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A/N
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Chapter 30
Ozpin stared out the window and watched as the city began to burn. News feeds showed people running, then, as if something had gripped them, they stopped and started to do the unthinkable: They killed themselves. Eyes wide, he took a step back and looked at his desk as it showed the glassed battlefield with no sign of the creature.
We're not going to live this down. No one will forget this.
He shut his eyes and began trying to get in touch with James to see if he could do something about the strange mass suicide that was now happening.
(-)
NO!
Sasuke shut his eye, grit his teeth, and then yelled as he did what he hoped he did. His head hurt and his vision didn't snap back into focus until it was near too late. He was almost fully out of the Bullhead. He connected to the hull with chakra and pulled himself back in. The first thing he saw was his friends staring into the distance while the craft began to take a nosedive towards the earth below.
After a fraction of a second, he saw what was really about to happen. Weapons were pointed at their vital spots.
With what little power over the Chidori he had, he rushed through the craft with lightning and knocked them all out of from the pain, using it as a stun baton, rather than a kill move. A single gunshot sounded in the cabin and the bullhead finally did what it was now destined to do: Fall from the sky. Still clinging to the hull with chakra, Sasuke snapped the door shut and rushed to the cabin as everyone began floating to the back of the craft.
The pilot was dead and he moved him out of the way before sitting down and looking at the controls. "I don't know what I'm doing." He looked at the rushing ground and grabbed the stick in the middle. He yanked it up quickly. The bullhead responded by sharply rising up. He heard a loud bang followed by a pained hiss. The craft continued to rise before alarms sounded again. He looked at a dozen flashing buttons before he started to ease up on the stick. It leveled out but it was still lower than the others.
A bullhead zipped just ahead him and hit the ground below them. Debris flew upwards and he climbed for more air. Another bang sounded and he watched as a few more fell from the sky, along with a dozen other crafts that just flew straight down.
The Killing Intent reached out that far? He looked up and gasped as one of the two cruisers that had shown up to help deal with Naruto began to take a nosedive as well. Smoke billowed from it as flying Grimm smashed and tore what they could from it before flying away. The ship shuddered and then hit the earth, turning into a ball of fire that sent out millions of pieces of debris in every direction. The forest caught fire and screams came through a radio Sasuke didn't know how to operate.
He looked to the last one and rose to meet it as it remained leveled in the air. Sasuke grit his teeth as the thing began to act strange as it slowed down and started to gain altitude. He knew what that meant and did the same to meet it. This time there was no pained groan. He looked up and behind himself as a hand slapped onto the back of the chair.
"Sasuke," Pyrrha greeted as he held her hand against her head where a thin cut was currently mending itself thanks to aura. "What happened?"
"I had to knock you all out!" He looked to her and then the cruiser he knew he was going to crash land on. "Please tell me you know how to land this thing?" She shook her head. "Can you help me out with anything."
"Maybe," she told him as she sat down and strapped in. "Don't tell Jaune I play some of his games."
"If we survive this, I'll do whatever you want to me do for you. Just help me land on the cruiser." She took over the buttons and began to try and make sense of what she was seeing. Sasuke kept gaining altitude until he matched the cruiser he was wanting to land on.
"You aren't landing on that thing," she finally told him. Blood leaked over her left eye and she kept it shut as it hurt to open it. "You have no landing gear. They aren't ready to take us in. And something fried the entire electrical system. We're flying blind, Sasuke."
"I just need to land on the cruiser."
Pyrrha took his form in and noticed that the gray skin was starting to turn blue. His hair was gaining a blue frost as well. He's got minutes left with… whatever this power is. "Alright," she got up and moved to the back. "When I tell you to, you have to have land on the craft by any means possible. We'll only be able to do this once."
"What are you going to do?" He got no reply and turned to look at her.
Pyrrha's black gloves gained a faint outline that was only barely noticeable across her braces. The ship ahead of them shuddered and she let out a cry of excursion. The entire thing glowed black and hung in the sky. Sasuke was gaining on them and the ship was starting to level out as well from whatever she was doing. He got ahead of it and looked behind to her. Pyrrha nodded and Sasuke looked down at the controls. He turned it sideways and yanked up. The craft responded in such as it turned around.
"Lower your altitude and slow down!"
"How do I do that?"
