Hey everyone! It has been a while, I admit I'm quite slow for updating my chapters. Some good news is that a lot of chapter 9 is already written, so I'm hoping to get that out much quicker than this one.
A huge thanks to everyone who leaves a review, they really encourage me to write much more often and I'm happy with how this story is so far.
Also let me know if any of you prefer this length or my usual length for my chapters.
Without further ado, please enjoy chapter 8! :)
~Alexi1138
Ironwood watched the feed from Falcon one's camera with anger in his eyes. He had been standing up from his chair since Falcon team arrived at the base. Ironwood could only watch as he saw the bullheads get torn apart by that monster. He then saw the beast up close on screen. Its menacing red eyes seemed to look directly at the General through the camera. "You lose again, General." The video feed was then cut off, leaving Ironwood with a screen filled with nothing but static.
Ironwood took a deep breath and sat in his chair. He opened up his scroll and dialed Ozpin's number.
"James, you call bearing news I suppose?" Ozpin said in a calm and neutral tone.
"The mission was a failure. Falcon team was wiped out entirely." Ironwood's voice had a tinge of frustration in it.
Ozpin stayed silent for a moment. "General, I believe we should meet again. Perhaps formulate a better strategy and gather as much information on this beast as we can."
"I'll be over within a few days. Ironwood out." He ended the call with Ozpin. He clasped his hands together as he reviewed the footage from Falcon one. "Falcon team, I'll make sure that none of you died for nothing..." Ironwood observed every part of the footage in detail as he sat there.
[The following morning - 8:30am - Team RWBY's dorm]
Ruby sprung out of her bed as her alarm went off, "Good morning team RWBY!" She shouted.
Weiss groaned from her pillow. "Must you be so loud every single morning?" She whined, "Some of us like to wake up like normal people."
Yang hopped down from her bed. "Don't worry Weiss, you'll get used to it eventually." She smiled as she stretched her legs and arms out before going to change.
"Well I hope so, it's not exactly a pleasant way to wake up." Weiss sat herself on her bed as she looked over to Blake. She seemed troubled as she read something on her scroll.
Yang walked over to Blake with her arms behind her head. "What's wrong Blakey?"
Blake turned her scroll to her blonde teammate. "Ozpin sent out an announcement... He's calling for an emergency meeting with all the students today."
Ruby seemed confused. "What does that mean?"
Weiss looked at Ruby with a serious expression. "It means that Ozpin wants to inform the students of a threat that endangers the school, the city, or both."
Yang seemed worried. "Do you think it's the bird we fought that's causing this?"
Weiss crossed her arms. "Of course not, whatever that bird monster was I'm sure that Ozpin and the Atlas military would be able to handle it without a doubt."
"Yeah!" Ruby cheered. "And even if it was that bird, we have a school full of hunters and huntresses in training. We could take it down no problem!" The little redhead spoke with a smile.
Blake's worry seemed to fade away a little at her team leader's enthusiasm. "I hope you're right Ruby."
A little while later, all the students had gathered in the main auditorium where Ozpin gave his day one opening speech. Team RWBY had made it into the auditorium right before JNPR. Ruby waved team JNPR over to her.
Jaune sat beside Ruby. "Hey Ruby."
"Hey Jaune, how are things?"
"Oh they're good, Pyrrha's been really pushing me in my training, but I am getting better, kind of..." He seemed discouraged.
Pyrrha sat a little closer to Jaune and put a hand on his back. "You're doing tremendous progress Jaune."
Jaune smiled. "Thanks Pyrrha"
Yang leaned back and caught Pyrrha's eye, she gave her a sly smile and a wink. Pyrrha in return blushed slightly.
Jaune saw Pyrrha redden. "Everything okay Pyrrha? You seem a little red."
Pyrrha placed her hands back on her lap out of slight shyness. "Oh yes Jaune I'm alright, it's just a small sunburn."
"Okay, just making sure," Jaune replied.
Ozpin made his way onto the stage and walked up to the microphone, Glynda walked up to his side.
"Students, I ask that each of you give me your full attention for this quick emergency meeting." Ozpin waited for a few chatterers to quiet down.
"Thank you. As you are all probably aware of, there will be no classes today due to this meeting. This is because I want everyone to take the necessary precautions. Just recently the Atlas military has been dealing with a great threat. As a precaution for this threat we will be increasing security around the school and we will implement a curfew. We also ask that students refrain from going out on their own to off campus locations."
