7Containment Breach
A/N: This was originally written as a response to the weekly Writing Prompt Wednesday (#280) on the RWBY subreddit. The prompt I used was The SCP Foundation has arrived on Remnant. They're in pursuit of an anomaly from their own reality.
This is what I came up with when I saw it had been selected. It's a very short one, and very bare-bones, but people familiar with the SCP Foundation and RWBY will find a few things in here entertaining, and especially those familiar with SCP will find some hidden meanings in certain statements. Timeframe is set around V3 of RWBY, if that isn't obvious.
The town was utterly wrecked when they got to it via bullhead. Buildings looked torn apart by something's bare hands, and there was a massive hole ripped in one spot on the walls of the village. Yet at a glance, there were no Grimm tracks to be seen, no spent casings from dust rounds, and no signs that something they knew of had been responsible for this, leaving the teams quite confused. The village had gone silent literally overnight just a few days before the start of the Vytal Festival, and so Ozpin had sent RWBY and JNPR to investigate. The only reason that they were remaining calm despite the destruction was that there were no signs of bodies anywhere.
The two teams walked down the main street of the village, and Ruby decided to break the silence. "Do you guys think we should split up to look for survivors?"
Jaune shot that down instantly. "Ruby. We're literally walking through something out of a horror movie. Considering what we're seeing, we should be leaving and sending professional huntsmen in our place. Splitting up is the worst thing we could do right now."
Pyrrha looked skeptical, but even though she tried to be nice about it, she still objected. "Don't you think that's just a little absurd, Jau-"
"I hear something," Blake cut her off, and everyone stopped. Ruby watched the bow atop her head twitch, and started off in a seemingly random direction before speaking again. "It sounds like… someone's crying."
The group started to follow her only to be interrupted again, this time by a pair of unidentifiable craft soaring directly overhead, kept aloft by propellers and some manner of jet engine that didn't seem to be using dust. Ruby made out a logo on the side of one of the craft, consisting of a strange circle with three flat protrusions poking out from the top and bottom sides, respectively, inside of which was a smaller circle, which was crossed by three arrows pointing inwards, which lined up with the center of the protrusions on the outer circle. They went in the same direction they had been heading, stopping two rows of buildings over from them, before uniformed soldiers of an unknown faction began to rappel down from doors that opened on their sides.
"Come on!" Ruby shouted, blurring into a trail of rose petals as she took off ahead of the group to try and stop those strange people from doing… whatever evil thing they were probably planning. As she got closer, she found she could hear the sobbing herself. It sounded like it was coming from a man, and as she skidded to a stop, from around a building's corner, she saw a strange, oddly tall, humanoid shadow…
And then someone tackled her, a hand going over her eyes. She heard a voice coming through what sounded like a radio. "We have confirmation on 096's location via laser rangefinder; moving to contain. Charlie squad, keep the un-ID's combatants out of El-O-ES (A/N: This is actually LOS, which stands for Line Of Sight, but I feel like it would be in character for Ruby to not realize that at this point in canon).
Another voice, audible in her ears and not over radio, this time female. "For the love of God, Bravo-Two, get down the street and get the damn bag over its head!" The whole time, the sobbing had been continuing unabated, though it seemed slightly quieter, as if something or someone had drawn its source back around the corner.
"Ruby!" that was Yang's voice shouting, and she heard the sound of weapons being drawn and mechashift mechanisms engaging. It occurred to Ruby that she should probably use her semblance to escape being held, especially since her aura was still at 100%, but right before she could translate that thought into action, the person holding her began to shout in a male voice.
"We are not hostile! We'll explain shortly, but if any of you value your lives in any way whatsoever, you'll close your eyes right now and not open them until we tell you!" The sobbing sounded like it was getting closer again, and an incredibly uneasy feeling began to creep up Ruby's throat.
"Do you really think we're just going to listen to-" Ruby couldn't keep it down and cut Weiss off.
"Guys?" Dead silence, beyond the sobbing that sounded like it was inches around the corner at best. "Please just listen to him."
There were some exclamations of confusion and protest, and Ruby had no way to tell if they complied while blinded herself, but the next thing she heard was the pattering of bare feet very close by, the sobbing starting to sound like it was right next to her. It was immediately followed by the thundering of boots on stone, which sounded like they rounded the corner before stuttering to a stop, approaching at a much more careful pace before she heard the sound of a thick sack being thrown over something, at which the sobbing broke to some confused and upset vocalizations, before shortly resuming.
The female voice started speaking again. "Bravo-Three, get a tarp over it." When she received an "Affirmative!" from a male voice in response, she continued. "This is Bravo-One to MTF Tau-1-Actual, SCP-096 is in preliminary containment, repeat: SCP-096 is in preliminary containment. Almost had an SCP-096-1 occurrence with some locals, but it was averted." There was a response that Ruby couldn't hear, before the voice resumed, this time addressing them. "Alright, you can all open your eyes now, but no funny business, and try not to look near its head. There's no reason to tempt fate, and if one of you sets it off, that means I have to file a mountain of paperwork, as well as the Foundation having to flash-clone a body to bury."
