Silence.
Silence and the faint sound of a ticking clock.
No being dared made a sound in the room, all attending sat in deep thought. Pondering the important question on their mind. It's then someone spoke.
"It has been four days since the progeny enacted her rebellion, yet no signs of her have been found."
"Our kin scours the forests of the east, and the deserts of the west. She should have stood out, yet she continues to elude our kin."
"She has been trained well…too well."
"She threatens everything we have built. Culture, religion, and history, all are on the precipice of falling into oblivion once again. She must be eliminated."
"And the ramifications? The Dusk Princess disappearing has sent ripples across the land, conspiracies are brewing and the monarchy is looking weak."
"They will be eliminated also. Those that dare stand in front of our rule shall be eliminated."
"Of course, killing is your only solution. You've never let go of the allure of the Blood Queen."
"Enough!"
A single voice interrupted the argument between the two. Immediately, all bowed in respect and fear. The voice spoke with many voices, it was primordial, powerful…inhuman.
"We have invested far too much in the Princess. She is something that we can not afford to lose. You exist to analyze, and provide solutions to the problem, not squabble over pettiness or demand we waste 12 cycles of effort."
"And the conspiracies?"
"They shall be dealt with accordingly, but with tact. We are rather…disappointed in this meeting. We expected a solution to be easily formed, yet the princess continues to elude our forces. If a suitable clue to her location is not founded by week's end. We shall…enlist those that time forgot in assisting the search and retrieval of the princess. The surface, and Atlas, must not know of her existence."
"We apologize for our failure!"
They all spoke towards the voice, bowing in shame as their body begins to deform and turn into liquid darkness.
"Glory to Yggdrasil!"
All of them turned into liquid darkness and cease to exist in the room, they have served their purpose. It can feel a minute trace of corruption within them, this will have to be fixed soon.
"Glory to Yggdrasil…"
"Red?"
Yang worriedly asked Red, scared if the girl will suddenly flip on her and attack them. To say Yang was scared was an understatement, as Red's display of savage rage terrified her. Fortunately, Red took another deep breath and went down to one knee, and hugged Yang.
"Tired~…pain~…"
"I know you've been through a lot, just hang on, we're almost there and soon you'll have a nice bed to rest on."
An appreciative giggle is heard from Red as Yang strokes her head to comfort her, it feels nice for some reason. Yang then hears someone running behind her. Most likely Jaune since he was told to stay back due to him taking a Red to the face.
"I just got the relics…Woah what happened?"
"The deathstalker broke Red's aura…and her arm. It sent her to a frenzy and well…that pile of dissolving Grimm is the deathstalker."
There was concern and worry in Pyrrha's voice. The invincible girl being worried made Yang uneasy deep down, as while the deathstalker was dead, most of the armor was still there besides the deep gash she made by punching her scythe.
But then Red tore through its chitinous armor with her scythe with strength beyond what Yang could imagine.
Yang stops hugging Red and tries to heal Red's arm with her aura, however, the girl immediately panicked and pulled back, her sleeve is slowly soaked in blood, but to what is impossible to tell due to the color.
"Red…I'm just trying to help."
Yang said while moving closer to Red, who steps away from her. She seems more scared of the prospect of having her arm healed than a deathstalker snapping it like a twig. She then felt someone grab her shoulder, it was Blake.
"Yang, don't worry about her. If she managed to get all the way here from wherever her home is and has the will to fight a deathstalker, then I'm sure she will be fine."
"You say that but I watched her arm break, and I watched her go absolutely insane and turned a deathstalker into diced meat! I want to help her, I don't want to feel useless! Not again…"
"She probably has some sort of salve, or medical knowledge that she can use to heal her arm, not to mention her aura. In fact, let me ask her right now."
Yang watches as Blake performs hand gestures toward Red, completely indecipherable to her, but Red seems to understand and respond with her prosthetic arm. After a short conversation, Blake turns to Yang.
"She says she will be fine, and that she has medicine in her sack."
"And her arm?"
"She says by the time her aura returns, she will be fine. Trust me, if she can turn a Deathstalker into diced meat, then I'm sure she can handle a broken arm. Besides she…She's known to be very interesting in what she can do."
Yang wanted to speak up, but can't. She couldn't find a good reason to object to Red refusing immediate treatment, but seeing her face, and how she's more calm and relaxed. Maybe it's for the better, when she can speak more clearly, maybe Yang can ask how she feels, about her family and life.
