Two hours earlier*
You could tell when the people of Vale were quiet it was when crickets chirped at night but, despite this ambiance. The same couldn't be said about the residents of beacon. They all still roamed the halls heading to bed or just hoping to rest from such hard days of toiling. Outside, parts of beacon that had been recently destroyed months previously had now been finished and dusted off for reuse. In hindsight, exhausting work like this was detrimental if you didn't know how to do the job, but thankfully, the students who helped out had the hands on training and were paid for their efforts.
Glynda looked over the table under ozpin's clock floors, rise through a hole opening up, and on the table had chairs, cups, and plates for food if needed.
The table was just big enough to seat twelve people and had ozpin's insignia in the center, glass 5 feet thick and shined green as light hit the sides.
"He seriously never bothered switching things up, did he?" Glynda asked, taking ozpin's seat.
The twelve people joining the meeting was not as convenient, but it was what oz wanted.
Tai came back with Ironwood and qrow a few days ago but drank more than what she saw when summer died, and Raven had left him with his kids. Geralt and ciri had joined them a day ago but needed rest, so they were expecting a late arrival. Oobleck and port sat down after a few hours of calling them individually. But for everything they had done, they were short five people, and they knew that Ruby, Yang, Ren, Nora, and jaune could have joined the meeting, but they were too young to help so she called in the ace ops and penny to talk war and gore. Taking time just to gather the people for the war meeting was hard enough, but things were getting worse when Kuriku was brought up on the hard-light hologram and showed the two thousand kilometer sinkhole and the information ciri had collected, but she put it away after the twelve people had arrived one by one.
"Everyone's read the files I hope, so I'll give a quick review" she began as she stood up grabbing her scroll and plugged it into a desktop connected to the table, showing a more condensed version of what everyone recorded for her to at least create a more coherent timeline.
"When Mr. Valentine came to the doors of our academy. I wasn't sure he was the best fitted, but ozpin felt he deserved a second chance, so he had him admitted two weeks into the third-"
"We know glynda, we are here about the white fang, the saviors, and Dr. Merlot, " Ciri interjected, slamming her hands on the table and shaking the impromptu timeline.
"To get to the roots, we need to find the heart of the forest," geralt instructively replied, pulling her to her seat, "Remember your days learning controling magic."
With a heavy sigh, glynda moved the timeline to the side and brought up a second one. "Thank you geralt, as you can plainly see I have organized a timeline for it all the same but there's a problem with both listed timelines" she pressed a few keys inputting codes that merged the two into one and just as they had merged the tension became suffocating.
"You gotta be shitting me?" Ironwood ground his teeth seething.
"One day I'll stop drinking, but not today," qrow joked and chugged what remained of his flask.
"I don't believe we ever had the upper hand, but this is embarrassing," tai scoffed, rubbing his face.
"Focus on the center of this thing," Prof. port piped up tapping his finger on the date marking cole's death, the decrease in grimm, decrease of mission recruitment requests for hunters, but unfortunately, it meant the rise of white fang terrorist cells in remnant, the fanatic saviors became public as community service helpers but were killers and thieves. Then, the port had oobleck separate the times that didn't match up with any other dates.
"Prof. Oobleck what's the matter with -" Clover tried but saw the dates and titles of the documents in question.
"After Mr. Valentine "died" three groups sprouted from the disaster that day and now that reaper is here with his face and voice I must ask what you all won't" oobleck said.
"Cole is reaper, you idiots," jaune yelled as he tossed the robotic arm on the table with Blake's autopsy with it.
Penny "shivered" as she looked at the documents that scattered all over the table "what makes you think that cole is still alive as reaper" she asked reflexively gripping her arm with a look of knowing.
Jaune wore just his clothes and a black hoodie over his head and a gritty blonde beard peaking through skin that hadn't seen a razor in years.
"Jaune, you know you aren't allowed in here," Glynda said with a stern glare that made even geralt anxious.
"We've all seen who Reaper had killed and who was on his list." Jaune began as he stood at an empty seat but didn't sit.
Port said gruff and tired; for the first time ever, he was annoyed with a student "team jnpr as well as half of team RWBY egged cole on to demolish all of you in ten minutes or less that day and you accuse a dead man of faking said death and boisterous confidence has you saying that that serial killer is cole?!"
Pulling port back from hitting jaune qrow chugged his second flask.
"Kid, I will make this perfect for you to understand." Qrow began as he belched, a caramel whiskey scent reached through his nostrils and made jaune gag. "Sparky had gold orange lightning, but reaper has red and purple lightning, same as baron."
Proving that he was right qrow showed both reaper and cole side by side as they fired lightning, but it was ciri that spoke "cole fires off his power with his left hand and arches his fingers like claws. Reaper fires his with his right hand. Cole had a grimm hand while reaper...had a robotic arm."
