Looming Danger

POV Velvet Scarlatina

Death had dressed himself and then left his room, only to be met by Velvet waiting for him, and they hugged each other "Good morning Velvet. Are you ready to talk about what was bothering you yesterday?" he asked.

Velvet nodded "That's why I am here. You see....While we were on our mission, we met a faunus girl, and she was being attacked by Nevermore's. We rushed to her aide, but by the time we reached her she had killed the Nevermore's and had been attacked by a huge human that had stabbed his own arms with lightning dust crystals, and he'd ripped off the poor woman's wings. If it was from a Grimm, that level of brutality wouldn't surprise me, but from a person, it shook me a lot." she confessed to him

Death hugged Velvet again "You are a genuinely good person, Velvet. It is understandable that this would trouble you, and I am happy to comfort you when you need it. Unfortunately, not all people are good, and...I may know the man you saw, and he's definitely not good news if I am right."

Velvet once again wrapped her arms around Death "Who do you think it was?"

"His name is Hazel Rainart. His little sister, Gretchen Rainart, wanted to be a huntress and came to attend Beacon, though her brother tried to forbid it since he didn't want her leading such a dangerous life." Death explained to Velvet "Unfortunately, the life of a huntsman or Huntress is a dangerous one, and during a mission, Gretchen died. Hazel blamed Ozpin for her death and went down a dark path supposedly in the name of justice for his sister."

"That sounds dumb. Isn't that the opposite of what his sister would want?" Velvet asked Death with disgust towards the attitude of the man Death was describing.

"I never met Gretchen Rainart, so I can't be certain, but from what I do know I don't believe she would approve of his actions." Death explained while one of his hands slipped down from Velvet's back to her butt, though Velvet paid his travelling hand no mind.

"Can we get an image of this guy to verify that he is the same one my team and I saw?" Velvet asked Death.

Death nodded in response "I keep a photograph of him and other potentially dangerous individuals on my scroll, so I'd definitely be able to show you, but lets do that as we walk. I trust that you know where the faunus woman that he is after was taken?"

"Northeast Vale General Hospital" Velvet answered simply "Sure, we can go there." she parted from the hug so that they could start heading to the Hospital while he got out his scroll to show her the image, which let her verify for him that the man she saw really was Hazel Rainart.

------

POV Amber Quince

When she awoke, she found herself in bed with Death and Neo, and she recalled the previous evenings activities. While she had no regrets about the act itself, because her feelings for Death were legitimate, she was also a bit worried that he might not feel as strongly about her as she did for him.

The other girls had faith in him that he would properly love them, so she wanted too as well. She took a deep breath and sighed, mentally chastising herself for doubting him, even if it was just a sliver of doubt. She knew her feelings, while perhaps a bit irrational, were sincere, so she just needed to make sure that she would be a great girlfriend to him.

"Good morning" Amber heard Death say, unaware that he'd already left and prepared an avatar so that Amber and Neo wouldn't wake up without him. Amber looked at him, meeting his eyes.

Suddenly, Death kissed her lips chastely. Amber blushed "Good morning."

"You don't have to be worried. I wouldn't have agreed to what happened last night if I didn't already love you." Death reassured her.

Amber smiled at him and nodded "I hadn't expected myself to give in to my desires last night. I thought I would have resisted them for longer, but I do love you, Death. I'll get accustomed to these changes as soon as I can."

"Good morning" she heard Neo say before seeing her sit up and lean over Death to look at Amber, exposing her upper half when the covers fell off of her, and reminding Amber that they were all still naked. She may have also felt a bit inadequate as she considered how much larger Neo's breasts were compared to hers.

Death faced Neo and gave her a kiss as well.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Amber asked, forcing herself to calm down and wrapping her arms around Death's arm, placing his arm against her modest breasts. She did blush a bit, but seemed quite reverent towards Death.

------

POV Death Rose

Arriving at the hospital, Death and Velvet approached the intake nurse "Hello ma'am, we're here to check on a patient." Death glanced at Velvet, recalling that Velvet hadn't mentioned the woman's name, so he only knew that she was a faunus.

"She said her name was Uriel, but she may be signed in a Jane Doe since we were not able to verify her identity when we rescued her" Velvet told the nurse.

"I know who you mean." The Nurse answered with a nod "But she was transferred to Central for treatment. They left with her about a half hour ago,"

Death frowned, suddenly having a bad feeling about this "Did you see who took her away?" he turned on his scroll and started showing the nurse images of villains that he'd acquired.