"Pull the leaver on your right!" Sasuke did as instructed and the craft began to slow down. Klaxons blared loudly. Pyrrha released the craft and turned to their friends. "Now just try to touch down on it. I'll hold them down so they don't get hurt!"
Sasuke kept his eye on the craft and felt a great pain begin to build in his body. The large ship got bigger and bigger. He lowered the bullhead and was nearly thrown from his seat. Chakra kept him in place. Pyrrha and her Semblance kept everyone else in place. The bullhead bounced twice before the bottom half of the craft was sheared away and hooked a sharp left that forced the right wing into the hull of the large ship. The wing snapped after a few second and the craft spun onto its back. A turret that was in the middle of the craft snapped the entire bullhead in half, removing Pyrrha and the others from his field of view for a moment. The two separate sections spun, but Pyrrha's half stopped while his kept moving.
Throwing caution to the wind jumped up and ran for the hole made the turret when it snapped in half. He jumped out and jumped. The broken half he'd been in flew under him and then off the side. He yanked out his sword and stabbed it into the hull of the ship, dangling for a moment before pulling himself up and looking over to Pyrrha as she bent the metal around the broken remains of their bullhead to keep it in place. Once that was done, she fell backwards into the broken craft.
Sasuke looked at what he could only assume was the command deck and ran for it. It took him only a few seconds to see what was happening. The crew inside were getting guns out and pointing them, slowly and with fear in their eyes, to their heads.
Sasuke swore as pain ran through his body while he yanked out a dozen kunai and tossed them with all his might for their weapons. The glass shattered after a few hit them and got a few of the guns from others while others were quicker to finish the deed. He dove through the broken window, rolled and sprang up to punch James in the gut while grabbing the gun that was pointed at his head and move it to the ceiling as a single round was fired off.
James screamed and threw Sasuke to the side and pointed his gun at him. Sasuke rolled, moved out of sight as James fired on him. He fired three shots before he regained his senses and looked at the gun, he didn't know he'd really been holding. He dropped it and moved back, stopping only when he heard alarms sound and a gun go off.
"James!" Sasuke shouted from behind his cover. "Listen to me! You were stuck in a wave of Killer Intent! Your people are stuck in it too! We have to hurt them to free them! It's the only way! Trust me!" Sasuke slowly moved out of cover to see James staring at his hands. He rushed to the side of the man. "Hey! I know it looked real but it wasn't!"
"What?" he stopped and looked around. His men were now screaming and moving away from their locations. "Get back to your posts!" he ordered only for Sasuke to dart around them knocking them out as he did. James retrieved his gun and pointed it at Sasuke. "What are you doing?!"
"Saving their lives!" He knocked a female in the head and looked at the monitors. He pointed to one and said, "Look! Your people are killing themselves! The whole city is probably doing this!"
James felt a vibration in his pocket and slowly pulled out his Scroll to look at it. Ozpin, he thought as he read the name. The General put it away and looked at the former Uchiha's new form as he moved from spot to spot before sighing. "What do we do? How do we stop this?"
"I might have stopped him already." He moved a woman into a chair and then looked back at James. "I can't fly this. We both know that. But I need you to knock out your people or they will kill themselves with the visions they're having. Killer Intent is a weapon that forces people to see different things and one the main things they see is their deaths at the hands of the user. So, whatever they're seeing is something that the mind is coming up with. If we don't knock them out now, they'll kill themselves."
James nodded slowly as he moved to the controls and sat down. Once he was strapped in, her grabbed the controls and looked at Sasuke. The former Uchiha glanced out onto the hull of the ship where they'd crashed and saw Pyrrha shoving more metal over the broken craft in an attempt to keep it down for whatever plan they were about to enact.
James tapped a button on the control panel. "Now hear this. All crew members prepare for barrel roll." With his eyes shut tightly, James forced the massive cruiser into a tight barrel roll. Sasuke kept his gaze outside to his friends that were possibly still asleep from his blows to keep them from killing themselves. There was a multitude of screams and crashes as the ship turned upside down and then finally straightened out. Calls began to come in and he sighed as he turned to the former Uchiha. "My people on the ground…"
"There's nothing we can do for them," Sasuke confessed sadly. "I'm sorry about the other ship. It went down already."
James hadn't noticed that Tranquility was no longer in the air. He checked the radar just to be sure and shut his eyes in silent sadness to the deaths that were sure to have already taken place from the crash. He sighed and looked to Sasuke again as he stared at the monitor that showed a wave of Grimm on their way to the city.