But for now, they have to return to the headmaster and pass the initiation.
"Hmmm."
Ozpin watched as the team began to make their way back towards the cliffside. They all passed, with exceptional skill and teamwork as expected, and retrieved the relics. But his main focus is on Miss Silver Rose. She's currently walking alongside the huntsmen, though with a slight limp, and seems to pay little mind to her broken arm, though she guards it against anyone trying to inspect it.
Miss Rose has, in order, eliminated a pack of beowolves. Torn the skull off an alpha by herself, encounter a strange new Grimm in the Emerald Forest that can attract nevermores, rode said nevermore to the temple, blinded it to ensure it wouldn't attack them, and formulate a plan of attack with her fellow huntsmen despite a lingual barrier, took a horrific injury yet mustered enough strength to help deliver the killing blow, then with one arm she turned the deathstalker's corpse into sliced Grimm meat.
Frankly, Ozpin is wondering if he could convince her to join the fight against Salem. Such strength and will alongside Qrow will be beneficial against the fight, and he can see a softer, smaller side to Red in her limited interactions with her team. Though he guesses she will deny him due to a multitude of reasons.
Ozpin takes a sip from his mug, he had to dissuade Glynda from probing deeply into Silver, especially when a golden excuse in the form of her broken arm has presented itself. He'll give her a room for her to heal and rest before the ceremony. The girl clearly values her privacy, and would ruthlessly guard it. But there are questions that he has about her, mainly her relationship with the Schnees, the discovery of a new Grimm in the forest, her background in her kingdom or tribe, and more importantly.
How does a primitive society outclass Atlas in prosthetics development?
He sets aside these thoughts for now. Now is the time to properly initiate those who pass into Beacon proper, and guide the next generation of Humanity's guardians.
Ruby sat in the room in silence, Ozpi lead her to her, and essentially told her to rest and heal her arm. Though he was hiding it, it takes a lot more to hide subtle enthusiasm from someone who grew up firsthand in the courts of Yggdrasil. The headmaster seems keen on Ruby.
She would be happy if the pain didn't force her to tend to her wound. She looked around to see if anyone or anything could be watching, from hollowed-out areas between the walls to perhaps something similar to their picture displaying devices. After a short examination of the room, she closed the curtains, took a deep breath, and pulled back her sleeve.
She thanks the gods and the moon and the dragons for having red and black as her favorite color combination and clothes, because her sleeve was soaked in blood. She also winces at the nasty wound the deathstalker gave her, with bits of bone piercing through the skin, though it was healing, albeit improperly. Ruby's true nature reveals itself through the discoloration of the masquerade around the wound and the hissing red-black blood. She used her prosthetic arm to dig through her sack on the table next to her, before pulling out a grimmomancy tome.
She flipped through it before she sees a grimmomancy focused on regeneration. The applications are mainly combat-focused, as a grimmomancer is essentially a living weapon, and limb loss is guaranteed in their work. The instructions are simple for Ruby, concentrate intensely on the darkness that exists in harmony within her, overflow it and use it to quickly heal or rebuild any damage to her limb. If she was decent in this field, she wouldn't have to worry about fragments and exposed bone, but for now…
She grabs Crescent Rose and shifts it to its katana form. She then places the blade close to the exposed bone. She takes a deep breath…before quickly slicing the bone off.
"Aaagh!"
She breathes quickly in pain, before slicing off the remaining pieces of bone that jut out from her body. She drops her sword and slammed her moonstone fist onto the table, cracking it as she tries not to cry out in pain, tears in her eyes as she takes a deep breath and blocks out at least some of the pain.
She does this for 5 minutes, taking deep breaths and letting the pain subside. The only noise is the slight hissing of her blood.
Ruby lets out a deep sigh, before she covers her wound, and concentrates intensely. At first, she felt nothing.
Then she can feel her flesh bubbling, she concentrates harder. Letting the destruction within her work with creation to heal her body. The sound of bones popping back in place, veins reconnecting, flesh kneading together, the pain subsiding. If a lightborn was watching this right now they would rightfully call her an abomination.
Soon, her arm healed, and there was no trace of the wound left. She flexes and moves it around to make sure it is completely healed, no pain remained. If asked, she can chalk it up as a "really good lifeforce shielding". People wouldn't question it given they're in an academy of flashborn, especially the flashborn she was with.
