Wow, this story has reached over 1400 views in less than a month, I honestly wasn't expecting so many people to read this story that fast (And hopefully y'all are enjoying it too). I'm so happy so many people are reading my story, and thank you to the people that have followed and favorited this story, hopefully I can continue this story for a good long while, there are quite a few story ideas I have for upcoming chapters, specifically ones that won't be taking place on Remnant. Once again I hope you're enjoying this story.
Chapter 5:
A Mechanical Marvel and a Duel at the Docks
The mood in the dorm room of Team RWBYS was heavy, Weiss had just caused Blake to run out of the room in near tears, and she was sulking off in the corner, contemplating what she had said to someone she was supposed to be on a team with.
"Should we try to go after her?" Yang asks.
"I think we should let Blake have some space, she'll be fine. And I think Weiss needs some time to think about what she said." Stone says, "I think what we need right now is something to take our minds off it, Ruby, want to go build my new weapon?" He asks looking at Ruby.
"Sure." Ruby says, perking up a little. She and Stone walk into his room and begin unloading everything they got at the mall.
"Just holler if you need us for anything Yang." Stone says, closing the door until it's opened just a crack.
The Silver Eyed Girl and the Silver Scaled Dragon got right to work, assembling a weapon based on the blueprints that they had drawn up over the months. Being that Stone wanted a weapon based on a relatively slim rifle and a Claymore, containing the weapon's mechanism and barrel within the blade of a Claymore was rather trivial, although the sword would have to be a bit bulkier than his original sword.
As the two came along with the weapon, they installed a mechanism that would make the whole weapon come together. It was what at would let the weapon shift between modes, the process of the weapon shifting was designed so that it would allow the weapon to shift open the tip of the blade revealing the rifle barrel, make the handle to shift to the underside of the rifle, forming a pistol grip, and extend a stock from where the handle was in it's sword configuration.
Construction had gone long into the night, when finally the two had finished the weapon, a noticeably thicker claymore with a brilliant silver hued blade, with a switch on the handle that would allow it to switch into battle rifle mode. Testing out the weapon to make sure everything had been assembled correctly, Stone hoped for the best, flipping the switch.
The weapon worked flawlessly, shifting the tip of the weapon out and flipping the blade tip up to both reveal the barrel and create an iron sight. A portion of the blade near the end split and shifted upward, removing the edged part of the blade and producing a black vertical grip, making it safe to hold for the user, and avoiding the user slicing their hand open. The handle shifted under the weapon, with a magwell revealing from the underside of the blade and a charging handle from the side of the blade that revealed an ejection port for spent casings. And finally the weapon's black stock extended from where the handle once was.
Everything had gone off without a hitch. Stone grabbed an empty magazine, inserted it into the weapon, and racked the charging handle, pleased when the bolt caught the empty magazine and held it open. Stone sets the weapon down and smiles at Ruby.
"Perfect! Everything worked without a problem!" Ruby says excitedly.
"Yep, but it needs one last thing to finish it." Stone replies.
"What's that?" Ruby asks.
"A name." Stone says "You've got Crescent Rose, Weiss has Myrtenaster, Blake has Gambol Shroud, and Yang has Ember Celica, I can't just use this weapon without giving it a name first."
"Oh, hmm." Ruby says, thinking of what might be a good name.
"I've got it! The perfect name!" Stone says
"Oh? What would that be?" Ruby asks.
"Highlander"
X
Night turned to day and Blake had still not returned. Ruby, Yang and Stone had begun to worry, deciding they shouldn't just sit around and twiddle their thumbs.
Team RWBYS went back into Vale to search for their missing member.
The streets of Vale were empty, it was early in the morning and most people had yet to even get out of bed. The Team began searching high and low for Blake and came up with nothing, and of course Weiss was of no help.
"She's been gone all weekend…" Ruby said sadly.
"Blake's a big girl, I'm sure she can handle herself!" Weiss scoffed.
"Weiss, come on, she's one of our teammates." Yang said.
""Is she? You all heard what she said!" Weiss said.
"Weiss." Ruby said
"Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. Either way, she's missing and we need to find her!" Yang said.
"That doesn't matter Weiss, she's both our teammate and our friend and she's missing." Stone said
"A member of The White Fang! Right underneath our noses!" Weiss said, ignoring all of what was just said.
"You know I'm starting to see why Blake called you all those names Weiss." Stone said with a frown on his face.
"What?!" Weiss shouted, turning quickly towards the dragon.
"Oh so you heard that one!" Stone exclaimed.
"I just hope she's ok," Ruby said.