"Our guns might be offline," James told him. "The lightning storm fried a good number of circuits from the looks of things. No telling what's down and what's up. We might be getting ready to fall out of the sky at this very moment."
"Communication still works, right?" James nodded. "I need to get down there and make sure Naruto is alive."
"Sasuke," James shut his eyes. "I'm sorry, but when this is over…"
"I told you about this. This would happen if you kept using him as a weapon. And now look at what your arrogance caused. If you hadn't forced him to fight your battles, this wouldn't have happened! Have you even been looking for a way to send him home?" James was silent and Sasuke snarled at him. "You're no different than the others back home. They probably saw him as a weapon as well. No wonder he was treated with hate and fear."
"General Ironwood, please respond!"
The duo looked to a monitor that read SOUND ONLY in bold letters. "Winter! Report!"
"Sir, the entire ground has been glassed by some sort of… Lightning Dragon that appeared from the sky. It was an attack of some sort. Hit the creature. I think it's dead. No movement from where it once was and nothing but broken glass and black crystals that could have been the exoskeleton it had over its form."
"Any other survivors?"
There was a long pause before her reply came. "We found two survivors. But they're badly injured. One of them is a black-haired Faunus claiming she goes to Beacon. Said she's a part of team RWBY. The other is Syxx." There were a few grunts before she added, "He's bleeding a lot, sir. I don't think he's going to make it."
James was quick to look in Sasuke's direction, and thankfully, the youth was looking back out to the damaged hull as his friends slowly began to climb out of the wreckage that was his first – and hopefully – last landing attempt. Not wanting to waste time, James looked back at the monitor. "I'll send an team down to retrieve the wounded. Get that area secure. No telling where the creature is or if it's still alive after that."
"…Sir… I think the creature is dead."
"Sir!" James snapped to attention at the call. "Nevermores and Griffons are inbound!"
"ETA?!"
"NOW!"
The hull of the ship shuddered as a large Nevermore landed down on one of the guns and moved towards the ruins of the Bullhead Sasuke used to land on the craft. Shorthanded and with the systems compromised, the guns didn't respond to their presence, giving the flying Grimm the chance that they needed to get in close and begin causing damage.
"All available crewmembers we need you up top and defending the ship! Any fighters that remain in the air! Hostiles Grimm are moving in now! Take them out!" Sasuke darted out the window, his skin color slowly turning a clear blue. "Sasuke! Get back here!"
He ignored him as he ran towards the large Nevermore. It paid him no mind as it was more interested in the group that was inside the wrecked remains of the bullhead. Sasuke drew his sword with one hand and tossed a Windmill Shuriken with the other. It got lodged in its left eye and finally took notice of him, cawing in pain as it did. Sasuke was too close for it to do anything when it finally decided to attack him, earning it a quick death as he slashed through the neck while jumping, cutting the head almost clean off. He spun around and launched himself at the remains.
As the wisps of flesh broke away from it dying body, a Griffon burst through the cloud of ash and snapped at the former Uchiha's head. Sasuke heard the snapping next to his ear as he moved just enough to avoid the attack while he continued with his momentum and cut it in clean in half from the head to the tail. The two halves landed behind him as he turned around to face off against the next target. There wasn't one and he began looking higher and higher until he saw a dozen of them divebombing towards him and the craft.
A hailstorm of gunfire erupted behind the raven-haired youth. He turned and saw a man with an eyepatch and holding a large revolver of some sort. Behind him were a few people in various military uniforms with rifles. The strange man emptied his clip like the others but was quicker to reload his gun and take aim again. But as his eye narrowed with each shot, and unlike the others that began to panic, his aim remained steady and true. He never missed a shot.
"Get down!" Someone shouted from further back.
The stranger didn't blink or hesitate. In one sharp motion the revolver that had been pointed at the sky was just as quickly aimed to the side, his head and eye never once turning to look at what he was shooting at as he pulled the trigger. Sasuke watched in mild amazement as the man fired two shots that caught a pair of Nevermores surged towards them. Smaller than the one he helped fight during Initiation, but still larger than a normal bird, the two birds dropped and just barely missed the Airship as they fell underneath it, turning to ash as they did.
