Chapter 11
Just outside the house, Blake is cautiously hiding in the foliage as the guard inspects the can she threw. She steps back when he looks in her directions, and that's when she notices something in the ground... strange footprints. As well as the large claw marks in the nearby trees.
Blake: “No doubt that the Creep exists now...” As she inspects the scratches, she fails to notice the Creep itself lurking nearby behind tree cover, until she hears its hissed breathing. Upon noticing it, she starts stepping back with a look of fear. “D-Dr. Merlot?”
Creep: *ROAR!*
Blake: “AAAAGH!” She starts running back towards the house and trips when she gets in the cop’s sight.
Officer: “Hey! What's going on here?” The Creep pops out and bot Blake and the cop are staring in fear. I make my way up and onto the roof to see the Creep in person for the first time. I shoot some webs in its face to get its attention.
Ruby: “Hey, you big pile of scales! Over here!” And I definitely got its attention when it jumped and tackled me onto the streets in front of the house. I’m left lying on the ground when it gets up and starts circling me. “Ow! Ok. That’s my back...” I get up and cautiously stare it down. “You are Dr. Merlot, right?” It just keeps staring at me. “Can you even understand me?” He just proceeds to hiss before swiping his claws at me, which I avoid with some flips. “I’m just gonna take that as a no!” I just a web line to zip back at him with a kick to the face. But it didn’t seem to faze him much as he continued on the offensive. The guarding cops approached after sending Blake off and aimed their guns before they each shot at it, the bullets going clean through his arm. This drew its attention, as he turns towards them and moves to attack them. I use my webs in a slingshot effect to deliver a strong kick and knock it away from the cops, before it runs off into the city. I give chase and find that it’s pretty quick. Once I catch up to it, I try to fight it off, but it’s evidently pretty strong and grabs me by the collar of my suit before jumping up high and smashing me into the wall of a nearby building. When inside, we tussle around as the people panic and clear out. I try to steer it away from anyone trying to run by getting onto his back and pulling him around. The floor did clear, but then it grabbed me from his back and slammed me into the floor, and then proceeded to jump up and crush me, which resulted in us going through five floors before crashing into the ground floor. It stands over me as I reel from the intense pain. But then a bunch of sirens could be heard outside. It breaks through the front wall, through the police line and into the nearby park and the cops trying shooting at it. They only manage to graze it and it gets away as Blake and Yang arrive nearby and watch as it disappears into the woods. It took me a minute, but I finally managed to get back up despite the pain.
Weiss: “Ruby! Are you okay!?”
Ruby: “Ugh! I’m fine. Just a little beat up. But enough about me. Where did the Creep go?”
Weiss: “I just heard from Blake and Yang. It got away into the park.”
Ruby: “Geez. It's pretty quick too, so it’s probably long by now. We’d better regroup.”
Weiss: “Wait. If you’re theory is right, then we need a way to reverse this. I saw him bleeding a bit during the fight. There must be a good enough sample he dropped to analyze. Otherwise, we’d have to sneak into his home again to find a sample of the serum itself.” Yang and Blake cut into the com line.
Blake: “The police will probably be on alert at his home because of this. It'd be best to collect spilled blood instead. The best samples can probably be found in the park. Right now, he’s more akin to a wild animal acting on instinct, he can’t avoid his blood smearing onto anything he brushes across.”
Yang: “We’ll head back to Weiss’ and meet you there once you’ve got what you need.”
Ruby: “Yeah. Catch you later.” I head out and towards the park, starting at its obvious entry point, being the destroyed wall, and following the crushed and scratched plant life. And just like Blake said, it brushed against a lot a foliage on its way through here. I go back for a quick to grab my bag before coming back and using one of my empty cartridges to gather all I can from any blood about to drip from the leaves. It takes a good while to collect a good amount of drops, while not completely filling the cartridge, for a suitable enough sample for analysis. Though I also grew curious about where it could possibly be hiding, so I take a small detour to follow its destructive path through the park, until I find muddy footprints outside the park going through some alleys that lead to a sewage outlet by the city’s edge. Okay, that makes sense. Out here in the city, the sewers are probably the best substitute for a moist cave to hide out in. This is when I decide to turn back, since looking through a maze like the sewers could take ages. So I turn back and head for Weiss’. Meanwhile, Qrow and Vernal are out with the patrol handling the aftermath of our battle.