Ruby packs away her tome, and grabs her bag, before leaving the room.
Ruby watches the ceremony unfold as she eagerly awaited for her group to be called up. She hasn't had the chance to renew her masquerade and all attempts of trying to retreat to a bathroom failed due to her group, more specifically Black and Yellow, pressuring her to stay. The Snowflake made no attempt to talk to her and judging by the look on her face, Ruby can tell that she was forced to be along with her.
Ruby is an understanding person, she can get along with anyone, from a lowly peasant to a noble close to her mother. However, she thought she only had to be with the misbegotten Snowflake after initiation, clearly, the headmaster can see the animosity between the two and would assign a replacement.
Perhaps this was his attempt of replicating her mother's fostering of relations between the duskborn and their mutant brethren in the early days of the Second Era, which was forced cooperation. Or perhaps he wants to probe and understand why, to his view, a princess from some primitive society has a conflict with the daughter of the most powerful family on the surface.
Ruby continued to ponder in her mind until she felt someone grabbing her left arm. She looked to see it was the snowflake grabbing her left arm and inspecting it intensely, Black is looking curiously at her.
"How? This doesn't make any sense, your arm is already back to normal?!"
"What do you mean Weiss?"
"Her arm! We all saw it completely broken hours ago, the deathstalker snapped it like a twig and broke her aura! She made that blood churring scream before she turned it to minced meat and then shielded it from us giving her first aid! In fact!"
The Snowflake gave a pathetic punch to Ruby's arm, the latter just staying silent and watching the unintelligible conversation.
"That! She should be on the ground writhing in pain and bleeding out right now!"
Ruby gave a worried look to Black, before looking at the Snowflake.
"Well…it could be possible because of her background."
"What?"
"Ruby is a medieval princess basically, she lived and grew up in a society that doesn't have all the benefits that we take for granted like scrolls, firearms, airships, and more. That kind of rugged lifestyle, where every day could be the last for you and your entire civilization tends to make people harden to the pains of the world. Why do you think Atlas trains their marines in Oblivion's Gate on Oblivion instead of Atlas proper?"
"But…But that still doesn't explain her miraculous healing!"
"Aura is a reflection of one's soul remember? If she grew up in a hostile environment, then naturally her aura would replenish quicker, work harder, and have more for her to draw upon. It's why you can occasionally hear stories of bandits or huntsmen suffering what would be life-threatening injuries recovering due to their strong, plentiful aura."
"Uh guys, the headmaster is about to call us, Jaune and his team already went."
Black and the Snowflake stopped talking when Yellow spoke, most likely that they were next given that Ruby doesn't see anyone after them. She walked with her group up the stage and was the only one to bow to the headmaster.
"And finally: Blake Belladonna, Silver Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao-Long. The four of you recovered the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team RWBY. Led by…Weiss Schnee."
"Finally, some proper recognition from this school! I will assure you that I will ensure my team will be the most efficient team on beacon!"
"Hoo boy, though kinda makes sense given how the other person who can coordinate can't speak Valean, right Blake?"
"It looks like things are shaping up to be an…interesting year."
"I will tell you again Roman. Though you have been useful to me so far, failure will not be tolerated. I am expecting an increased amount of dust than usual for your latest shipment, and you will be receiving help from a group that I…convinced to join in our plans. Do not disappoint me again, or you will be disposed of and replaced."
The call ended, and Roman slammed his scroll on the table. The only source of illumination was the shattered moon from the window to his far left. He takes a deep sigh to relax, fucking Fire Bitch. Making him and Neo work our asses off day and night, calling every shot and favor he has in the Valean underworld and police network, and for what? So this stupid sexy bitch with flame powers can boast to the world that she has the biggest collection of dust in the face of Remnant?
Well, Roman is a player, and he knows when the cards are stacked against him. She definitely showed that she can and will hunt and kill both him and Neo and that the only reason she takes his smarminess is that his reputation precedes him.
He takes out a cigar and lights it, he then hears a cart being moved behind him. Glancing to the side he sees a White Fang member, never thought he'd be working with animals of all things. Time to inspect the goods, he pays the White Fang and takes out his cigar.
"Open it."