The group that had dropped rose slowly and began to shuffle forward with their weapons pointed in all directions as a team. Sasuke rushed to the broken bullhead and felt a wave of relief when he found his friends were okay, if not a little shaken up by whatever vision they had been given. Plus, whatever damage was done to them with his spectacular landing some five minutes ago.
"You all okay?" The stranger asked. A chore of groans and murmured responses were his reply. "Friggin kids… Get up and out of the broken craft, you jackasses! No telling how long this thing' got 'till it falls off the edge! Now move it!"
That got them up and around.
Sasuke and the stranger moved back and let them get out while watching the sky. The Grimm that were flying were flying in circles, waiting for a chance to strike on them. "Without the guns, we ain't got a chance against them with that many up there."
Now, Sasuke paid him a little more attention. "The guns are out?"
The man reloaded his weapon, his eye narrowing at the creatures of Grimm that continued to remain just beyond his weapons' range. "Yeah. Some shitty dragon of lightning fried those systems when it came crashin' down. Would take two days get the system back up. Ain't got that kinda time."
The one-eyed teen glanced down to the trees below and saw nothing more than a shadow roll beneath them. His Sharingan wasn't needed, but it helped regardless in confirming that the Grimm were rushing to the wall to start causing havoc. With no working guns on the airship, few troops to throw at it, and more dead than alive in their area, this left them with very little options to push them back. And if they couldn't get anything working soon, which seemed likely, the city would be completely overrun with Grimm before the hour.
"Alright," Sasuke wasn't sure if it was his own resignation or a sign of his desire to end things here, but he spoke regardless, and the man looked at him funny. "Pull everyone back inside. I don't know what's about to happen, but I can do something."
"Nice hero speech and all, Kid, but how 'bout you let me, and my people take care of this?"
Sasuke didn't bother looking in his direction. His friends pulled out weapons, ready to defend the craft and Sasuke as he flipped through various hand motions. When he finished his solo game of pattycake – To the onlookers. – he gripped his wrist and gritted his teeth. Pain flooded his body and he felt himself become weak, but full of energy. His skin began to turn gray again, but quickly morphed to a near perfect sky blue. Lightning crackled in his hand for a moment, then sputtered out and died. He dropped hopelessly to one knee and felt tears of blood streak down his cheeks.
"…Kid…?"
He paid him no mind and began grunting as he pulled whatever power he could muster from his body to will the Chidori to life. Fire burned in his veins as he willed the Chidori back to life. It burned him greatly. His entire arm began to steam as his skin blistered and prickled before their eyes. He screamed in pain and fury. The heavens answered with a thunderous roar in reply. Dark clouds appeared from thin air. Winds kicked up and threatened to throw anything not nailed or bolted down off the craft. The Grimm in the air began to wobble as flight almost became impossible for them.
"KID!"
"WHAT?!" Sasuke finally shouted at him, his patience fully met. The man's breath was visible. Not just visible, but almost freezing on the spot as a bright orange aura flickered from something unseen. His words failed him, but he had the strength to motion behind him. His friends were freezing and slowing down. Weiss was doing all she could to keep every pinned down with the aid of Pyrrha, but her strength was giving out fast. But he saw it finally. Persia was on the ground. His Sharingan spun and he could see that she was losing consciousness fast.
The heavens pulled his thoughts back with another thunderous cry.
The red eyed youth shut his eyes and stilled his breathing. His Semblance was activating? Why? He was making sure not to use it.
"Get them inside! Hurry!"
"And leave you unprotected?"
"DO IT!"
Grumbling, the mow stowed his gun and moved with the others that came with him. As one they moved the teams inside to where they could survive the storm that had suddenly kicked up. Sasuke turned his gaze back to the Grimm that were now about to divebomb on him and craft. His legs wobbled as all his strength rapid left him and returned at an accelerated pace. His Sharingan focused in and out on the Grimm as they came crashing down before it finally cut out and his vision began to go dark.
His throat dried up and he felt cold on the outside while his inside warmed up. The sound died away and the wind seemed to cut out completely. The Grimm that were now diving him lost momentum as the wind that had once been fighting them and allowed them to remain stable in their mad dash to ram the ship or land on it was suddenly cut off, they began to fall at a different angle. Some corrected their path but were unable to do what they intended or simply began to back off as a sense of danger might have overridden their desire to see him torn asunder.
