A More Flawed Gem [RWBY]

A More Flawed Gem [RWBY]
Spat out by Eric d’Orléans & Jojo Salatcia​

Summary: All Beacon proved to be for Pyrrha Nikos was training for her shiny new career in the illustrious field of idiot wrangling. When life forces her to lead a team of anti-social weirdos, morally deplorable thieves, and manic depressive losers, she’s got to balance her increasingly fragile sanity against a team hell-bent on becoming the clear and present danger to the future of Remnant through their own sheer incompetence. With the White Fang and Grimm both smarter, tougher, and better led than ever, it’s starting to dawn on her that some divine being has it specifically out for her. Yay.

Welcome to team PINA, Pyrrha. The first drink’s free.

Teams: PINA, RWWJ, BYRN

Now on TV Tropes!

Spoiler

A More Flawed Gem is a RWBY OC fic. There. We said it. And we aim to use the frankly unhealthy outlook of these four characters—Cielo, Jack, Cards, & Chloe—to explore the world of Remnant & its character, and, to be honest, break them all. But that doesn’t mean they’re the stars of the show. From a Jaune Arc trying to be a leader without Pyrrha’s help, to a Ruby struggling with social anxiety, to an Adam Taurus driven by a genuine if brutal desire to be the hero the faunus need, everyone gets their moments to shine and grow as people. These characters exist to explore the world of RWBY as things rapidly go wrong. The Grimm are stronger, scarier. White Fang is better lead, better bred. The Faunus are filthy undesirables who deserve the rope Prejudice actually means something here. And overall we intend to explore why the common man actually relies upon Huntsman in this grim world on the edge of an apocalypse.


Also boobs.

Pyrrha after learning you dip cookies in ketchup.

Volume 1: If You Like PIÑA Coladas
Chapter 1: I’m the Narrator and This is just the Prologue
“Oh God, it’s happening again!”

— 1 —
​

Looking back on it, when Cielo imagined himself going back to school, he figured it would only have been after a quarter of a lifetime of failed marriages, heavy drinking, and numerous other poor life choices. Choices that’d culminate in him waking up next to a very frustrated pair of dwarves in a tall person suit with no memory at all of the previous night. Yet there he sat—chin propped against his knee as he leaned against the frame of the window, forehead lazily smushed against the window as he massaged the scar across the bridge of his nose—isolated from most of the other passengers as he watched the castle-like Beacon Academy fade in through a haze of white clouds.

Now that he thought about it, this was his first time flying. Though he was Mistrali by birth, Cielo had only arrived on Sanus by way of sneaking onto a luxury cruise ship after being pursued for weeks by a gang of disgruntled thieves and killers. The Mistrali took their board games very seriously, you understand?

Regardless, he was fairing a lot better than he would’ve expected. The queasiness and nausea that’d he’d so often heard being attributed to flying didn’t seemed to really bother him any. If anything, the novelty of flying kind of wore off after the first couple of hours. Though given the nature of his semblance and name, maybe it was how it was just supposed to be? He wondered how easier his life would’ve been if he'd been named something like ‘Luck’ or 'Cash Cash Money Bitch'.

There was a choked grunt, followed by a sound a lot like wet, shredded meat splattering onto the floor next to him. Huffing a sigh, Cielo pulled back from the window—his medium-length and disheveled black hair matted itself against his forehead—and caught sight of a lanky blonde kid. Green in the face, hunched over a puddle of vomit, and with an absolutely horrific sense of fashion with very little functionality to offset how undapper his whole outfit was.

“Skinny jeans with a hoodie and plate armor is so last season,” Cielo chided. “Also, do you mind? I’m monologuing,” he added, throwing his hair back with an almost unnecessary degree of dramatic flair. Mistral did have a thriving thespian community, after all.

“Sorry,” Skinny Jeans wheezed, making a noticeable effort to look anywhere but up. “I’m not so good with flying.”

“This much is exceedingly obvious,” Cielo replied. “Girls are watching, by the way.”

He pointed off towards a pair of young women a few feet away—a fairly busty blonde with lean, but well-defined muscle that made him want to drop to the floor and do push-ups, and a shorter girl with black hair and a seeming partiality for red and black gothic lolita fashion. They waved at him.

“What?” Skinny Jeans looked up for a second before immediately deciding that it was a terrible idea. “Oh—crap! Are they still looking this way?”

Cielo’s blue eyes continued to stare ahead. Seemed that Skinny Jeans was so hopeless that even the gods were catching secondhand embarrassment. So much so that they sent another blond kid. Only taller with more muscle mass, indigo eyes, and a slightly better taste in clothes to distract them from having to look at Jeans.

Attempted pickpocketing seemed to be Better Blondie’s way of getting good with the ladies. It was the classic ‘please-make-way’ sort of maneuver. Despite the indigo-eyed man having been pushed back before he could nab anything, he seemed almost confident he’d get away with it. Not that Cielo could blame the guy—neither of the gals seemed all that bothered by it either. Maybe they just hadn’t noticed? Weird. Seemed pretty obvious to Cielo’s eyes, but he reckoned it was none of his business nevertheless. Now that he was paying attention, no one else seemed to notice what Better Blondie was doing, either. Stuff like this was exactly why he recommended children did at least two years of petty crime.

At the very least, he knew Better Blondie was someone he’d be a keeping a watchful eye on.

“No. Looks like they’re talking to another blonde kid. Really manly-looking guy, you know?”

Jeans seemed almost torn between relief and disappointment. “H-how manly-looking?”

Cielo sucked in a breath. “Dude looks like his name’s probably something like ‘Manlius Maximus’. Maybe even manlier. Like, the kinda guy whose morning workout routine involves bench-pressing the hotties he banged last night as his way of kicking them out of his house.”

“Damn, that’s pretty manly,” Jeans hissed.

Cielo shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Skinny Jeans. I’m sure he won’t be able to bang every girl on campus; guys like that usually petter out after giving half of them chlamydia. I’m sure maybe one of ’em will settle for you after getting herself treated.”

For the first time, Cielo caught a full glimpse of Jeans’ face. It wasn’t very impressed—something that made itself evident even through his nauseous and choked tears. “Gee, thanks. That’s very... reassuring?”

“Actually, that was very backhanded of me. I owe you an apology, Jeans.”

For several seconds the blonde-haired teenager could only just stare at Cielo, waiting for an apology that never came.

Cielo met the blonde’s light blues eyes with a pair of sharper, darker blues framed by an unmoved expression.

“You know, I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to hold a conversation with you. That said, I like to think I’m doing a semi-okay job. Also, my name’s Jaune. Jaune Arc.”

“You’re doing a better job than most, Jeans Arc,” Cielo replied.

“No, it’s—”

“Fancy-talk,” he interrupted. Only he wasn’t really bothering with the accent. “But I’m just a poor townie boy who can’t speak him any of that there fancy tongue. The true depths of how to say your fancy-talk name eludes me.”

Jaune remained unimpressed. “You’re spelling it wrong.”

For the first time, Cielo’s face went from unshakeable stoicism to curious befuddlement. “How’d you know that?”

“I can hear the spelling. It comes with having a name like mine.”

Oh yeah? But can you juggle, Jeans?

The black-haired teen hummed. “Quirky.”

Jaune just gave a half-conscious shrug. “I suppose.” There was a drawn out awkward silence as the two just stared at each other once more. “I, uh, I guess this is the part where you tell me your name?”

“Oh, yeah I probably should.” He shrugged. “Some peeps decided to call me Cielo Noel, I guess.”

Jaune gave a friendly smile, offering Cielo his hand. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Cielo.”

Cielo looked down and decided against shaking the blonde teen’s hand—the puddle of vomit reminding him of how they’d met. His eyes met Jaune’s and his expression shifted in a bad way, like someone had suggested he try jerking off with lighter fluid.

“O-oh. Right, sorry,” Jaune said, face flushed with shame. Soon red turned to green as he seemed to suddenly remember they were on an airship. Holding a finger out in a ‘be-right-back’ sort of gesture, Jaune disappeared towards the back of the terminal.

Once Jaune was out of sight, Cielo stood to his full height, massaging the underside of his jaw, fingers bristling against the very faintest of facial hairs that only existed in his imagination, before adjusting the long sword and scabbard hanging off the back of his waist. Noticing the gathering crowd near the front of the terminal, Cielo grabbed his things and meandered towards the group. Looked like they’d be landing soon, and he was eager to see what his new home would be for the next four years.

He’d definitely have to get used to calling a place ‘home’ again.
​

— 2 —​

As far as bon voyage parties went, Jack reckons he’d had a good one last night. Now, granted, his only experience with something like that had been when his father had joined the Service and shipped off too... Wait, no. That’s just one of the lies Jack’s fond of telling. He tells so many of those that sometimes it’s hard to remember the truth. After all, the key to any good lie is to wholeheartedly believe what you’re saying in the moment.

Point is, Jack was still reeling from a mild tetrameth hangover, he was pretty sure that wasn’t his blood on the motel bathroom floor, and he has no freakin’ idea whose cat he’s got in this carry-on but screw you it was his now.

The caged domestic shorthair did not agree with him on that, but that was okay. Ownership was a naturally fluid concept the true depths of which only Jack understood. Like this here five-hundred Lien bill he’d knicked from that lady’s purse. Witness how a handy dandy vending machine transformed her money into his orange juice!

“What do you think, Toby?” Jack asked, sitting on a bench and watching the crowds of the airship terminal. “That’s your new name now, by the way. It’s Toby.”

Toby hissed and swapped at the bars of its carry-on cage.

“Right on, little buddy.”

Jack waited until he saw a determined pair of fellow teens both armed to the teeth casually strolling through the terminal. If he hadn’t lost his flight ticket, he’d probably know which gate he was shipping off from. But in lieu of that, just following them two girls was his best bet.

He finished his orange juice and chucked Toby at the first little girl he found who responded “yes” when asked if she’d like a new pet kitty. Jack was a boy on a mission with no more time to look after a beloved feline companion.

The closer the two girls got to a terminal, the more heavily armed children he found himself brushing shoulders with. All the better for him. He snagged an airpass from some redhead who didn’t understand body armor was supposed to cover your arms and shoulder and used it to get on the ship.

“Pyrrha Nikos?” the lady at the check-in counter said skeptically, looking from the pass to Jack.

“Yeah, puberty sure hit me hard,” Jack said with his best smile for the occasion. He has one hell of a smile. More than one, really. Jack had him a vast, well-honed arsenal of smiles to use in every conceivable situation he might need.

“And gained five inches?” she said.

“Oof, growing pains. Don’t remind me!”

After a long hesitation, the woman slowly, even cautiously said, “Hold on, I’m gonna call my manager.”

As she was looking away and dialing security, Jack casually just walked past the counter, joined the thin line of students entering Beacon’s airship, and vanished He was going to steal him one hell of a window seat and enjoy the ride.

It wasn’t like Jack didn’t belong at Beacon or its airship. The Right Man from the government had shown Jack how all the paperwork was in order personally. Jack wouldn’t have it any other way. The Right Man had been returning a favor to Jack, paying back a debt to this seventeen-year-old gangster with a remarkable ability to make himself all the right enemies. Jack hadn’t even really had to go out of his way to uphold his end of the bargain.

Like all slithering creatures of power, the Right Man and a certain recent corpse were never human to begin with. Guilt and morality never factored into their lives. Least a boy can do is return them the favor.

In the meanwhile, Jack spreads his arms over the back of a very comfy set of seats and watches student stream onto the airship and find places to sit or stand. With them came a whole lot of eye-candy, too, which suited Jack just fine. After everyone settled in and the ship took to the skies, he tugged on the collar of his oh-so-stylish black denim jacket and went to make some friends with people who had names like “twenty-five-fifty Lien,” “unguarded wallet,” and “purity ring with neat gemstones.”

Innocently giving a friendly, please-make-way push on some blonde bombshell ended in the chick reflexively pushing back before Jack could nab anything. “Whoa there, big guy,” she said.

His eyes go from her face to her—wow. “Dig the style. More girls should dress to impress like that.”

She snorted. “Eyes up here, dude.”

“I’ve made my choice,” he said with a helpless shrug. The motion helps him naturally distance his hands from any suspicious positions.

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Then lemme give you a hand.”

She reached up sharply to grab Jack’s chin and point his head away. In a practiced motion he snapped his hand out and something clicked. He set his hand around her wrist as the shotgun-fist around the hand slip off and into his other hand beneath.

“Why stop at a hand?” he asked. “After all, I just got your heart.”

The blonde made a face, and then broke out laughing. “Okay. Wow. That’s gotta be both the lamest and boldest opening move ever. Neat trick with the disarming.”

Jack had something clever and charming to say, the most charming thing in fact, but the words drowned in his throat. Glancing to the side to feign cheekiness, the green eyes of a redhead on the other side of the airship arrested his attention. The same armored girl he’d stolen the airpass from. How’d she still get on the ship? He saw her, and she saw him, and their eyes locked.

It took all of a second before he knew she’d made the connection and no amount of bullshitting was going to get him out of that with the quiet, measured intensity of a karakuri den mother whose nest had been raided. Had the girl at the front counter given Jack’s description? The redhead slid from her seat and stalked towards Jack.

He made to pull away from the two girls, only to remember he was still holding the blonde’s wrist. He couldn’t just adios on them; Jack had to make a good impression on them if for no other reason that to use them as character witnesses. But he still needed to scram. He didn’t like the look on the redhead’s face.

