The plan had gone off without a hitch, Gamma had successfully stolen the identity of Glynda Goodwitch and had infiltrated beacon academy. It was a stroke of luck that Glynda had been a reserved type of person, she was perfect for acclimating to human emotions. Speaking of which…
Copy Gamma was in Goodwitch's office, sitting at her desk and rummaging through papers as he got a synaptic message from No. 9.
"Progress report," No. 9 commanded.
"Most of the humans do not suspect a thing." Gamma replied
"Most?" No. 9 questioned.
"The headmaster has been on edge ever since our attack," Gamma reported, "I believe he is suspicious of me."
"Do not act yet," said No. 9, "we can't be sure if he is still recovering from the attack, humans tend to be emotional following a kaiju attack."
"Understood," Gamma said.
"Progress on the reconnaissance?" No. 9 questioned.
"They are in place, no one saw anything." Gamma responded.
"Excellent, continue with the infiltration," No. 9 commanded, "I will check back again in another month." The synaptic link was severed, and Gamma went back to rummaging through papers.
Number 9 reached out with his mind to the reconnaissance kaiju Gamma had planted across Beacon's grounds. They were the smallest kaiju he had ever made, based off the fungal type kaiju he had previously used, they were far too small to pose any threat. But the real danger they posed was their camouflage. Due to their small size, they looked like normal mushrooms growing between cracks of concrete, completely innocent looking, things so small and insignificant that the only way to detect their cores would be with a dedicated scanner, one which the humans of this world didn't possess.
He reached out to the mycelium network the small kaiju had formed and gazed through one of them. He saw a grassy courtyard surrounded by buildings; paths full of talking humans lined the middle. These were huntsmen in training, mere juveniles, easy targets, prime test subjects. He shook his urge to experiment and exited the synaptic network, bringing his consciousness back to his lair underneath the mountain. The network was only good for keeping tabs on outside security, but indoor surveillance would have to wait until he developed a kaiju with good enough stealth capabilities to roam the vents of the building undetected. Which was a project he currently had Beta working on, a project he was going to assist with, but that would have to be pushed back, as right now he sensed a grimm entering his cave.
Salem had felt her forces in Vale weaken, she knew it wasn't the work of Ozpin because Hazel had reported no escalation in huntsmen activity, so she decided to investigate herself. Working through a seer, she hadn't seen anything particularly concerning save a lower amount of grimm than usual, until she reached Mt. Glenn, which until two years ago was one of her biggest stores of grimm.
Once the seer had entered the cave, she felt as if something was watching her, as if the walls of the cave had eyes. The deeper she sent the Grimm the larger the feeling grew, large insectoid shapes darted across the walls around her, putting her on edge. Then she saw something, she halted the grimm to get a good look at what had approached her looking glass.
It was like nothing she had seen before, it was shaped like a human, it's eyeless, almost mushroom-like, head grinned at her with a lipless mouth. It was tall and lanky, seemingly taller than Hazel, and its body was a sickly beige color. Though it had no eyes she could tell it was observing the seer somehow. Then it took a step forward and reached a hand towards it.
"Stop," Salem commanded, her voice projecting through the seer.
This caused the creature to freeze, tilting its head in confusion, "speech… how interesting." The creature spoke in a nasal tone of voice as it lowered its arm.
'It can speak,' Salem thought to herself shocked, snapping herself back to reality, she spoke again. "What are you?" she questioned, hoping it was simple minded enough to answer. The creature did not respond, "I said, what are-,"
"I heard you," the creature cut her off, "you must be Salem." The creature said as it opened two beady eyes.
Salem was shocked, only Ozpin and his pawns should know who she was, so how did this cave dweller know? "How do you-?" Salem stammered out.
The creature remained silent as its form began to shift, for the first time in millennia a look of horror creeped across Salem's face as the creature's form changed to that of Tyrion Callows, her most devoted follower who she had lost 2 years ago, then it clicked inside her head. Tyrion's disappearance, her forces being killed, the attack on Vale that happened a month ago, it was all the work of this creature.
"H-how? Why?!" Salem shouted, the words catching in her throat.
"I simply couldn't have you interfering with my experiments," the creature said in Tyrion's voice, "I was lucky that this man knew enough about you to thwart your plans."
Salem stared into the fake Tyrion's silver eyes as a rage began to bubble inside of her… 'Wait, silver eyes?!' she thought to herself as the creature pointed a finger at the seer. Then her connection with the seer was severed, and she was back in her lair. She let out a scream of rage and confusion as her subordinates hid on the other side of the door.
"Have you ever seen her like this?" A young Cinder Fall asked her much more experienced acquaintances.
"Never," Hazel said back, his face unmoving and stoic, yet it was evident he was on edge.
"I wonder what has her so riled up?" Arther Watts interjected in a much more laid-back tone, "It can't be Ozpin…" his train of thought was interrupted as his mistress spoke through the door.
"Enter!" Salem commanded through the door, her subordinated quickly following the order and entering the room, "our plan to destroy Beacon must be accelerated."
This caused her subordinates to give confused looks between themselves, "Forgive me for questioning you," Watts spoke up, "but why?"
