Disclaimer:

The works of Rooster-Teeth and their characters are their own and that of the mighty Oum. The only thing I own are the one-shot ideas that popped into my head and whatever OCs I would create for them. This is a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life or fiction are purely coincidental. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Oum Damn It!


Date Published: 29th Nov 2018

Chapter Title: Prologue

Genre: Dan Brown AU, No Grimm


Part 1

(Vale Museum of History, 2300 hours)

Renowned historian and linguist Bartholomew Oobleck panted heavily as he staggered his way through the museum, one bloodied hand to steady himself with the walls and railings, the other to curb the spilling of blood as it dripped on the ground, each drop signifying his reducing life essence.

'There is not much time for me.'

The green-haired man winced in agony as he paused to catch his breath, risking a quick glance at his wounds that was agonizing him. On the one hand it was wearisome, each alternate step shooting pain into his body and threatening to take him down and let the reaper take him away. On the other hand it helped to distract him, making him alert enough to accomplish what needed to be done.

'They wanted to get the information from me, that's why they have avoided most if not any of the vital organs. I cannot let them have the secret.'

The man started to move to the desired point, his determination renewed and his mind set on the purpose at hand. He managed to get to the art gallery when he heard the dreaded sounds: the pounding of feet and raised voices that was getting closer.

"Darn it!" With a quiet apology to the curator of the museum and the sculptor, Oobleck pushed a statue off its podium, setting off the alarms as the statue toppled and broke into many pieces. The security gates came crashing down, cutting off his escape routes but more importantly barricading the entrance to the suite thus keeping the men after him.

'This will only give me a few minutes at best.'

The man made his way to one of the museum's most priced pieces of artwork at the farthest end of the room, his strength finally giving up and making him fall to the ground with a loud thump. He groaned in pain as he dragged himself wearily to the wall, using one arm to push himself up and steady himself against it, using his vantage point to look at the security gate where he could see through his broken spectacles some of the men after him. Each one of them wore dark robes and white-masks that covered only the top part of their faces, giving them a somewhat animistic feel to them. Each one wielded guns and knives, but they could not do anything against the Dust-laced security gates.

Suddenly the group split to the sides, leaving room for the young woman at the back to make her way to the front, stopping just outside of the gate to glare at him through the glass. Under the dim lighting, he could make out the main assailant who had been torturing him for information. Her tanned skin made it almost impossible to see in the lighting if not for her emerald-colored hair that was cut with a straight fringe and bangs with two locks on each side that extended to her hips. Her attire was one that accentuated her natural beauty and hourglass figure while being functional in the form of an intricate white top and an olive crop top that would bring focus to her abundant chest and revealing her lightly toned abdomen along with her thin waist, white pants that hugged her shapely legs and hips with brown chaps that ended at her calves. An overly long belt that was wrapped around her hips twice held her two pistols and a single pouch, and a pair of high-heeled pumps completed the look.

Overall she was a very beautiful woman that could pass as one of Oobleck's graduates if not for the fact she had aided in capturing and torturing him in the first place. At least he got back at her and a few of the men as their clothes bore signs of burns and a few cuts resulting from the little distraction he made with the Bunsen burner and chemicals in another part of the museum.

"Nowhere to run, Professor Oobleck." The young woman called out in a singalong tone.

"It is Doctor..." The man replied back while spitting out blood. "Doctor Oobleck."

"You know you are wasting your efforts and your life trying to escape from us." The woman ignored his reply and continued to talk while placing a hand on her rather generous hips. "All we want is the information and location of the item. It did not have to end this way."

"You really don't get it, dear Emerald." Oobleck gave a defiant glare at her, knowing her name from one of the men who had called out to her earlier. "You have wasted your time and effort to get to me, but as I have mentioned, I don't know what you want."

"You are a silly man, you know that? We know you have uncovered the location of the lost kingdom and more importantly, the tomb of the late king." The woman called Emerald replied back. "Your documents is being decoded as we speak, but you do have the silly habit of retaining vital information only until the actual reveal, and that I'm afraid is something my boss does not like."

"Well she needs to have patience, if she wanted to see the great reveal." He taunted as he gasped loudly, the pain shooting through his body being more profound now that he had stopped moving.

"Perhaps, or you could tell us and save us the trouble." The emerald-haired woman took out her scroll and tapped a few buttons before directing the screen at him, revealing a photo of himself with a smiling woman in a dress wrapped around his arms. "Otherwise we could just have a chat with your wife. I believe she can be very cooperative once we get to know each other." For a moment there was a deep silence, then it got broken by the man who laughed softly while coughing out blood.

