AN: A new chapter in record time. I said I would be updating more frequently and I delivered.
In other news my beta reader has published his own RWBY fanfic. If you like stories with Pyrrha as the main character you might want to give it a read, Dust to Dust by Wyncrer the Sage.
When Jaune awoke, it was sudden and jarring. One moment he was dead to the world, the next, a jolt of pain had him violently thrown back into consciousness.
The rude awakening had him breathing heavily as though waking from a nightmare, and for a moment he couldn't see in the harsh white lights of the room he was in. As his breathing evened out and his vision came into focus, he saw he wasn't alone.
Standing in front of him was a man in a lab coat, his hair and beard white with age, with a prosthetic left eye that shone with a red light. The man set down a pair of jumper leads he had been holding before turning to Jaune.
"Ahhh, that's better. Sorry about the rude awakening, but I was getting bored of waiting," the man said with mock sincerity. "Please don't hesitate to let me know if you're restraints are too tight. After all, there's no need for you to experience any unnecessary discomfort. You are, after all, my first guest in… well come to think of it, you are my first guest here ever."
It was only as he said this that Jaune realised he couldn't move his limbs as they were, in fact, restrained as the man had mentioned, with his armour and hoodie removed.
Not just that, there was a drip trailing down into his arm, giving him a dose of who-knows-what. As soon as this registered in his mind he went into panic. He desperately thrashed against the bands around his wrists, ankles, waist and neck, that held him upright against the flat metal surface, but he soon realised that he was going nowhere.
"Ah ah ah," The mysterious man said calmly, as though telling off a child. "If you keep thrashing around like that you might break the needle."
The words brought Jaune back to reality and while he stopped struggling, his breathing still bordered on hyperventilating. Jaune scanned the rest of the room and noticed that he seemed to be in some sort of laboratory.
"You're most likely wondering who I am as well as a great many other questions. Allow me to enlighten you to the facts of your current situation," his captor continued, completely unfazed by his captive's distress. "My name is Dr Merlot. You have been brought to my island by some very kind gentlemen in order to participate in my experiments.
"You need not worry about the drip, it's just a little something I whipped up to prevent you using your magic. After a while you may start to lose feeling in your body and get light headed, but by then I don't think that will be your biggest problem." Jaune checked, and to his dismay Merlot was right. He could still feel his magical energy, but for some reason it wasn't responding.
"You can't do this! You have to let me go!" Jaune pleaded.
"Actually, you'll find I can do this and no, I do not have to let you go," the doctor calmly countered.
"I'm a member of Beacon. My guild will send people after me," Jaune threatened, not quite believing the words he was saying. Oobleck had been a long-standing member of the guild, and the only reason a search party had gone out for him was because Yang saw it as a good chance for him to get his feet wet.
"Really?" Merlot asked. "You, are a member of Beacon? How is Oz these days? Surely, he must be losing his mind if he is letting someone so easily beaten by Junior's lot into his guild." Jaune had no response to this and could only look away from his captor.
Seeing his captive resign himself, Dr Merlot spoke up. "Enough chit-chat. How would you like to hear about today's experiment?" Jaune made no move to respond. "I'll take your silence as a yes," the mad doctor declared, enjoying the sound of his own voice. "This island we are on happens to produce a unique substance of incredible potential. With this substance, I was able to bond dust to the bodies of Grimm."
This had Jaune's head shooting back up. "You've been experimenting on Grimm!? Are you insane!?" An ugly frown came over Merlot's face.
"With rhetoric like that, I'm starting to think you really are one of Ozpin's lackeys. Never the less, after some years of doing this I started to wonder if it was possible to do the same to people. Wizards specifically, much like how one might implant a magical Lacrima into their body to boost their magical power. And if I was going to do this, I wouldn't settle for some run of the mill wizard, but someone who used a rare magic, that way I could create something truly magnificent.
"And so here you are, my first human test subject. You should feel honoured." The mad man announced, before taking on a thoughtful expression. "Though considering how easily you were beaten, it isn't hard to see why your 'Light Make Magic' is so uncommon."
As he said this he turned away from his captive and started to drag a machine over, Jaune recognised the device, it was a harmless machine used to observe a person's magical energy.
"Before we can start the real science we have to do a few measurements first. See how your magical energy responds to different stimuli, etc."
When Merlot finished attaching the machine to Jaune, he walked over to a trolley that held an array of surgical tools. After a moment of thought he picked up a scalpel and turned back to Jaune.