Qrow: *sigh*”And after I said this morning this would be a waste of time, the Spider ends up proving its existence with an all-out brawl.”
Vernal: “Hey. We already knew she’d get involved if it was real. I admit, the out of control fighting in public is concerning, but right now what’s more concerning is the fact that that thing got away.”
Qrow: “And how are we supposed to fight it when it ignores our gunfire and is capable of stuff like this?” As he points towards the massive holes in the building he tore me through. Then Vernal gets a call on her radio.
Officer: “Captain Tomo, do you copy?”
Vernal: “Loud and clear.”
Officer: “This is the team at Merlot’s residence, and we just found something you might wanna see.”
Vernal: “Okay. We’ll be right there.” She hangs up. “Come on, Branwen.”
Qrow: “What’s up now?”
Vernal: “Apparently something new in the Merlot investigation. We don’t have any other leads into the monster, so we might as well check it out.” As they get into their cruiser.
Qrow: *sigh*”Right.” Meanwhile, I make it Weiss’ and hand over the sample. She puts it into the bio reader for analysis, while I’m put through the bio scanner to figure out my exact injuries for treatment. While I’m being scanned, we watch the video I downloaded, which shows Merlot injecting himself with a serum and transforming into the Creep, with volume, telling us of his desperation to make his project work, all of which confirming my earlier theory. Afterwards, we get the results.
Weiss: “Okay, PENNY. What do we got?”
PENNY: “Despite several bruises on the outside, she mostly only sustained several fractures. And while minor, they are healing at a slightly faster rate than the average human. Though I still recommend some pain killers in the meantime.”
Weiss: “I’ve got some in the cupboard above you, Ruby.” Which I go to get once I get up. “And what about the blood?”
PENNY: “Full analysis has confirmed an irregular, man-made substance to reside within.”
Yang: “Okay. So now what?”
Blake: “What else? We make an antidote and turn Merlot back to normal.”
PENNY: “I can get started right away, but it’ll take while. First, I have to completely isolate the serum before reverse engineering it for a cure. If I accelerate the process by working without interruptions, I can have one done by the time we meet again tomorrow.”
Yang: “We have to wait another day before we can stop that monster?”
Blake: “It can’t be helped. Nothing is ever that simple. In the meantime, we can keep an eye out for Merlot’s movements so we can find him better once the cure is finished.”
Weiss: “You three can do that. I’ll supervise the antidote production tonight. We can meet back here after school to collect the finished product.” Back with Uncle Qrow and Vernal at Merlot’s house. I forgot to close the door back and they found the hidden room with the camera feed. They end up finding the same thing we did and now know the truth of the matter.
Qrow: “This certainly changes things.”
Vernal: “Yeah, but it also makes catching him harder now. Now that we know Merlot and the monster are one and the same, we have to try and capture him without killing.”
Qrow: “And that’ll tough when he himself is a mindless beast at the moment. He’ll tear through our forces before we can lay a finger on him.”
Vernal: “No doubt the Spider probably already knows about this. I’m she’s probably working on her own solutions.”
Qrow: “You’re seriously thinking about leaving this up to a vigilante?”
Vernal: “Not entirely. But I do we can trust her, like I said earlier. And that’s saying something, seeing as you’re the only other person I’ve fully trusted since Raven left.”
Qrow: “Don’t remind me.”
Vernal: “Regardless, I’m gonna continue to put my faith in her. At least then, I’ll know at least someone in the force does.” She and Qrow go their separate ways outside the house as they continue investigating this matter.
Qrow: *sigh*”What am I gonna do about this?”