"I will admit, that was a good trick, you almost have me there. Just one problem." Oobleck smiled with blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "She's already elsewhere. I knew this expedition was going to cause trouble so I sent her away. She and I have very different tastes for history. And here's the thing, she is way better at hiding her tracks than me. Good luck finding her."

"Oh, are you sure?" The woman raised an eyebrow while lightly shaking the scroll. "We could have gotten to her while having our little session~"

"Oh I am sure. If you want something to give your boss from me, here's one." Oobleck raised a hand and flipped a bloody bird while letting his mouth run loose for once. "You can go and fuck yourself."

"Tch! Fine if that is how you want to play it, you can rot in this area." Emerald glared at him before motioning the others to leave. She paused before looking back one last time. "I guess it does not matter whether you or your wife talked to us or not, you merely delayed the inevitable. We would just have to find another translator for your research." With that she left, leaving him alone in the empty museum, waiting for the Grim Reaper to come and claim him.

Except for one of the men who had stuck behind briefly to look at him, what little not covered by his face showing that he was uncomfortable with the situation. That man sighed before turning to Oobleck.

"You wife is safe, she was trying to get a rise out of you." The henchman shifted a foot before continuing. "This may not mean much, but I don't think your wife would be targeted at this point, so..."

Oobleck had to smile at the man's honest if not lame attempt to console the dying historian. "Thank you for your kind words." The henchman looked at him one last time and nodded before leaving the area. Oobleck coughed out more blood as he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes while focusing on his breathing.

'At least my love is safe, but it does not change the fact that the situation has become dire. I can't die yet, the secret must be passed on.'

Those words were echoing in Oobleck's mind as he struggled to keep conscious, thinking of a way to relay the information, but even if it could be done, it would be useless to the group protecting the most guarded secret and it might be too late by then.

'We would just have to find another translator for your research.'

His eyes went wide open as his assailant's last words echoed in his mind. That was it, the person ideal for the job would have to be one who could understand the ancient symbols of the lost kingdom, and someone who could bring the information to the protectors and more importantly, know the true meaning behind the lore that involved the disappearance of the kingdom.

But that in itself was a problem. First and foremost, there were not too many who could read the ancient Valean text, mostly on the basis that there was no reason to read up on the text, gunning more for ancient artifacts that would earn them cash. Those who could have varying success, him being the most prominent in his field. Based on their conversations and interrogations, he deduced that they had already gone after those people in their line of work, each of them likely trying to decipher his secrets in the hopes of uncovering a clue.

No, the person he needed for the task would have be fluent with the ancient language, understanding of the old ways and ingenious in his execution of decisions. And as much he cared for his fellow companions hidden in the shadows, the person he had in mind had to be one that won't be influenced so easily by his old group and finally, the last person the assailants would think to be capable of carrying the secrets.

And there was one in mind, one that he wished he did not need to bring into this private war.

Groaning in pain, he moved his bloody hands to get himself into position, before starting to piece together the items needed for his plan, his breath getting more rugged and his eyesight going dark. He gritted his teeth and pushed on, making sure that he conveyed what was needed to the authorities and more importantly, the person he had in question.

It was only a few minutes to get his objective done, but the effort he needed to exert in his state made his pain seemingly dragged on for hours. He managed to finish his idea when his body finally gave way, making him slide down the wall and hit the floor hard, leaving him heaving as his blood flowed out of his body and stained the marble flooring around him. With a feeble whimper, he moved his bloody finger and drew one last symbol, before taking his one last breath.

'Forgive me my dear boy, for having to force this on you.'

Part 2

(Atlas, Schnee Dust and Technology Enterprises, 1300 hours)

Executives and assistants moved out of the way of the one person that was literally stomping her way to an office with a scowl that would make weaker men quake in their knees in fear. The person in question was a young woman in her late teens with unusually pale-white skin with pure white hair tied into a pony-tail. She wore a simple shirt and skirt of light blue and white, with a symbol of a snow flake on her back. Her face could be described as that of a porcelain doll, one that retained a youthfulness of her childhood and almost flawless if not for the one scar over her left eye, but that in itself helped to bring notice to her blue eyes that shone like gems and now had a fire in them.

This young lady was Weiss Schnee, heiress to the biggest Dust Company and Technology Giant of Atlas. And right now she was seriously contemplating mass murder.