"Then what about the fact that I found they have the same eyes?" jaune said cockily but geralt shut him down.
"Cole had a genetic condition that his eyes differed in color, reaper has fake eyes he uses to sell his identity as cole's identity"
"How the hell do you know that?!" Harriet shouted mouth hung open with disbelief.
"I fought reaper briefly and I tried shoving my thumbs in his face when his contacts shattered like glass and the second time we fought I found his eyes were a cold steel color like he hijacked the dead eyes of a corpse."
"Then what about how both share an obsession with weiss and suddenly a few months ago reaper kidnaps her and before that he'd brutally killed her father and before that tried killing yang, successful when he killed Pyrrha and tortured Blake before killing her"
"Sienna Kahn killed Blake not reaper" glynda blurted annoyed with this rehashing of past hells
"Cole wasn't a poetic maniac. He hated poems like these" vine of all people interrupted monotone and calculated lyrics.
Diplomatic wasn't amongst her stronger subjects, so she simply shut jaune up by covering his mouth and pulled him through the elevator doors and looked to everyone tossing her ear to elm "I'll take him back to his room and I'll still hear you all so don't worry" penny smiled as she held jaune firmly and rode down to the ground floor.
one hour later*
The meeting went off without anymore problems, and Penny eventually got her ear back...it's disgusting either way, but Elm dealt it how she had with everything else. Joking about it mostly with puns in mind, and nothing was capable of making it funny.
Jaune was reprimanded for the disrespect and glynda took him off beacon grounds where he went home in a small studio apartment and was told to go rest but lost the arm jaune stole and watched Goodwitch leave with it.
Beacon had been rebuilt after reaper and the saviors blew half of it up, killed dozens of students as well as weiss getting abducted and lost power to most of the grimm countermeasures...sdc security had a fit when weiss went missing.
Rebuilding beacon was hard, but thankfully, most of the Atlesian fleet helped beacon secure itself while mistral and vacuo built the school back up where it needed it.
Most surprisingly, the white fang that defected over the years helped as community service and jail time shortening all at once.
With not having to work for several months, Ruby had brought everyone she could contact from beacon she'd befriended, and invited them to a potluck of sorts. Of course, it was Yang's idea to have one, so she hosted the 'party' at her place with tai helping out.
Team CRDL brought the supplies to seat the large number of people.
What remained of jaune's team brought party décor.
Qrow brought weak booze and lots of it.
Rayla -of all people- swung by with cakes and pies.
Because Ruby invited the adults as well, tai was surprised to see that glynda, Ironwood, oobleck, Port, Penny, and the ace ops swung by with dishes of their own making.
Everyone had brought meals to share and talking about everything besides the hell they've been dealing with, but the more stubborn feeling that a disaster was coming was forced to the back of their minds as to simply enjoy themselves.
Unfortunately, all the fun that was dressed up as a potluck party was actually a distraction for the students, Ruby, yang, jaune, Ren and nora -rayla didn't care much but was interested in seeing it all unfold.
Ren walked up to nora holding a bowl of ox meat and pasta topped with cream of mushroom sauce. Leaning in he whispered "I got the full timeline; no one in that room seemed to notice"
Nora smirked at him and kissed his cheek thumbing through the findings not caring that the others gathered in and observed the sheer amount of it all surrounding cole and it now made sense.
"Guys, how do we help when we legally have no ways of getting to this archipelago" yang asked poking the dragon islands and looked over the others faces.
"one place at a time yang, we need a more clear plan before doing anything. But if you can convince someone to help you there I'd be surprised" jaune grabbing a piece of the map on his hard-light hologram from his scroll and showed them mistral's timeline pieces "I'll take this one and see where it leads; ren, nora you guys willing to help grab an extra hand with me and head to mistral?"
Both took a look at the blonde knight and exchanged looks, "we were hoping on taking the mistral mission with yang since her mother lives in the wilds of anima...just hope we find her" nora said knowing she had better sway with his emotions that ren had been.
"we need you here in vale with the teachers so that they have someone to distract them and-" ren began but jaune shouted "SO IM BEING LEFT BEHIND?!"
