Pearls on a String

Volume 2

Chapter 22: Invasion

City of Vale Outskirts

Late Sunday Evening

Raye Rhosin was having an incredibly poor evening.

It began with the interruption of her sleep, something that the normally reticent Wolf Faunus girl took very seriously, caused by the wailing of sirens that indicated an emergency throughout Beacon and Vale. It continued with the constant complaining of her teammate Ivory who valued her sleep even more highly. The white-haired girl was irritable at the best of times, which to be fair was rather uncharacteristic for a Fox Faunus such as herself, but that evening she practically bit off her partner Sepia's head when she got in her way of changing out of her sleepwear. At least their team leader, Indie, managed to step in and quell any further argument with her usual subtle but firm style.

And then it culminated right where Team IRIS now found itself, defending one of the many gates leading into the city of Vale against a horde of Grimm.

Which in and of itself shouldn't have been much of an obstacle for the third-year students, even as sleep-deprived as they were. After all, they'd managed to get up to the doubles round in the Vytal Festival this year.

If only it weren't for the damnable aberrations they faced.

"Sepia?" she called out anxiously. The Wolf Faunus was currently occupied sending shards of stone at an approaching group of Beowolves, but her friend was at her back, watching for the return of those green glowing monsters.

"Nothing yet, Raye!" the brunette replied tersely.

With a grunt of effort, she sent another barrage of ice spears raining down from the sky upon the seething mass of Grimm. They'd been at this for almost a half hour now without relief, but the ranks were finally beginning to thin. Which was good, because even as skilled a Dust Mage as she was, if she didn't get a break soon she'd be spent.

A Creep raced in at her from the side, and she flicked her closed fan Silverlight at it crossly. The dust-laced weapon served as a wand for her in this form, and took little effort to send a quick bolt of lightning out to blast the offending creature to tiny little bits.

Raye took a quick second to evaluate her other teammates. Her team leader, Indie, was easy enough to pick out in the semi-darkness. Though her dark red leather armor was fairly invisible even to her Faunus eyes, her shoulder-length blonde hair and white battle skirt stood out like beacons. And then there were the trails of explosions she left behind her as she danced through the ranks of approaching Grimm, the red dust in her nunchucks leaving a trail of fiery destruction. Fortunately for Raye's partner, her semblance granted her immunity to the effects of red dust, which led to her prodigious use of it. Much to the consternation of her teammates, who tended to give her a wide berth when she fought.

Out on the other flank, Ivory was only visible by virtue of her tousled white hair floating disembodied over the dark mass of her brown cloak, the tips of her Wolf ears poking up attentively. She'd converted her dual pistols into their short blade forms and was doing a dance of her own, just as deadly as Indie but with fewer explosions.

Sepia's sudden warning shout interrupted her survey as she called for her to hit the dirt. Having had enough close calls already, Raye quickly obliged, diving to the ground and rolling to the side.

A flash of green soared overhead, the ear-shattering howl from the Gryffon kicking up debris where she'd just been. Sepia stood her ground stubbornly, her rifle to her shoulder as she sent several rounds into the creature's hide before it soared off again.

"Dust damn it all!" the brunette girl barked out irritably, her long braided hair bristling behind her as she strode over to help Raye to her feet. "Why does it feel like I'm not even tickling those bastards?"

The Wolf Faunus sighed, brushing the dirt off of her red knee-length dress. "Maybe we should switch, you taking on the regular Grimm and me on overwatch. I could give them a decent surprise on their next run."

So far only three of the surreal creatures, their veins pulsing green under their dark feathers, had showed up in their area. They seemed to remain stubbornly fixated on the group of huntresses-in-training, as if it was their mission to bring them down rather than attack the gate itself.