"So how about we get started?" Jaune said nothing, but as his eyes remained fixed on the blade with a horrified expression, he started to thrash against his bonds hopelessly once more.
Yang looked past the pilot and through the cockpit window to the rapidly growing island. As their bullhead drew closer, Yang spied the still form of what she could only assume was the bullhead Junior's crew had used to get here.
"Put us down over there," she ordered the pilot, pointing to the parked aircraft.
The pilot complied with a quick "Yes ma'am."
As the team of Beacon wizards disembarked, they hurried over to the other aircraft, only to behold a gruesome sight. The black suited wizards were all dead, cut down by what could only be the work of Grimm as they tried to reach their aircraft. Yang quickly moved to block as much of Ruby's view of the grisly sight as she could. Pyrrha and Blake moved forward to examine the sight as the others formed a basic perimeter, wary of the Grimm returning.
"Jaune isn't among them," Pyrrha thought out loud "Perhaps he escaped during the attack."
"No." Blake denied calmly, and when the others looked to her she explained. "There are wheel tracks in the ground," pointing out the lines in the dirt track as she said this. "This is most likely from whatever they were using to transport Jaune, yet it isn't anywhere around. I would say they successfully delivered Jaune, and were attacked by the Grimm as they returned."
"Speaking of Grimm," Weiss spoke up, directing everyone's attention to a pack of beowolves that were now standing on the path that led deeper into the island.
"Everyone ready to fight?" Ruby called out, fully extending Crescent Rose as she did.
"No!" Yang declared firmly. "The Grimm don't matter, what matters is getting to Jaune as fast as possible. Only fight the Grimm if you have to."
That said, Yang charged down the path with a few fire-balls clearing her way through the pack. Her fellow wizards left to catch up, with Nora firing a couple of grenades into the pack, leaving those that survived being charred by Yang, to be blown to bits.
An alert on his scroll brought Dr Merlot's attention away from his experiment. Opening his scroll and pressing the flashing alert icon, he brought up a video feed from one of the island's many cameras. The screen showed a group of seven blasting past Grimm as they made their way across the island.
"Looks like you were telling the truth when you said people would come for you."
The restrained boy looked up at the doctor with a small smile as he said this. At some point during the proceedings, the blonde had managed to bite his cheek hard enough that his smile was a bloody one.
As much as it irked him to think it, Dr Merlot had to admit that the boy was tougher than he had thought. Not once had the wizard cried out from the pain while he made his recordings.
"I wouldn't get your hopes up boy," the doctor commented. "There are many security gates on this island strong enough to hold back the Grimm, so there's no way your friends will be able to make it through them. In fact, there just approaching the first one now."
As he said this, he turned the scroll so Jaune too could see the display, eager to see the boy's hope leave him as his friends failed. Merlot watched intently as the group of seven approached the gate, but something was wrong. The wizards on the screen weren't even slowing down.
When they were only a few meters away, the gate Merlot was so proud of peeled back like the lid of a tin can, letting the wizards pass through unobstructed. Dr Merlot stared at the screen in disbelief before the sound of laughter brought him back to the present.
The doctor looked at his test subject with a glare, just in time for the blood in his mouth to turn his laughter into a coughing fit, with a particularly hard cough send a splatter of blood onto the doctor's coat. The doctor closed and pocketed the scroll.
"It would seem I have other matters that I must attend elsewhere. We shall continue this later." Before he left he increased the rate of the sedative going into Jaune and turned off the lights before stepping out.
The team was making good progress. Yang and Nora's combined fire power made quick work of any Grimm that barred the way, and Pyrrha's magic had made short work of the two security gates they had passed through. And so, it was only fifteen minutes after they arrived that they came upon what could only be the islands main facility.
The large construct of concrete and steel was three stories high and emblazoned with the Merlot Industries logo, a stencilled 'M' inside a hexagon, with three circles coming off at different corners of the hexagon. As they approached, a voice made itself known from a series of hidden speakers.
"Greeting ladies. I don't recall inviting you to my island, so would you please enlighten me as to what you are doing here?"
"You kidnapped our friend!" Yang yelled out. "Give him back now or we'll take him anyway and kick your ass in the process."
"And Ren's a guy!" Nora added before giving a reassuring nod to Ren, as though to say 'I've got your back'.
"My sincerest apologies good sir, I meant no offence," the voice continued, the sound coming from multiple directions. "As for your other query, it would seem you are mistaken. I kidnapped no-one. I merely put out a request to some less-than-honest guilds asking for someone like him. And regrettably I cannot return him now, or ever for that matter. You see, your friend is helping me with some experiments and his input is simply invaluable."
