More and more, every day that this process continued without change or progress, the question of the competency of the Royal Wizard was brought into question. Perhaps blaming the continuation of a battle on just one person was simply evidence of one's own incompetence, but when the person in question agrees with the criticisms brought up about themselves, the situation complicates further. It wasn't just that progress was slow, rather, it was nonexistent in the first place. The plan had been simple, and when first presented, breathing room had been accounted for. A few months? Nonsense, the Royal Wizard was confident she could accomplish this task in one.
Overconfidence then had not been the birth of her error, rather, an oversight of the enemies resources and abilities had brought forth this stagnated situation. The 'Flats Lock' as it had been dubbed, had overstayed its welcome the second it had begun. Yet, here it stayed, seventeen months later. The majority of the thanks to the cause of this situation could be placed on an enemy Wizard, one yet without a name, as it was clearly not Vacuo's leader. The Golden High Wizard's area of expertise was opposite to the type of work required to slow a Silver Wizard's work to its halt, which, of course, was what the altering of the Border Barrier fell under.
As for Vale's strongest forces, the Harbingers unfortunately had roles to play in this war. Conquest, of course, was unable to leave the capital city along with the Hero, as with a piece of the High Devil Dagon roaming the nearby seas, the opportunity to take that card out of Mistral's hand was too valuable to pass up. The stronger Harbinger then, Death, was actually present at the Vacuo border, however, his duty was different from the Dragon's present. This was still the most likely place Vacuo's most valuable fighter could appear, and Death stood as the only one capable of defeating someone who held a Penta-Affinity.
Still, Vale stood strong in this 'battle'. Thus far, none of the troops sent to stop their work had even reached the Border, each small squadron sent out being swiftly dealt with by whichever Dragon happened to be stationed at the Border. For the majority of the time, said station belonged to The Ice Dragon, or The Solar Dragon. Of course, the Rose Dragon was always present, as to keep her work 'going'. Which left the royal family in Vale missing a vital piece. This prompted The Frost Dragon to begin cycling out with the other two as well, in hopes of spending some time with her wife. The Dust Dragon, however, was left at home, separated still from his mum, and now at times even his mother.
Obviously, none of this was ideal to let continue. But after having invested so much time here, Vale wasn't prepared to back out of this plan just yet. This left the Rose Dragon, the Queen Consort of Vale, the Royal Wizard, stuck in this meeting place of rock and sand. This division between the two sides of Sanus allowed one to look east and see lush forests, while simultaneously looking west to see burning sand dunes and dry rock. Strangely, it was a worse place to be stuck in than a place she had once been contained to as a punishment for a crime.
Though, that was just salt on the wound at this point. She wished for home, and not much could make that worse.
Well, the knowledge that her wife was set to leave in just two days time wasn't comforting, and made even worse by the fact that they wouldn't be reunited again until four months had passed.
Two days. That was the time-limit she was setting on herself to complete this. She missed her home, her bed, her workshop, her son.
Two days, Ruby vowed she would return home with her wife in two days.
Ruby Schnee
"Focus..."
As if telling herself that would help, it wasn't as if she wasn't already as focused as could be. In fact, perhaps telling ones self to focus could actually make you focus less. The effort and concentration it took to tell one's self to focus could instead be spent actually focusing. This was quite the conundrum, and one that Ruby of course found herself focusing further on now to figure out.
"... Wait..."
Before, of course, realising that she had stopped focusing altogether.
"Dammit!" Perhaps not the best thing to scream out when sitting in what was essentially a tent with no soundproofing to speak of. Everyone outside was of course still stuck here because she was failing, after all. Though, this tent by now may as well have been a permanent structure. Constructed a full year ago by now, it was set up with a missing wall, instead using the one solid part of the Border Barrier she had managed to alter already as its last wall... Mainly to give her an easy access point. This stretch of about five metres of solid light was all she had managed to successfully edit before all progress had halted, each ritual circle for the Border Barrier supplied the power for about fifty metres, so to say their enemy had caught on quick would be an understatement.
