Headmaster's Office
June 5, 80VC
3:25 PM
"You wanted to see us, Professor?"
Ozpin took a slow sip from his mug, paused, then continued before setting it down and glancing at the four young women before him. Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. Over the past school year, they'd gotten up to far more adventure than most professional Huntsman teams. Still, they were ultimately teenagers, and any teenager would be nervous being called up to the dean's office outside of school hours, on a non-school day. Even ones who could skewer a demonic pig the size of a car.
"Please, sit down," he said, gesturing to the four chairs behind them. "I want to preface this by emphasizing that you are not in trouble. In fact, I have a mission for you."
Ruby, the youngest despite being team leader, tilted her head. "A mission? But the school year ended weeks ago."
She frowned. Her brows furrowed in thought, then raised as realization struck. The smile nearly split her face in half, but it didn't last before doubt and worry crept in. Centuries of practice prevented Ozpin's face from revealing the guilt that stabbed just as briefly at his heart.
It's your own fault, something deep within told him.
I did not know the White Fang had a presence in the abandoned subway tunnels, no one did. And they did survive, none of them with debilitating injuries.
Both of which are irrelevant. It was your decision to bend the rules for a freshman team, your decision to give them a mission that should have gone to a third year's. You KNEW the White Fang used Mountain Glenn on occasion, your only argument is that you did not know how extensively.
And now…
A push of a button activated a holographic screen behind him, and his chair moved smoothly out of the way to reveal that yes, they were receiving a mission. Despite the large holoscreen, only the basic information was provided. Reconnaissance. Explore and Identify Potential Threats. Quadrant 5. Mission Start ASAP.
Ruby was the only one still smiling. Her sister had
a smile, but the doubt had gotten to her face before the happiness - no doubt a reaction to her sister still being able to find joy in such news at all. Blake was surprised, and nervous judging by the twitch of her bow. Weiss's face showed only a healthy dose of skepticism, and it was she who spoke.
"Is it a good idea for us to go out so soon?" The double emphasis was slight, but there.
An excellent question, and Ozpin had an excellent response, with an excellently reassuring smile to go with it. "Rest assured, the structure you will be exploring is in an area that has never had much in the way of Grimm presence for Mountain Glenn, and after the spike due to the Breach, it is even lower than usual."
Otherwise I would not even consider it.
The holoscreen shifted to a more detailed description of the mission. The bulk, a little over two thirds, of the screen was occupied by a map of an area familiar to everyone in the room. Mountain Glenn, or at least the rail line to it, but an area several miles closer to Vale proper than it was to the ruined city proper. An area mostly northwest of the line was highlighted, showing a typical logistics park, albeit one that seemed to have very heavy physical defenses. A government facility?
The display zoomed in on the logistics park, and one of the larger buildings in particular. It tilted, shifted to the side, and revealed the innocuous warehouse had half a dozen basements and sub-basements. Next to it were a column of actual photos, revealing automated guard turrets, fences topped with barbed wire, and rusty signs proclaiming that trespassers would be shot on sight, including licensed Huntsmen. The corners of the building itself also had turrets, and there was an additional pair in front of the extended entryway, which looked more like a bunker than the entry to a warehouse.
The vision of a secure secret facility was somewhat marred by the enormous gash a dozen or so meters to the left of the main entrance, going a floor down and nearly splitting the building in half. Several other paths cut into the structure, some of which were still smoking from where the turrets had fired on whatever had caused them.
"Looks like a herd of Goliaths got in it," Yang said.
"IN
-DEED MISS XIAO LONG, THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT HAPPENED!"
Four heads turned as one with a jump to view the sudden arrival of Doctor (not merely Professor) Bartholomew Oobleck, who strode into the room like he was the Headmaster here, sipping from his thermos of "coffee". With no doors to bang open, the man was surprisingly sneaky.
Ozpin didn't even look surprised. "Precisely on time as usual, Doctor," he said. "Shall I continue the briefing, or allow you to finish? It was your idea, after all."
Oobleck looked from Ozpin to Team RWBY, then shrugged his shoulders and with a swift "May as well," stood aside the display, opposite of the headmaster. He cleared his throat.
