Chapter 26

"BLAKE!" Ruby yelled as she placed one of the White Fang's oxygen masks over her face. Blake was breathing heavily, which in this scenario greatly aided in her mind's recovery. Ruby quickly placed another oxygen mask across Yang's face and made sure that she was breathing properly.

Blake looked up to Ruby and felt herself slowly coming back to reality. She looked at Ruby's face, the small leader's eyes were determined, she was holding Crescent Rose as though, in a second, she could ready it as a weapon to defend her and her team. "Yes. Thank you. Let's go…" Blake said as she stood up and picked Yang up and slung her over one of her shoulders. "That's why she's the leader…she always holds it together no matter what." She thought as she followed behind Ruby.

"Ozpin, we're going to make our way out of the vessel. How's the situation outside?" Ruby asked as they made their way back to the door.

"We've only been able to hold the Kraken off and the military is engaged with the White Fang fleet a few miles south of Patch. Hurry so we can destroy that damn submarine and focus on the White Fang." Coco yelled through the intercom.

Ruby swung the door open to see her teammate outside, face-down on the ground. "Weiss!" Ruby yelled as she ran into the hall next to her teammate. She flipped Weiss onto her back and gasped at what she saw. Weiss' clothes had been stained a dark red from the blood. She had a few wounds on her front from running through all of the soldiers prior to reaching Blake and Yang.

"What happened?" Blake asked.

"She was in the lead when we made it up here…I thought the glyph was protecting her but she was hit a few times. Nothing fatal luckily…" Ruby droned off as she began checking Weiss' equipment. Ruby's eyes went wide as she noticed that Weiss' oxygen had run out nearly four minutes prior. She looked behind her, to the dead White Fang, looking for another oxygen mask but none were viable. They were all either burned or had been damaged by their attacks. She looked to the upper right corner of her mask and saw that she had about three minutes of oxygen remaining.

Ruby took a deep breath, pulled her mask off, and placed it on Weiss' face before lowering the oxygen saturation since Weiss was unconscious. The time jumped to close to a seven-minute limit. The leader released the latch on her weapon's ammo magazine, allowing it to fall to the ground. Her favorite twenty-shot extended magazine was the first choice that she had when reloading her weapon. She picked Weiss's body off the floor and held her in her arms with Crescent Rose still in her left arm, its rifle-form active and facing forward. She turned to Blake who was flabbergasted, "Ruby, you need to breathe, also." Blake stated.

Ruby shook her head in a 'no' motion, looked forward, and fired her weapon into the ice wall that Weiss had created. She began to run through the walkways, using her semblance only to aid in Weiss' recovery, so she was running at normal speed. It was slightly easier running back toward the middle of the submarine since the vessel's rear had sunk a considerable amount by this point. They were basically running downhill.

"If we don't hurry, we'll be swimming through the hatch to get outside." Ruby thought as she noticed a few White Fang who were also running from a few rooms to get to the hatch. She fired her weapon conservatively, knowing that reloading would not be an option, both because of time restraints and carrying her teammate. A few shots rang out from behind Ruby, killing a few more of the White Fang. The rest of the soldiers only fired behind them blindly as they continued to run for the exit.

The closer they got to the exit, the more of the White Fang fell. None of them had an oxygen mask on, so these people were the expendable units of the White Fang. Their oxygen-deprived brains were making their shots comically inaccurate.

"I see the exit!" Blake yelled as a few of the White Fang fell to the ground from sheer oxygen-depravity. They walked up to the hatch as Ruby began to think as to how they would get Yang and Weiss up through the hatch. The small leader was in immense pain from not being able to breathe for over five minutes, but she would never tell or allow her team to see any sign of that.

Ruby knelt down to allow Weiss to sit on the ground for a moment as she folded Crescent Rose into its compact form. She then stood up while holding on to Weiss's back to make it look as though she was giving Weiss a hug. "The hatch isn't wide enough for her to be on my shoulder…this will have to work." She thought as she pulled one arm away and grabbed onto the ladder. Ruby began to make her way up the ladder, focusing her semblance into her right arm on make sure that she didn't drop her teammate.