Jack tossed the blonde’s strange weapon back at her. “You’d be surprised how many practical applications being able to undo a bra with one hand has.” Not what he’d been intending to say, but it worked.

The short, raven-hair girl beside her to whom she’d been showing off the weapon snorted. “You really don’t know when to stop, huh?”

“I prefer thinking of myself as bold and brash,” he said, shrugging. He idly glanced to the side. The redhead was getting close. He could see the discerningly unpleasant look on her face. She was going to drag Jack through the mud in front of witnesses, and you never wanted your first introductions at a place to be someone accusing you of things. That kind of stuff would stick out in peoples’ memories for a long time and make Jack’s life at Beacon difficult.

The blonde folded her arms as she settled her laughter down. “That’s one way, yeah. I’m Yang. This here’s my kid sister, Ruby.”

Ruby shot the blonde a skeptical look. “Yeah. Hi.”

“Indigo Jack,” Jack says with a little mock bow. “Just your average boy who’s gonna be the best Huntsman Beacon’s ever produced.”

Unless redhead over there kills him first.

She wouldn’t have been a problem anywhere but here. Problem was, Jack had been specifically instructed to be on his best (public) behavior at Beacon. Which meant he couldn’t follow his instincts and lead the girl down a dark alley to piano-wire her out cold and leave her to wake up later dazed and confused. Unlike out there in the real world, he’d probably run into this girl again. And while he reckoned he could probably get into a fight with her and hold his own, that once again ran into the problem of leaving a bad first impression. “Dude who beats on hot girls when they accuse him of things.” He didn’t want people to think him a brute, either.

Keeping up appearances was of paramount import to all aspects of Jack’s life, now more so than ever.

Yang put hands on hip. “Bold talk.”

“Can’t help myself. I gotta be on top.”

Ruby pantomimed digging a hole with a shovel. She apparently hit a fake rock and was trying to excavate her way around it.

“At least you’re consistent,” Yang said.

Jack winked. “See, we get each other. This is some soulmate stuff.”

Redhead was just outside non-awkward talking distance.

Yang half-laughed, half-sighed. She pushed on Jack’s chest. “And we’d get each other so much better from the other side of the airship, Jackie boy. Ya feeling me?”

“Mm, with any luck I will soon,” he said, feeling himself mere inches away from giving a thanks to On High.

He did his best to turn about face and casually make his escape into the crowds around the airship. He knew where to go. Jack’s always passively scanning for avenues of escape, things to give him some edge. No way she’ll get him when he has any head start on her at all.

Pyrrha Nikos would eventually catch Indigo Jack anyways.​

 

Chapter 2: There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet
“I don’t need people to help me grow up. I drink milk!”

— 3 —​

Cards stepped into the student center, her sopping wet boots squeaking against the smooth marble floor. It took an embarrassing amount of concentration to kept herself from slipping onto the floor. The rain had caught her, drenching her outfit, an attire you might’ve referred to as a police uniform that came from one of those well-to-do precincts where the HOA decreed fashion over functionality and came in an ‘overgrown toddler’ size. You had to dress to impress at Beacon, after all. At least to stand out. Not that Cards stood very tall in the first place.

Sparing a thorough glance and noting that she was alone, Cards pulled off her blue beret and wringed it dry. Her short hair, red and black like a stack of playing cards, fell in front of her face, slapping against her forehead and lightly stinging her eyes. She winced, fixing it up to be less used mop-like before placing her beret snugly over her head. Her life may have been all ears, but, well, no ears about it. Not with hair that went all used mop on her like this.

Now, what was she doing here? Ah, right. Umbrellas—every umbrella there was to be found at Beacon Academy. She figured if there was any place to get spare umbrellas, it would be the student center. Getting just a little bit lost on her way to orientation, she could only wander about, too ashamed to seek help as it called for her to admit she’d gotten lost. It was only several minutes after it began raining was Cards able to find the temp room where which every freshman would spend the night.

Only to find that the doors were locked shut.

Why they’d just lock the front doors and trap the students in there together was beyond her. Maybe force them to make friends or something. Cards couldn’t open the door. She’d tried clawing at the windows for attention, but the only person who saw her was that girl with the black bowtie Cards had met earlier. The girl had looked at Cards, seemed thoughtful, then made sure the heavy curtains were closed tight to keep Cards doubly out.

Cards suspected that had something to do with her attempts to break the ice with her by claiming the two of them were natural besties since the were obviously both card-carrying members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

She hadn’t laughed.

After soaking under a torn, decorative awning, she came to the conclusion that if she couldn’t get inside with everyone else, then it would be in her best interests to build a fort made of umbrellas so she could sleep dryly and be ready to join the rest of the freshmen come morning.

Absolute genius.

So she continued her journey down the hall and two the left until she reached an information desk attended by scraggly-looking guy—young enough to be an upperclassmen, even—with pair of almost cartoonishly thick glasses reading a magazine. When he saw the drenched teen, his expression went from zero to ten and then settled on three.

“Can I help you with something, miss?” he asked. Point blank.

That alone was enough for Cards to completely lose her nerve. She’d spent so long thinking about the umbrellas it hadn’t actually thought about how she’d ask. What was she gonna do, take out her baton and demand them all like some water-hating bandit?

“Y’know, the thing. The one you offer,” she sputtered. “With students and, you know, things? In here.”

Glasses blinked. A slow and deliberate gesture. “You mean student employment?”

That wasn’t even remotely what Cards had meant, but she was in too deep to say no. For a moment she even considered total silence as an option. “Y-yeah,” came her diminutive reply, her eyes wide with disbelief as her head bowed in shame.

“Oh, nice,” he replied, tone light and friendly. “We don’t get a lot of applicants very early in the semester, let alone the first day.”

“Yeah, that’s me, always early and eager,” she said, fooling absolutely no one but Glasses.

The guy grinned. “You’re clever. This soon and all the good jobs are open. You’re getting first choice of the best, cushiest stuff!”

This wasn’t at all what she wanted, but she liked the praise. That was reason enough to see this through in the hopes of more! So she put hands on hips and puffed her chest up. “Yeah, the best. That’s my level. Always gotta get the best!—which is what, in this case?”

Glasses spun around once in his chair and threw his hands up. “The freshman taking over for me, natch. Two-k Lien an hour to sit around, browse your scroll, and sometimes tell people to go somewhere else.”

“That does sound pretty cushy.” And impossible to screw up!

“Perfect for your cute tushy,” the dude said with a chuckle that probably would have been grounds for sexual harassment complaints if he’d said it to anyone but Cards, who instead decided that she definitely liked Glasses. “Flexible hours too. Fit in work with your class schedule no problem.”

“Well, whatcha waiting for? Sign me up already!”

He actually jumped a little at that and scrambled over his desk for the right paperwork. “Here,” he said, setting the stuff on the counter for Cards. “Not hard. Just need your student ID and some other odds and ends really. Usually your team too, but, given the day.” He shrugged. “You can get it done if ten minutes and be back for the freshman sleepover party.”

Cards grabbed a pen and started looking over the paper. “Yeah, right. Like I can get in. Those doors are locked tight.”

Glasses adjusted his namesake. “Huh?”

“Y’know, the front doors. They’re locked.”

“You mean the ‘haha, let’s lock the front doors to haze the freshmen but every other door in the building is unlocked’ doors?”

Cards whiteknuckled the suddenly shaky pen in her hand. “They do what?”

“I mean, It’s just some old ceremony the faculty does,” he said with a shrug. “You obviously figured everything out if you’re here.”

She inhaled sharply. “Yep. Everything figured out. I’m a girl who’s got life all figured out, yep!”

Cards sure was.

— 4 —​

Chloe Weaver tightened the arm she had around Jaune Arc so he couldn’t escape, the side of her face pressing against his. A wide, slightly inebriated grin rested promptly on her face even when she sipped from her can of beer.

“Knew there was something there with ya,” she said with perfect certainty. “That gear of yours? Same as the statue out front Beacon. And that surname?” Chloe laughed. “I sense po-ten-tial, Jauney boy.”

Jaune still tried to escape Chloe’s arm. “Yeah, well, y’know, long line of Huntsmen and heroes, so, yeah, why else am I at Beacon? Lots of potential.”

Somehow Chloe’s grin got wider. “Which means you and me are getting along. See, see here.” She finished her can of beer. “When tomorrow comes and we all head into the Emerald Forest, you stick with me. Or, someone else but then find me. I’m finding the best and we’re gonna be a team, yeah? I got you and me down for sure.”

“For sure,” Jaune said, looking for an escape.

She slapped him hard on the back and offered him a fresh can of beer. “We’re gonna get along great, hero. Here.”

Chloe saw it all, her future unrolling before her, and it was glorious. Her and a team of Huntsmen of legendary skills and lineage. Imagine how awesome they were gonna be! They were going to the top of their class and it’d all be because of Chloe’s careful coordination. Oh how this clever little girl from Vacuo with moonshards in her eyes was going to become a household name!

She could hardly stop from laughing. Just the thought alone makes her unable to sit still.

He took the beer with some reluctance. “Where did you even get this stuff?”

Chloe waved the question away. “Some dude with some real hummuna indigo eyes is turning this night into a party. I’d’a asked how he had this stuff, but I’m pretty sure him and that Pyrrha Nikos girl got some weird stalker-y ex thing going on between them, which really puts a damper on things. I thought that girl was a real prodigy. Now I’m wondering if she’s a liability.”

“Can’t imagine what that’d be like,” he said, staring at his beer. Her takes a sip of and instantly shudders. “This stuff tastes terrible. Ugh! How the heck does my aunt always drink the stuff?”

“Because she’s cool and you’re not, but don’t worry.” Chloe poked Jaune hard in the breast. “Stick with me and you’ll be cooler than Atlesian tits!”

She stood up fast enough that Jaune actually dropped his beer. He scrambled to pick it up as Chloe posed dramatically before the wide window, angling herself to display her two sickles to an imaginary crowd of adoring fans.

“Just keep it together,” she says with a decisive nod, more to herself than anyone else.

“I can’t put beer back in the can, Chloe!”

She turned back to Jaune, confused. “Oh, that. Whatever. Beer isn’t your friend, Jaune. It’s a crutch! What is your friend are the strongest Huntsman-in-training here, like me and you.”

“I’m my own friend now?”

“Yes, exactly! From this moment on,” she said, putting on foot up on a small couch just for the pose, “everyone not with us is our enemy, our rival. Work with ’em if you gotta, but once you don’t, bam! You take the glory for our team.”

She hopped off the couch and made her way down the hall.

Despite himself, Jaune actually followed Chloe just as planned She had been pretty much the only girl to talk to him aside from that Ruby girl. Chloe knew just a little feminine encouragement would go a long way with Jaune. Potential, like she said. And oh-so-malleable! He was someone she could build up just as she needed, and she knew he’d been good at it with a lineage like his.

Jaune forced himself to drink more. “This sounds less like friendship, more like a cult.”

“If you think about it, that’s all friendship is. Cults want your money, and at least once a year you have to give money to your friends. Maybe more.”

“Birthdays. You mean birthday gifts.”

“I mean the annual friendship tax, Jaune. Stay with the program. I require a great tax since I am a great friend and all my friends are powerful and rich. You better remember that when my birthday comes around. The friendship tax is the only kind of taxation that isn’t theft.”

Jaune tossed his half-empty can of beer into a trash can he passed by. “Where are you going?”

Chloe smacked her lips. “I saw the heiress to the Schnee Dust Corporation around here. Schnee though she be, it’ll rain before I get this kinda opportunity again. I need you to be my wingman here, bro.”

He squinted. “We talking like flirtation wingman or—”

“I’m gonna pimp you out as an example of just how badass this here team is shaping up to be to attract her to our cause!” she declared, jabbing a finger into the air.

He looked back at the garbage. “Is it still too late to drink myself to death?”

Chloe grabbed his arm and dragged him down the hallway. Jaune didn’t have a choice in the matter. He never did. And he never would again if Chloe has her way.


a/n: As part of our attempts to do our own little bit of worldbuilding, we’ve decided to try to write up various bits of regional/cultural colloquial terms that only make sense within the culture and world of Remnant. Some of these have less obvious meanings, in which case we’ll list & explain them here if needed.

Glossary of Colloquialisms

a.) “When/till it rains” — 1) An indeterminate faraway time. 2) Never — It doesn’t rain in Vacuo very much. So, to say “I’ll do it when it rains” or “wait till it rains” in Vacuo could be a very long time or, by extension, “never.”

b.) “Moonshards in one’s eyes” — 1) (idiomatically, figuratively) The state of being overly or extremely impressed with something; enchanted with romance — The broken but very bright shards of the shattered moon are what “reflects” in the eyes of the majority of Remnant’s denizens. These shards are far more visible within the heavily light-polluted main cities of the Four Kingdoms than stars.

 

Chapter 3: Safety Is Proportional to How Much Punishment One Can Take
“Nailed it!”

— 5 —​

Cielo had never really cared very much for the word ‘initiation’, namely because the last time he’d been ‘initiated’ into something, he spent four hours trying to get the blood out of his clothes. Too bad that cat would probably never be able to see the color blue again, though. Point was, standing there, near the edge of that cliff had him feeling just a wee bit antsy.

From the extreme left of a line of other students, he was able to get a good look at the rest of his peers. He hadn’t really expected to recognize a good few of them—even if most were through some kind of nickname. Manlius Maximus, the blonde girl with the ying-yang twins, the short goth girl that accompanied her, and Jaune. The only other person he immediately recognized by name was Weiss Schnee. Though why the heiress to the most profitable dust corporation on Remnant was here mucking it up with the rest of them, he had no idea. Maybe she was just going through that rebellious stage.