"And that's not even getting to the ritual circles on the edges..."
The Border Barrier wrapped around the entire country, meeting Vacuo's here but separating off when it met the sea. The ritual circles on the edge, right next to the sea, were in charge of half the distance of Barrier until it met land again. While it had been possible to meld the shape of the Barrier to cleanly wrap around the entire outline of Vale, they naturally wanted to take on a spherical shape. Stretching it into an awkward looking oval was the best that the constructors of the Barrier had been able to do without making it eat up all of Vale's Dust Shipments from Atlas to power... and then some.
Not that Vale was really lacking in Dust stores at the moment. While it was true, both Queens adamantly refused to let or allow their son to be used as a Dust farm, on the rare instances he did practice that particular ability... Well...
"Last I heard... his record is a tonne in half an hour..."
The boy was only seven, and far from an aspiring Wizard. His abilities were frankly terrifying to put it lightly, and if his aspirations aligned with his power, there was a good chance that by the time he took the throne he'd be able to rival the rate at which Atlas could mine Dust. Of course, not that they could stop relying on Atlas for shipments.
Rituals and Magics that required Dust often fell under two categories, being general or specific. General Rituals allowed one to use Dust of any kind as a power source, while specific required certain kinds of Dust to power. While it was true that Argus could likely produce any kind of Dust with training, his rate of production for Ice Dust would always be his greatest. The more and more Ruby found herself thinking about his abilities, the more and more sense it made from a logical standpoint to make him, or at least encourage him, to train his power to its peak.
And to put it simply, the fact alone that Ruby had thoughts like that was terrifying to her.
Yet another reason to finish this sooner rather than later.
Luckily, for as much as the opposite seemed true, Ruby did in fact have a plan. Not a good one by any means... But, it would mean getting out of here.
"All I have to do is-"
"Your Highness?" Startling her more than she'd like to admit, her head quickly wiped around, so her eyes could meet those of the Knight no doubt sent to fetch her. "The Queen has requested your presence."
With a nod, she dismissed him, and his disappearance from the tent's entrance was nearly faster than she could follow. "I can guess what this is going to be about..." Her mutterings were meant for only her own ears, but regardless of if anyone heard her or not, she was confident her words would hold true. Though, for a different reason than why everyone else would first assume.
Exiting the tent, she trudged her way through the camp. It was built against a hill, the area being guarded at all times by enough of a force to give anything less than a Dragon a challenge... Not to mention the two Dragons and Harbinger present. Each tent had wooden beams for posts, all quite sturdy structures, even given their time spent in the same position. Ruby had no doubt that this place could last forever, and the unchanging nature of this place every time she moved through it didn't exactly help with her fears of never returning home. Coming up to the top of the hill, Ruby entered without asking or stopping, the large tent that was at least four times the size of any other in the vicinity... Which, of course, served as the Queen's tent. Or Ruby's when Weiss wasn't here.
"Not like I don't stay in there when she is here anyway."
Stepping into the place clearly too fancy to simply be called a 'tent', Silver eyes flicked around looking for the orbs she always loved looking into most. She quickly found them, but said favourite eyes were in her least favourite format. Weiss looked annoyed to put it lightly, and judging from her unflinching glare...
"What did I do this time..."
Not that Ruby actually had to guess. "How is your progress, darling." The way in which Weiss called her by that pet-name, Ruby was made immediately more aware of how angry her wife actually was. Dressed in her combat outfit, primed and ready to go for any situation, the Queen of Vale was sitting at a table that was practically her desk at this point, her elbows just in front of her against the table as she leaned on it.
"Well, it's-" Two words in, and she had already managed to make Weiss's eyebrow twitch. Truly, the Rose Dragon seemed destined to piss Schnee's off. "Progress is slow... Well, really slow... Like-"
"Nonexistent." While helpful, Weiss's finishing of her sentence clearly did nothing to calm the flames clearly roaring behind those frosty eyes. Especially not when Ruby nodded to confirm that she was right after all.
