Howdy folks, how's it going?
So the alert system is still fucking up on my end. I tried changing settings, switching mail, and nothing. I can only hope that it doesn't take too long for my readers to realize this is out.
As always, shout out to Chaos Productions for his assistance.
And as always, I own neither RWBY nor MTG.
Now, enjoy.
/
A slight groan escaped Weiss' lips as her mind slowly pulled itself into awareness, a deep frown firmly set as clear blue eyes slowly opened.
First thing she noticed was she was sitting, an unfamiliar room all around her, at least for the scant few moments before she remembered having been at the Headmaster's office.
"Ah, glad to see you could rejoin us so soon, Miss Schnee." The voice of the man in question made her look to her side, to see him sitting at his desk. A small part of her mind registered how odd it felt for her seat to be so low she had to be looking up. "How are you feeling?"
"I…" The heiress replied hesitantly, as she finally begun piecing together the chain of events that had lead her up to this point. "I think I just had a bad dream…?"
"Well, I suppose you of all people here would have bad dreams about being called to the Headmaster's office." A growly, snarky voice rumbled from somewhere behind her, making the white-haired girl freeze. Then from the corner of her eye, some slight movement caught her attention. She looked down, to see a tail.
A long, scaly tail, tipped with a thagomizer of thorn-like spikes, was swaying lazily next to her. Transfixed by the sight, she moved her wide eyes up, following the curve of the appendage all the way up, until her neck couldn't turn further, and she realized that the smooth, hard surface she'd been leaning against wasn't a seat, but a reptilian flank. Immediately she turned her head the other way, continuing to follow the line of the shoulders, the base of a serpentine neck, all the way up… to the draconic face looking back towards her with a quirk of a ridged eyebrow.
…
…
…
"…Oh dear gods, it's real." She breathed out, immediately getting up and stepping away from the honest to goodness dragon that was apparently her teammate.
"Don't faint again, Princess." Ruby urged, a clearly amused lilt to her voice. "We need to get on with what we're all here for."
Weiss blinked, as she looked around the room, a thousand questions swirling in her mind. The others, she found, we're all sitting by the other flank of Ruby, Blake, Professor Herbst and Professor Branwen all apparently looking over Yang's shoulders to look at something in the Blonde's scroll with fascinated, rapt attention.
"Alright folks, princess is up, break's over." Ruby called, giving them a slight nudge off her as she rose from her lounging cat posture.
"I… have so many questions." The heiress said, her minded indeed still quite overwhelmed by the impossibility standing before her, and the implication that all she'd heard leading up to it was true.
"I can well imagine, Miss Schnee. I do apologize for pulling the rug out from under you with all these revelations, but I would ask that you bear with it for just a little longer, because I am afraid the revelations are not quite over for the evening." Ozpin replied apologetically, as he typed something, causing a screen to pop up, playing the footage of the recent attack.
Weiss could only startle at the sight of the perpetrator's inhuman visage, while Blake flinched, and Ruby rumbled a hissing snarl at the sight of the nightmare.
"By your own report, Miss Rose, Ashiok sought to breach Beacon to claim Amber, and claimed to be doing so on someone else's behalf." The headmaster stated looking the dragon-shifted girl straight in the eyes, his demeanour serious and giving little away. "As I previously mentioned, we have some thoughts as to who that might be."
"Oh?" Ruby prompted, suddenly very interested, only to crane her neck to the side when she noticed her uncle stepping up.
"Fact is, this ain't the first time Amber's been targeted." Qrow explained with a glance towards the assistant professor, who looked away in apparent shame. "Last time, she was ambushed out on the road. She got hurt bad, and if I hadn't arrived just in the nick of time, well…" He didn't need to elaborate. "That's why she's been placed here at Beacon as assistant professor. One of the safest places to be in all of Remnant. Or it should've been, but we couldn't really account for outside interference, now could we?"
Hearing this, Ruby looked towards the Maiden, who, unnoticed by her uncle, was flushing as he talked.
"Ah, I see." She replied in a knowing, perfectly reptilian deadpan. "That certainly explains a lot. I take it you believe these attacks are connected in some way?"
"Just so, Miss Rose." Ozpin cut back in. "The very existence of the maidens is kept from the general populace precisely to avoid such occurrences, but unfortunately they do happen regardless, because, of the few people out there that could possibly be aware of their existence, there is one who is particularly… persistent."
