Chapter 14: Mount Glenn

"I wonder why Professor Ozpin called us all here?" Weiss asked curiously as her team, along with Team MESS, JNPR, and SSSN sat down next to each other inside of the auditorium area.

"Beats me…he called everyone, including our guests for the tournament here." Ruby continued, spotting Penny with her own team on the opposite side. "Maybe he's going to talk about increasing security about-" Moon gave her silent glare with his exposed blue eye, making her sweat a little.

"Er…the highway incident." She rubbed the back of her head, blushing. "After all, Torchwick got his hands on that Atlassian Mech so easily."

"Yeah, though I feel like seeing the Atlas Military just patrolling campus is enough." Ren murmured quietly. "I mean, what are they going to start doing now? Ransacking our school bags before we enter each classroom."

"Those guys really seem to have it out for you four as well." Sun's friend Neptune said, directing his attention to Team MESS. "I mean, we've all seen the video, but it's like they think there is something else wrong with you all."

"Can't imagine why."

The four teams fell silent, along with the rest of the population in the auditorium, as Ozpin approached a microphone. With Professor Goodwitch close behind.

"Thank you for your patience." Ozpin spoke into the microphone, still with his neutral tone. Moon had to give credit where credit was due. The tone was very consistent, so it would feel almost out of character to hear him be concerned about something.

"As many of you know, the Vytal Dance was supposed to be today. However, due to some recent…problems. We've decided to postpone it to the end of this week."

Moon's eyes narrowed as the professor spoke. He absolutely despised not being able to read his, or any of his weird little cult's thoughts. Glynda, Ironwood, he also reckoned the other school headmasters and Qrow would be a similar story. It took a lot of will power to be able to block telepathy, and unless you had, for lack of a better word, a brain on crack like Ruby did. Telepathy would usually be a very straightforward method.

"Now," Ozpin continued, after the groans settled down. "We know we promised that we'd wave a few days by for the Vytal Dance and others. So, we are deciding on doing something a bit more…productive for your time."

"As many of you know, being a Hunter is all about doing work for the community, and the people who help keep our kingdoms safe." Glynda continued. "We haven't had any real opportunities for you to experience field work that a typical Hunter may have. So, we have decided to take some stress from our staked authorities and organize field trips for you all to help do typical Hunter jobs."

Judging by the widened eyes and gasps from students, Team MESS reasoned that this was a fairly uncommon thing to happen.

"In a few minutes time, we will be dismissing you back to your dorm rooms." Ozpin said. "From there, you will be sent a list of jobs you can take on your own account. Some of these will be chaperoned by our professors. But some will be much simpler tasks that many of you will need no guidance on. I encourage all of you to look over these tasks carefully."

"That's odd." Moon heard Pyrrha whisper to her own team. "They typically save this more towards the end of a semester, usually after the Vytal Festival Dance itself."

By this point, Ozpin and Glynda had walked off stage, leaving the loud murmurs from the rest of the crowd to release.

"So…what are these jobs?" Erick asked, looking at the three Teams.

"Ah, they can be all sorts of stuff. Community Service to Field Research." Weiss replied, giving Erick an unusual grin. "Very occasionally, they'll have tougher missions focused on combating Grimm nests and stuff like that. But those are typically reserved for 2nd year teams like CFVY."

"Oooh, Maybe after our performance on the Oum Highway, we can convince Ozpin to let us do a Grimm Nest extermination!" Yang pumped a fist as a bit of flames sparked in her lilac eyes. "We'll be backed by an experienced Hunter this time, so there's less of a risk involved."

"What about you all?" Blake asked, directing the conversation to JNPR and SSSN.

"I think it'll be good for us to look for help working for a smaller village." Ren said quietly. Nora nodded her head in agreement.

"Yeah, let's go for that!" Jaune added quickly. "It'll be a lot more up our alley, and can help those in need!"

Moon shrugged his shoulders as he heard a buzzing sound. Before he heard Erick's voice enter his head telepathically.

"Something's setting off the viruses I tried to implant on the communications to extract information from the communications line." The genius' voice said. "I know, I know what you're gonna say, but I wanted to try and understand the technology around here faster. The viruses are untraceable since I used a buner scroll."