The moment Ruby made it into the sunlight, she sat Weiss onto the hull of the vessel and let out a deep breath. She was practically hyperventilating at this point but stood up to see what she could do for her teammates who were still in the vessel. A gunshot could be heard from inside the vessel followed by Gambol flying out of the ship and latching onto the opening of the hatch.

Ruby looked down the hatch to see Blake tying the thread around Yang's waist, presumably to compensate for not having Ruby's semblance, so there was no way Blake would be able to climb out of the vessel one-handedly. Ruby quickly caught on, grabbed the thread, and began pulling as hard as she could without her semblance.

Before long, Blake's hand made it to the opening and Ruby quickly grabbed onto Yang to pull her out. Blake was then able to pull herself out of the vessel on her own. Blake pulled her mask off before going over to Yang and taking hers as well. Ruby did the same for Weiss before looking around for the dinghy that was supposed to be left for them.

"The boat's over there." Ruby said as she pointed in its direction. She turned around to see just how much the vessel had sunk when she saw the water slowing creeping closer to the hatch of the ship; it was only about six feet away.

The slow sinking of the ship had pushed the dinghy a few feet away, but Ruby took no time jumping into the water and swimming to it. She pulled herself aboard, turned on the engine, and began to steer it closer to the vessel. Blake quickly picked up Weiss and handed her to Ruby, followed by Yang, before jumping on board herself. As Ruby made sure Yang and Weiss were in the boat, Blake went to the back to steer.

She turned on the engine and began to head away from the ship as fast as it could go. "Blake, fire the flare into the air." Ruby said as she laid down next to Weiss and began to fall unconscious.

"Ruby?!" Blake yelled. She quickly found the flare gun holstered on the side of the engine, pulled it out to aim into the air, and pulled the trigger. A loud hiss came out as a bright orange light flew into the air before seemingly stopping midair to create a bright light for a few seconds. Blake locked the engine in place to head for the shore before running to Ruby's side.

"Ruby! Ruby!" Blake said as she began to shake Ruby's body. Blood slowly began to drip from the young leader's nose, ears, and eyes. Blake checked Ruby's pulse and found that it was elevated, but her breathing seemed normal. This calmed her down slightly, knowing that she probably fainted from exhaustion. "Just stay calm, Blake…this has happened before; she just overexerted herself." Blake thought as her improved hearing began to pick up the sound of a slight hiss.

Blake turned her head in the direction of the sound to see two fighter jets flying in formation making their way to toward them. They were getting closer at incredible speed with an unfamiliar gun protruding the belly of the jet. It was a massive weapon and Blake wondered if it was a sort of rail gun but removed the thought from her mind when she remembered how powerful it was. "…that would need to be bolted to the ground for it to fire; there's no way that tiny jet could handle the recoil of such a weapon." She thought.

A light blue light began to shine from the barrel of the unknown weapon. As soon as the jets were just over the top of the boat, a powerful beam of pure energy fired from the weapons. The beam made contact with the submarine as which caused the hull of the vessel to immediately explode in an almost beautiful fiery and lighting explosion. The jets quickly made a tilted to the side and began making their way back to the shore.

The boat had finally made it passed the docks, which were destroyed, and was heading for the shore in a straight line. She was finally able to see what was happening as the Kraken had come into view. It seemed to look calm but was startled at where it was nevertheless. Teams CFVY, CRDL, and JNPR were standing across many roofs, but they were not fighting. They looked exhausted and beaten, so destroying the submarine looks to have ended the fight, but they were ready for it to continue again.

"This is Dust-2; the Kraken has stopped attacking but is still within the vicinity. Over." One of the fighter pilots stated over the scroll.

"It was led here by trying to run away from the sound that was causing it pain. Make a second run and fire upon the beast with our Hunters to get it to leave." Lionel said.

"You sure that won't piss it off more?" Coco asked.

"That's what I'm hoping will happen. From what I've seen, it likes to just be left alone…if we attack it, get it to leave, and then don't follow it, it will probably stay gone." Lionel stated.

"Probably?" Jaune asked.

