Chapter 16: Spouting More Exposition.

According to the parallel Universe theory, there is an infinite number of Universes existing on different metaphysical planes than our own. Extrapolating on that, it can reasonably be assumed that, with the amount of them being infinite, there are odds of a concept, object etc. to appear in the same form in an infinite number of Universes that don't even have to relate to each other in any way, shape or form. The reason all of this was brought up in the first place is because this is the most scientific excuse for unoriginality and ripping off names one could ever wish for.

The past has many different meanings and none of them are to be scoffed at. For historians, it is a subject for study and careful analysis. A puzzle filled with patterns and hidden nooks spanning millennia, waiting to be unfolded in its full glory, as well as fertile soil from where predictions of the future will grow and either sprout into reality or wither as inane ramblings. Scientists base all of their research on the stepping stones their predecessors have laid for them, spending their lives trying to confirm or refute the theories of those before them or wasting away in laboratories, perfecting their flawed designs. Politicians are more often than not put under pressure by the successes of the previous inhabitants of their working offices. Or, alternatively, haunted by the consequences of their failures.

For millions of men and women the past is a myriad different things, all of them vital to their lives. To some, it is a distant fog, pursuing them in their deepest dreams, begging to be either remembered in full detail or forgotten entirely, while others are driven to push themselves far beyond their limits to measure up to it, even if it ends up breaking them. It is the flame that nourishes us in our darkest hour, and the headsman that makes sure we keep going. A blessing and a curse. For without his past, a man has no future in front of him, neither light nor dark.

It was this past, this legacy of his family that Darius, at one point, spent months recollecting byte by byte, scraping the deepest barrels for the tiniest shreds of information on research that Silva Armaments and, in particular, his late father, conducted… before almost fracturing his skull in great shame after remembering that the very corps he had been training with had several members with deep enough connections in the Atlesian Bureau of Intelligence to get him the information he wanted.

It's not like he was lying to his freshly acquired teammates back in the alleyway after the ceremony of assigning teams. After that fateful raid on the Silva residence, almost the entirety of the data and whatever prototypes his father happened to be working on were consumed by the raging fire; had this happened anywhere else, this would most likely be a loss that would never be compensated for. However, this was Atlas. Pragmatic, militant, and valuing their technological superiority above all else, the council went to great lengths to ensure that whatever information that originates in Atlas stays in Atlas. Not to mention the fact that a figure as notorious and vital to this very council's security as a Silva would never fail to attract attention of the knights of cloak and dagger. And thus, a mutually beneficial agreement was struck: the ABI would have no issues keeping tabs on the infamous line, and the Silvas could rest easy in knowing that all their data would have a backup save somewhere in the depths of the Intelligence's server farms.

This, of course, raised a question: how long could it truly take the Atlesian intelligence to find an eleven year-old scared out of his mind, simply fleeing as far away from the burning wreckage of his home as his legs could allow him? Surely not more than six months. But that, of course, would have to imply they cared in the first place…

Nevertheless, as much as the possible implications sometimes threatened to drive Darius into vengeful rage, they were not important at this current moment. What was important was a laptop placed, incidentally, in his lap, visually identical to thousands of laptops manufactured by ScribeTech, one of the leading companies in the fields of digital media, but with terabytes of his family's research stored on its hard drive. And now it was up to him to sift through this ocean of information to find… exactly what again?

Exhibit A: Weiss. Weapon of choice: Myrtenaster. Fighting style: Atlesian fencing school, adjusted for left-handedness and aura. Offhand typically left idle unless casting Glyphs. Might want to capitalize on that. Specifics: Glyphs assist in mobility and utility; provide safe range to engage from. Downsides: subpar effectiveness when engaging in close range due to the rapier suddenly becoming unwieldy, casting requires to pause and literally stand still for a second or two. Consider solution. Also start writing this down.

Exhibit B… what would that be, even? Auxiliary equipment: Shatterdome Dust dispenser. Apparent function is modification of Glyphs based on the type of Dust selected, with added functionality of injecting small doses of Dust into the blade for more efficient use of Semblance. Secondary function could be modification of the function of Glyphs, but through no means known to me. Should search for that. Assume as determined by will of caster for now.

