36 Calm before the..

-Two weeks later, Castle Evernight-

Salem was receiving her weekly reports from Cinder, Hazel, Watts, Lionheart and Tyrian in her meeting room via seer Grimm. She was currently listening to Cinder's update on the return of magic and its effects on her and her group.

"And finally.. Neo and Neopolitan are dealing with some potential issues outside Vale" Cinder concluded her report.

"Issues? Tell me, Cinder" Salem looked at the Seer displaying Cinder's image.

"They're hunting targets down that are sniffing around in areas where they shouldn't. Mike Hunt, Yorke Hunt and a White Fang defector named Dixie Normous" Cinder finished, followed by a long silence.

Salem held her face in her hand and sighed a very very long sigh.

"Cinder.. you.. are you serious?" Salem said incredulously.

"Ha..Hahaha.." Salem heard behind her as the meeting room doors opened.

"I.. yes, I'm serious. Why? What's wrong?" Cinder asked nervously.

"You're an idiot.. Hold on, I need to talk with another headache.." Salem cut the connections to her seers and turned to see the Wendigo taking a seat on the table with his hoofed feet up, deer skull-looking head rested on his fist.

"Where were you? You disappeared for two whole weeks. I told you to wait.." Salem said, her tone oozing anger.

"Visiting a friend. Calm yourself, a woman of your advanced age should just take it easy until the end you know?" He mocked as Salem gave him a death glare.

"Who do you think you're talking to? I control the Grimm. That includes you. I won't say it again.. stay here. The plan for the Vytal Festival cannot fall apart now that we're so close" Salem leaned back in her seat, glaring at him.

"I see you're in a mood.. I do have good news for you though. Maybe that'll put a smile on that pale face?" He hummed and saw her raise her brow in interest.

"And what have you done now without my permission? You know as much as I do that Ozpin has eyes everywhere in the kingdoms" Salem shook her head as he chuckled dryly.

"I'm far stealthier than you think. My I'm practically offended you think I'd be caught" He clutched his boney chest to oversell it.

"Are you going to show me what you did or not? I was in a meeting. Hazel, Tyrian, Cinder and Arthur are all out doing their jobs.. so?" She impatiently tapped the table she was on.

"We should all be attacking Vale while Cinder finishes up her plans" He then took out three of the relics from his inventory and made all of them float above the table.

"How..? When?" She calmly asked.

"Why else did you think I took two weeks to return? Walking? Ha.. No, I grabbed them all already. All but Choice.. Where only Ozpin knows where to find it. We should overwhelm Vale and Ozpin while we have all the pieces in our hands. You know I'm right" He stood back up and placed all three relics in Salem's pale hands. After a few seconds of contemplation she nodded and resumed the seer communication.

"The General should receive information about the staff's lack of presence right about now" He offhandedly commented.

Salem just nodded in understanding.

"Then Atlas should be running on fumes.. perfect" She smiled.

"Cinder, Tyrian, Hazel, Arthur and Lionheart. There's been a change of plans.. We will all be assaulting Vale come the final day of the festival. Due to.. unforseen circumstances we have all but the relic of choice in our possession. Therefore, all our efforts will be put to Vale" Salem started to go over the plans, much to the shock of all her subordinates.

"Ah there's the smile I was talking about" He jovially commented in the back.

"Actually.. that brings me to you. How did you acquire the relics without a Maiden's power?" Salem turned to him.

"These eyes have special unfair abilities. I can phase through objects. Which also includes magically sealed doors" He said as he pointed at his eyes.

"Good.. then you will retrieve Choice during the siege" Salem returned her attention to the seers.

~As long as I have time to see Chris. Will you enjoy my speedrun strategy, Chris? It'll be so much fun..~ The Wendigo's jaw stretched back, looking like a smile.

-Ozpin's office-

Ozpin was drinking a cup of coffee as usual, going through the necessary paperwork for the festival and enjoying a relatively peaceful day. Until Ironwood barged in, his face full of terror. He was pale, his eyes were bloodshot and he was panting.

"James? What's the issue?" Ozpin grew apprehensive. He knew James wouldn't act like this unless something extreme happened.

"The staff.. it-it-it's gone, Ozpin.. It's GONE!" He slammed his hands on the desk.

"What!?" Ozpin stood up, cold sweat pouring down his back.

"I don't even know how.. Atlas is in a state of emergency and is burning gravity dust like crazy just to stay afloat! They need to land and are demanding my presence back in Atlas to deal with the situation.." Ironwood roughly swept his hand through his rapidly graying hairs.