Ruby slapped him and continued Ren's explanation "we need two people to spy on beacon staff to ensure they don't catch on to what we're doing, honestly we'd like you to stick with penny and help her but you need something to do; reaper isn't cole and that spark plug's dead so stop-"
"if that statement was true than who's this man friend ruby" penny appeared behind the group holding up a music video of the lightning man in the flesh rocking out in a mistralian village caption reading: professional Rockstar in hiding no longer hidden, unfortunately the video had disappeared faster than she could play it and behind her walking in James Ironwood, brigadier general of atlas and now an angry man pointing his gun to the group in front of him. "Two minutes to explain or I'm arresting all of you" he ordered cold and quickly, "I took the precautions that penny would malfunction if she betrayed me for her friends"
Placing his barrel to her forehead penny spoke first "I merely wished to help friends like these find comfort he was still alive brigadier general ironwood"
The others nodded to that not uttering a word...well yang did speak but everyone was terrified of the words that'd come out of her mouth "Sir I want to find my mother so that she'd be able to help defeat remnant's enemies but it's a long shot if we don't come together with more than just you old geezers doing it all without your hunters behind you but im checking the dragon archipelago in case mistral's a bust"
"does she speak for you all or is there more?" he asked taking a step back still aiming his gun at them.
"me and ren want to find out who Dr.merlot is and why reaper is like he is...plus our destroyed village is out there, we're going to pay respect to our dead families"
Ruby stood infront of penny and glared him in the eyes "I and rayla are going to vacuo to check why the timelines abruptly stop at a prison and go from there"
Jaune was last and said "and I'm staying in beacon with penny and the ace ops to help with vale's wilds to see where reaper and the saviors are staying so that we can prove the white fang isn't the only players hurting the kingdom"
Sighing with resigned irritation Ironwood holstered his hand cannon and looked them over before he spoke evenly and with all the military authority he had "you all may do as you plan but remember that you all must return alive and report to us in the inner circle of remnant every day and detail it to the best of your abilities..." softening his demeanor he gave every one of them -save rayla whom left after Ironwood showed himself- a short but fatherly hug "don't trust the dark; it's not all its known to be"
Ruby smiled at him as he walked off leaving the hallway towards the elevator doors and entered "for the good of remnant and the blood of your bonds I pray to see you all again" he watched them mockingly Salute him making him smile "and please come back in one piece that's an order" before the doors closed they all unified a loud "Yes sir Ironwood" and down he went with hope he made the right choice.
By the time he reached the vault of beacon getalt and ciri were there, ciri was holding her head in the fetal position on her knees crying and screaming. Geralt held her as best he could trying to calm her but couldn't do anything to help.
Wisps of oily green magic ebbed off her form as her eyes began glowing, threw herself to her side away from the men and shakily stood up but fell to her knees "I messed up- geralt this is the closest I could get you; James will stay to protect me...go through the portal and get ready for a fight"
Her mouth bled, eyes glowed brighter still and opened the most unstable portal ever made but held it nonetheless.
"Cirilla rivia I'm not leaving you like this down here I refuse to leave you again!" he argued tears stinging his eyes trying to stay there with his daughter.
"Father, you and I know I can Handle this just go I'll be okay...trust me." She stood tall and firmly looking him in the eye "I'm an adult I'm fully capable, always have been"
Geralt hugged her and yelled at Ironwood "she dies I'll gut you tin man"
James nodded and aimed one hand cannon at the elevator doors and another at the portal standing as still as the statues lining the vault walls. "I love you ciri" he said before leaping through the portal.
Unbeknownst to the three of them nora had managed to go through the portal too and in doing so forced the portal closed without warning.
"geralt no!"
"DAD NOOO"
Both screamed together unbelieving that it just happened so suddenly and not even a second was given to attempt to stop nora when they caught her red hair in their peripherals.
Geralt slid to a stop from the other side of the closing portal and thought to start searching for the target with his witcher sense but when he tried using it a body crashed into his back knocking him down face first to the wet grass.
"ow ow ow, your bones are sharp you know that?" She complained standing up hoisting him up only for geralt to hold a hand over her mouth pinning her to the car door behind her. "you shouldn't be here, you have any idea how dangerous this place is?"
Nora flinched seeing reaper stand over a woman in torn dirty clothes. She was sobbing and reaper raved about a party. Geralt signed to nora 'follow behind me and make as little sound as possible'
She nodded watching the scene unfold before her, the most disturbing thing about reaper was his body looked to be falling apart and yet insanity made him worse than ever.
Geralt crept forward pulling out the steel sword black unicorn he got from yennifer the day he came to remnant and its been his best weapon he's wielded.
Nora had stayed a few feet behind her teacher but held still when he held up his hand to have her drop on her stomach because reaper had looked their way as he swayed around the sobbing woman. But her mind crashed like a corrupted laptop hearing weiss of all people and rage took ahold of her making her aim her grenade launcher but geralt stopped her with axii "Stay back and stay quiet for a moment" he whispered as he got up hid behind a tree and watched reaper intently.
