RWBY: Dual Eclipse
Author: Master C.V.G.
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
Scene Change
Chapter 34: Drawing Closer
Far out in the distant reaches of space, and the universe at large, on a planet largely bereft of life-
A conjoined mountain region suddenly exploded into nothing as something was hurled bodily through it, shaking the area for miles around. Skidding to an eventual stop was an immense creature, violet-black in color and taking the form of a large, quadrupedal dragon with curled horns upon its head. As the dragon got to its feet, had there been anyone present they'd have seen its right wing bent at an angle that nearly snapped it in four specific places that wings normally don't bend at; its left wing having been shorn completely off.
"Damn..." The dragon only managed to breathe out as its assailant slowly trudged forward. "No matter what actions I take, this thing continues to advance."
The "thing" in question was also a quadrupedal creature, albeit black in color and clad in bone-white armor that wrapped around its torso, arms, head and back. The top half of some humanoid creature was fused to it, but where the two halves met was a gaping maw, filled with blunt teeth. Attached to its back were two wings that looked far too much like a pair of hands preparing to reach out.
The mouth on its torso roared, scattering larger chunks of the mountain whilst disintegrating the smaller debris.
With a deep breath, the dragon squared itself, and mentally prepared for another assault. Once its right wing snapped back into place, its injuries mending over as the left wing sprouted out of its back, the battle was on once again.
Rearing its head back, the dragon exhaled a stream of pure destructive energy at the monster, whom countered with a white-colored beam from its maw. The beams clashed, creating a powerful explosion that blanketed the area in a screen of dust and smoke, gouging out an immense crater where the beams clashed.
Taking advantage of this, the dragon quickly rushed through, claws ready to tear at the monster's upper-half as it leapt towards the beast. Unfortunately, the monster was ready, launching a tendril from its back to slam the dragon to the side. This was countered by the dragon grabbing the tendril, mere inches from finding purchase in the side of its neck, and made to sever it through biting it off.
'!' The dragon's teeth felt as if they were biting into some kind of metallic mixture that exceeded the strength of steel. If not for its unique constitution, its teeth would've likely broken off. It quickly released the tendril, and leapt backwards in time to avoid the other tendril trying to crash point-first where its head had been.
The dragon quickly turned, its tail outstretched to crash into the monster's side. The monster caught it, and made to pull the dragon closer. Digging its claws into the ground, the dragon made to resist the pull... right until a particularly powerful tug.
'Now!' The dragon took advantage of the pull, jumping into it to increase its speed as it made to crash a forelimb into the monster's humanoid half. The attack hit true, the forelimb finding purchase within its torso- only for the beast to grab the dragon's face, and slam it into the ground, an immense crevice at least eight meters wide (roughly twenty-six feet) and easily ten times as deep being created as a result.
The dragon fell into the depths... but as the white monster turned its attention elsewhere, the dragon darted back out of the crevice, destructive energy coating the talons on both forelimbs. The beast turned in time to catch both talons, one stabbing into the humanoid's torso, the other into its face.
Its arms came up at a frightening speed, making to slam both fists into the opposite ends of the dragon's head, only for the dragon to rear its head back, dodging the fists' attempted collision, and retaliating with another destructive breath stream.
The stream hit true, enveloping the entirety of the monster's upper half in destructive violet energy and causing the monster to stagger backwards. The dragon quickly backed away, formulating a plan as it tried to anticipate the monster's next move.
The monster soon cast off the bone-white armor from the torso and arms, its wings giving a wild flap to aid in discarding. The monster roared, and with a puff of violet smoke a ground-melting miasma seemed to seep from every inch of its body, and began to rapidly expand.
'...is that...' The dragon had seen the after-effects of this miasma across not just this planet, but quite a few others. 'So this thing has been indiscriminately melting worlds?'
Taking to the air, the dragon circled the monster, raining down blasts of violet energy. Not one to take this lying down, the monster stomped the ground, causing large columns of stone to jut upwards, which were then plucked from the ground and hurled at the dragon, whom began to take evasive maneuvers.