Conclusion: Consider crafting a dagger for use in offhand. Gonna have to go over this with Ruby, too. Also search for information on the dispenser. Will almost definitely prove useful. Bu-u-ut how? Unlikely that project name mentioned explicitly in the logs.

Hm… Myrtenaster as a whole is hand-tailored for Weiss in honor of merger-to-have-been between the two companies. Consider filtering all information dating earlier than two months before latest entry. Project personal, not part of company research. Maybe only investigate personal logs and diaries. Also use "Weiss" as search query. Because that's not going to look creepy at all.

Sitting in his tent, with his back propped against the quietly buzzing generator, Darius reexamined the notes hastily typed down as a result of two minutes' worth of stone-cold logic. So far, they seemed like they'd at least provide the first stepping stone in his search. Granted, it still was only going to make the effort smaller by the smallest of margins. He then put the scroll down, syncing it with the laptop in case he found anything he wanted to look at closely afterwards, which was more or less a given. Upon commencing a ritual cracking of knuckles for good luck, he proceeded with the plan, that is to say filtering out any and all entries dating earlier than October 7th, year 1066 P.R. Despite that, he was still met with what seemed like at least a hundred different files, ranging from voice recordings thanks, no doubt, to microphones placed in various corners of what once was his home, to transcripts of said recordings, to a multitude of graphic files, likely with schematics of what would be cutting-edge tech just seven years ago.

Not good enough. Much as he would like to spend a couple hours just listening to what the ABI managed to record from his father, he feared that time would not allow him this luxury, therefore tossing all the audio files out of the search, having narrowed the field down to several dozen entries. That seems doable. Lastly, typing in the name of the cause of the entire debacle yielded a measly two entries with that word found. Those would be the start of what looked more and more like some sort of scavenger hunt with each passing second. Without a trace of surprise, Darius found himself grinning in anticipation. Wherever is my archeologist hat when I need it…

You don't have one.

Well, I sure would like one right about now.

Julius Silva's personal logs. Transcript as of October 9th, 1066.

One day, when this merger's done and dusted and we are raking in profits, I will punch Jacques in the face. Simply because of his stubbornness to remain in the past rivaled only by that of a Vacuoan mule and his utter cowardice. This is getting so sad it flips straight into hilarious: he would rather have the White Fang breathing down our necks and further spewing their bullshit propaganda than confront his shareholders and get them to measure their damn appetite!

Or the ridiculous things he does to his own bloodline that make me wish nobility as a class never existed in the first place so that no peasants try to so pitifully imitate us. His amateurish attempts at eugenics will only lead him to inbreeding his family into a genetic mess for the sake of "distinguishing his line amongst the rest". Damn poser.

At least his children have two heads of their own on those shoulders. Absolute joy to work with, too. Maybe less so with Winter, as she too seems enamored with her father's idea of 'hereditary Semblances'. Still, at the very least the Semblance itself is remarkable in its potential, Weiss probably being the best example to showcase.

I cannot get over it, though: her Semblance is just so… unlike anything I've seen. Which, I suppose, is par for the course as far as Semblances go, but the potential!.. I have yet to do more research with (and on) her, but so far her Glyphs seem to be just bending the very fabric of reality… which would be just another way of saying that somehow the energy released by her into those Glyphs changes the molecular structure of anything in its way to fit a pattern. We've also established that the elemental function of those patterns can be altered by auric resonance with Dust. I'd honestly be surprised if they weren't. But I do wonder if there is a way to replicate those patterns without her Semblance, just with Dust and tech? Mostly Dust, though; if there were a way to let the energy in it stagnate in a medium without it being immediately released… Going to have to think something up.

Darius put the scroll down, reviewing his notes and letting out a long, quizzical hem. From what he gathered, his late ancestor had plans to somehow make refined, volatile Dust retain its energy while released in an unsecured environment, a notion most novel. The raw crystals mined from the quarries that did not explode on contact with air were just that: chunks of Dust laced with traces of ore and stone and had to be refined into perfectly shaped crystals if they were meant as catalysts, or ground into dust. Both were then to be subjected to enormous heat and pressure to release their hidden energy. The dormant Dust, on the other hand, one that was, for instance, massively present in his own weapons, was created in a process that was much, much too far on the arcane side of Dust usage for his father to tolerate. As such, the words "store in a medium" puzzled him without end. Down the rabbit hole, I suppose.

