"Here we are… The Owl House," Amity gestures to the solitary but surprisingly homey residence where Amity's friend(?) would be. The white bricks pairing nicely with the curvy blue roof, making the yellow-green stained glass window in the center stand out more. The stained glass is arranged in such a way that it resembles an eye. A vertical slit eye, to be specific.
That glass window at the center looks… Familiar… Scarily familiar…
"Huh… That actually looks really nice," Ruby smiles relaxingly as she watches Zwei run ahead, barking.
"Watch out for the owl," Amity shivers.
Ruby asks curiously as she turns to notice Amity's… Repulsive reaction, "owl?"
"HOOT! HOOT!" An unnaturally high-pitched voice, almost goofy and scratchy, erupts from behind them. A third person they did not account for.
"Ah!" Amity nearly trips on her own footing.
"GAH!" Ruby's hair jolts upwards along with her hood as she jumps in mid-air with immense shock. She instinctively activates her semblance, zipping past Amity and around to the back of the source of the voice.
"Haiyah!" Ruby shouts as she lands a fully winded karate chop straight down at the… Living wooden tube?
WHACK!
"Ouch! Just trying to greet visitors… Sheesh~! Hoot!" The wooden tube turns around to face Ruby, and that's when Ruby sees the 'owl' Amity was referring to.
Huh… It's almost as if this has happened before on the owl's part… Deja vu?
"AH! It is an owl… Worm… Thing…"
To add to the situation, Ruby looks at the entire owl to see that the tube extends down underground. Looking back to the house, Ruby finds out that the owl connects to the front door and must've dug its way underground to sneak up behind them.
Oh, and Zwei is chewing on a part of the owl tube near the ground.
Amity brings a fist to her mouth, resisting the urge to laugh, that's actually pretty funny.
"Hey… I've never seen you before~!" The tube looms closer to a whimpering Ruby, who by now is desperately wrapping herself with her hood, "that's a nice blanket you got there! May I try~?"
Luckily, once Amity composed herself, she stepped in between Ruby and the tube, immediately threatening the owl, "hey! You better cut that out and let us inside to see Luz or you're gonna get a repeat of what happened yesterday!"
Zwei stops chewing and runs back to Ruby to rub his face on her leg to comfort her. Ruby gladly accepts and picks him up to hug him.
The owl face doesn't change its creepily positive demeanor, but complies with the threat anyway and starts sinking back into the ground, retracting back near the door until it… Turns around to the side of the house and goes inside… Shouting at whoever is inside.
"Sorry about that, that bird-tube is Hooty and he likes to get… Annoyingly close with everyone," Amity rubs the back of her head in embarrassment.
"Thanks for the heads up," Ruby whispers back before they both walk towards the door.
Hooty has now fully retracted until he is just a face on the front door. Ruby keeps an uncomfortable stare at him until they hear footsteps descend from what sounds like stairs and approach the door.
The door opens up to reveal another girl, shorter than Ruby and about the same height as Amity, hazel eyes and tan skin with pixie-cut brownish hair.
Her hair has a shade of… Blue? Purple?
Ebony earrings accompany her round ears as well, confirming that she is the human Amity was referring to.
Luz, was it?
Looking at Luz's clothes, Ruby notices that she also wears a hoodie just like her, only the color splits into half-white and half-indigo.
And the hoodie has… Cat ears? Wonder what Blake will think about that…
Remembering Blake and her radio silence brings a small pang of worry and guilt into Ruby, but she pushes it down and reminds herself that they'll find her, that she can handle herself.
Going back, Ruby finds her… Surprisingly innocent, like she's confident, but she's never used a weapon before and she doesn't look like any warrior she imagined.
But then again, Ruby met Penny and Penny left her awestruck, so Ruby is willing to give Luz a chance.
"Oh, hey Amity! Surprised you visited again, what brings you here?"
"Y-yeah, I'm surprised too," Amity replies nervously before clearing her throat and stepping aside to gesture to Ruby, "but Luz, I think we got a situation."
"Hi!" Ruby takes off her hood and waves at Luz.
"Hey-! Whoa! Another human?" Luz was just about to wave back when Ruby took off her hood and revealed her round ears, taking Luz by genuine surprise that she actually took a step back.