His arm burning and skin peeling back from the sheer amount of chakra he was pushing through his body, the raven-haired youth shut his eye when he felt something begin to tickle the back of his mind. The Curse Seal began to burn as it pumped out dark chakra through his system. His Chidori took on a blackish gray form that switched between the two spectrums. Thunder screamed, almost as if it were challenging him. Sasuke, eye closed, felt his power leave him as he forced to one knee. His arm raised slightly above his head, he dropped his arm and then fell forward onto the deck of the ship.
(-)
Robert took a step towards the downed raven-haired youth when he saw him fall. His hand's strange power began to dissipate before their eyes. The heavens cried out in rage and lightning fell around them. Ice shards the size of cars fell out of the sky beside the lightning, spearing anything as they fell to the ground. Robert huffed as he dragged the teen behind him.
When he got back to the safety of the command deck, Robert slowly turned around to see the final wisps of a storm never before seen or to be seen again as lightning danced through the sky via the ice shards that continued to rain down. The clouds were parted and when they came together, the crafted the image of a hand descending from the blue beyond and reaching for remaining Grimm that were buzzing about.
"…What… What just happened?"
Robert blinked and looked down at the teen in his arms before turning to his General. He motioned down to the sleeping teen and James narrowed his eyes before he started giving orders to his men to find out what was going on. "Take him to the medical ward. Don't let him out of your sight," James finally told him. Robert nodded and left with the sleeping raven-haired youth in his arms.
(-)
Sasuke stared at the woman with the cloth covering her eyes as she smiled at him. She was sitting in a garden of white roses and holding a blue rose in one hand and a familiar rapier in the other. It snowed violently around them and a single glint of the sun was visible behind a dark cloud like a child peeking around the corner.
"Why am I here?" Sasuke's voice felt like it was scratched by glass and hurt with each syllable that came out.
The woman smiled and sat the blue flower down beside her. Her rapier remained in the other hand, neatly and placed with the utmost importance in her lap. "Your heart is out of sync. It's hardened by your actions and trying to come to terms with them."
Sasuke narrowed his eye and moved to remove her blindfold. She put a hand up and stopped him, smiling as she did. Tears of blood began to seep out from under the fabric. He pulled his hand back and continued to stare at her. Her smile faltered and she looked away from him.
"You never answered my question," he finally told her after a moment of silence. The pain was less noticeable that time around.
She smiled at him. "You were always hard on yourself for what happened for that time. It's no wonder you wound up here. But I did answer your question. Your heart is out of sync. You're not dead. Your mind has begun to fracture and worse yet, the power of the Curse Seal is no more. Its power has left you, much like your chakra. With both of them gone, your body and mind are finishing their change. So, you return here because you were always at peace in my garden."
Sasuke glanced around the garden and snorted. He found the thought of that unbelievable.
"You don't believe me?" She giggled and stood up, the rapier now resting gently on the small of her back. With a wave of her hand, the snow parted, revealing a stone path leading towards a monument of ice and stone.
Sasuke looked at the woman before marching down the path towards the statue. The statue was that of a man in a long coat with a buttoned shirt beneath it and laced up combat boots. A poorly designed eyepatch made of ice with the Uchiha Sharingan emblazed on it covered its left eye. At the bottom of the statue was a snow- and ice-covered plaque with the words SASUKE, HERO OF ATLAS in bold letters.
Standing up, he turned to the woman as she knelt down and sat the blue rose beside the monument.
"How did I save Atlas? I've never been there."
"Where do you think you are?" She stabbed the sword into the ground the snow storm faded away into nothing. A garden with ornate stone structures, a large pond, and a home that could be described as a mansion. "This is your home. You come here in the end to be happy. You weren't trying to redeem yourself. It wasn't even about pride. You just listened to your heart."
"But why come here? What's here in Atlas for me? Was there nothing left for me anywhere else? Nowhere to go?"
"No. You wanted to become a man who could acknowledge your own sadness and others sadness." The former Uchiha stared at her and then, in one fluid motion removed her blindfold. Her eyes were closed, but tears of blood began to fall down her cheeks. "Trust in the possibility that lies within. And tries with all your might. Do what you feel is correct. That belief isn't a curse. If you hold on to your dreams. If you don't give up. If you don't become closed minded. The path will show itself." Her eyes opened and they were a sparkling onyx that looked brighter in the light reflected by the sun.