Actually, he thought he might’ve recognized the green-eyed redhead upon closer inspection. No, he’d definitely seen her before somewhere. On a cereal box, if his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him (again). Name was something flashy. Very north Mistral. Pyra Ne—no, Pyrrha Nikos. Right, she was a pretty famous athlete back in Mistral. Won the Regional Tournament four years in a row, he remembered. Looking back on it, they might’ve crossed paths once or twice back when before he dropped out of Sanctum. Then again, if it did, he doubted she remembered. And he was almost certain it never happened.

Cielo also noted the way she was glaring at Manlius Maximus. Not particularly something he’d ever want to be on the receiving end of. Actually, he did remember hearing rumors of a tall blonde kid with indigo eyes dating one of the more famous students. Guess he figured out who was who then. Poor Manlius, though. Mistrali chicks weren’t nothin’ to mess around with. They were the type to kill your dog just to prove that they were the only bitch in your life.

Godspeed, Manlius. Godspeed.

Still, he wondered how Manlius and Pyrrha knew each other. The guy’s style felt strikingly Vale. Had they banged day one? On the airship even?

Probably not. Likely just a bit of gossip. Rumors had a way of getting out of hand, after all.

Through all of his ponderings, he almost failed to notice Headmaster Ozpin addressing them. It was stuff he’d already gathered through mix of unhealthy life experiences and what little common sense he had left. The first person they crossed paths with would be their partner for the next four years. After that, they were to head north of the forest and secure and protect some kind of special relic or something. There was also the threat of death by Grimm awaiting them should they fail. That was probably what those waivers were for.

Before that they had to land, of course. Cielo figured as much when he saw the platforms they were standing on.

With the formalities out of the way, Cielo readied himself as Ozpin gave them the opportunity for any last questions.

“Yeah.” A particularly high, but doubtlessly male voice came from the very right end of the line-up. It was Jeans! “Excuse me, um, Headmaster? About this landing strate—”

“Good,” Ozpin interjected.

A rather short girl just next to him, with a blue beret and dressed in what only vaguely resembled a slightly oversized police uniform if someone took a pair of scissors and a fashion magazine to it, raised her hands.

“A-actually, I kinda think he might’ve been going somewhere with that,” her voice was small and nervous-like. “What are you, I-I dunno, like, dropping us off via airship ooor…?”

No sooner than a second after those words left her mouth was Weiss Schnee sent flying through the air.

Didn’t look like either of them were very prepared for this.

“No, you will be falling,” Ozpin clarified, something sounding like amusement seeped into his tone for a second.

Cielo didn’t think he really liked how that happened. Before he could hear anything other questions from Jeans or the Police Girl, the platform beneath him sprung forth from the ground, launching him through the air in an arc towards the forest.

“Rock and roll!” Cielo howled as he soared through the sky. Or he tried to, at least. What with the wind beating his face like his grandfather after a few shots of hanazake, all that came out was an incoherent cry made less intelligible by the wind blowing in his ears. At some point something that tasted suspiciously like a dragonfly forced itself down his throat. He hacked and coughed and choked as his gag reflex kicked in. His eyes stung with reflexive tears that clouded his vision as he approached the forest line.

You know what? To hell with this, he figured as he activated his semblance. The air and a few errant leaves whipped and rushed around him, forming a kind of small, localized tornado that slowed his descent towards the ground.

It didn’t kill him, so anyone called it a failure could go suck a rapier wasp. Cielo hit the ground—face first—and skidded to a stop, clumps of dirt, leaves, and dead bug shoveled themselves into his mouth.

The coughing and retching resumed, burning, acid-smelling bile tore through his throat and splattered onto the dirt and scattered leaves beneath him. More leaves and dirt, the dragonfly, and a dead beetle soaked in the puddle of alkaline fluid.

Clearing his mouth and standing onto a pair of shaky legs. After brushing the errant leaves and twigs out of his already messy hair, Cielo flashed a thumbs up at no one in particular.

“Nailed it,” he rasped with a cocky grin and watery eyes.

His celebration was short-lived. Just to the left, he heard the leaves rustling and the twigs snapping as a beowolf launched itself at him from the shadows of the forest. Despite himself, Cielo leapt to the side just in time to avoid its claws and fangs. Nasty those things were. He had more than enough scars as proof of his encounter with the beasts before.

“Good gravy, Davey,” he bemoaned, drawing his sword from the scabbard at the back of his waist. It’s single-edged blade was long, grayish-silver mixed with cerulean blue and had silver patterns running along the length of the blade. “At least let me scavenge what little dignity I have left before trying to kill me.”

It only snarled at him.

“Now you see, it’s stuff like this that makes everyone think you’re kind of an asshole. And I when I say you, I do mean you in particular.”

It charged at him. He charged at it.

— 6 —​

Before gravity insisted itself, Jack allowed himself to feel free. He knew how to position his body to maximize airtime. He didn’t fear the fall. He’d hit the ground before and always gets himself back up. As a kid he’d found his own aura while falling to what should have been his death, after all.

What the streets hadn’t taught him was how to handle Grimm. Naturally that meant as he spotted one down on the forest floor, he aimed himself towards the beowolf. No better way to learn then in the moment. The blade of his butterfly knife extended out. Jack came down on the Grimm like a guillotine from god. It softened his landing and tore the monster in half, which died with an almost comical look of surprise.

In a very real sense Jack had little idea what to expect of Grimm. He knew little more about them then was common knowledge. From the stories he always had this image in his head of Grimm being much like the children of Vale’s elite come down slumming. Unfeeling, uncaring creatures hopped up on the latest designer drugs, so apart from the world of You & I as to shove faunus into the uncanny valley by comparison. The only difference between them and the Grimm was one you could legally fight back against, even if the amount of blood they spill is the same at the end of the night.

Jack retracted his knife blade as he drew his other knife. One in each hand. He debated sitting back by the Beacon finish line and swapping one of the needed artifacts from them and save himself a trip, but abandoned the idea. Liar and survivor though Jack was, merely getting by failed to check off sufficient boxes. Organisms that strive to merely survive get outcompeted by ones that aim to thrive. He seen that time and time again out there in the wider world. Basic fact of the Cosmere.

Might have well as just stayed home instead of coming to Beacon if surviving was all he wanted. This here exercise in the forest was one he needed to win through traditional merit instead of actual merits like stealing without being caught.

There’d been another reason for extending his airtime: Jack got to see where the other students landed. It gave him the chance to assess who was where. The rules of the exercise, first person you meet is your teammate for the next four years. While it’d been hard to spend much time scoping the freshman class last night, he did have him some ideas.

From here the way to the ruins he needed plunder lay southeasterly. No one had landed in that exact direction. Jack idly twirled his knives and made for that direction. He kept to the tops of the trees, moving through the branches like some kind of simian. Admittedly, most of that was because he climbed one and had had no real idea how to get down. The problem with growing up in the city of Vale was that you never really learned exactly how to operate a tree. He just pretended he was some super cool Huntsman and navigated along the tops of trees and their branches.

He would’ve continued up there all the way to the end goal if he hadn’t heard the howling Grimm and someone fighting them. A girl, by the sound of her shout. He moved quickly to locate her. The girl was attracting Grimm to her like she were a Catchfire whore who still had both breasts offering a two-for-one special, this night only, financing options available.

Jack debated leaving her to die there. He really did. He couldn’t say for certain who’d gone this far up, but it seemed she was slowly losing. Probably for the best if he let her die so he could get a stronger teammate, but…

…shit dammit, that’s not how Huntsmen are supposed to act, huh?

Screw it. Save the girl and make her owe him. Maybe he could get laid out of the deal by playing the hero or something. Sure. Something. Anything to justify actually deciding to do the right thing to himself.

Jack twirled the knives in his hand and leapt from the tree tops into the rocky cleared the girl and Grimm fought. The blades elongated to unnatural lengths as he pulled his hands back in a slicing motion. Two beowolves lost their arms and collapsed, already flaking off into black ash as Grimm did. Those beyond it merely found themselves sliced deeply as the blade carved into them. Gods but there were a lot here.

He—

One of the Grimm who’s armed he’s hacked off tackled him hard, even as its body disintegrated. Jack lost his breath as it rammed him into the back of a boulder. His right leg reflexively curled to kick the beowolf back, only to find his knee sliding through the open hole in its disintegrating chest. The other one he’d thought he’d killed bit down on his ankle and pulled Jack hard through the tackling Grimm before its own jaw turned too ashy to hold any form.

He tumbled across the grass before bouncing into a small pond that was more mud than water. His active aura kept him from getting soaked and, more importantly, from getting grass stains on his jacket.

Jack hadn’t been aware Grimm could do that, not die when they’re clearing dead enough to disintegrate. Were they like shamblemen; you had to destroy the head to make them stop? No, he’d torn that Grimm apart when he’d landed and its head was fine, so—

“Above you!” the girl he’d been hoping to rescue shouted.

Without looking Jack throw himself to the side right as another beowolf landed where he’d been moments ago. He scrambled for a knife right as a burst of heavy single-shot rifle-fire blew holes in the Grimm’s face and throat. He couldn’t see the girl through the boulder garden or where she she shooting from. The Grimm’s head lolled to the side and fell face-first into the water

“Your right!” the girl shouted.

Though reluctant to look away from the beowolf, he managed to turn towards the charging speartongue, a nine-foot-tall bipedal monster. It had two tails, an upper one which held straight and kept balance, and a lower, thinner one it used as a whip It dove to one side, thrusting its long, serrated tongue out at a swinging angle. Its body twisted sharply to whip its tail from the other angle. The two motions created an overlapping pincer maneuver

He thrust out both knives, the elongated edges bending and holding at the points to wrap around the Grimm’s tongue and tail. He braced a boot on the ground and used the arrow-tongues momentum to pivot it into the air and brain it against a rock behind himself. His knives had ripped its organic weapons near their base, but the rapidly disintegrating stumps still flailed towards him like furious serpents. It tried to stand to no avail. It’d twisted one leg nearly backwards when it landed.

“Behind!” the girl shouted again.

He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the large rock that smashed into him and send him flying. The speartongue got a lucky thwack of the tail against Jack as a last dying hurrah. It sent him arcing away at an angle. The world went spinning and would’ve kept that way if he hadn’t hit something that grabbed him hard. Something that spun on one leg to cancel out the momentum.

Well that wasn’t embarrassing.

She set him down and he covered half his face, feeling the new bruises. “Thanks,” he breathed. She’d set him down to see the lone remaining Grimm, a large beowolf keeping its distance. It dug hangs into one of the large boulder and pulled out a large chunk. Bastard had one hell of a throwing arm.

The girl threw her shield. It slammed into the Grimm’s center of mass to make it drop its boulder on its foot. It howled equal parts pissed and pained, but when it picked the shorn-off slab of rock, it just stood there.

A moment later it held the slab up to the two and paced backwards, dragging its probably broken foot a little behind it. It still moved impressively fast into the forest cover, like a lawman who’s just found out the boy he’d been trying to arrest had more than a few drops of blue blood in his veins.

“It’s retreating,” Jack said.

“Toss me,” she commanded.

“Your salad or into the air?” he asked, glancing away from the girl to see if there were any more Grimm.

“The air,” she said, voice faltering with gossamer-thin threads of confusion. “We can’t let it get away.”

Jack wasn’t about to question that. He got down and grabbed her. From the way she moved to take advantage of him, he reckoned she must’ve been an expert cheerleader at some point. With a thrust from him and a kick from her, he threw the girl into the air. Knives appearing in his hands as if by magic, he thrust the blades towards her boots and twisted the ends into flat footholds to push her higher up.

He could look up and see under her skirt. To his immense disappointment, she actually wore bike shorts under them. The girl’s rifle fired fast and hard at the from an angle that went over the beowolf’s shield. With a twist and flourish, she turned the rifle into a javelin and threw it hard right as gravity remembered it was more than just a polite suggestion.

It struck home. The Grimm dropped the rock and fell to its knees. Its shoulders hung on by bullet-blown threads of black flesh and mangled bone. The rock crushed its good leg. Pieces of it were flaking off before it hit the ground.

Speaking of the ground!

“Guess we’re a team now, beautiful,” Jack said with a tired, half-crazed laugh. She landed non-ungraceful in his arms. He grunted from the sudden weight and nearly slipped off a patch of dewy moss.

She was panting. Breathless. He could smell her breath, the almost pleasant scent of her sweat. She bled badly enough from a bite wound at her shoulder that absolutely needed to be disinfected and bandaged. She’d lost the protective bracer of one arm, the bare skin of which looked like she’d gone rolling around in a patch of poison ivy and brambles, which she may well have.

“Think you’re right,” she said with he own thank-the-gods-it’s-over laugh. The girl was perhaps five’-eight” and leanly built, a body he could appreciate even under the blood, dirt, and bruises.

“So, about that salad?” he said half-seriously.

She reached up with her good arm to pull away the long red hair that had spilled over her face. “If you know how to make them north Mistrali style, I could be convinced to din—

The two made eye contact at the same moment, hers green, his electric indigo.They stared at each other for what felt like ever as they slowly came to realize exactly who the other was, something either lost during the fight or subconsciously ignored while their lives were on the line.

“There you finally are!” she shouted, gritting her teeth. She grabbed him and dug her fingers in as if trying to keep herself in place if he decided try throwing her away and making a break for it.