Cardin Winchester crossed his arms and looked at the rest of team CRDL. "A curfew? We should just go out and show it who's boss." Cardin started laughing.
"I do advise that none of you take this lightly, these rules will be in place until the threat is dealt with. You are all dismissed."
Team RWBY all walked together towards their dorm room. Yang looked over at Weiss and gave her a joking look. "So the Atlas military can handle anything huh?"
Weiss sighed, "You know what I meant Yang... Besides I'm certain that the situation is well under control."
"We can only hope," Blake said, "this is a time of peace, the last thing we need is the outbreak of war."
Yang's scroll began to vibrate; she pulled it out and saw Ruby's contact. "Hey Rubes, call for you." Yang passed her scroll over to Ruby whom caught it firmly.
"Hello?" Ruby answered.
"Miss Rose? It's Bentley. You and your sister wanted to know why we were here, right?"
"Uh… yeah I think Yang said something about that."
Ruby heard some distant murmuring from the other end of the call. "Alright, we can meet you tonight at the far end of the emerald forest for eleven at night. I know it's late but we want to keep our existence a secret from other people as much as we can."
Ruby thought for a moment, she thought about the curfew, about Yang. She knew that she didn't want to lie to Yang but she also knew Yang wouldn't let her go out after Ozpin's curfew. "Uh sure, I'll see you then." Ruby hung up Yang's scroll and handed it back to her.
Yang stored her scroll. "So what did they want?"
Ruby tensed up slightly, she tried her best to hide her lie. "They want to meet us a week from now in the emerald forest. I figure that by then the curfew won't be in place, so I told them we could make it. Maybe all four of us could go." Ruby gave Yang her best smile.
Yang in return to the smile began to melt inside at how cute Ruby looked. She hooked her arm around Ruby's head. "Sounds like a plan Rubes."
Ruby felt relieved, feeling that her sister hadn't seen through her lie. She looked at Blake and Weiss with hopeful eyes. Blake nodded back. "I'm fine with it; from how you both talk about them they seem nice."
Weiss seemed to think about it for a moment. "I'll come meet them, but if they turn out to be a bunch of hooligans or criminals I won't allow you to remain friends with them."
Ruby gave Weiss a discontent look. "Gee thanks Weiss, you're the greatest."
[Same day – 10:00pm – Ozpin's office]
"So…" Ironwood paced the floor in Ozpin's office. "What's your plan Ozpin?"
Ozpin sat in his chair, his cup of coffee in hand as he gazed out the back window. "For now James, my plan is to wait."
Ironwood frowned slightly. "Every second we waste, we give time for that monster to run rampant. We can't afford to wait. We need to find a way so stop it in its tracks."
Ozpin turned in his chair and sipped his coffee. "Tell me general; what do you believe is the best way to catch a running thief?"
"Ambush him on his route to his destination." Ironwood said plainly.
"That is why I think we need to wait. If we know the target's motive, its goal, we should be able to ambush it before it reaches its goal."
Ironwood thought for a moment. "The plan seems solid, but how do you expect to find its goal? So far it has only targeted random villages and military bases."
"That is what we need to figure out tonight, so we can formulate a proper plan." A light began to pulsate on Ozpin's desk, indicating someone was at his door. "Come in."
Glynda walked in, scroll in hand with an annoyed look on her face. "We have a situation."
"Let me guess, someone already snuck out after curfew? Team CRDL perhaps?" Ozpin stayed in his chair, as if he was expecting this to happen.
"Right and wrong, someone did sneak out after curfew, and that someone is Ruby Rose of Team RWBY."
"Ruby Rose? That's a little unexpected, well where has she gone?" Ozpin seemed rather calm.
"According to the GPS in her scroll, it seems that she's all the way in the far end of the emerald forest. That's the only area we haven't set up the cameras yet so I don't know her current state."
Ozpin took another sip from his coffee. "James, can I count on you to bring a team of bullheads and bring Miss Rose back?"
Ironwood gave Ozpin a nod. "I'll deploy a team immediately." Ironwood turned and walked out of the room quickly, leaving Glynda and Ozpin alone.
Glynda glanced over to Ozpin who had gone back to looking out his back window. "Why are you so calm in this situation?"
"It's because everything up until now was all part of a plan. What happens now is up to the general."
[Same day – 10:10pm – Team RWBY's dorm]
Everyone in the Team RWBY dorm had gone to bed around 9:30 due to the early morning class they had tomorrow with Professor Port. All had been quiet, until the ringing of Yang's scroll woke everyone up. Yang yawned and answered her scroll. "Yello?"