Elsewhere in the city Blake sits on a balcony, drinking a cup of tea. Looking up from her drink she sees the Monkey Faunus, Sun Wukong, holding his drink with his tail and taking a drink. Blake looks up after taking a sip and puts her cup down.
"So you want to know more about me." she says looking intensely at Sun.
X
"Blaaaaake!" Ruby, Yang and Stone each shout into the empty streets.
Ruby looks over to Weiss and sees she is not shouting for Blake.
"Weiss, you're not helping!" Ruby frustratedly tells Weiss.
"Oh you know who might be able to help? The Police!" Weiss says
"Ugh, Weiss…" Ruby says irritated.
"What? It was just an idea!" Weiss says.
"Yeah, a bad one." Ruby replies.
"Weiss, we shouldn't judge Blake without any context." Stone says.
"Yeah, we should hear her side of the story first before we jump to a conclusion." Yang tells Weiss.
"I think that when we hear it, you'll all realize I was right!" Weiss angrily tells the three.
"And I think Weiss' hair looks wonderful today!" Penny says, suddenly appearing behind Weiss, startling the group of four.
"Aah! Penny! Where did you come from!?" Ruby says surprised.
"Hey guys, what are you up to?" Penny asks, dodging the question.
"We're looking for our friend, Blake." Yang replies.
"Ooh, you mean the Faunus Girl?" Penny questions.
"Yeah, her." Stone answers.
"Wait, how did… wait you knew too? How?" Ruby begins asking Penny, but then turns and asks Stone, surprised.
"Uhh, the cat ears." Penny says, pointing to her head.
"I noticed her bow twitches whenever she gets mad. So that left me to assume she was hiding something up there. In this case, cat ears." Stone adds, arms crossed.
This realization shocks Ruby and Yang, with a tumbleweed blowing past the four.
"She does like tuna a lot…" Ruby says to herself.
"So, where is she?" Penny asks inquisitively.
"We don't know, she's been missing since Friday." Ruby replies.
Penny gasps, "That's terrible!" she says, getting close to Ruby, uncomfortably close, "Well, don't you worry Ruby, my friend! I won't rest until we find your teammate!" she says enthusiastically.
Ruby does her best to force a smile, "Uh, that's really nice of you, Penny, but we're okay! Really, right guys?" she says turning to her teammates, only to realize that they were all missing, all three of them. Another tumbleweed blows past Ruby and Penny.
"It sure is windy today!" Penny says.
X
Yang, Weiss, and Stone walk through the city, asking around at various shops, hoping that someone had seen Blake, but no such luck. Now it was beginning to get dark, the street lamps had just begun to turn on, and the three had still not managed to get a lead on Blake.
"Ugh, this is hopeless! Nobody's seen her, at every place we've been to we've gotten nothing!" Weiss says frustrated.
Before either Yang or Stone can reply to Weiss the three hear a loud explosion and see a plume of smoke rising from the docks, about three blocks away.
"That looks like trouble…" Yang says, readying Ember Celica.
"And that's why we've got to go there." Stone says.
The three begin running in that direction, a panic has begun with the people on the streets, all of them running in the opposite direction of the docks, at least that meant there would be no risk of civilian casualties.
Unfortunately, the battle was over by the time the three got to the docks. The police had arrived to investigate what had happened, and off to the side Ruby was sitting with Blake and Penny on a set of boxes. Seeing the three approaching Ruby tries to explain the situation to Weiss.
"Look Weiss, it's not what you think, she explained. See, she doesn't actually have a bow, she has kitty ears and they're actually kinda cute…" Ruby hastily tries to explain, but Weiss simply bypasses her and walks to Blake, squaring off with the Faunus girl.
"Weiss, I want you to know I'm no longer associated with the White Fang. Back when I was with the-" Blake calmly say to Weiss, before being cut off by Weiss
"Stop! Do you have any idea how long we've been looking for you? 12 hours! That's 12 hours I've had to think about this. And in those 12 hours, I've decided…" Weiss says. Yang, Sun, Ruby, and Stone look on.
"I don't care," Weiss says plainly.
Blake is surprised by her words, "You… don't care?"
"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?" Weiss questions.
"No, I haven't been since i was younger-" Blake begins to say before being cut off by Weiss
"Ah bahp bahp bahp, I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something big comes up you'll come to your teammates and not… someone else." Weiss says, beginning to look at Sun, before realizing what she's doing and quickly bringing her gaze back to Blake.
Blake looks up at Ruby, Yang, and Stone, all three smiling at her. Wiping a tear from her eye and nodding at the proposal, "Of course"
"We're not just your teammates Blake, we're your friends, you can tell us anything, don't forget that." Stone says smiling, tail flicking behind him.