“Pyrrha Nikos,” Jack said with the smile of a man who’s just found out his one-night-stand was actually just his left hand in drag. “Sup, girl?”

— 7 —​

That was it. Cards was more than convinced that Beacon’s Headmaster was missing more than a few crucial screws. Her mother hadn’t mentioned anything like this in her stories. At the very least, Cards could take comfort in the fact that she managed to survive the launch, even if it was unintentional. Always look for the positives!

Of course, that left her in her current predicament, hanging by the strap of her dust-filled backpack that somehow managed to latch onto to the end of a tree branch. And as much as she struggled, there was just no way to unclasp the damn thing! Cards continued to grapple her belongings, whining as she flailed her limbs about like a neurotic ragdoll.

It didn’t work. If anything, she was somehow even more bound up by the strap of her bag.

“This isn’t nearly as hot as I’d thought it would be,” she groaned.

Cards sighed as she took stock of her surroundings. Trees. A lot of trees. A forest of trees, one might’ve been tempted to say. The thick vegetation kept much of the immediate area blanketed in darkness, though it wasn’t completely blinding.

She was so Glenned stuck up here. She needed to get down before any Grimm—or worse—another student passed by and saw her like this.

Then came a rustling in the trees to her right. Then a growl. It was almost as if the gods were mocking her at this point. Well no, that wasn’t true. They’d been mocking her since the day she was born. Fighting against her bindings, all Cards could do was clasp a pair of tiny hands over her mouth as her head craned towards the source of the noise. Her stomach clenched and her heart beat against her chest. Sweat rolled down her brow. More rustling. More growling. Wood tearing. Trees falling. A shadow moved in the towards.

It was getting closer. And louder. Closer. Louder. Closer. Louder.

She was going to die. She was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it. She was going to die, stuck in a tree before she could even be initiated into Beacon. Her mother's face was visible in her mind's eye, twisted into a hideous sneer. Once again, Cards had proved her inability to disappoint—because that would imply anyone expected anything of her in the first place.

She hadn’t even gotten to enjoy her cushy student job!

And then she saw it. A beowolf. From the shadows of the trees, it launched itself at her. Jaws wide, with fangs bared. For a second she could see herself in that thing’s jaws. She was paralyzed. She didn’t scream. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even shut her eyes.

Then came a cry. A boy, she recognized in the back of her mind. A high-pitched battlecry that sounded a lot like something out of a Spruce Lee martial arts flick.

From the other end of the forest came a boy. Flying towards the airborne Grimm, slamming into it with a flying kick, and driving it into the ground. The beast slid across the forest floor, kicking up leaves, dirt, and rocks with the boy riding it like some kind of leafboard. As it skidded to a stop, it reached up in futile struggle before the boy stabbed his sword into its chest, dragging it upwards and vertically bisecting the beast. Then he just kept stabbing away it. Black ash flaked off of the beowolf as it withered and died.

“Hate these things,” he grumbled.

Cards watched in vague shock as her rescuer pulled his sword out of the Grimm and turned towards her. Slowly, the crippling fear that had seized her faded away. She examined her fellow student. He was tall—something she’d noted about a lot of the students here—with unkempt hair that reached to down to his neck. His outfit was a mostly blue and pale-gray ensemble. Most strikingly was the scar that ran across the bridge of his nose.

Silence reigned as the boy stared back at her. Then he waved.

Cards’ hands fell from her mouth and reached out towards him with just the cheeriest smile ever on her face. “Partner!”

The boy sharply sucked in a breath and smiled back. “Damn.”

— 8 —​

“At which point does it become okay to file for a restraining order?” Jaune said as Chloe crushed him against herself with one arm.

“Never!” Chloe said with a maniacal laugh. “Look at us, Jaune. We held our own against the Grimm. Damn is that a lot of Grimm.”

Jaune cleared his throat, trying to exorcise himself from Chloe’s iron grip. “Ow, watch the arm! And it was only, like, two Grimm.”

“You did good, though,” she said nodding. “Running to lead them into that trap where I could blindside ’em. Genius!”

“Yeah,” he said, taking as his weapon. Crocea Mors, Chloe knew he called it.

“Was the thing without an aura to make yourself look more weak and tasty for ’em?”

Jaune slid from Chloe’s grisp and cleared his throat. “Um. Uh. Chloe. Real talk here.”

“You’ve fallen for me due to my looks and can-do attitude?” she asked with a chuckle. Rubbing her nails against her chest, she plays it cool. “Don’t worry, that happens a lot with the boys. I won’t let it get in the way of our team dynamic.”

He ran a hand down his face and sighed. “No,” he said, drawing the word the out. “I—it’s that aura thing. Personal force field, yeah?” He shifted his weight uncomfortable. “Never really, like, figured out how to make mine work.

At a slight loss she snapped her attention up to him. She sat herself down on a tree stump and folded her legs, thinking. “You got to Beacon and never figured out your aura?”

Jaune looks away, folding his arms. “Yeah. Had to be really taught to hold my own against other students at the combat school, but I did it. ’S how I got into Beacon”

She eyes him carefully, discerningly. She unconsciously takes out a band and folds her short hair into a small rear ponytail. “You weren’t a frontline fighter, were you?”

“Huh?”

Chloe gestures at him. “You. Your role. You did support stuff on your school combat team, right? It’s why you can think, not lose your cool in the heat of the moment. Even back there with the Grimm you were moving cleverly. Got one of them to attack its friend. I wrong?”

He looked away. And when he looks back, Chloe was inches from his face. She grabbed him, one hand on his cheek, one on his chest like she meant to shove him down with her on top of him, even if he had a good many inches above her

“Ow, bad touch!” he said. “You can’t just.” He stopped mid-sentence and looked into space.

“My breath become yours. Yours mine,” she whispered. Her fingers tightened. “The soul is none’s to hoard. Exhale and share, sunchild.”

Jaune coughed and was glowing with a white outline. “What the?”

Chloe pushed herself off him. Her look was uncharastically serious. “Was how my grandma back in Kuraçao did it, helped me figure out my aura. I don’t actually know if words are needed, but the little ritual puts ya in the right mindset.”

He stepped back, staring at his hands. The white glow vanished and, a moment later, returned. It flickered as he moved himself. “What did you do to me? Why can I do this?” He settled for keeping it on, it seemed.

Her Chloe-tier smile returned with a laugh. “Just rammed my auracock in your soulgina without lube or protection, Jaune. You can thank me and/or become my official property later. And,” she added, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as if to deliver Jaune a clandestine massage, “between you and me, you might wanna get yourself checked out.”

After flexing his fingers, Jaune grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and punched a nearby tree. He hissed, flapping his hand like he’d momentarily touched a hot stove. “Ah! Okay. Still kinda hurt, but, not really. I can get used to this. Yeah. Cool!”

She glanced at her wrist and squeaked “Ooh!” Her grinned intensified almost evily as she slid an arm around Jaune’s shoulders. “Oh hey, check-it, it’s later.”

Jaune looked at Chloe and the way her arm hovered on his aura centimeters off his body. It made slipping her grip all the easier. “Oh hey, check-it,” he replied enthusiastically, “I found a new use for my aura.”

 

Chapter 4: The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage
“Do you feel that?”
“Soul-crushing regret?”

— 9 —​

“You stole my airpass,” Pyrrha said, teeth grit.

“I needed it more than you,” Jack replied, hands in his pockets as he trudged southeast. Dropping her to the ground and trying to make a run for it hadn’t worked at all, sadly.

She made a low groaning sound. “You could have just asked for my help!”

Pyrrha Nikos. He’d saved the life of his stalker. Well, not really his stalker. But he’d been spreading a rumor that he’d banged her some time ago and she was still clingy. It’d been a handy way to explain why the Mistrali bitch had been following him for the past day and some change without warranting further questions.

“You’re a hot girl and I have confidence issues talking to girls in the first place,” he said shamelessly.

“You seem rather composed here.”

“I thought you were a boy when I was saving you back there. I have elected not to correct myself because I’ve been never wrong before and I’m not gonna start now.”

She bared her teeth in a confused, about-to-speak gesture. Girl didn’t seem to have any real idea how to reply to that. “Okay,” she finally managed.

“Perfect. Knew we could see eye-to-eye, uh, Nikki, was it?”

She composed herself with a long breath. “Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. You even said my name about five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, well, y’know, I get tongue-tied around hot girls. Plus I can’t even pronounce your weird Mistrali names anyhow.”

“Didn’t you say you thought I was a boy?”

“Nope.”

“You literally just said so!” she said with a huff.

“Hmm, no, I distinctly remember that not happening. Trust me on that, Nikki, I haven’t lied to you in at least a sentence.”

Pyrrha made that same open-mouthed look of bafflement. “How did you even get into Beacon?”

“I borrowed your airpass, don’t you remember?” He stopped and touched the back of his hand to her forehead. “How much blood have you lost, Nikki?”

“I’ve had worse,” she said honestly.

“Ah, yeah, forgot. You being a woman.” He winked.

Her eyes narrowed. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled until her lungs were empty enough to the point of having to stifle a cough. “Alright. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Can you tell me your name, at least?” She gave Jack a hopeful smile.

“That depends,” he said. “Are you a cop?”

A strange look crossed her face like she’d just realized she’d left the oven on. “You have a funny name, Depends. Shame on your parents.”

Jack winced. “Okay, ouch. Nikki, you’ve already got this confusing hot but disappointed mom thing going for you. Please don’t also add in is also my dad to the mix. We’re making a Beacon team, not a porno. You sexually conflict me enough as is!”

She frowned, hands on hips. “Then explain to me what I should do, Depends! I’m the only one really trying here.”

“I’m trying too. You see how many Grimm I killed back there?”

Nikki actually laughed. “You call that trying? Yikes! No wonder you’re single.”

He arched a brow, nodding. “Alright, getting better.”

“I’m trying to sass you.”

“Yes you are. You’re like a cute little sassy puppy with autism.” He leaned over and patted her head. “Bless your heart for trying.”

She glared.

His eyes went to her bleeding shoulder, her cut-up arm. He thought over it for a moment, then gestured to a nearby log. “Sit down. We need to clean and bandage that wound before it gets infected.”

“You’re just going to bandage me to the tree and make a run for it.”

“Kinky. I think I’m starting to like you!”

Nikki sighed. But, with a slight physical push from Jack, did sit down. “You know how to do this?” she asked as Jack started getting out some first aid supplies.

“Honestly, I don’t even know where I got this gauze and hydrogen peroxide from,” he said.

“Let me walk you through it.”

He looked up sat from where he was hunched over his kit. He was about to deny her on principle alone, but… well, Nikki looked like she was being serious here. And this was a serious injury. Plus maybe she’d be more agreeable if he tamponed up her bleeding shouldergina there.

“Alright, Nikki. Strut.”

— 10 —​

Cielo regarded his partner as she walked with him. She was short, barely coming up to his breast, with excitement and apprehension easily visible through her wide and expressive red eyes. Strands of red and black hair peeked from beneath her beret.

Go-Fish Adler, he’d discovered her name was. She’d kept trying to convince him that her name was actually ‘Cards’ but he didn’t trust her enough to let himself be fooled by her lies. If he was being honest, she wasn’t exactly what he’d pictured as a partner, but after a few years on the road with a revolving lot even more deplorable than himself he hadn’t been too picky with regards to company, even if he preferred to go at things alone most of the time. Besides, the rules were the rules. Cielo frowned to himself. Since when had he become such a stickler for the rules? What’s next, obeying ‘keep off the grass’ and ‘no firearms allowed on the playground’ signs?

Regardless, her aptitude for combat was still of some concern to him. She made it into Beacon, so that had to account for something. Then again, he’d also been accepted. And it wasn’t like he’d actually graduated from Sanctum or anything. Those few years he spent Grimm hunting might’ve worked in his favor actually. In any case, he’d find out soon enough what Go-Fish was capable of. People were often more than their looks suggested.

“So…” she intoned.

“Yeah, pretty much. Crazy how that works, isn’t it?” Cielo replied after a moment’s worth of awkward silence. “I told them this would happen and they laughed at me. They aren’t laughing anymore, though.”

“What? No, I mean, uh,” she struggled as she nearly tripped over an exposed root. Jogging up to him, she continued, “Hey so, I didn’t catch your name back there.”

“Huh?” Indeedly, she hadn’t. Cielo wondered what it said about him that he needed to be reminded to introduce himself. “Oh right. Yeah, sorry about that. My folks named me Cielo Noel or something.”

“Cielo Noel,” Cards articulated, as though trying to physically taste his name. “Sea-Ello? Hmm… Sie-yegh-lough?” She nodded. “I like it, Cielo! With a name like that, I guess you’re from Vale? No—Atlas?”

He shook his head. “Ochi. Mistral, actually.”

“Oh. Really? From Mistral, huh?” she commented, her tone clearly prompting him to elaborate further.

“Laconically speaking,” he replied, most of his attention being too narrowly focused on the task at hand to really pay attention to Go-Fish’s attempt at holding conversation.

No slight intended, he just occasionally suffered sporadic bouts of prudency. Very incurable. His aura spread out, senses attuned to his surroundings. His last encounter with the Grimm before coming to Beacon had him staring death in the face. It was only either thanks to an awkward stroke of dumb luck or divine intervention that he’d been rescued by passing Huntsman.

That was the last time he’d ever find himself at chance’s mercy.

