Huh. Imagine pulling this on Cinder and co. Because that is wow tier paranoia inducing. Anything could be one of the hivemind in disguise. Anything.
Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)
- Thread starter Prok
- Start date
- Crossover
[X] Rotunda- the rotunda is your reception area- you wanna be up and in their face when they come in here? This is where you stand. Unfortunately, it's also not too defensible- you can be approached from three sides, and with very little clearance on any of them to get some good hits in before the enemy is upon you. Silver linings- there is no chance of anyone being hurt once they approach. It would never allow it.
[X] Turn on Bracket- this option drags Bracket back from the dead, along with the ability to make a HUD. However, because he doesn't have access to any of the things that let him act like a normal, well-adjusted human being, the Transistor's putting a lock on the gun cabinet- you'll have a lot more battlefield information, but no Functions just yet. Using all 85 points of effort, it would take about 20 minutes to get it back online.
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question- you recognise that spiderweb. Hell, you watched the logs of the Transistor and the Process fighting Bianco. That ain't a coincidence. Nothing accusatory, of course not, but... a gentle inquiry to dip your toes on the subject.
Also, our traps are smart enough to not trigger when a lost student stumbles onto it, right?
[X] Turn on Bracket- this option drags Bracket back from the dead, along with the ability to make a HUD. However, because he doesn't have access to any of the things that let him act like a normal, well-adjusted human being, the Transistor's putting a lock on the gun cabinet- you'll have a lot more battlefield information, but no Functions just yet. Using all 85 points of effort, it would take about 20 minutes to get it back online.
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question- you recognise that spiderweb. Hell, you watched the logs of the Transistor and the Process fighting Bianco. That ain't a coincidence. Nothing accusatory, of course not, but... a gentle inquiry to dip your toes on the subject.
Also, our traps are smart enough to not trigger when a lost student stumbles onto it, right?
CaesriusPolybius
Worldgate Mechanic
- Location
- United States. Ish.
That write-in's kinda appealing.
[X] Plan Lord of War
[X] Plan Lord of War
ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
That's a fine write-in. Editing Plan Lord of War into my post so I don't need to reproduce the rest of my vote.
That depends. Did they eat and recreate the animals? -If no, do the animals eat the forest plants as normal? -If yes, do the animals maintain normal population shifts, both down and up? Am I entirely certain I kept track of all of the students throughout the entire event? It is easy to pretend that plants are just furniture and not really alive, so I need this sort of information if I am to precisely gauge my exactly levels of vitamin horror.
[X] This is a Terrible Idea and Should Not Be Picked
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ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
I'm just imagining the forest around Jaune's family's house filling any Grimm that walks too close with hot plasma.
- Location
- A hole full of snakes.
[X] Plan Lord of War
Seems pretty solid to me.
Seems pretty solid to me.
- Location
- Earth
For Lord of War, I'm not inclined because micromanaging doesn't seem necessary. And I'd rather do one thing very well than three things okay.
How are votes counted though? Just by aggregate?
And fairly off topic, but I'm really glad we/Jaune went for the professional chic look. At some point he's going to need to start handing out business cards for Cloudbank Solutions and his Grimm Library and probably a couple of other things. Better to look like a serious young hunter than a disaffected hipster who doesn't like killing Beowulves because it's too mainstream.
How are votes counted though? Just by aggregate?
And fairly off topic, but I'm really glad we/Jaune went for the professional chic look. At some point he's going to need to start handing out business cards for Cloudbank Solutions and his Grimm Library and probably a couple of other things. Better to look like a serious young hunter than a disaffected hipster who doesn't like killing Beowulves because it's too mainstream.
ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
I mean eventually we probably are going to outsource all slaying of Beowulves to the Process.
Not for being too mainstream but because they're not gonna be worth noticing.
[X] Rotunda
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question
[X] Turn on Bracket
It seems like a good plan, making a forward defensible location. Asking the question may not be optimal for winning, but it'll be a heck of a lot more interesting than just doing nothing.
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question
[X] Turn on Bracket
It seems like a good plan, making a forward defensible location. Asking the question may not be optimal for winning, but it'll be a heck of a lot more interesting than just doing nothing.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I've thought on it a bit, and decided that I agree with the hivemind.
[X] Rotunda
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question
[X] Turn on Bracket
[X] Rotunda
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Ask Lumen A Maybe Uncomfortable Question
[X] Turn on Bracket
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
The Process actively avoids assimilating any kind of fauna unless specifically directed. Now, you do bring up a good question- I don't think anything the Process imitates would have nutritional value, at least, inherently. It would definitely take some jiggering for it to contain the same kind of nutrients and carbohydrates that's necessary to make foliage, well, food. So, if you were to do it right now... yeah, I think the animals of the forest would just slowly starve. At least, until Jaune or someone else realised the problem and fixed it- but no, Process matter, no matter what shape it takes, just can't take part in the same chemical processes necessary for food to provide energy to an animal.
I have a bad habit of switching between counting by line and counting by vote with absolutely zero consistency regarding which I'll use at any particular time, because the new SV tally system will divide votes that are exactly the same just because some parts are bolded and others aren't, and I haven't figured out how to clump them together again, if you even can. Line tallying tends to be more consistent in that regard, with the downside of, you know, only half of some votes winning, a quarter of others- that could upset some people, so I try to judge by whether or not that would be the case, and whether or not the vote needs to be taken as a whole to make sense.
Also honestly I wasn't too sold on the suit to begin with, but, the mental image has grown on me since then if I'm honest with myself.
Votes are now closed, and a large-scale fortress in the rotunda while bringing Bracket back from the dead and asking Lumen uncomfortable questions about his family wins!
- Location
- Earth
Someone needs to decide on a name for this fortress. I'll throw into the ring Yang suggesting 'Fort Circuit' or 'Any Fort' (respectively, short circuit and 'any fort?' 'in a storm like this, yup' 'yang...')
What's non-negotiable is a 'Hunterz Only' sign on the front. Though I guess I'd settle for 'No Grimm Allowed'.
What's non-negotiable is a 'Hunterz Only' sign on the front. Though I guess I'd settle for 'No Grimm Allowed'.
ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
That pun sounds like exactly what Yang would do.
- Location
- Earth
Ugh, won't get out of my head. Drop Dead Fortress and Fortobello (it grew out of the ground, it's pale and alive, and I don't wanna eat it).
Though they better not spend too much time joking around or the Grimm will have them by the fort hairs.
People should stop yanging back and contribute their ramPart to the ideas.
Though they better not spend too much time joking around or the Grimm will have them by the fort hairs.
People should stop yanging back and contribute their ramPart to the ideas.
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- Location
- Earth
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Plan Lord of War
A bit late, but. Eh.
A bit late, but. Eh.
- Location
- United Kingdom
[X] Rotunda
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Nothing
[X] Turn on Bracket
This is a cool quest. Not sure how I feel about his Semblance being so world-changing, but between the good characterisations/interactions and somewhat notable flaws that come with said Semblance, I think I can live with it.
[X] Large Scale Gentrification Project
[X] Nothing
[X] Turn on Bracket
This is a cool quest. Not sure how I feel about his Semblance being so world-changing, but between the good characterisations/interactions and somewhat notable flaws that come with said Semblance, I think I can live with it.
Initiation: Democratic_Process()
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
reports of my death were 100% accurate
There are a lot of options here, from creating an army of Process units to overwhelm whatever turns up, to boobytrapping the entire field between here and the ruins, but frankly, you think you've become something of a deft hand at creating structure with the Process. That's what you're familiar with, that's what feels… easiest to implement, right now.
You could move back to the other ruins, and use those as a basis, but that runs the risk of leaving people chased by giant Grimm out in the cold, and that doesn't sit well with the same instincts that compelled you to buy the medical supplies currently hanging off your hip.
You look down at 01, the Cell patiently awaiting its orders.
"Above-ground defensive position, large enough to accommodate anyone who comes here, room for a basic infirmary, automatic armaments- can you do it?"
There is a tiny delay, a small cycle of beeping as it thinks for a second, flexing pieces of code it's probably never had to look at before now, getting used to them, making them as efficient as it can for purpose, then giving you your answer.
"Minimum area to accommodate the hypothetical maximum of 40 people is 33.5 square metres, rounded up, not accounting for verticality. Path of least resistance would be to follow outline left by ruins- would easily accommodate everyone and allow for larger defence designs to be constructed."
You see some of those numbers and visualisations hit people in the corner of your vision, and barely hold back a smile at the confusion, excitement, and awe in almost equal measure you see gradiented amongst your friends.
... And Blake- no, that's mean, don't be like that.
"Wait. This place is… is it something we should be… doing stuff to? It looks old enough to be considered historic," Blake asks, a thread of concern in her voice.
The apparent terrorist apparent catgirl manages to surprise you a little. Perhaps it's your recent bias, but she didn't strike you as the kind of person who would care about the preservation of an ancient ruin. Regardless, you have to admit she has a point. Looking at your feet, at the carved stone beneath it, you can't begin to imagine how old it is. Older than Vale, without a doubt. Destroying it feels… wrong.
Like ripping pages out of a book and scattering them to the winds.
"Exclude any carved stone you find from assimilation. Protect it, if you can."
You look over at her, and while you wouldn't describe the look on her face as one of relief, what's there is an improvement over the blatant concern from not even five seconds ago.
"Understood. Process construction initiating in three, two, one-"
Nothing seemed to happen, at first- at least, not to your eyes. The second it started, you felt everything, a sudden expansion of the senses, total awareness of exactly how this fortress was going to look, knowing you can alter it however you wish…
That's… you hope that sensation isn't going to be habit-forming.
A second after your first experience with sudden and complete knowledge of a relatively large planned structure, a much less subtle phenomenon begins- thin white strands begin to form all around, rapidly expanding into thin, milky panels and becoming an outline of the future fortress, gently morphing in both shape and opacity as it begins brute-forcing the perfect structure for its purpose.
If you understood… the general shape, in your senses, this was the Process's… rough draft, just scaffolding to build everything else, and raw surface area to grow from.
You note that it seems to naturally veer towards blockier designs. The design it eventually settles on is just a set of cuboids stacked on and around each other. It looks unlike anything any sane human would build, and you don't know what it says about you that you kinda like it. Still, it's not exactly practical, though. Flat surfaces and sharp corners don't deflect force all that well.
"Wh-wha… I… what? What?!" Yang progresses from confusion to, er, louder confusion, over about three seconds, looking around at the largest project the Process has ever undertaken on the surface.
"Jaune, what's happening right now?" Blake asks, not as confused or frightened as her partner, but there's still a very obvious thread of caution in her voice.