The young planeswalker said nothing, throwing a quick glance around the room. Her teammates all were clueless as to what the man was talking about, while her uncle was looking grim, no pun intended, while Amber now felt downright frightened. She opted to say nothing, patiently waiting for the headmaster to elaborate.
"Tell me, Miss Rose, with your experiences so far, what are your thoughts on the Grimm?"
Ruby blinked, not having expected this sudden lurch in the conversation, but she did not miss a beat.
"Disgusting abominations." She growled, the noise rumbling from deep in her chest, even as the white glow within it flared in anger at the mere thought of the creatures, her claws tensing, her teeth bared and her tail swaying more erratically. "To be exterminated on sight."
The Headmaster's eyebrow rose, the only outward sign of any reaction to the words. But he wasn't the only one, the others around her now staring in open surprise at so seething, so angry a verdict.
"…You are kinda more aggressive like this." Amber noted, being the first to voice the clear question left unspoken in the room.
"It's a side effect of the magic allowing me to take this form." Ruby explained, latching on to the observations of her technically a student to cool down. "This isn't a merely physical, cosmetic change. When I am a dragon, I am a dragon in mind, body and soul. I think in ways humans do not, have instincts humans do not."
"So… what, you're feeling territorial?" The brunette ventured curiously.
"In part, yes. But in this particular case, even human me agrees. There are no words I can use to describe how wrong those things appear to my eyes." Ruby explained, her expression sour, yet pondering. "I have been to some dangerous places. I have seen horrific, twisted things, unnatural aberrations and unfortunately natural parts of reality both. I have met demons, fought horrors, confronted nightmares. And not a one of them felt as utterly repulsive to me as the Grimm do. They should not be, of this I am certain."
The currently draconic girl did not miss the way her uncle and the headmaster glanced at each other at her words. There was an understanding there, something they recognized.
"The Grimm have been a blight upon Remnant for as long as humanity can remember, that much is true." The headmaster replied after moment of silence. "Miss Belladonna, Miss Schnee. I do apologize that this warning is coming late in the conversation, but I cannot stress enough how everything you have heard, and everything you are about to hear, must not leave this room. It may be unfair to put such a burden on you, especially Miss Schnee, so suddenly, but at this juncture there is little choice. Do you understand?"
The two girls startled, caught off-guard at so suddenly being put on the spotlight, each glancing at the other hesitantly. Blake, slightly more inured to all this by previous experience, was the first to nod, while Weiss followed after a moment's hesitation.
"Very well. Then, I suppose there's nothing to it, but to start with the next revelation of the evening." The headmaster stated with a nod, before his eyes once again fell on Ruby. "Bluntly put, Miss Rose? The Grimm have a leader. And we have reason to believe she's the one behind all of this."
…
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…
Silence fell upon the office after the declaration. Shock and confusion ran rampant among her teammates. Amber swallowed nervously, clearly uncomfortable and concerned. And Qrow… Qrow frowned, a jumble of emotions coursing through the man, few of them good. Something about this made him reminisce about unpleasant memories.
"Explain." She prompted, to which the Headmaster nodded.
"Her name is Salem." The man replied somberly, his eyes suddenly distant. "She styles herself as the Queen of the Grimm, and can exert control over the creatures. For a long, long time now, she has been working from the shadows, seeking to undermine humanity and lead it to destruction. It is she that I have worked to oppose."
This, Ruby, couldn't help but feel, seemed like a vital piece of the puzzle that was her home plane. An intelligence behind the twisted creatures threatening mankind… This was not unfamiliar to her, but that was a thought for later.
"And you believe this… Salem is behind these two different attacks on Amber?" She inquired, causing Amber to blink owlishly at her.
"You're taking that rather casually." The brunette couldn't help but comment, glancing towards the other girls who were all looking rather floored by what they had just heard.
"I haven't been here in over a decade, remember? I don't know nearly enough about this plane's history to be surprised, especially by something that I have seen similar instances of elsewhere." The young planeswalker replied with a shrug. "I still need to consider all of the implications, but for that I need more information. So, about my question?"