Moon sighed, he couldn't be mad, at some point it likely would've come to that anyway. As the scuffles of footsteps and squeaks echoed, he stood up with the rest of his team, and made their way to the dorm rooms.

"Alright, so we need to do community service for some people. That should be nice." Sarah said calmly as she plopped herself down on the bed, after they had checked to ensure Astro was still asleep. "Maybe it'll make public opinion of us better…the comments on that video of us, along with news reports pestering officials has not made our image good."

Moon didn't reply to her as he sat in a sort of meditation stance. A habit that he apparently had used to keep self control in Fodlan when they had been separated. Or maybe he was talking with Dark Moon privately. She couldn't be sure, but she gave her husband his own privacy, since Moon respected hers.

"Yes, well, I was hoping we could find something that would give us an excuse to go off the grid for a bit." Sapphire rubbed the back of his head as he and Sarah watched Erick scroll through the job list.

"Don't get your hopes up." Erick replied. "Let's see…" he scrolled past a bunch of smaller jobs that more or less just sounded like petty parental work. "Let's see…tutor younglings…non combative scouting missions…aiding Grimm Patrol…uh…"

Moon had opened his eyes as the genius' voice trailed off. "You…may wanna see this."

Standing up Moon walked over to the rest of his team and took a look at the requested report.

Mysterious Survey Reports

Status: Available

Location: Mount Glenn

Recent flyover drone surveys determined that Grimm population of the ruins of the Mount Glenn Civilization Project suggest that Grimm population has decreased nearly 60% from what was estimated just under two weeks ago. Camera footage also seems to suggest that there are some stakeouts going on at this very moment. Weird technological or mechanical looking items have been spotted on road surfaces. Including some type of clay statue with an electrical antenna on its head.

Wanted: at bare minimum 3rd year students, with their weapons*

*Due to staffing limitations, your team will be solo, it is unlikely you shall need to fight given the sudden decrease of Grimm. But it is a precaution we must warn you of.

"First of all, what the fuck kinda field trip is this?" Sapphire asked. "I mean, I know Garreg Mach had us do shit like that. But at least there were always Knights ready to jump in and stop students."

Sarah and Erick looked at their leader. Moon's blue eye narrowed as he scanned through it himself. All three of them knew from the Clayman Statue who this was.

"You uh…you know we have to take this, before someone else sees and tries it themselves." Erick said, giving his leader a shake of the head. That was enough to cue Sapphire in as evident by his understanding eye widened.

"I know," Moon replied. "Just…do me a favor, Erick, would it be possible for you to use your corruption to see into the code…or something?"

"I uh…I thought we weren't going to try that?" Sarah whispered.

"We aren't going to steal." Moon assured her. "I just want to know who else can see this mission. Something seems…fishy."

The genius nodded his head and went silent as he concentrated his vision. Moon watched as black streams of light appeared on his friend's body and made their way towards the scroll, disappearing on contact.

"Are…are you even able to corrupt technology?" Sapphire asked, puzzled by the thought.

"If it worked on the Multiversal Data system, and the Triforce of Wisdom, both of which were created by gods to provide information to only a select few. Then surely it can work on this internet style equivalent."

After a moment, another screen popped up on the scroll, and Erick shook his head, alerting them back to his consciousness.

"Alright, internal code for the status list given, visibility check…and…" The screen dinged for a second. "Yep, your hunch is right, Moon. This mission is coded to only appear in two lists, one is ours, and the other I imagine is the parent list that the duplicates were sent from."

"So, that leaves us with two possibilities, the first being that they're playing it extremely safe. With the second being that they are well aware this is Pokey and Rhea's doings." Sapphire crossed his arms. "You uh…did you ever mention the Pigmask Army to them?"

"Pokey hasn't had access to those brainwashed people in ages." Moon replied calmly. "Though, it wouldn't surprise me if Salem is somehow using the white fang as a sort of…meatshield."

"Yeah, Pokey would never work with them willingly. It's not his nature." Sarah whispered. "Even if the White Fang are in a gray area with their actions to better the Faunus Race, if they truly believe they are doing good for the faunus, then that would go against what Pokey, and everyone else who's worked with Giygas stood for. So it's likely they might be trying to take advantage of what they want. Remember, Blake called them a bunch of Misguided Faunus."