“Yeah! Uh, I mean I was born here in Vale, but I’ve always thought it’d be pretty cool to visit Mistral once or twice, you know?” she scrambled, like she were desperate to keep the conversation alive. “Like, I love Mistrali food! Especially the noodles. Oh! And those sandwich wrap things? You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“You mean gyros?” Cielo replied. May as well humor her. Keep her from feeling that he was intentionally ignoring her. The term ‘Grimm bait’ got a bit more literal given their current circumstances, after all. “That’s an inferior northern dish, but yeah, they’re pretty alright. More of a yakizakana guy, but not everyone can have good taste.”

“Eh, yeah. Right. Well, I’ve never heard of yana… yakizan… that before. But if it’s anything like a gyro, I’d love to try it sometimes.” There was a short, but stilted pause. “So hey, is it true what they say about people from Mistral?”

“Yes, all Sanctum students are indeed required to complete a year-long course in racketeering.”

“I…” Cards paused, face marked by what could only be described as visible confusion. “Hold on, I’m sorry?”

“The end course assignment was a personalized project,” Cielo continued. “I broke into this one guy’s home and discovered that he was a compulsive hoarder whose habits were destroying his family. It was kinda sad so I cleaned up the place. Then he woke up and I freaked out and smashed a ceramic urn over his head. Then I stole his TV. Apparently he reconciled with his wife and children while he was recovering in the hospital. The moral of the story, Blackjack, is that burglary and assault are the unsung heroes of modern society.”

“What? No, it’s Cards.” Blackjack continued to peddle her lies. “A-and I just wanted to ask if you knew how to dance.”

He shot her an irritated glare. “What? So all Mistrali know how to dance? Don’t be racist, Blackjack.”

“Huh?!” She spluttered, as if his accusation had taken her by surprise. “What?! No! No no no no! That wasn’t what I meant!” Her face turned desperate and her eyes pleading. “It’s just that, well, the movies always—”

“Yeah, just keep digging that hole.”

“No! I-I mean, I—” her voice cracked. She was so pitiful-looking that Cielo felt as though choking an orphaned puppy would somehow be considered less evil. “I—wait. Wait, are just screwing with me?”

“Yuh huh,” Cielo replied.

Blackjack paused, falling behind as she tried to stammer out a demand for an explanation. Emphasis on tried. Eventually she just gave up, huffing as she jogged to catch up to him. “You’re—you’re an ass, did you know that?” Another huff. ”Do you even know where we are? We’re going the right way, right?”

“Left. And yeah, I like to think I have a pretty solid grasp on the whole left, right, up, down, green, x-axis, I sunk your battleship thing.” If there was one thing Cielo was good with, it was directions. Another thing you just sort of picked up by necessity when travelling.

He’d almost forgotten how much he hated forests. Sure, the densely packed trees made it so that he didn’t have the blistering sun bearing down on him. They also made sure to obscure his path. Keeping an eye out for landmarks, or, failing that, making his own always felt like annoying busy work. Every now and so often he’d climb a tree to scout out ahead. Trees, trees, and oh! Would ya look at that! More damn trees! The temple must’ve still been a ways off.

Forests—especially ones with dense vegetation like the one they were currently in—had a way of really making a guy a little wary. Its thick shadows and poor visibility. Every snap of a twig, rustling of leaves, or slightly too noisy cicada song kept his senses active.

Blackjack hummed as they passed by a stone, noting the moss growing on one side. Indeed, it was pointing north. “Well the moss is growing this way, so I guess you were right.”

Cielo shook his head. “Ochi, that’s not really the most reliable way of movin’ from point A to B. Moss generally doesn’t care where it’s facing, so long as the area’s moist enough. So, ya know, it’s probably a bad idea to go around taking directions from plants.”

“O-oh,” she replied, cheeks just a wee bit inflamed. “I mean, yeah of course, I remember reading that somewhere before. It just sort of… you know. Just sorta left me for a second.”

Once more things were quiet between the two as they moved through the dense packing of trees and bushes. Cielo stared up at the sky through the thick canopy of leaves and branches. Cloudy with just a bit of sun filtering through the trees. A nice day all and all. A shame they had to spend it navigating a forest full of man-eating monsters. Getting lost in his thoughts again, he almost failed to notice what sounded like bickering in the distance.

“Hey, uh, you can hear that too, right? Sounds like it’s coming from pretty close by.” Blackjack said, her fingers groping the hilt of a baton-like weapon.

“Sounds like arguing. Probably not the smartest thing to be doing in a forest full of Grimm, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think? Well, maybe you should start thinking?” Blackjack jabbed. Seemed like her own fumbling attempt at a joke. Cielo didn’t really pay it much mind as he moved towards the source of the bickering. “O-oh, right. Yeah, just ignore that one. Please?”

Stepping into a small glade, he saw another pair do the same. Two girls. One pale with long, white hair that was tied into a side-tail and a faint scar over her eye. He sorta digged it. The other was a bit shorter, black hair with bits of red on the end. He recognized the duo. Weiss Schnee and the goth girl. They stopped their little back and forth when they noticed him and Blackjack staring.

Cielo waved.

They waved back after a quick glance at one another.

“Hiya,” the goth girl greeted. Her voice was a lot chirpier than he’d expected. “Are uh, are you guys lost too?”

“We’re not lost!” Schnee insisted, her tone suggesting that they were actually, in fact, quite lost.

“You know, there’s no shame in admitting it, Weiss,” perky goth girl insisted

“There’s plenty shameful in admitting something that isn’t true!”

“Oh yeah? Then please, O’ Frigid Ice Queen, do tell us just where’re we going?”

Schnee let out a dismissive scoff. “I’m not an ice queen! And our destination is, you know, that direction.” She gestured vaguely. “Obviously!”

The goth girl stroked her chin, nodding. “Ah, silly ol’ me. ‘Hand-wavy,’ the most important of the five cardinal directions.”

“Like you know where we’re going!” Schnee barked.

“Well at least I don’t pretend like I know everything!”

What followed was a series of increasingly acidic jabs pointed at one another. The two watched as Schnee and Perky Goth went back and forth at each other. Honestly, it had Cielo suddenly feeling a lot more optimistic about his current partnership.

“Hey, Blackjack.”

“Y-yeah?” she replied, unable to tear her attention from the mutual verbal evisceration.

“I’m glad we’re partners.”

Blackjack blinked and looked up at Cielo, her expression wrinkled with confusion before beaming with delight, moonshard in her eyes. “Really? I mean, well, you know. I’ve always been pretty personable! It’s, like, basically my semblance or something.”

Cielo hummed. “Nice.”

The arguing persisted. Perky Goth was one thing, but he felt as though he would have been right on the money when it came to Schnee. Prim and proper-like for the most part, with that almost archetypical rich-girl spitfire. Reminded him of some of the more well-off students back at Sanctum.

“Hey so, they’ve been going at it for a while now. Shouldn’t we be stopping them?” Blackjack suggested. Then, with a hopeful smile, she added, “Alternatively, you can just keep telling me how awesome I am and it’ll counteract the negative aura they’re giving off.”

She had a point. These two with their bickering were only going to attract more Grimm. Cielo turned back to Schnee and the perky goth and whistled. “Hey, Schnee, Short Stack, shut up for a second.”

“Rude!” they both commented. The perky goth then added, “And my name’s Ruby! Ruby Rose!”

“I didn’t ask, but thanks,” he dismissed.

Blackjack gave his waist a soft elbow. “Hey, don’t be rude,” she chided. “Uh, sorry about that. I’m, uh, Cards. Cards Adler.” She gestured to her partner. “Sourpuss over here is Cielo.”

“I like to think of myself as more tangy with an acid kick than sour,” he corrected. “So now we all know each other. Ruby, Schnee. This over her is Flaps, ignoring her tiny, depressing flatness—”

“Hi, I’m still Cards.”

“—and me-ello.”

Schnee brushed her hair back in a show of regality. “Well it’s good to see that someone educated enough to recognize who I am.”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t Blake both recognize and verbally blow you out of the water?”

Schnee’s pale face burned brighter than the sun. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! That wouldn’t even have happened if you hadn’t—”

Before things could get sidetracked again, Cielo whistled. “Hey! Dammit, stop making me be the adult here! Trust me, you don’t wanna see where that road goes.” He huffed. “Right, so the temple’s over that way,” he said, pointing north. “I figure it’s probably safer movin’ in packs, you know?”

“What he said,” Blackjack replied. “ The Headmaster said we couldn’t depend on him or professor Glynda for help. He didn’t say anything about not lending each other a hand.”

Schnee seemed to think it over for a second before nodding. “This is true. And any sort of help would be better than, well, I don’t think I need to say anything else.” She glared over at Ruby—who fired back with an out-stuck tongue and her fingers shaped like an L on her forehead—but otherwise seemed to agree on working together for the time being.

These two were going to be the death of him. And he still had no idea what to expect from Blackjack. Finding her struggling against a tree branch and mere seconds away from ending up between a beowolf’s fangs didn’t inspire a great amount of confidence. Still, they were partners, meaning he’d cover for her as much he could.

He was a lad amongst ladies. Some might say that was even more dangerous than any Grimm.

— 11 —​

“It’s a miracle when you think about it,” Pyrrha said. “You actually approach bearable when your mouth is shut.”

“Amazing,” Jack said, pulling back from the last bits of medical work he was doing to her arm. “Took the words right outta my mind.”

She sighed. “And just like that it’s over.”

“You bring out the best in me, Nikki.” He flashed her a smile as he cleaned his hands.

Pyrrha stood and rolled her shoulder. It was all bandaged up and her wounds were cleaned. “You’re clearly supposed to be here,” she said thoughtfully. “The staff hasn’t kicked you out. Why didn’t you have an airpass, Depends?”

“Jack,” he said, avoiding the question.

“I’m sorry.”

“The name. It’s Jack.”

“Of all trades, ace of none?”

Jack made a face at the girl. “What?”

“Like the Vale phrase, I mean.”

Jack stood back and gave Nikki a long, speculate look. “You self-made or daddy’s-money-made? There’s only two types of people from Mistral who done well by themselves, and those are it.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Your gear looks expensive. Weapon actually transforms.” With a quick motion of the wrist he produced his butterfly knife aptly named ‘A Subtle Knife,’ twirling it through his fingers. “Mine don’t.”

“You’re an actual student, though,” she said thoughtfully, as if trying to piece some puzzle together. Her green eyes roved him. “Are you yourself self-made or…?”

Jack had to hold back a disdainful expression. Her avoiding the question made him jump to the worst conclusion. Girl was old Mistrali money. For his own part, he flicked the chain hanging from his neck, the little symbol hanging there over his breast.

“Local religious symbol, right? Sorry, I’m not familiar with it.”

She didn’t know? Jack hesitated to reply, mostly because Jack knew he’d started off on a bad foot with Nikki. He needed to carefully craft his responses to her if he wanted to fix things, but to do that he needed to better understand her. He needed to custom build for Nikki a more palatable front personality, and at present he wasn’t sure admitting to his patron deity would help.

But people were a game of give and take. Show a moment of truth, something cutting close to his heart. A gamble to see how Pyrrha took the information.

“The Nameless Thirteenth,” Jack said in a softer voice. “oft-denied patron god (and sometimes goddess) of thieves, prostitutes, and those in need. The Thirteenth’s only commandment is ‘Survive!’ ”

She gave him a discerning looks. “Thieves and prostitutes,” she finally said.

He met her gaze with a look just as sharp. “The unwanted need someone looking out for them, after all. Even if all the someone is doing is teaching them how to look out for themselves by any means.”

“So you’re a self-made student.”

He nodded.

“Ah,” she breathed as if coming to some darkly amusing realization. “Oh me of little faith. How silly. No wonder I can’t see how you acting like a self-centered child instead of working with me helps you look out for yourself. I just don’t have the religious expertise.”

Jack looked away. “Sure thing, mom.” It didn’t have anything approaching the sarcastic force he’d been aiming for. More a petulant child than anything. Which he knew wasn’t exactly proving her wrong.

Pyrrha clasped her hands together and tapped her index fingers to her lips, nodding. “Exactly. There. I think I’m starting to see how this is helping you survive out here with all these Grimm. It’s so subtle you’d have to be an idiot to see it! The very model of smart self-sufficiently.”

“I get it,” he said.

She scoffed a laugh. “I don’t think you do, Jack.”

He sucks in his bottom lip.

“There’s something you need to understand, Jack.” Pyrrha said his name almost like a cross between a curse and punctuation. “You’re not better than me, Jack.”

He whirled on her, but she held her ground. Even poked him hard in the chest with her bad arm, as if pushing him back. The look on her face was even, more frustrated than angry.

“And I’m not better than you, Jack,” she said with only the slightest of grit teeth. “We’re partners. A team. And we have to work together if we want to survive as Huntsmen.”

They were so close to each other. She had to angle her head back to meet his eyes, but she didn’t flinch.

Jack chose to avert his eyes first, just looking aimlessly into the forest. “Yeah,” he said noncommittally.

Pyrrha compressed a breath and took a step back. She was still trying to meet his eyes, even if he wasn’t. The girl held out a hand. She didn’t say anything, didn’t attempt to explain what she was doing, merely let the hand speak for itself.

“Always have to be the adult, huh?” he said, letting a smile flicker across the sides of his mouth.

“One of us has to be,” she said with her own ghost of a smile

Jack almost felt they were having a moment. He almost felt bad he knew he couldn’t share it with her. There’s a careful balancing act here he has to play. Instead he put his hands in his pocket and brushes past her good side.

“Whatever, yeah. Let’s just get to the temple and get out of this place, Nikki.”

