Ch 27: What Lurks in the Shadows

Finally freed from Yang's lecture long after the rest of the school had left, Ray exited the amphitheater and trudged to the first-year student dorms to find his new room and collapse for a bit. Yang's lectures when she was worried were incredibly draining. Even if Yang was quite the rebel herself, going out drinking and partying in some of the sketchier parts of town most nights, she took her role as Ray and Ruby's older sister very seriously.

Ray found his room at the end of the hall on the third floor next to Team RWBY's with Team JNPR's just across the hall. With a final round of good nights and congratulations all around with his friends. Ray entered his room and fell face-first into the bed, clothes and all, without looking around.

A few hours later, when the night was at its stillest from all the students having already returned to their dorms to sleep or left to enjoy the nightlife, Ray's eyes snapped back open. He was still tired, but he still needed to do one last thing before clocking out completely.

Pulling out his scroll, Ray entered a string of passwords to gain access to a secure virtual dropbox that was only accessible by five people in this world. Making a copy of the video Ozpin had shown to the students, he began writing up two reports.

The shorter report detailed what story Ozpin intended to tell the world about the incident to prepare them for stronger, smarter Grimm while not revealing everything they had learned to avoid a panic when most of what they had was still mere speculation. The longer report contained all of the relevant information he had gained during and after his fight with Wolfden. Including information on the Grimm Lords, their numbers, their abilities, their strengths, their weaknesses, how Salem intended to use them, the first round of countermeasures he had thought up to deal with them, and more. He included everything because if his plan was to work, they needed to know. The right people, in the right place, with the right knowledge, at the right time, with clear lines of communication and back up on standby.

His reports complete; he zipped the video and reports together into a file, added a short title, 'New Grimm', and dropped the file into the box. In 24 hours, the box would cycle and delete any trace the file had ever been there, but before then, the four other people who needed to see it would. With that done, he changed into his Zwei pajamas that Jaune had washed and returned and laid back down to sleep.

######

--Somewhere in Vale--

Roman Torchwick is listening to a radio report over his scroll. Finished listening, he goes to turn it off when he notices a notification about a message in the dropbox. Acting like it wasn't there, he turns his scroll off and puts it away inside his jacket.

He sighs in frustration over the report he just heard and slammed his hands on the table in front of him. Bringing a cigar to his lips and lighting it to calm his nerves as he stares at the map hung above the table of the city of Vale marked up in red marker indicating districts, Dust shops, and cop locations.

A masked man in a black hood rolls a trolley up behind him. Roman flashes him a stack of Lien and sets it down on the table for the masked man to take.

"Open it." Roman orders the masked man. He pries the crate on the trolley open with a crowbar, revealing many Dust crystals of varying colors. Roman picks up a blue crystal to inspect the quality of the loot and comes to a decision.

"We're gonna need more men…" He says to no one in particular, talking to himself.

Dismissing the masked man Roman appears to go back to planning his next Dust robbery and pulls his scroll back out. Keeping a carefully neutral expression on his face, Roman skips over the video for now and reads over the reports. After he was done, the gentleman gangster casually put his scroll away and closed his eyes to contemplate and plan. At least that's what it looked like to any of his ill-informed cronies watching. His casual face hid the minor dance party he was having within his head.

[Hmm, the poor kiddies. They haven't even arrived yet and already lost one of their own. Worse, that brat will have wrung all the information that pooch had out of it before turning it over, and they'll never realize it until it's too late. These fools have no idea what they are up against. Man, it feels good to be on the winning team. I hope he understands that I just haven't had the chance to inform him of their existence yet. Not like I would be stupid enough to betray him by trying to hide them.] There was only one other member of his organization that knew he was a double-agent working for Ray, and she won't be talking.

######

--Somewhere in the forests of Anima--

In the largest tent in the center of a bandit camp, the cawing of a raven could be heard outside before a tall woman with thick, wild black hair that reached down to her waist stepped inside and took off her full-face Grimm mask. Setting it down on the table, she picked up her scroll to check if there was any news yet about their latest raid and noticed a new message in the dropbox. Opening it, she smirked as she watched the video. A smirk that only grew as she read the reports.

[Heh. As if any Grimm could ever be a match for that monster. I wonder if it would even make that much of a difference if they had been able to keep these Grimm Lords a secret. Doubtful. Salem is going to lose and suffer a fate far worse than death. The only question is how much of a fight she will be able to put up. Still, I'll have to be even more careful now not to let my secrets slip if I don't want my tribe to be wiped out by these new beasts.]

Thinking for a bit, she decides to send some of the information to the Spider Lotus organization to check to see if their information network had picked up anything about strange Grimm activity that might match with this. They should have informed one of them if they had, but experience had taught her it was always better to check.

######

--Somewhere in Mantle--

A young, middle-aged woman with light blond hair and tan skin was sitting around a table with three other women having a meeting. She had pulled out her scroll to show them something when she noticed a new message in the dropbox. A quick check revealed that it was from 'Lotus'.

"Excuse me for a moment, girls." She decided she should check it now and opened the file without leaving the room. She trusted these girls with her life. They wouldn't speak of anything they learned from her to someone they shouldn't and wouldn't ask to know more than they needed to. Her brows creased as she read the reports.

"Trouble, Ma'am." One of her associates asked.

The woman shook her head, "No. At least not at the moment. Just our benefactor keeping us up to date. However, we will be upping our training. Our enemy appears to have found some more chess pieces."

######

--Somewhere near the coast in Vacuo--

In a tent belonging to one of the many nomadic tribes that travel around the desert of Vacuo, searching for scarce resources and avoiding Grimm attacks, a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length dark red hair checked her scroll before laying down for the night. Seeing the file 'Lotus' had dropped, she opened it with a smile. Her smile turned into a severe frown as she watched the video and read the reports. Finishing them, she let out a tired sight.

[I guess it's too much to hope for that becoming a mother again will convince Salem to give up her quest to destroy humanity.]

Putting her scroll away and lying back on her cot, she considered, not for the first time, if she had made the right choices. As she drifted off to sleep, thoughts of her family that she hadn't seen for so many years, except through a scroll screen, brought tears to her eyes.

######

--Somewhere in the heart of the unnamed dragon-shaped continent--

A man was sitting in a dark room lit only by the moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that led out to a balcony behind him. The room was sparse, the only furniture being a large canopy bed, a desk, and a meditation mat which the man was sitting on. However, all of the wall space was taken up in its entirety with bookshelves, packed to the brim with books, leaving only enough room for the giant glass doors to the balcony and the normal-sized wooden door on the opposing wall. He had glistening pale white skin and ebony black hair that cascades down to his waist and wore a cloak of ebony black feathers as dark as his hair. A small Nevermore flew in through the open glass doors and landed on the man's shoulder. The still man stirred and opened his blood-red eyes to speak to the empty room.

"Inform my Mother that the youngest, Wolfden, has been captured by the humans at Beacon. Then ask my Eldest Sister to come and speak with me." A scurry sound on the other side of the door informs him that whoever, or whatever, had been on standby outside his room had left to carry out his order.

[This man could be a threat to us. I must know more about him before more of my siblings are lost.]

*Knock Knock Knock* A brisk knock on his door interrupted his thoughts, "You wished to speak with me, Big Brother." A melodious voice that could charm even the most righteous man into lust sounded from the other side of his door.

"Yes, Dearest Sister. Please, enter. We have a new threat that we must discuss."