"Ahem, yes, Fort Anderson. Not something we cover in first year courses, usually reserving it for senior year ethics classes, but as it's where we're going, a bit of background is perhaps necessary. During the Great War, Valean intelligence discovered the presence of a chemical weapons factory in Mistral by the name of Tartarus Labs. Shocked and appalled by this discovery, the military petitioned the King to build a similar factory, for the purposes of developing antidotes. This, of course, is common knowledge. What you might not have learned until said ethics class is that the newly christened Fort Anderson Medical Research Institute almost immediately went behind the King's back to create chemical and even biological weapons of their own, without the King's knowledge or even approval! Beyond this, it also engaged in more conventional weapons development, as well as research of ancient technologies found in ruins not unlike the ones found in the Emerald Forest! Of course, the war ended before they became confident enough to even suggest using them, and as one of his last acts as ruling monarch he forced them to destroy all stockpiles except for enough samples to continue creating antidotes, but the mistrust was there, and it never went away. Over the decades, it became less a place of research and more one of storage, with the bulk of researchers splitting off to join various corporations - all until the fall of Mountain Glenn began. Knowing that they could not leave such dangerous technology just lying around, the Valean government used one of the last trains out to move the most dangerous items to within the Kingdom's walls."
Team RWBY had only known Doctor Oobleck for a little less than a year, but in that time, they'd learned enough about him to know that one
could stop him on a monologue, so long as you picked the right moment to interrupt him and remind him that conversations were not meant to be one-sided.
Yang crossed her arms. "Sounds like we're just cleaning up leftovers," she said, almost sounding bored with the idea.
"
Identifying leftovers, Miss Xiao Long, there is a difference," he replied instantly. "You will at times and in places be asked to perform virtually any dangerous task in dangerous locales that do not require additional training, and for tasks that require skills outside the purview of a Huntress, you will likely end up engaged in guard duty for those capable. As I said in Mountain Glenn, not every job will be glamour and adventure, and even the most legendary Huntresses started out with jobs as dull as these."
Having already had this conversation before, Yang could only nod as Blake asked her own question.
"Will there be any-"
"Will there be any super secret weapons we can use there?" Ruby interrupted, her excitement back with a vengeance. She was about to go on, but paused as she realized her faux paus. Sheepishly, she turned to her teammate and gestured for her to go on.
"Will there be anything that
we should be concerned about there?"
Oobleck opened his mouth, shut it, then pinched his chin. "Logic dictates that anything truly dangerous would have been first to be carried off to Vale. But with them operating under a very fluid and very lethal deadline, it is possible they may have missed some things, perhaps including any samples used for antidote creation. You should all bring BC masks and chemical spill gear. Don't worry, I'll have it loaded onto the bullhead by the time we get to the landing pad."
Fort Anderson
4:30 PM
The bullhead landed on a pockmarked section of parking lot that had seen better years, if not decades. Lines of weeds and clumps of tall grasses crisscrossed the field of tarmac, sometimes without even needing a pothole to form to give them an opening. A few rotting cans and eroding brass cartridges skittered about as the engines whined to slow the tiltjet's descent, and an empty box of pipe tabaco was unceremoniously squashed flat by the landing foot.
Ruby Rose marched out first, a smile on her face. The smile was hidden beneath a helmet and gas mask combo that nonetheless allowed her hair out, thanks to the use of a transparent hardlight barrier surrounding the entirety of her head except for the mask's own vents. She moved robotically down the loading ramp, her arms swinging up and down with each step as she made beep-boop noises, further synthesized by the speakers built into the helmet.
Weiss's fingers met their best friends (her forehead) as she shook her head, looking down at the childish antics of her leader. As she did, she caught sight of Oobleck's considering look.
"Doctor?" she asked, eyes widening with mounting dread at the idea of wearing-
"Yes! May as well. Students, everyone in your BC gear! Consider this practice for when you actually
do have to deal with such conditions." At this, even Ruby groaned, as she'd been hoping to just wear the mask.