Sasuke stared at her for a nearly an eternity before his trembling fingers reached up to touch her face. Pain arced through his entire body. He screamed himself horse and dropped to his knees as he began to go into shock. The woman put a hand on his shoulder and nodded silently as he fell silent and collapsed into the snow unconscious.
(-)
"Play it again."
Dr. Arthur Watts didn't hesitate to do as asked. He, too, was curious.
The scene played again of the red creature destroying buildings with a swing of one of the four-tails it had. When it punched the ground, the earth cratered on command, and when he roared, a shockwave was created that sent everything flying. Missiles couldn't stop it. A wave of bullets peppered the creature, but it remained alive and willing to fight with no damage visible. But then the clouds parted, and a red tornado formed, and it evolved right on the spot, gaining two extra tails and bone armor over its body.
While nothing could stop it originally, maybe only showing the capacity to delay it, now nothing could delay or stop whatever it did. It did what it wanted, showed intelligence by taking a missile out of the air and turning it back on the enemy, and spat energy orbs that at first fell upon the soldiers, cutting off their retreat and attacking the back line. But it was the second salvo that tracked their aircrafts and knocked a clear majority of them out of the sky.
This was all ended with a blast of lightning that froze the recording for a moment before showing a large dragon made of lightning. It hovered in the air, almost as if it were looking for the target. Then, after a momentary delay, descended upon the creature as it began to get wrapped up in a white light that sprouted from its chest. The dragon splashed on the ground and then the recording stopped.
When imagery came back, it was frozen on a boy with raven colored hair that had turned gray and lengthened. His left hand was encased in a blinding light of what could only be lightning as well. Black marking covered his arm and part of face, what was shown, sported a black plus mark along his nose.
"And you're sure he's the one who did that lightning trick?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Watts snapped from his stunned state as he marveled over the scene again. "Cinder, are you certain that the creature below wasn't killed by the attack?"
Cinder narrowed her eyes on the man. Though her hologram projection was limited, Watts didn't doubt for a second those two children she had were flipping him off and making faces. Cinder seemed rather calm, almost as though she had planned on his response. "Two survivors were taken from the attack. One is a young Faunus who is a student at Beacon, and the other is a teachers' assistant that can make copies of himself, transform into anyone he wants to, stick to walls, store stuff in paper with strange drawings, and a glowing orb attack. Plus," she began fiddling with something out of view, "his powers are a near match to when he woke up from his stint in the hospital and this creature's abilities."
A small window appeared and a boy with blond hair, red eyes, and whisker marks stood in patient clothing with a red shroud in the form of an animal over his form.
"No one can have that many Semblances!" Watts snapped at her. "Atlas has tried to incorporate many Semblances into one being and nothing ever came of it."
"I don't think they're Semblances."
And just like that, she changed the conversation.
Watts sat back down in his chair, his eyes firmly shut in thought. It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities. For that he was certain if their Queen was to be any indication. And on that note, he glanced over at said Queen as she stared at the two images of the creatures' present. The human boy was clearly in possession of something that could be that creature, but from the look on her face, she had caste away the idea of them being the use of Semblances and of a creature of this world.
"Cinder," she spoke in a calm tone, one that sent shivers down Arthur's spine, "the boy he became the creature. Have you spoke with him?"
"I have. He's not very bright, but he's not stupid either. He keeps close to the one with the lightning ability, Sasuke. The blond one is Naruto. From what I can gather, the two originated in a small town of mystics in Haven and came here under special qualifications for Beacon. When I investigated them, they didn't exist and the town they used died away nearly ten years ago. They'd have been too young to live on their own."
Salem laced her fingers together. Ozpin has two pieces of power and they clearly aren't Maidens. This begs the question: Where did he get them? She shut her eyes and calmed her nerves before she lost her temper. She couldn't do that now. Not while Watts was here. Maybe later. "Good job, Cinder. Are you any closer to locating the Fall Maiden yet?"
"No. But I have more to report." Fall began tinkering with her Scroll again and this time, rather than sending another video, it was a detailed report on something else. "Watts, you're a man of science and biology. Can you tell me what I'm looking at?"
The man snorted but was amused enough to have a witty remark as he picked up his Scroll. "I'm surprised someone as cleaver as you, doesn't know what-" And his words died in his throat. His eyes darted over the Scroll as he continuously looked over the information. There was a long moment of silence as he reread the entire thing three times before sitting it down. "Where did you get this?"
