Chapter 123: Danger…

Chapter 123: Danger…

~Third POV~

In an old warehouse, the White Fang are moving crates as Emerald and Mercury enter.

Roman approaches the two from behind and wraps his arms around them in a group hug surprising them, "Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!"

Emerald shivering in disgust responds to him while the two pull away from Roman, "Spare us the thought of you procreating."

Roman produces a piece of paper seemingly out of nowhere as he responded to Emerald, "That was a joke. And this... just might tell me where you two have been all day."

Emerald was caught surprised by Roman stealing from her, "What!? Agh..."

Roman began holding up the piece of paper seeing an address for it with a raised eyebrow, "I'm a professional, sweetheart. Pay attention, maybe you'll learn something. Why do you have this address?"

Emerald gets defensive quickly quipping at Roman, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Roman soon argues back but with a funny expression on his face of a dead end, "Yeah, I would. Now, where have you been all day? But oh, wait the guy is long gone don't need you brats to do my job. I had that under control."

Mercury on the other hand wanted to antagonize Roman about his mess up causing him to grow a tickmark, "Oh yeah big shot? Two packed bags and a ticket out of Vale said otherwise in your belongings after the whole starfish. Booo hooo."

Roman at this was immensely pissed hearing that responding recalling the fight in a live video sent throughout Remnant, "Listen, you little punk. If it were up to me, then I would take you and your little street rat friend here out of my sight. If you have seen how those brutes would take one's own will I would – "

"Do what, Roman?"

Pausing in fear hearing her voice Roman grumbles to himself face palming at the scene, "Figures you would be here. And here I thought she would back off from Vale after Ozpin dogs are after her."

Soon a lady appears before them as she wears a dark red, off-the-shoulders v-neck mini dress with yellow designs. There is a blue feather-like accessory on her right hip at the top of an open portion of her dress. The dress ends in an upside-down triangular tail in the back, ending just above the knees.

There is a quarter-circle-shaped keyhole on the dress' upper back at the same height as her chest. The sleeves end in a triangle shape, which is wrapped or tied around her middle finger, with the gold designs of the sleeve taking over at the wrists. Her fingernails are painted dark red.

She wears black shorts underneath her dress, as well as a black choker on her neck. She has a gold loop earring with a black gem dangling from it on her right ear. She has dark, glass, high-heeled shoes, and a jeweled anklet on her right leg.

On her upper back, in the keyhole of her dress, she has a black tattoo of what appears to be a pair of high heel shoes placed sole to sole, forming a heart shape inside.

Cinder Fall has appeared.

Cinder appears on a platform above them. She steps onto an automated lift, riding it down to their level with Roman laughs nervously, "Hahaha… I'd, uh... not kill them?"

Emerald excitedly sees her savior finally return in happiness, "Cinder!"

Cinder gracefully comes to meet Roman face to face level with her eye flaring up along with the temperature rising making him sweat, "I thought I made it clear that you would eliminate the would-be runaway."

Roman for his part sweated at this trying to form the right words, "I was going to..."

Emerald on the other hand wanted to see him squirm a bit as she began to explain what Roman originally planned to do, "He was going to escape to Vacuo Cinder! Mercury and I decided to take it upon ourselves, to search for why the holdup. Apparently, it was because of the video from before, right? I mean it had to be fake right?"

Cinder on the other hand only frowns knowing full well who sent the video replaying is real to her but Emerald and Mercury are in denial about it, "Quiet. Did I not specifically instruct you two to keep your hand's clean while in Vale?"

As Cinder speaks, Roman points a finger at the pair while laughing in agreement. Roman uses his fingers to mime having a slit throat.

Cinder soon turns to Roman with a small smile on her face making Roman flinch with the words coming out, "And you. I can forgive you for running away from that thing…. So, for now onto the real topic of getting back to work. Why wasn't this job done sooner?

Roman as he speaks, points to his right, then to his left, then behind him, "Uh..? Eh..? Eh..? EHHHHH! Sorry if I've been busy stealing every speck of Dust in the Kingdom!"

Mercury makes his remark at Roman causing Emerald to laugh at that, "You're an inspiration to every punk with a gun and a ski mask."

Roman on the other hand was not amused by Mercury's words as he emphasizes the last word by clenching his fist, "Look around, kid. I've got this town running scared! Police camping out at every corner, Dust prices through the roof, and we're sitting pretty in an old warehouse with more Dust crystals, vials, and rounds than we know what to do with! Speaking of which, if you guys wouldn't mind filling me in on your grand master plan, it might actually make my next string of robberies go a little smoother!"

Cinder approaches Roman as she places her hand on his face Roman seems entranced, but then looks away with a grunt Cinder begins to walk away responding to him, "Oh, Roman. Have a little faith. You'll know what you need when you need to know it. Besides, we're done with Dust."

Roman confused respond what's the next goal, "O-okay, then what now?"

Cinder next took out her Scroll as she began to text the downloads to Roman of what to do next, "We're moving. Have the White Fang clear out this building. I'll send you details and coordinates tonight."

"Coordinates?"