"Well... I do have an idea." Finally, something had been said that temporarily called the Dragon off of its rampage.
"Spill the beans, then." Right in time for another voice to sound from behind Ruby that once again raised the Queen's blood pressure. Ruby's uncle casually entered the tent without a second thought.
Weiss's eyebrow was twitching so much Ruby thought it might fly off her face. "You weren't called for, Qrow."
"And I thought she was talking to me with venom..."
"I'm bored." As if that was enough of an explanation to justify bargaining into the meeting... Well, for both Queens who knew him well, they understood that was as good as his excuse was going to get. "Come on, kiddo. Get on with it." Leaning against one of the many wooden posts serving as the structure for the tent, he seemed to be all ears as he waited for Ruby to speak.
"It's a backup plan. If I use-"
"Ruby." Weiss's voice grew more stern, and her eyes sharper as they focused. "We're past the point of backup plans. This was supposed to be a few months, but you've been out here for a year and a half. Argus misses you! I miss you..." Seconds earlier, Ruby thought she couldn't feel more guilty about that... How wrong she was...
"I know that..."
Seemingly getting an understanding as to why the women hadn't wanted him present, Qrow took the hint and turned to leave... If a bit too late. Weiss had already stood and was walking past them before either one could get in another word.
"I don't care about the details... Just get it done, Ruby." Her voice had fully moved on from anger and now simply sounded disappointed... and Ruby couldn't blame her, how could she?
"Stuck out here for so long... I've been a terrible parent..."
"Keep your chin up, kiddo." Qrow seemed to at least be sympathetic with her... "I mean, you did kinda mess up. But, it's not like anyone can really do it instead of you." His smile was enough to get a small chuckle from her.
"Guess that's the problem with having such a cool Affinity... Right?" Now sharing a smile between them both, Qrow nodded.
"So far, I've been trying to create a looped effect of sorts. A domino effect. I create a sort of curse to slap onto the ritual that will bounce from circle to circle up the barrier and upgrade it by hitting certain points of them with small shots of Mana. Make sense, right?"
"I... y-yeah, I think so..."
"But that hasn't worked. The enemy Wizard... he's good. Every time I try and send out a signal, he'll send one down from both sides of the Border that will counter my effects."
"Ok... but how does that-"
"It's not like he has to configure them to specifically counter my curses either, just a simple reboot is enough to fix all the rituals right up."
"... So... he can just-"
"But! I have a way around that!" Her triumphant smile was well contrasted by his own exhausted expression. It was like his whole body had gotten exhausted following his brain being overflowed with information he didn't understand. "See, if I use Intention based Magic to create the alterations, he can't just hit them with a simple reboot. It will basically completely reorganise the circles instead of altering them."
"So... Why haven't you just...?" Perhaps Qrow's greatest mistake was the fact that he was trying to be a good Uncle. With Weiss not in a mood to talk to Ruby, he was receiving the brunt of her Magic rants.
"Because, Intention based Magic is... fickle, to put it lightly." As she spoke, her hand ran over the one changed circle so far. This one had remained altered because she had manually changed it rather than leaving it to a domino effect. "It won't just work... it needs certain things from me... and none of them really have a reason... not that I can see, anyway."
"I guess that's what I get for using Magic that uses information I don't have..."
"Like what?" Qrow's voice had seemed to light up a bit, having heard enough of these rants lately to recognise when they were coming to an end.
"Well..." Ruby's calm expression turned to a frown as she stared down at the glowing runes. "For one... It needs a password."
"A password...?" In record time, his voice was back to confused. "Why can't you just make it something like-" Whatever he said next was in no way words, and would likely take the greatest poets in all of history to surmise even a single letter from.