Julius Silva's personal logs. Transcript as of October 16th, 1066.

If I were ever to be asked what my least favorite thing in the world was, it would most likely be Dust, and may the Light forgive me for this heresy. Or not. Not going to change my mind. Sure, it powers and enables something like ninety-nine percent of today's technology and comforts (which, might I add, will put us in a hearse and a half if all the electric and fire Dust suddenly runs out), along with it being an eternal staple of our society, but when approached from the scientific perspective…

For the thousand something years that our civilization has existed as we know it, what with four Kingdoms and all, we have progressed about as much in the usage of Dust as a caveman would progress by rubbing two sticks together to produce flame instead of just banging them on each other. All our knowledge of it is based on accidentally leaving a bunch of one type of Dust in dangerous proximity to another bunch, and then we just build tech around it. We know nothing of its essence, what makes it work, we don't even know how it's formed! We are blindly poking around, mixing and matching Dust in various proportions, and see what sticks. While undeniably effective, at some point we're going to end up having tried every possible combination and with no way to progress further unless we a) branch out into non-Dust reliant tech like what we're trying to do right now or b) figure out how the damn thing works, like what I'm trying to do right now. And failing miserably, might I add, because all I'm doing is continuing to poke around like a bloody monkey. [Assorted monkey noises].

And the fact that there seems to be no feasible way to study it at any level other than what we already did, which yielded barely anything, doesn't help at all. Its molecular structure is quite literally the same crystalline formation you find any sort of a valuable gemstone, its base forms emit energy on the same approximate wavelengths bar variations that determine visible color, we've found no ways to determine how the type of energy it releases affects its emitted light and we still have no idea why it suddenly starts radiating energy when subjected to heat and pressure! Like, who was the guy who first found out?! 'Boy, that sure is a pretty emerald I just found in this here cave. IMMA SMACK IT. AND THEN TOSS INTO A FORGE.' Actually, why don't I just ask our resident glorified gold digger Jacques?! Surely he'll be able to describe the thought process of his ancestor if he's so bent on preserving the great legacy of his family?!

I… I should stop ranting. Guys in the Bureau probably couldn't give any less of a shit and this is clearly not the format in which to present research material to peer reviews. Dust is just so… inconsistent. I fail to understand how things like plutonium and Null Dust can coexist in the same world, how components for the latter can naturally occur along with the former. It simply seems that for every second problem we stumble upon, there is a type of Dust that is either found naturally or can be synthesized with some mixing and matching that will solve exactly that, maybe with the exception of logic gates. This isn't how the world is supposed to work.

You had no idea, did you?

Julius Silva's research logs. Transcript as of October 17th, 1066.

Research log number thirty-two zero eight six six, project "Semblance". Attempts to halt the release of energy upon subjecting volatile Dust to unsecured environment have been a success. An alloy of steel (and presumably any other metal fit to be wielded as a weapon) and dimeritium seems to absorb part of the energy when Dust is injected into it, leaving a visible trail of Dust in any medium while imbuing the blade with the energy sapped. Looks quite nifty. The trails can then be resonated with, releasing energy as usual, though the effects tend to be more contained. Initial applications could be tracer rounds or active component of grenades. Pop one behind cover and detonate it when convenient. Handy. It should, however, be noted that for this to work, the amount of dimeritium should not exceed ten percent of the total mass of the blade or bullet, at which point the metal loses its key property.

My initial goal, however, was a failure… partly. When using the newfound methodic to imitate one of Weiss' glyphs (with her cooperation, mind you), something… different… happened. Using a computer and a hooked-up injector to emulate the form of her most basic glyph with pretty much pinpoint accuracy, instead of her normal circular platform, a circle the size of the emulated glyph appeared, projected itself on the floor… and promptly froze everything within the area. Keep in mind that for this particular experiment Ice Dust was used for the reason of it being the least volatile, as well as it corresponding the best to Weiss' Semblance. No offence to Weiss. Repeating the procedure with several other forms yielded similar results bar the one we actually aimed for. Fire resulted in the area within the circle being immolated to a crisp, Lightning had… well, lightning, strike at the center, and Earth summoned a circular hunk of rock. Quite thrilling.