"So, with all that, we should expect anything Pokey has used previously to attack?" Sapphire asked, crossing his arms. "That's quite a lot of technology if you remember. Some are more concerning than others."

"Laser Guns, PSI Nullifiers and Capturing Devices, Bombing Ships, Lightning Guns, all of his stupid Mechs, Mani-Mani hypnotizer, that giantass statue of himself, robots, missiles, poisonous and nauses gases, chimeras, and corrupters." Erick listed off his fingers. "Then there's us, of course." he added glumly. "Though, I think they'd need Giygas and all 5 saints to pull that stunt off again. Which is not possible anymore since Cichol and Cethleann are dead."

"Regardless, you couple Pokey's unreasonably high intellect with the fact that Torchwick, who is also helping the White Fang, has somehow gotten access to Atlas technology like that mech he fought Team RWBY with." Moon added, glancing at Astro. "And we're already looking at a bad situation. Especially with the knowledge that this universe has been in development of technology that can counter us as well."

As if on cue, the blue orb that allowed them to communicate with the Smash Council buzzed a little. Though, this time, the large image of a wireless call didn't pop up. Instead, a message did.

"Verdict was reached, 42 - 41. Be sure you make this weird little Cult of Ozpin aware that if they are found to be in possession of ANY type of technology from any of our own worlds, they can be tried and prosecuted now that they are aware of our existence, the same logic applies to Team RWBY as well."

Moon sighed as his friends looked at him. "I figured it'd barely scrape by." he muttered. "Those Handcuffs were all the proof we needed that someone here is keeping secrets. We have no need to be transparent with them anymore. Not if they already have countermeasures."

The buzzing of the scroll in Erick's hands alerted them down to the mission. Which they saw had been marked approved. And was now saying they needed to report to the loading docks.

It was uncomfortable, well, that was an understatement, it was fucking prision.

"Not like school wasn't already a prison." Moon muttered to himself as he gripped Sarah's hand in the middle of the Atlas Ship. They, along with Sapphire and Erick, had been forced down into a very squished bench. While Ironwood, along with four soldiers stood behind them.

Upon learning that they'd be escorted to Mount Glenn by Ironwood, the Team of four had briefly discussed how to handle approaching their intentions to the General without raising suspicion.

"So…you can't provide us with an army…why?" Erick grumbled. "I thought the whole point of this mission was for us to be on our own. Yet you and your military guide us out?"

"Circumstances, most notably a few important events, mean otherwise." Ironwood replied, giving the four of them an equally distrustful stare. "In any event, I'm quite surprised the four of you would agree to do such work like this. You wouldn't happen to have an ulterior motive? We only put this up on the list to see what students thought they could."

"You could say it…piqued our interests." Moon scratched his arm a little. "What happened out here anyway?"

The man's face didn't change, but his eyes seemed to shift in a way none of them could pick up.

"Well, a decade or two ago, researchers in Vale made an unfortunate prediction that they were expecting a population boom. Well, as I'm certain you've read up on. All of our kingdoms exist within tight bordered walls, even in some of the rural countryside. I would've thought your experience in Forever Fall would've taught you that."

"We didn't really…you know…notice." Sarah replied, Moon felt the grip on his hand tighten. Thankfully, whatever fucking thing was keeping those goddamn hallunications of what Nightmare did to her at bay had cooled down. But the prickly pain from Dark Moon could still be felt.

"Hmm…maybe that's why your class performance in Remnant History has been…less than stellar…except for you." He glared at Erick.

Erick merely shrugged his shoulders and went back to tinkering with Gaia. Something that, now that Moon thought about it, felt very not Ironwood like to have Erick just tinker with a gun in front of him.

"Regardless…" Ironwood continued, "We constructed the Glenn settlement in the hopes of prepping for that initial boom. We had a lot of time and resources put into it. Even made a whole underground network train system to connect it to Vale. Unfortunately, we got a bit overzealous, and then the Paladin Incident happened. We lost a great scientist that day…" Ironwood's voice trailed off.

"In any event, the project-city lies in ruin. We were able to get people out in time and sealed off the underground paths in case any Grimm happened to wander into those tunnels."