"Yeah! Team RWBYS is back together!" Ruby screams happily
Weiss points at Sun, 'I'm still not quite sure how I feel about you.' Sun laughs nervously at her words.
Ruby looks around, but finds there is one person missing. Penny had vanished.
"Hey, wait a minute… where's Penny?" she says confused.
Penny sits in the dark backseat of a Limo sitting on the street parallel to the docks, being scolded by the driver for her reckless actions. The driver opens his mouth to speak.
"Penny, your time will come…"
X
The campus of Beacon was pitch black, only lit by the lamps dotting the sidewalks. All the lights in the buildings had been turned off and all the students were asleep, well… that is all except for one. Stone walks through the campus towards the main tower, opens the door, and sees Headmaster Ozpin waiting for him in front of the elevator.
"Are you ready?" the Headmaster asks.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Stone replies, stepping into the elevator.
As the dragon and the Headmaster enter the elevator, Ozpin pushes a hidden button near the button panel, revealing a keypad. Ozpin enters a code and the elevator begins moving down, what seemed like almost a dozen stories before coming to a stop with a soft 'Ding'.
Stepping out they are greeted by a large antechamber, almost 300 yards in length and 50 feet high, with a large spherical crystal hanging from the ceiling, swirling with color, white, green, blue, red, and black. The sphere was almost completely full, all it needed was one final push to complete the process.
Walking into the middle of the room Ozpin takes out a bar of white chalk and begins drawing on the floor. When he is finished he has created a large spell circle, with intricate swirling designs all pointing to the middle of the glyph. Notably there were five particular symbols, a sun, a tree, a fire, a drop of water, and a skull. As it would happen, Beacon was centered on a convergence point of Remnant's ley lines and this glyph would help channel that mana into Ozpin's design, it was almost as if Beacon was built here on purpose for this specific design.
"Ready to begin?" Ozpin asked.
"With pleasure." Stone said, making his way into the circle
As Stone stepped into the middle, three of the symbols began glowing. The fire began to radiate a red aura that crackled with flame, the white began shining a brilliant white light, and the green began to glow green and make the sounds of a forest teaming with life.
With this, Stone placed his hand in the middle of the circle and began drawing mana from the Ley Lines, all the mana he drew out streaked upward and into the crystal ball, making it glow with not just the three colors that had lit up, but with the two others as well.
It took at least three hours but the process was complete, all the months of gathering mana bit by bit had finally paid off. The crystal had finally been filled completely. Stone was exhausted from the process, panting heavily. Drawing mana from planes was one thing, but taking so much all at once and forcing it into a contained area? That was an entirely different story
"Extraordinary! It's finally full!" Ozpin exclaims.
"Yay…" Stone says weakly, still catching his breath.
"With this crystal full, the plan can finally be executed when the time is right." Ozpin says.
"And what time would that be, if you don't mind me asking?" Stone says.
"If Beacon should ever fall." Ozpin says, a bit of grimace in his voice, "It's terribly late, you should be getting back to your dorm. The elevator will take you back to the lobby. Have a good night Mister Sherman." Ozpin says.
Stone says good night and steps into the elevator, returning to the lobby.
Ozpin stares up at the crystal, watching it writhe and swirl with Remnent's mana. The process had only taken this long because of Remnant's weak Ley Lines. On any other plane it would have taken half the time to do the same.
The time frame made little difference however, the crystal was full and his contingency could be put into motion should Beacon ever fall to the Grimm.
"Salem… you may take Beacon from me, but you will never capture me or my students." Ozpin whispers to himself, as the mana swirls in the crystal.
"When the time comes, the Sparks will be released, and I and my students will be out of your reach forever." Ozpin says, looking a bit relieved.
Stone once again walks the darkened cobble of Beacon's pathways, walking back to his door. Reaching the building and silently opening the door to his team's dorm room, and closing the door as quietly as possible. He thinks that he's in the clear, but then a light turns on behind him, turning around he sees all 4 of his teammates, looking at him. His eyes widen at this sight and his mouth droops open in surprise.
"And just where have you been?" Ruby questions.
"U-uh, I can explain." Stone says
xxXxx
Bit of a shorter chapter this time, the time gap between the end of Volume 1 and the start of Volume 2 meant I wasn't able to make a seamless transition between the two.
Obligatory Disclaimer is Obligatory: I do not own, nor do I claim to own RWBY, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, or the Mahou Universe (This Includes MSF High). They are owned by Rooster Teeth, Wizards of the Coast, and Akuoreo and MSFHighWraith respectively.
(PS: I will be including the links to Aku's and Wraith's DeviantArt channels going forward, I felt just leaving their usernames wasn't enough, so if you want to go check out their work, the links are right up there.)