Ch. 77 Bloody curiosity
"Are you telling me none of you have noticed?" Blake glared accusatory at the members of SSSN.
"...not really no…" Neptune replied.
"I mean I did notice them, I just didn't pay them any mind, you know…?" Sun admitted.
"What do you mean you didn't… are these things normal around here?"
"Well… not normal… just wouldn't be the first time you know?"
"First time for what, people spying on you?"
"Actually now that you mention it…" Scarlet appeared thoughtful.
"Right, there was that one time photos of us changing circulated…" Sage completed the thought.
"Okay… that's concerning in its own right… Anyway, I say we should investigate this."
"Blake…" Sun deadpanned.
"Not on our own! Jeez you sound like mom…"
"Well I did promise her to keep you from running in on your own." he grinned back at her.
"Let's ask Pyrrha for help, these spiders are metal after all."
=O=O=O=
Raven flew over the sea of red trees. The mountains in the distance were the only indication of the forest being finite.
As Raven flew over the ruin of the Amity for what felt like the hundredth time she contemplated if the kids actually told the truth. Still, Jin didn't lie and if she was right then one of the old divines was the progenitor of this forest.
She wanted to meet him, see if he had anything that could help them against Salem… or Ozpin if she was being honest.
The black bird shook its head in disappointment as it circled out from the Amity. It was time to go back to the tribe… Unfortunately, now that Vernal was no more she'd have to form a bond with someone else in the camp, which took time. Time Raven didn't feel like spending sitting in the camp, spending time with someone trustworthy.
As she flew through her portal the raven emerged above Haven, her brother and daughter being the closest bonds she could use to get back to the tribe. Before she left though she decided to stop by her brother's room.
Sure she was going to laugh at him for his misfortune, but in truth it was in her best interest to make sure Qrow got his weapon fixed and got back in fighting shape… Maybe even spar with him if he got his shit together… Yeah, that could be fun, Raven thought to herself as she circled back to Qrow's room.
"And what makes you think she'd agree to it. I don't think she'd be exactly willing to help Oz." she heard Qrow speak as she landed on the windowsill. The curtains were closed and Raven guessed Qrow had been seriously drunk the day before.
"Oh she will." Jaune's voice streamed through the closed curtains. Moments later though the curtains flew open, blinding the hangover Qrow. "Though I guess it's kinda pointless to send messages to her since she's just outside the window… Seriously the magic that makes you into birds makes your weapons look like a kaleidoscope with my semblance. Though it does hide the Maiden's magic quite well, I guess it's origin is the same."
The bird Raven harrumphed before jumping into the room through the open window and landing on her human feet.
"You're getting kinda creepy, you know that, Arc? So what did you want from me?"
"Oh nothing much I assure you, just the old man's walking cane. I can offer you a fair trade… and perhaps you'll like what I have in stock for the old man…" Jaune smiled cryptically, his tired eyes and dark circles under his eyes giving him a sinister look.
"Fuck kid, scratch kinda creepy, you're just straight up creepy." Qrow interrupted the negotiations.
Jaune turned to him, his eye twitching slightly.
"Well I'm fucking tired Qrow. I reforged your weapon, I'm helping Ren with the thing for Verdant, working on designing more weapons for my Arsenal, and now I'm trying to get the Wizard out of Oscar's head before he devour's Oscar's soul. Oh and the gods forsaken relic won't let me sleep properly."
His rant now over Jaune deflated and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm hoping Raven here can help me with the last two problems at least, maybe even the Verdant project if things go well."
"And why would I help you?"
"Because I know what Jin showed us and I know you're not dumb. A trade. You'll take us to Forever Fall and I'll lead you to Keel. You let me have Long Memory and I'll tell you the plan for it. Oh, and I have a favour to ask of you later, completely separate from this trade. I'll be asking the last question sometime soon so you'll be able to listen in, in exchange you'll let us travel back to Vale with your Semblance, sound fair?"