So, seeing as switching up types of Dust would only result in my proving grounds turning into even more of a junkyard than it already is, I… decided to get crafty. Smacked together an injector and the conductor alloy in a makeshift magic marker and spent several hours drawing shapes like a five-year-old. Tried to get Darius in on the fun, bu-u-ut I suppose for him using weapons is still more fun than making them. Understandable. While not making a singular step of progress towards the initial goal, I have compiled a list of patterns that seem to affect the functionality of the… it's not exactly a glyph anymore, is it? Of the sign. Granted, it is unclear whether the patterns are universal in all circumstances, which even sounds stupid, or whether the intent of the user is somehow telegraphed and the sign is adjusted accordingly. While striking me as much more reasonable, I would still fail to explain exactly how auric resonance affects the behavior of Dust patterns depending on the intent of user and, as such, would have to chalk it up as yet another reason of why I hate Dust with a flaming passion. Oh well. At least the magic marker was fun.

That… sounds quite fun, actually. Where am I going to get the dimerituim, though?..

Reading those small excerpts of insight into his father's mind, no doubt a framework off which his own twisted consciousness was built, had left Darius both puzzled and excited in equal measure. Puzzled because, just like Julius, he completely and utterly failed to rationalize how such a thing would work. Thank Dark I don't ever need to bother with Dust myself. Excited because boy did making what was essentially a magic wand sound awesome. He was certain he would be able to find the schematics if he searched hard enough; and indeed, about half an hour of scrolling through the files he was rewarded not only with several blueprints and instructions on the production of the alloy, but also what looked like a prototype of the familiar dispenser. Combined with the real thing, reverse engineering a similar contraption was an inevitability, though encoding it properly promised to leave him with several sleepless nights.

A fleeting glance at the scroll left him with the realization that it had actually been several hours after that coffee break with Blake. In retrospect, he'd say he handled himself quite decently, though by no means was he opposed to repeating the procedure once or twice for the explicit purposes of avoiding the few missteps he did take. Come to think of it, that does not at all sound like a bad idea.

Keep dreaming. And working. Haven't you got a promise to keep?

He reexamined the fruits of his labor, that being a draft of a quite nifty-looking dagger of approximately thirty centimeters in length, its blade slightly curving upwards and its guard very much reminiscent of that in Weiss' signature rapier. The grip, naturally, was adjusted to allow for seamless transitions between the reverse and direct grips, something that was obviously expected from the wielder, with the Shatterdome Dust dispenser built into the wrist guard in a manner more or less copypasted off Myrtenaster. After all, in this particular case, originality was not the aim, but instead just finding out whether it would function as advertised. I guess we'll find out how it works when we make this.

Saving all the essential data to his scroll, he undertook the brief journey down to RWBY's dorm, which was a literal hop and a skip down the treebranches away. To his mild surprise, the room was completely empty, and while he could write off Yang's absence to a visit to Port, the location of the rest remained a mystery. Thusly, a message was sent.

'Feeling better?'

And nary a minute later, a reply came.

'Not really. Feels like I headbutted a table.'

'Pretty sure that's exactly what you did when you blacked out. Come over to the dorm, I may have a clue. Or should I come to the library?'

"Nah, it'll be faster this way," the quiet creaking of the door opening would very much coincide with the sound of Darius' jaw hitting the ground… if such a feat was humanly possible. As it stood, it took him a second to get his brains back together and remember that his leader's Semblance was, after all, inhuman speed.

"Semblance abuse, huh?.." having reacquired control over his chin, the boy slightly raised an eyebrow in a silent chuckle. "Hope you didn't knock anyone over."

"I… actually was on my way back here," Ruby's rebuttal was as firm as her gaze, that is to say not at all. It would seem that the four hours of sleep did not do her as much good as the both expected it to. Regardless, now was time for action. "Your text got me when I was closing in on the door. I… kinda hoped I'd meet Weiss on the way. You… didn't happen to see her?"

"Nope. I was…" Darius found himself stumbling where he was not supposed to. Exactly how do you call rummaging through the records of a no longer existing company that were supposed to all be lost forever, even though you technically have all the rights to? "…'Working', the entire time. Just came down here because I know you four are not exactly fond of climbing this here tree."