Cinder looking back at Roman began to warn him what was next, "We're proceeding to phase two."

Before she walks away, she also began to talk to Mercury and Emerald about what to do next as she spoke, "As for you two… we have much to do. Sadly, we can't enter Beacon with those heroes inside, especially the boy. Fortunately for us though we have to deal with something against him, my mistress wants him and the Silver-Eyed girl alive. Our goal is to assist Hazel in that goal."

Mercury and Emerald both nodded their heads in agreement with Roman attempts to light a cigar but realize Emerald has stolen his lighter. She turns back to face him and sticks her tongue out defiantly.

/////

The Land of Darkness, also known as Evernight, is the former domain of the God of Darkness and the antithesis of the Domain of Light. The pools of Grimm are located there. Salem and her subordinates use Evernight Castle as their base of operations.

The castle is situated in the Land of Darkness and shares its color scheme of shades of violets, purples, reddish sky, and black for shadows. The outside of the castle is not extensively shown, but it seems to be tall or situated on a tall mound.

The entire building is dimly lit, only illuminated by weak candles, the dark sky, and sometimes the moon. It seems to be built out of rock and purple crystal and decorated with smaller crystals and candles.

The most often seen space of the castle is the conference hall. The room features a crystal table surrounded by six wooden chairs, four of which belong to Tyrian Callows, Cinder Fall, Hazel Rainart, and Arthur Watts. At the end of the table, Salem sits on her crystal throne.

Opposite her throne is a pair of simple wooden double doors that are the only entrance to the room, which leads to the first training room.

A number of crystal formations surround the room with white candles on their tops, and behind Salem's throne is a crystal table adorned with several white candles. Above the table is a chandelier made out of branches and crystals. The floor is made of square, reflective tiles.

Standing on her throne Salem watches the video screen as Arthur Watts showed to her the fight against Starro of Team JNPR, RWBY, and Justice League fighting it off.

Salem re-watch the event happening for a few days seeing everyone fighting against Starro with her speaking to Arthur in a calm but curious tone, "Fascinating… this creature sadly destroyed but its lesser spores they could have their uses. Watts have you managed to procure some of the samples."

At this Watts smiled with his mustache twitching revealing crates of the dead Starro spawns he spoke out, "Why of course my lady. With your attack on the Kingdoms at their weakest provided me enough time to secure a crate of them. Although dead samples it seems like effects it gives its host is quite something indeed."

While everyone in Remnant was hunting down the remaining Neon Grimm and Starro spawns Salem managed to tell her forces to collect them back to her Evernight Castle for her to experiment seeing the effectiveness of how Starro managed to bring Remnant to its knees easily.

Thanks to her own forces they managed to procure some of the dead Starro spores and few Neon Grimm for them to study and boost their own forces while everyone else was busy with her Grimm attacking the Kingdoms thanks to the panic it provided by Team RWBY, JNPR, and co. provided.

Arthur soon opens up his Scroll explaining the effectiveness of the dead starfishes to Salem listening to every word, "According to my research mistress… it seems with your help in remodeling a couple of its lesser spores in order to make them work for the user and not the other way around. They also bolster the natural abilities of the host user; making them tougher, stronger, and amping any special powers they may possess. I have to say I never got to work on something more unique its really quite surprising."

At this Salem smiles at the words while she asks Watts a curious question with her eyes shining red, "I see… about how strong these lesser spores would give to a person or Grimm?"

Watts merely smiled at this grinning happily giving his response about his report to Salem, "Possibly to range 3 – 5 times stronger when equipped to a Grimm my lady. But to experiment on a person, it seems to boost not only their Semblance 3 – 5 times the power of the person but also their own Aura as well giviving them a multiplyer of Aura supply so long as the Spores are equipped my lady.."

Clasping her hands together Salem sat up and began to experiment more on the lesser spores seeing the video of the fight thanking the heroes with a smile on her face, "I see… it seems like I have to really thank these heroes for killing the main hivemind leader. With these spores I can create more effective Grimm so thank you heroes for helping my cause… and create a personal hivemind connection like Scrolls to my subordinates. Truly I'm indebted to those for getting us a new means to boost our forces."

Soon Salem eyes Jack and Ruby intently before asking Watts to give her order to him to everyone in her faction, "Be sure to give this order to everyone Watts… I want the boy and girl alive delivered to me. Send Hazel to procure them and also give him one of our newest Grimm called… Spores to help him."

Watts nods at this before giving his report about the Mutant Serum to Salem opening up with his rings, "Of course. It shall be done soon also the Mutant Serum that Merlot gave for return of the girl is also progressing well. I managed to see some extra abilities for the Grimm to explode when they die and produce Crystal like spikes from the Beowolves. Are these results favorable my lady?"

Salm claps her hands together along with a smile on her face as she began to give another order to Watts, "Hmm… seems like everything has been going well Watts. In that case add the Mutant Serum to the Hound to see the effects of a Grimmified Silver Warrior react to adding additional abilities. Perhaps we can test more if Hazel manages to capture the girl and the boy."

Watts gave a bow to Salem understanding wanting to capture the two for her own purposes…