blake replied with "The best we can do is just make attempts to calm the fear down and hope for the best." Ruby only nodded and said "Well, we're sorry to bother you about the creature we saw in the woods, Ozpin." He smiled and said "Don't apologize, in fact, I'd like to see this creature myself and see if I can talk to it." Chances of Ozpin getting to see what Yang had described were slim, and chances are that it couldn't talk. Yang didn't say anything about it being able to talk, so it'd be an uphill battle to get any useful information. Afterwards, team JNPR arrived to where team RWBY was. After exchanging their greetings, Ruby briefed everyone on what they were talking about. "Now that you mention it," Nora said with her index finger on cheek, "I saw a mysterious figure wearing a blue cloak asking people questions. Whatever it is, it's not from around here. And any attempt to try and take the cloak off resulted in getting hit by the stick it was holding. It was so odd." Ren followed up what Nora said by adding the fact that all he could see were green eyes. Green eyes? That's not anything helpful to go off of, because there were many people in Remnant with green eyes.
Sonic kept on walking down the road hoping to get answers, but everyone turned away from him and he was getting nowhere fast. A mysterious cloaked figure asking questions? To the people of remnant, that was a sign of pointing to be a villain. Of course, the cloak was his only disguise and taking it off would result in everyone screaming "alien" and running for cover, and the last thing he needed was to have to deal with the group he saw back in the woods or worse, military forces. So he just kept walking. He didn't even take three steps when the ground started shaking. He stopped moving and looked around. As he looked around, the ground stopped shaking. 'Okay, that was scary,' he thought to himself as the ground started shaking again. It didn't take long to find out what was making the ground shake because a grimm showed up and let out a billowing roar. "AH! IT'S A GRIMM!" Sonic heard someone scream, and as soon as people heard that it was a grimm, what was once a peaceful place had become full of fear and panic as the grimm started knocking down buildings and trees, attacking the people in the process. Team RWBY and Team JNPR heard the screaming and saw the grimm. Oh, man, this is not good. They quickly got up and raced towards the danger. They were trained to handle this, after all.
Sonic wasn't sure wither to stay and fight this thing or if he should run for it. He was about to make a run for it when he heard a couple was screaming in fear for their child, who was trapped in a building. Even worse, the child was screaming and the grimm was headed right for it. Sonic put his hand to his face. 'Oh, man, what am I going to do? If I do nothing, that child is a goner! But If I do something, Chances are that group from the woods or worse, military forces, will try to capture me! Ugh…' he thought to himself. To him, he had no good choice, but he was not letting the child become a snack for something that was described as a monster to him. Sonic blasted off and jumped on the wall of the a building next to the one with child and wall jumped his way up into the building. Once inside, he blasted off at top speed and grabbed the child right before the grimm could either destroy the building or eat the child. He jumped out the other side of the building and got the child to her parents. "Oh, thank you, sir!" the mother said as they ran off and would never be seen again. Sonic looked around to make sure nobody saw what he did. They didn't see it because they were all busy fleeing the city. He let out a sigh of relief… that was until the grimm ate him.
Team Ruby and Team JNPR got to the grimm after it had eaten Sonic and started attacking it, but the grimm fought back, swatting them away. All 8 of them slid across the ground, came to a stop, and charged at it again, using everything they had learned in training at Beacon to this point. Ozpin and Qrow watched on as Team RWBY and Team JNPR attacked the grimm with everything they had. Oh yeah, Ozpin was still here for some reason. But their training was all for naught, this grimm was much stronger than anything they had faced. After getting swatted away for the third time, Ren got up "Alright, I have a plan," he said as everyone else was getting up. He told everyone where to be for the next attack. On Ren's signal they would attack it from all sides instead of attacking it as one large group. In theory, it wouldn't be able to decide who to swat away first. Everyone went into their positions.