“I’ll consider that progress,” she said with a disappointed look. Disappointed, but not unexpected.

No sooner than she’d turned to head back in the right direction with Jack then came a voice from the thicker part of the forest.

“Hey, is someone out there?”

Both Jack and Nikki stopped. He hadn’t heard anyone approaching. And when he thought about it, wasn’t sure how many other students were in the area. He tried to place the voice with one of the freshmen he’d briefly brushed shoulders with, but couldn’t. He hadn’t been talking with enough of them for long enough thanks to Nikki chasing him.

“Yes, there is,” Pyrrha called back, turning half her body towards the voice. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s my friend,” the voice called back out. Something about it sounded off, like the person was in some form of shell-shock. Almost couldn’t believe the words coming out of their mouth.

He stepped forwards held out an arm across Pyrrha’s chest to stop her from moving after the speaker. “You recognize them?” he said quietly.

“No, why?” she asked,

Jack glared in the direction of the overgrown forest the voice came from. “How many of us are in this freshman class?”

“Please, I think she’s hurt. I need help,” they called again.

Something in Pyrrha’s face soured, like Jack was already pressing onto the thin ice if truce the two had frozen for each other. “It doesn’t. They’re asking for help.”

“I don’t know, something about them seems.” Jack paused mid-sentence.

“What about them?”

“Them the one calling for help or them the person and their friend?” he asked quickly.

“Both, judging from the sound of their voice.”

“Their.”

She sensed it too, even if she didn’t know it, but Jack could put words to it. He couldn’t tell the gender behind the voice. Not even a definite age. Just that shell-shocked tone and its direction. It reminded Jack of the all too common street scam of screaming for help to attract and mug a good Samaritan.

“I think it’s a trap,” he said to her, his voice low, insistent

Pyrrha made a face like she were a teacher and Jack a young student who’d thought he’d figured out the bestest way to end world suffering and had proudly come to her with the idea hoping for her praise. ‘We just have to defeat the Grimm and it’ll all be okay.’

“It’s the Emerald Forest, Jack,” she said in a tone to match her face.

“That supposed to mean me something, Nikki?”

“It means it’s not a trap. It means there’s Grimm here, but it’s almost curated. Like a zoo,” she said, gesturing off into the forest. “Beacon keeps this place pruned and monitored.”

“Yes, and?”

Her nose wrinkled slightly. “It means this isn’t some dark Mistrali alley, Jack.”

He stole a furtive glance at the overgrowth.

Nikki didn’t reply at first. Instead she turned her aura on, took a breath, and then turned it off while giving Jack a strange sort of expression. He wasn’t sure why she’d done that. He was distantly aware both of their auras had been battered badly in that last fight with the Grimm and still needed time to re-adjust or heal up or whatever the correct verb here was.

“Just—trust me,” Pyrrha said softly, “alright? Please.”

Jack didn’t. Not here. It didn’t sit well with his gut. But he sensed the ice she was sliding onto him with. Him and Pyrrha had just gotten onto a good page, an almost working relation. And she was using it as a weapon here, or perhaps more accurately as a crowbar. He knew she was going in there one way or the other, and Jack could have her trust in return or her disgust.

People were a game of give and take.

So Jack gave.


a/n: Glossary of Terms

Ochi — 1) (informal) no, “nah” — from old north Mistrali όχι (no). Sounds very much like “okay” [ˈo̞çi], which can cause confusion between Mistrali and outsiders.

 

Chapter 5: Death Is Just Part of the Process
“Thank you, Professor Ozpin. But I would never have made it this far without my teammates.”
—Some Liar, Probably

—12—​

They say that ex-Huntsmen account for half of all serious crime in the Four Kingdoms. Have hands in it at the very least, particularly when it's organized. Hardened men and women whose psych profiles let them be amazing huntsmen, but by that same token were found unfit for duty in things like police or mercenary work. Like so many other huntsmen find themselves after they’re done hunting the forces of Grimm and got no well-stocked retirement account or nice company or government funded pension.

The problem with Huntsmen sometimes you have to call it quits. The harrowing life of fighting Grimm day in and day out will eventually break you and everyone else on some level. Even if you have three souls you consider closer than your own family at your side while a proper Huntsman, something’s gotta give, either mentally or bodily. And in the latter case you either die or wind up a cripple. So after serving years upon years as Huntsman, fighting the enemies of mankind, you retire to your home somewhere in the Four Kingdoms or between them. Only to find that you have a very particular skill-set but very few opportunities to employ those skills. Being a Huntsman is already a lot like being a super-powered mercenary. And after doing it all, many can't exactly function in the normal world anymore, at least as far as Jack understands it.

But like everything you do, you have options. Certain specialized police work, special service positions in the military or local militia, working as high end mercenaries doing the dirty and particularly troublesome jobs that non Huntsman can't do. And if those fail, and you have the easy opportunity to commit crime for profit, knowing that almost nothing but other trained Huntsmen can take you down. Because at the end of the day, the lifestyle of fighting Grimm or being a soldier isn't that much different from organized crime. They fit in easy enough with the gig.

The first Huntsman Jack ever met was a man like that. A turquoise Aura, gear and weapons that made the mouth water, and a professional demeanor that made everyone fear him, even the men who were hiring him. At the time Jack was like most people. He had no real understanding of Aura or Semblance. Hell, he still doesn’t really. Folks on the street just said that Huntsman had “the Shine.” It’s what they called the Aura where he was.

The meeting hadn’t been pretty. Jack never forget the casual way the man with the Shine use an aura-charged backhand to literally cave in a man’s face. Given that the Huntsman had washed up into fairly low-end criminal life, he probably hadn’t even been a very good Huntsman. And here he was, practically invincible.

From that moment on, Jack had had moonshards in his eyes. To command the power, such prestige, that respect, Jack had to have it. And he would do better than a man who found himself doing petty crime to get by. Jack would be the very best Huntsman there ever was just on the principle of the thing.

And to that end, he was here, following this hot redhead through the darkest part of the Emerald Forest into a trap that he knew would come. All because he knew that he had to play this girl if you wanted to keep her on the side. He had to bend to her if he wanted her to bend to him. This had become a necessary sacrifice, but that didn't mean Jack liked any bit at all.

Something rustled in the bush the head of them. “Please, this way,” that same, sexless, almost toneless voice beckoned from ahead.

“Please slow down, we’re right behind you!” Pyrrha called out, tracking after the voice. She glanced back at Jack and flashed an almost nervous little smile.

Jack resisted the urge to scowl. Instead he made himself meet her green eyes and nod once. The two of them were in this together. Although he was still dealing, he would have her back through thick and thin here. And God damn if he didn’t expect her to pay him back in kind for this.

“It’s just up here.”

Jack said nothing. He kept his nose to the grindstone, indigo eyes scanning everything he could see. He paid attention to every breath of wind, every wet forest scent. He aimed to sense whatever Pyrrha was missing.

Long ago Jack had learned about the remarkable relation between the human eye and the mind—the two work together to ignore more than they see. You can train yourself to break that relationship. All it takes is stopping sometimes and asking yourself what you can hear, what you can feel, what you see. Noting, they called it. Categorizing every little sensation that flesh can perceive, the kind most people spend their whole lives routinely ignoring. You need to immerse yourself in the moment, let your surroundings permeate every membrane, and absorb it all. Become one with the flow. Establish a baseline.

Psychospiritual shit.

It was casual advice the turquoise Huntsman had told Jack.

He always wondered if that interact had been the reason he’d been able to find and activate his own aura.

Forests, Jack was finding out, were very quiet places. Nothing like the lively energy of a public park. As him and Pyrrha went after the voice, the scent of copper coins drifted over the air. Not blood, but well-used coins equal parts metal and finger grease. He didn’t think that belonged in the forest, but this was Jack’s first time in one. What did he know?

The trees thinned out somewhat, but the canopy continued strangle the late-morning sunlight, leaving the clearing in a state of sleepy twilight. Save for the lone darkwood in the center of it all, like the entire clearing were some sort of giant’s bullseye.

The figure who’d collapsed against the tree wasn’t moving. Like they’d broken something when they’d fallen face down onto it.

“Hello?” Pyrrha said, glancing back at Jack.

He anxious twirled the his butterfly knives. Something of a tick. Reminded him he was armed. For the life of Jack, he couldn’t place the person. He’d taken stock of everyone in his freshman class, but that didn’t help him here.

“Hello,” echoed the facedown body.

Pyrrha approached the figure. For a moment she flashed her aura, then shook her head and dropped her Shine. “You’re safe now. We’ve come to help.”

Jack remained several tactical paces behind Pyrrha. Why was there only one person here? He surveyed the trees for the rest of the trappers.

The body shook. “It’s so cold,” they said. The voice changed. Like it was someone else.

Even Pyrrha was sensing something being off. She approached the person slower, still holding her weapons. The girl didn’t reply this time. She flashed her aura again. Jack had no idea what that was about, she still seemed clueless of the trap. As much as he was, unfortunately.

“They have a pig in the next villager over,” they said. A coughing fit. The voice changed, more feminine now. “They call it the mother of all sows. I’ve never seen it. What’s your name?”

Their cadence was off. Like they were doing a vocal version of a prank call soundboard. Every word mixed and matched from a different, unrelated sentence.

“That’s not important. Is it your head?” Pyrrha said.

“Your name,” they said.

“Where’s the injury? Can you move?”

The facedown figure fidgeted as if deeply anxious. “Your name. What is your name?”

“Pyrrha,” she said.

They sighed deeply and slowly sat up, still staring at the tree. “My head, Pyrrha.” When it said her name, it sounded like Pyrrha, the voice warped somehow. “Pyrrha. I like games. Do you know where mommy is? Pyyyyrrha.”

Jack grit his teeth. “Look, you better start explaining what this damn thing is now before I snap. This has gone on too long.”

Pyrrha didn’t snap at him like he’d worried. Instead she put up her aura and kept it.

The figure turned around. Its face was a twisting black mass that looked like it were made from liquid ebony wood. A proper face took form as the twisted settled and dried like thick paint. Pyrrha’s face.

The girl herself just stood there at a loss. “You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “You—you’re not supposed to be here.”

“The. Name. Is. Pyrrha,” the thing—Grimm?—said in a warped version of her voice. “I need help. It’s so cold. They call it the mother of all sows.”

The way it stood up made it look like it was broken inside. A tall, imposing figure who’d just been the victim of a car crash, the endorphins just strong enough so it didn’t realize it’d broken so many of its bones. The liquid of its face dried. Joints popped and crackled as it got shorter, arms receding into themselves until they were of Pyrrha’s length. The mounds of breasts bubbled up from the clothing it wore.

“I’ve never seen it. Pyrrha. Do you like games? So do I.”

With wide eyes, Pyrrha rammed her sword into the Grimm’s chest. “Skinwalker!” she shouted. “We need to go!”

The skinwalker grabbed the sword in its chest and jostled it. Smiling a twisted parody of Pyrrha’s, it looked up and past Jack and Pyrrha. “They like games.”

She pulled her sword free, only to stop as a harsh shiver ran through her. She glanced over her shoulder where the skinwalker was looking. Her face fell, like her father had just come home drunk, sodomized the family dog, and then told Pyrrha he and her mom were getting a divorce and yes it was all her fault. A mix of horror and loss with a healthy dose of I’m fucking done with today.

Jack had already seen it, the hulking Grimm in the treetops behind them. A single red eye slid through vein-like channels over its body so it could settle on the pair. It was like the mutilated, skeletal torso of a man, the spine stretched out to make a tail. Two massive sets of arms. More arms sprouted from the arms, and arms sprouted from those too. Like a fractal pattern, the arms devolved into smaller and smaller arms, and smaller and smaller arms branched off those, becoming a warren of hands and arms and elbows grabbing everything.

Hands linking together made up a sort of cloak. Hands grabbed at branches and pressed up against bark to keep it suspended there in the branches, like a flying animal captured in a picture. Hands idly clawed at the tops of trees, whittling at them for lack of bone and flesh to grasp. Hands played with each other in a jungle gym hand nursery, cracking and popping to grow new elbow joints to help bend as needed.

It hurt to look at. Jack felt he’d go insane if he tried to make sense of it all.

Pyrrha's voice was a hoarse little whisper. “Handyman. Run!”

—13—​

Cards patiently waited near a tree, staring up past the leaves and branches as she watched Cielo scan the area ahead of them. Ruby and Weiss kept a measurable distance from one another, barely even affording the other a glance. ‘Awkward Silence’ was the name of the game the four of them played as they made their way through the Emerald Forest. At the very least, she could console herself with the knowledge that it hadn’t been her fault this time. Still, the air was a little tense. Honestly, she wouldn’t’ve been surprised if a Grimm had attacked them right then and there.

And with that sobering thought she figured it would behoove her to try and lighten the mood.

It seemed that the game had grown too dull and Ruby broke just before Cards could even begin suggesting topics to herself. “Hey, sooo…” she began. “Cards, right?”

“Huh?” Cards replied, blinking. “Oh! Yes, I am Cards, yes!” She made pretend as though she hadn’t just made an awkward sentence even more awkward by bookending it like that.

Between the three of them, Ruby seemed the easiest to speak with. Weiss had come across as cold and just a little intimidating if she was being honest. Meanwhile Cielo was just, well, strange. Plus he seemed adamant to address her using a variety of different card games, and she wasn’t entirely sure if he was kidding or not.

By comparison, the smaller girl just seemed the most normal of the bunch. Plus she’d been the only person at Beacon that was shorter than Cards, if only by a half inch.