The dreaded "Clown Suit" as it was called was almost the polar opposite of the very purpose of a Huntress's combat outfit. Firstly, they were completely uniform, apart from the somewhat randomized camouflage pattern they had. Unfortunately these were the 'urban' camo design, which was various drab shades of gray in blocky patterns that almost but not quite resembled letters. Then there was the mask that gave the suit its name. A sort of pointed hood/capelet combination that went past the shoulders, the 'mask' part of the mask had big puffy cheeks, big round eyes, and a big puffy round nose which contained a small emergency filter, if the big 'tuna can' one below it stopped functioning for whatever reason.
Five forms in identical outfits stepped out of the bullhead some few minutes later, identifiable only due to their differing heights and figures.
"I look like a Wubbet," came Yang's muffled voice. "Who's supposed to think I'm a badass dressed like
this?"
"These suits
are rather… distinct," Weiss added in agreement, "and not in a good way."
"Ah, but you see, the distinctness
is the point! Tell me, Miss Xiao Long, what is the purpose of a Huntress's combat outfit? My colleague Professor Port should have explained this by now."
The first thing that popped in Yang's head was 'to look cool', but that obviously wasn't it. That was just a bonus. "To… inspire people?"
"To inspire
hope, or at least
confidence," he said. "If you saw someone rush into a burning building in their day clothes, no weapons, no Dust, no Aura, nothing of particular use to protect themselves against the raging element, what would you think they were doing?"
"Either making a heroic sacrifice or committing suicide," Blake said bluntly.
"Precisely! By being prepared, or at least looking like we are prepared to deal with the situation, people will
believe that we can, and that is all that is truly needed to keep their hopes up. And by truly
being capable, we can make good on the hope they held in us, so that next time they see someone marching into a chemical spill in a hazmat suit, they're more confident that everything will be okay."
Not one to stand on ceremony or even the rhythm of a standard conversation, Doctor Oobleck checked his watch almost the instant he finished speaking. "Let's hurry along, now! There's no way we'll finish by nightfall, but if we move quickly we may be able to finish by tomorrow evening! The map indicates a suitable place to set up tents in a conference room on the second sub-basement!" Like their last mission, he didn't wait for them to follow him before striding towards a gash in the building wider than the bullhead was long.
Ruby watched him for a few seconds before starting after him. "C'mon, team, treasure awaits!"
"Anything worth the effort to a Huntress is probably already inside Vale, Ruby," Weiss said.
"Let me dream, Weiss!"
.-. . .-.. .. --.- ..- .- .-. -.--
Ruby's exuberance lasted an hour.
No one had told her that a weapons lab was far more lab than weapons, and that even if it wasn't, most of the big guns that would've been designed there would not be tested there. There were firing ranges and mannequin stands to test armor here and there, but for the most part, everything of note had either been removed or passed on by the ceaseless march of weapons technology.
There were a few highlights. A delta-winged interceptor with big canards and even bigger missiles mounted just aft of them, as well as two interceptor engines mounted one above the other. To top it all off, it had four Gravity Dust crystals mounted in form-fitting humps top and bottom. A large tank with a strange-looking turret on a giant hinge, featuring two guns of differing calibers, development halted due to a lack of need for it after the Great War. A whole rack of rifles - one fired rocket-propelled rounds, and the other used an extremely complex mechanism to fire caseless ammunition. Both, according to notes nearby, had a nasty tendency to explode when used by Huntsmen whose Semblance produced a lot of heat. When Ruby read that part of the notes out loud, Yang dropped one of them as if it was already on fire, then sheepishly picked it up when Ruby told her they were all unloaded.
Those were all on the first two floors alone. The third floor down was dedicated to reverse-engineering technology both ancient and foreign. Weiss spluttered briefly at the sight of a postwar Atlesian tank in pieces, with chunks of armor with very obvious damage from gunfire around it, next to a Centurion (one of Polendina Robotics' first humanoid robots) in a similar state. About a third of that floor was filled with similar foreign tech, including an armored sail from a Mistrali airship. Most of the rest of the floor was empty. Which was good, as the conference room turned out to be a bust, half-buried in fresh rubble.
Blake stepped through an automatically sliding glass door into an E-shaped room half-strewn with rubble. She then immediately half-tripped over a metal sphere about the size of an orange. She bent over to pick it up, then noted a stand with a few of them in a semi-rectangular bowl. The bowl had a crack in it the size of her fist, explaining how several of the spheres had gotten out.
"What
are these?"