"What am I looking at?" That damn smile of hers. Watts wanted to tear it off her face. "It came from the boy who used the lightning. And just like the other one, he has shown similar abilities. He's shown super speed, reaction levels beyond even the most skilled Huntsmen, fire abilities, lightning abilities, and control over ice. He shares the ability to store things in paper, stick to surfaces, make clones, and has an eye that, as best we can tell, predicts his opponents' movement as long as it's made of flesh."
The former Atlas scientist shut his eyes in thought. It didn't make sense. Such powers and abilities were beyond human. Magic wouldn't describe it. The power of the Maidens wouldn't describe it. This was something else. And this blood sample she had was… Arthur started pouring over it again before he stopped and highlighted something. It was an image of the blood sample. The cells were normal to the untrained eye, but he wasn't normal, and neither was the blood.
"This is a sample of the raven-haired boy, correct?" Cinder nodded slowly. Watts pointed, though he was unsure if Cinder could see what he was pointing to, not that he cared anyways, and continued. "This is some unknown bacteria inside his blood. The shape is consistent with each of the other shapes that are in this sample. However, they also seem to be pulsing with a power that's not aura."
"Seems you were a scientist after all."
The former scientist rolled his eyes are her comment. Like there was ever any doubt that he was one. If it wasn't for him she wouldn't be getting a free ticket into the network that Beacon was using for their security system, alongside the terminals for the upcoming festival. And if that wasn't enough, he was also going to spend a few hours making damn certain that everyone knew the fool that James was along with making damn sure his new robots failed horribly in front of the crowds.
Salem leaned against the back of her chair, her eyes lingering on the blood sample shown. Scientist she was not, nor was she a woman of human biology. Eternal life saw that she didn't get sick and recovered from all wounds. Nothing on this world could kill her. That much was certain. As such, she had never taken the time or the energy to learn the inner workings of the human body. What use was it to her? But, here was a moment in which she wished she understood it more. And thanks to Watts, it was very clear that whatever this bacterium was that pulsed with a power not of aura, did that mean it pulsed with the power of the Gods?
No.
Why would two creations of the Gods come here? And even then, why send them? Ozma made it clear that they would return but only when the relics were brought together and then they would judge humanity. Should they fail, death was certain. She would die, finally. So, if the relics were meant to bring them back, why send two beings with powers clearly not of this world? The simple and most logical answer would be that they were sent here by another force. The Light God might do it to make sure that humanity was on the right track. Balance was his thing, but she couldn't see this being the case. Same for the Dark God. If he sent them, it was to cause chaos. And if the red creatures' sudden appearance was anything to go by, it would give good evidence to the case of the Dark Gods' intentions. He did destroy all of humanity once and destroyed the moon in the process of his departure.
In any event, the real problem wasn't whether the Gods sent them. The real problem was that Ozpin had them. That much power would cause problems for her. Dealing with such beings wasn't out of her hands, it was just most likely out of the hands of her pieces. The board already was getting full, what with Ozpin's little bird spy constantly snooping around trying to keep an eye on the Maidens, the remaining two Headmaster working for him, his secret order, and every capable Huntsmen that guarder the relics, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Now add two completely unknown variables to the board, and on Ozpin's side no less, and she could see that the board had become stacked in his favor.
But, the pieces weren't fully under his control if the rampaging beast was any indication to him. With the White Fang causing chaos on one side, Grimm on another, and her pieces on his side of the board, Ozpin was going to be trying to make the best possible use of his pieces that he had currently at his disposal. Which meant that they were all focused on finding her pieces before they could implement the plan.
"Cinder," Salem finally spoke. "Continue to monitor the two boys. If they show signs of disinterest in working for Ozpin, see if they won't come to me." She didn't wait for her reply. She cut the feed and smiled. Everyone has a desire. I wonder what they're desire is.
"Ma'am, are you sure that's a good idea?"
Her red eyes turned to Watts and the man stiffened. She liked him. Really, she did, but his desire answers always bothered her. He questioned her abilities and while he was right to do so, it did grate on her. But this time it was different. "I'm not sure. But everyone wants something. It's just a matter of finding what they want and seeing if we can give it to them. And if we can't give them what they want, I'm sure Cinder and the White Fang can contend with them."