Raven narrowed her eyes. She had half a mind to just tell the kid to fuck off on principle alone. Then again, she did spend days looking for that benefactor of his.
"One more condition."
"Name your price."
"You're strong. I want to fight you… and Qrow. You said you reforged his weapon, I want to see how my weakling brother fairs against me."
"Ugh, time Raven, we are running out of that. Can it wait? I'd really like to fuck over Oz before Oscar becomes too much like him."
Qrow narrowed his eyes at Jaune's words but didn't say anything for a few seconds. He thought about what Ozpin did. To team STRQ, to team RNJR, to Summer and to Ruby. He closed his eyes, eventually nodding along.
"I can fight you, Ray. Let him give Oz his comeuppance. You can fight the kid later."
He didn't know what the kid had in store for Oz but at this point Oz had lost any goodwill he had with Qrow.
=O=O=O=
Arthur Watts sat in the back of a shady establishment, scroll in hand. His drones were proving invaluable at gaining intel. Most of it was incredibly mundane and irrelevant to him, but all information had its worth.
The bar was one of the less important one's under the control of Lil' Miss Malachite, but it proved to be most hospitable. Lil' Miss was happy to provide for him in exchange for a look into the Academy. Certainly she would get her people in there soon and his services would prove less valuable as time went on, but right now the new headmaster reshuffled much of his staff appointing people with less flexible morals.
Arthur could appreciate that. After all, what good were employees that did nothing when the previous headmaster crumbled in fear. And if noninterference at the time was a decision made from loyalty… well, they certainly chose to be loyal to a spineless coward.
But Cinder failed again, this time losing even the half of Fall's power she did manage to obtain before. Lady Salem was most displeased about that one. And that's where Arthur came in. To his delight, the Relic wasn't returned to the vault and seeing as he himself wasn't a young woman, he had no reason to go after the Maidens at this time. The Arc boy however was starting to prove a challenge.
At first he was sure that it would be simple to take the lamp from him, but the match against the current Fall maiden caused Arthur to reconsider. Information was needed first and foremost and he'd need to gather forces in the meantime.
It was something of a shame that the thieves Cinder picked up weren't around right now. Arthur would love to try applying what he learned from the classified files around Project Phoenix on Black. Perhaps even letting the poor thing have his semblance back to some degree.
Alas, the Lady took interest in the girl and started grooming her to be the next iteration of Cinder. It was a small wonder Mercury was still around, then again Arthur could appreciate the mercenary attitude.
Oh, but he was digressing. The activities of the group around the Relic brought about some interesting discoveries. That the new reincarnation of Ozpin was a relatively powerless farmhand wasn't a new discovery, however the young boy's reluctance to become Ozpin… well that had potential.
For now it was more advantageous to wait for Arc to extract Ozpin. Especially if he did end up keeping up his end of the bargain (which Arthur sincerely doubted since no communication with Atlas seemed to make any arrangements for such.) Arthur was excited at the thought of becoming the puppeteer for not only Ozma's puppet, but one of Polendina's designs, oh that would be cathartic.
A beep interrupted Arthur's musings.
"Oh my, it would seem curiosity killed the cat… or is about to anyway."
He got up from his seat and approached the bar, sliding a few Lien across. There was no payment required of him by Lil' Miss Malachite but it was a silent way of alerting the Spiders of incoming problems.
Soon he exited the door of the bar and started walking up the street, just in time to walk by the students.
"Well this is where the trail ends. Do you think this is the place?"
"This one is pretty well known to belong to the Spiders so I'd say it's a safe bet."
"Just remember, we're here for information, not to start a fight… not yet anyway."
The Nikos champion, the Belladonna princess and the Fall Maiden spoke in that order.
Arthur suppressed a chuckle as he walked past them. No need to have his own force if he could guide the conflict to start between others. The Spiders weren't exactly known for being the peaceful kind of information dealers.
=O=O=O=
Raven flew over the mountains of Vale and into the Forever Fall forest. It took time to get from Patch to here, but flying sure did help some.