"Um..." Honestly, Ruby was impressed. Without any Magic, her Uncle had made a sound that disorientated her more than her own roar. "Well... Whatever that was, can't be used as a password in this case. It needs to be a word from the Magic language."
"So pick one."
With a groan, Ruby tried to explain. "It's not that simple! The whole Magic language is well-documented. With just a bit of reading, anyone could just test all of them against the ritual to crack the password." It was rather similar to what she had done to crack the Dragon Formula.
"So... this isn't really a solution at all...?"
"No... It is..." With a sigh, her voice grew quieter. "Because I know a word of the Magic language that isn't documented..." A word she knew the enemy didn't know about. A word that as far as she had looked into... No one knew the Magical properties of. If the enemy did know it... Combined with the four Phrases of the Dragon Formula they did have, it would give them the whole thing.
"Schnee..."
If she used that as the password... Then it would exist somewhere. Under layers and layers of protection, of course... But it would dramatically raise the possibility of someone discovering the word's properties. Which would probably very quickly give way to their enemy testing it in the Dragon Formula...
Maybe it was an overreaction, maybe she was thinking too hard about this... After all, even if the enemy was a Silver Wizard, what were the chances that they had a double Affinity like she did? It was unlikely that they could take apart her ritual in more than ten years, and it would collapse by itself in much less time than that. It was a gamble...
Shaking her head and averting her eyes from the ritual below her, she looked up and through the solid barrier serving as the tent's wall. Far in the distance, on the battlefield of the Flats Lock... There were troops. Enemies, combatants, people charging at them to try and end their lives... Of course, between them and herself were the two figures here to protect her. A gigantic glowing white knight, and a much smaller figure with wings hovering in the air next to it.
Ruby wanted to go and help Weiss... But, even from here, she could tell that their enemy was the one that desperately needed help in their charge... Even given how many there were. Ruby could swear that the entire dune they were charging over was covered by them.
"Uncle Qrow... Do you really think you can beat Hazel?" Another topic to think about was desperately needed now that her wife's battle was on her mind.
Even without turning to look at him, she could hear the smirk in his voice. "Ever heard of a Goblin?"
An odd question... but one she answered anyway. "Yeah? They're the weakest species, right? Besides Humans, I mean."
"They were the weakest species. They went extinct a long time ago." Even speaking about that fact, the smile in his voice hadn't left. "You know how Pyrrha has a really small Primary Mana Pool? Well, Goblins had Mana Pools of about a third the size of an Amazon's." Ruby frowned a bit in response, it was strange to imagine something with such a small amount of Mana... She was sure that most Dust Crystals had more Mana than that. "Anyway, the prerequisite for inheriting the Title of Death... You have to have killed a Harbinger. That was true for all but one of us. A Goblin that lived long before the Great Erasure."
"Really? A Goblin got it?" Her surprise was enough for her to turn and face the man.
"Yep. Though, I'm pretty sure I know why." She could see his smirk now... It was like he was proud of this story. "See, from what Oz has guessed, it's not like The World can see the future... But, it has a really good understanding of the butterfly effect, it can read that shit like a book." Her Uncle was as elegant with his words as ever. "So it knew what was going to happen when that guy got it. See... With Death's ability to force the user and an opponent into a death match without Magic... He killed more Harbingers than anyone else in all of history. Including before the Great Erasure."
That obviously raised the question... "How many...?"
"Two generations, not counting Death. Two War's, two Famine's, two Conquest's." Now it was definitely pride in his voice. "It was the third generation that got him, Famine and Conquest came at him at the same time in a sneak attack."
"What about War?"
"Well, that Title had been given to his daughter. She kept it and eventually passed it down to her child, and then them to theirs... so on and so forth."
Taking a moment to think about his words... She finally asked, "What was that Goblin's name?"
"Azrael Branwen. My ancestor and the start of the Tribe."
A revelation she hadn't exactly been expecting... But, the start of the Branwen tribe wasn't exactly something she had ever wondered about. Ruby doubted that Yang knew either. "Sometimes, I wonder if the Harbinger Titles really are as strong as each other..."