Sepia growled in annoyance as she twisted her rifle, converting it into a spear, and slipped her buckler over her forearm. "Yeah, it's worth a try. Maybe I can take out my frustrations on some regular Grimm for a change. If Indie and Ivory leave me any, that is…"

Raye smiled at her normally reserved friend. "You know Indie really gets into killing Grimm, soon as she starts cutting loose with the red dust…"

"...She won't stop till she runs out," Sepia smiled back. "Yeah, I know. Oh, hey! An Ursa! Be right back, hon…"

The Dust Mage chuckled lightly as Sepia raced forward to meet the charging Ursa, her spear held before her like a lance. She took several steps back and returned her gaze to the sky once more, looking for those annoyingly persistent Gryffons.

For large, green-glowing, flying creatures, they're surprisingly stealthy…

Finally she spotted them, the sight causing her heart to sink down into her boots.

All three were converging on her position in an uncanny sort of coordination, from three different angles.

With a low growl that harkened back to her Faunus heritage, Raye whipped her folded fan toward the right-most one, sending a ball of flame outward. Then she spun, swinging out at the middle one with a shower of razor-sharp ice crystals. For the last one, she decided to rely on her powerhouse attack, and thrust upwards to hurl a large boulder at her target.

The incoming Gryffons on her flanks each dodged her attacks, much to her chagrin, though the one in the middle let out an agonized shriek as the shards of ice tore through it, sending it careening down into the ground to impact with a crash that shook the ground.

As the other two continued to bore in, Raye quickly erected a barrier of ice and stone around her. Against one of them, it might have held, but with two simultaneous roars the green-glowing Grimm managed to shatter her protective shield and send her flying backwards.

Dust dammit! she thought in exasperation as she rolled back to her feet. How can these creatures act this coordinated?

She turned about in a circle, trying to discern where they'd gone, but her senses were ringing from the auditory attack, leaving her disoriented and confused.

Sepia's panicked scream diverted her attention to directly overhead, but it was far too late for her to react. Both Gryffons were diving straight down at her, claws and beaks extended, and all she could do was stare at her impending doom.

But just as she began to wonder if there would be anything recognizable left of her corpse for identification, a pair of thunderous reports sounded. The high-caliber gunshots impacted on the heads of both Grimm, sending them off-course to smash to the ground several feet in front of the bewildered Wolf Faunus.

The impact caused Raye to lose her footing again, leaving her stunned and on her back once more.

Only this time, she was looking up into a familiar and friendly pair of pale ice-blue eyes.

"Team Pearl at your service," the dusky girl above her smiled, her lightly-accented and musical voice laden with humor. "No charge this time, but we do accept tips."

"Lustre," she sighed with a grin. "Thank Oum, you're a sight for sore eyes." Raye accepted the offer of a helping hand to regain her footing and looked around the clearing to assess the current situation.

Two of Lustre's teammates, the Cat Faunus and the short blue-haired girl, were already engaged alongside Sepia and Ivory to clean up the remaining Grimm on the ground. What were their names? Oh, that's right, Evie and Beryl. I think they're dating now? Eh, I'll ask Lustre about it later.

The leader of Team PERL was hard to mistake, being the subject of rampant rumors around Beacon from her capture and subsequent rescue. The word on what had happened to her in between was varied and outlandish, but everyone who came in contact with the lanky blonde could tell that she'd been changed by it.

Though it would be difficult to imagine so right now as she stood attentively beside the chestnut-haired girl with the large-caliber sniper rifle still held to her shoulder, searching for targets of opportunity.

"Er, thank you, Pip," the Wolf Faunus began hesitantly. "I appreciate the save."

The blonde flashed her a quick smile, her coral eyes twinkling with a humor that hadn't been seen since her return to Beacon. "All part of the service, ma'am," she snarked.

"Be that as it may," Indie stated as she walked up, her now-inert nunchucks slung negligently across her shoulder. "We owe you guys a dinner or something for bailing our asses out."

"I would never turn down an offer of free food," Lustre commented mildly.

Pip snorted humorously. "So long as it would melt the face of a normal mortal," she quipped.

Raye joined Lustre in her laughter, knowing full well her friend's propensity for spicy food. "Well, maybe we can find a restaurant in town that can satisfy," the brunette Wolf Faunus said.