"It's the Process. It assimilates gasses from the air and parts of the ground to create foundations and, from there, a fortress big enough to protect everyone in the forest. Should fit the hypothetical maximum of 40 people."
You begin to direct it- giving some, basic design guidance so it isn't just tall white blocks of alien material, flattening it out over a wider area for balance, smoothing out the sharp corners to help deflect any projectiles that would otherwise penetrate, a watchtower for long-range fighters like Ruby, maybe Pyrrha, and anyone else in that category, a couple of emplacements for guns whose ranges aren't measured in kilometres- by the time you think you've got a basic plan down, it looks almost like a very well-armed church, the rotunda slowly turned into a viable defensible entrance.
Well... you suppose the Process did say it would use the temple as a basis. Must have seeped into your creative process.
Looking over, you see that Blake and Yang aren't… taking the news well. Yang is still completely lost, just staring at you, eyes wide, jaw slack, expression disbelieving, while Blake doesn't seem all that comforted by your answer.
"Er, look, Yang, it's a lot to explain, and Jaune's not, very good at doing that, no offence-"
"None taken."
"-so… I'll tell you about it while we wait?" Creme ventures, trying her luck at offering to explain everything to her friend.
Yang doesn't speak- she just nods her head in silence, still processing what she's seeing.
"I… think I'd appreciate that as well," Blake manages, tearing her eyes away from the spectacle.
"Cool, cool, I can- er, Ada, you mind…? You got, an actual explanation from him, right?"
"Eh, ain't got anything better to do," the tiny girl says, following Creme as she leads them off somewhere out of the way, Terry and Tulip coming along for examples, no doubt.
Leaving you alone with Lumen. Again. You're not complaining, you're just… noticing a pattern about today.
He sidles up to you, watching the Process work, milky panes slowly thickening out, details you didn't plan appearing along the outer wall, the struts and strands of needed support appearing along the inside. Settling down on the steps next to you, you watch as he drafts luxin, forming a small rectangle of textured blue, then slathering it in thin, oily orange, before pulling his sword from its scabbard and starting to work the edge with it.
You're aware that it's technically not a sword since it only has one edge, but calling something that big a knife just seems silly.
"... You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say the girls were plotting to find a better pair to team up with than us. Bet you that black knight is gone next time we look."
"The only rational response is to find another pair to make them jealous with," you reply, settling down next to him.
He snorts.
"Who are you thinking? Nikos and whoever she ended up with?"
You specifically do not blush thinking about your first trainwreck of a conversation with a world-renowned tournament fighter. Lumen, blessed with basic visual perception as he is, doesn't miss it.
"Man, you got it bad. Pyrrha Nikos?" he asks incredulously, raising an eyebrow at you. "Look at the balls on you, trying to pull the Invincible Girl!"
Of course that's how he takes it.
"I-it's not like that! I just… I talked to her, this morning."
"Ahh. Shot you down before you even got to the flirting?"
"No," you say, doing absolutely nothing for your case by trying not to sound like a surly git. "I… ran into her, 01, stuck to her, and, we ended up talking while I tried to figure out how to get him off without, you know, ripping him in half."
"... Your Cell… stuck to her," he confirms, making sure he heard you right.
"{Nikos' Semblance gives her a natural magnetic field- one large enough to pick up a Cell at distance, and strong enough that it can't escape under its own power.}"
He gives a noise of understanding, then gestures at you to continue.
"And then…?"
"{Jaune got to talk to someone he's all but worshipped the ground she walks on since he was 13, and Pyrrha Nikos got treated like a normal human being. It went about as well as you could expect.}"
Hey, they don't have to make it sound that bad goddammit-
"... What, is she as bad as Jaune?"
"{Somehow, worse.}"
"Hey!"
Lumen just laughs, but there's no sting to it. For a moment, there's a certain lull in the conversation, and you find yourself thinking back a couple of days.
… Has it only been four days since you stopped a terrorist attack? It feels like it could have been a year since that happened.
Regardless, the events are still fresh in your mind. You watched the logs back to understand what had happened from the Transistor's perspective, and you honestly don't know why you hadn't noticed it as soon as you saw it again. And, you think this is the last quiet moment you're gonna get for a while. Better now, than forgetting it later, you guess.
Ok. No social suite. Nothing to help you. Just you, your friend, and a potentially very uncomfortable question.
"... So… I have... something to ask you," you venture, unable to hide all your apprehension about broaching this.
Lumen must pick up on something in your voice because he's very quickly paying attention, no sign of his previous joviality.
"What's up?"
"... Well, you know how Weiss Schnee was attacked a couple of days ago? Well… I was there. I'm, the reason she's alive, actually. The man trying to kill her was an eagle Faunus who had a... very similar Semblance to you, but he used less… colours, I guess-"
"Lemme guess- red and ultraviolet?"
"Uh, yeah," you answer, the swiftness with which he cuts you off making you stumble a little.
"Bianco. A cousin of mine," he answers with absolutely zero hesitation, then groans deeply. He doesn't seem… surprised by the news. Just disappointed. "I knew he was pretty far gone, but… joining the White Fang… ugh, I'm going to kill that idiot the next time I see him."
The blunt answer throws you off for a second, but you keep going as best you can.
"Oh. Um… sorry, it's just, I saw your, web construct, and the, the similarities…"
"Yeah, he's the one that taught me it. It doesn't really have a specific name, but it's taught to just about everyone who can draft green, blue, or superviolet luxin in my family," Lumen explains to you, without so much as a trace of humour in his voice.
He stops for a moment, pulls that carton of cigarettes from his cardigan, placing one between his lips and lighting it with a small clear crystal of sub-red jutting out from his thumbnail, quickly consumed in its self-made flame. He takes a drag, exhaling that pale blue smoke again, away from you, thankfully, before he says anything else.
"... Jaune, how much do you know about my family?"
"Uh… I, didn't know there was anything to know?"
He raises an eyebrow at you, silently flicking his gaze to the Transistor for a moment.
Ah. The eternal curse of telling people about the Transistor. They expect you to know everything.
"I don't research people unless I have a very good reason. Even if it wasn't illegal, I still don't do it to friends."
Lumen smiles at you, and it quickly turns into quiet laughter, and he has to break eye contact with you to regain his composure, shaking his head slightly as he does.
"Dust, you're something, you know that? A million different perverts, voyeurs, government workers who think Mantle had the right idea vis-à-vis population observation, any of them could have ended up with a Semblance like yours, and it ends up with probably the only person on Remnant who won't abuse it."
You can't help but smile at that, the little glow of pride in your chest leaving you all warm and fuzzy from unexpected compliments.
"... Sorry, I'm, avoiding the question," he says after a moment. "My Semblance is, uh, genetically dominant, in case you hadn't figured that out. Anyone who has a kid with me, or my twin, or my little sisters, their kid will end up with it too. So... there are a lot of us. Hundreds, in fact."
He looks at you again, pointing at his eyes.
"These, though? They're a mutation. I dunno what happened, I mean, who does when it comes to Semblances, but there are three major limits on the family Semblance that just, don't apply to me or Marcella. We're full-spectrum drafters, we don't need to see a colour to draft it, we just need white light, and… ugh, hold on, this has been annoying me since we landed-"
He stops, taking a moment to flush his arms of the luxin that had built up over the day, a whole painter's palette of the stuff flowing from his fingers and forming a dozen different things and flashing away in an instant, your own personal fireworks show. He gives out a shuddering little breath of catharsis as he does, mutters something about how that's gonna bruise, then quickly goes back to his cigarette to compose his next words.
"... Luxin fucks with your head. The difference is, everyone in my family, they don't have the same… tolerance, for long-term drafting, that me and my sister do. Everyone else has a limit."
… Ah. Ah.
You think you're beginning to understand the bigger picture here. And you're not entirely sure you like it.
"And what happens when they reach this limit? When they go past it?"
"It's called breaking the halo. Um, luxin builds up in the body, in little bits and pieces, but it gathers in the irises, mostly. When someone reaches their limit and doesn't stop, the luxin just tears the iris apart and spills out into the sclera. After that, something... snaps, up here," he says, tapping his temple. "Something goes, and they just, they revel in what luxin does to them. Some of the worst cases start replacing parts of their body with the stuff if they can. Hell, even if they really can't, too."
Lumen stops for a moment, and you don't push him. Looking over, you see that he's just kind of staring at the treeline, that he's not entirely here at the moment. You don't… think it's a great idea to interrupt that kind of spell.
Still. There is a picture being painted here, and it is a grim, grim one indeed.
"...So, yeah. Hundreds of insane Semblance addicts, lot of mouths to feed- when they're not throwing themselves at Grimm like a bunch of Vacuoni deathseekers, falling into a life of crime is less an if and more a when with my family," he continues, "and there we were, two kids they couldn't break the way they wanted to, so we just-"
A deafening roar and screech and weird skittering noise come from outside, killing your conversation in its tracks. You and Lumen get up as the girls to join you and rush back out just in time to see an Ursa Major burst through the treeline, being ridden by a ginger girl like a bull at a rodeo until she just pulls out a hammer, plugs a grenade in one side, and-
So yeah that Ursa doesn't have the top half of its skull anymore.
The girl rolls off of the now-carcass's back with a whoop of glee, then a moan of disappointment at her ride being dead.
… You're. Going to stay away from that one. A boy in traditional Mistrali dress clothes rushes out behind her, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that she at least has a handler, who is hopefully going to handle her.
"Uh, y'all know that screech we just heard? Because I just found where it came from," Creme says, drawing attention to the giant Nevermore currently flying overhead.
Towards you.
"WE'RE THE POOR FUCKS WHO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT THING?!" Lumen quite justifiably screams in disbelief at like what are the chances of it just circling like that seriously-
"Actually, I think they are," Blake points out, and when you squint a little at the creature you can faintly make out a little black and red blob and a white blob on its le- this has to be a joke.
Weiss?
Ok, look, Ruby… Ruby you can see pulling a stunt like this without blinking. But… Weiss?
"PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISS-"
"Leathers!"
Taking a deep breath and accepting your fate as part of the audience in this theatre production of sheer unfiltered chaos, you watch as Leathers flies out from the treeline with zero control, cursing with such frequency, variety, and volume that it would make a sailor blush, and eventually landing in a trench-forming faceplant.
… Wait for it. Waaaaaiiiiiit for- ah, his foot twitched, he's fine. Probably.
Before you can even think about helping him up, you watch Pyrrha running out of the forest at full pelt, a Giant… you don't even know what that thing is following her, pulling itself along the trees like some kind of demented monkey, leaving deep gouges in the bark as it crawls/climbs towards her.
