In the distance atop a tall rock grimm seer watched reaper callously and easily kill Pyrrha Nikos and left the knight to mourn for her.
"hmm, interesting" a feminine voice said holding the other seer in between her hands.
Heavy double doors crashed closed announced the arrival of psychotic snickering and tapping of dress boots. "my lady, I have failed to deal with the human named castus" his voice flipped around taking on a deep sadness and said "she'll forgive you- please forgive me...b-but hope is not lost, I managed to poison him...he fought hard but he was old and moved slow" he bowed sounding happy with his actions but shook if fear hoping she'd spare him of her wrath, but knew better to do so in his goddess's presence.
"you've done well Tyrian" she said walking towards him from her table and stopped in front of him "but I need you to take watts with you and find this...red baron and reaper of remnant..." Tyrian shot to his feet and cackled with a childlike glee and hope in his eyes.
"and bring him to me, I wish to speak with him" she said ignoring his discontentment.
Bowing to her he made his way out the doors when he froze mid push "pardon me your darkness, may I ask something of you?" trepidation squirmed in his stomach until she sighed gently sitting in her seat, "ask your questions then"
Rushing over to her side his eyes danced across her figure "is it true that the reaper was gifted your divine blood when he lost his left arm?"
Salem gave him a smirk and put a hand under his chin gently caressing it with her razor sharp nails "and where would be the fun in telling about that?"
He smiled and internally jumped for joy at her touch, and flicked his tail behind him with excitement.
"I understand m'lady I-"
"we will have him here by the end of this month" watts interrupted setting down his maps and extra notes on the table in a neat and orderly place "and he'll join with us willingly"
Tyrian grew furious with the doctor and seethed with rage, "how DARE you interrupt us human"
Watts stared blankly at him and looked at salem "he may have lost the arm your blood gifted him but your blood still runs deep in him. Its why his skin is tougher, he fights longer, he's stronger than before...but he doesn't possess an aura yet he has a semblance"
Smirking at watts she stood up with the seer on her side and said "I'm happy to hear that, but I know for a fact he doesn't possess a semblance either"
"what does that mean your grace?" watts asked straightening up
"I had cinder look into him and she found that the boy cole was a test subject at birth but since he didn't show signs of their initial tests and were far too impatient his 'mother' stole him from the facility and raised him as her own. Unfortunately for him raven's interference with his life threw him off my radar so you can imagine my surprise when watts found him with the taurus boy and his pet fang members."
Taking a breath he ended his report and felt a subject change was needed.
"and if I may be blunt your grace" watts began as he took a stepped forward and bowed putting a hand over his heart, "but I wished to see the results of your gift on him, in terms of Roman torchwick, He killed cinder and her posse in an explosion after confessing his separation from her employment" grimm hands crept up them both as he talked but it was not slow enough even in Tyrian's opinion.
Salem let the spells go and said "then it seems that she was a failure from inception..." she pushed the door slightly open and looked back at them "and I suppose this means that you two need to bring me her replacement" she turned to watts and added "and I want that ridiculous metal arm taken off him"
Leaving them in the room she felt like a bath would be what she needed right now...ironic how she was an immortal grimm queen and still needed to clean her body like her circle did, it was almost surreal to think about.
For a few minutes watts and Tyrian exchanged information about the plan and quietly left through the large double doors in silence to find salem's prize.
"I hope this one is promising" she said stripping out of her clothes and walked into the bathroom off to the left in her bedroom and sighed in pleasure at the cold water in her large tub filled with lavender and honeymoon tulips, relaxing her head on a towel she brought the seer close to her side and watched with rapt interest with the reaper and smirked at the poem he wrote in flames that burnt into the sand near a mourning knight and his dying mate.
Arrogance bred in ignorance
Two lives lost one heart shatters
Ash to ashes dust to dust
A lesson learned a warning ignored
-The Reaper-
She read the poem over and over as a smile crept on her lips but realized that the knight was trying to bring the girl back but it was all in vain and soon she'd be dead in minutes.
"it seems that the reaper is more cold blooded towards his new friends than I thought" she said grabbing a bar of soap and gently washed herself.
The seer with reaper showed no intention of looking away from the man that was inside a cave training his combat movements without his metallic arm on and when salem looked into the seer she caught the image of reaper in nothing but his black knee high briefs and a matching muscle shirt soaked and dripping in sweat.
She let out a stifled shudder and climbed out of the tub to let it drain while she dried off to get dressed for bed wearing a black silk robe lined red with her emblem on the back.
"maybe I should use that lotion watts recommend for me" she said walking into a closet and grabbed one of her many bottles of vacuian lotion and walked over to her mirror gently opening her robe revealing her flawless pearly white skin lined with vein-like patterns all over her body. Smiling with admiration at herself she began spreading the lotion on her chest and worked it into her flesh and further down, after an hour her entire body was lotioned up and sensitive to the air in her room.
Shivers ran all over her body while she ran her fingers over her skin before wrapping her robe over herself again.