The stone columns that were evaded kept their trajectory, passing out of the atmosphere altogether and into the depths of space. Their sheer speed punched a hole through the omnipresent cloud of dust and ash, showing a starless night.
Undeterred by this, the dragon resumed his attack...
Vale, The Base
5:31 P.M.
"So the virus was her doing?" Nelius wanted to clarify.
[YES. THIS BLACK QUEEN VIRUS HAS ALREADY SPREAD THROUGHOUT ALL OF VALE'S... CCT, I BELIEVE IT IS CALLED] Vivek responded through the use of the Dual Diver's screen.
"Had to have been planted sometime before we went to have that chat with Ozpin and his people." Epsilon was trying to put together a timeline of precisely when it was deployed. "Hopefully Ironwood's got someone who can safely isolate it."
"Real question now is its purpose..."
[THERE WAS SOMETHING MENTIONED ABOUT... AMITY?]
"Amity Arena... but that's not due to arrive for at least another two weeks..."
"Well, it is where that big battle tournament is being held..." Epsilon, had she been using her holographic form, would've had her eyes widen in recognition. "What better way to cause panic and strife than to have the student teams either face horribly mismatched battles..."
"...or to have the arena itself be the cause."
[...BEG PARDON?]
"From what we've read on prior Vytal Festivals, Amity Arena was designed to mimic various kinds of battlefield conditions - harsh desert sands, dense woodlands, tall grass... normally they're supposed to be locked in when the fighting begins, but suppose someone could adjust them mid-fight, maybe engineer an accident or five..."
"Not to mention the fact that because of the virus, Cinder likely has access to all student records - their strengths, weaknesses, multiple other kinds of errata... she could rig the matchups in all kinds of ways."
[I DID NOTICE SOMETHING ELSE. WHENEVER SHE BROUGHT UP THE VIRUS ON THAT DEVICE OF HERS, I CAUGHT SIGHT OF SOME KIND OF SIGIL UPON IT]
"What did it look like?"
[SOME KIND OF STYLIZED W]
A notably crude image of the aforementioned W appeared on the screen, starting with a noticeably curly swoop and having a small loop in its middle. Nelius flicked his Scroll open and took a quick picture of it.
"Sounds like she has another friend helping her out. Next time we head up to chat with Ozpin and company, we'll ask if any of 'em recognize this."
[THERE IS SOMETHING I CANNOT COMPREHEND]
[WHY DOES THIS CINDER SEEK TO CAUSE SUCH DAMAGE TO THE KINGDOM?]
"Could be any number of reasons - we suspected a smash and grab, followed with a slash and burn."
[...BEG PARDON?]
"Basically Cinder was trying to rob Vale of its resources before torching everything. But this... this reeks of potential worldwide panic, sending the Grimm into a frenzy."
[...BUT ...WHY?]
"Sadly, some people simply want to watch the world burn..." Epsilon spoke up. "My former activator was one such person, more than willing to devastate entire continents simply to acquire one resource."
Vivek was noticeably silent after that statement, finding it a bit hard to fully comprehend. To be so willing to allow thousands, if not millions, of people to die for no good reason other than they simply wanted to...
Celestia
Unknown Time
Another day, another round of weaving magic to repair this damaged soul.
Hale let a tired sigh loose as she took a moment to recuperate, having found her way to an old pavilion that overlooked a decent chunk of her home. Whatever this soul had been through, it had come close to outright destruction. She and at least six other angels had been focused on this task, and only now were tangible results being seen.
Yet, what sort of monstrosity was capable of doing this kind of soul damage? Hale silently prayed that she would never meet such a being.
"Hale? Everything alright?" Snapping her from her thoughts was someone's voice - Aliya's voice.
"For the moment... how is Michael faring?"
"A lot better, now that he's gotten some proper treatment and nutrition. How's the soul doing?"