"Done deal," Pip replied with a grin. "We'll hold you to that, soon as we kill off all these enhanced Grimm."

"What's up with those, do you guys know?" Indie broke in, her brow furrowed. She had her eyes on the four combined members of IRIS and PERL who were still battling the remaining Grimm in their area, though they had things well in hand. "Why were they glowing green? And how could they do that, y'know… roar of theirs? That was in no way normal…"

Pip and Lustre shared a knowing glance. "No, it's not natural at all," the blonde stated quietly. "But let's clean up first and then go rest, they set up a bivouac in the square just inside the gate here with some refreshments. We'll tell you about what's going on…"

City of Vale

Early Monday Morning

The sun was just beginning to crest over the horizon, illuminating several weary faces inside the wide boulevard that Lustre found herself encamped within. It had been a very long night, made even more onerous by the lack of any sleep whatsoever by her team.

The silver-haired girl glanced around at her friends with weary eyes. Both Evie and Beryl were slumped over together, sitting on the ground and propped up against a storefront. They'd been quietly snoring for some time now, and by unspoken agreement she and Pip had decided to leave them be.

Speaking of her team leader, the blonde was currently sitting with Indie from Team IRIS, their heads together as they brainstormed anything that might give them an advantage over these strange new enhanced Grimm that kept popping up now. The glowing monsters were aggressively testing the defenses of Vale, and if the reports from the vid screen set up nearby were true, the same could be said in the other three kingdoms as well.

They just never seemed to end. When one red-glowing Nevermore was felled, usually after inflicting hideous losses, a pack of speed-enhanced Beowolves would charge in.

Lustre glanced aside at the other three members of the team she was friends with. Both Raye and Ivory were resting with their eyes closed, sitting against the same storefront as Beryl and Evie, though neither Faunus girl looked to be truly sleeping, merely recharging their aura. Raye especially, as a Dust Mage, was running quite low on energy.

Sepia, meanwhile, had removed her dark brown leather armor chestpiece and attached cuisse, revealing her red tights and corset, in order to perform some quick repairs. The brunette's long hair was coming out of its braid, small tendrils of hair floating about her head unnoticed, while her buckler and spear lay at her side within reach.

With a groan, Lustre levered herself up and off of the crate she sat on so that she might approach the younger member of the friendly team. Sepia had been accepted into Beacon a year early due to her promising academic attributes and skill with her weapons.

"How are you doing, dear?' she asked softly as she shuffled over. "Can I get you anything?"

Sepia looked up with a smile, her lilac eyes warm and inviting. "Nah, thanks hon, I'm good. Wouldn't mind the company, though."

She smiled and nodded, easing herself onto another crate nearby. "Was your armor damaged?" she asked curiously.

"Just got a strap loosened when a Beowolf hit me on my blind side," Sepia shrugged. "It happens with leather armor, but I'll take the maneuverability over wearing clunky metal like your teammates." She glanced over with a wry grin. "Still don't know how you manage to melee without getting yourself whacked more often."

"I am simply too fast to be hit," Lustre replied smugly. "Well. Usually," she amended, thinking back to their fight with Leech just last evening.

Both of their heads whipped around at a loud screeching that echoed over the walls. A veteran hunter team was now guarding the gate, allowing the Beacon students some rest, but they still eyed the skies above cautiously before returning to their conversation.

"So everything that Pip talked about..." Sepia murmured, working a buckle back onto a newly tightened strap. "The dust-infused Grimm, and then what they did to her… How are you guys handling that so far?"

Lustre shrugged. "As best we can. Together and as a family."

The brunette laughed softly. "Yeah, you guys are like the closest-knit team I've ever seen. Seriously, I would give my left boob for a team like that."

Lustre raised an eyebrow humorously. "I thought you and your team got along well enough? And, furthermore… Why your left boob, specifically?"