Climbing into bed she let out a deep sigh with content loving the feeing of her entire body wrapped in silk and hairless all over, hair flowed freely around her as she quickly drifted off to sleep with one thought on her mind: reaper and desperately wanting to know who he was since he only just a year ago appeared on her radar, and supposedly he had her blood in his veins when cole was the one injected with it and he only became more noticeable when he kept racking up more kills under his belt in such a short time.
"he may be an assassin but executing that redhead the way he did is surprising to say the least" she whispered in the dark of her room just as she fell asleep smiling with excitement for reaper's arrival.
elsewhere*
For the next week watts and Tyrian left the shadowlands to look for clues and connections regarding the remnant reaper, red baron, and where cole's body disappeared to.
Watts was already calling his connections In the four kingdoms to dig anything up but the only -although quick growing cold connections those two had were their multicolored lighting capabilities and body type but not much else.
"Maybe I should focus on the boy first and go from there" watts concluded folding up his nap of mistral and grabbed a paper cup of coffee and capped it to go.
"how long is this going to take watts, I want to get to the fun part" Tyrian complained flicking his tail around in irritation.
Watts sat at a desk overlooking the few files he had on hand.
Letting out a quiet breath of relief after a symphony of cackling rang out from his neck and back he said "when we run into trouble or when I need you to cause a distraction; discretion is my forte not yours"
Tyrian responded with a groan of disappointment and began more murder fantasies while watts went back to finding more about reaper and possible connections to the murders he's racked up and coles disappearance.
"you must admit it Tyrian" he began standing up from his seat and tossed a news article to the scorpion. "he may very well had killed more people than you my did"
"Oh yes this may be true...but-" Tyrian stopped to jump to his feet slicing the paper to ribbons "does he feel the same way I do when blades separate flesh from bone like I do?" he giggled and hugged himself trying to contain himself. "Or the absolute thrill of blood spray on the walls and the warmth when they bleed on his face?"
"I doubt it" he replied grabbing his phone and placed a call walking out the door but turned to Tyrian "try to be good and stay out of trouble"
"no promises!" he psychotically giggled watching the man leave the room and began belting out a terrifying laugh that echoed throughout the building.
He never understood the man but watts was content in letting him do as he please as long as he didn't cause too much trouble or got in his way.
"I'm out on business what do you need flog" he asked caressing one of his many rings.
"I found a connection like you asked but you wont believe it unless I show you; there's a house near the red sign east of you follow it down the alleyway and lift the middle pothole cover of the five currently there" the line went dead and his curiosity was officially peaked so he took the route he was told of and true to the instructions he found the middle cover was a cylindrical tube that had appeared to have just been built with the latter as proof of that.
"good to know I don't need Tyrian for this part" he mused climbing down the shaft.
Dress shoes gently touched fine white marble tiles as watts took in his surroundings and saw a coded door and a fingerprint analyzer above the key pad
bzzt bzzt*
He pulled out his phone and read a message that said "enter the code 3-15-12-5 and it'll let you in without the rest of the security credentials"
Doing as instructed the doors opened to an elevator about six feet in diameter and twelve feet high. "welcome to my humble abode dr.watts" an old friend's voice said as the elevator took him even further underground.
Riding the box down he opened his phone and read a message from Tyrian "I got bored and went for a walk, I'll bring you a souvenir XD"
He rolled his eyes and sent his reply "keep it, im not a fan of organs or bone splinters" he knew Tyrian was bound to get bored but not this quickly and frankly he was too busy to care 'the queen wants disorder and he delivers with gusto' he chuckled at the thought as the doors opened with a gentle *ding* and walked the many steel grey halls lined with large red and white droids and took note of the large tanks containing grimm remains or full bodies of each shadow common and rare alike.
"I hope you don't mind the scenic route doctor, im quite proud of my work"
Lining the many corridors were samples and remains of his experiments or some of the many experiments that were still being worked on.
A humanoid grimm that looked to have had its chest blown out from the inside. It had horns like a mohawk, rough skin like stone, missing fingers and parts of its legs and toes.
A feline grimm roughly resembling a sabretooth tiger half its tail rotted off four purple eyes and six muscular legs.
Dire wolf grimm nicknamed: black bog for its ability to create slick pools of grey tar that turned into a smoke making the recipients hallucinate the worst and intensified the longer they were exposed
Next were tubes containing wyrms, large serpentine grimm that created tunnels deep underground they had bone plating all over its body with fin-like blades lining its body.
Watts wondered how and why merlot loved shadow as much as he showed in his work, but then again he was no better.
All types of gimm he'd seen before but the corridor that caught his attention with surprise was marked as "project: Sigma Knight" and stopped in his tracks to look at the map he'd gotten from upstairs.
With a calm 'hmph' he called out still standing there "merlot old friend, why is this corridor congruent with your office?"
Of course watts walked in as he'd asked but it didn't make the nausea any harder to force down. He'd watched salem created, tear apart, and rearrange shadow bodies and
This corridor made him squeamish?