"Yep! Ruby Rose, huntress-in-training!" Ruby gives an outstretched hand, which Luz happily accepts and shakes.
"Ooh~! Luz Noceda, witch-in-training!"
"I found her all of a sudden and told her that I'd help her out by introducing you," Amity tries to coolly explain, omitting the whole nursing thing and keeping her ears from reddening.
"Aww~ that's sweet of you," Luz compliments as she puts a hand on Amity's shoulder.
Difficulty level has just increased.
"Wait until you hear how she found me and what she did," Ruby sneaks in the tidbit.
Difficulty level has just hit the maximum.
Amity's pose stiffens with fear and she gives a short glare at Ruby, "don't you dare."
Luz laughs and then beckons them in, "come on, let's talk in the living room. Amity, do you want to join us?"
"Uh… Hmm…" Amity glances between the Owl House and some distance away, presumably her own house, "j-just for a few minutes. I can't stay out for too long."
"Are you sure? It's okay if you aren't supposed to-!"
"N-no, it's fine, got a few things to share as well anyway," Amity quickly replies before all three of them (and Zwei) went inside.
Ruby takes a moment to look around the house for a bit, only to be taken in by how much personality is in here before sitting down on the comfy couch, "it's a lot more energetic, so much stuff. You fill your walls with pretty much everything."
If it was dad, he would've shelved some of these because it'd get "too crowded"
"Thanks, but, well, the house isn't mine actually. I just moved in here," Luz starts as she sits on the other side of the couch.
Amity just stands across them.
I am NOT sitting in between them, especially if that means me sitting next to… Amity did not dare to finish that thought.
"So… How did you end up here?" Ruby asked first.
"Oh, well, one time, I was chasing this owl-!"
"That owl?" Ruby points to Hooty.
"No! A different owl!"
"Oh."
"An owl took my favorite book and I followed it until I walked through this cool glowing door which is actually an even cooler portal to the demon realm and then I met this witch named Eda who owns the portal door and then we stuck together ever since because we're weirdos that stick together."
"Wow… That actually sounds awesome, I mean it's silly but awesome."
"You're darn right, it is silly and awesome!" Luz agrees eagerly.
Amity smiles warmly at the scene in front of her, before joining the conversation, "the book was about The Good Witch Azura, right?" She asks as she grabs a nearby stool to sit on.
"Yep!"
"I… Haven't heard of such a story," Ruby says.
"Are you kidding me?! You should give it a try, she's one of the reasons I like to practice magic, to be a witch just like Azura and Eda."
"I'll be sure to look for it soon!"
"We can lend you our books if you want!" Luz gestures to herself and Amity, who only gave a shrug of compliance.
"Oh, uh… T-Thanks, that's awfully nice of you two."
"Also, as it turns out, some of the mythical creatures and fairy tales in our world come from the Demon Realm, even Giraffes, oddly enough," Luz also gushes.
"Even the Grimm?" Ruby asks, unknowingly referring to the creatures she has to fight as a huntress.
"Maybe," Luz shrugs, unknowingly referring to a famous German collection of fairy tales.
"Whoa…"
"Right?!"
"Yeah…"
They are definitely not talking about the same things, but oh well.
"How about you, Ruby, how did you end up here?" Luz now asks.
"Well… You see, this little troublemaker here-" Ruby picks up Zwei and cuddles him playfully.
Bark!
Zwei proudly responds, getting a starry-eyed Luz, "¡Ay, que lindo!"
To cup his face with both hands and play with his paws. Amity had to will herself intensely to not melt at the sight.
Ruby chuckles before continuing, "-was supposed to be taking a bathroom break, but Zwei kept running around until we went into this big machine and someone may have pressed a big red button."
…
...
...
"I can assure you, someone pressed it by accident," Ruby blatantly 'explains'.
"Oh…" Luz nervously chuckles at the story as she places Zwei on her lap and petting his head, which Zwei gladly relaxes into, "that must've been nerve-wracking for you."
"Oh, you have no idea, we have a tournament coming up, but next thing we knew, this weird liquid just sucked us in and there's this even weirder glowing tunnel that we kept falling into."