The Nurse was was about to speak when she suddenly became confused "Why do you have a picture of Dr. Argent?" she asked.

Death looked at the Scroll which presently had a picture of Arthur Watts on it "This Dr. Argent....is the one that took her?" he asked with concern.

"Yes, but all his paperwork was in order, and the computers said...." the Nurse was explaining.

"He's a hacker, a genius of technology. He's not a medical doctor at all, and his name is not Argent, it is Arthur Watts." Death explained to the Nurse "Damnit, call the police, we'll call for back-up as well. Your computers were compromised and a psychopath just abducted your patient!"

The nurse looked absolutely horrified by what Death had just told her, but he did not wait for her to say any more and took off with Velvet while calling Ozpin on his scroll.

While Velvet was talking to Ozpin, Death sighed and checked his skills. He had a lot of unused skill points that he had been letting build up over the years, and he had four new skill trees to look at.

Mentally he opened the Wind Magic Skill Tree, and surprisingly only found one option in it, called aerokinesis, which he promptly put a skill point into. That was enough to intuitively explain why the 'skill tree' was so barren.

Magic was about imagination, so he needed to imagine some spells into existence, then they would appear on this skill tree.

He similarly found the same situation with Light Magic, Earth Magic, and Nature Magic, spending one skill point on lumokinesis, terakinesis, and florakinesis respectively. Adding more skill points was apparently the only way to increase these four attributes, which offered greater affinity towards the magic element that the points were spent on.

In order to create more branches on these skill trees he had to develop personal spells. through trial and error combined with imagination. He made a note to ask Ozpin for some training now that he could use the magic of this world.

Sure, he COULD ask Amber and Neo, but that would require him to meet specifically with Amber and Neo, which could lead to someone realizing that Neo was a maiden. Now that she was with him, Death definitely couldn't allow her secret to become known. It would increase the odds of Salem coming to know of Neo's existence, and Ozpin might want to keep the maidens separated to avoid being perceived as an easy target. That was also not an option to Death.

Yeah, it was definitely preferable to ask Ozpin, he decided. At worst, the gaze of Salem and her minions would fall upon him a bit more. He was not an idiot, and was well aware that Salem and her lackies were well aware of his existence, along with his siblings, who had already impeded their schemes immensely, so it wasn't a huge deal to him to rile her up a bit more by being taught magic by Ozpin.

------

POV Ozpin

While sitting in his office, he had been looking over some files that Glynda had brought to him when he heard his scroll ring, indicating an incoming call. When he looked to see who it was from, he was surprised to see the name Velvet Scarletina there. While his scroll had the information of all of his students in it, the same was not true in reverse, as only a couple students had his scroll information.

It immediately was apparent that Velvet got his contact information from Coco, but he knew that Ms. Adel wouldn't give it out unless it was a genuine issue that he had to be contacted about.

Ozpin picked up his scroll and answered the call, soon seeing Velvet's face appear on his scroll "Is there some sort of problem, Ms. Scarlatina?"

"Yes sir" Velvet answered seriously "Death told me to call you. Some guy named Arthur Watts abducted the Faunus woman my team encountered on our last mission. Death said he is a hacker and terrorist and just really bad man. He also identified the other man that attacked her in the first place as another terrorist named Hazel Rainart."

Ozpin sighed, he already had suspicions about Hazel joining up with Salem, and he was well aware of who Arthur Watts was, though he had been under the impression that the man was dead.

Putting the pieces together, it seemed to verify his earlier suspicions about Mr. Rainart as well as revealing that Dr. Watts had faked his death and was working for Salem as well. "I understand the situation, Ms. Scarlatina. I'll send people to investigate the matter and try to rescue the woman."

"Thank you headmaster" Velvet said with sincere gratitude, that he could tell indicated her concern for the abducted woman was genuine.

Ozpin nodded and hung up the call "Glynda!" he called out.

A few moments later Glynda Goodwitch, who was one room away doing her own work, came into the room "Yes sir?"

"Call Ironwood and let him know that Arthur Watts faked his death and is likely working for Salem. He's currently in Vale and kidnapped someone. I have to call in some huntsmen to try and rescue the woman that they kidnapped." Ozpin explained to her "he's currently collaborating with Hazel Rainart."

------

POV Glynda Goodwitch

Ozpin's words to her were quite disturbing. Glynda, having attended Beacon at the same time as Gretchen Rainart, had met her brother Hazel a few times, and had actually considered Gretchen a dear friend prior to her death.