The Grimm itself is like some horrid cross between a horse and the top half of a human- it lacks anything below where the hips would be on a human torso, instead moving about with its two disproportionately long arms, tipped with equally disproportionately long fingers, tipped with now quite accurately proportionally long talons, its skull equine but with the teeth of a very large canine. Its fur is shiny, caked with grease, silt, and… moss? Where does this thing live?
{It… reminds me of a Kelpie, but those only grow to the size of a horse. And, have four legs.}
Ok, there is just, a lot going on right now, and honestly it's just way too much for you to react to all at once and now Ruby's falling good God the ride just does not stop today-
T2-01 reacts first, skittering towards a tree which is used as a launchpad to send itself careening into Ruby, catching her as daintily as it can in its forelimbs before landing, before twisting and using its hindlimbs and back to absorb as much force as it could, giving the girl something, if not soft to land on, then at least taking most of the oomph out of her landing for her.
"Are you alright, miss-" it begins to ask- in a surprisingly deep voice for your expectations of the Process, a downright baritone number- then Ruby is out of its grasp, her scythe is out, and T2-01 is gently sliding apart directly down its symmetric centre.
This does not appear to inconvenience it all that much.
"... Miss Rose, that was just a little rude."
"Yang what is that thing why does it know my name and why is it not dead after I sliced it in half?"
"Ruby!"
"Jaune!?"
"Ruby!"
"Nora!"
And now the ginger girl is over here oh god-
"Ooooohhhh…"
You watch her dash behind you, completely ignoring the fact that the ruins, er, aren't ruins anymore, and start fawning over a golden rook piece, proclaiming happily that she is the queen of a castle, before being chastised by her handler and you would really like for nothing else to happen in the next thirty seconds that's really necessary right now-
The sound of the unknown Grimm approaching just about muffles out the sound of Pyrrha panting for breath but still running at full sprint towards the group. You watch as she dips to one side just long enough to singlehandedly pick Leathers up by the collar of his jacket, flipping his comatose body over her shoulders like a foul-mouthed bag of grain, barely slowing down for the new weight on her back.
"Ok, Ruby, look, long story short-" Yang points to the nearest Cell, Tulip, "-big version of that thing-" she then points to your new construction project, "-little version of that thing."
Ruby doesn't respond, watching in unabashed terror as T2-01- ok this is getting ridiculous, it needs a name, Creep, T2, has little thin legs with no discernible feet- Tiptoe, finally slides itself back together, the seam disappearing as soon as it's happy with its work.
"Ruby, I'll explain later, but it's a friend, ok? It's here to help us," you say, attempting to placate her somewhat.
She doesn't seem to visibly acknowledge your words, but she also doesn't attack T2- Tiptoe, so you happily throw that topic onto the backburner for the moment.
"Did she run all the way here with a… whatever that is following her?" Blake asks, gesturing to Pyrrha.
You hear a nearly primal growl, the kind of sound that drops your stomach into your boots, and for a moment you start looking for the Grimm that somehow snuck in the back door before you realise that it's Yang.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! CAN EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT SO WE CAN GO TWO SECONDS WITHOUT SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENING?!"
Oh thank God finally someone said it so you don't have to.
And, for a moment, things do quieten down. Like, ok, it's exactly as chaotic as it was five seconds ago, but it doesn't get more chaotic, and frankly, that's just a regular Candlemas miracle considering where you are and what's happening right now.
"Ruby! How could you leave me?!" Weiss yells from above, still clinging for dear life.
"She's gonna fall," Blake announces, and you look up to see Weiss is, in fact, about to fall- barely hanging onto the creature's talon for her life.
"She'll be fine!" Ruby says, sounding far too optimistic about the situation.
Shit.
"She's falling."
No!
Without planning, without thinking, you raise a hand and give the Process a single priority task.
Save Weiss Schnee.
Kinetic energy mitigation in progress.
Your breath hitches in your throat as Weiss plummets back to Remnant, and as white lightning scars race out from your feet, rushing towards where she should land, quickly outpacing you as you sprint alongside them.
100 metres.
But they don't outpace Ruby, by any stretch of the imagination. The young girl blasts past you with a gust of wind that almost knocks you off your feet, dragging along a vortex of...
Rose petals?
50 metres.
You're not going to make it. But the Process just might.
25. 15. 10.
Barely two metres from the ground, a perfect 5-metre circle of Process matter forms below Weiss, just as Ruby jumps to catch her, and the girls slip through it with barely a ripple. A 10-metre cylinder of compressible Process matter, like a tube of warm snow, bleeding off her momentum at a rapid rate, yes, but not… strawberry jam rapid. Through your seventh sense, you feel Weiss slow down, and the way both Ruby and the Process matter slam into her back, knocking the wind out of her at the cost of the lion's share of her Aura.
Once they've slowed to a stop, the Process pulls the two girls up, and they surface in shimmering liquid, still on the ground, Weiss giving her damnedest attempt to cough her lungs up while Ruby lays her down on the now solid ground. You finish your sprint to her, your sword, kinda following you, drunkenly waving along the same vague path towards your mutual destination. At the very least, it's improving.
"Are you alright?" you ask, dropping to a knee and giving Weiss a quick look over for any obvious injuries.
Weiss starts to answer, descends into another coughing fit, then gives you a silent thumbs-up instead.
Neither you nor Ruby is convinced by that.
"Weiss, I'm really not sure you are! You just fell, like, half a mile out of the sky!"
"This isn't the place for a medical examination. I'll look her over when we're in the temple," you tell Ruby, immediately wincing at your choice of words.
Ohhhh you're gonna pay for that one in a few seconds, you can just tell
"T-kgph-temple?"
Resigning yourself to your fate, you point to the Process building just in time to watch it flash into solidity, any slated changes now stalled for the sake of protecting its occupants. Making a quick judgement of how far away you are from it now, you judge yourself to be about the same distance from it as Pyrrha is. All four- five? Does Leathers count here?- of you can make that, no problem. Unfortunately, so can that Grimm.
Weiss blinks, staring at the temple for a moment, utterly dumbstruck before she manages to shoot you a little grin that does weird things to your chest.
"... Don't you think it's a little presumptuous to be building temples to the Process already?"
"Hey, I renovated it with the Process- it was already here. Come on, we need to move," you tell her, pushing, all of that down for now, and later, and forever, grabbing your sword by the hilt before it wanders off somewhere else and getting ready to run.
{Sorry.}
Don't be.
The three of you match Pyrrha's stride, planning to slam the door in that unknown Grimm's face once you make it through, the girls beside you as you keep an eye on it. Unfortunately, it seems to know exactly what you're doing and picks up the pace.
The distance between it and Pyrrha was already disturbingly short, but it makes a very solid effort to close it further, reaching out with a clawed hand-
It reels back as twin strobe lasers dazzle it, not strong enough to burn it, or even blind it permanently, but they stun it long enough for Pyrrha to gain some distance again, followed by a frankly compensatory rifle bullet, which
DC 14, Result- 20+8 = 28. Critical Success!
rips half of its mask off, revealing the raw, black flesh beneath and setting it screaming in pain- a waterfall of smog flooding from what's left of its face, followed by another gust of wind as Ruby catches up to you, the smell of nitroglycerine just about burning your nose off, and allowing you to put two and two together.
... Nice indeed.
The three of you meet Pyrrha about thirty metres from the door, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making you also a target for the weird Grimm, which has recovered from its momentary shock, making double-time to catch up with its quarry.
You watch out of the corner of your eye as Weiss spins the revolver-guard of her rapier, eventually landing on light blue. She leaps forward a good four metres, twisting in the air as she slashes at the ground below, and you feel the temperature drop like a stone with the sound of something cracking into existence behind you.
When she catches up, having fallen behind in the time it took her to turn around, you chance a look behind, and see that the Grimm's been locked up in an ice stockade- its hands and head bound together by a baby glacier.
... Oh God she fights with pure Dust-
You, contain your hysteria for a moment and focus on the final mad dash to the door. The others are still inside, ready to rush out in case you can't make it, but within seconds you're at the steps, up the steps, three, two, one, CLOSE THE DOORS-
They slam behind you with a deafeningly loud and surprisingly wooden thud- you don't remember feeding the Process a tree at any ah no wait you remember now-, and start to deal with the fact that you're safe now.
"Everyone ok? Nobody injured?" you ask, looking over the girls, Nora's handler, and the comatose hooligan.
Leathers gurgles out something, a hand twitching into a thumbs up for a second, as Pyrrha lays him down against the wall. The champion herself is heaving for breath but otherwise seems alright, now that she's got a chance to rest, all but collapsing next to her... you, assume Leathers is her partner, then.
Poor soul.
"I am, fine," she says, "Perhaps a, few bruises, tomorrow morning, but no, major injuries."
Nora's handler sidles away from the boy, barely conscious as he is- oh, you wondered why he looked so familiar! He was Leathers' teddy bear last night!
You look at Weiss for her answer, and she nods, wincing a little as she does.
"I'm fine, just, tender," she admits after a moment. "My Aura didn't break, so I don't think it's anything serious."
"Uh, is Leathers ok?" Ada asks the room while pointing at the boy in question, "because I don't think he's made any effort to tell us he is since he got in here."
"Well no, he gave a thumbs-up," Lumen says. "And... has done absolutely nothing else, yeah, so... maybe check up on him?"
You look over the boy, and, while he's not exactly doing anything other than taking a nap, the fact that he's taking a nap after a fall like that is still...
She has a point, you decide. Relying on Leathers' Semblance and sheer bullheaded stubbornness is probably a bad idea, reliable as it's been in the past. You gesture, pulling him out from the wall and onto a slab of Process matter- you know, while you're having a go at the whole renaming thing, you should probably find a way to phase all those instances of 'process' out of your vocabulary- then raise it to bed level, sending it off to a little private room near the back.
"Keep an eye on his vitals, I'll check him over once I'm done here."
"Understood," the walls say, the words echoing from everywhere with no distinct source, an effect that gets everyone's attention.
"Who was that?" The boy once a teddy bear asks, a thread of caution in his voice.
"Do you want the long version or the version that won't shatter your worldview into a million pieces?" Yang mutters under her breath, still loud enough for him to hear.
"... Short version, please."
"Good choice- the temple's alive, he built it," she explains, pointing at you.
Teddy bear stares at you for a second, blinking like a deer in headlights, before just shaking his head, choosing to compartmentalise that for later.
Good choice.
Once you're sure you have everyone's attention, you begin.
"... So. We have at least two large Grimm out there, and if I'm counting relics right, at least 22 more people have to turn up. I don't think we're gonna be lucky enough for them to get bored, so… we either need a plan to deal with them ourselves, or a plan to get enough people to turn up at the same time that we're not dealing with them ourselves. So..." you look at everyone in turn. "I'm open to ideas."