"I see," whether not noticing or ignoring the small pause between his words, Ruby continued the discussion by very poorly concealing a yawn. "Thanks… again. It really should be me doing this and not you. I'm… really letting everyone down with this kind of behavior, aren't I?"

"Hey, you needed that sleep. Not everyone can take Weiss going full Ice Queen on them and continue cracking jokes. This kind of attitude… tends to stick to people for some time."

"But I'm not everyone," a weary shrug from Ruby. "I was chosen by Ozpin of all people to lead the four of you because I was supposed to be able to take it and deal with it! And yet here I am collapsing like it's going to make the problem go away like a bad dream every time there's something other than bad puns or training instructions being passed around. I'm failing horribly, aren't I?"

Pep talk never really ends in this life, does it? "Maybe. However, if anything, problems like these are the best ones to sleep on while you still can," he shrugged himself. "Fortunately enough, they don't quite require the split-second decision making an actual combat situation would. Seeing as we haven't gotten one of those yet, I feel like it's a tad pointless to doubt yourself as a leader just now. Tensions will inevitably arise when you pit together four… well, five people from different backgrounds in a tiny room and make them rely on each other with their life on a daily basis."

"I… guess that makes sense," one could always doubt Darius' motivation. One could always doubt his stories of upbringing, if he ever did tell one. One could always doubt his mental integrity, as was his own favorite pastime. His reasoning, however, more often than not was rock solid and typically left very little room for doubt or debate. "So… what? Just leave it at that and carry on?"

"Quite the opposite, Ruby," his reply was accompanied by him shaking his head in disapproval. "A leader's job is to ease those tensions before the moment comes where they could lead to our demise. We rely on you in battle to give us directions; you, in turn, rely on us to follow them without a doubt and to the letter. Or at least you will. There cannot be a moment in battle when someone's mind is beset with doubt or sorrow or anything else that can make them miss a swing or be too distracted to block one. Your job is to make sure none of this happens because of our infighting. This does not, however, mean that you have to dive headfirst into solving everyone's inner conflict at the very first sight of one. Some things… just take time to come to terms with. So…" with that, he slightly waved the scroll in his hand. "Shall we seek solutions as to shorten this time to a minimum?"

His illustrious leader was not entirely done, though:

"Where… where do you even know all of this from?.. You talk as if from experience, and you definitely make it sound sensible… but how do you know all of this? And, more importantly, why did you not become a team leader yourself with this kind of attitude?"

That's what I get for talking. Damnit.

"You're going to have to ask Ozpin for the last one, though it would be reasonable to assume that it happened because no person in this academy, human or otherwise, would want to take orders from a Silva from day one," he chuckled, reminiscing of the first twenty minutes post-initiation. "As for the first one… Would you believe me if I told you I had very good teachers? I was supposed to inherit my father's company, after all."

It was not a lie. Or, at the very least, not a total lie. His teachers were stellar, true. The best one could find. The temporal frame and the purpose of his training, however…

He sits upon his throne of lies and spouts his abhorrent drivel, as if in hopes that it will form a cushion that will soften the fall when the chair is inevitably kicked from underneath him.

The fuck was that?!

What? Not true?

"So…" seeing as the conversation had found its inevitable ending, Ruby chose to take the initiative and get to the point. "You said you had something."

"Indee-ed!" putting down his scroll and opening up several vital files, he rubbed his hands in excitement as a couple of holograms lit up at Ruby's eye level. "You must have noticed how most of the time Weiss keeps her right arm behind her back whenever she fights. It just sits there and does nothing."

"Ye-e-ep."

"And how when she tries to channel one of her larger glyphs she just stands still for a second like a training dummy just waiting to be smacked, which she does?"

"Ye-e-ep…" that one resonated particularly with his redheaded leader, a frequent exploiter of this tactic of Weiss' in their sparring matches, using the second or two that she channeled energy into her Semblance to charge in and land a blow that would typically turn the fight into her favor. While not as much of a problem while battling mindless Grimm, human-to-human combat posed a problem.