She had, of course, heard from Ozpin before that he had suspected that Hazel had joined up with Salem, but Glynda had held out hope that he would be wrong about that up until this point, merely because she knew Gretchen wouldn't approve of him doing such a thing and she had not wanted to believe that he would do something that Gretchen would have despised.

Unfortunately, though, while Ozpin still hadn't said he was positive of the connection yet, he did seem positive of Hazel's connection to Arthur Watts. She had also heard of the famous scientist from Atlas who was said to have died, and she had to admit that she saw no reason why her dearly departed friends older brother, who had never left Vale in his life before he disappeared soon after Gretchen's death, would have even met Arthur Watts

There had to be some unknown force that had connected them to each other, and when it came to unknown forces in Remnant that could be responsible, the only person that came to her mind was Salem.

"Yes sir" Glynda left the room to go make the call to James Ironwood while Ozpin started making more calls as well.

------

POV Death

He still had plenty of skill points left when Velvet hung up her call and came back to him, since he just didn't want too invest too much into these new magics when he still had no spells for them yet, but at least he had a slightly better understanding of them.

When it became apparent that he might have to face Arthur Watts and Hazel Rainart, it was only natural that he would want to view all his options and hopefully open up some new avenues to himself, but sadly it just was not that easy.

If he had known that it would prove to be a pointless endeavor, he would have just called Ozpin himself rather then asking Velvet too, but there was no use in quibbling over hindsight.

"So, do you have a plan?" Velvet asked with concern while entwining her fingers of her left hand with the fingers of Death's right hand and meeting his eyes with her own.

"Not a perfect one, but I've got something." Death reassured Velvet with a sigh "I'll try my best to bring her back."

After saying that, Death activated his Body Double skill and created ten more body doubles/Avatars, each of which promptly took off while forming his armor and using the anti-gravity jetpacks to take off into the sky and scatter in various directions while looking for any indication of where Arthur Watts may have taken Uriel.

The others in the lobby were shocked when they saw Death create what they assumed were clones. Such semblances, while not unheard of, were still really rare, and being able to create and control 10 was beyond their expectations.

Unknowingly to them, however, Death had left one Body Double at Beacon and still had another watching over Tukson in secret with Ultear, otherwise he'd have been able to make two more.

Of course, controlling that many at once was difficult, and his combat potential with each of them would drop by around sixty percent if he was forced into a battle situation while controlling so many, but using his maximum to try to find the threat was just fine. He could dispel the excess avatars if he found the proper trail, after all, then he could fight at full strength.

"Your semblance always amazes me." Velvet giggled as she stood beside the original Death "Well, shall we go do our part?"

"Certainly, little bunny. I'd love to relax and flirt, but if that man is around, we should act seriously." Death agreed "You and I will stick together so that if one of my doubles finds them, I can lead you there."

"East" Death decided, before rushing out of the hospital alongside Velvet to look for any indication of where Watts had went too. He didn't hold out much hope, but they had to try.

------

POV Ultear Milkovich

Ultear was standing inside Tukson's Book Trade at the moment, looking through some of the books that this world had to offer. She originally had lived in a world called Earth Land, and there she had used time-reversal magic and caused herself to rapidly age and become an old woman, and eventually die.

Before she passed away, though, she used her magic again to leave something behind that would help her allies in the future. Something that she called a Time Remnant.

When she was summoned to this world, though, she was resurrected in her prime state and her youth was restored. She felt an instinctive impulse to serve Death, who had summoned her, but it was not some overwhelming instinct, she knew that if she wanted too, she could resist this inner urge, but Death seemed like a good man, and he had not really given her any reason to resist him.

Ultear was grateful to not only be alive, but to also to have her youth restored rather then just being stuck as an old woman. But at the same time, this world was still so foreign to her, so it was good to have someone she genuinely could depend on to help her to fit in better.

Human...Faunus...Such labels seemed stupid to Ultear. In the past while that she had been watching over Tukson, she got a feel for the man, and found that he seemed to be a genuinely kindhearted person, regardless of species.

She knew from Death that Tukson was a faunus, but to Ultear all that mattered was that his character was good. Protecting him she deemed to be something worthwhile, though she wasn't sure whether or not there was a real threat to him in the first place.

According to Death, he had seen a version of the future where Tukson was killed, though the world was already greatly changed far from that original future that he had seen, so the information wasn't reliable and hadn't been for a long time.