“That’s a nice, uh, stick-thing you’ve got there,” Ruby said, gesturing at the weapon on Cards’ waist. “It’s very stick-like. Good for sticking people and stuff, I bet!”

“Oh,” she replied, brandishing her revolver-stunbaton, gunmetal-gray, and about as long as her forearm with the words ‘HERE TO HELP’ painted along its length. “Thanks. I kinda threw it together myself, so it’s not really all that sophisticated or anything.”

That seemed to get shorter girl’s attention.

“Oooooh, you made that?”

Cards winced slightly. “Well, sorta. In a way.” Her voice softened with each passing word. “I mean, I just kinda found my mom’s old weapon and made some modifications to it. Like, you know, the paint job.” An apologetic, self-conscious half-grin stretched her features. Why couldn’t the conversation just end there? She’d made such a good impression too!

But it didn't seem like Ruby was too, too bothered by it. Moonshards glimmered in her eyes.

“That’s so cool!” she beamed, hovering closer to Cards. “Your mom’s a Huntstress?”

Again, Cards winced. She’d almost begun sinking deeper into her police outfit. “Yeah. Or at least, she used to be before she became a cop.”

Ruby looked her up and down. “Oooooh. I guess that explains the outfit.”

“Does that mean you’ll narc on us if we get on your bad side?” Cielo asked as he dropped from the tree, landing behind Cards.

She yelped and nearly tipped forwards into Ruby. “Please don’t do that!” she chided. “And no? Why would I—?”

“Because I don’t have a bag full of tetrameth that I plan on selling to students come the Vytal Festival. Why would you ask me that? Who told you? Don’t believe their lies.”

Cards blinked. “Cielo, what—?”

“Are you quite done?” Weiss interjected, shoving her way into the semicircle that had formed between three of them. She'd been so busy sculking all by herself that Cards had almost forgotten she was there.

“Well, ecks-kew-say me, Miss Schnee,” Cielo articulated.

Weiss made a low, growling noise. “Are we heading in the right direction or what?”

“Well, if you really just gotta know, then yeah, temple’s visible on the horizon. Though if I’m being uncharacteristically honest, calling it a ‘temple’ is just a mite bit generous.”

“So we aren't too far off?” Ruby asked.

“Well I didn’t say that,” Cielo clarified. “There’s still a lot ground to cover between here and there.”

Cards nodded. “Right. Anything can go wrong at a moment’s notice. So we need to keep our heads in the game, right?” There was this beaming look on her face, as though she’d been expecting a pat on the back.

“Well I didn’t wanna jinx it, Flaps!” Cielo berated. Cards made a low, wounded noise like a kicked puppy as her smile fell. “But yeah. What she said. There’s still a bit of a trek ahead of us so keep the hostilities to a minimum,” he said, eying Ruby and Weiss in particular.

The white-haired heiress scoffed, brushing a hand through her ponytail, but said nothing otherwise. Ruby just held up an “okay” sign.

With that, the four of them continued further into the forest. Surrounded by the three, Cards felt significantly more at ease. Cielo seemed strong enough himself, and though she couldn’t say much with regards to Ruby or Weiss, they both seemed to carry themselves with a kind of confidence. Something that made them seem like they just belonged here at Beacon.

Suddenly, that sense of ease melted and warped into something else. The three of them just seemed so much more collected. Then there was her. She who nearly became Grimm chow within the first few minutes. She who needed to rescued before she’d even started.

Was she even doing the right thing?

Cards shook her head. She was letting her insecurities get to her again. She wasn’t some go-fi—fish out of water. It wasn’t like she didn’t belong at Beacon! She’d been trained by top notch Huntsmen and she graduated Dawn Academy with high marks! Mostly.

Sure, she might’ve fumbled every now and again in the combat department, and she might not have ever really encounter any Grimm outside of carefully monitored training sessions, but dammit, she was going to make the Adler family proud—!

Cards let out a grunt as she collided with Cielo’s back. He’d stopped walking. Same with Weiss and Ruby. “What? Guys?”

Cielo hissed a sharp “shh!” in reply. “We got company.”

“Company? What—?” Then it hit her. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d dropped her aura. She didn’t need to raise it to know what was happening, but she did anyway. Her aura raised and her senses opened. A chill went through her and she went rigid. Most people had always described as a feeling of being watched, and while they weren’t wrong per se, that didn’t do it much justice. There was this creeping dread that oozed through every nerve, as though her very soul was awash by a cascade of spiders.

Yeah, it was the Grimm alright. She totally jinxed it.

Her breathes felt shallower as she reached for her weapon, tightening her grip on her weapon, even if it was only to calm the tremors shaking her arm.

Cielo, Ruby, and Weiss had all drawn their weapons as well.

From the surrounding edges of the forest, the beasts of darkness crept from the shadows, their blood red eyes hungrily staring down the quartet as they circled around them. Beowolves. Slightly less than a dozen but Cards could feel their bloodlust.

“S’lot,” Cielo commented.

“How are we going to handle this?” Weiss asked.

“We take ’em out, duh,” Ruby replied.

Any retort Weiss might’ve had died as the first of the Grimm launched themselves at the group. She panicked, she’d admit. Cards swung her baton, averting her eyes for a split second before her weapon had even made contact with the Grimm. A bit of a bad habit she’d never quite dropped back at combat school.

Miraculously, her strike hit its mark, pushing the pouncing beowolf back, though it recovered without much issue.

Cards swallowed her anxiety. No time for doubts. Doubt and die, as went the Adler family’s motto.

The beowolf charged once more as Cards readied herself. She managed to parry the first couple slashes from its claws, each blow quite a bit faster and stronger than she had been expecting. She lost ground, nearly stumbling onto the ground as the next strike came. Cards went low, narrowly avoiding the attack and countered with a blow of her own. She jabbed her stunbaton at the beast’s torso, stunning it as an electric shock coursed through its body.

Another of the wolves pounced. Cards had managed to push the stunned beowolf fast enough to throw her arms in front of herself.

She hit the dirt. The Grimm loomed over her, pinning her wrists to the ground. It snarled and growled; rancid breath warm on her face.

Cards struggled against its grip. She tugged and jerked and pushed until her wrists felt like they would snap.

It didn’t work.

Some of the Grimm had seemingly taken note of her situation, breaking away from Cielo in favor of gang-feasting on her.

In spite of that, Cards’ foremost concerns were of the beast on top of her.

Its jaws widened. It was like staring down a deep, dark well. Too dark to see, too deep to escape.

But she still had an ace up her sleeve.

Her semblance.

A real finicky thing. Its timing needed to be near perfect, but it was her only shot at making it out of this alive.

The beowolf’s fangs came down. Cards tensed. There was no pain. Only a vague sort of pressure where the beast had bitten her.

Then there was a sharp pulse. One that shook through her body and towards the Grimm.

It was forced off of her, the bone armor protecting its head was shattered and its jaw was torn open.

Then there was a gunshot.

The wolf reeled backwards, what remained its face blown clean off. Who—? Despite its gruesome injury, it moved to strike.

More bullets ripped through its dark hide and bone-like armor.

It collapsed onto its back. Cards looked up. The other wolves had ceased their advance, warily regarding Cielo, who stood not too far away from Cards. His sword had been split in two. A shorter sword in his right hand and an oversized pistol in his left.

“I’m gonna start recording these, Flaps!”

She blinked. “Cielo, you—?”

“No! Less talking, more killing!” Cielo barked, yanking the dazed girl to her feet.

Standing side-by-side with Cielo, Cards scanned for Ruby and Weiss. It seemed as though there were even more Grimm than before. Had they been lying in wait?

Through the mass, she could spot Ruby dashing after a pair of larger beowolves with her scythe. The two Grimm moved with an almost human kind of coordination. When she got close to one, the other tried to move around her. As Ruby sank her scythe blade into the attempted flanker’s neck and pulled the trigger, the other backed away again. Ruby tore after it in a swirl of red petals and a roar of gunfire.

Weiss appeared to be figure skating, gliding along glyphs that appeared on the forest floor. She leaped and pirouetted towards a Grimm, striking it with a number of stabs and slashes.

They were so much better than her.

“Hey! Focus!” Cielo snapped.

A pair of Grimm were on them. Cielo shot forward. His pistol transformed, matching the short sword in his right hand. He and the beowolves traded blows, sword and claw appearing as blurs before Cards’ eyes. Once he gained ground, Cielo pushed his attack. Kicking away one of the wolf beasts, he pressed the the remaining beowolf with a savage dance of kicks and slashes.

She almost didn't notice the monster Cielo kicked away had turned its attention onto her.

Almost.

It lunged at her and she went low. They were fast and they hit hard. Really hard. Cards figured she'd have an easier time avoiding the blows all together than trying to parry.

She rose and smashed the butt of her baton into the Grimm’s jaw. She’d be lying if she said she didn't feel a small pang of euphoria shoot through her. Something that would've had her squealing had she not been so focused on getting out of here alive.

No. She wasn't just going to survive. She was going to come out on top.

The wolf beast stumbled back, visibly dazed. Cards pressed. Doubt and die. Her baton struck against the Grimm, each hit sending a shock through its hide.

Her strike were admittedly clumsy; her footwork was sloppy and she averted her eyes with every swing. One attack went wide and the beowolf recovered. The two traded blows and Cards was thrown off her balance, just barely managing to remain upright. The beowolf had retained its footing and rushed her down.

Cards dived to the side. She could taste the soil on her lips as she kissed the dirt. Activating the switch on its hilt, Cards’ baton morphed into its six-shot revolver form.

She rolled onto her back and pulled the trigger and the gun roared, the bullet spinning out of the barrel and tearing through the beowolf just as it had pounced her once more.

It hit the ground, writhing for a moment before it crawled to its feet.

Cards fired again. And again. And again until the cylinder was empty, each shot threatening to send the gun flying from her grasp.

Despite it all, the thing still managed to weakly crawl towards her before finally expiring.

Cards forced herself to stand. She couldn’t let herself rest. Not here. Not now. Too many Grimm to let herself start to slack.

Too many…

There were definitely way more than when they’d first been ambushed, as though they’d been filtering in from the edges of the forest. Were there supposed to be this many? Where’d they all come from?

And where were the others?

Then came a low roar.

Cards turned and found Cielo pairing off against a beowolf. Both she and him were surrounded by the black wolves, hemmed in from Ruby and Weiss by a wall of Grimm.

Were they trying to divide them?

The beast slashed at him, the force knocking one of his swords away and breaking his guard for a moment. Clearly having spotted the opening, the beast lunged at him, fangs bared.

Cielo threw his empty arm in front of the monster. Its jaws clamped down. He let out a strangled grunt, clearly biting back a scream of of pain. Cards could see the blood pouring down his forearm.

“Cielo!” she cried out. It was like time had crawled if only to force her to watch her partner get mauled to death.

“Ouch!” he growled, stabbing his sword into the beast’s gut. He strained, grunting with effort, and lifted the beowolf off the ground before twisting and slamming it into the dirt.

The sword stabbed deeper and the monster let out a roar, freeing Cielo’s arm.

He replaced it with the barrel of his gun.

“Hope this tastes better,” he said. Then he pulled the trigger, blowing a hole through its mouth and into the ground.

Another lunged at him from behind.

Cards fumbled with one of her pouches and grabbed an ice Dust round. Her wallet was going to feel this in the morning. Loading it into her revolver, she called out to Cielo.

“Behind you!”

She took aim and Cielo dashed away, snatching his sword off the ground as he did.

She fired. The round exploded in a flower of ice and froze the monster solid.

Cards hurried towards Cielo out of concern for both their safety.

Where are…?

It took her a moment to find Ruby and Weiss once more amidst the chaos.

The ever-growing wall of Grimm separated them into lonely pairs. She could still see the girls fighting, killing many small Grimm but always being pressed by more.

“Get down!” Cielo cried as a beowolf lunged at Cards. A quick shot from one of his gunblades put it down for the time being. “Shit, that’s what they were playing at. Distract us with the first wave, then hem us in from each other.”

So she wasn’t just crazy. Divided and overwhelmed on purpose. They needed to get away, and fast.

“Ruby! Weiss!” Cards called out. “We need to regroup!”

“There’s way too many of them!” Weiss replied, struggling against a pair of beowolves.

“Split up?” Ruby suggested.

If she was being honest, Cards hated the idea. But what else were they going to do? The wall between them only grew, more Grimm flooded the area.

“Meet you at the temple!” Cards said. “Be careful!”

The two girls took off.

“Son of a bitch, they’re going the wrong—nevermind!” Cielo growled. “Just run!”

Sticking close together, the two cut into the forest and made further north.

Though she dared not look back, Cards could hear the barks and snarls of their pursuers. Clawed feet and hands stampeded after them with single-minded determination.

Her heart pounded in her ears and against her chest. Her legs screamed as she pushed their limit.

But she pushed herself to keep up with Cielo. If she fell behind, she was dead.

Sunlight filtering through the dense layer of trees ahead of them. A clearing?

“Flaps!” she heard Cielo call. “Dust! Have any?”

“What? Why? What kind?” she cried back, digging through her pouches, regardless. Don’t trip! Don't trip!

“Don’t matter! We’re gonna jump!”

“What?!”

As the edge of the forest drew closer, Cards realized that it wasn’t a clearing. It was a cliff.

Oh right, she’d forgotten all about that.

She didn’t think she liked that idea very much. But between that and becoming Grimm chow, she figured she had few options available to her. She’d have to trust Cielo on this one.