Sepia snickered as she pulled her armor over her head. "Yeah, we all get along, when Ivory isn't being a prickly Fox Faunus. I swear that girl should be Hedgehog, not Fox. And when Indie's not trying to blow us all up in team practice. Or Raye isn't testing out some new idea for dust applications that vaporizes all of our clothes while we're in the training room."

The silver haired girl raised a hand to her mouth, stifling her laugh. "No, she did not!"

"Oh yes, she did. We made her run back to the room and get us new clothes. Fast as she moved, you woulda thought she had your semblance."

"Oh, dear," Lustre sighed affectionately. "Well, as close as our team is, we do still have our moments. Pip does enjoy incessant teasing, which often ends in threats of bodily harm by dear Beryl. And, as I mentioned earlier, now that both Evie and my partner are a couple, their tendencies for overaffection does often dominate our group outings."

"They sure are awfully cute together," Sepia mused, glancing at the dozing pair. "Adorkable, even."

"Just wait until they begin with the looks."

"The looks?"

"Yes, you know… the ones where it seems as if they block out everything else and gaze longingly into each other's eyes…" Lustre placed the back of her hand on her forehead and sighed dramatically. "Oh, my sweet Evie, how I long to share in your embrace for evermore…"

Sepia snorted in laughter, which only increased when an empty energy drink bottle soared over to bounce off of Lustre's head.

"Stop makin' fun of us, Lustre!" Beryl scolded blearily.

"Yes, dear. Go back to sleep."

Her brunette friend sighed, wiping away a tear of mirth. "But as far as my left boob goes, eh, it's not my favorite. My right one is bigger."

Lustre eyed her uncertainly, glancing down at the girl's fairly large endowment. "It is?"

"Yep."

"Why…? Never mind. I suddenly no longer wish to know any further."

Sepia snorted in amusement as she stood, stretching her arms over her head. "It's funny how much of a prude you can be. And I mean that in the nicest way possible, believe me."

"It is not prudishness," Lustre objected mildly. "I simply do not understand this fascination with people's anatomy."

"Well, I wasn't getting any complaints from the last guy I dated…"

"Again, Sepia, I truly do not wish to know the details…"

Their banter was interrupted by a loud crash as Pip surged to her feet and lunged over towards the vid monitor which had been on mute. "Son of a whore!" she yelled angrily, smacking at the button to enable the audio once more.

The commotion woke up the members of both teams, who craned their necks curiously to see what the fuss was all about. Centered on the screen was a broad-shouldered man wearing an expensive-looking three piece suit, a crisp white shirt and red tie. He had neatly-trimmed hair and a beard, but his pale green eyes glittered dangerously even via the remote feed.

"People of Remnant," the man began. "My name is Malachite."

"Fuck me sideways with a Dust shard," Beryl cursed bitterly as she pulled Evie to her feet. "That really him, Pip?"

Pip nodded wordlessly, her fists clenched tightly at her sides as she stood there, riveted by the scene.

"I'm sure many of you have heard about the new plague that has swept the four kingdoms," the man continued. "A plague of not just Grimm, but new and deadly versions of these same creatures. Monsters to put the average Grimm to shame, monsters to make you quail in fear and turn to your saviours for protection."

Lustre glided forward and slipped a supporting arm around her team leader's waist. She noted that Pip's skin temperature was slightly elevated, but once she was joined by both Beryl and Evie it began to cool once more.

"I am here to tell you, citizens of Remnant, that these very saviours who you look up to, these paragons of virtue, are nothing more than opportunists and elitists who care little for your safety! Indeed, they knew about this deadly new strain of Grimm months ago, as early as a week prior to the start of the Vytal Festival! And did they tell us, the common people, about this danger?"

"That bastard," Pip breathed. "That conniving, megalomaniac bastard…"

"These elitists, this upper class of politicians and hunters who consider themselves above the laws we have established, humans and Faunus alike, they knew about this threat. They knew, and they did nothing. And now the threat is no longer remote, it is no longer an abstraction, it is here, right now, at our very doorsteps! And they want you to remain calm, to obey their instructions, to trust in them?