"Well, why don't we mitigate both problems by making her a dagger?" With a gesture more befitting a die-hard entrepreneur than a Hunter, Darius unfolded the main blueprint at the holoscreen. As Ruby's eyes lit up, he could confirm he made the right choice.

"Co-o-o-ol. Is it a gun?"

Naturally.

"No-o. It's way cooler… in theory. Closest thing would be… Goodwitch's crop, I guess, what with her waving it like a maniac whenever she's mad at us. The conductor alloy here…" he traced his finger along the blade. "Is supposed to sap energy when injected with Dust. As a result, you can then activate the Dust that stays in the air and, depending on the pattern, it would do different things. Pretty neat. Would be even neater if I had a clue how this actually worked…"

"So wait. If it's not your design, where'd you get it from?" Ruby arched her brow at her teammate. The teammate arched his in return.

"Well, the blueprint for the dagger is mine. But the rest… You see, an acquaintance of mine who's a member of a very shady organization smuggled terabytes of classified Silva Armaments research from Atlesian Bureau of Intelligence straight from their server farms. Right now it's all stored on my laptop."

"Funny."

"That's all you're getting."

"You jerk."

Lightly put. Only a Silva can lie to people telling nothing but truth. And to what people! You're fooling a fifteen year old, for Dark's sake! Have you got no shame? Oh wait.

"I mean, it does look really cool. That Dust dispenser looks a lot like the one in Weiss' sword, though."

"It is."

"I… can't code. How are we going to make it?"

"I can. It's still seven year old tech, surely modern dispensers will have some similarities in their code, and those are open-source. Surely I'll be able to make it work if I have the real thing at hand?"

"…You want me to steal Weiss' sword and give you the dispenser, don't you?"

"Tha-at's the plan. I'm pretty sure you know the code to her locker."

"This is a horrible idea."

"Sacrifices must be made for the sake of art, I'm sure you realize. Besides," Darius slightly frowned. "The dispenser is the smaller of our problems in this situation. The conductor alloy needs dimeritium to function. For this dagger, we'll need about fifty grams of it."

He could see Ruby recoil from this suggestion. "Ew-w-w. Is there really no other way to do it?"

Her disdain was… understandable. Despised even by those making their coin by bloodshed, dimeritium was as shoddy a metal as it can get. Soft, hard to forge and quick to decay, it was almost useless both as weapon and as a utility, unsuitable even for bullets, as it was more likely to shatter in the chamber and destroy the gun than actually fly to its destination. Its only redeeming feature was also the one that earned it so much hatred. Simply touching a piece of it would completely shut down a person's aura and Semblance, turning a nigh all-powerful Hunter into a mere mortal and would continue to do so for as long as physical contact was maintained. Favored by law enforcement for this quality, its terrible fragility still required two pairs of cuffs: one to constrain a man, the other to constrain a god.

As such, Darius could very much understand Ruby's reluctance to just go and procure some of this cursed metal to make a shank out of it. The other reason was, of course, the fact that alloys of dimeritium were strictly prohibited to be used as weapons, whether in Beacon or elsewhere.

"It's what does the sapping, Ruby," he slightly shook his head. "Don't think there's a way around it. If it helps, this amount of dimeritium will not have any effect on aura when we melt it with steel. I'm not even sure this kind of thing is mentioned in the legislation."

"It will be if we get caught," in a battle between adherence to the rules and researcher's curiosity, it would seem the former had suffered a crushing defeat in Ruby's mind. As such, the conspirers shifted their focus from conception of the plan to means of execution. "Getting it is still a problem."

"Fifty grams isn't much," Darius mused, twisting and turning a newly formed idea in his head. "Goodwitch has me and Weiss training in dimeritium cuffs pretty much half the time we're not in the field, for purposes of 'restraining temper'. Shouldn't be too hard to take a chip out of them and immediately subsidize with steel afterwards. The rest is easy, there's a couple files with instructions on how to make the alloy. Shouldn't be a problem for you."

"So…" Ruby began to round up. "We sneak your cuffs into the armory, cut a piece out of them and replace it with steel, then hide the piece long enough to melt it into this 'alloy'?"

"Sounds like a plan to me."

"That… actually sounds entirely reasonable and doable. How strange."

"I know, right? You Valeans have absolutely no notion of what security is. No offence."

"Shut up.