"Everyone, attack on on three. One, two…" before Ren could say three, the grimm coiled back as if someone or something hit it. Ren looked around and saw that nobody had moved. Okay, that was strange, if nobody moved, who or what attacked it? Yang gave Ren a look that said "Well? We're on your count." Ren nodded and started to count again. "One, two…" the grimm took another hit before Ren yelled three again. Nobody moved, in fact, everyone fighting the grimm stayed where they were and watched it violently jerk and coil around before spitting something out. Well, whatever it was that the grimm spat out, it went sky high. The two teams returned to their battle stances and on Ren's count, they charged at the grimm from every single direction, and even managed to get some hits in, but the grimm just swatted all 8 of them away like they were bugs, one at a time. Pyrrah, Ren, and Jaun slammed into nearby trees face first and all three of them fell to the ground, Ruby was sent flying into the wall of a building, Yang was sent tumbling on the ground and into an open field, laying down her back, Blake landed on top of Yang, Wiess was tossed into a nearby lake, and Nora was lucky enough to land on her feet and come to sliding stop. She was going to mount another attack… until she saw that she landed right next to her unconscious teammates. So she started dragging her teammates to safety, one at a time. A few minutes after her initial landing, Wiess got up, clearly and visibly not happy about being soaking wet. Eh, she'll dry off, but her dress will take hours to become wearable again. Looks like this one was headed back to dry cleaners.
While all that was going on, Sonic had just turned around and he had fire in his eyes. Okay, now he was pissed. "That's it, no more Mr. Nice Hedgehog!" Sonic hollered as he grabbed the cloak he was wearing and tossed it into the wind as he landed on a nearby building, sliding to a stop. The cloak floated in the air for a while before it landed on the ground in front of Ruby, who had just gotten up and was recollecting her senses. The last thing she remembered was that she was hitting the grimm with Crescent Rose in scythe form and gun form before she was sent flying into the building behind her. 'Oh right. Now I remember,' she thought to herself as she got up and dusted herself off, 'I was fighting the grimm and it sent me flying into this building behind me…' She stopped thinking when she saw the cloak and picked it up. She looked around to see where it came from… until she looked up on the roof of the building that was behind her and saw Sonic. "Oh my gosh! It's the blue creature from the woods!" Wiess had finally succeeded in wiping the water from her eyes and was looking where Ruby was pointing. Was it? She didn't see anything. Qrow and Ozpin looked in the general direction of Ruby, but they didn't see what she was talking about. Looking at the fire emblem in his hand, Sonic smirked as he clinched it in his fist and then he started making a run right back to the grimm. Right as Sonic leaped off the building, landing next to Ruby in the process, he blasted off at top speed right in front of everyone present, not even looking back or stopping. Nor did Sonic give it a second thought. Blake and Yang had just gotten up when the Sonic blasted by them at semi-top speed. "Whoa, when did the wind kick up?!" Blake yelled over the loud whooshing sound. Yang, who had her left arm in front of her face, spotted Sonic headed towards the grimm. "I think that will answer your question." Yang said to Blake as she was pointing at Sonic. Blake looked and she saw it and asked Yang, "Hey, isn't that the creature from the woods?!"
Yang and Blake watched as Sonic not only run towards the grimm, the watched him surround himself in a ball of fire right in front of them. Yang was stunned and Blake was speechless. "Did it just surround itself with fire?!" Yang asked as Sonic continued running at the grimm, which been knocking buildings and trees down the whole time to try and stop Sonic. But Sonic was stopping for nothing or nobody. He jumped, ducked, slid, bobbed, weaved, and spin dashed his way over, under, around, and through the debris. Ozpin was fascinated by what Sonic was doing. This speed was something never achieved by anyone or anything in Remnant and the alien had the ability to control fire?! How could he not be fascinated by this? Qrow folded his arms and let out a groan. He doubted the creature had any chance of going against grimm. In fact, if he didn't know any better, he could've sworn he was watching Yang go against it by herself. 'Now that I think of it…' Qrow thought to himself as he saw no signs of Yang or Blake. 'Ugh… where did Yang go? I swear she sneaks of on purpose to either scare me, annoy me, or a mix of both…' As he was thinking that, he heard Yang's voice in the distance. "I'm telling you right now Blake," Yang said as they were walking back to Ozpin and Qrow, "whatever this thing is, I do not want to get on it's bad side." Blake only nodded in agreement as Ozpin said "When you girls get a chance, tell the others that I want to see this creature back at Beacon. " Qrow scoffed as he sipped some whiskey from his flask. "That's easier said than done, considering how fast this thing is."