"They're not, but they don't need to be." A tilt of her head, and he elaborated. "Well... Death can let you fight people stronger than you in circumstances where that doesn't matter. Famine can devour souls and grow in power depending on how much they've taken. Conquest can hold multiple Penta-Affinities at once. And War... at best, it can grant someone an Affinity of Seven in something."
"The only way to break the Affinity cap..."
"-None of them have to be stronger than the others. All that matters is who gets them exactly. Though, for like, ninety-percent of people, War would be the easiest to adapt to."
Ruby nodded in agreement as her head and eyes turned back to the battlefield ahead, coloured blue thanks to the barrier between it and herself. "It just makes your strongest strategy stronger after all." Both of them stared out at the field, the Queen floating before all those solders... Honestly, it was strange to see that place full of enemies. The most they had seen charge at once was about six... Now, there were thousands coming at once. "I wonder... Why the change in strategy?"
Qrow's grunt signalled his distaste for the question before his voice did, though, he answered anyway. "Might not all actually be from home." Without even looking at him, Ruby tilted her head and requested an explanation. "Well... Could be a bunch of Summons."
"... I guess...?"
"Who would be able to Summon an army?"
Weiss Schnee
Counting them would be a waste. With every batch rended from the battlefield, another group slinked over the sand dune and replaced them. It wasn't so much a wave of enemies, more like a swarm of ants that refused to stop flowing from the safety of the nest. Hovering above the battlefield, head-height with her gigantic Summon... Weiss couldn't help but compare her enemy even more to simply a bunch of insects. It certainly made what came next easier, after all.
Another swing, another ringing as the blade rended stone from the field below and ended who knows how many lives... seemingly, at least. Weiss had a good perspective to watch them from up here, made even better by her eyesight... And thanks to that, she was able to spot some unique details about her foes. While their 'armour' seemed incredibly similar to what she had seen from Vacuo Knights, there were differences that raised a great deal of questions. Why did they lack the small patches of chain-mail she had seen previously? Why did the armour cover their heads fully? Then, a different detail caught her attention as another batch was rended from the field by her Knight.
"Their weapons..."
They weren't iron or steel... Rather, they seemed to be made of bronze? But why? Obviously, with someone like Hazel on their side, gathering large amounts of the materials necessary to make so many bronze weapons was easy... But, why go through all that effort? Surely steel, or even iron, would be vastly more efficient. Questions bred questions upon questions without any answers, before she found herself trying to view things differently... and an even stranger thought occurred to her as yet another hundred or so of them flew into the air.
"... Where are their bodies going...?"
Focusing her gaze on one of the many corpses thrown into the air by the great blades swings, she watched with confusion as it faded from reality before it hit the ground... leaving only the armour and weapons behind. It wasn't as if they were erased from Remnant, rather, their bodies faded into a sort of blue mist as they took fatal damage. Even with her frankly too little amount of knowledge on Summoning, she could recognise what was happening. And, given her studies on the major Planes...
"I think I know why they're not using iron..."
With a burst of speed, the Dragon zipped from the sky and stood on the ground before the charging enemies. A great deal of them changed course in an attempt to assault her, but with an increase to the flow of her Mana, her Knight sped up immensely and began to quickly cleave the enemy forces apart. Luckily, despite its size and new-found speed, it was still incredibly precise, leaving one remaining from the now destroyed front lines still charging her as more flooded over the sand dune behind them.
With an almost lazy energy, as the assailant reached her, Weiss flicked the blade from its hands with one hand while the other grabbed them by their throat. Lifting them up, she casually removed its helmet with one of her wings to get a look at the creature's face. Upon first glance, it greatly resembled an Elf. Long, pointy ears came from either side of its head, while its skin seemed rather pale... Certainly too pale for this creature to have come from anywhere even remotely similar to Vacuo.
"Obviously a Fae... Perhaps a Changeling? A Sidhe?"
