Chapter 45: Grimm Fate
Volume 2 Short – There's nowhere to hide.
"It's a lot to take in, sir."
The blond human stepped out of the elevator, followed shortly thereafter by Ozma. He seemed somewhat shocked.
"Maidens, magic…you having an ex …"
"J-Jaune…"
"The idea of you getting any action just seems so unbelievable."
"I literally just revealed to you that I am an immortal wizard."
"Why do you keep that woman chained up in your basement?"
"Raven is not chained up, Jaune! She's critically injured and in need of life support to survive!"
Their chatter continued as the pair walked away from the elevator. Before the door could seal shut, Azeban moved. He'd been hanging upside down by his hind paws above the entrance to the elevator ever since he'd followed Ozma and his charge to the location of the Spring maiden. It had lasted into the wee hours of the night, but the effort had paid off; he was able to quietly slip into the chamber without any chance of being detected.
Azeban relaxed as the elevator descended following the push of a button. It wasn't difficult to decipher how to operate this machine – Ozma must've fancied himself so sneaky when he wiped his fingerprints off the emergency stop button, but it was clearly cleaner than any other portion of the control panel. Soothing music played as the evolved ex-Grimm approached his destination.
Melion was dead. It upset Azeban to no end knowing that the aged Grimm horseman had perished under such ignominious circumstances. He'd been given orders to critically wound Amber, but not to kill her. Even for a combatant of his level, there was no way to fulfill this command and walk away alive. And what burned Azeban even more was how that arrogant girl thought she'd outsmarted and bested the Fall Maiden. Salem hadn't even let her allies know of the horsemen's existence, so all knowledge of Melion was lost. Thrace's sanity had degraded over the years to the point that he closely resembled that scorpion Faunus the queen always kept around. Kraken never left the Grimmlands. Melion's own daughter, still unnamed, inherited his memories (a neat trick unique to the horseman of knowledge), but she did not truly know him. Only Azeban knew him.
Fuck Salem.
The doors opened, and Azeban found himself in a corridor that was simply gargantuan. When he'd come into existence, every human sized room had seemed large by his standards, but he'd gotten fairly competent as discerning what was big, and what was big. This room was the second kind.
"Raven Branwen. We meet at last."
Raven did not acknowledge him. Not only was she hundreds of feet away and out of hearing range, but she was also brain dead. Not a good combo.
Azeban walked over to her on all fours, looking about the room as he did. The wizard had certainly gone all out in making this hall as ominous as possible. The green flames were a nice touch, though the rows of pillars were a tad tacky. Azeban would've gone with trees if he'd design it, but what did he know? He was a raccoon.
"The horseman and the maiden. Our fates have always been intertwined, for we…for we…for…what in the Brother's names am I yammering on about? I must sound like a blame fool, talking to myself in an empty corridor. Let's just get this over with."
The machine was Atlesian in origin, but it must have been decades old. Still younger than him, mind you. The metal on the front plates was unblemished, but the steel plates on the back were rusted out. Someone had taken great care to maintain a presentable front, but the system was on the verge of a malfunction simply due to the passage of time. Sabotage might not even be necessary.
Ozma must have assumed that the room was impenetrable, for he'd taken no steps to disguise the device or the woman within. The lines feeding out the back were clearly labelled – oxygen, water, dilute saline, concentrated saline. Queen Salem's orders were not to kill her, but to place her in a critical state. The risks she was taking…one wrong move and it could all come crumbling down. If Ozma acted too early, it would all be for naught. If Ozma did not choose Nikos, it would all be for naught. The rewards would be phenomenal, but so was buying a lottery ticket with next to no chance of being picked.
Azeban disconnected the two saline fluid tubes. A loud alarm blared, but he'd seen Ozma and the boy leave. No one was going to stop him as he brought about the end of this woman's life. He was probably being merciful. Living like this in a tube was not truly living. In some way, he pitied Raven. She was as much a pawn in Ozma and Salem's grand game as Melion was. Switching the two tubes, he plugged them back in to the each other's ports. The alarm ceased.
A trivial change, but one so small that it will fly right under their radar. My apologies, Raven Branwen. By the end of this month, you will be dead.
The elevator door opened.
Azeban remained where he was. Others may have flown out of their skin in fear, but when you'd lived for hundreds of years like he had, you tended to unlearn how to panic, a response that never, ever helped.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Out of curiosity, Azeban dipped his fingers in the saline solution that had spilled to the floor when he was switching the lines. It turns out that one could not differentiate concentrated and dilute saline solution by taste. Well, the more he knew.
"I got in the elevator by mistake, and I'm a little lost! Can someone help me find my way back out?"
An obvious lie, clearly made to excuse her presence to any headmasters or professors that might have been lurking about. The voice belonged to a woman, but Azeban could not peek out to deduce her identity without revealing his own location.
The woman's footsteps came up to the machine, then stopped.
"So, you're the Spring Maiden."
Oh, Dust. Azeban cringed as she began to speak.
"Count your lucky stars, woman. You shall live to see another day. Salem's promised me your power, but only after my mission is complete."
And you're a fool for believing it. If all goes well, you'll be dead shortly after she is.
The woman stepped between the machine's two tanks and walked right past Azeban. He could see the back of her head, but she hadn't looked backwards at any point, so he remained unseen. By the Brothers, this girl was an amateur when it came to stealth. Azeban hadn't even needed to move since she came in.
Two wings of fire came out of her eyes, and the walls rumbled.
The doors to the vault opened, and Azeban could only watch as the woman stepped into an icy tundra that seemed to defy spatial logic. There it was – the relic of choice. All this fuss over such a small crown. It almost gave Azeban a headache to think about. But, like him, this small package packed a big punch.
As the Fall Maiden retrieved her prize, the horseman of choice lazily crawled to the front of the machine. The woman walked out of the vault, closed the door, and went to the elevator, still not looking behind her. By the time she reached it, Azeban was too small and too far away to see.
"Hmph. Humans."
He looked up to see Raven floating in her tank, silent as the grave.
"Oh. I forgot you were one of 'em. Sorry, chum. I'll see myself out."
Next Chapter: War Stories – In which a bird sits on a Dove, a deep dark secret is revealed in the most dramatic way, and Neo gets beat up for the…third?...fourth?...fourth time.
Author's Notes
Apologies for the late chapter. I completely forgot that I update on Sundays (and was wondering why the view counts had faded into oblivion). Thank goodness for my phone alarms, or I would've missed it entirely.
Another short today - sort of balances out the extra long chapter from yesterday, I guess.
I'm aware that according to canon, the Beacon vault wasn't supposed to actually hide the relic. However, I proudly reject canon and substitute it with my own stupid ideas (that are far simpler and easier to write around). For now, just chalk it down to Ozpin being a less sneaky fellow.