"Cameras!" Oobleck piped up instantly, spotting the display. "At least, that's what we believe they were. None of them are functional, and of course none of them came with instruction manuals, so disassembly is the only means of identifying what most everything in this wing is for. And most of those spheres were incredibly delicate once scientists did manage to get them open. Supposedly, Atlas even managed to get part of one to run for half an hour, before it shut down!"
Blake did not share her professor's enthusiasm. "I… don't see how much help an ancient camera could be," she admitted.
To no one's surprise, Ruby was the one to answer that question even as she practically hovered around a small mound of rubble with bulbous metal sticks poking out of it. "Well, miniaturization for one thing! Before the sphere cameras were discovered, camcorders were big and bulky things, and nobody
seriously thought a scroll could have any sort of camera function, even with them being as big as a brick." She paused, grabbing the sticks at random and tugging on them, trying to see which, if any, were loose enough. She didn't have to search long, and soon she was slowly starting to pull one out, even if it needed both her feet on the mound to do it.
"And then there's the lenses, and light projectors, and that, combined with-" Ruby yelped as the stick she was pulling on pulled away entirely, leaving her flat on her back for a moment, then stood up, stick in hand. It was a gun of some sort, Blake realized, though it didn't appear to have any way to load it, or anywhere for whatever it fired to come out. It was mostly dark brown and black, with a slightly curved body and grips that reminded her more of an earthworm than any firearm she'd ever seen, and at the back was a flat eye-like decoration. Some sort of counterweight? Whatever it was, the blue object set in its center was heavily cracked.
"This!" Ruby said triumphantly as she lifted the thing that was nearly as long as she was tall.
"A giant's earspoon," Yang noted. "People used to find 'em all the time in Tyrannic-era Vacuan ruins."
Weiss stared.
"What? They were in
The Mummy's Treasure. There was a whole plot point about how you had to sell your soul to Apep to make them work."
"But didn't they find working ones before that movie came out?"
"Yes!" Ruby exclaimed. "In
Solitas, thousands of miles from where they should have been! And they actually managed to get them to work," under her breath, "even if it took a truckload of Dust," then back to normal, "which is why Atlas has laser rifles now!"
Weiss scoffed. "I don't think something as big as
you counts as a 'rifle', Ruby. And it was
one tech demonstrator that appeared
once, at a weapons expo years ago! If it's not in production now, it probably never will be."
Ruby just smiled at her, patting Weiss on the back. "Oh, Weiss, Weiss, Weiss," she said, as if correcting a child, "you're Atlesian and you don't even know? When Mistral announces a new weapon, it's just been put into production and might start appearing in a few months. When Atlas announces a new weapon, production started last year and it's already killed at least one Goliath."
Weiss was too polite to do something as uncouth as roll her eyes directly in front of Ruby, but it was clear she would do it the second she turned her back, and she did. She then walked off to the furthest bar of the E, and stopped. Tilted her head.
"Doctor Oobleck, did the research facility here study art?"
Caught completely flat-footed, the usually talkative professor took a moment to respond. "Well, I suppose they might have some simple decorative pieces in a lounge, or conference room, but here? No." He was moving before his sentence was finished, and the rest of Weiss's team soon followed.
The room was approximately ten meters by forty, and largely empty except for two large objects.
The closer of the two was a squat, circular pedestal-lectern type thing with a large red crystal in its center. The device itself was an overall dark brownish-gray with the hint of a design in its material, like an inverted marble, and its top was covered with concentric rings of buttons with strange, angular characters on it.
It was interesting, sure, but the room was dominated by - and no doubt made for - the other object.
Seven meters across or thereabouts, an enormous ring stood on its side facing down the room's length. It was a more normal metallic gray than the pedestal, but it was clearly made of something similar because the patterning on it was the same. Seven chevrons lined its face spread equidistant around the part of the ring that was visible, with one at the very top. It sat partly buried into the ground, so the bottom of it was sealed entirely in the concrete.
The five all reacted to it in their own way, some usual, some not.
Blake never ran up to anything head-over-heels excited but she was coming close to her equivalent as she walked up to the ring, examining the carvings on it with clear interest.
