Hello guys!
Well, I'm back at college and chillin in my dorm room once more. Bit colder in the morning than I would prefer, and of course I'm stuck with 8:00 morning classes every day (I know some of you have no sympathy for me, but this is different from what I've had to deal with for nearly five years now). I will say one thing though, it is nice to be done with classes by noon.
Which brings me to the point of this exposition. on Tuesdays I get out a bit earlier than the rest of the days, and I plan on moving TBH updates to Tuesdays to make things a bit easier on myself (it's currently several hours after I would normally update TBH, so you can tell there's a good reason for it).
But anyways, enjoy the chapter! With LSTR filled in on Daniel's secret, there's nothing stopping them from rescuing our favorite Auraless Ginger!
Or is there???
Daniel woke to the sounds of frantic struggling.
Confused, he looked around for the source of the commotion. Dakota had barely moved since Professor Glas had injected him with something, then spent several hours pulling something out of his right hand. He shifted on occasion on the cold hard examination table, but that was it. Whoever was struggling, it wasn't Dakota.
The sound of a key jingling in the lock was heard at their door, and the three forms on the tables were bathed in light in the moment it took Professor Glas to close the door.
Wait, three forms?
Professor Glas stumbled through the darkness, tripping over a chair and scattering something on Dakota's table before finally finding the light switch and flicking it on,
Revealing the prone form of Velvet, the rabbit Faunus that had helped him who had helped him find the recruiter's office. She too was bound and gagged, placed in a hospital gown. Exactly like Daniel and Dakota
"Wonderful! You all are awake," Professor Glas said with a grin. Daniel, Dakota, meet Velvet Scarlatina. She's ahead of you two by a few yearsa, and as you can probably see, she's a Faunus. She's the third candidate I was telling you two about earlier. Isn't that right Ms. Scarlatina?"
Velvet shook her head violently back and forth, her bunny ears whipping around with each shake. Professor Glas ignored this and instead whipped a white lab coat over his suit and bustled over to Dakota, where a vial of scalpels had been spilled all over and around him. He collected the scalpels, counted them, frowned, and then recounted before placing them back in their vial and placing them next to Daniel. He looked at Daniel and smiled excitedly. "Today's the day Daniel! Today's the day you make history!"
Cold fear washed down Daniel's back. It couldn't be today. He'd been here for less than a week. He wasn't ready!
Professor popped the brakes for the wheels on Daniel's examination table and wheeled him to the center of the room, positioning his legs towards the door out of the room. "Say goodbye to your friends Daniel," Professor Glas said cheerfully. "You won't see them in this life ever again."
Daniel looked at Dakota and Velvet, bound and gagged, completely unable to stop what was happening. Velvet was looking desperately at Daniel, trying to figure out what was going on. Dakota gave Daniel a brief nod of farewell, then looked up at the ceiling. Daniel couldn't believe this. Out of all of DDLN, Dakota was the last person he'd expect to just sit down and accept this without a fight. He called out desperately, but Professor Glas pushed on the table and they disappeared from view as Daniel, Professor Glas, and the cart pushed open the door and entered the hallway. They were gone.
"This experiment is going to save the world Daniel," Professor Glas assured him. "Your sacrifice will push our world to a better tomorrow. Thank you for this."
Professor Glas laughed in glee as he pushed Daniel down the hall, and Daniel shuddered at it. Daniel had noticed that whenever talking about his experiments, Professor Glas switched between his usual self, and someone with much less control over his emotions. He wasn't sure which was better.
"And the best part is, we don't have to worry about anyone disturbing us. No one has any idea that we're here!"
Scrapmetal tore down the road, Lunare pouring every ounce of power he dared give on this narrow street. After Nick and Lewis had told them Daniel's secret, Lunare had browsed through Professor Glas' receipts and search history before he found an abandoned warehouse for sale that Professor Glas had frequented the purchasing site of, before eventually buying it several weeks ago. He then got the address, and they all piled into Scrapmetal, racing off in hopes that they wouldn't be too late to stop whatever Professor Glas was planning.