Once Sonic got in striking distance, he launched into a fire dash. The grimm swatted Sonic back into the sky, but it burned it's hand in the process. As it let out a deafening roar, it swung it's hand into a couple of buildings on it's left and right, reducing both of them to burning ruble. Sonic turned around and noticed what was going on, "Oh, so you can play with fire, huh," he said to the grimm before he let out a snarl, "well then, let's see you try THIS!" he quickly clinched a lightning bolt emblem and the ball of fire changed into a ball of lightning in front of everyone who was present… except Nora, who was still busy getting her unconscious teammates to safety. Before anyone could say a word, Sonic bolted in the direction of the grimm, and if that wasn't enough, the electric charge of Sonic's shield made triggered the . Before everyone knew it, the sky was dark, and thunder clapped as it started raining. Everyone who was still watching what Sonic was doing as he was barreling towards the grimm. The grimm, just like before swatted Sonic away, but this time, it sent Sonic in an upward path as the hand it used to swat him away with was now rendered useless. The grimm collapsed to the ground, covered i n electric pulses as it couldn't move, it laid there, roaring and bellowing in pain. It was now or never if he was going to finish it off. Sonic quickly grabbed the fire emblem and clinched it in his fist. "FEEL THE FURY," he yelled as the fire shield surrounded him once more, "OF MY FLAME!" and with that he fire dashed down into the grimm, setting the whole thing on fire. The Grimm was defeated and Team RWBY was stunned. What would usually take a team of 4 or more to take got taken down by just 1 fighter. Not only that, with techniques never seen or done before by anyone in Remnant. Even Ozpin was stunned. He wanted answers. 'If this creature is as powerful as I think it is,' he thought to himself as he walked away, 'there's no doubt it'll be a matter of time before Ironwood tries to get his hands on it.' Qrow looked at the burning grimm and then at the city that was reduced to ruble by it. 'Well… so much for the peaceful life.' he thought to himself as he walked away. Where was he headed? He was going to have a chat with Ozpin back at Beacon.
Ruby and Wiess examined the grimm. Yep, it was burning away, alright. Yep, it was dead alright. But after seeing the creature from the woods harness the power of both fire AND electricity, they had way more questions than answers. Yang and Blake joined their teammates 30 minutes later. Ruby looked over at Yang who had a smug grin on her face. "Did you two forget we have something important to do?" Blake, of course, blushed as she replied with "Well, sorry, we were on our way here and then Yang kinda... fell on top of me. took us a while to get untangled." Yang said "Yeah, my sincere apologies about that. Anyway, Qrow wanted us to pass along Ozpin's message to you." Ruby couldn't let go of her thoughts of what Blake could've possibly meant when she said that Yang "kinda" fell on top of her and what she meant by "took a while to get untangled"… that was until she heard Ozpin had a message. "Oh, well, what did Ozpin say?" Ruby asked, at this point, she'll use anything to get her mind from wandering onto Blake's bizarre choice of words. Yang said "Qrow said that Ozpin wants to secure the creature back at Beacon so we can get information." Wiess let out a scoff and said "Easier said than done, considering how fast this creature can move" Blake said, "You know, Qrow said almost the exact thing you said to Ozpin, Wiess." Yang was trying to look beyond the burning body of the grimm, which would become ashes soon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blue creature, but was having 0 luck.
Inside a building that was somehow not destroyed by the grimm, Jaun Arc and Pyrrah were finally coming to there senses. The last thing they remember was they were fighting a grimm and being sent into a whirlwind of flying through the air before slamming into a tree face first. They both sat up and saw Ren still down for the count… until he finally opened one eye. He sat up and looked around. "Hey, where's Nora?" he asked. Pyrrah and Jaun simply gave him a shrug. All Ren could remember was helping fight a grimm when the grim sent everyone flying in separate directions. After he was sent into tree back first and hitting the ground, it was a blacked out blur. 'Now that I think of it…" Ren said as he got up and walked out of the building. He looked around, and as was looking, he saw the burning corpse of the grimm. Jaun and Pyrrah came out too and they were stunned. "Did Team RWBY finish the fight without us?" Phyra asked as she saw all 4 members of Team RWBY looking at the corpse. But something was off. She couldn't place it, but something was off. Ruby came over and she said "Hey, you guys okay?" Ren was the one who spoke for the whole group when he said "Well, aside from blacked out memories between getting smacked around by the grimm and now, I'd say we're doing just fine." Phyra and Jaun agreed with that. Ruby sighed relief and told them that she was glad to hear everything was good. "Speaking of good," Pyrrah said as she pointed at the grimm, "You guys did a pretty good job taking care of that grimm." Ruby had to correct her on that one. "Uhh… about that… we didn't do anything." "Excuse me, did I hear you right? You you guys did NOTHING?!" Jaun asked in state of shock. Ruby nodded and said "It was all the work of that blue creature we found in the woods." Ren wasn't paying attention to the conversation Ruby and Pyrrah were having. He was too busy looking around for Nora still.