One of the assistants squawked in terror as she stumbled onto the floor in her haste to get out of Weiss's path, dropping the documents she held all over the floor in the process. Weiss ignored her and continued making her way to the office where she was to be informed of a situation that was dire enough to have both her and Winter called up to the company. Normally she would be thrilled to meet her elder sister since she was hardly around the company these days, but the issue at hand was so severe that all joy was wiped out. She paused at the door to take a deep breath to recover her thoughts, then with a mental nod and a deep frown, she pushed open the doors to see the situation for herself.

And it was pandemonium.

Groups of people rushing from table to table with armfuls of papers, some of which drop to the ground and forgotten in their haste. Several men with messed up hair were yelling into their phones while a few tech support staff were hammering at their keyboards, the precarious stack of empty cardboard coffee cups and their bloodshot eyes being the indicators that they had stayed up all night dealing with the issue.

"Weiss!" The girl turned to find her older sister walk over with an expression of concern that was reduced at the sight of her. The woman came over and hugged her tightly. "Thank God you are safe."

"Winter." Weiss let herself a quick moment to smile back and hugged her sister warmly. "What is going on here? Has there been any improvement?"

"I am afraid to say that is not the case." The both of them broke their hug and turn to the administrative officer standing near them. The man took out his handkerchief and wiped the brow of his bald head. "The situation has actually worsened before you came, Madam Weiss."

"Great." Weiss sarcastically replied. "As if I getting attacked a couple of hours ago by those radicals was not bad enough, now we have this issue with the servers and machinery going nuts! The board is going mad with the loss of data and we have no idea whether we are losing anything!"

"If only it were that simple." The administrative officer gestured to follow him as they made their way to the front, Weiss occasionally getting pushed back by accident from the frantic assistants who were going back and forth between monitors to fix the issues like chickens losing their head. It only took a few seconds to get to the front where there was a door leading to the private room. They entered through it to reveal a room that was covered in huge plasma screens all over the walls. Weiss was watching the screens completely covered in streams of data as the guy made his way to the nearest monitor, their green coloring coupled with the movement making her a little queasy.

"So what is the issue?" Winter turned to the man who was consulting with one of the technicians.

"Since this morning, we have been tackling with a virus that has infected our entire system and has been wreaking havoc all over our equipment and security systems. The workers are trapped in the construction building and the reactors have been pushed to their limits." The administrator said while the technician beside him was hammering away at the keyboard. "We almost experienced a core meltdown from the overheating of the Fire Dust and it was lucky that one of the older staff members was around the area at the time to bypass the lock-down to shut the reactors off and to get them out of the building."

"What about the Dust deposits? Are they secured?" Weiss asked knowing about the company's most prized commodity.

"They are safe. It was sheer dumb luck we went to change the locks the other day and had to use the older models while awaiting the latest versions. The virus targets the security chips meant for checking the security cards, and the older locks don't carry the chip that is in most of our equipment so they are not affected." The administrator assured her.

"I see." Weiss turned to the monitor again to look at the code. "I am seeing a lot of weird symbols, what is it?"

"That is where things get really weird." The officer typed a few more buttons to show some screens with said symbols on what looked to be parchments and stone tablets. "Much of what you see originated from historical artifacts and relics regarding some old kingdom. What little we gathered suggest that the hacker who may have made this virus did so with the hieroglyphs and symbols, likely to prevent people from neutralizing the virus too quickly."

"I highly doubt it is that abstract. There should be more people working on the translation right?" Weiss asked sceptically.

"Yes and no." The administrator winced as though it was hard to admit the issue. "You see, the symbols you are seeing a sort of dead language that has not been used for the past few millenniums, so we went to search for historians who could read them. And that is where the bad news start."

"Go on." Winter nodded while Weiss rolled her eyes at the idea of more bad news.

"I believe this is where we come in." The women turned to find two men who were evidently hiding in the dark so that they could not be spotted despite wearing the bright grey uniforms that showed they were from the Atlas Security Task Force. The two were dressed so similar that one might mistaken them for twins. Weiss wanted to ask who they were when Winter held out an arm to stop her. She pointed a finger at the badge that was above the breast pocket of the man addressing them, showing the insignia of a spear piercing a crescent moon and a star, making Weiss widen her eyes in shock.

These were not your typical security officers, these men were from the Office of Secret Intelligence, a group of people specializing in espionage and security of the entire country in the shadows. They were arguably the most known black-ops group that was shrouded in secrecy and rumors. The only reason Weiss heard of them was because of a conversation she overheard by chance between her father and General Ironwood where her father hoped to get one under his staff to check for leaks of information and company secrets.

