A/N: Wow, sorry, completely got sidetracked there. Luckily I remembered that today was Thursday. Anyways, let me know what you think of this chapter. I think the wording's a little weird but... Beta's been a little busy with life. Tch. You people with your lives to attend to. XD
Guest: Thanks!
Beta: Prince of Austria
"Do you need something?" Jaune asked in a tone of careful politeness, trying his hardest not to mess up. He needed to be a good leader.
"Actually, I was just wondering, you guys are here to investigate the attacks, right?" Mirisu asked quietly. Jaune nodded, face scrunched up a little in confusion. Mirisu nodded, almost to herself before she looked around the room.
"May I come in?" She asked politely, which Jaune answered by stepping to the side for her and sweeping an arm in as invitation to join. With a polite smile, Mirisu entered, finding the nearest chair and sitting down in it.
"Is there something you wanted from me Mirisu?" Jaune asked, trying to copy the tone that the girl sitting there had as well, sure that it was something resembling politeness. The purple haired girl nodded, her features scrunched up in a look of concentration.
"Actually, I needed to tell you something about the Grimm attack that happened." She looked around a little nervously. "Something that no one else knows about."
Jaune paused, before taking a seat on the edge of the bed and looked at Mirisu.
"What about it?" He asked curiously, wondering what information she would divulge that was such a secret. Mirisu took a deep breath in.
"The Grimm attack, when it happened you see, I was just outside of the inn, tending to some of the vegetables that we grow. It wasn't like any attack I've ever seen though." .Mirisu's hands moved when she talked, as if she was framing what happened in the story with her gestures. "Usually the attacks are smaller, you know, and it's just Beowulfs or Ursae or Boarbatusks… but always just one type of Grimm." The girl shivered a little.
"The attack had everything. There were so many Grimm that I couldn't even recognize. And…" Her expression looked a little uncertain, as if she couldn't believe what she was going to say either. "And they attacked buildings."
Jaune blinked a little, not understanding.
"What do you mean? Grimm do that don't they?" Mirisu shook her head, a frown marring her face.
"No, this was different. Grimm would only attack doors and windows when there were humans in a house or something, but they would never cause any damage just for the sake of it. Except these Grimm attacked our fountain!"
The stone inside the fountain.
"Are you sure about that?" Jaune asked seriously. The girl nodded meekly, before correcting herself.
"Well, when the Grimm came I decided to run back into the inn and barricade it, but the next day, I stepped out and saw that there was a huge chunk of the fountain just gone and… well, that was that."
The purple-haired girl fell silent after this, looking carefully at Jaune, discerning what his reaction was going to be. She would fall flat out of luck though, as Jaune's face didn't really change according to what was on his mind.
Jaune was never fond of puzzles. He could solve them as well as the next guy, but he hated how puzzles obscured the truth into fragments and forced you to piece together so much information before you could even begin to see the big picture.
What he was able to put together from what Mirisu said however, was nowhere near enough for Jaune to see anything. In fact, it raised more questions than it really answered.
Why would the Grimm attack the fountain? Was it because of the stone? If so, why would the stone attract Grimm to it? Was it because of a hidden property that Jaune didn't know about?
The blonde alchemist was gnashing his teeth in frustration, knowing that his incomplete knowledge of the stone was a part of the puzzle that could've possibly solved a lot of these questions.
I need to get back to Beacon and continue to research the stone. Jaune reminded himself, before remembering that he was in Ravenwood.
"The archives." Jaune breathed out, enlightened. Standing up from his spot on the bed, he turned to Mirisu.
"Hey, you wouldn't know the way to the archives, would you?" The girl hesitated, her eyes creased in pain.
"Well…"
Pyrrha didn't realize they were being attacked until it was almost too late. The whole walk from the inn to the edge of town had been amicable and cool, Pyrrha and Ren simply chatting with each other, relishing a chance to actually get to know each other without their respective partners. Even though they were both on the same teams, they hadn't had much of a heart to heart of any kind, one being too busy with his hyperactive partner, and the other trying to drag her reclusive partner into society.
"Do you think Jaune's going to be ready for the Vytal Festival?" Ren had asked a minute ago, making Pyrrha give a confused affirmative, asking Ren why he thought Jaune wasn't ready to fight in the festival.
"Oh I didn't mean the fighting," Ren said, backtracking, "I meant that when we win, is our leader ready for the interviews?"
The answer was no, no matter how hard Pyrrha thought about the question. She would've answered Ren too, if it wasn't for the sudden fact that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and in an instant, Pyrrha rolled to the side. Ren, being no slacker with his sixth sense, had also leapt away suddenly, turning his body to the side as well.
Large crates toppled from above, from the buildings on the side of the two of them, crashing right where the two were seconds ago. With a quick scan of the surroundings, the two of them surveyed the situation, trying to find a culprit.
Whoever did that was quick though, and they were only able to see a bit of the top of their heads before the windows were shut and locked. Ren and Pyrrha looked at one another, confusion and wariness set on their faces, wondering what that was all about.
Keeping both of their weapons out, the two of them carefully looked around again, finding themselves almost inexplicably surrounded as men and women emerged from darkened alleyways and filtered into the streets to form a loose circle around the two teammates.
"…Is there something that we can help you with?" Pyrrha asked politely, keeping her sword pointed towards the ground, but her shield up in a halfway position. Ren did the same with StormFlower, having them rested comfortably in his hands but pointed towards the ground. A heavyset man stepped up into the forefront, a frown on his face and his arms crossed sternly.
"We don' want y'all here." The man said gruffly, before twitching his head to the side. "Leave."