"Probably. Most likely." Lionel said with the same monotonous tone he has had since the submarine had launched something at Beacon.

"Quantum Cannon batteries are dead. Over." Dust-2 said.

"Missiles will work just fine." Lionel stated.

"Copy, HQ. Dust-1 and Dust-2 making its' second strafe. Over." Dust-2 stated over the scroll before passing the Kraken from the direction of the ocean. After making it a reasonable distance away from the Kraken, they quickly turned around and began heading straight for the beast.

"Get ready, everyone." Jaune said as they all readied their weapons.

The fighter jets launched all of their missiles, sixteen from each, for a total of thirty-two being fired. The Hunters each activated the long-range version of their weapons and began attacking as well. The explosions seemed to cover every square inch of the Kraken's front and it showed.

As expected, the beast screeched as loud as it could before it began backing up into the ocean. When all of the explosion had subsided, the beast was still making its way into the ocean. His head finally submerged into the water and its form, under the water, could be seen continuing to move away. Blake was heading toward the shore at an angle, so she saw the beast continue out.

"It's gone; it is still heading away from the shore." Blake stated from the boat.

"Blake?!" Jaune yelled. "How are you? And Yang? And everyone? Where are you guys?" he asked frantically.

"We're in a dinghy heading for the shore that the Kraken just left from." Blake informed.

"There. I see them." Ren said as he pointed out toward the boat.

"I'm glad to hear you're okay. Hurry back…we've all got a lot to talk about." Lionel stated. "All units should now be focused on the White Fang fleet south of Patch. I want them out of Vale waters by dusk." He finished in his normal motivational tone.

"Yang!" Ruby yelled as she hugged her sister with all her leftover strength after she finally woke up.

"Careful, sis…I'm still hurting pretty bad." Yang said in a tired yet happy tone.

"Of course. You attempted a search and rescue after fighting me. You're bound to be in immense pain." Weiss said with a slight smirk.

"Nice to see you too, Ice Queen. By the way, How long have I been out?" Yang asked with a sigh and a smile.

"Just a few hours." Blake said as she pointed to the clock.

"Yeah, we just got in the hospital like an hour ago" Ruby said causing Yang to breathe a sigh of relief.

"It's nice to see all of you together again." Lionel said as he entered the room. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Just some bruises, stitches, and exhaustion. We'll be fine in like…two days." Yang said with her usual demeanor.

"That's good because I'm going to need to at full strength." Lionel said with a chuckle.

"You need us kicking some White Fang ass?" Yang asked.

"No. The military did an excellent job at that. Except…" Lionel trailed off.

"What?" Weiss asked.

"The White Fang began to retreat not long after the Kraken left us alone. The strange thing is…they weren't covering their retreat with fire-power. We managed to capture a few of their ships and we found them to be…well…empty." Lionel stated.

"Empty?" Yang asked in confusion.

"Yes. And judging from the ones that we sank, they didn't have anything in them either. I think that the real plan was to launch that thing from the submarine the whole time. We know the White Fang have more fuel and munitions than that. They were nowhere near prepared for an all-out assault." Lionel explained.

"So they can still attack in full force anytime?" Blake asked.

"Yeah, but I think they are going to wait for shit to hit the fan, so to speak." Lionel said with a sigh.

"So we've heard…a Grimm War, then? Are you absolutely sure that this is what's happening?" Weiss asked.

Lionel did not answer but rather activated the room's sound-canceller. He turned around, pulled his scroll out, and began a private chat. He placed his scroll on the floor on one side of the room, where the girls were laying in their beds, to allow the holograms a lot of space to activate. A series of numbers and letter began to fill the room as they were displayed for only a moment before another replaced it.

"Wow." Weiss said.

"What? What is it?" Ruby asked.

"An encryption." Blake informed.

"Not just any encryption. This has to be one of the most advanced encryptions I have ever seen." Weiss stated.

"I don't want to have to repeat myself, so I will answer everyone's questions at once." Lionel said as the number disappeared and were replaced by holograms. A hologram of all of the Kingdom's Leaders, Military Officials, and Hunting Academy Headmasters appeared on the other side of the room.

