Jaune rubbed his arms as the last of the bandages were removed. It had been a difficult few days but he was finally healed. The once prominent burn scars were now faded marks across his body. It was almost amazing how quickly the burn cream helped heal his wounds.
But that's besides the point.
It wouldn't be long until their next raid. Pyrrha's own sore muscles had already recovered and now he was back to full health.
Though their current investigations hadn't yielded much, only increasing how many places needed to be investigated and dragging down the long list of names of who had to be interrogated. Not to mention the current web of Cults and other potential leads that he had set up on the map.
Still, he was currently home alone, except for Melon. Pyrrha had recovered first and was helping Charlie sift through the hours of security footage taken from Bell Bards Gym. Ren and Nora were periodically visiting the Gym and investigating some of the less dangerous locations he had marked down. Nothing big, just places with sightings of strange occurrences. Weird pathways that don't go where they're supposed too, the feeling that someone was following them but only while they were in that one place, stuff like that.
Things done by creatures not from this world.
But he's getting ahead of himself.
Anyone can deal with such things if they have the proper tools and training, Ren and Nora are two such people.
Jaune was then cut out of his musings by the sound of the house phone ringing. "Weird, I thought we didn't take house calls." Jaune mused as he approached the phone and picked up the call. A holographic screen flared to life and the image of a man with pure white spectacles and green hair could be seen. "Doctor Oobleck?" Jaune said in surprise. "Ah, Young mister Arc it is a pleasure to see you again, but that's besides the point. I have important business to discuss." Oobleck said. "What is it, has something happened at Beacon?" Jaune inquired with a raised brow. "Not quite, one of my colleagues had been busy tracking a large horde of Grimm cutting through territory outside the frontier when they suddenly disappeared." Oobleck explained. "Disappeared, all at once?" Jaune inquired.
"Indeed, my colleagues had spent three weeks tailing the massive horde when one night they all disappeared." Oobleck restated. "Any extra details? Weather conditions at the time? A crime scene where the grimm had last been spotted?" Jaune inquired while he scrambled to grab a pen and paper. "Only a few, but they said that it was raining on the night the Grimm disappeared." Oobleck said as several pictures flashed by the screen. Jaune felt his scroll vibrate as well as he listed down the extra details. "I only have so long, the school year is still at its height and I have many students to teach. However if my colleagues can obtain more details I will send them over." Oobleck said. "Thank you, I'll inform Charlie and my team of our new development." Jaune said as Oobleck ended the call.
Jaune ran a hand through his hair as he got a look at the photos. The terrain was water logged, yet destroyed. A mass of tracks consistent with a Grimm horde of such size decorated the whole landscape. Yet there remained a strange air around it. Holes, far too thin yet rather deep considering the angle of the photo. It was as though something thin fell from the sky and pulled itself back up in a second.
It was only a second later that he began sending the report to Charlie and his team. Finally he recorded where the photos were taken, several hundred miles north east of Vale's outer frontier. Too far to be considered their current priority. A message from Charlie a second later just confirmed it.
They still had several Cult hideouts to clear before they could even think of dealing with this problem. 'Send the Report too Arcadia, if we're lucky they'll send a separate team to deal with it while we continued our mission.' his sister sent with a second message. Jaune looked back at the phone and began compiling the information from Oobleck and sent it to Arcadia itself.
Hopefully they'll send someone to take care of it.
Nora frowned as she looked over the message Jaune had just too her scroll. "You get it too Ren?" She asked. Ren just nodded while pocketing his own scroll. "Something that close to Vale, just making an entire horde disappear..." She trailed off as Ren grabbed her hand. "Its far from Vale itself, if Jaune got it then he's probably sending it to Arcadia as well." Ren comforted as Tony and Tompson looked to them. Nora nodded as her grip tightened; "Yeah, it has to be big though, or is there a bunch of them?" She trailed off as the two dogs ran to check on them.
Neither of them said a world as Nora pulled Ren closer. "Its not our concern, There's little doubt that Arcadia wouldn't get involved." Ren calmly said. "Maybe not now." Was all Nora said. The two of them just stood still, letting the world go on around them as the remained still.
Slowly Nora eased her grip as Ren did the same. "Better?" Ren asked. "A bit, how long until our next raid?" Nora asked. "Tomorrow, some time late at night." Ren replied. Nora nodded as her grip finally slackened. "We'll give them hell, just like all the rest." She said as Ren nodded. "That we will." he said as the two began to make way through the backstreets of Vale.
They were still in the midst of an investigation, a break from some of the Cults investigations.
Then both Goldies turned to another alleyway. The pair froze as Ren reached for a dagger in his jacket while Nora reached for the pistol in her bag. Something began trotting towards them, a loud and audible sniffing filled the air. Their eyes quickly scanned their surroundings, taking note of shadows and corners.
Then it arrived.
It was thin, tall and spindly. Trotting across the walls with twelve legs as thin as sticks. Some form of proboscis sniffed the area in front of it, curling like a whip every few seconds. The creature had no visible eyes on its bulbous head, but a set of long curled ears that seemed to extend far past the whole creature's body. Suddenly the creature stopped and turned to them. Its head seemed to tilt as the proboscis pointed towards them.
No one moved as the creature continued "Looking" at them.
Ren took a step forward and the creature took a step back. He took another step and the creature began scrambling on its twelve legs to gain some distance. Tony and Tompsom gave chase as Nora took aim with her pistol and fired a shot. The creature ducked to the ground, letting out a strained whine as it appeared to clutch its giant ears in pain. The Goldies quickly blocked its escape route as Ren stood overtop it. Nora followed, stopping just behind him with her pistol still pointed at the creature.