"I tell you this, my good people of Remnant. This is not the time for calm. This is the time for us to see our masters in the light of their failure to protect us. For that is what these elitists are, masters! They have enslaved our civilization, making deals out of the public eye, all in the name of greater security! Without even realizing it, we have sacrificed what little liberty we had while lien quietly changed hands in the boardrooms, in the politicians offices, in the Headmaster's' suites at the top of their ivory towers!"

"What in Oum's name is he doing?" Indie asked worriedly.

Lustre shook her head, dread coursing through her veins. "He is inciting a revolution."

"Oh, Dust…" Beryl moaned.

"It is natural for us to cling to hope, shutting our eyes to the painful truth when the very foundations of our tightly-held beliefs are called into question. This is not the time for such inaction, my friends. The lives of our families are at stake, our husbands and wives, our children, our siblings, our very way of life. For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst and to provide for it. I have but one ideal by which my feet are guided, and that is that of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And as we have seen, our so-called 'protectors' have failed us time and time again.

"Are we willing to let history repeat itself? Are we willing to stand by while the hunters sing their platitudes, while the politicians call for reasonable discourse that would only fall upon deaf ears once more? Are we willing, people of Remnant, to simply lie down and accept this fate?

"I for one am not willing to do so. As soon as I heard of this new plague, I have worked diligently to secure a solution, one that might give us a chance, humanity and Faunuskind, at survival. But even now, as I work to allow us all true protection, the likes of which has been denied to us by the very men and women who supposedly serve as our guardians, these elitists oppose me and seek to bring about my downfall.

"You're damn right we're gonna bring you down," Pip snarled quietly. "And it's gonna be my boot on your neck when it happens, you sick bastard."

"People of Vale, of Vacuo, of Mistral, and of Atlas. We are united in this belief that we are not slaves, but a free people. The elitists call us weak as they extend their poisonous hand over us in shelter, but together we are anything but! I say to you again, we are not weak! Take up arms, my friends, and wrest back control of our lives from those would consider us already firmly beneath their heel! Free Remnant from the oppressors and tyrants who lord their power over our heads and yet fail to grant us the very basic protections they once promised!

"People of Remnant, reclaim this world as your own!"

There was a collective silence as the screen went to static. No news broadcast replaced the visage of the suited man, no message regarding a network outage or the like.

"So," Lustre began, breaking the quiet of their little group. "It would seem he now controls the CCT somehow."

"Yeah," Pip agreed quietly. "So no way to rebut his little speech."

"Gotta give the maniac props, though," Ivory commented mildly. "It was a good speech."

Pip stepped forward and out of the embrace of her other three teammates. She placed her hand on top of the map of Vale that had been laid out across a table, and where it rested small tendrils of smoke curled up.

"I'm not letting him get away with this," the blonde growled quietly.

Indie stepped over, glancing at her team before giving Pip a firm nod. "What can we do to help?"

Pip sighed and stood upright again, her arms wrapped around her silver chestplate. "We need something, a clue we've overlooked. Ozpin still hasn't gotten anything of importance off of the information raid we went on, most of the revealing stuff was scrubbed."

"He did find one interesting item," Lustre interjected, thinking back to her last conversation with their Headmaster when scrolls were still functioning. "The android guards for his facilities were purchased from his financial supplier."

"Really?" Evie asked eagerly. "So, if we trace the droids back to the company…"

"...We could find who's banking him," Sepia finished. "But I thought there were no available remains to study? Didn't all the bases, um, blow up?"

"But we fought them," Pip stated, a gleam in her eyes.

"Indeed," Lustre added. "Perhaps we can visually identify them?"

"How can we though without the network being up?" Ivory asked curiously.

Both Sepia and Lustre opened their mouths to speak at the same time, but the brunette girl indicated that the PERL team member should proceed.

"The Beacon library can access the same information offline," Lustre stated. "It was a redundant backup put into place following the Event forty years ago."

"Alright, here's what I'm thinking," Pip mused, tapping a finger against her chin. "Indie, if your team could go to Ozpin with this information and see that he's up to date, we'll go to the library and do some research."