"This is a private channel protected by my own personal encryption. This is the time to ask your questions after I finish my explanation." Lionel said. Each of the people present remained completely silent. They all stared him down with badly-hidden worry. A Grimm War is something no one was prepared for.

Lionel exhaled as he prepared himself, "As most of you know, the first Grimm War occurred during–"

Ironwood scoffed, "First Grimm War? I'm not even convinced this is a second–"

"Shut up." Lionel stated arrogantly leaving Ironwood in utter surprise.

"The first Grimm War occurred during the second era. You believe, however, that most of the information from that time is lost…that is not true. The Knights have kept it hidden from you for your own safety." Lionel stated as he pulled out his laptop and typed a few words into the screen. After a few seconds, more holograms appeared before everyone in their respective locations.

It was a Grimm the likes of which no one has ever seen before. There were two holograms that appeared of the same creature. One was a looped .gif of the beast in a walking motion and the other was a still hologram of it spinning in a three-hundred-sixty-degree motion. Its' overall body structure was strangely humanoid in nature, that is to say, it stood and walked upright and moved its arms in the same manner a person would when walking. It was covered in black fur, with seemingly random, small areas of red fur, and the legs seemed to bend in a similar way to a cat's legs, indicating that it would be able to run at high speeds.

Covering its lower legs, below the knee, and its feet was the typical white bone-like substance that most Grimm had across their bodies. Its arms look almost identical to a person's with the exception of the fur and, yet again, the white bone-like material that started at the elbows and covered the forearms and most of the hands. It was well built and very muscular and, after just a moment of analyzing, the three-sixty-degree view was added to by a six-foot tall silhouette of a person, which showed that the beast was about eight feet tall.

Its crotch and chest were also covered by the white bone-like substance, which, after taking the entire body into account, looked as though it was wearing armor. Finally, its head, which was covered by the white bone-like material, which looked like some sort of demonic helmet, could not be made out. The only thing which could be seen were its' teeth which were sharp, and its' deep, purple pupils.

Both Blake and Ruby seemed to be in slight discomfort at the sight of such a beast for reasons unknown to them. "What is it?" Blake asked, masking her trepidation well.

"An intelligent Grimm." Lionel responded.

"Impossible. I've spent decades studying Grimm and they do not possess the capability of intelligent thought. The closest that they can get would be the Goliaths who only show an ability to recognize action and consequence." The Haven Academy Headmaster stated.

"Then why don't you please inform us as to the attributes and characteristics of this monster." Lionel said as they all looked to him.

"I've never seen it before." The Haven Headmaster stated. "But, we don't even know this is real…why are you showing us this anyway?" he asked trying to change the subject.

Lionel pressed a button on his laptop which pulled up another hologram. "This is video footage from a scouting outpost in Forever Fall that shows the thing launched from the submarine." Lionel stated as the video began to play. It showed an unidentifiable object impacting the ground at great velocity. "Let's fast forward a bit…" he said as he began to speed up the video until a black figure showed up in the distance. "It's a damn good thing all of our units were out on search and rescue of fighting the White Fang fleet." Lionel stated as he allowed the video to play at normal speed.

The video showed the creature walking closer to the outpost, from the impact zone, and eventually walking closer to the outpost before static began to interrupt the video before the entire thing crashed. When the video feed restarted, the camera was on the ground, with many cracks across the screen, and the outpost was engulfed in flames. Lionel rewound the video the moment before the static took over and paused the video to show that exact same beast as in the hologram next to it.

"I am now sending you all of the information we have on this beast." Lionel said as he began to type on his laptop.

"This information…it's…" Ironwood stuttered.

"It's hundreds of years old." Ozpin stated.

"That's because the last time we saw this monster was the first Grimm War." Lionel said. "Surely you all know the reason why that Grimm War was so different than any other Grimm assault, right?" Lionel asked.

"Because the Grimm during the Grimm War attacked, not only en masse, but they were unusually organized." Blake stated causing Lionel to smile.

"Indeed. This is the reason for that unusual organization. A leader." Lionel said.