The Fang member grabs a crowbar and pries open the container, revealing it to have contained a load of dust. The Fang steps aside and leaves the room as Roman grabs an ice dust crystal.
"We're gonna need more men…"
He then turned towards the map of Vale, marked with several circles and writing for planning purposes. He focused on what dust shops he should hit next to please her flamingness.
Maybe he could hit the commercial district again? No, he already did that, the stations there are going to be on high alert, especially when he may risk meeting Glynda Goodwitch again. Perhaps the industrial district, lot's of dust warehouses in those, and he drew "dumb cops" there for a reason.
His focus was disrupted when he heard something moving from behind. Turning around he sees nothing…yet he feels like he's being watched. Probably just bad vibes from just dealing with the most dangerous woman in Vale, he turns back towards the map and focuses on the plans.
The second he fully turned, an unseen force grabs him by the head and slams him hard to the table and pinning him.
"Roman Torchwick~..."
An unseen voice spoke to Roman from a distance, it was an unnatural accent, female, sultry, playful…deadly. Roman's heart starts beating quickly as he tries to figure a way out of this.
"He-ey there! I know that I may be handsome but this is really a bad first impression, how about you let me go, and I let you have all the Torchwick you want."
A giggle emanates from…somewhere as Roman looks around as best, he could. Whoever is pinning him, they're good. He can only see to his right side and can't get a bead on their body.
"Your reputation precedes you Mister Torchwick. While I would let you go and indulge, I am afraid had to cool off due to a certain…incident back home. Depending on how well you answer my questions, I will agree to let you go."
"Ok, ok shoot! I'm all ears baby."
"My master became aware that you obtain and sold several relics to an unknown third party. All I seek to know is the third party you sold them off to."
"Woah hoo there, I can't just sell the names of my clients to some random girl. You see there's reputation and payment involved, although I am willing to let it slide if you provide…payment? How does 3 million Lien sound to you?"
Roman can't risk his credibility, but he can pin the blame on some rival gang, and get more of the dust share market. She giggles once again.
"I have a counter offer~."
Suddenly, Neo was thrown into the wall beside Roman, her aura breaking upon impact and she looks badly beaten. A giant, slender yet imposing figure slowly emerged from the shadows and placed its leg upon Neo's. Torchwick tries to look up but he only sees their leg, alongside the fact they were dressed in white and blazing orange. A ninja?!
"Neo!"
"You see Roman, while I was cooling off, I discovered this little ice cream girl in your warehouse. I assume that she was one of yours given her unique outfit and style. Judging by your reaction, I was right. The terror on her face when I…convinced her to stand down was absolutely refreshing to me. I know you plan to lie to me, of course, you would. Why wouldn't you? Reputation is important, especially for a "gentlemen thief" like yourself. I will ask again, who did you sell the relics to? I also want you to respond quickly, or~."
She starts pressing on Neo's leg, who snapped out of her daze and futilely beat the assailant's leg.
"I wonder if the mute could scream after losing a leg~?"
She let out a sadistic giggle. Roman panicked, he was in a catch-22. If he squeals he'll make an enemy of the Schnees of all people. If he doesn't, he'll lose Neo. As his mind panics, his breathing becomes ever and ever more erratic, and Neo attempts to free herself from death. He decides to go with the lesser of two evils.
"Ok! Ok! Please don't kill her! I'll talk!"
The assailant stops pressing down on Neo's leg.
"I sold them off to the Schnees! Jacques wanted some rare new artifacts to display for a party later in the year! I needed the cash for other plans and his yesmen offered to pay a lot! So I schemed with Nero from Alexandria and sold them off to them!"
"And did you inspect them, looked and analyzed them to make sure they were real?"
"Why would I?! They're just pots or plates or a sword or something stupid? I'm a robber not an archeologist for gods' sake! Not my fault if the Schnees get scammed because they hire idiots to do their dirty work!"
There was a tense period of silence before the Horror lets go of Neo's leg.
"See? Wasn't that too hard? Consider yourself lucky Roman, you won't share Nero's fate. And don't forget, we will always be watching you two. Toodles~!"
The Horror quickly left as she entered, soon after, the being responsible for pinning Roman. He immediately ran to Neo and comforted the crying girl, soothing her while assuring everything will be alright. He thought of screaming for his goons to find the bitch and kill her, but then he smelled something.
The smell of burnt flesh and ash.