"Well that's just too damn bad, cause we're taking him whether you like it or not!" Yang roared back.
"I thought you might say something like that. You guild wizards can be such a pain at times. However, it just might be that you can help me out with some experiments as well."
As this was said, sections of the ground between them and the facility opened up and cages rose up. Inside each cage was a large Creep, but there was something very wrong about these Grimm. Instead of just being the usual black fur and white bone, the bipedal Grimm had blue-green crystals protruding from their backs.
As the cages opened, the wizards readied themselves. As soon as one of the Creeps stepped out of its cage, Ruby flew into action, activating her speed magic and crossing the distance between her and her target in a blink. But just before her scythe could make contact, the Creep exploded, knocking Ruby clear off her feet.
The voice from the speakers laughed. "Careful. It seems when you merge dust with a Creep the results are… explosive."
Ruby staggered to her feet just before a white glyph appeared below her and whisked her away from the advancing Grimm.
"I've had enough of you!" Yang bellowed, her eyes turning red. "First you kidnap my friend, then you hurt my sister and now your stealing my shtick. I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna kick your ass!" With that said the fiery blonde charged the mutated Grimm. In her enraged state, she didn't even hear the calm voice coming from behind her.
"Gravity Magic: redirect, magnify." The moment the words were said, white glyphs appeared below the assembled Grimm and flung them towards the door of the facility. The Grimm exploded on impact and blew away any trace of the door. Seeing this Yang stopped her charge and turned to glare at her companions
"What the hell Weiss! I had them!"
"No you didn't you dunce," the heiress retorted. "Didn't you see what happened to your sister? The moment you got close they would have exploded. Try thinking with your brain instead of your fists for once!"
"I know alright! I know!" Yang yelled back, her eyes still red. "But all I can think about right now is what might have happened to Jaune and how it's all my fault!" With this said her eyes changed back to their usual violet. "I don't expect you to understand, but understand this. When we find Merlot, don't get in my way." Yang then turned and started running towards the gaping entrance with the others chasing after her.
Once inside, they found themselves in a foyer with passage ways leading in different directions. The group paused, just now realising that they had no idea where to look. Ren moved away from the group and towards a computer terminal.
The group quickly gathered around him, watching as he typed away on the keyboard flicking through different screens before many of them could tell what they were seeing.
"He didn't even bother putting any sort of password or firewalls in place," Ren mentioned to no-one in particular.
"I guess he didn't see the point. There doesn't seem to be anyone else here after all," Ruby suggested.
"Found them," Ren announced calmly. "Jaune is on this level, but a few hundred metres away, in some sort of lab." Hearing that a member of their guild was being held in a lab had the wizard's blood run cold, before it quickly reached boiling. Thoughts of a violent reckoning resonating through all of them. "Merlot, on the other hand, has fled to the lower levels. He is currently in an observation room overlooking a testing area of some sort."
"We should split up," Ruby suggested, receiving nods of approval from the others.
"I was serious about what I said earlier." Yang announced in a way that left no room for argument. "I intend to make Merlot pay for what he's done. I'm going after him."
"I'll go with you," Blake offered.
"Me too," Ruby added.
"Someone has to make sure you three don't get yourselves killed," Weiss said with a resigned sigh.
"That leaves the three of us to retrieve Jaune," Pyrrha confirmed before turning to Ren. "Which way do we go?"
"To get to Jaune we have to go that way," Ren said pointing down one of the passages. "There's a few turns, but I've already downloaded the map to my scroll so we should be fine. To get Merlot, there's an elevator down the passage to the left. Take that to the lowest level. Once there, there's only one path and it leads straight to the testing area."
With the directions issued, the two teams ran off in their respective directions. Yang led the charge for her group and arrived at the elevator first.
The proceeding wait as the elevator slowly lowered them into the depths of the island felt like an eternity for the tense fire wizard. The repetitive elevator music did nothing to help as the four girls stood in silence. When the elevator finally reached the lowest level, they were happy to be off of it.
This quickly changed as path leading to the testing area was occupied with over a dozen security robots. Some robots were decorated in red paint, while others were coloured white. The red ones held double ended spears, while the white ones carried large guns.
Before the girls could plan any sort of move, one of the white robots launched a grenade at the group of them. The wizards quickly scattered, but were left with no time to recover as they quickly found themselves set upon by the red robots.