"So this thing takes control of all of the Grimm and organizes an assault. He's that intelligent?" Ironwood asked in disbelief.

"You need to stop distinguishing intelligence between us and it. Recognize that this thing has the ability to learn just as well as you. But to answer your question, yes…that is basically the case." Lionel stated.

"How does it control them?" The Shade Academy Headmaster asked in a calm tone.

Lionel pointed to the beast's eyes which led the Shade Headmaster to nod his head as though he already knew the answer. "As we know, Grimm are attracted to things like negative emotion like rage and sadness. We know that they have greater perception than even the faunus. From these two qualities, it is safe to presume that Grimm are generally susceptible to things like mind alteration…which is precisely how this thing operates. It doesn't even talk; the monster will simply beam his words and thought into your head." Lionel stated.

"That has happened to me." Blake said.

"How so? Explain everything from start to finish." Lionel asked in surprise.

"Immediately after Weiss destroyed the propellers, before boarding the vessel, the ship declared an acceleration of their plans. The soldiers got into their battle stations and the Captain of the ship began accessing the launch procedure for…that." Blake said as she pointed to the beast. "Yang had already made it to me by that point and unchained me…we were just waiting for our moment to strike, which came when Weiss attacked. We ran out of the dorms, darted under the walkways, and made our way to the helm of the vessel. Yang had already jury-rigged one of her pulse charges in the mess hall, so when we noticed the soldiers setting up defensive positions in the walkways, she detonated it. Many of the soldiers went back to see what had happened, which allowed us to sneak up to the helm with little resistance, though it took quite a while because neither of us was in a condition to fight. When we finally made it, we quickly ran inside the helm and I closed the door behind us as Yang disposed of everyone in the room." Blake said as she trailed off in a daze.

"When it enters your mind, it can be hard to recall." Lionel said compassionately.

"A surge of energy seemed to go through the ship, but only Yang and I noticed it." Blake stated.

"I was so freaking exhausted that it knocked me out immediately." Yang said.

"I caught her in my arms but I began to hear and see things. The outline of what I saw looked just like that thing, though it looked like a three-dimensional shadow. It said things like 'we were going to die' and 'we were weak' among other things. It really took a toll on me, mentally. I didn't come back to my sense until Ruby placed an oxygen mask on my face." Blake explained.

"Ruby and Weiss, did you see anything in the submarine?" Lionel asked.

"I fell unconscious from my wounds and overexertion, so no." Weiss explained.

"I didn't see or hear anything in the submarine, but that also happened to me yesterday evening." Ruby said.

"When?" Lionel asked in pure surprise, once again.

"Was it when you fainted in my office after the meeting last night, Miss Rose?" Ozpin asked.

"Yes. It was basically the same as what happened to Blake. A shadowy figure saying some really disturbing things." Ruby stated.

"Then it has already begun to gather more strength." Lionel stated.

"What does this mean, Lionel?" Ironwood asked.

"I already told you. Another Grimm War. This thing is going to begin building up an army and it is going to attack us again." Lionel stated.

"Another thing, sir." Ruby said meekly.

"Sure. What's up?" Lionel asked.

"When I went into the helm of the ship, before Blake came back, I saw the Captain of the vessel right after she launched that thing from the submarine. She was badly burned from, what I assume was Yang's attacks…" Ruby said

"You saw her moving? I burned her to a crisp. If there was anyone in that room I would have bet money on being dead, it would have been her." Yang stated.

"I don't know, but…when she turned around to face me, her eyes were a deep purple just like that monster's eyes. She said 'All hail the king' before her eyes turned to a hazel color and falling to the ground." Ruby explained.

"We really are running out of time then." Lionel stated.

"Okay, Lionel. I believe it is time. No more cryptic warnings, no more need-to-know answers. Tell us everything so that we may help you." Ozpin stated.

"Fine. But the truth cannot get to the general public lest we open the possibility of this happening again." Lionel stated with a sigh before he pulled out a chair from the side of the room where a nurse would normally sit, placed it against the wall in between the girl's beds so that he could face everyone. "Here is the truth." He stated after a quick breath to calm his nerves. "Just remember, you asked for it." he said firmly.