"What?" Weiss shouted, as Ruby felt the hand over her eyes be removed, and blinked the light out of her vision before looking at the source of the sobbing. It was some strange, naked, emaciated gray humanoid, with ridiculously long arms that seemed to end with long, sharpened fingers, and a black, completely opaque sack of some material Ruby couldn't identify tied around its neck, completely obscuring any features above its shoulders. Nora articulated their collective thoughts first. Four of the strange soldiers were working to hold it in place while a fifth, checked over the knots on the bag to make sure it was securely tied.
"Eeeeeeew, what is that?!" the ginger bomber asked.
"That," the woman, who Ruby assumed was "Bravo-One," said, "is SCP-096, and if any of you had so much as caught a glimpse of its face, you'd be dead right now." At this point, she tapped a hand to her ear, and seemed to resume conversation over a radio, but much more quietly, as she stalked back around a corner.
"How?" Blake questioned.
The man who had tackled Ruby, who was evidently part of Charlie squad, replied. "SCP-096 is one of a number of anomalous creatures and objects that the SCP Foundation keeps in containment in order to protect humanity. Normally, despite being literally indestructible, it's quite docile, spending its time alternating between sobbing and pacing around. However, if someone sees its face, or any image or video of its face, regardless of how long they saw it, or what level of detail it was seen, or even the size of it in a video or image, it flies into a homicidal rage. At that point, literally nothing can stop it or its pursuit of the being or beings that saw its face. When it reaches them… suffice to say, you die a horrible death, there isn't even a body left to bury, though if no one else saw it by that point, it goes back into its docile state."
Even Ren looked disturbed by that information, but before anyone could respond, the woman came back around the corner. "Alright, apparently we just got orders directly from the O5 Council. We're not to amnesticize the kids, and instead use them to get into contact with an individual by the name of Ozpin, who they want to get in touch with for, and I quote, 'numerous reasons, only one of which is to have someone local to be able to work with in the event other anomalies find their way to Remnant.'"
"Waaaaaait," Ruby said. "Are you guys aliens?!"
Bravo-One sighed.
Ozpin looked at the man dressed as a scientist and wearing a strange pendant sat across from him as he finally finished speaking. "So yeah, that basically summarizes 096, the Foundation, and what we want you to do in order to help us help you in the event any other anomalous beings, objects, or locations crop up on Remnant."
"I… see…" Ozpin was taking a few moments to articulate a further response, because even for him, this was a lot to take in.
"Anyways," Dr. Bright continued before Ozpin could, "Now that we got all that out of the way, how about we have a more friendly chat? It's been a while since I got to hang out with another immortal that wasn't trying to kill me."
Ozpin's jaw dropped.
Salem wasn't in a particularly great mood. Someone had managed to get into Evernight without being spotted by any of her Grimm, and had left a manilla folder that had only contained a photograph of a truly disgusting looking gray humanoid with an appalling looking face.
Wait a second… was that screaming she could hear in the distance. And was it coming closer?
"So yeah," Dr Bright concluded his report to the O5 Council. "That's basically how Ozpin and I came up with a plan to permanently contain SCP-096. And since he did all the work, I didn't break any rules. Since Salem is literally immortal and will regenerate from any damage she takes, but can't adapt herself or heal as fast as SCP-682, as long as no one ever goes to a spooky castle in the literal middle of the Grimmlands, SCP-096 will be doing… very unspeakable things to Salem for the rest of time, and therefore both of them won't be a threat to anyone else."
Several of the Council members glanced towards one another. O5-8 was the first to speak. "You weren't under supervision for three days, Doctor Bright."
"Yeah. And?"
O5-3 was the next to respond. "We're going to be updating the list of things you aren't allowed to do, Doctor Bright."
"Goddamnit."
A/N: BTW, talk about a close call, there. They almost got a VERY fatal face-to-face with the Shy Guy.
I tried to keep things lore friendly with SCP, but at the end of the day, I'm a casual SCP fan. I like the lore, and read some wiki entries, but I'm not heavily invested, so I apologize if I got stuff wrong. Also, poor Ren, not getting any lines. Lastly, Dr. Bright. was too amazing NOT to have him meet Ozpin and completely derail everything in a matter of days.
As to how Ozpin managed to get the photo of 096 to Evernight, here was my logic:
Go to Atlas. Use the Staff of Creation. Make a teleporter, because you can't tell me that one doesn't exist in the SCP universe and that Doctor Bright wouldn't be able to get blueprints for it on short notice (if he didn't already have it memorized). Send the photo off. Have the Staff go back to keeping Atlas afloat before anyone even notices something was wrong. As Ozpin was the one to interact with the Staff and the teleporter, Dr. Bright technically didn't break any rules, as the rules forbid Dr Bright from using photos of 096 to contain anomalies. They didn't forbid Dr Bright from acquiring a photo of 096 and then convincing someone else to contain an anomaly with said photo. I mean, really, not forbidding him from getting his hands on a picture of 096 in the first place was just asking him to find a loophole to that rule.
Anyways, tonight is gonna be incredibly hard for me, because I'm gonna have to sleep with the knowledge that I could be playing Elden Ring the second it hits midnight instead, but I know that if I do, I'm just not going to sleep that night, and I'm already bad with my sleep schedule, and attempting to fix said sleep schedule, which staying up to play Elden Ring would definitely not help. I apologize in advance if anyone reviews or messages me and I don't respond for like a week, because I'm gonna be binging Elden Ring like my life depends on it.