"Can't the Process just kill them?" Ada asks, quite reasonably so. "Like, you're telling me that something this big can't make a gun big enough to kill the Nevermore?"
"Currently, the only viable plans we have for this scale of conflict are direct-energy weapons- any weapon in that category with enough power to overcome thermal blooming and noticeably damage the Nevermore at its current flying height would create enough heat to critically damage structural integrity, and incinerate all organic life inside regardless. Since our current goal is to protect the organic life currently inside the defence position, this strikes us as counterproductive."
Oh, so you're standing inside an artillery battery that doubles as a cremation chamber.
Lovely.
"We could always just go out the back. Take the Relics, run for the tower over the hill, and let the Process do that, without killing us all at the same time," Lumen suggests. "Or hell, aim it at the overgrown reindeer- it can't possibly need the same amount of power at that range."
"Oh, this place has a tower, right? I saw one from outside! I can try and finish it off with Crescent Rose!" Ruby exclaims, and you can't tell if it's for the chance to kill Grimm, or the chance to shoot that ridiculous sniper rifle of hers.
Pyrrha pulls a sword from her hip, and you watch as a few quick presses and twisting flush sections set it off, turning into a lengthy bolt-action rifle. Ruby gives a little noise of appreciation, and you watch her actively shake off the impending excitement before she gets distracted.
Well... she's focusing, so that's good.
"I will join you if there is enough space. Er, how do we…?" Pyrrha looks at you for directions to the tower, and you almost give them before Weiss interrupts.
"Wait, wait, hold on, let's just, take a second-" she calls the group's only two long-ranged options off, and only falters a little when she realises that everyone is now paying attention to her, "Um… P-Process, can you… tell us what's happening out there?"
She gives you a panicked look, only relaxing when viewscreens appear along one wall- one of the Nevermore, patiently circling above, and one of the unknown Grimm, still struggling against Weiss's glacier stockade, shining in the midday sun, cracks forming deep within from its ministrations, but not pervasive enough to threaten the shackles. More worryingly, its face has stopped bleeding- no longer a waterfall of smog, the large wounds in its face have already started to bubble and scar over, along with signs of its mask already starting to repair itself, millimetre by millimetre.
The Grimm is visibly repairing the damage dealt to it, drawing its energy from what you can only believe to be spite because basic biology sure ain't doing it.
"... What the hell? How is it... healing so fast?" Creme asks aloud, probably not expecting an answer.
Some Grimm just don't play fair, you don't say. She knows it, you all know it, sometimes you just need to let off a little steam with a rhetorical question.
"Who cares? It's trapped! It just had half its face shot off!" Nora says. "I say we go out there and break its legs before it heals anymore, then we can just wait outside while, er, whatever it is that's talking to us from the walls does whatever it's gonna do to the Nevermore!"
"It doesn't have legs," Blake says.
"Does it use them to move around?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"Then they're legs."
Blake just… stares, at her, at Nora's little self-assured grin, and you can follow the cost-benefit analysis as it plays out in her mind right before she shakes her head, and moves along with her day.
"It's healing. Grimm that size, healing that fast- it's either really old or really specialised. And if it's old, it could easily have something else up its sleeve. For all we know, we open that door, and it starts, I dunno, breathing fire at us, we're basically trapped in a killbox for its convenience. I think the easiest thing to do would be to send out a couple of those big Process things to soften it up, then aim whatever guns this place has at it to finish the job," Ada says, putting forward her points with more confidence than you ever really expected from the tiny girl.
"And if it's just specialised?" Pink Highlight asks.
You'll learn his name eventually, promise.
"Oh, then we just walk out there and stab it in the face until it stops moving, same as any other Grimm," she answers with a casual shrug. "The problem is, we don't know. I've never seen a Grimm like this before, and I'm really not confident I can eyeball that kinda judgement."
"Ok, well, uh, Pyrrha, right? Did it show... any kind of special capabilities while it was chasing you?" Creme asks, and if she recognises the four-time champion at all, she's doing a very good job of holding her emotions in check.
"N...no, not that I can think of. Oh, um, it might be able to breathe underwater. It ambushed us when we were trying to cross a river- jumped up from the riverbed and almost dragged us under. When it failed to do that, it just chased us here, and… well, you know the rest," Pyrrha explains, answering no questions and asking many, many more.
So... it's a rapidly-healing Kelpie-alike... that behaves like an alligator.
I- you know what? You give up! This thing is whatever it wants to be, and that's fine. You fully support it in its endeavours to be the most incomprehensible creature you have ever seen.
Fucking roulette Grimm, you swear to God there isn't a more annoying thing on the planet-
"We can't just stay in here! Even if other people weren't going to turn up and end up in danger, hiding out like this isn't really a… huntressly thing to do," Ruby interjects, appealing to... what, exactly, Huntress oblige?
People begin talking, responding and rebutting each other and over each other, voices slowly rising to be heard over the rabble until your head is pounding from the sound of their quibbling because apparently, the Process figured out how to emulate the acoustics of a temple-
"Enough!" you yell, the walls flashing white out of some reflex, and once again grabbing everyone's attention. You take a moment to rub the growing headache out of your temples before you begin. "This isn't productive. We can quibble back and forth about what could happen if we do something, but the simple answer is that we can't stay here and do nothing. This place isn't invincible, that Grimm's bindings won't hold forever, it's apparently not going to stay injured forever, and the Nevermore isn't going to just stay in the sky and watch us. If it breaks free, the Process can only do so much before it just breaks down the doors, and then we'll need to fight it anyway, without the luxury of open space to run away from it in."
Silence. Your outburst was enough to get the others to quiet down for a moment, and now it's your job to focus them.
"Look, obviously, we're not going to unanimously agree on any one plan, so, I say we put it to a vote. Everyone who has a plan, put it forward, we vote, and then whichever one wins, we follow. No arguments. Is that fair?"
Everyone nods along, with varying degrees of enthusiasm- your Signal team, Nora, and Weiss seem alright with this, Pyrrha and Blake are a little more hesitant, and Ruby and Yang seem outright unconvinced, but, thanks to the magic of peer pressure, manage to silently talk each other out of making a fuss.
"... Ok. Good. I'm, going to go check on Leathers, he really should have gotten up by now," you mumble as you turn and walk away from the group, fast enough that the infirmary door slides shut behind you before anyone can protest, or say anything about your sudden need to leave.
There's a dull metallic thunk as you gently hit your head against that same door.
"... Goddammit. Why am I so bad with people?" you ask the empty air, or the Transistor, or Leathers, or all or none of the above.
Unfortunately, only one of them answers.
"Mmmrgghhh... 'cuz yer a wazzock, Arc..." Leathers mumbles from his makeshift bed. "Agh, me head..."
You watch the boy slowly pull himself up to a sitting position, rubbing the pain out of his bald head as he does. You rush to his side, pulling a quick chair out of the floor as you do, sitting next to him.
"Hey, woah, go slow, man, that Grimm used you as a field plough," you tell him. "How are you feeling, besides the headache?"
"Ugh... fine, I guess," he grumbles, looking over at you before squinting in confusion. "... Bollocks, no, can't see past me own nose. You's just-" he waves a hand in front of his face, "a blob."
Ah. That's not good at all.
"Don't blink."
"Wait, wot-"
Holding a hand out, you form a small torch and shine it in Leathers' eyes, and to his credit, he only squints a little before opening them fully for you.
"Looks... like... no, they're constricting properly, shouldn't be anything serious. Probably just the headache. Your Aura doing ok?"
He grumbles out an affirmative, and you keep checking him over for a moment, thinking over whether or not you were actually in the wrong for forcing a vote, especially when almost a quarter of the group apparently wasn't on board with it. Is this really the best way to go about it? Would voting for a team leader have been a better idea? Is this going to hilariously backfire before it even has a chance to get off the ground? Did you really need to force the issue, or would they have settled on something eventually if you'd just kept your temper a couple of minutes longer?
"You's gonna set yer brain on fire, you keep thinkin' that hard."
Huh? Oh. Right, there is actually an outside world to deal with.
"Sorry. Things got a little... intense, out there, and I pretty much only came to check on you to get out of it," you admit.
"Ach, I'm fine, 's clearing up already. Prob'ly just bleary from wakin' up. Wossit like out there? You kill that big bugger?"
With no illusions as to who 'the big bugger' is, you catch Leathers up on what's happened since he arrived, which the boy takes... surprisingly well, all things considered.
"... Piss."
"Yeah, pretty much. I guess I should, er, go and see what they've come up with. You coming?"
"Yeh, should be a laugh-" he says as he gets off the makeshift cot, stumbling a little as his feet hit the ground. "Oh zog- no, no, I'm good, I'm fine-"
He leans back against it for a second, catching his balance, and looking kind of uncertain for the first time in... ever, since you first met him.
"Leathers, I'm taking you to the infirmary when we're out of here. Just to be sure."
"... Yeh, yeah, no, no complaints from me. Just, go ahead, I'll be a minute," he tells you, waving you off when you look like you're about to help him.
Trusting Leathers to know his own limits, probably not your brightest moment, but you still walk out of the infirmary and into a surprisingly... sombre atmosphere.
"How is Leathers?" Pyrrha asks you almost as soon as she sees you. There's a definite hint of worry in her voice, the kind of worry that you hear in crappy medical dramas.
"He's a little off-balance, but otherwise he seems alright. I'm gonna take him to the infirmary after all this is over with. So, er... how'd it go?"
"Well," Creme starts, "we... did all come up with one unanimous thing, actually. We all agreed that warning the other initiates and maybe seeing if we couldn't, get some help out of it, would be worth the effort, thought we don't, really know how we're going to do that. After that, things kinda... diverged."
Contacting initiate Scrolls shouldn't be too much of a problem, all told- hell, the Transistor as it is should be able to manage that.
"Ok, that should be easy enough, but what about more immediate plans? We can't just stay here forever."
Silence. Nobody can really look you in the eyes.
... They didn't.
They did not.
"You have nothing?"
"The opposite, actually," Weiss says. "We have a three-way tie. Ren abstained."
"I'm sorry," the boy with the pink highlight who is apparently named Ren, says. "I'm just really lost right now, I really don't... feel equipped to vote on this. I have no idea what anyone means when they mention this Process thing, or how this temple can talk, or how it can kill things, apparently."
"Hey, don't worry. It's a lot to take in all at once," Ruby says, consoling the poor boy. "Besides, you're here now, so you can break the tie!"
... Yes. Well, at least it's a problem that's easy enough to solve. Just hear them out then pick the best option.
"Alright. Convince me."