Lunare yanked the steering wheel to the right a final time, taking Scrapmetal into a tight right turn. The monstrous creation flew into a weedy gravel parking lot, and Lunare slammed on the brakes, taking them into a violent skidding stop right in front of the main door. Immediately, everyone except Lewis, Lunare, and Ryler burst out of Scrapmetal and moved to a cautious distance away.
"I will never ride in that monstrosity again!" Tiberius yelled back at Lunare. "Most certainly not with Schatten on my lap." Several of the others grumbled in agreement.
Lunare ignored him, instead reaching into the glove box in front of Ryler to grab several magazines for Nieh Mehr's newly designed loading system. Despite the majority consensus on what Scrapmetal's fate should be, they had managed to arrive here in just fifteen minutes, a trip that would've normally taken an hour.
"Hey, Lunare," Ryler asked, "what's this in the glove box?"
Lunare paused loading his gunstaff long enough to see what Ryler was showing him before continuing his efforts. "That, Ryler, is the stabilizer for Scrapmetal's front right leg. It prevents the appendage from coming apart during high speed transitions from the horizontal plane to the vertical. I intended to install it before the next outing with Scrapmetal, but due to the severity of the situation, I decided to wait until later."
Ryler gingerly placed the part back in the glovebox and climbed out. Lewis followed after a moment's hesitation.
Meanwhile, Nick, Schatten, and Tiberius were attempting to open the massive sliding doors to the warehouse. Schatten was cutting into them with his claws, while Nick and Tiberius were attempting to break the lock holding the two doors together. Neither party was having any luck. Schatten had his claws stuck in the metal. Nick and Tiberius tried to shatter the lock by rapidly heating and cooling it with his bullets, and then hitting it with Tiberius' chakram.
Schatten eventually wrenched his claws out of the small slices he had made in the door. "What the hell is this door made of?" he asked, "I should be able to cut through it like butter!"
"Judging from your difficulties in opening the door, it can be safe to say that the doors have been reinforced with titanium alloy, and treated to resist fracturing under massive tempurature changes," Lunare called out from Scrapmetal. "I don't believe that our weapons will be successful in penetrating the door."
"Well then what do you suggest boss?" Schatten called back. "We got to get in there to save Daniel and Dakota!"
"That we find alternate means of entrance," Lunare said as he turned Scrapmetal back on and began sidestepping to the right until he was facing a wall. He then flipped several switches, moved into the highest gear available, and pressed a button with a sticky note underneath saying, 'attack mode'
Scrapmetal roared as Lunare yanked on several levers, elevating the vehicle on its hind legs. The front two legs clawed through the air as Lunare brought it down hard into the wall. The legs bit into the wall and ripped two rough gashes down its length. Another round of lever yanking made the two legs turn inwards and tear the damaged section from the wall. The legs flung the scrap to the side before returning to their original stance. The entire process took less than thirty seconds.
Lunare turned Scrapmetal off once more and stepped from the cab. The instant he did so, the right front leg of Scrapmetal broke loose at the joint. The vehicle teetered for a moment, then crashed to the ground on its side.
Everyone looked at Lunare. This was his baby. His pride and joy! How was he going to react?
Lunare shook his head and muttered something about a stabilizer, and turned from his creation and to the dark maw in-front of him. He expanded Nieh Mehr and pressed a button on one of the ends, turning on a flashlight that illuminated the dark corridor in front of them. As he stepped into the hole, automatic lighting kicked in, dimly illuminating the corridor before them. The rest of teams DDLN and LSTR followed after a moment's hesitation. Ryler leaned over to Schatten and whispered, "I wonder how much it'll cost to tow Scrapmetal?"
"Schatten looked at Lunare leading the group, analyzing his old friend's emotions, before turning back to Ryler. "Best not to ask Lunare right now."