The Branwen tribe was getting restless about her excursions, but she did give them some marks to go after in the meantime. Two settlements they could shake down, probably without even drawing blood and a third, more juicy but more armed one. She was pretty sure the SDC was funding the defence of that one, so it was for the foolish and desperate to try their luck against it to prove themselves in the tribe.
Still, now that Vernal wasn't providing her with a convenient mask, Raven was considering her next set of moves. Revealing herself to be a Maiden to the tribe was a possibility but it did paint a bigger target on her back from Salem's group than there already was.
Finally she arrived in a clearing and put those thoughts to rest for now.
As she opened the crimson portal through her bond with Qrow she waited for a few seconds.
When the first boots landed on the blood red leaves Jaune Arc came through. His winter outfit was replaced a white vest over a black dress shirt and long coat similar in design to something an Atlas soldier might wear though with a significant amount of gold and yellow trim. On his head was a pair of bike goggles.
Ruby went through next, her outfit similarly updated from the winter outfit they wore in Atlas. The cut was similar to Jaune's, the vest replaced with a black bodice with red lacing over a white blouse. The outfit was completed by a combat skirt and her signature red cape. She too retained the goggles they got for their journey to Mistral, though she wore them around her neck like a necklace.
Nora and Ren came through hand in hand. Ren was still wearing the traditional Mistralian outfit he got so used to wearing around Haven coloured in dark greens, though the laces on his shoes were pink now, the same shade as the highlight in his hair.
Nora for her part chose to wear her work in progress outfit. Considering she was given the Haven Academy uniform and didn't have a use for it now that they wouldn't be attending, she made some modifications to it. That she somehow managed to colour the black plaid skirt a hot pink didn't surprise anyone who knew Nora. The black jacket however had some major modifications. Its original grey trim and dark red lining was similarly recoloured to pink, but more importantly the majority of the right sleeve was missing. She got some inspiration from one of Ruby's outfits and Yang's upgraded weapon and covered a part of her shoulder in what could be considered a pauldron with a connector port for a Dust cartridge, from there the mechanism connected with her modified pink glove with wires.
It was by no means done and Nora had a lot of sewing to do before it was presentable but the functionality of it was undeniable. She even managed to dilute the electric Dust with the inert variety to not burn herself out too quickly.
Raven was about to close the portal, already feeling that bringing the whole team of kids was uncalled for considering she thought it would just be Jaune that guided her. Before she did though Qrow stepped through.
"What are you doing here Qrow?"
"Coming with."
"You were supposed to stay back so that I could open a portal back to Mistral."
"Yang is still there. You really need to talk to her from time to time, you know."
Raven glowered at him, but instead turned away from him.
Jaune looked around the forest, orienting himself for a bit.
"Okay, we'll be going that way, but first, it's polite to say our greetings."
With that Jaune pulled out one of Gemini Acculey, his throwing blades, and cut his finger, letting the blood droplets hit the ground.
Almost immediately they all felt something about the forest change as a windless breeze seemed to pass through the branches above them.
"Salvete Keel!" Jaune spoke up. "Right, let's go."
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Raven has succesfully traded the walking cane for sating her curiosity and the girls are about to walk into the Spiders' den.
Okay, so while this chapter was planed out in advance, I actually procrastinated a lot on writing it. But hey I wrote a begining to another RWBY project, potentially one you'll get to read at some point and may succeed this one at some point. Though one thing I'm kinda undecided on is whether or not to tie it in with the planned ending of this one (in a very minor way honestly) or cut that out entirely from the setting, or take some kind of a middle ground and make allusions... I'm leaning towards the third one honestly, but let me know if you have an opinion on this already... which is kinda difficult since the ending hasnt happened yet soooo yeeeeaah.
Oh one more exciting thing, they fixed the email notifications apparently! I've been getting nonstop emails every 10 to 30 minutes on my personal account since they did and it's glorious, so many fics to catch up on.
But hey if you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe
Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 78 Place of the crime