The back door to the jet opened and the four friends got up to leave. They instantly took in the sight. Unlike Vale, which had bright colorful contrast, everything about this place just looked gloomy. Made sense, they supposed. It was a ruined city.

"I've been told by Ozpin that you can sense negative energy." Moon raised an eyebrow as they heard Ironwood's boots tap against the ground. "I assume that you'll be of great use for the surveying work. After all, we do this to keep everyone in Remnant Safe. There's nothing I wouldn't sacrifice to ensure that. Even my own public image."

The four of them turned to face the general. Ironwood did one more firm scan between the four of them. "Good luck, we'll come back for you all…eventually."

"I can feel as though our bond with Ironwood has grown."

Confidant, Rank: 2

General James Ironwood

Moon just shook his head as the distant sound of the jet engine began to fill his ears.

"Oh, wait, General!" he called.

Ironwood turned to face the four of them again. "Yes?" he asked, a somewhat bitter undertone.

Moon shuffled around his backpack before withdrawing a document of papers. He handed the stack to the general. "I need you and Ozpin, and all your other cohorts to uh…take care of this."

The general's brown eyes narrowed as he looked at the stapled events. "What is this?"

"A new multiversal ordinance." Erick replied. "Now that you and Ozpin are aware of our Multiverse's existence, even if we can't put anyone on the council, you are expected to abide by our own rules. Since we've had some…minor…issues. The Smash Council passed this into action. Any technology you find that isn't explicitly yours needs to be turned over to us immediately. Pokey has quite the knack for leaving his shit in places, and the effects that could come from it if it got into the wrong hands…"

"I can understand that," the general replied, crossing his arms with the documents. "My questions stem more from…violations, and the upholding of equality."

"Well, the law applies to everyone." Sapphire replied, "So if any of your world's tech ends up in our hands, we'll be sure to turn it over to you all. Of course, you'd need to send blueprints and stuff to the council, just in case we need to go through coding, sometimes tech can be a bit…samey. Of course, if you don't want to padet any of your tech to the Multiverse, don't expect us to uphold it."

"And, not to be entirely unfair to you," Moon continued, "If you flip through the pages, you'll find pictures, descriptions, and other useful information about some of the more common Multiverse technology. Power ups, chaos emeralds, itemized enhancers, various weapons, robot masters, and a few more obscure stuff that we suspect Pokey and Rhea might be able to get."

Ironwood's eyes narrowed as they watched him flip through a few pages, his eyes remained unchanged, but Moon could feel his aura seem to flare a little more.

"And violations?" The general continued. He still had a neutral tone, but his face indicated anger. "What if we don't want to enforce this? And, what if someone is in violation of it?"

"Well…you don't really get a choice now that you're aware of the Smash Council's existence." Sarah shrugged a little. "As for how we'll handle violators…we'll have to cross that bridge if we get there. We only have this in place to keep dangerous things out of the hands of the wrong people. And, like Moon mentioned, it's a two way street, we'll return any of your tech to you if we happen to come across it. Again, provided you show us what they are and how they work."

Ironwood's eyes narrowed as they watched him flip through a few pages. They watched him raise his white glove up to his chin and rub it, before he eventually stopped his scanning. Before he looked back at them.

"I shall talk this over with Professor Ozpin, as well as the other kingdom leaders. We'll do what we can. Is that fine?"

Each of Team MESS nodded their heads.

"Very well, stay safe out here." Ironwood finished. "I know I'm telling that to people who are possibly more skilled than any hunters here, but it's a courtesy." The general gave them a salute before turning into his ship, which took off very quickly.

"Alrighty then," Erick said, tilting his glasses. "Let's get star-"

DUN DUN DUN DUN! DUN! DUN! DDDDDUUUUUNNN!

"Of for fu-" The four of them didn't even flinch as the Photographic genius smashed on the ground in front of them.

"Pictures taken instantaneously, I'm a photographic genius if I do say so myself! Oka-"

"PK Fire γ!" Team MESS felt their eyes blink in comical shock as Sarah's flames just phazed through the man.

"Get ready for an instant memory, Look at the camera! Ready? Say FUZZY PICKLES!" and just like that, the flash of the camera went off and the four of them blinked back to see the man had vanished.