For now, the exact nature of this creature didn't matter too much. As her knight worked to keep the forces from approaching further, her grip tightened on the creature's neck and her eyes burned with a glow. "Who Summoned you." Not a question, and the creature didn't take it as such.
"I... I am... Un..." With a roll of her eyes, she loosened her grip to allow it to speak properly. "I'm unaware of my Master's name...!" Even with its apparent fear towards her, its loyalty seemed strong.
She didn't need to worry if this one refused to give her too much information, though... after all, there were plenty more of them. "What kind of Summon are you?"
"We... We are contracted...!" Its answer raised even more questions, but even stranger still was its willingness to answer. Weiss could recognise that it held a great deal of loyalty towards its master... Yet, it was being rather forthcoming with the information thus far.
"What are your orders?"
"We must charge the Barrier at all costs!"
Her teeth grit as frustration filled her. "I know that, but what else!"
A sense of dread filled her as she recognised its own confusion. "We... Have no other orders."
"... What...?"
They were charging the Barrier without a purpose? They had no commands or orders for what to do once they had arrived? Then, what was the purpose of it? "Describe your Summoner!"
"No... That won't help..."
She already knew they must have Bronze eyes, and clearly a frankly ridiculous amount of Mana in order to conjure up an army like this. It was pretty obvious that whoever this mystery person was, they weren't normally a resident of Vacuo, they would have almost definitely competed in the Vytal Festival... In fact, they were probably stronger than Carmine.
"This is one of Salem's followers..."
But, that raised yet another question. This never ending mystery wouldn't unravel yet... and her grip on its neck tightened as she grew further frustrated.
"Why bother with Fae Summons? Why not just use Grimm?"
"Is it because of Pyrrha and Jaune? Holy Magic could tear through Grimm..."
"Is Dagon near Vale just to keep them both restricted there? But, why? And if that is why, then why not take advantage and use Grimm where she can?"
The more and more Weiss learnt, the less and less all the actions taken by their enemy in this war made sense. She knew that quite obviously their end goal was Vale, they wanted both the last Phrase of the Dragon Formula, and Neo... But the strategies taken thus far to get there wasn't clear.
"Are they simply fumbling about with no clue...? Are we too strong a force for them to properly plan against...?"
In her confused state, she barely noticed when her tight grip suddenly made her hand form a fist. The Fae she was holding having died and left this Plane, leaving only his armour and weapon behind to fall to the ground. With a sigh, her wings carried her into the air once more.
"I should focus on stopping their forces first."
As her eyes flicked around the battlefield, the seemingly unchanging number of enemies having made it no further despite their constant charge thanks to her own Summons efforts... A bit of light reflected off of something coming over that same sand dune. Her eyes concentrated and focused in on the new sight, the change in the status quo taking the shape of what appeared to be a cart of some kind... The wooden 'vehicle' being helped along by at least six of those troops. But, what had caught her eye was what sat mounted on top of it. A strange looking contraption that her brain struggled to recognise for a second...
"That looks like Atlas technology..."
Realisation caused her eyes to widen as the weapon turn to her, white wings flapped quickly to put her out of its line of fire, but she had been wrong about its target. The weapon pulsed with a bright light as it unleashed a blast of magic, a glowing white projectile shooting from its end and meeting her Summon's chest. She didn't see what exactly the weapon had done to her knight at first, only when it collapsed as its legs faded into blue smoke did she see the missing majority of its front.
The Knight disappeared from Remnant after the lethal wound it suffered, and with a quick turn from where it had once been, Weiss practically growled as two more of those same carts came over the hill made of sand.
"The Atlas attack ships... they have four of those at bare minimum..."
To send three here at once... Vacuo had only been able to salvage the one ship, so it was unlikely they would risk the majority of them at once. That added onto the Silver Wizard who had been impeding Ruby's work...
"They made more of them."
5th Day, Ninth Strike, 2116 PE