"Okay.. go deal with that. I need to contact the others and get the status of their relics somehow. Damn it!!" Ozpin quickly picked up his scrolls and made a few calls as Ironwood quickly left.

-Vale/Vacuo beach-

Neo was currently sparring with Jaune. He was doing so much better than even his original counterpart in volume nine. He had the aura to tank almost anything but Yamato. Which Neo herself started training with. It turns out making portals and doing that hundred slash attack Vergil does was actually incredibly hard to do. She was no Vergil, yet either. She was fast but Vergil and Dante swung so fast that they managed to slash away every single rain droplet while they fought in pouring rain.

They were all getting much better though. Neopolitan trained with her Life Fiber scissors, semblance and illusion magic. She got the idea to show Mil-tan to Jaune to test out how real her illusions were. Jaune had fainted in terror the first time it was used. Blake had created tangible shadow clones of herself and was using the elements to enhance the clones in a fight. Qrow could now control his bad luck semblance and stop it from being a passive effect. The rest were enhancing what their elements and semblances could do and were tight lipped about showing it to the other teams. Even Kit was slowly adapting to magic. His fur is getting shinier and he seems more intelligent than before. Same thing with Zwei, which Ruby noticed.

"Hey Jauney boy. What are you gonna do after this?" Neo asked while ducking a few jabs from Jaune using Playboy Plunder.

"What do you mean? I still wanna be a Huntsman.." He frowned for a second.

"Yeah I mean after the trip. You could probably study under your Dad about everything a Huntsman should know. You're well on your way to being decent at combat now so all you'd need is the knowledge a Huntsman should have" Neo countered with a swing of Yamato, which Jaune blocked but skidded back from.

"Well on my way..? I can barely touch you and your swings make my arms numb!" He complained with an exasperated tone.

"Yeah but I'm me.. a Fuckmothering Proxy Lightning magic user. Also my powers are bullshit. My cooking? I cheated to get cooking skills that good. I barely knew how to cook spaghetti before two weeks ago.." Neo muttered.

"I can't believe that.. you made everyone.. what's that word..?" Jaune thought as he jumped back from a roundhouse kick.

"Foodgasm?" She idly commented before getting back in stance.

"Yeah.. that. THAT happened at least six times in these two weeks!" Jaune said as he swung a flurry of attacks at Neo, which she dodged and shattered as an illusion before planting her foot on Jaune's butt and kicking him into the sand.

"Yeah but I toned it down since they'd be unhappy with regular food if I stopped cooking for them" Neo hummed with a small mischievous grin.

"Augh! Pff.. pff! Sand in my mouth.." Jaune spat out sand and shook his head.

Just then, Neo received a call from her scroll. Picking it up, she saw it was from Ozpin. She had a funny feeling it wasn't to just check up on them so she picked up.

"Yello?" She casually greeted Ozpin.

"The relics.. all of them but Choice are gone.." Ozpin said gravely.

~That's not supposed to happen..~ Neo thought quietly to herself.

"No Maidens entered the vaults.. It was like a ghost walked in and took them. I don't know what's going on" He stressfully sighed.

"There's still Choice though.. So they'd need to come to Vale. We're going to stop them in Vale. Just count on us and prepare. They'd do it at the Vytal Festival" Neo put Yamato away and sat down.

"Should we cancel the Festival and brace ourselves? Or perhaps.." Ozpin started to think about what Salem's agents will do.

"No, that's what they want. Fear attracts Grimm after all. Just up security and prepare evacuation at the Vytal Festival" Neo calmly told him as she remembered the Wendigo's words.

"It's still one month away so prepare all the huntsmen you can. Something big is going down at the Festival" Neo calmly told him as she looked at the training teams confidently.

-Omake again!-

Neo: I'm back, bitches. I have.. some of the answers you seek. Bask in my greatness and yadda yadda, let's read!

Author: You're.. excited.

Neo: Big things are happening so duh! Okay so.. Chibiusa asks what our dynamic would be if we ever met? Probably like.. buddy cops? Jackie Chan and Chris Rock? Kevin Hart and The Rock. I'd be the Rock since you're tiny.

Author: I can see it.

Neo: Now smash or pass. I'm doing five characters. Here we go. Yoruichi, SMASH. Shinobu from Demon Slayer? Pass. Not into the artstyle.. Mizore from Rosario Vampire? Smash. Rias from DxD? SMASH ULTRA. I like redheads what can I say..? Orihime from Bleach? Ehh.... pass.. Too innocent.

Author: Thank you guys so much for the collections, favorites, support.. OCRS is top in the female leads fics! THAT SHIT IS CRAZY! Thanks a ton again!