Why were these men here?

"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Agent Benson and this is my partner Agent Crowe. We are from OSI." The person introduced himself to them.

"Why are OSI agents involved with this?" Winter asked while narrowing her eyes. "Is this a terrorist attempt?"

"Not quite. You see we are investigating a few cases of our own that involved these historians and we got a flag when your officer called for them to deal with these symbols. Once we found out about it we came over to see the issue." Agent Benson explained while his partner took out a USB Drive for him to insert into a nearby computer. "In a way, your officer was right that he has bad news to give."

"Which is?" Weiss demanded with impatience.

"I think it is best if I showed you." The agent typed a few buttons before pausing. "I must warn you, this is going to be a bit gruesome." Before the two women could comment, he pressed another button to show several windows, each depicting different people with a disturbing pattern emerging.

Winter's eyes went wide while Weiss covered her mouth in horror. "Good Lord!"

"Yup." The man remarked while photos of different people appeared on the screen, each showing signs of what looked to be the most excruciating torture given to them before getting a bullet to the head. But it was not the mangled bodies, the amputations or even the torn out intestines that got the sisters' attentions.

It was their faces, the expressions of extreme terror permanently etched to their faces that got to them, as though they were dealing with a monster before their deaths.

"Who or what did this?" Winter murmured as she looked queasily at a photo that showed a young woman with her limbs twisted and her neck slashed viciously.

"We are not sure." The agent replied as he manipulated the controls. "But this has apparently happened a few times for the past couple of weeks, and it is always the same pattern. Historians who are fluent with the history and language of the old kingdom, each one successful to a certain degree and able to find relics in the most obscure places. And for whatever reasons, they all showed signs of torture and their research were taken away."

"Someone went through a lot of trouble to get it in order to write a virus with those symbols." Weiss commented while glancing away from one particularly gruesome photo.

"We believe it may be something else." Their administrative officer remarked as he pressed a button to remove all the windows displaying the photos, much to the two sisters' relief. "We think that whoever is doing this is trying to find something, they are just using the symbols as a means to write the virus so that it will take us longer to break it down, like we needed more of a challenge to deal with." The man grumbled the last part out fiercely. The two women looked at him and the other technician who merely gave a grimace. Seeing their glares and those of the agents, the technician opted to carry on the explanation.

"Whoever wrote this virus did it two ways. Firstly, that person made it a self-replicating worm that keeps on attacking the system no matter what." The technician started to talk with a symbol diagram of their situation. "Thankfully we can counter it by cutting off the source of its food, in this case data."

"Go on."

"The second method applied to the virus is the more complicated bit. Whoever wrote this is a genius, making it semi-autonomic in order to counter most methods of erasing it. Essentially it is learning to go against our best measures and somehow in the process, it is becoming a Biggleman's Safe."

"A what safe?" Weiss blinked at the unknown description.

"Biggleman's Safe." Winter replied with a hint of reluctant respect. "It is a hypothetical encryption scenario where someone builds an impenetrable safe that cannot be broken into and places the blueprints inside it to keep the secrets hidden. The idea is such that by encrypting oneself with the same algorithm it is made of, it becomes unbreakable."

"So the virus is making itself more immune?" Weiss tilted her head in frustration.

"That is putting it lightly." The administrative officer spoke after looking through the files. "Damn thing is learning faster than we can kill it, and those symbols are not helping."

"Aren't there any other people able to translate?" Winter asked. "How about the leading expert in these symbols? Surely he is available."

"Yeah, and there lies the other problem we are facing and the reason we ended up coming here." The agent typed a few more buttons before pausing again. "I should warn you again, this is going to be more disturbing than the rest." With that, he pressed one more button to reveal the picture.

This time Weiss did not bother to hold back and ran straight to the nearest trash bin to empty out her lunch, while Winter looked ready to follow suit. "What on earth happen to him?!"

"Meet the late Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck." The officer sounded ill himself as he displayed the photo of the person in laying in a pool of his own blood, but with his shirt open to reveal several stab wounds on his stomach, the biggest one being on the side where his kidney was situated while his eyes were glazed over. But that was not the reason that the two women were horrified of.

It was the crime scene itself that made their situation all the more terrifying.

Drawn around him and the wall above him in what looked to be in his own blood, several symbols and pictograms were made, some resembling the same ones used in the virus code. His body was placed within the center of a six-point star with each tip containing a different symbol and one was drawn on his open stomach, giving the overall scene a very satanic look.