Creme lays out the choices for you as such:
[] Damn The Consequences- Ruby, Nora, and Yang's plan, and their logic for it follows as thus- taking a standard approach to identifying the Grimm, there are arguments to be made on both sides as to what age the Grimm is. Namely, its size, a plus to the argument that it is old and not specialised, and its overall lack of armour, a negative to the argument. However, some Grimm are just naturally large, see Nevermore, Ursai, , and literally anything that's ever come out of Solis, thus making size a slightly unreliable marker of age. The lack of armour on the other hand, implies it's not that old, and thus shouldn't have anything up its sleeve. Ergo, you should all go out and break its legs. Honestly, they only really mentioned the last part, the rest was really quite severely implied right up until they had to prove their plan's worth.
[X] Birdie No- Lumen, Creme, and Weiss's agreed-upon plan. They believe that, free, uninjured, and out of reach of most of the current lineup, the Nevermore is the greater threat, if not the more immediate one- everyone, right now, can go out there and punch the mystery Grimm in the snout if they want to- only two people can effectively hit the Nevermore in the current environment. An enemy that mostly can't be interacted with is significantly more dangerous than one that may have unknown capabilities. Ergo, it should be dealt with decisively- seal the Relics up for safekeeping, then let the Process pull off whatever it can do that was going to cremate you all, and, get this- don't be inside the temple when it does it. Take out the Nevermore, move back to that suspended tower, and deal with the mystery box there.
[] APPLY DEMOLITION TO THE GRIMMALD BODY- Ada, Pyrrha, Blake, and if you're honest with yourself, it would be Leathers' choice if he wasn't shaking off a concussion right now. Their plan is rather similar, on the surface, to the others', a fusion in its own way- take the Process's Nevermore deterrent… and aim it at the other guy. Point-blank range. A quick check with the Process tells you that significantly less power will be needed to reach the same desired conclusion, but the sheer force of being near the blasting zone will render the surrounding land to bedrock. On the bright side- the sheer force of the explosion should put out any fires caused!
CEASE
There are a lot of options here, from creating an army of Process units to overwhelm whatever turns up, to boobytrapping the entire field between here and the ruins, but frankly, you think you've become something of a deft hand at creating structure with the Process. That's what you're familiar with, that's what feels… easiest to implement, right now.
You could move back to the other ruins, and use those as a basis, but that runs the risk of leaving people chased by giant Grimm out in the cold, and that doesn't sit well with the same instincts that compelled you to buy the medical supplies currently hanging off your hip.
You look down at 01, the Cell patiently awaiting its orders.
"Above-ground defensive position, large enough to accommodate anyone who comes here, room for a basic infirmary, automatic armaments- can you do it?"
There is a tiny delay, a small cycle of beeping as it thinks for a second, flexing pieces of code it's probably never had to look at before now, getting used to them, making them as efficient as it can for purpose, then giving you your answer.
"Minimum area to accommodate the hypothetical maximum of 40 people is 33.5 square metres, rounded up, not accounting for verticality. Path of least resistance would be to follow outline left by ruins- would easily accommodate everyone and allow for larger defence designs to be constructed."
You see some of those numbers and visualisations hit people in the corner of your vision, and barely hold back a smile at the confusion, excitement, and awe in almost equal measure you see gradiented amongst your friends.
... And Blake- no, that's mean, don't be like that.
"Wait. This place is… is it something we should be… doing stuff to? It looks old enough to be considered historic," Blake asks, a thread of concern in her voice.
The apparent terrorist apparent catgirl manages to surprise you a little. Perhaps it's your recent bias, but she didn't strike you as the kind of person who would care about the preservation of an ancient ruin. Regardless, you have to admit she has a point. Looking at your feet, at the carved stone beneath it, you can't begin to imagine how old it is. Older than Vale, without a doubt. Destroying it feels… wrong.
Like ripping pages out of a book and scattering them to the winds.
"Exclude any carved stone you find from assimilation. Protect it, if you can."
You look over at her, and while you wouldn't describe the look on her face as one of relief, what's there is an improvement over the blatant concern from not even five seconds ago.
"Understood. Process construction initiating in three, two, one-"
Nothing seemed to happen, at first- at least, not to your eyes. The second it started, you felt everything, a sudden expansion of the senses, total awareness of exactly how this fortress was going to look, knowing you can alter it however you wish…
That's… you hope that sensation isn't going to be habit-forming.
A second after your first experience with sudden and complete knowledge of a relatively large planned structure, a much less subtle phenomenon begins- thin white strands begin to form all around, rapidly expanding into thin, milky panels and becoming an outline of the future fortress, gently morphing in both shape and opacity as it begins brute-forcing the perfect structure for its purpose.
If you understood… the general shape, in your senses, this was the Process's… rough draft, just scaffolding to build everything else, and raw surface area to grow from.
You note that it seems to naturally veer towards blockier designs. The design it eventually settles on is just a set of cuboids stacked on and around each other. It looks unlike anything any sane human would build, and you don't know what it says about you that you kinda like it. Still, it's not exactly practical, though. Flat surfaces and sharp corners don't deflect force all that well.
"Wh-wha… I… what? What?!" Yang progresses from confusion to, er, louder confusion, over about three seconds, looking around at the largest project the Process has ever undertaken on the surface.
"Jaune, what's happening right now?" Blake asks, not as confused or frightened as her partner, but there's still a very obvious thread of caution in her voice.
"It's the Process. It assimilates gasses from the air and parts of the ground to create foundations and, from there, a fortress big enough to protect everyone in the forest. Should fit the hypothetical maximum of 40 people."
You begin to direct it- giving some, basic design guidance so it isn't just tall white blocks of alien material, flattening it out over a wider area for balance, smoothing out the sharp corners to help deflect any projectiles that would otherwise penetrate, a watchtower for long-range fighters like Ruby, maybe Pyrrha, and anyone else in that category, a couple of emplacements for guns whose ranges aren't measured in kilometres- by the time you think you've got a basic plan down, it looks almost like a very well-armed church, the rotunda slowly turned into a viable defensible entrance.
Well... you suppose the Process did say it would use the temple as a basis. Must have seeped into your creative process.
Looking over, you see that Blake and Yang aren't… taking the news well. Yang is still completely lost, just staring at you, eyes wide, jaw slack, expression disbelieving, while Blake doesn't seem all that comforted by your answer.
"Er, look, Yang, it's a lot to explain, and Jaune's not, very good at doing that, no offence-"
"None taken."
"-so… I'll tell you about it while we wait?" Creme ventures, trying her luck at offering to explain everything to her friend.
Yang doesn't speak- she just nods her head in silence, still processing what she's seeing.
"I… think I'd appreciate that as well," Blake manages, tearing her eyes away from the spectacle.
"Cool, cool, I can- er, Ada, you mind…? You got, an actual explanation from him, right?"
"Eh, ain't got anything better to do," the tiny girl says, following Creme as she leads them off somewhere out of the way, Terry and Tulip coming along for examples, no doubt.
Leaving you alone with Lumen. Again. You're not complaining, you're just… noticing a pattern about today.
He sidles up to you, watching the Process work, milky panes slowly thickening out, details you didn't plan appearing along the outer wall, the struts and strands of needed support appearing along the inside. Settling down on the steps next to you, you watch as he drafts luxin, forming a small rectangle of textured blue, then slathering it in thin, oily orange, before pulling his sword from its scabbard and starting to work the edge with it.
You're aware that it's technically not a sword since it only has one edge, but calling something that big a knife just seems silly.
"... You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say the girls were plotting to find a better pair to team up with than us. Bet you that black knight is gone next time we look."
"The only rational response is to find another pair to make them jealous with," you reply, settling down next to him.
He snorts.
"Who are you thinking? Nikos and whoever she ended up with?"
You specifically do not blush thinking about your first trainwreck of a conversation with a world-renowned tournament fighter. Lumen, blessed with basic visual perception as he is, doesn't miss it.
"Man, you got it bad. Pyrrha Nikos?" he asks incredulously, raising an eyebrow at you. "Look at the balls on you, trying to pull the Invincible Girl!"
Of course that's how he takes it.
"I-it's not like that! I just… I talked to her, this morning."
"Ahh. Shot you down before you even got to the flirting?"
"No," you say, doing absolutely nothing for your case by trying not to sound like a surly git. "I… ran into her, 01, stuck to her, and, we ended up talking while I tried to figure out how to get him off without, you know, ripping him in half."
"... Your Cell… stuck to her," he confirms, making sure he heard you right.
"{Nikos' Semblance gives her a natural magnetic field- one large enough to pick up a Cell at distance, and strong enough that it can't escape under its own power.}"
He gives a noise of understanding, then gestures at you to continue.
"And then…?"
"{Jaune got to talk to someone he's all but worshipped the ground she walks on since he was 13, and Pyrrha Nikos got treated like a normal human being. It went about as well as you could expect.}"
Hey, they don't have to make it sound that bad goddammit-
"... What, is she as bad as Jaune?"
"{Somehow, worse.}"
"Hey!"
Lumen just laughs, but there's no sting to it. For a moment, there's a certain lull in the conversation, and you find yourself thinking back a couple of days.
… Has it only been four days since you stopped a terrorist attack? It feels like it could have been a year since that happened.
Regardless, the events are still fresh in your mind. You watched the logs back to understand what had happened from the Transistor's perspective, and you honestly don't know why you hadn't noticed it as soon as you saw it again. And, you think this is the last quiet moment you're gonna get for a while. Better now, than forgetting it later, you guess.
Ok. No social suite. Nothing to help you. Just you, your friend, and a potentially very uncomfortable question.
"... So… I have... something to ask you," you venture, unable to hide all your apprehension about broaching this.
Lumen must pick up on something in your voice because he's very quickly paying attention, no sign of his previous joviality.
"What's up?"
"... Well, you know how Weiss Schnee was attacked a couple of days ago? Well… I was there. I'm, the reason she's alive, actually. The man trying to kill her was an eagle Faunus who had a... very similar Semblance to you, but he used less… colours, I guess-"
"Lemme guess- red and ultraviolet?"
"Uh, yeah," you answer, the swiftness with which he cuts you off making you stumble a little.
"Bianco. A cousin of mine," he answers with absolutely zero hesitation, then groans deeply. He doesn't seem… surprised by the news. Just disappointed. "I knew he was pretty far gone, but… joining the White Fang… ugh, I'm going to kill that idiot the next time I see him."
The blunt answer throws you off for a second, but you keep going as best you can.
"Oh. Um… sorry, it's just, I saw your, web construct, and the, the similarities…"
"Yeah, he's the one that taught me it. It doesn't really have a specific name, but it's taught to just about everyone who can draft green, blue, or superviolet luxin in my family," Lumen explains to you, without so much as a trace of humour in his voice.