Thinking that everyone who was still there had either left or were distracted by one thing or another, Sonic took off at a light running pace, using the flames from the burning grimm as cover to avoid being seen by team RWBY, but he didn't take Nora into account. She saw Sonic running her way and she got a smug grin on her face. The perfect target for a good hammer swing. She bolted into a run, seeming like she was going to have a head on collision with Sonic. She stopped, readied her hammer and swung it in a downward to upward motion, making contact with her target in the process and sending Sonic flying into the air. As Sonic was sent flying airborne, screaming the whole way up, Nora, quite pleased with herself, said in a sing-song voice "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the -" "NORA!" Ren yelled as if it was right on cue to cut her off. "Coming, Ren…" Nora said, embarrassed. But as she started to walk over to Ren, Sonic was coming down from the sky, and he was once again screaming. Nora stopped and readied up another hammer swing. Right before Sonic hit the ground, Nora yelled "BATTER UP!" And she hit him with her hammer again, this time, sending Sonic flying in the direction she was facing. Sonic crashed into the wall of a house, bounced on the floor, crashed through the other wall, bounced two more times, then tumbled along the ground before coming to a dead stop in an open field. The last thing he would remember was he took off, someone, he'd assume it was Amy, hit him with their hammer not once, but twice. Sonic didn't even have the strength to get up, all he did was just close his eyes and just laid there.
About a half an hour later, the skies cleared and Team RWBY had just found Sonic lying down in the open field. Blake picked Sonic up and said to the others "Let's get it back to Beacon." Team JNPR arrived as Blake had just picked Sonic up and Ren asked Blake "What do you have in your hands?" Blake jumped, nearly dropping Sonic onto the ground. But she held on and faced Ren. "Well… Ruby, Yang, Wiess, and I ran into this thing back in the woods. Ozpin wants it at Beacon so he can get information. Or something like that." Nora raised her hand in guilt and admitted she was the one who was responsible for nailing the "poor thing" in her words. Ruby playfully rolled her eyes and said "Nora, if you saw how fast thing can run, and the fact it can use fire and lightning to protect itself, the last thing you would call it is poor."
Little did anyone know, they were being watched. Both spies of the Remnant army had cameras on Sonic, but of course, they were setting up shop as Sonic was dealing with the grimm, so they missed out on what Sonic could do, and Ironwood was watching the whole ordeal of Blake carry Sonic off to Beacon. "Hmph," Ironwood said, "I didn't need Qrow to tell me about you as it was, alien." If Ironwood could get his hands on the alien, he could not only he could not only rule Remnant with an iron fist, he could force everyone to obey his every rule, hunters and huntresses be damned. And even more so, he could make a robot copy of the alien. Ironwood let out a quiet, sinister laugh. This time, nobody, not even team RWBY, was going to be able to stop him. Little did Ironwood know, this would be starting point of becoming what he feared he would become, and he was also going to be in for more than he bargained for.
Back in Sonic's world, Quinn was in the jungles of the Mystic Ruins, located in the continent of Adabat. She was surprised to find out the trains from Station Square, which was back in Empire City, were connected to the Mystic Ruins. She had never seen these jungles before, nor did she know they existed until she used the mine cart just outside the tunnel that brought her here. Off in the distance, just past the ancient temple, she saw Robotnik's base. She grabbed her jet pack and took off to the skies, headed for the base, looking for any information she could use.