Professor Glas had Daniel hooked up to several different machines to keep him alive for as long as possible during the procedure and was about to open his chest up to view his heart and lungs, when one of the motion detectors in the hallway went off. He removed the scalpel blade from where it was resting on Daniel's flesh and looked up irritably at the single monitor in the operation room assigned to the security cameras. When the hallway in question came up, he saw a massive gash in the wall had been created, and six teens were making their way down the hallway. Facial recognition and biometric scans revealed them to be team LSTR, and the two remaining members of team DDLN. Professor Glas nearly snapped his scalpel in rage. "What are they doing here?" he roared, "How did they even find this place!" his face suddenly became calm and passive once more as he reverted to his usual self. He took a deep breath, and released all the anger in his system; approaching the problem with a logical mind. "No matter, perhaps they are unaware of the importance of this experiment."
He placed the scalpel down and moved over to the intercom where a confused Daniel watched him pick up the microphone and press transmit.
"Spread out and search every room," Lunare instructed, "It is imperative that we do not miss Daniel, or else the possibility of arriving too late to save Daniel will increase exponentially."
The six of them split off into two teams checking each side of the corridor when Professor Glas' voice crackled through speakers implanted into the ceilings.
"Lunare Natch, Schatten Schwartz, Tiberius Blanc, Ryler Merriweather, Lewis Lemon, and Nicholas Ochre. If you have questions on the essay that I assigned this morning, I'm afraid that you will have to wait until my office hours tomorrow. I am rather busy saving the world at the moment." This was followed by a high pitched laugh that pushed the speakers to the limits of the sound they could reproduce.
"Where are you Glas!" Schatten shouted, "Give us back Daniel and Dakota!"
"Really, Mr. Schwartz?" Professor Glas sighed, "Is that really how you address your Professor?" When he received no response from Schatten, he sighed. "If you must know, Daniel and I are in the middle of changing Remnant as we know it."
"Really," Lunare commented, "Do you have proper documentation of your experiment submitted to the proper authorities, as well as concession from all parties involved, including Daniel and Dakota's respective legal guardians? They are underage after all. What sort of health codes could you be violating with his dissection? How is your note taking skills? Do you have the proper tools required for dissecting a human body? What are-?"
"Enough!" Professor Glas shouted, his voice no longer passive. "I will not be insulted by a teenager who is incapable of truly understanding the work I have put into making certain that this experiment is flawless! I cannot allow it to be hampered by legalities, not when lives are at stake. Leave at once, or else I will charge all of you with trespassing!"
"Section three, clause eighteen of Vale's law regarding trespassing, and breaking and entering clearly states that all current rules and regulations regarding trespassing, and breaking and entering can be waived when human and or Faunus lives are at stake," Tiberius quoted. "As huntsmen in training, we have even further allowances when it comes to such matters. Professor, you have no legal authority in this situation. I highly recommend that you turn your captives over to us, and surrender yourself for arrest,"
There was a long pause after that where Professor Glas said nothing, and teams DDLN and LSTR looked up at the speakers, waiting for his response. Finally, Professor Glas let out a long sigh. "I really liked you six. Truly I do. In all my years of teaching, I never came across a group quite as interesting as yours. As much as it pains me to say this, I will take any and all measures to ensure that this procedure goes as smoothly as possible."
"You will dissect Daniel and Dakota over my dead body you bastard," Lewis said darkly. The five Huntsmen-in-training looked on in amazement as he unslung his guitar from his back and glared murderously at the speakers. "I won't let you take away my family."
"If that is what it will take, so be it Mr. Lemon," Professor Glas said. "Over your dead body it is." And with that, the line cut out with a click.
Lewis slammed on his guitar strings hard, letting out a discordant note out of his instrument. The ensuing green wave blasted through the speakers in the ceiling, and took a chunk of the ceiling with it. Dust and plaster rained down on the group, obscuring their vision.
"Sorry dudes," Lewis said, panting slightly, "I don't know what came over me."
As the group peered through the fine cloud of dust into the dark corridor, Lunare felt a tingling on the back of his neck. Like someone was whispering right next to his ear. Telling him to,
"Get down! Now!" Lunare shouted as a hail of bullets from six ceiling turrets tore through the corridor. His order came too late as the rest of the group got hit several times before they had a chance to dodge for cover. Their Auras held, but they were pushed back several feet.