He stops for a moment, pulls that carton of cigarettes from his cardigan, placing one between his lips and lighting it with a small clear crystal of sub-red jutting out from his thumbnail, quickly consumed in its self-made flame. He takes a drag, exhaling that pale blue smoke again, away from you, thankfully, before he says anything else.
"... Jaune, how much do you know about my family?"
"Uh… I, didn't know there was anything to know?"
He raises an eyebrow at you, silently flicking his gaze to the Transistor for a moment.
Ah. The eternal curse of telling people about the Transistor. They expect you to know everything.
"I don't research people unless I have a very good reason. Even if it wasn't illegal, I still don't do it to friends."
Lumen smiles at you, and it quickly turns into quiet laughter, and he has to break eye contact with you to regain his composure, shaking his head slightly as he does.
"Dust, you're something, you know that? A million different perverts, voyeurs, government workers who think Mantle had the right idea vis-à-vis population observation, any of them could have ended up with a Semblance like yours, and it ends up with probably the only person on Remnant who won't abuse it."
You can't help but smile at that, the little glow of pride in your chest leaving you all warm and fuzzy from unexpected compliments.
"... Sorry, I'm, avoiding the question," he says after a moment. "My Semblance is, uh, genetically dominant, in case you hadn't figured that out. Anyone who has a kid with me, or my twin, or my little sisters, their kid will end up with it too. So... there are a lot of us. Hundreds, in fact."
He looks at you again, pointing at his eyes.
"These, though? They're a mutation. I dunno what happened, I mean, who does when it comes to Semblances, but there are three major limits on the family Semblance that just, don't apply to me or Marcella. We're full-spectrum drafters, we don't need to see a colour to draft it, we just need white light, and… ugh, hold on, this has been annoying me since we landed-"
He stops, taking a moment to flush his arms of the luxin that had built up over the day, a whole painter's palette of the stuff flowing from his fingers and forming a dozen different things and flashing away in an instant, your own personal fireworks show. He gives out a shuddering little breath of catharsis as he does, mutters something about how that's gonna bruise, then quickly goes back to his cigarette to compose his next words.
"... Luxin fucks with your head. The difference is, everyone in my family, they don't have the same… tolerance, for long-term drafting, that me and my sister do. Everyone else has a limit."
… Ah. Ah.
You think you're beginning to understand the bigger picture here. And you're not entirely sure you like it.
"And what happens when they reach this limit? When they go past it?"
"It's called breaking the halo. Um, luxin builds up in the body, in little bits and pieces, but it gathers in the irises, mostly. When someone reaches their limit and doesn't stop, the luxin just tears the iris apart and spills out into the sclera. After that, something... snaps, up here," he says, tapping his temple. "Something goes, and they just, they revel in what luxin does to them. Some of the worst cases start replacing parts of their body with the stuff if they can. Hell, even if they really can't, too."
Lumen stops for a moment, and you don't push him. Looking over, you see that he's just kind of staring at the treeline, that he's not entirely here at the moment. You don't… think it's a great idea to interrupt that kind of spell.
Still. There is a picture being painted here, and it is a grim, grim one indeed.
"...So, yeah. Hundreds of insane Semblance addicts, lot of mouths to feed- when they're not throwing themselves at Grimm like a bunch of Vacuoni deathseekers, falling into a life of crime is less an if and more a when with my family," he continues, "and there we were, two kids they couldn't break the way they wanted to, so we just-"
A deafening roar and screech and weird skittering noise come from outside, killing your conversation in its tracks. You and Lumen get up as the girls to join you and rush back out just in time to see an Ursa Major burst through the treeline, being ridden by a ginger girl like a bull at a rodeo until she just pulls out a hammer, plugs a grenade in one side, and-
So yeah that Ursa doesn't have the top half of its skull anymore.
The girl rolls off of the now-carcass's back with a whoop of glee, then a moan of disappointment at her ride being dead.
… You're. Going to stay away from that one. A boy in traditional Mistrali dress clothes rushes out behind her, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that she at least has a handler, who is hopefully going to handle her.
"Uh, y'all know that screech we just heard? Because I just found where it came from," Creme says, drawing attention to the giant Nevermore currently flying overhead.
Towards you.
"WE'RE THE POOR FUCKS WHO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT THING?!" Lumen quite justifiably screams in disbelief at like what are the chances of it just circling like that seriously-
"Actually, I think they are," Blake points out, and when you squint a little at the creature you can faintly make out a little black and red blob and a white blob on its le- this has to be a joke.
Weiss?
Ok, look, Ruby… Ruby you can see pulling a stunt like this without blinking. But… Weiss?
"PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISS-"
"Leathers!"
Taking a deep breath and accepting your fate as part of the audience in this theatre production of sheer unfiltered chaos, you watch as Leathers flies out from the treeline with zero control, cursing with such frequency, variety, and volume that it would make a sailor blush, and eventually landing in a trench-forming faceplant.
… Wait for it. Waaaaaiiiiiit for- ah, his foot twitched, he's fine. Probably.
Before you can even think about helping him up, you watch Pyrrha running out of the forest at full pelt, a Giant… you don't even know what that thing is following her, pulling itself along the trees like some kind of demented monkey, leaving deep gouges in the bark as it crawls/climbs towards her.
The Grimm itself is like some horrid cross between a horse and the top half of a human- it lacks anything below where the hips would be on a human torso, instead moving about with its two disproportionately long arms, tipped with equally disproportionately long fingers, tipped with now quite accurately proportionally long talons, its skull equine but with the teeth of a very large canine. Its fur is shiny, caked with grease, silt, and… moss? Where does this thing live?
{It… reminds me of a Kelpie, but those only grow to the size of a horse. And, have four legs.}
Ok, there is just, a lot going on right now, and honestly it's just way too much for you to react to all at once and now Ruby's falling good God the ride just does not stop today-
T2-01 reacts first, skittering towards a tree which is used as a launchpad to send itself careening into Ruby, catching her as daintily as it can in its forelimbs before landing, before twisting and using its hindlimbs and back to absorb as much force as it could, giving the girl something, if not soft to land on, then at least taking most of the oomph out of her landing for her.
"Are you alright, miss-" it begins to ask- in a surprisingly deep voice for your expectations of the Process, a downright baritone number- then Ruby is out of its grasp, her scythe is out, and T2-01 is gently sliding apart directly down its symmetric centre.
This does not appear to inconvenience it all that much.
"... Miss Rose, that was just a little rude."
"Yang what is that thing why does it know my name and why is it not dead after I sliced it in half?"
"Ruby!"
"Jaune!?"
"Ruby!"
"Nora!"
And now the ginger girl is over here oh god-
"Ooooohhhh…"
You watch her dash behind you, completely ignoring the fact that the ruins, er, aren't ruins anymore, and start fawning over a golden rook piece, proclaiming happily that she is the queen of a castle, before being chastised by her handler and you would really like for nothing else to happen in the next thirty seconds that's really necessary right now-
The sound of the unknown Grimm approaching just about muffles out the sound of Pyrrha panting for breath but still running at full sprint towards the group. You watch as she dips to one side just long enough to singlehandedly pick Leathers up by the collar of his jacket, flipping his comatose body over her shoulders like a foul-mouthed bag of grain, barely slowing down for the new weight on her back.
"Ok, Ruby, look, long story short-" Yang points to the nearest Cell, Tulip, "-big version of that thing-" she then points to your new construction project, "-little version of that thing."
Ruby doesn't respond, watching in unabashed terror as T2-01- ok this is getting ridiculous, it needs a name, Creep, T2, has little thin legs with no discernible feet- Tiptoe, finally slides itself back together, the seam disappearing as soon as it's happy with its work.
"Ruby, I'll explain later, but it's a friend, ok? It's here to help us," you say, attempting to placate her somewhat.
She doesn't seem to visibly acknowledge your words, but she also doesn't attack T2- Tiptoe, so you happily throw that topic onto the backburner for the moment.
"Did she run all the way here with a… whatever that is following her?" Blake asks, gesturing to Pyrrha.
You hear a nearly primal growl, the kind of sound that drops your stomach into your boots, and for a moment you start looking for the Grimm that somehow snuck in the back door before you realise that it's Yang.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! CAN EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT SO WE CAN GO TWO SECONDS WITHOUT SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENING?!"
Oh thank God finally someone said it so you don't have to.
And, for a moment, things do quieten down. Like, ok, it's exactly as chaotic as it was five seconds ago, but it doesn't get more chaotic, and frankly, that's just a regular Candlemas miracle considering where you are and what's happening right now.
"Ruby! How could you leave me?!" Weiss yells from above, still clinging for dear life.
"She's gonna fall," Blake announces, and you look up to see Weiss is, in fact, about to fall- barely hanging onto the creature's talon for her life.
"She'll be fine!" Ruby says, sounding far too optimistic about the situation.
Shit.
"She's falling."
No!
Without planning, without thinking, you raise a hand and give the Process a single priority task.
Save Weiss Schnee.
Kinetic energy mitigation in progress.
Your breath hitches in your throat as Weiss plummets back to Remnant, and as white lightning scars race out from your feet, rushing towards where she should land, quickly outpacing you as you sprint alongside them.
100 metres.
But they don't outpace Ruby, by any stretch of the imagination. The young girl blasts past you with a gust of wind that almost knocks you off your feet, dragging along a vortex of...
Rose petals?
50 metres.
You're not going to make it. But the Process just might.
25. 15. 10.
Barely two metres from the ground, a perfect 5-metre circle of Process matter forms below Weiss, just as Ruby jumps to catch her, and the girls slip through it with barely a ripple. A 10-metre cylinder of compressible Process matter, like a tube of warm snow, bleeding off her momentum at a rapid rate, yes, but not… strawberry jam rapid. Through your seventh sense, you feel Weiss slow down, and the way both Ruby and the Process matter slam into her back, knocking the wind out of her at the cost of the lion's share of her Aura.
Once they've slowed to a stop, the Process pulls the two girls up, and they surface in shimmering liquid, still on the ground, Weiss giving her damnedest attempt to cough her lungs up while Ruby lays her down on the now solid ground. You finish your sprint to her, your sword, kinda following you, drunkenly waving along the same vague path towards your mutual destination. At the very least, it's improving.
"Are you alright?" you ask, dropping to a knee and giving Weiss a quick look over for any obvious injuries.
Weiss starts to answer, descends into another coughing fit, then gives you a silent thumbs-up instead.
Neither you nor Ruby is convinced by that.
"Weiss, I'm really not sure you are! You just fell, like, half a mile out of the sky!"