Indie nodded firmly. "I'm sure we'll be needed elsewhere soon, we're going to be spread pretty damn thin if there's civil unrest on top of the Grimm attacks."

"Hey, I got a question about that," Raye interjected. "What's this thing he was talking about, this 'solution' to the Grimm?"

"He already has it in place," Pip replied steadily. "They're all his creations, and he has a control chip installed. I'm sure he has a way to turn them off, or maybe even just kill them. It makes sense, he comes out on top as everybody's glorious savior."

"Well, like you said," Indie said firmly. "Not gonna let him get away with it."

The eight friends set out together towards the airbuses that would return them to Beacon, while in the distance fires began to rage downtown in the city.

Beacon Academy Library

Monday Morning

"Okay, what about this one?"

"No, different head," Lustre replied wearily.

Pip let out a frustrated snort. "Babe, that's all the latest models we could find. If it's corporate, it should be here."

"What about older models?" Beryl chimed in, browsing from another adjacent display. "Here are ones just recently retired, maybe the money guy was too cheap to give his best to Malachite?"

"Damn, sweetie, that's brilliant thinking!" Evie grinned as she leaned over to give her girlfriend a peck on the cheek.

"Eh, not really, it's just a thought…" Beryl blushed.

"Wait, there!" Lustre suddenly shouted, pointing to a silhouette in the upper right corner of the screen.

Beryl obediently touched the screen there, and it expanded to fill up the entire display, rotating to show the model from all angles.

"I think…" Pip mused.

Lustre nodded. "Yes."

"Yeah, I'll be damned, that's the one," Evie breathed. "So who's it… oh. Well, Grimmshit."

The informational text below the model reported that that particular android, having been retired from use for only a few months, had been exclusively used by the very company that created them.

The Schnee Dust Company.

"Guys…" Beryl looked around at her team worriedly. "This is… Well, this is huge. You don't just go accusing the largest dust supplier on Remnant of this kinda thing."

"Wasn't planning on taking the polite route," Pip growled, standing upright. "I was thinking of asking with my sword in the face of one Damian Schnee.

"Whoa now, sweetie," Evie implored, grabbing hold of her partner's wrist. "You sure you wanna do this?"

Pip nodded resolutely. "There's no way we can wait, especially with comms down. This is it, the weak link of this bastard, and I aim to take advantage of it before he knows I'm coming for him. You guys, though… You don't have to come along, you don't want the kind of trouble this can cause if it goes wrong."

Beryl sighed, shaking her head as she stood up from her chair. "I swear to Oum, Pip, you exasperate the Dust outta me sometimes."

"It's like she just doesn't listen to us," Evie agreed, walking towards the exit with her arm linked with her girlfriend's.

"It is alright, dear," Lustre said kindly, patting Pip on the shoulder as she walked by to follow her teammates. "You have had quite a bit on your mind lately. We forgive you for your idiocy."

Pip stood there blankly for a moment before hurrying over to catch up with her sisters-in-arms.

"You know we're gonna catch hell for this," the blonde remarked.

"Pfft," Beryl scoffed. "We're only gonna steal the long-range Bulldog we used earlier…"

"Desert our posts defending Vale," Lustre added.

"And then threaten the head of a multi-billion lien company with bodily harm and accuse him of consorting with a madman," Evie finished cheerfully. "What could go wrong?"

A/N: I finally took the time to flesh out Team IRIS. Thought it'd be nice to have another team for PERL to interact with, even if they are a year ahead of them.

The speech by Malachite was mostly just off the top of my head, with a few inspirations from Patrick Henry. So now we know the extent of Malachite's plans. And the Schnees are about to have a whole world of hurt land on their heads…

Martin Hooper1: Dangit, now I have to make my perils more perilous… We do indeed have a confrontation impending, finally, though!

allie300093: Seriously, your review absolutely made my day. I'm both honored and flattered that you feel my OC tale adequately captured the spirit of the RWBY series.

Stay shiny!