Weiss walked up to Yang, yanked her scroll right out of her hands and put it to her ear. "Do you have any idea how late it is? Whoever you are you should really think about calling at a reasonable time."
The other side of the line stayed quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry who are we speaking to?"
"Who? I should be the one asking that since you woke us up." Weiss spoke with a displeased tone.
"Why were you sleeping? I thought you'd be on your way here. Pass the scroll to Yang I need to talk to her."
"What you're saying doesn't make sense, why would we be going anywhere at this time?" Weiss asked.
Blake looked around the room for a moment. "Yang, where's Ruby?"
"Isn't she still sleeping soundl…?" Yang felt an instinctual feeling of dread when she saw that Ruby's bed was empty and Crescent Rose was nowhere to be seen. She walked over to Weiss and grabbed her scroll and brought it to her ear. "Bentley…" There was an ever so slight quiver in Yang's voice as she spoke, but she had quickly forced herself to stay calm. "Where's my sister?"
"To be honest I'm not sure, but I have good reason to believe that she may be on her way to the far end of the Emerald Forest near our cave. Someone needs to stop her before she gets here or else her life may very well be in danger." Bentley had started to speak faster but he had kept the same tone.
"In danger from what? And why can't you go stop her? Aren't you closer to her than we are?" Yang seemed a little distressed.
"She's in danger for the same reason that we can't leave this cave. That bird that attacked her the other day is here in the forest."
"We'll be there as fast as we can." Yang hung up the call and began preparing her gear.
Blake looked at her with worried eyes. "Yang what's wrong?"
Yang stopped for a moment and looked at her. The intensity in Yang's eyes was really a sight to behold. "Ruby is going to need our help, so let's go."
Ruby had been walking through the Emerald Forest for some time. She had started to wonder if she had made the right call by going alone and without her team. As Ruby kept walking she eventually ended up at the temple from her trials in first year. "Wow, this brings back some memories." Ruby walked around the small temple as she looked at the empty podiums where the chess pieces were back then. "Kind of seems creepy here at night though." Ruby opened up a map of the Emerald forest she had ripped out of a book. "Almost there." She put away the map and began walking in the direction of Sly's hideout cave. That was when Ruby heard the growls.
Ruby took out Crescent Rose; she opened it up in scythe form and turned to face her enemies. The small pack of beowolves all stared at her, and then they began to move as if trying to corner her against the trees. Ruby smiled at the beowolf closest to her as she pointed the sniper barrel of Crescent Rose behind her. The beowolf snarled at her before it went to charge, but at that point it had already been sliced in half by Ruby. She dashed and fired Crescent Rose which gave her the momentum to slice through a few more beowolves before she landed on her feet and turned to the final beowolf. It shuffled to the side to attempt to trap Ruby between itself and the trees behind the young huntress. The Beowolf looked as if it was about to lunge at Ruby, but it suddenly stopped itself and started to back away slowly as if it was afraid of her.
"Why is it backing away?" Ruby seemed confused as to why the creature of Grimm was backing away. She then heard the ruffling of the leaves behind her. Ruby turned to face her opponent and was met with a large pair of glowing red eyes.
"You seem lost, little one," the massive beast spoke to Ruby in a deep cold tone.
Why can't I move? Ruby thought.
"Don't be afraid, all you have to do is stay still."
C'mon Ruby move! Ruby could do nothing but stare as the eyes seemed to get closer and closer to her.
As the monster approached, she heard the one thing she had completely forgotten about, the beowolf. Ruby quickly shot the ground below her to propel herself above the beowolf's attack. She shot again to get some distance between her and the larger beast. As she flew, she saw a large robotic owl head crush the Beowolf within its beak, right where she was standing a moment ago. Ruby landed on her feet and readied herself for the large mechanical bird.
The bird threw away the now dead Beowolf from its beak and then started to move around more, as if it was trying to break free from the trees. "You have no escape, little one."
Ruby loaded a magazine of heavier armor piercing rounds into Crescent Rose. "I'm not afraid of you!" She tried to be as intimidating as possible.
"You will be… You will fear me… you will fear the name, Clockwerk." Suddenly the ground and trees behind him were sent hurling up. His large metallic wings reached out from the forest as they spanned out. Then with one powerful movement, Clockwerk got airborne. His deep harrowing screech resonated throughout the forest and shook Ruby down to the core with fear. She was afraid.