Luz gasps, "A mysterious way to enter the demon realm! Something other than Eda's portal door!"
"It's more scary than mysterious, but yeah," Ruby replies before continuing, "I hit my head on a cliff trying to climb back up, lost my weapon… Then I woke up and tah-dah~" Ruby ends, gesturing to Amity as the finisher.
So that's how she got that concussion and how she popped into my room, Amity realizes, and then she follows up on Ruby's explanation, "well, besides her and Zwei, her sister and two friends fell in here too. We haven't heard or seen anything different on our way here, so we don't know where they are."
"Oh, this is gonna be fun to solve. Don't worry, Ruby Rose! I'll do it! I, Luz Noceda, vow to help you find your sister and friends!" she declares triumphantly, gently setting Zwei down before standing up on the very cushion of the couch and pointing a thumb on her chest, as if promising to a public crowd something.
Ruby could've sworn she heard a similar line like this before. Perhaps from a certain friend when someone else went M.I.A.?
Amity could've sworn she heard a similar line like this before. Perhaps from before Grom?
"Are there any detective witches? I wonder what they wear. Speaking of which, I like your hood, it makes you look like Little Red Riding Hood… With a dark side," A fairy tale reference Ruby might not catch but oh well.
"Hehe. Thanks? I like your hood, it reminds me of a friend of mine."
"Wait… Your friend?" Luz subconsciously tugs on the cat ears of her hoodie, "does your friend wear cat ears all the time or…?"
"She's like us, but she HAS cat ears. She's a faunus."
"Huh… Interesting, so… A catgirl?" Luz notes the specific details as she pulls out a notepad and pencil. Filed away for future reference.
"Pretty much, yeah."
"She asked me that too when she noticed my pointy ears," Amity adds as she points to her own ears.
"You also mentioned losing a weapon? I'm surprised you were holding one on the way here," Luz continues.
"Yeah. It's a red metal scythe taller than I am, but it's also a high-impact sniper rifle. It can collapse so that I don't have to swing it all the time,"
"Awfully specific, and dangerous," Luz comments as she tries to draw a sketch of Ruby and the scythe she's describing. Luz struggles to imagine the combination between Scythe and Sniper so she just draws the gun separately before rotating her notepad to visualize it.
Maybe if I draw the sniper as the shaft of the scythe. What was it called? Snath?
"I've been told as well by several people," Ruby says, fondly recalling the first time her uncle warned her, the times her dad would panic, and the time he first met Ozpin face-to-face.
"Hey, Luz!" A squeaky, childish voice calls out to her. It couldn't have been Hooty. Small pairs of footsteps approach the trio as a fox-like demon walks into view, holding a sheet of a barely readable list with his claws as he raises his skull-head to meet their gaze with his pink eyes and yellow sclera.
"Have you seen Francois? I'm trying to-!"
Ruby freaks out as she starts standing up abruptly and speeding behind Luz, "What the- You have a talking Beowolf in the house?!"
"A talking what?" Amity asks.
Even Zwei is alerted by Ruby's outburst and immediately turns to the demon, growling protectively.
The demon's fur instinctively stands on end but the demon is standing his ground.
"Ruby, it's okay, his name is King, he's with us," Luz tries to calm her down as Amity also stands up ready to step in if things get out of hand, "what do you mean by a 'Beowolf' talking?"
"Beowolf. The werewolf Grimm. They have a skull-like head, can stand on two legs, yellow eyeballs, slightly furry, and maybe even go in packs," Ruby elaborates.
Werewolf… Grimm? Skull head? Maybe she meant a Wendigo-! But no, Wendigo doesn't have a pack-! Wait a second…
Luz slowly realizes that Ruby is no longer speaking the same weird things as her, no matter how she spins it, and so she asks, "Uh… Okay, okay. Ruby... I don't want to sound awkward but… Where do you live?"
"Uh... On a small island called Patch just near Signal and Beacon Academy. You know... Vale?"
"Where is that? I... Haven't heard of any of those names... I live in Connecticut, USA."
Ruby raises an eyebrow before asking, "Where is that?"