"This was taken a few hours ago in a museum that he helped with procuring ancient artifacts and old text. The police received a disturbance alert there and went to check up on it." The officer started his report while minimizing the window for their benefit. "As you can imagine, it was a major shock to find him there. When they examined the body and the other parts of the museum, evidence suggests that he was tortured for information."

"And after that, whoever it was decided to kill him and desecrate his body like that?!" Weiss looked at the agent with disgusted disbelief and fury.

"That is the weird thing." The officer paused to take a breath before dropping the bomb. "The person who tortured Oobleck did not do that. Based on what we know, Doctor Oobleck did it to himself."

"What?" Weiss dropped her angry expression and looked ill again.

"When the police found him, he was behind the security gates that were designed to trap anyone who wants to steal any of the artwork or artefacts in the museum. The broken statue on the floor and security footage proved that he was the one who shut the gate, likely to stop his captors from getting to him." The officer handed a folder containing the details. "There is no way to override the gates without the curator's keys and the security codes. So in that case, it would make sense that he drew those symbols and laid himself in that manner."

That explanation prompted Weiss to go for another trip to the trash bin to empty her stomach of her breakfast, while Winter was gripping the folder with a shaking hand as she read the report. She had met the historian briefly during a gala at the museum and found it hard to believe that he would do that to himself.

"Why?"

"The police believe that it was meant to draw attention to the captors, but also to another person whom they should protect." The officer answered.

"Protect? Protect who?" Winter raised one eyebrow, to which the officer pressed another button to show some of Oobleck's work and one part of the crime scene that had initials written in blood.

"Doctor Oobleck is known to work with a partner for some of his more obscure and dangerous work. No one knows his identity but Oobleck has attributed a fair amount of his successes to the partner named Jumile." The man said while focusing on the initials 'JMLA'. "It is a pen-name for the partner, a common practice for people in the archaeology or history sectors who wished to remain anonymous but have their work published."

"What makes you think that this person needs protection?" Weiss asked from her side before bowing her head in preparation to vomit again.

"Some of our translators who have basic understanding of the symbols said that Oobleck kept drawing one symbol around the initials, its meaning is 'Protect' or 'Guard'." The officer replied. "Coupled with their partnership and the few statements from those who knew about them, it became clear to us that Oobleck believes that his partner might become the next target."

"I see, do we know him?" Winter asked as she lightly patted Weiss's back to ease her pain.

"We think we found the person." Agent Crowe spoke for the first time as he typed a few more words on the keyboard to reveal records and photos on the screen. "When we were investigating some of the chatter, we found phone calls and letters to one person, which when cross-referenced with his time-table and his digs, gives us a possibility of 96% that this is Oobleck's partner."

"Okay, do we have a picture?" Weiss wiped her mouth while one of the assistants held the used trash bin at arm's length and went away quickly.

"Yeah, here's what we know of this guy." The officer picked up another folder and handed it to them. "Honestly speaking, this is the last person I expected to be Oobleck's partner." Weiss raised her eyebrow while Winter opened the folder and started reading with Weiss getting closer to read the contents over her shoulder while thinking in her head. She may not have met the late Doctor, but she had respect for the contributions he made to the world of history, and of the few she did meet in other areas, she expected this partner of his to be a distinguished person in the ranks of his fellow historians and archaeologist.

Instead she found herself looking at a photo of a young man roughly her age with blond hair, blue eyes and a goofy smile that made him look a little silly. Puzzled at this, Weiss went to look for a name and stared for a moment before turning to the officer with a frown.

"Who the hell is this Jaune Arc?"


== Author Notes ==

Hey there, so here is another idea from my melting pot series about to be made into a full story. This is a story that inspired from the Dan Brown series, primarily my favorite 'The Da Vinci Code'. I had searched the archive but cannot find one similar so I tried my hand, and now I am thinking of testing the waters to see if I can make this a full story.

For those who read the original concept, you may have noticed that I had changed some of the text to fit it in properly. For one I wanted to make sure the age group is correct since the old one referred to Weiss and Emerald as being 'girls', hardly appropriate based on the setting. Also the old one made it sound that the Schnee company had a lot of power, but that felt a little weird after I went back to the concept so I altered it that while the Schnee was still the one providing Dust and technology, I should follow the military aspect of Atlas and create a black-ops type group that supposedly answers to the government only.

Now how would our resident blond deal with the situation?

So please read-and-review and let me know how you feel about this, and hopefully you stick around for more chapters of this story.

And I put my pen down for now.