"I hate that guy…so fucking much." Erick grumbled.

"Whatever," Moon just shook his head. "We aren't here to stand around and stare. Let's figure out what the hell is going on here."

"Stay alert as well." Sapphire reminded him, giving him a half-hearted smile. "This could very well be more than just Pokey and Rhea."

Now that he mentioned that, the dark energy felt much more intense than normal. Sure, probably because they were actually in a dangerous Grimm zone. But it felt so much more oppressive than Seiros had been.

"Stay close." He whispered, unsheathing Saphira. His friends nodded in response as they slowly trekked around the roads.

And thus, their search began, none of them dared move far apart from each other and every slight wince that Moon felt himself make, had his own team draw their own breaths. He had to give props to Pokey for picking such a miserable looking place. The whole city was abandoned and served as nothing more than a reminder of failure for humanity in this world.

Eventually, however, they would come across the exact thing they had seen in the picture. The abandoned clayman statue, just plopped over on its side, melting out into a weird type of not-so-gooey puddles.

"Definitely Pork Face's." Moon muttered, looking at the lifeless carving. All of a sudden, the amount of corrupt energy just exploded into a push.

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk." Team MESS each groaned simultaneously as they turned to face Pokey. As they expected, this time he was piloting his mecha-spider. They heard a flap of wings as Rhea landed next to him, bracing the Sword of Seiros at the four of them.

"I had left that Clayman statue out thinking it'd take those fuckers at least a week to realize some shit was up." Pokey hissed.

"It doesn't matter either way." Rhea continued, giving an evil glare to the four of them. "I think it's about time you four come with us."

Moon indicated his head, and, after a moment, he heard his teammates whiff an agreement.

Pokey fiddled around, and the spider mech fired a large amount of slime at the four of them.

"Go," Moon casted a Shield to block the goo as Sarah and Sapphire both took to the sides of both of them.

Rhea quickly spotted the movement and kicked off towards Sarah. She clashed her glassy sword against Freya's golden face. Sending a burst of blue lightning in multiple directions.

"Such a sweet innocence you had…" Rhea hissed at Sarah's face. "I remember holding you as a baby, you know?"

Sarah's face didn't change, she concentrated some PSI into her foot and swiftly kicked Rhea's left knee below her battle dress, the PSI shifted its energy and sent the saint flying backwards, even in spite of her much worse psychical power compared to her three friends. She was always more magic based power.

Rhea toppled against the ground before she kicked off the broken road and propelled herself into the air using her wings.

"PK Thunder γ!" Three bolts of lightning stormed over the sky Rhea quickly flapped around two but the last one struck her in the back.

"Go Erick!" Sarah shouted.

The genius nodded his head as four bottle rockets were lit and flew around before blowing up as they collided with Rhea.

Moon warped next to Sapphire as Rhea was blown up. His blue haired friend used his Earth powers to try and stop Pokey's movements around with the Spider mech. A big multicolored beam of light appeared on one of the Spider's feet as Pokey aimed it at Sapphire.

"Hydro Quake!" Moon called over. His blue-haired friend nodded his head and smashed Stalwart-Terra against the ground.

"PK Hydro!" Moon planted his hand against the cracked ground that Stalwart Terra opened. The ground shook as a massive geyser of water erupted into the center of Pokey's armed mech. The beam shorted out as the geyser pushed it into the sky.

Sapphire quickly raised his axe to summon a few boulders, before hitting the rocks into the air. Moon used his levitation to propel himself as the rocks smashed against Pokey's mech. Concentrating PK Rollin into his sword, he slashed his sword and unleashed a power blast of light into the mech.

Pokey chuckled as its sharp legs quickly moved into a stab motion. Moon felt two painly jabs into his sides as Pokey's mech tilted towards him.

"Since you always seem to try and outwit my inventions, I decided to learn. This little armed machine is much more durable, and can hold myself up in the air. The two sharp ends of the legs kept digging into him, Moon could feel them reaching his bones as Pokey's sinister glare flashed at him.

Sapphire jumped down off the roof of one of the abandoned buildings and quickly smashed his axe against the top. The powerful bash had Pokey's sharp legs snap out of his sides. Moon hissed, but quickly fought through it to glide over and catch Sapphire.