"Uh oh," Luz finally pieces it all together.
"Uh… Oh?" Amity looks towards Luz, her voice filled with concern and confusion.
"Hooty hoot! Eda is here!" Hooty butts in and announces as he swings his door open, letting a woman in, presumably Eda.
"Hey kid-!… -Ids. What's going on? Who's the extra guest?"
"EDA! WE GOT A SITUATION!" Luz runs up to her.
"During the research of project J.A.N.U.S., one of the most favored names for the liquid was 'ichor' while the teleporter was being greatly debated between 'Bifrost' and-!"
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
"That sounds like gunfire!" Glynda says, sharply turning her head to the side, the trio have finally stopped walking.
"It's from over there," Ozpin points out to…
"But that's where the teleporter is," Ironwood realizes, being the first one rushing in, Ozpin and Glynda follow shortly behind.
…
...
...
"There's nobody here," Glynda whispers, she looks around, trying to find footprints, scratch marks, dust shells, anything.
"I'll run diagnostics on the machine," Ironwood brings out his scroll and inserts it on a computer port on the right side of the teleporter.
"Hmm…" Ozpin hums, looking inside the teleporter and noticing the finer details of the interior, the pipes, drainage, circuitry… Even the faint whiff of animal urine.
"It's been tampered! Someone's activated it and the amount of water has significantly dropped, way more than it should when used once!" Ironwood slams a fist on the machine after reading the analysis before going to the back of the machine and opening a hatch revealing various liquid tanks.
Glynda notices some indentations on the soil, two small and two big always go in pairs. They look like heels, Glynda notes. Looking past it, tracks left behind by boots can be found. No shells were found though.
Ozpin then walks out of the teleporter and pulls out his scroll, he finds and contacts all four members of team RWBY to find that they are not even in range as it never rang.
"It doesn't make sense. We heard gunfire but there were no signs of a struggle, only footprints," Glynda finally admits.
"Was it a warning? A distress call? But who would do that? Unless this involves the infiltrators that were in Beacon before…" Ironwood tries to deduce, ruling Roman Torchwick out of the question immediately.
"I may have an idea…" Ozpin declares, turning to the two of them and projecting an image of team RWBY and their dog Zwei.
Glynda and Ironwood look at each other worriedly, multiple thoughts racing around in their minds.
"General," Ozpin calls out, instead of referring to him as James, the gravity of the situation dawning upon all of them, "may I see that ichor," he requested.
Ironwood hands over a tank filled (but not completely) with the viscous blue liquid that was being discussed.
Call it a hunch, but Ozpin has been overly curious about it, since it doesn't fit most of what they know in Remnant.
"Where did you say you extracted this from?"
"There's an entire lake of it, preserved with the help of a mountain glacier."
Upon opening the cap of the tank and looking inside, the smell is rather unpleasant, it's pungent smell is more akin to tar, though nowhere near as dangerous or repulsive. Upon pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabs a corner into it and slowly lets the fabric absorb it.
He hands the container back to Ironwood and stares at the handkerchief, willing his soft green aura onto the liquid.
Nothing happens.
Then, looking around to see no other witnesses aside from Glynda and Ironwood, he focuses his eyes a bit more and activates a force kept secret from the public eye. Static electricity cackles from his fingertips as a bright green shimmer with tiny hints of orange grows from his palm.
As he lets this mystical energy flow from the palm of his hand to the handkerchief, the ichor glows and spreads itself onto the handkerchief, nearly soaking the entire thing.
A feat that Atlas Tech needed water and Dust energy to compensate for.
Feeling the innate warmth of the ichor slowly matching Ozpin's own signature, he cuts off the flow before risking any more unexpected developments.
"Magic," Ozpin inhales in realization, "the ichor has magic in it."
"But… How is that possible?" Glynda asks in disbelief, "the only ones capable of that are-!"
"I know," Ozpin cuts the sentence before anything specific is dropped.
Silence befell them all as Ozpin states rather gravely, "it seems… That we got a situation in our hands."
Notes:
You thought you were gonna get a Weiss bit at the end, aren't ya?
You've been tricked, you've been backstabbed, and you've been quite possibly, bamboozled.