Salem sighed, she was clearly shaken up by something, which in turn, put her minions on edge. "I have just discovered why our forces in Vale, including Tyrion, have disappeared." She said as she conjured a magical image of the being she talked with, receiving reactions ranging from a disgusted gasp to a look of interest.
"What is it?!" Cinder exclaimed, clearly shaken up from the uncanny image.
"That… I do not know." Salem said, clearly furious at her lack of knowledge, "but what I do know is that it has been "experimenting," in Vale for the past two years. It cleared out Mt. Glenn of all grimm and has killed Tyrion." The news of Tyrion's death earned a myriad of reactions from the three as Salem continued, "and it can be reasonably inferred that it was responsible for the attack on Vale 2 months ago."
"If I may," Hazel spoke up, "while it does sound dangerous, who's to say that attack wasn't all it had? Sure, those monsters took down a few bullheads, but they ended up retreating, wouldn't it be fair to assume that it's simply regrouping for a similarly sized attack?"
"Under any other circumstances you would be correct, but I don't believe we have seen this creature's full strength." Salem responded.
Before Hazel could retorts Watts interrupted him, "because it's been experimenting…" he said, deep in thought.
"Exactly," Salem said, "if the attack truly was the full extent of its strength it would have destroyed the seer right away out of fear of being discovered at a time of weakness."
"Then what do we do?" Cinder questioned.
"We begin the plan before that thing has a chance to kill the fall maiden," Salem said, her confidence returning. "Watts, I need you to hack into Vale's central mainframe and make a fake student ID for Cinder, I need it done by the beginning of the next semester at beacon."
"Consider it done," Watts said as he began to walk towards his office to get it done.
"Cinder," Salem looked towards the girl, "double your training efforts, you need to be ready."
"Yes ma'am!" Cinder saluted, running off to start training.
"And Hazel…" Salem said, turning to her remaining minion, "you will be on backup duty."
Hazel nodded and walked away, leaving Salem alone to contemplate the rushed plan, her alliance with the white fang would have to be sidelined in order to pull this off, she simply had to hope the creature had no plan to start another "experiment," on Beacon.
The attack had sent shockwaves all across the world, governments were trying to do damage control as scientists and huntsmen alike were scrambling to determine what the creatures were exactly. Some people were taking it well…other people though.
"For the last time James," Ozpin said with a sigh, "they weren't grimm."
"Then what were they?!" General Ironwood questioned, his microphone peaking as he questioned the old wizard.
"We don't know," Ozpin said, exasperated as the conversation had yet again circled back to the topic of the attack. "That's why we sent Atlas those corpses, so your scientists could figure it out."
Ironwood raised his fist to slam his desk but got control of himself at the last second and slowly put down his fist. "One of them was still alive you know." The general said, frustration leaving his voice.
"Well, I apologize, but we don't exactly have a way to track the vitals of these creatures." Ozpin responded, tired of this subject.
"It killed people." Ironwood said grimly.
Ozpin froze mid sip of coffee, "how many?" he asked, his tone going dead serious.
"11 scientists, 24 soldiers, and 2 government officials." Ironwood said.
"That's impossible," Ozpin replied, shock evident in his tone, "every one of them was full of holes, you could practically see straight through them!"
"Our surviving scientists say that it had apparently regenerated, before somehow cutting the cameras in the room it was being held in." Ironwood explained.
"It didn't immediately start attacking?" Ozpin questioned.
"Yes," Ironwood said, continuing his explanation, "it seemingly lied waiting for our scientists to open the door before attacking, letting it roam freely, before a heavy weapons team managed to take it down."
"You have my condolences," Ozpin said.
"One more thing," Ironwood interrupted, "security says that it's rampage wasn't random." Ironwood stopped, as if he was till processing the information. "They say that it appeared to look for areas with the highest concentration of security, like it was looking for something, or someone."
The realization hit Ozpin as he dropped his coffee mug, "Like it was looking for the maiden." Ozpin said in horror.
"They attacked you originally, I don't know if it's her controlling them, but you should increase your defenses nonetheless." Ironwood said as Ozpin reeled from the information.
"I'll see what I can do," Ozpin said coming back to his senses, "thank you." he hung up the call.
He needed coffee, he looked down and sighed as he saw his broken mug.
Copy Gamma sat in Glynda Goodwitch's office, he was in his original Kaiju form because the blinds were down. He was tinkering with what the humans of this world called a "scroll" which was similar to a cell phone from his old world when it went off all of a sudden, a picture of the headmaster appearing on the screen.
"Ah!" Gamma exclaimed in surprise, "let's see…" he said as he shifted his form into that of Glynda Goodwitch, "It should be the same as a phone," he said in Glynda's voice as he pushed the green button.
"Hello?" Gamma said in Glynda's voice.
"Glynda, could you do me a favor," the headmaster said, sounding tired and on edge at the same time, "I just dropped a coffee mug and I cant walk away from my desk because James will probably call me again in the next five minutes, could you grab another mug from the breakroom please?"
"Sure," Gamma responded.
"You are a lifesaver," a call tone went off in the background, "and right on cue, please hurry." Ozpin hung up.
Gamma was relieved, it appears that his suspicions were incorrect, now all he had to do was learn how to work a coffee machine and he was in the clear.