"Need a hand?" Sapphire asked him, feeling the amount of blood leaking from both sides of his leader's body. "Just hold still, I learned a bit of white magic myself, remember. Don't want you to pass out, or break your levitation just to heal yourself."

Moon quickly air-dodged, still gripping his Gladio Friend as Rhea swooped past them, attempting a Dolphin Slash with her wings and sword. The saint was greeted with a large blast of fire from both Erick and Sarah from the ground. He felt the warm sensation of glee as he felt the pain of having two sides dug into patch up.

"PURIFY Ω." Two beams of green and white light blasted the two of them into the ground, they both heard the scuffle from Sarah and Erick as they pushed themselves up, Moon quickly using Lifeup to fix themselves as the four of them regrouped with each other.

"Death Spikes!" Rhea's shadowy sharp knives surrounded the four of them as they shot into the center, each spike collided with the four of them and pushed them into each other.

The four friends each grunted as they stood up. Moon quickly took action as he and Sapphire both went to attack Pokey once again as Erick began to set up another rocket. Looking around, Sarah quickly spotted Rhea's hands lifted into the air, and a meteor was developing and falling fast, quite large.

"PK Starstorm!" She shouted.

Several blue meteors began to develop and hurl down in spiral motions; they blew the meteor Rhea was sending towards Moon and Sapphire into bits as they continued to spike the Saint downwards!"

"NOW!" Pokey shouted.

Moon skidded to a halt and quickly grabbed Sapphire as he heard the clicking sound of a gun followed by Sarah scream and the snapping of some type of metallic band. Then his entire viewpoint just became another front row assault of Nightmare's violation of Sarah. Her screams filled his ears, she was hurt, she was hurting from him. All because of him.

Sapphire quickly gathered his senses as his leader just froze up after grabbing him. Pokey cackled before swiping at the two of them, he jumped out of the way, but Pokey's leg flicked Moon across the road where his body just limply rolled around like a ragdoll until it collided with Sarah, who was laid up against the ground with her arms bounded to her sides by one of those Atleasian bands.

"MOON! MOON!" He heard Sarah cry. Sapphire turned his attention to Erick, unfortunately, whatever was going on had made the genius freeze in place too. It didn't take long for a Miasma blast from Rhea to do the exact same thing, leaving the three friends just a limped out pile. He quickly backed up so that he could put himself as close to his teammates as possible as Pokey cackled insanely. He watched as the Spider legs began to charge their own beams at him.

"It really was that easy, huh?" Pokey snickered a little. Sapphire heard the flapping wings of Rhea approaching him from behind. He bit down on his lip, which Pokey caught sight of.

"I think you understand where this is going." Pokey snickered at him. "Salem's a woman of reason though. You can just lay down your weapon, and come with us. Or…you can die like the good little knight you are." Sapphire narrowed his eyes. Which seemed to make Pokey's glaring grin grow great lengths.

"What's the world ever done for you?" Pokey asked. "You spent all those years helping an emperor to overthrow a peaceful society. You've slaughtered innocent people yourself. Brought warfare, destruction, and chaos to people who didn't want it. You're no better than I was."

"Unlike you, and Rhea, I didn't want to make Fódlan my toybox." Sapphire retorted. "What we did was for the greater good."

"Blah, Blah, the greater good." Pokey hissed. "You did all that work. For what? Edelgard was just gonna disown you. You didn't have any usefulness to her outside of your charming looks for the military that she threw away. And what about Moon? Huh?"

Sapphire shook his head. "Haven't you done enough?" he asked. "People like you, and Rhea, you're exactly what's wrong with the world. I'll never surrender to you, Rhea, or Salem, and I sure as hell aren't going to let you kidnap them."

Pokey shrugged his shoulders. "A pity really," he said. "I had thought that you'd be the Sapphire to break tradition. If you had come with us, we might have actually been able to work something out and make the experience less…revolting. RHEA!"

Quickly thinking, Sapphire raised Stalwart-Terra over his head and scraped it against the ground, instantly an earth dome sprung up around heard Rhea collide with the dome in a hissy fit of rage. By now Sarah's violent tears had become quiet as her body laid against the ground. He looked closer and saw that a few sparks were emitting off the band that binded her together.