The red robots were surprisingly quick, alternating between a volley of rapid stabs and a flurry of quick slashes. Yang used her gauntlets to push a stab aside and gripped the weapon by the shaft before it could be withdrawn. The robot's momentary hesitation as it tried to devise a solution was all Yang needed to take its head off with a fiery punch.
Her victory was short-lived as a white robot fired a grenade into its defeated brethren's back, catching her in the blast. The force had her tumbling across the ground. When she rose to her knees and saw a red opponent leaping forward, ready to stab down at her, she took a deep breath.
"Dragon's Roar!" The ensuing fire stream reduced the robot's top half into molten metal and gained Yang a few moments of respite.
When the initial blast had gone off, Blake too had found herself faced with a red attacker. The speedy use of a shadow cloned saved her from impalement, and Blake used the momentary break to use her shadow form spell to become nothing more than a shadow on the floor.
From here she launched surprise attacks against their robotic attackers, using Gambol Shroud to sever arms and legs, before disappearing back into the shadows.
Weiss, meanwhile, was using her gravity magic to send robots smashing into each other, before slamming them into the ceiling.
Ruby was easily the most mobile of the group. Speeding over the heads of enemies and allies alike, she kicked off the walls and ceilings as the white robots tried in vain to track her rapid movement with their large weapons.
As soon as the girl in the red cape spied a large enough opening, she would speed in, bisecting the robot, before going back to searching for her next opportunity.
The robots were dangerous in their own right, but compared to the combined might of the four wizards, they were nothing than a speed bump.
With the element of surprise lost and many of their number already fallen, it wasn't long before the rest of the robots were reduced to scrap. With the path now clear, the team advanced.
"Merlot's being awfully quiet. Maybe we've got him scared," Blake commented.
"That or he's busy getting something ready," Weiss added.
In no time at all they reached the testing area. The area was a large open space, with enough area to land three bullheads and a ceiling 40 meters high. On the opposite side to them was a large glass window, stretching most of the rooms width.
The room behind the window was the observation room Ren had mentioned, made obvious by the solitary figure inside it. As the group stepped forward, a heavy metal door slammed shut behind them, barring their way out. It was now that Merlot decided to start talking again.
"Congratulations on getting through those robots. Quite the impressive display I must admit. But sadly, this is as far as you go. You really should have turned back when you had the chance, for now you will be facing my masterpiece."
As he said this, a large door built into the side of the testing area slid open revealing a Death Stalker much larger than any of them had seen before. The scorpion like Grimm bore the same green-blue crystals as the Creeps on its back and claws and its entire stinger glowed that colour instead of the usual yellow.
"What!?" exclaimed Blake in surprise.
"How on Remnant did you even capture something like that?" Weiss asked in disbelief, while Yang and Ruby stared at the monstrosity in shock.
"Oh, this was just a little souvenir I brought with me from the collapse of Mount Glenn. Something to make sure the cities downfall wasn't a total waste. But come now, I'm sure you have much more pressing concerns, like what it can do now that it's been mutated." As if on cue the massive Grimm turned to face the wizards, its red eyes glowing with the deep hatred that Grimm held for humanity.
With scroll in hand, Ren led Pyrrha and Nora through the facility at a run.
"We're close now," Ren announced as they closed in on a sealed door. "We just have to go through the next room and we'll be there." Pyrrha made quick work of the door, but what greeted them on the inside had them all stopping dead.
Row upon row of cages designed to hold Grimm, and all of them open, the former captives now roaming the space between them and their destination. A quick scan of the assembled monsters showed they were dealing with unmutated as well as mutated Grimm.
Twenty Creeps, a dozen Beowolves and an Ursa made up the un-mutated population, while the mutated Grimm were limited to a couple of Alpha Beowolves. As the trio stared at the veritable horde, a voice spoke up from Ren's scroll.
"I hate to disappoint you after you've come so far, but I simply cannot let you take my test subject." As Merlot's voice came through the device, the image of the map was replaced by countenance of Dr Merlot's smiling face. "I would advise you turn back now, while you still can." The trio glared defiantly at the doctor.
"We're Beacon wizards! There's no way we're going to run away from a stupid old man like you, and leave our guild member," Nora declared with rare seriousness.
"If you wish to throw your lives away on a fool's errand, be my guest."
The image of the doctor disappeared from the scroll, leaving the wizards alone with the Grimm. The same Grimm that had been alerted to the wizards presence by Merlot's scroll call.