Lunare kicked open the door to his left and dove in, only to be confronted by another red laser tracking his movements. Pulling Nieh Mehr up to bear, he unleashed a three round burst that struck the turret, rendering it inoperable.
"You just had to say over your dead body, didn't you?" Lunare heard Tiberius yell to Lewis out in the corridor.
Lewis responded with a frenzy of guitar chords and riffs, but was thrown backwards into Lunare's view by gunfire. "They broke my vibes man!" he shouted, talking about the green energy he created. "No one's ever broken my vibes before!"
Lunare reached out and grabbed Lewis by the collar of his vest, dragging him into the room. He then moved out of the room, firing towards where the bullets were coming from.
To Lunare's right, Ryler was strangely paired up with Tiberius, who had thrown his chakrams in the air and was using them to deflect the bullets aimed at both of them. Ryler crouched behind the levitating disk and with bullets pinging off the chakram a mere foot from him, was firing his gas grenades at the turrets in hopes of the fertilizer fouling the mechanisms, or coating the tracking lasers to the point that they could no longer function. He was having little luck.
Behind them, Nick was tending to a wounded Schatten. A bullet had gotten past Schatten's Aura and had struck him in the side. It was healing, but he would be out of the fight for the next few minutes.
It was at this moment that Tiberius grabbed Ryler and hugged him close, something he had never done before. He then recalled the chakram that had been protecting Ryler, and tossed it at the turrets. It hit one and sliced clean through the cable giving it power. As the remaining turrets fired at the single chakram that was protecting both Tiberius and Ryler, the thrown chakram bounced off of a wall and took out a second turret before returning to Tiberius; who immediately redirected it back to destroy a third and fourth turret in the same manner. Lunare finished off the final two with a continuous spread of fire from Nieh Mehr, emptying an entire clip into the ceiling. The final notes of the fire echoed in the suddenly quiet corridor.
With the threat eliminated, Luanre ran over to his fallen teammate. Schatten was lying next to Nick groaning and clutching his side where the bullet hole slowly closed. "God, I hate Glas," Schatten groaned.
"You alright there partner?" Nick asked him.
Schatten growled and struggled to his feet. "Not until Glas is on his feet begging for mercy."
"Then we've got no time," Ryler said. "Let's go stick it to him gang!"
They proceeded quickly down the corridor, checking each room for anything, destroying turrets if they were active. It wasn't until the second to last room that Lewis found anything.
"It's a blueprint of this facility," Lunare murmured as he studied the drawing. "Evidently this warehouse required renovations before Professor Glas was willing to use it."
"Does it show where Daniel is?" Schatten asked.
"Yes. He is in a room on the far side of the warehouse," Lunare replied. "With Scrapmetal in need of repairs, we cannot simply create another opening. We have no choice but to go through the facility on foot."
"Then we had better be on our toes," Tiberius said, "I highly doubt that Glas left this route unguarded."
"It is possible that you are mistaken." Lunare said, striding towards the door. "Turrets with laser targeting are highly expensive and difficult to acquire. Coupled with the tools and machinery to not only renovate the warehouse, but to also stock it with medical equipment makes it highly unlikely that Professor Glas had any remaining funds to purchase turrets beyond those we have already seen." He opened the door and strode though,
Only to be confronted by five turrets clustered around the door, all of them trained on him.
Aaaaaaaand you all hate me for cliffhangers.
So something that I wanted to hold of on mentioning until you all had finished the chapter, was that I finished the first chapter of To Be Human, Book 2 last week. It's not going to come out immediately after TBH Book 1 finishes up (I need time to get ahead, and let you guys take a breather from TBH for a little bit) but I can assure you, it's not going to be RWBY volume 3 hiatus long.
But anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! we only have four more to go, so I might decide to begin updating every week, instead of every other week. Don't forget to leave a comment if you like this chapter (or didn't and want to flame me for it. If so, bring it on). I'll see you all in one or two weeks.
-Wrench
ns 15.158.61.20da2