"Using the psychic connection to their advantage." he muttered, "But…who fired the band around her?" The dome around them began to shake. It wouldn't hold forever.

"We even developed an underground tunnel system that leads back to Vale."

He had one chance, he couldn't simply open a hole, Rhea and Pokey would just come after them. Concentrating on Stalwart-Terra, he smashed the axe head against the ground, and flipped it upwards, tearing the ground up with it and replacing it, as he, and his three teammates fell into a nothingness abyss.

"WHAT?!" Rhea shouted as her sword finally pierced through the dome.

Pokey merely shrugged his shoulders as he turned his spider mech around. "Doesn't really matter, Seiros." he hissed.

"We HAD THEM!" Rhea hissed at him. "That was the only weaponized torture nullifier that they had! We had them right there!"

Pokey didn't bother to answer her as he read a message marked by a queen piece. He typed out a rather bitter response and sent it on its way before he felt a slap of the glass covering him. Grumbling, he looked up at Seiros, who was flapping her wings to be at eye level with him.

"You do realize that may very well have been our only chance to capture them!" Rhea snarled. "That device you used was one of its kind! Watts told you that himself! It stopped those kids right in their tracks." Pokey grumbled before emitting a shock that shattered a few hidden cameras.

"You know, Seiros, there's a fucking reason why Salem doesn't trust you with her plans." He hissed. "You hyperfocus and obsess over the littlest shit, your thirst for petty revenge will be met, eventually, just stop fucking up."

"It's better than what you've done!" Rhea snarled. "You've had Sarah in our grasp TWICE, and instead of running off with her you just let them go."

Pokey flicked one leg and basically smacked the saint aside as he moved on. "Even if we kidnap them, they'll never join us willingly. Salem told you that herself. We've got other ideas in mind for those four messy brats."

The saint's flapping wings made a shuffle. Which made Pokey turn to look at her.

"You know, I didn't HAVE to free you from your eternal prison, Seiros." he snarled. "I could've just as easily told Salem you were dead. However, the three of us all have one common goal. Even if you were more of a liability, we might as well take what we can get. Despite having those other assholes. Salem doesn't have as much faith in some as she does with us."

Rhea just crossed her scaly claws as her wings flapped in the orange sky. "What exactly does Salem hope to accomplish with this…idea? Blowing up a hole like that. The Grimm we've lured underground won't do nearly enough damage once all the hunters are sent on them."

"But it'll feel like a victory in their eyes." Pokey rubbed his hands together. "That'll get them all to lower their guards."

Rhea sighed as she landed on top of the Spider Mech. "Very well then, where to next?"

You know, there's a lot of stuff that I've done here and there throughout my series, and everyone involved within it. Pokey and Rhea finally got to interact, something that a lot of people drew criticism from in Black Dawn. You know, since the two of them previously worked together, yet Pokey instead chose to assist Those Who Slither to activate Nightmare by himself. I always thought it came off very clear that Seiros was always the weak link of the group. Despite being the strongest of the Saints, you could see that Pokey, Giygas, and Salem do not think very fondly of Rhea herself. But, she's back again, ready to be here for everyone to fight against.

I wanted to try and drill home this idea of a conspiracy that effects much more than just Salem and Team MESS. Maybe a lot of you have been taking notes of how I've been writing. Of course, Team MESS and RWBY still have their primary focus, as do Ozpin and everyone else.

Also, like Moon mentions to be Ozpin, I don't want my characters to be coming off as the unfair show off gods. Team MESS does not actually want to play god with a world. Despite how Moon may view a world as nothing more than a set of ants scurrying about. Loved that little comment someone made.

Oh yeah, if you're wondering who helped Pokey and Rhea, I know it wasn't acknowledged in the chapter, it was written with the intention to be Adam. So there's that to look forward to. Sapphire plays his typical knightly dutyship and friendly attitude. Super sweet, I like the way PhoenixClaw writes his own characters, and Sapphire's difference in ideologies to Moon. So I'm still very grateful that he's been on board with me using him.

Thanks again for reading, I'll see you all next time. Hopefully I can find some time to write over summer.