"I don't think I hit it." She muttered while looking at Ren. "Big ears." Ren muttered as he kneeled down and looked over the creature. Nora nodded before rummaging through her bag once more and pulling out a length of rope. Ren thanked her and began to secure the creature, tying its twelve legs into a single point as the Goldies kept a watchful eye on it. The creature didn't even try to attack Ren as he secured it.
"Tarp?" he requested. "In yours." Nora replied. "Ah." Ren said as he took off his backpack and began rustling through it. "What do you think it is anyway? It doesn't seem all that dangerous." Nora questioned. "Probably just a lost wanderer, you remember Sir. Tuck's' Classes?" Ren said as he pulled out the tarp. "I slept through most of them, he talked with a voice of glass." Nora replied while rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment. "Eh, well, when we get this things back to the house Charlie can identify it." Ren said as he began wrapping the Creature in the tarp.
It only struggled for a second before Nora stepped in and held it still, allowing Ren to finish securing it. The two of them reached under it and hauled it over their shoulders. While the creature may have been long, requiring both of them to carry it without any awkwardness, it was rather thin and light for something of its size. The Goldies kept watch as they began to carry the now still creature out of the back ways.
Jaune just watched as the strange creature sort of stared back at him. Ren and Nora had come back, lugging it over their shoulders before asking for a cage. This wasn't the first time they'd had to perform a relocation mission, but it was without a doubt one of the weirdest. A typical relocation mission only just getting one of those strange creatures to return to their world or realm the same way they came here.
Their luck with accomplishing said task without issue, was best left unsaid.
Still, he hadn't encountered such a thing like this before, whatever the scholars decried it be called.
"Charlie, did you find the book yet? I think it's starting to get hungry." he called as Charlie came into the room with a thick tome in hand, the rest of his team not far behind her. "Yeah we found it, what we have here has been called a Scuttler." She said while leaving out a bowl filled with a dark blue liquid in front of the creature. "I can see why they called it that." he heard Ren comment behind him.
"The Beastiary say anything dangerous about them?" Jaune inquired. "Not really, these things aren't encountered all that often." Charlie replied as he watched Pyrrha put her hand in the cage. The Scuttler seemed to ignore her as it approached the bowl and began drinking from it. "Any notes on how they end up here?" Jaune asked behind him. Charlie seemed to pause before rereading various entries in the tome. "Currently, they can breach our world from their own due to their world having a loose sense of spatial geomety. Them appearing here tends to be entirely accidental, same with the inverse of people arriving on their world." Charlie said while running a finger over some of the pages.
"So, we just have to find where it came from and toss it back?" Ren inquired. "Not so much, both the planet and its native life suffer from the loose spatial geometry, it might just go back from something as simple as lying down for a nap." Charlie said No one said anything as Pyrrha ran a hand along the massive ears of the Scuttler. "Don't do that." Charlie muttered as Pyrrha pulled her hand back. "Its surprisingly tough." Pyrrha stated, ignoring what Charlie had said.
Charlie just shook her head before looking back at the tome. "Let's see. Diet akin to a herbivore, heavy usage of disguise and fast movement. Has a sense of smell that rivals blood hounds and an extremely overdeveloped sense of hearing, often leads to confusion while in our world. Lays eggs in carcasses so that their larvae can develop in the stomachs of the larger predator species. Its body resembles the common native flora of its habitat, Subsists entirely on sap and nectar from the large plants." Charlue paused as her brows were raised. "What else did you find?" Jaune asked.
"In the earlier days they sent a team of eight with a Scuttler to document its homeworld. Only three returned, and only one was cognitive enough to write down the results of their findings. Some of the flora is highly poisonous to us, the air is harder to breath, and the predators tend to be very slow and bulky, but extremely stealthy. One explorer was turned inside out due to the loose spatial geometry of the world. The larger predators ignored the team for the most part due to unfamiliarity, but later teams reported a steady increase in being stalked by them." Charlie finished listing out random notes from the tome as she looked up.
"We should give it a name." Nora suggested. Charlie and Jaune blinked as Ren just turned to her. "Jenkins." Pyrrhe blurted out. The Scuttler seemed to turn towards her as she said it. "Oh, please no." Charlie half begged. "Jenkins it is." Jaune said as he heard Charlie groan. He could have sworn he heard Ren chuckle as Nora and Pyrrha let out quiet cheers.
"Jenkins won't be here for long, just remember that." Charlie said while running her free hand over her face. "Don't worry about it." Jaune said as he leaned in closer to the Scuttler. The creature had finished its bowl and was now standing still, constantly tilting its head to look at them. "Ok, well, now that this is all done with can we start planning out the next raid?" Charlie requested with a begging look. "Yeah, come on guys. I think Jenkins needs some time alone." Jaune said as the team slowly filed out. He saw Nora give Jenkins one last look before the door was closed and they began to gather in the main room.
Arcadian Bestiary Entry: *@,
Scuttlers- Scuttlers are one of the earliest known creatures to come from another world. In the Early days of Arcadia they were considered quite the menace due to the many instances in which a Scuttler would appear in more civilized area. This had let many to assume that the loose Spatial geometry of their native home reacts with the constant geometry found in human civilizations.
Scuttlers are rather harmless all things considered. They're as paranoid as horses and prone to either bolting or standing completely still when surrounded. Their bodies are adapted to match the native flora of their home world, the natural camouflage allowing for a higher chance of survival should they find themselves unable too flee from predators. Much of their diet consistes of bizarrely sweet liquors extracted from the flora around them, though many are extremely poisonous too human and faunus alike. A side effect of this is that Scuttler flesh is rather toxic to anything not native to its homeworld, even grimm can be feld from the sheer potency of the fleshs' toxin.