"This isn't the place for a medical examination. I'll look her over when we're in the temple," you tell Ruby, immediately wincing at your choice of words.
Ohhhh you're gonna pay for that one in a few seconds, you can just tell
"T-kgph-temple?"
Resigning yourself to your fate, you point to the Process building just in time to watch it flash into solidity, any slated changes now stalled for the sake of protecting its occupants. Making a quick judgement of how far away you are from it now, you judge yourself to be about the same distance from it as Pyrrha is. All four- five? Does Leathers count here?- of you can make that, no problem. Unfortunately, so can that Grimm.
Weiss blinks, staring at the temple for a moment, utterly dumbstruck before she manages to shoot you a little grin that does weird things to your chest.
"... Don't you think it's a little presumptuous to be building temples to the Process already?"
"Hey, I renovated it with the Process- it was already here. Come on, we need to move," you tell her, pushing, all of that down for now, and later, and forever, grabbing your sword by the hilt before it wanders off somewhere else and getting ready to run.
{Sorry.}
Don't be.
The three of you match Pyrrha's stride, planning to slam the door in that unknown Grimm's face once you make it through, the girls beside you as you keep an eye on it. Unfortunately, it seems to know exactly what you're doing and picks up the pace.
The distance between it and Pyrrha was already disturbingly short, but it makes a very solid effort to close it further, reaching out with a clawed hand-
It reels back as twin strobe lasers dazzle it, not strong enough to burn it, or even blind it permanently, but they stun it long enough for Pyrrha to gain some distance again, followed by a frankly compensatory rifle bullet, which
DC 14, Result- 20+8 = 28. Critical Success!
rips half of its mask off, revealing the raw, black flesh beneath and setting it screaming in pain- a waterfall of smog flooding from what's left of its face, followed by another gust of wind as Ruby catches up to you, the smell of nitroglycerine just about burning your nose off, and allowing you to put two and two together.
... Nice indeed.
The three of you meet Pyrrha about thirty metres from the door, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making you also a target for the weird Grimm, which has recovered from its momentary shock, making double-time to catch up with its quarry.
You watch out of the corner of your eye as Weiss spins the revolver-guard of her rapier, eventually landing on light blue. She leaps forward a good four metres, twisting in the air as she slashes at the ground below, and you feel the temperature drop like a stone with the sound of something cracking into existence behind you.
When she catches up, having fallen behind in the time it took her to turn around, you chance a look behind, and see that the Grimm's been locked up in an ice stockade- its hands and head bound together by a baby glacier.
... Oh God she fights with pure Dust-
You, contain your hysteria for a moment and focus on the final mad dash to the door. The others are still inside, ready to rush out in case you can't make it, but within seconds you're at the steps, up the steps, three, two, one, CLOSE THE DOORS-
They slam behind you with a deafeningly loud and surprisingly wooden thud- you don't remember feeding the Process a tree at any ah no wait you remember now-, and start to deal with the fact that you're safe now.
"Everyone ok? Nobody injured?" you ask, looking over the girls, Nora's handler, and the comatose hooligan.
Leathers gurgles out something, a hand twitching into a thumbs up for a second, as Pyrrha lays him down against the wall. The champion herself is heaving for breath but otherwise seems alright, now that she's got a chance to rest, all but collapsing next to her... you, assume Leathers is her partner, then.
Poor soul.
"I am, fine," she says, "Perhaps a, few bruises, tomorrow morning, but no, major injuries."
Nora's handler sidles away from the boy, barely conscious as he is- oh, you wondered why he looked so familiar! He was Leathers' teddy bear last night!
You look at Weiss for her answer, and she nods, wincing a little as she does.
"I'm fine, just, tender," she admits after a moment. "My Aura didn't break, so I don't think it's anything serious."
"Uh, is Leathers ok?" Ada asks the room while pointing at the boy in question, "because I don't think he's made any effort to tell us he is since he got in here."
"Well no, he gave a thumbs-up," Lumen says. "And... has done absolutely nothing else, yeah, so... maybe check up on him?"
You look over the boy, and, while he's not exactly doing anything other than taking a nap, the fact that he's taking a nap after a fall like that is still...
She has a point, you decide. Relying on Leathers' Semblance and sheer bullheaded stubbornness is probably a bad idea, reliable as it's been in the past. You gesture, pulling him out from the wall and onto a slab of Process matter- you know, while you're having a go at the whole renaming thing, you should probably find a way to phase all those instances of 'process' out of your vocabulary- then raise it to bed level, sending it off to a little private room near the back.
"Keep an eye on his vitals, I'll check him over once I'm done here."
"Understood," the walls say, the words echoing from everywhere with no distinct source, an effect that gets everyone's attention.
"Who was that?" The boy once a teddy bear asks, a thread of caution in his voice.
"Do you want the long version or the version that won't shatter your worldview into a million pieces?" Yang mutters under her breath, still loud enough for him to hear.
"... Short version, please."
"Good choice- the temple's alive, he built it," she explains, pointing at you.
Teddy bear stares at you for a second, blinking like a deer in headlights, before just shaking his head, choosing to compartmentalise that for later.
Good choice.
Once you're sure you have everyone's attention, you begin.
"... So. We have at least two large Grimm out there, and if I'm counting relics right, at least 22 more people have to turn up. I don't think we're gonna be lucky enough for them to get bored, so… we either need a plan to deal with them ourselves, or a plan to get enough people to turn up at the same time that we're not dealing with them ourselves. So..." you look at everyone in turn. "I'm open to ideas."
"Can't the Process just kill them?" Ada asks, quite reasonably so. "Like, you're telling me that something this big can't make a gun big enough to kill the Nevermore?"
"Currently, the only viable plans we have for this scale of conflict are direct-energy weapons- any weapon in that category with enough power to overcome thermal blooming and noticeably damage the Nevermore at its current flying height would create enough heat to critically damage structural integrity, and incinerate all organic life inside regardless. Since our current goal is to protect the organic life currently inside the defence position, this strikes us as counterproductive."
Oh, so you're standing inside an artillery battery that doubles as a cremation chamber.
Lovely.
"We could always just go out the back. Take the Relics, run for the tower over the hill, and let the Process do that, without killing us all at the same time," Lumen suggests. "Or hell, aim it at the overgrown reindeer- it can't possibly need the same amount of power at that range."
"Oh, this place has a tower, right? I saw one from outside! I can try and finish it off with Crescent Rose!" Ruby exclaims, and you can't tell if it's for the chance to kill Grimm, or the chance to shoot that ridiculous sniper rifle of hers.
Pyrrha pulls a sword from her hip, and you watch as a few quick presses and twisting flush sections set it off, turning into a lengthy bolt-action rifle. Ruby gives a little noise of appreciation, and you watch her actively shake off the impending excitement before she gets distracted.
Well... she's focusing, so that's good.
"I will join you if there is enough space. Er, how do we…?" Pyrrha looks at you for directions to the tower, and you almost give them before Weiss interrupts.
"Wait, wait, hold on, let's just, take a second-" she calls the group's only two long-ranged options off, and only falters a little when she realises that everyone is now paying attention to her, "Um… P-Process, can you… tell us what's happening out there?"
She gives you a panicked look, only relaxing when viewscreens appear along one wall- one of the Nevermore, patiently circling above, and one of the unknown Grimm, still struggling against Weiss's glacier stockade, shining in the midday sun, cracks forming deep within from its ministrations, but not pervasive enough to threaten the shackles. More worryingly, its face has stopped bleeding- no longer a waterfall of smog, the large wounds in its face have already started to bubble and scar over, along with signs of its mask already starting to repair itself, millimetre by millimetre.
The Grimm is visibly repairing the damage dealt to it, drawing its energy from what you can only believe to be spite because basic biology sure ain't doing it.
"... What the hell? How is it... healing so fast?" Creme asks aloud, probably not expecting an answer.
Some Grimm just don't play fair, you don't say. She knows it, you all know it, sometimes you just need to let off a little steam with a rhetorical question.
"Who cares? It's trapped! It just had half its face shot off!" Nora says. "I say we go out there and break its legs before it heals anymore, then we can just wait outside while, er, whatever it is that's talking to us from the walls does whatever it's gonna do to the Nevermore!"
"It doesn't have legs," Blake says.
"Does it use them to move around?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"Then they're legs."
Blake just… stares, at her, at Nora's little self-assured grin, and you can follow the cost-benefit analysis as it plays out in her mind right before she shakes her head, and moves along with her day.
"It's healing. Grimm that size, healing that fast- it's either really old or really specialised. And if it's old, it could easily have something else up its sleeve. For all we know, we open that door, and it starts, I dunno, breathing fire at us, we're basically trapped in a killbox for its convenience. I think the easiest thing to do would be to send out a couple of those big Process things to soften it up, then aim whatever guns this place has at it to finish the job," Ada says, putting forward her points with more confidence than you ever really expected from the tiny girl.
"And if it's just specialised?" Pink Highlight asks.
You'll learn his name eventually, promise.
"Oh, then we just walk out there and stab it in the face until it stops moving, same as any other Grimm," she answers with a casual shrug. "The problem is, we don't know. I've never seen a Grimm like this before, and I'm really not confident I can eyeball that kinda judgement."
"Ok, well, uh, Pyrrha, right? Did it show... any kind of special capabilities while it was chasing you?" Creme asks, and if she recognises the four-time champion at all, she's doing a very good job of holding her emotions in check.
"N...no, not that I can think of. Oh, um, it might be able to breathe underwater. It ambushed us when we were trying to cross a river- jumped up from the riverbed and almost dragged us under. When it failed to do that, it just chased us here, and… well, you know the rest," Pyrrha explains, answering no questions and asking many, many more.
So... it's a rapidly-healing Kelpie-alike... that behaves like an alligator.
I- you know what? You give up! This thing is whatever it wants to be, and that's fine. You fully support it in its endeavours to be the most incomprehensible creature you have ever seen.
Fucking roulette Grimm, you swear to God there isn't a more annoying thing on the planet-
"We can't just stay in here! Even if other people weren't going to turn up and end up in danger, hiding out like this isn't really a… huntressly thing to do," Ruby interjects, appealing to... what, exactly, Huntress oblige?
People begin talking, responding and rebutting each other and over each other, voices slowly rising to be heard over the rabble until your head is pounding from the sound of their quibbling because apparently, the Process figured out how to emulate the acoustics of a temple-
"Enough!" you yell, the walls flashing white out of some reflex, and once again grabbing everyone's attention. You take a moment to rub the growing headache out of your temples before you begin. "This isn't productive. We can quibble back and forth about what could happen if we do something, but the simple answer is that we can't stay here and do nothing. This place isn't invincible, that Grimm's bindings won't hold forever, it's apparently not going to stay injured forever, and the Nevermore isn't going to just stay in the sky and watch us. If it breaks free, the Process can only do so much before it just breaks down the doors, and then we'll need to fight it anyway, without the luxury of open space to run away from it in."