The two didn't react outwardly to the man's abrupt demands, instead keeping their expressions polite.
"I'm sorry, but we can't leave until we've finished out mission." This time Ren was the one to speak up, looking directly at the man, but without challenge in his eyes. "We will leave as soon as possible."
The man's eyebrows creased downwards, and the whole crowd seemed to shift and ripple a little in response. At this point, even Jaune would be able to notice that the crowd was somewhat unhappy. Ren and Pyrrha weren't as oblivious as their leader was however, and could relate the tension to thunderclouds gathering, and rumbling menacingly.
"Don' want you to go later. Want y'all to go now." The man took a step forwards, most likely trying to scare what he saw were two kids into submission. Instead, Pyrrha flicked her wrist upwards, bringing Miló into javelin form and pointed it towards the man's chin, bringing him to a quick stop.
"Sir, I do not want to hurt you, but if you continue to be threatening towards us, I will have to fight back." Almost as if she was reciting from a textbook, Pyrrha continued. "Realize that I am only acting in self-defense, and although I will try to be as non-lethal as possible, I will not hesitate to protect myself."
Ren didn't say anything, instead simply making sure that he flicked the safeties off of StormFlower as slowly as possible, making sure that the group surrounding them would be able to hear it. The Beacon students had hoped that this would cause the mob to at calm down enough that they could get out, but it seemed to only make the people more restless, the crowd murmuring and gripping anxiously at their makeshift weapons. Again the big man spoke, this time to the crowd.
"Did you hear that everyone? They threatened us! Are we gon' put up with this like we did last time?" The crowd's murmuring turned angry, a sharper edge being heard, making Ren and Pyrrha grip onto their weapons a little tighter. The man continued to rile the crowd up. "Are we gon' let Hunters trample over us again and again until they take what they want? No! This is the last straw! Attack!"
In a blur of motion, the pair reacted instantaneously once they heard the man's last words, Pyrrha bringing up her shield and Ren flaring his aura out before nodding to each other. With a battle cry from both of them shaking the crowd into almost a hysteria, the two of them charged while the mob went into absolute panic. Taking advantage of that, Pyrrha and Ren tensed their knees… and charged the opposite direction, trying to get as much distance from the mob as possible.
In layman's terms, they were retreating.
The man that was commanding the mob just moments earlier picked himself up from off the ground, where he had fallen in fear of getting cut down by the seventeen year olds.
"See that? They know they can't handle us! After them!"
With those words, the angry mob cried out, some in determination, some in anger, some in fear, and gave chase to the two kids.
Apparently, it seemed as if RWBY weren't the only team that attracted unwanted attention.
"W-what happened here?" Jaune said in open-mouthed wonder, looking at the Ravenwood Archives. Or at least, looking at what had happened to them.
Jaune reached out with one hand, touching the blackened doorway. Mirisu looked a little pained, hands clasped in front of her solemnly.
"Around the time the… Mistral Hunters came to Ravenwood, the Archives were burned down. Luckily it was in the middle of the night, but… everything's… well, everything's gone."
Jaune turned to look at the purple-haired girl in surprise, along with a look tinged in suspicion.
"Are you saying that they burned down the Archives?" Jaune asked, furious that anyone would do such a thing. Mirisu quickly denied him of a target however, shaking her head.
"Actually, the Hunters were having a chat with the village elder during that time, with a whole host of people watching them. But…" The girl hesitated, before continuing on, "A lot of the folk here don't know Hunters very well, so they still think that it was the Hunters' fault. Something about the fact that their magic could've done something even if they weren't there."
Jaune nodded, understanding of how mysterious Hunters could be to the general populous. With all of the crazy semblances that Hunters have, it wouldn't be a far stretch to believe that a Hunter could burn a place down without even being close to the place.
"A-and you guys don't have like, a back-up of this place? Some kind of basement with a second copy of all the stuff?" Jaune was reaching at this point, hoping beyond hope that by some miracle he could still get his hands on any alchemical documents.
Mirisu quirked her lips a little, looking slightly annoyed.
"If we had something like that, I assure you that the loss of the Archives wouldn't have been such a great deal." Jaune winced at the tone, and was quick to apologize.
The two of them stood in front of the Archive ruins for a little longer, before Jaune sighed a little and turned around, ready to make his way back to the inn.
"Thanks for showing me this Mirisu, I really appreciate it. I think I'm just gonna head back and—"
Jaune's scroll lit up, ringing insistently. Knowing that the only people who would be able to contact his scroll was his teammates, he pulled it out, opening the scroll up.
"Jaune there's been an emergency! There's a whole mob chasing us trying to kill us!" Pyrrha said frantically. A loud ping sounded close by on Pyrrha's side as a rock hit a little too close to the Amazon. Jaune turned, wide-eyed at Mirisu, who was practically mirroring his own expression.
"Wow. I knew they were frustrated, but I didn't know they were rip off heads frustrated." Mirisu said dazed, before snapping into focus. "Jaune, tell Pyrrha that if they go to the northwest side of the edge of the village, there's an abandoned shack there they can hole in." Jaune nodded in thanks, turning to the scroll.
"Did you hear that Pyrrha?"
"I did! I'll send the directions to Nora and we can all meet up there!" Another loud crack echoed through the scroll. "I have to go Jaune, I'll see you there!"
And with that, the scroll went dead, leaving Jaune looking at a black screen. Turning to Mirisu, Jaune asked, "Can you lead me to the shack?"
The purple-haired girl nodded, setting off on a sprint. "Follow me!"