"Well, for the first attack, it's simple. When I got to the scene, there was a woman standing over Amber, with a creepy bug Grimm glove thingie pointed at her. No idea what it was gonna do since I chopped it of right that instant and sent the attackers packing, but it'd be nothing good, that's for sure." Amber shivered, quite distressed at the memory. "And nobody but those in cahoots with Salem would use a Grimm like that." Qrow explained, a frown of frustration crossing his face. "I was so focused on bringing Amber to safety I didn't even consider bringing the arm. By the time I thought to go back to the crime scene, some scavenger had long since made off with it."
"It has always been her way, to find some malcontents and people on the fringes of society, and turning them to her service, pawns for the queen. And you saved Amber, Qrow, which was by far the greater priority. Don't beat yourself up." The Headmaster admonished, and Amber was very emphatically in agreement. "As for Ashiok's intrusion into the Academy, well… To be honest, we really don't have much in the way of evidence, other than the fact that it seems too coincidental. And just the kind of escalation that Salem would resort to. A pawn fails, send in another less scrupulous, more dangerous one."
"So, simple pattern recognition, then? Not that the smoky bastard would bend knee to anyone…" Ruby replied, more to herself than meant as an actual question. "But that begs the question, why target Amber specifically?"
"Salem has been hunting for the maidens, for as long as I can remember, Miss Rose. It just so happened that, in this particular instance, through my own mistakes, Amber was the most exposed of the four." The headmaster replied, a momentary frown of contrition breaking through his self-control. "As for why would she be hunting for the Maidens… As I mentioned, Salem seeks humanity's destruction. The Maidens, and the purpose for which they exist, would be the most expedient way of going about it."
Now that drew Ruby's attention. From the moment she had heard of the state of magic and its knowledge among the larger populace of Remnant, Ruby had thought that there was something afoot. There only being four beings in an entire plane capable of using magic, and it not being by some sort of design, was basically such low statistic odds as to be mathematically insignificant, even in the infinite expanse of the Multiverse. And here was the headmaster all but confirming her suspicions.
"And what is the purpose of the maidens, then?" She prompted.
"They are both lock and key, Miss Rose." Ozpin replied simply. "Lock and key keeping a greater power contained. Salem craves this power for her own ends. Suffice it to say, she must not be allowed to get it."
For a long, long moment, the room was silent, the dragon looking intently towards the headmaster, who stared back, giving nothing away. Then, the dragon stood upright, her form shrinking, her wings receding, until again only a young, silver-eyed girl stood.
"You are still not telling me everything." It was neither a question nor a judgement, but rather a simple statement of fact.
"Perceptive of you, Miss Rose." The man couldn't help but reply, with a slight upward tug at the corners of his lips, and a noticeable weariness in his eyes. "There is more to the situation, I will admit, but I would prefer to leave things here for now, Miss Rose. It's already been a taxing few days, and there is plenty I am sure you and your team need to work through as it is. Some things can be… difficult, to talk about."
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…
"Fair enough." The young planeswalker replied simply, earning a raised eyebrow from the man.
"Just like that, Miss Rose?" He commented curiously.
"I wouldn't have shared my secrets, if circumstances had not exposed me." The young planeswalker admitted with a shrug. "I am hardly in a position to demand you reveal all of yours, which I assume are secret for a reason. The question is, what now?"
The headmaster chuckled, sounding genuinely amused, and deep beneath that, grateful.
"Now, Miss Rose, now we coordinate. You have become our first and only line of defense against intrusions from other worlds, after all."
Intrusions which, if Ruby were to bet, were bound to happen again now that first contact had occurred…
/
Elsewhere, in open planes far, far from the woods surrounding the academy, a figure stopped, considering the skies.
"Hhhm, she should be somewhere around here… Ah yes, this is the way." They muttered to themselves with a satisfied nod, choosing a direction and beginning to walk, fluttering wings following in their wake.
/
I wonder if anyone's gonna be able to figure out who this mysterious person is based on this vague couple of lines.
So, yeah, there was a fair lot of talking in this chapter, and for once Ozpin doesn't keep all of his cards close to his chest until it is too basically too late. Sure he didn't reveal everything in one go, but hey, progress.
Let me know what you think. Reviews and expansions upon this fic's TVtropes page are always welcome.
Next time, matters become more team focused (mostly because I am forced by constraints to shunt the proper reactions to the next chapter), lessons might continue, and a stranger approaches.
But before that, in two weeks we got the next update to Of Red Petals and Black Feathers, so look forward to that.
Cya all on the next one, stay