Silence. Your outburst was enough to get the others to quiet down for a moment, and now it's your job to focus them.
"Look, obviously, we're not going to unanimously agree on any one plan, so, I say we put it to a vote. Everyone who has a plan, put it forward, we vote, and then whichever one wins, we follow. No arguments. Is that fair?"
Everyone nods along, with varying degrees of enthusiasm- your Signal team, Nora, and Weiss seem alright with this, Pyrrha and Blake are a little more hesitant, and Ruby and Yang seem outright unconvinced, but, thanks to the magic of peer pressure, manage to silently talk each other out of making a fuss.
"... Ok. Good. I'm, going to go check on Leathers, he really should have gotten up by now," you mumble as you turn and walk away from the group, fast enough that the infirmary door slides shut behind you before anyone can protest, or say anything about your sudden need to leave.
There's a dull metallic thunk as you gently hit your head against that same door.
"... Goddammit. Why am I so bad with people?" you ask the empty air, or the Transistor, or Leathers, or all or none of the above.
Unfortunately, only one of them answers.
"Mmmrgghhh... 'cuz yer a wazzock, Arc..." Leathers mumbles from his makeshift bed. "Agh, me head..."
You watch the boy slowly pull himself up to a sitting position, rubbing the pain out of his bald head as he does. You rush to his side, pulling a quick chair out of the floor as you do, sitting next to him.
"Hey, woah, go slow, man, that Grimm used you as a field plough," you tell him. "How are you feeling, besides the headache?"
"Ugh... fine, I guess," he grumbles, looking over at you before squinting in confusion. "... Bollocks, no, can't see past me own nose. You's just-" he waves a hand in front of his face, "a blob."
Ah. That's not good at all.
"Don't blink."
"Wait, wot-"
Holding a hand out, you form a small torch and shine it in Leathers' eyes, and to his credit, he only squints a little before opening them fully for you.
"Looks... like... no, they're constricting properly, shouldn't be anything serious. Probably just the headache. Your Aura doing ok?"
He grumbles out an affirmative, and you keep checking him over for a moment, thinking over whether or not you were actually in the wrong for forcing a vote, especially when almost a quarter of the group apparently wasn't on board with it. Is this really the best way to go about it? Would voting for a team leader have been a better idea? Is this going to hilariously backfire before it even has a chance to get off the ground? Did you really need to force the issue, or would they have settled on something eventually if you'd just kept your temper a couple of minutes longer?
"You's gonna set yer brain on fire, you keep thinkin' that hard."
Huh? Oh. Right, there is actually an outside world to deal with.
"Sorry. Things got a little... intense, out there, and I pretty much only came to check on you to get out of it," you admit.
"Ach, I'm fine, 's clearing up already. Prob'ly just bleary from wakin' up. Wossit like out there? You kill that big bugger?"
With no illusions as to who 'the big bugger' is, you catch Leathers up on what's happened since he arrived, which the boy takes... surprisingly well, all things considered.
"... Piss."
"Yeah, pretty much. I guess I should, er, go and see what they've come up with. You coming?"
"Yeh, should be a laugh-" he says as he gets off the makeshift cot, stumbling a little as his feet hit the ground. "Oh zog- no, no, I'm good, I'm fine-"
He leans back against it for a second, catching his balance, and looking kind of uncertain for the first time in... ever, since you first met him.
"Leathers, I'm taking you to the infirmary when we're out of here. Just to be sure."
"... Yeh, yeah, no, no complaints from me. Just, go ahead, I'll be a minute," he tells you, waving you off when you look like you're about to help him.
Trusting Leathers to know his own limits, probably not your brightest moment, but you still walk out of the infirmary and into a surprisingly... sombre atmosphere.
"How is Leathers?" Pyrrha asks you almost as soon as she sees you. There's a definite hint of worry in her voice, the kind of worry that you hear in crappy medical dramas.
"He's a little off-balance, but otherwise he seems alright. I'm gonna take him to the infirmary after all this is over with. So, er... how'd it go?"
"Well," Creme starts, "we... did all come up with one unanimous thing, actually. We all agreed that warning the other initiates and maybe seeing if we couldn't, get some help out of it, would be worth the effort, thought we don't, really know how we're going to do that. After that, things kinda... diverged."
Contacting initiate Scrolls shouldn't be too much of a problem, all told- hell, the Transistor as it is should be able to manage that.
"Ok, that should be easy enough, but what about more immediate plans? We can't just stay here forever."
Silence. Nobody can really look you in the eyes.
... They didn't.
They did not.
"You have nothing?"
"The opposite, actually," Weiss says. "We have a three-way tie. Ren abstained."
"I'm sorry," the boy with the pink highlight who is apparently named Ren, says. "I'm just really lost right now, I really don't... feel equipped to vote on this. I have no idea what anyone means when they mention this Process thing, or how this temple can talk, or how it can kill things, apparently."
"Hey, don't worry. It's a lot to take in all at once," Ruby says, consoling the poor boy. "Besides, you're here now, so you can break the tie!"
... Yes. Well, at least it's a problem that's easy enough to solve. Just hear them out then pick the best option.
"Alright. Convince me."
Chatter's Choice Counsel!
That overgrown Rudolphbomination Weiss just froze today is a Unique Grimm- A Grimm of Uncommon variety or higher, that's just the result of a complete genetic roll of the dice, both in-universe and from a mechanical standpoint! Before it was built, even the QM had no idea what he was going to end up with! You have never met anything exactly like this before, and you never will again, you get no Library() entry for it, you get no bonuses for killing it besides it being dead and you not, its sole existence is to spit in the eyes of anyone who thinks the gathering of knowledge will help you against the endless shifting hordes of darkness!
In case you haven't guessed by now, Brother Dark is a petty-ass punk who takes immense pleasure in knowing that he specifically did this just to make humanity's constant suffering just that little more inconvenient!
That overgrown Rudolphbomination Weiss just froze today is a Unique Grimm- A Grimm of Uncommon variety or higher, that's just the result of a complete genetic roll of the dice, both in-universe and from a mechanical standpoint! Before it was built, even the QM had no idea what he was going to end up with! You have never met anything exactly like this before, and you never will again, you get no Library() entry for it, you get no bonuses for killing it besides it being dead and you not, its sole existence is to spit in the eyes of anyone who thinks the gathering of knowledge will help you against the endless shifting hordes of darkness!
In case you haven't guessed by now, Brother Dark is a petty-ass punk who takes immense pleasure in knowing that he specifically did this just to make humanity's constant suffering just that little more inconvenient!
Creme lays out the choices for you as such:
[X] Birdie No- Lumen, Creme, and Weiss's agreed-upon plan. They believe that, free, uninjured, and out of reach of most of the current lineup, the Nevermore is the greater threat, if not the more immediate one- everyone, right now, can go out there and punch the mystery Grimm in the snout if they want to- only two people can effectively hit the Nevermore in the current environment. An enemy that mostly can't be interacted with is significantly more dangerous than one that may have unknown capabilities. Ergo, it should be dealt with decisively- seal the Relics up for safekeeping, then let the Process pull off whatever it can do that was going to cremate you all, and, get this- don't be inside the temple when it does it. Take out the Nevermore, move back to that suspended tower, and deal with the mystery box there.
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- Location
- Hell
Considering you did post an update on your deathbed I would say 99% accurate.
ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
[X] APPLY DEMOLITION TO THE GRIMMALD BODY- Ada, Pyrrha, Blake, and if you're honest with yourself, it would be Leathers' choice if he wasn't shaking off a concussion right now. Their plan is rather similar, on the surface, to the others', a fusion in its own way- take the Process's Nevermore deterrent… and aim it at the other guy. Point-blank range. A quick check with the Process tells you that significantly less power will be needed to reach the same desired conclusion, but the sheer force of being near the blasting zone will render the surrounding land to bedrock. On the bright side- the sheer force of the explosion should put out any fires caused!
YOU'RE ALIVE! I LOVE IT WHEN YOU POST THESE
YOU'RE ALIVE! I LOVE IT WHEN YOU POST THESE
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
[x] APPLY DEMOLITION TO THE GRIMMALD BODY- Ada, Pyrrha, Blake, and if you're honest with yourself, it would be Leathers' choice if he wasn't shaking off a concussion right now. Their plan is rather similar, on the surface, to the others', a fusion in its own way- take the Process's Nevermore deterrent… and aim it at the other guy. Point-blank range. A quick check with the Process tells you that significantly less power will be needed to reach the same desired conclusion, but the sheer force of being near the blasting zone will render the surrounding land to bedrock. On the bright side- the sheer force of the explosion should put out any fires caused!
Let's get on Leathers' good side with the biggest Dakka.
Let's get on Leathers' good side with the biggest Dakka.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
[X] Birdie No- Lumen, Creme, and Weiss's agreed-upon plan. They believe that, free, uninjured, and out of reach of most of the current lineup, the Nevermore is the greater threat, if not the more immediate one- everyone, right now, can go out there and punch the mystery Grimm in the snout if they want to- only two people can effectively hit the Nevermore in the current environment. An enemy that mostly can't be interacted with is significantly more dangerous than one that may have unknown capabilities. Ergo, it should be dealt with decisively- seal the Relics up for safekeeping, then let the Process pull off whatever it can do that was going to cremate you all, and, get this- don't be inside the temple when it does it. Take out the Nevermore, move back to that suspended tower, and deal with the mystery box there.
I'd rather not have to worry about the Nevermore fucking with us when we try to kill the mystery Grimm.
I'd rather not have to worry about the Nevermore fucking with us when we try to kill the mystery Grimm.
ARSLOTHES
ARSLOTHES
- Location
- Broadlands Va
[X] Birdie No- Lumen, Creme, and Weiss's agreed-upon plan. They believe that, free, uninjured, and out of reach of most of the current lineup, the Nevermore is the greater threat, if not the more immediate one- everyone, right now, can go out there and punch the mystery Grimm in the snout if they want to- only two people can effectively hit the Nevermore in the current environment. An enemy that mostly can't be interacted with is significantly more dangerous than one that may have unknown capabilities. Ergo, it should be dealt with decisively- seal the Relics up for safekeeping, then let the Process pull off whatever it can do that was going to cremate you all, and, get this- don't be inside the temple when it does it. Take out the Nevermore, move back to that suspended tower, and deal with the mystery box there.
Glad to see you're alive
Glad to see you're alive