"Finally beginning to show signs of recovery. I shudder to think of what sort of mind would create a monster capable of doing that kind of damage to one's soul."
Aliya knew exactly what kind of mind would make that sort of monster, but chose to remain silent - there was that old saying about how certain thoughts could come to life if they stayed on the mind for too long, and the last thing she wanted was that particular being somehow reviving and finding its way here.
For now, she was content to simply enjoy the relative calm and take a moment to get caught up with an old friend. That said, she was wondering how everyone's search was going.
Beacon Academy
5:38 P.M.
Yang had a lot to process as Ruby finished spilling what she knew before turning her attention back to Crescent Rose.
'Some kind of machine that can draw you into someone's mind? Sounds like Ruby got into one of Blake's weirder books again...' Yang's train of thought then stoppped. 'Then again, that dream felt way too real, not to mention that was a fairly accurate depiction of Summer... but Ruby was way too young to be able to remember her that clearly.'
There was also Ruby's overall performance over the past few days, going from what appeared to be a slump right into a burst of inspiration.
All of this began to point towards one idea - find the guy whom possessed this machine and talk with him about it, but if he only showed up at Ozpin's request it might prove difficult. For now, she'd have to wait and see how events played out.
'Still, I'd bet Weiss and Blake would simply chalk this up to Ruby simply being Ruby.' She'd need to come up with some kind of story to cover for this, at least until a better grasp of the situation was at hand. Then again, if Ozpin was in on this whole thing, perhaps asking him about it would be quicker? This was a family matter, after all, and Ruby had already spoken up about it.
She turned and left the forge.
Cosmic Depths
Unknown Time
Another sweep, another bust.
Still, with every dead-end eliminated, that narrowed the pool down as far as finding this Remnant place went. Mita could've wished it for the search to happen a lot quicker, but as they say, one had to be careful what they wished for.
Zio and Brutus were busy cataloguing the information gathered, squaring it away to be used for later.
Over in her own vessel, Admiral Aika was busy coordinating the next set of sweeps in the TDF's own search for the missing Rhodonite heir.
'This could've gone so much quicker had that prototype unit's memory logs not gotten fried.' Though most of the TDF's best techs had been working with WHS to better repair and update the gate unit in question, much of its data had been lost.
A pinging sound brought Aika out of her thoughts, and so she answered.
"Admiral Aika here."
"Fiolina reporting. Our squadron's made it to Sector 0-UM."
"I'm surprised the Commander's not the one calling. Did something arise?"
"Data analysis has gone... askew. Commander had us forward the information to all TDF stations and fleets, in the hopes that someone might help piece this together."
About five seconds later, the aforementioned information came in, and askew was an understatement. The "data", assuming one could call it such, was an incoherent mess of symbols, wavelength patterns melting into one another...
"All this from one sector?"
"There's more. Communications captured this audio."
An audio file was sent, and as Aika played it, what started out as static appeared to have some kind of voice layered beneath it, but it was extraordinarily faint. She strained her ears, trying to puzzle out what the voice was saying, but had little success.
"Can it be cleaned up?"
"Working on it as we speak, Admiral. I just hope this is a tangible lead - we've been on this case for quite a while, and the Rhodonites are getting testy."
Vacuo
10:23 P.M.
With night falling upon the desert Kingdom, most had retreated inside to their homes and makeshift shelters.
One character in particular, clad in a dark blue that allowed them to meld with the dark, had instead opted to sneak over to Shade Academy. Their target - the CCT Tower.
With one leap this character made to the highest point of the Academy, and with a second landed atop the tower. Reaching into a satchel on their right hip, they withdrew a small panel. Reaching into a small crevasse within the top, they then extracted a small device that had a similar-looking panel attached to it, though this one seemed to be clogged with sand.
The two panels were exchanged, and the device was placed back within the crevasse, the figure leaping down and into the shadows afterwards.
Chapter 34 - Complete