The Warlock, the Witch, and the Empire

Chapter 10

Author's note: I'm gonna skip ahead to the Fall this chapter. Reason because the character is supposed to be missing and would therefore be absent from everything else, and what happens between the docks brawl and the beginning of the Fall seems irrelevant to the Warlock and his schemes. With all that said, Enjoy!

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Ever since his apparent capture, the Warlock had been catching up on his own personal work in his private life.

Since he was technically supposed to be missing in action, he couldn't afford to show his face at Vale at all, and that left him with plenty of free time to do whatever he wished. Luckily, he had contingencies in place should he be absent, and Captain Maldice was left in charge of the Imperial forces overseeing Vale, who was able to converse with the natives normally after practice with his master for the plan.

The Headmaster Ozpin obviously asked Maldice to keep an eye out should either the Warlock or Knight show themselves (even though they were the same person secretly) and Maldice told him he would have probe droids searching all of Vale.

Ironwood was also placated by Maldice when he contacted the captain with concerns over the deal the Empire had made with his kingdom in terms of resources, telling the General from one military man to another that they would not abandon them at this crucial time.

With the natives placated a bit, that left him to do what he had to get caught up on.

Mostly keeping up the appearance of being a loyal subject of Palpatine, as the deadline for the first update approached for his experiment on immortality. Though he didn't expect the Emperor to personally contact him for a report, meaning he had to force himself to appear submissive again in front of the Sith Lord to keep his plans continuing smoothly. Though he believed Palpatine suspected something was up, due to the paranoia he used to create his own empire, he was able to please Palpatine enough to have the all clear to continue his work with the condition of monthly reports such as this. That could be a problem in the future, as he might call in at an inconvenient time, but he will deal with that when the time comes.

After getting the Emperor off his back for more time, he was able to continue his own experiments with the Chrysalisk Grimm, transitioning his test to new types, which were Deathstalkers and Nevermores that they were able to provide from the LoD to moon base. The results were touch and go for the first few times, but he was able to get desirable results: The Deathstalkers now had the same cosmetic changes, as well as having two poisonous tails now instead of one, and their claws were more jagged to allow extra pain for any prey they got within their grasp. Meanwhile the Nevermores were the same in appearances, but now their wings were secreting the poison normally found in Beowolf and Ursa Chrysalisk's mouths, tainting their wings a bit to look more rugged than usual as well as keeping them from flying to high due to the new structure of their wings, but this in turn gave them a new type of attack, in the form of swiping their wings at their foes to splash the poison which apparently ate aura up on to them.

With these new breakthroughs done, he also took time to check in on the others involved with his plan. The first he contacted was Salem, checking up to make sure she was okay with everything going on back home, which she eased him of his worries and told him the usual things that were happen with coordinating their combined forces, with the additional comment of missing him back in her embrace and couldn't wait for when he got back to the LoD in victory. Hazel was at her side and gave some updates to him from his point of view, as well as asked the Warlock for a personal favor: the chance to use his probe droids to record Ozpin's personal downfall. Sensing vengeful ambition in the man's soul, the Warlock promised to keep eyes on Ozma at all times till the end of the fall out of curiosity for the desire sensed in the man, which Hazel thanked him for and promised to keep protecting Salem back home.