Gods this was a new one. But slowly understood as he thought more about it.
"oh good, I was afraid you wouldn't have asked about that, I lost many clones to the instability of cole Foster's biology and finding out that he is Faunas, human, and part shadow was almost impossible to replicate so I had to clone him by creating a robot capable of carrying a child and uhmm...grow the clone naturally but used the grimm's essence to speed up the growth rate, and this corridor is the result of that...unfortunately I have yet to create a successful clone of him"
Watts froze at those last words and looked around realizing the clones were warped, deformed, and many labeled as defective. The sheer amount of their deformed bodies were absolutely staggering.
Merlot was an intelligent man but lying was unfortunately one of his weakest points but made up for it with his influence on the creations he'd made. A successful clone of cole was made but something about this slip of the mind made watts suspicious of him.
"then why haven't you fed these defections to her grace's pets she supplies you with for your tests?" watts inquired as he took a look at a clone with half his face missing, his left leg rotted off and right arm grown too small. "I'm sure these tanks could be cleaned out and repurposed"
Merlot took this as a surprise and replied joyfully "ah good eye old friend, you see its as simple as reusing the healthy parts of the other clones to aid the defective ones"
Watts let out a chuckle and said "reduce the waste, reuse the healthy parts, and recycle the bodies to your pets, oh by the gods that's simply brilliant merlot" he had to admit it was brilliant but it was no worse than what he did with his robotic career. "the only problem I am fighting is that the original is uncloneable...I've seen a challenge through grimm and replicated a few of them, completely changed its composition and even gifted them with types of dust crystals, but this...freak of a specimen's DNA is too complex I just can't clone him!"
Watts gave another pause when he saw a septic tank with its front shattered on the ground, glass littered all around a pool of red slime and saline fluid with an odd brown red gel that reeked of blood and infected rotting flesh.
With a tired sigh he added "nor can his DNA be decoded; grimm, human and Faunas are difficult to decode and clone but there's something about specimen sigma that makes it too difficult, hell almost impossible."
Watts huffed a deep breath and strolled over to the door at the far end of the corridor into what he assumed was merlot's since then and was furiously typing on his desktop for a moment and let out a happy hum looking up.
"did you find my little side project...enlightening Arthur?"
Watts sat down at a small coffee table waving him over as a professional courtesy, but merlot stayed at his desk and grabbed a pair of drinking glasses and a bottle of Mistralian whiskey.
"please come join me doctor, I've been on my feet all day, you understand don't you?" watts asked straightening his coat.
Hesitant merlot joined him with the drinks and went right to the point "doc- Jameson, I'd like to know about project sigma. You were supposed to be monitoring your...creations yes?"
Merlot nodded giving watts a glass of whiskey and both took a sip.
"Arthur I understand that her grace asks of me and I have been generous to give her everything she's wanted but-" he began but couldn't find it in him to keep going.
"Jameson, I assure you I haven't the foggiest of whatever it is that you are talking about" he commented taking a long sip of the whiskey enjoying the flavor.
"maybe I should just show you" he replied handing him a file with SIGMA on the front in big bright red ink. He read note after note and sped up as he flipped through everything and froze at salem's personal writing in cursive written with blood.
Dear jameson merlot,
This may come as a surprise to you but I have a favor I need from you concerning your...unorthodox levels of interest you have in my grimm, as such this requires total and complete discrepancy from you no matter the cost NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO HEAR OF THIS. The contents of this favor have been given to you by me personally, he's alive and is able to carry myessence but is far too...reluctant to kill mercilessly. So I need him recreated and sent to me for the final touches. I don't need to stress the importance enough.
Sincerely, S.
Watts looked up from the letter and calmly gave the entire file back already looking for a careful approach to this topic. But how does one ask 'does salem want kids' delicately?
"she asked me to truly perform the impossible here watts"
He said already knowing what he needed to know but nothing else and merlot was only as talented as the quality or the type of project he was working on.
"but, why the valentine boy; his sister is still thriving and controlled the smoke that grimm create when they perish, wouldn't she be a better candidate?"
Jameson shifted in his seat as he drained his glass and filled it almost completely "because she isn't alive watts" This gave him pause to ponder for a moment until he said "she may have been exposed to salem's divine essence but...she's a bodiless soul linked to her twin brother like an astral cord, or that's what she herself named it as. But my point is that-"
"she is alive because cole unknowingly had absorbed her bio-electrical energy and her aura, and kept her alive by accident?"
Merlot got up and pressed a button on his phone excitedly "yes, precisely. Cole accidentally created a link to her soul and trapped her here with him and due to him absorbing her bio-electrical energy he also gained her eye, and the biology complex enough to maintain homeostasis with the grimm essence and made it his own, in short cole's clone is going to become a synthetic grimm knight" he ended his explanation by throwing his arms open revealing the same broken tube and watched in horror as the same saline fluid and red brown jelly hit the floor and slide down the tube and wall.