Ruby feigned interest with a tilt of her head and a hand to her chin, but it was clear she didn't know what was so interesting about a big sculpture that didn't seem to be or represent anything. Yang was likewise feigning interest, though her attempt was far more convincing as she walked up to the pedestal.
Weiss seemed merely confused, and she hung back with Oobleck, who was uncharacteristically quiet as he stared at the objects. She was about to ask what it was even doing here when she heard him speak under his breath.
"It's not on the list…"
She turned her head to ask what that was supposed to mean, but Oobleck was already busy, expanding a tablet and flicking through its pages. The 'list' was part of their mission. The Valean government didn't know all of what was at Fort Anderson, but they had a pretty solid idea of what was probably there, and had compiled a list of anything they thought whose presence would be important to confirm. There were definitely things not on the list, but there wasn't supposed to be anything important or notable that had been left out. Certainly not a giant art sculptu-
"Whoops-" came Yang's voice suddenly as she leaned a bit too hard on the pedestal, pressing down one of the buttons with a weighty
thunk-
kyisssh. Any comments about the blonde's sudden bout of clumsiness died on lips as the ring began to move in turn. It rotated with a groan of several tons of metal on stone until the symbol matching the button was beneath the very top chevron.
Oobleck's tablet dropped from numb fingers. He nearly dropped his scroll as he pulled it out, but managed to get a picture of the now clearly active device. He mumbled something about making a call, then backed away as the rest of Team RWBY all but tripped over themselves trying to examine the pedestal.
Headmaster's Office
That same time
It was something of a common misconception that an educator's working days were confined to the school year, a misconception particularly untrue for those at the very top. Most university headmasters, when they did do their own clerical and managerial work, did so for much of the year, even during holiday breaks.
The centuries of practice with bureaucracy and minutiae granted by his immortality was one of its few blessings, in Ozpin's mind.
In short, with Team RWBY off on a remedial mission, he had the rest of the evening to himself, and he fully intended to use it.
His cup today consisted of a specialty chocolate from Menagerie, with cinnamon and granulated sugar blended into the bar. Melted down with almond milk and nutmeg, it was the perfect way to finish an evening, summer be damned.
He was about to raise the mug to his lips when his scroll rang. Sighing, he set it down and cast its screen to the holoscreen on his desk. A press of a button on said desk raised a black backscreen for it, making it easier to read in the late afternoon. It was Oobleck, of course. He supposed he deserved the interruption. He'd told the professor to contact him once every two hours, and if anything noteworthy came up.
It hadn't even been ten minutes since his last call, so it must have been quite noteworthy. The holoscreen came up in a sequence. First the background, a cityscape of Vale, then the taskbar, then a text log, then an audio screen. That was slightly odd, Oobleck usually preferred to video call. Quite noteworthy indeed, then.
"Professor Oobleck, what have you found?"
Always best to get straight to the point with him, to cut off any ramblings before they could start. He was much like Port, in that way.
"I'm not sure-"
The very
idea of something being there that Oobleck wasn't familiar with in at least some tangential way was enough to seize Ozpin's attention.
"-at first I thought it was some sort of art exhibit, but then this happened."
Oobleck sent one picture, then another. A weighty
thunk-
kyisssh sounded in the background of the call. Centuries of practice in diplomacy kept the mug of piping hot chocolate from emptying its contents unceremoniously in his lap.
There were five pictures. The first was of an enormous ring and a pedestal, with Yang pressing down on one of the buttons. Then another, the same. Five in all, the most recent during the call.
Ozpin went very, very still for a moment, then dismissed the holoscreen and swept out of the room, cane in hand. He could hear another
thunk-
kyisssh over the speakers, but he paid it little mind. It couldn't be stopped now, anyway.
The elevator provided a small bit of calm. Much as he would like it, even in emergency mode (which he had already set it to), it would only go so fast and no faster, and his office was near the top of Beacon's CCT tower. He took in a breath and cleared the abject terror from his mind.
"Bartholomew. Listen to me
very carefully. Your mission parameters have changed. This is no longer a training assignment, but an off-the-books mission."
"Sir? What is-"
He cut him off. There was precious little time. Already he was having the hangar ready his personal bullhead. There probably wasn't one on the continent that could match its speed, but like all bullheads it was still woefully subsonic. Too slow. Perhaps he should have encouraged fixed-wing research after all.