Tukson had always been polite to her, but Ultear could tell that he was growing suspicious after seeing her so much, and guessed that he would confront her soon. She had expected it for the last week or so, but only today had he started walking towards her before losing his nerve and leaving again.

"Excuse me miss...do you need help with something?" Tukson asked with curiosity "I mean, you've been a great customer, so I'm not complaining. I am just wondering if something is going on."

Ultear smiled, hearing that the man had finally dared to approach him rather then just waiting for her to come up to him with purchases. "Oh, there's no problem. My employer just asked me to watch over you, afraid that you might be targeted by the Bloody Fang." Ultear explained to the man "It's basically bodyguard work, but it's a good opportunity to fill out my book collection a bit."

Tukson was quite surprised by her words "Why does your employer care about a bookseller like me?"

"My boss is in a relationship with Blake Belladonna, and you are an important friend to her, so in addition to protecting you because you are a good man, my boss wants you kept safe to not have someone he cares about have her heart broken." Ultear admitted to Tukson.

Hearing Blake's name made Tukson visibly relax "You couldn't just say that? I've been worried about what you were up too coming so often."

"Oh dear Tukson, would you mind hiding in the back? Something is about to happen."Ultear advised Tukson with a smile, as an orb appeared in her hand and she looked into it and saw a large, rather muscular man appear on the orb.

Tukson frowned, but decided to do as she said, wondering if the Bloody Fang was really coming. The man in the orb looked like he could have been a human, or a faunus that easily passed for human. 'Whatever' Tukson thought before rushing to the back of the store.

Ultear, meanwhile, used transformation magic, and her appearance changed to match Tukson's. Tukson saw her transformation for a moment before disappearing into the stores back area, and she saw he looked surprised, but he still went ahead and did as she had instructed.

Ultear, who now looked like Tukson, had her orb disappear and looked towards the door and saw it open, with Hazel Rainart entering. This time, it appeared that her Parallel Worlds skill had not been a false alarm.

With Arc of Time, she could perceive a near infinite number of possible futures at will, though obviously most of them never become reality. Each time she had come shopping for books, it had been during a time frame when she had perceived a possible threat incoming for Tukson. Every time before had just been a false alarm.

"Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the sun. How may I help you sir?" Ultear asked Hazel, perfectly imitating Tukson's voice.

Hazel looks around to make sure no one else is around and then looked back at Ultear again "Yeah. It's nothing personal, but you have got to die."

"Oh? You and what army, Hazel Rainart?" Ultear asked with Tukson's voice.

That stunned Hazel "How do you know that name?"

"Tukson appears to not be here." Ultear noted "My name is Ultear Milkovich. My transformation magic is quite good, isn't it? It's a shame that you have sided with the woman that wants to destroy the whole world and everyone in it. You are included in everyone you idiot."

"Ozpin" Hazel said with a vicious scowl, apparently only hearing the word magic.

"Hey, you idiot, do you really believe Ozpin and Salem, and those four, are the only ones capable of using magic?" Ultear chuckled "My magic is my own, having no connection to Ozpin at all."

Hazel fumed and charged towards Ultear, but suddenly he became entwined with roses attached to thorny vines, all made of ice. "Ice-Make: Rosen Krone" Ultear said the name of the technique even as it was already starting to capture him.

The doors to the store opened again and Death, or rather one of his body doubles/avatars, entered "Hazel, it is nice to finally meet you." he said with a smug grin as Hazel was struggling against his newfound bindings, the thorns scraping against his aura. If not for his aura, Hazel's struggling would have already left him covered in wounds.

"You bastard!" Hazel scowled.

"Admittedly, I always figured that the Bloody Fang would eventually come here to send a message, but having you appear here instead, Hazel, is quite the good fortune for us." Death insisted "Where is Arthur Watts? Where is the woman he abducted?"

Hazel frowned again when he heard Arthur's name "You know too much."

Death had a smug grin on his face "Don't worry, I'll make you talk eventually. You can't brute force your way out of those bindings." he felt pretty damn lucky to have summoned Ultear considering how useful her Ice-Make magic was for restraining aura users. Then there was her Arc of Time magic and her other powers. She was definitely a powerful contribution to his allies.

Death could only wonder where the heck Arthur Watts was, and why did Hazel choose this moment to appear in this place? What was Salem planning, and why? Tukson was a member of the White Fang, he was never a part of the Bloody Fang to begin with. He needed answers, even if he needed to get his hands a bit dirty.