Getting a better look geralt got even closer he spotted Reaper throwing Weiss into a stream and rattled on psychotic and angrily, "See, it all makes sense, doesn't it? You and your saviors have a fight, one of you tries to grab a knife And during the struggle, husband accidentally gets his Adam's apple sliced"
"no"
"And while this is going on, his son has woke up And he walks in, wife panics, and he gets his throat cut"
"Oh my God"
"So now they both dead and you slash your own Throat, So now it's double homicide and suicide with no note"
He broke down again and giggled "I shoulda known better when you started to act weird We could've-"
He heard panting and feet stomping away and he chased after "hey, where you goin'? Get back here You can't run from me, Weiss, it's just us, nobody else You're only making this harder on yourself Ha-ha, gotcha"
She screamed louder than she'd screamed in her life in the hopes someone, hell, anyone would help her.
Unbeknownst to both geralt sprinted off behind them putting his sword up trusting that his signs would be enough, but his skill amounted to nothing if she dies so he pushed his old body farther and harder than before reaching close to 30 mph.
"go ahead, yell, Here, I'll scream with you, Ahhh, somebody help" he tackled her and pinned her arms to her side looking down at her face filling more and more with terror.
"Don't you get it, bitch? No one can hear you, Now shut the fuck up, and get what's comin' to you- You were supposed to love me"
He raised a replica of Haiiro no shi (grey death) he stole from an archive of weapons he'd made and aimed closer upward and about to pierce her in the throat.
With help of a small piece of aura she had, she used time dilation on herself and in doing so, the world slowed to a crawl, the bloody knife came down towards her throat intending to slice her wide open, She didn't want this to be her end, her death would hurt so many people so in desperation she called out one last time, amping her voice with what aura she'd had left.
"SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!"
Geralt summoned all the power he could muster and blast reaper off Weiss with Aard and igni simultaneously burning him all over while blasting him away.
Geralt stepped infront of weiss protectively, pulled his sword free and used quen to shroud himself and weiss just in case. "it's time to see who's the man and who's the monster" he said strolling to meet reaper halfway...unfortunately he was rolling off the singed rags that once was his shirt and coat showing that reaper's body had suffered over the years due to the cloned gene rejection process he heard about
"you...the hell you think you are barging in on a husband disciplining his wife!?" reaper giggled but geralt just rushed him delivering a sickening swipe down to the left thigh, slashed up his back and brought his blade down swift for an execution style; merciful and quick end to cleave him in half, but reaper caught the blade in his left hand and blew geralt back with all the remaining dust in his other arm.
The sword had been knocked from his hands so he had to fight Fist-to-cuffs till he recovered black unicorn and he needed to do it fast. Dashing forward delivering his hardest hit he could reaper egotistically smiled till it bounced off a golden shield over geralt's arms managing to push geralt back four meters back in a bending knee slide. He advanced on him.
Both boxed around like professionals in a cage but unlike geralt reaper used his legs and arms to fight using a variation merging jujitsu and kickboxing.
The fist fight stopped momentarily as they locked hands in a power struggle "you will not take my beloved from me, she's mine" reaper said with a mixture of Growling and gurgling like a dying bear on steroids.
"you have no claim to my student you sick bastard, you tried to kill her-"
"You want her so bad?! Then show me you got the strength to TAKE. HER. FROM. ME!" reaper emphasized the last bit with a knee to geralt's diaphragm then tossed him into nora, whom had just started running to help but hit the ground hard.
"I'm not as familiar but this should be enough proof you all will die if you cross me after being granted mercy...oh well" he cracked his knuckles watching nora help geralt up and POP the gold shield shattered. Reaper held his hand up to kill them both but forgot that nora's immunity to his dust gave her an edge, so as he blew her away from geralt and into the tall grass, reaper made a run for weiss swiping nora's hammer laughing like a mad man.
"YOU WILL DIE FOR BETRAYING ME!"
"NORA, WEISS LOOK OUT!"
Without thinking geralt dashed across the field got in-between weiss and reaper hoping to save her from the attack, but so did nora and she ended up behind geralt because she'd picked Weiss up from the ground hoping to shield her.
Both nora and weiss expected an impact but instead heard a sickeningly meaty rip of flesh, snapping of bones and the warm spray of blood hit their clothes as magnahild struck geralt in his face, he'd managed to trap him in the biggest yrden trap he'd conjured up but the result was his head met Nora's Warhammer and all three flew into the portal soaked in blood.
Knowing two people survive not one, nor two, but THREE murder attempts from him pissed him off but the sick satisfaction he got see the white wolf finally die filled him with glee and even more so he had the white wolf's black unicorn sword "hehehe I bet lilac or even baron will forgives me for what I did if I bring the fabled 'white wolf's' blade...all that's left is his daughter's blade" he slipped from snickering to full blown hysterical laughter and walked off to drive back to base with black unicorn tossed in the back seat.