"The device you are looking at, and make no mistake it is one device despite being of two parts, is something that should not exist. Should have ceased to exist decades, if not centuries ago. The fact that it still does means its continued existence was kept secret even from me, let alone that it still functions. I'm afraid I will have to have you and Team RWBY swear to utmost secrecy over this, whether you accept this mission or not."
There was a pause at the other end. Somewhere down below, the fuel tanks were being checked. They would have been full of course, but a few months of disuse meant that some Dust may have settled to the bottom, and it needed to be redissolved.
There was a muttered discussion, but eventually four muttered agreements.
Good. Knowing when to follow orders is as important as knowing when not to.
...You would
point that out.
"Alright. We're listening."
A deep breath. The elevator was getting close to the bottom. He remembered the microphones, the cameras, built into it. He hunched his shoulders and started typing.
>>The device requires eight button presses to fully activate. Seven on the outer circles, then the red gem in the center. I will need photographs of all of them, in sequence. Once it is activated, there will be a small jet of energy near the entrance. Do NOT touch the jet, not even your Aura will save you, but once it levels out it will be safe. Once through, your SOLE CONCERN[B] [/B]is survival. Your secondary concern is getting back through. I will be sending you the sequence to do so.
His mind raced. What was the sequence for Remnant?
"What should we expect on the other side?"
"Anything. Assume nothing about what or who you find there. It is entirely possible the people you run into will be hostile, and equally possible that they will not." Another lie. The chances were by no means equal.
The doors opened. Ozpin didn't bother with his cane, he needed to get to the hangar ten minutes ago. Three more photos were sent, but he ignored them. That could wait until he was airborne.
He remembered the sequence now. Once he was on his bullhead he could stop and send out the sequence. He couldn't describe it in words, there were quite a few symbols on that device that were similar to the untrained eye. He would have to send it via text, and to do that he would have to get to the hangar. The ground crew knew their stuff, at a full Huntsman's sprint it would be ready for takeoff by the time he got there, and every second on the ground was a second not in the air, headed towards Fort Anderson.
He practically launched himself through the hangar doors, not stopping until he had both feet inside his bullhead. Despite nearly banging his head against the padded fabric sides, he didn't even wait to get seated. They had to be told.
He looked down at his scroll, at the [CALL DISCONNECTED] notification, and the [CONTACT UNAVAILABLE] one beneath it. For several long seconds, Ozpin just stared stupidly down at it. Why had it disconnected? Signals could pass easily through as long as-
Deep breath in, hold, out. With nothing he could do to hurry himself along, and nothing he could do at that exact moment to help, the mask slipped back on.
"If you could delay takeoff, Bartlett," he said to the pilot, "I have a few passengers who need to be brought along."
His pilot snorted. "What is it with you and last minute decisions, sir? Alright, how much time d'you need?"
"Not too long, I should hope," he said as he sat down with a grunt. He had calls to make. Peter and Glynda, obviously. The more combat specialists the better. Qrow was in the area, and he deserved to know, but whether he'd get there in time was anyone's guess. Ozpin found it best not to keep too close an eye on him.
Tai…
He deserved to know, even more than Qrow did, but his reaction would no doubt be problematic. Ozpin did not believe the worst had come to pass, but Taiyang Xiao Long would not see it that way. All he would hear was that his daughters were in danger, and would come charging in like a mad bull, no stealth at all, when stealth was absolutely necessary for this.
He decided he would tell Tai, but at the last second, and he would not reveal too much. Only that his daughters and their team were stuck somewhere, and he and some other professors would be away from Beacon for a while to rescue them. It might not even take a day.
He sighed, finally remembering to strap himself in as the bullhead's tiltrotors began to lift it off the ground. Bartholomew was with them. They were in danger for sure, but they were Huntresses-in-training, backed up by a full fledged Huntsmen. They would be found, perhaps a bit worse for wear, but they would be found, they would be brought home, they would be given a
thorough debriefing, and all would be well.
If he said it enough times, he might even believe it.
In the same room Team RWBY had been in minutes before, unseen and unheard, the Stargate reactivated on its own. Nothing happened for several seconds, then a large six-wheeled machine slowly trundled out of the wormhole.