Cards pulled a vial filled with red Dust from her bag. Fire. “Here!” she said, holding it out to Cielo as they ran.

“Not yet! I’ll tell you when!”

The cliff was right there, just beyond the trees. The Grimm were right at their backs. Cards could feel their claws scant inches from her. But she didn’t look back. Her chest burned and her legs wanted to give up.

But she made it.

They were at the cliff.

Then they tumbled over the edge

“Toss it!” Cielo directed right as they went airborne.

Without thinking too much about what she was going, Cards twisted mid-air threw the vial at their pursuers as they followed them off the cliff. Time dialed back as the container soared through the air.

Cielo turned around as well, one of his swords now a gun. He fired. The Dust canister erupted into a red hell.

A fiery explosion shook the air and blinded her. Wisps of heat lapping at her face, caressing her cheeks before the explosive force ripped the breath from her lungs and gut-kicked her backwards.

She had no air to scream with, only a throaty choking sound.

There was a lesson she was supposed to learn from this, Cards found herself thinking in a daze, this having been sent through the air by a madman for the second time that day. She was sure she’d learn it eventually.

The trees rushed up to grab her like the bone fingers of flesh-hungry shamblemen. She couldn’t watch. She covered her head with her arms, in large part to keep her beret from flying off of her head. Had to die with some dignity.

Then she felt something crash into her. Or, more accurately, someone.

Cielo had grabbed hold of her, looking eerily calm as they fell at—what her brain hyperbolically referred to as—terminal velocity.

But instead she felt themselves slowing down. It wasn’t gentle in the slightest, but it felt as though the air resistance had increased, pushing back at them as they fell. Cielo had taken the brunt of the fall, shielding Cards’ body with his own when they finally crashed through the trees.

They smashed into the earth. The cloud of dirt and grass was smaller than she’d imagined. And also less filled with pulped-Cards. Which was a plus. They bounced off and rolled. Cards nearly lost her lunch. She was still shaking, her head barely able to stay up, when she realized they had stopped.

No movement. No noise. Minimally broken body parts.

Alive.

Didn’t matter much. Cards still clung to Cielo as if she’d start falling again if she let go. Her legs hurt. Her heart was clawing for freedom through her chest. She struggled to remember how to use her lungs, like they’d collapsed on her and refused to get back up.

It took embarrassingly long to excise herself from Cielo—Oh wow, those pecs!—and looked up through the trees at the cliff. They’d left behind a burgeoning inferno up there. It was probably only going to spread, but at least there weren’t any Grimm coming after them.

Cards blanched slightly as she remembered the words from the cute bear girl on that Forest Services poster. “Only you can prevent forest fires. We mean that. The Kingdom cut the Forest Services’ budget this year. It’s all on you, man.” Yet another failure on her part. Sorry, Smokey.

Although, if she shut off the part of her brain that told her she’d potentially just murdered a few small woodland creatures and endangered the lives of any fellow students near the area, she felt a smidgen of accomplishment beam through her.

“Huh,” Cielo grunted as he sat up. “So we agree that if anyone asks, we say this was your fault, right?”

Cards didn’t have any words. She just stared at him, her breath coming out as slow, steady gasps. Before she could rethink her choice of partners, she noticed the bloody wound on Cielo's arm.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, gesturing at his bleeding forearm.

He examined it with seemingly detached curiosity. “Oh yeah, that does kinda hurt.”

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, his aura must’ve persisted somewhat. Stopped the fangs from digging as deep as they could have. And she knew it’d heal soon, but the need feel useful forced her to act. Besides, it still looked like it hurt.

“I mean, I’ve got a first-aid kit in my pack. I can, you know…” Cards trailed off as Cielo stared at her with a lazy sort of scrutiny. Her voice dropped in volume and assuredness. “…maybe dress the wound or something?”

Her partner kept silent and stared. So silent that all Cards heard was the fire raging above them. She’d done something bad again, hadn’t she?

Then Cielo shrugged. “Yeah, alright.”

— 14 —​

Ozpin looked at the collected camera feeds on his desk and the feeds from two of his staff’s Bullheads. On one side, truth. On the other, a lie. On the left, multiple angles showed empty clearings or small packs of Beowolves and Ursa Minors. On the right, one feed a showed two of his most promising students fighting for their lives against a tide of black fur and pale bone. The other showed a nightmare fusion of man and equine. Its body sprouted dozens of arrows, broken spears, and snapped sword blades. The bone plates were chipped and weathered, but Ozpin knew such things made no difference on their fortitude. As the aircraft circled the hole in the canopy through which it had spotted the nightmare, he saw it twitchilly rotate its head to keep the Bullhead in its leering gaze.

Whoever had done this had been good. It’s taken his staff over an hour into the freshman initiation to fully realize the feeds were compromised. Long enough to give the Grimm that shouldn’t be in the Emerald Forest a chance to turn the morning into a bloodbath. The full toll wouldn’t be known until all the students were back, but at they’d spotted at least five students dead or badly wounded. Ozpin had all the proof he needed. He didn’t really have a choice what to do anymore.

He stood and picked up his cane, clicking the trigger to extend it. As he strode to the elevator, he pressed the quick-dial button on his scroll for the emergency command frequency. “Put all teachers into deployment groups and scramble all Bullheads. And contact Celadon Command for all available rapid reaction squads.”

The door to the elevator closed and the machine shot down the tower at an accelerated speed. Monitors within the elevator flashed awake for him to oversee. Ozpin grimaced at what he needed to finish with. “Tell them Beacon is now at Alert Level Zero.”

Before him the monitors showed Beacon awakening like a nest of hornets. Everyone know what do. They’d drilled for this eventuality. It was enough to give Ozpin a drop of uneasy pride. Professors gathered up in old Huntsman teams, divvying themselves up to where they thought they might be best needed to combat the specific Grimm hotspots. At least the most dangerous parts their still broken monitor network could figure.

Goodwitch and the Slayer met up for the drop into the worst part of the forest. A new teacher who was more Atlesian cybernetics than human stood alongside Professor Oobleck. Professor Port organized the older student teams who were willing to volunteer to help the freshman class. By the time the elevator hit the ground floor, Beacon had mobilized.

As Ozpin walked towards the landing pads, he reached into his coat pocket and fished out an old piece of technology. It looked more like a hand-sized brick than the sleek two-piece bookends and holographic screens of modern scrolls. He flipped it open and jammed down the blocky three button. It rang once, an ancient crackly tone. Twice, three times, then a click as it picked up.

“Headmaster Ozpin.” A voice just showing the signs of age picked up. It had a tense edge to it. “I do hope this is a social call. Perhaps an invitation to tea. I could use a relaxing drink to help wax nostalgic that the War’s over.”

“No, Councilman Haverson, it is not. I have declared a Level Zero at Beacon. I need the council’s full cooperation.”

The crackling sigh on the other end wasn’t just from the poor audio quality.

“I do so love it when you bring me good news, Ozpin. Especially when it’s light on concrete details. Just like my morning broadsheets.” Haverson let out a short bark of a laugh. There was no humor with it. More like a desperate man’s reaction to learning he’s been sentenced to hang.

“I need you to say it, Ozpin,” Haverson said in a soft, almost childlike voice. Finger joints popped from the other end of the call. “You know we’ll have your back. I’mvealready sent for Lindy and Sherry per the Stone Protocol. But I need to hear you say it.”

Ozpin opened his mouth, only to find himself biting down a grim chuckle all his own. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s said something like this, not even in his current incarnation’s life. Didn’t make it any easier. It just made Ozpin feel tired.

He was about to utter the truth. A truth he knew he’d have to say eventually. He always did in the end, one way or another. So would end the stopgap façade of peace that he and so many others helped to build with blood, tears, and so many lost friends.

Ozpin would miss that illusion of breathing room.

“Yes, Harold,” Ozpin said in a firm voice, “it’s true. Beacon’s been compromised. We’re at war.”

 

Chapter 6: The Handyman Can
“I can’t take it anymore! Can everyone just chill out for two seconds before something crazy happens again?!”

—15—​

Part of Jack felt glad Pyrrha was taking the lead here. It was in his best interests, in the end.

“There’s a few things you’ll want to do if you want to survive Beacon,” the Right Man from the Government had told Jack. “Learn to stand out in the right ways, just get by in righter way.” Slashing, sleuthing, slumming. Good. “But make some other guy take the fall when it comes to getting Oz’s eye.”

That would have been fine by Jack. It played to his strengths.

What wasn’t fine, was that meant Pyrrha had ran off first. Leaving him just a few feet closer to the grasping warren of hands rocketing itself after them. Jack was tall and agile, but Pyrrha had legs for days and damn if she knew how to use them. That didn’t mean neither of them couldn’t get tired. They’d been in a bad way already.

Jack spun and extended a blade, ripping through dozens and hands and arms. They flew off, dissolving to ash. Nubs rose up in their place like nothing had happened, replacing the limbs with more and more.

“Nikki!” he called out, keeping pace with her as best he could.

“No talk, find open field,” she says, eyes glued forwards. She refuses to look backwards.

“If I die and you don’t, I want you to spiral into guilt over me!”

She flicked him a glance, lips curling back into a bastardized half-sneer.

Branches sundered above them. The fractal limbs of the Handyman slammed into the ground before them like the bars of a cell. Pyrrha jumped and swung with her sword. It ripped through the arms. More rained down from the air as the Handyman caught itself on the trees before them.

How the hell had it gotten ahead of them?

Pyrrha couldn’t adjust herself in the air fast enough. Too many limbs, to many angles to consider. Jack slashed, knives extending. They ripped apart the hand-cage forming around Pyrrha, then turned at sharp angles to catch her by their flats. With a motion like guiding a landing bullhead, Jack threw Pyrrha to the side.

She landed with a roll and leapt to her feet.

“Other way!” Jack yelled, and Pyrrha was already with him.

Suck it, Nikki. I’m in front now!

He spun himself, extending knives again to rip apart scores of Handyman wrists. They broke into a dark dust, but just as soon were budding more hands. It didn’t slow the Grimm down for a second.

“Why won’t it die?” Jack shouted, more to himself than anythig. The move had put him back on the level with Pyrrha. She was overtaking him by millimeters a second.

“Legendary Grimm. Strong,” Pyrrha said between sharp inhales. “Different.”

“How we gonna stop it?”

“If I knew,” she said with a grunt, vaulting over a small creek, “so would others. And it would be dead!”

A network of black hands grabbed the tree before them. Pyrrha grit her teeth and swung with all her might at its base. Her sword broke through its base, a sharp crack breaking up halfway to its top. With all the hands grabbing it, the tree jerked back. It cracked through scores of dark arms before thwacking the Handyman in its face.

It paused for a moment, letting out a low, rumbling noise that echoed through the ground and up their feet more than their ears. The broken arms and wrists hung at funny angles. Jack locked onto that. And with a small jerk of an extending blade, he removed one of the broken arms. The useless limb flopped for a moment before it snapped straight, budding back up into a whole and fully functioning arm.

Keeping up with Pyrrha, he looks over her weapon. It went from sword to spear to rifle. Piercing and cutting, same as his knives.

Pieces of information clicked into place, observation meshing with intuition on a lever deeper than conscious thought.

“Blunt force!” he wheezed. It wasn’t hard to sprint like this for so long through a goddamned forest!

“What?” Pyrrha asked.

“We’re cutting limbs. Grow back. Don’t. Break ’em.” He felt like a caveman. Stupid lungs.

She stole a look over her shoulder.

“Watch!” Jack hissed, grabbing her bad arm and hauling her up over a fallen log.

Pyrrha caught herself near instantly. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes. Then they were wide. She thrust her left arm over her chest. Her shield flew loose and mashed into hands inches from Jack’s back. Something on Pyrrha flashed a subtle black color and her shield pivoted in her arm, breaking the rest of the hand-bushel. She caught her shield, panting hard.

The broken limbs piled on the ground like rope. The Handyman made another low, through-the-feet-noise. Through the forest Jack could see a cliff face. Pyrrha saw it too. There was no wide field for them to make a stand.

“Aura?” Pyrrha asked. She didn’t need to fully say anything. Gesture and instinct filled in the gaps.

“Not much left.”

“Extend and bend?”

“Still can some,” he said.

She grit her teeth. “At cliff. Around feet, hold. Throw into arms.”

Translation: I turn around at the cliff. You curve your blades around my feet and act as the chain to my wrecking ball.

And then they were at the white cliffs and a shallow creek running at its base. Pyrrha positively hummed with red aura and charged herself into a jump to the cliff. Jack extended his blades, their tips bending at sharp angles to ensnare her feet and launch her into the rock.

Pyrrha landed on her feet, breaking the rock around her into spiderweb of cracks. The Handyman drug himself out of the Another flash and she launched herself towards. Jack dug in his heels and levered his knives over his shoulders like putting on a roller-coaster safety harness.

Their force combined turned Pyrrha into a red bullet that made the very air itself shimmer with force. She embodied rocket’s red glare. The Handyman’s lone eye snaked across its body to stare her down. A thousand hands reached out to rip her to pieces.

She hit them shield-first. The breaking bones sounded like an anti-tank machine gun, nearly deafening Jack. Pyrrha threw her shield on a curve to the left. Her body and shield became two separate and potent weapons. The hunk of metal was a blur not even Jack’s sharp eyes could follow.

Not until her boots landed square onto the Handyman’s eye and her shield completed its roundabout trip. It slammed back into her hands arm and she sank down to her knees at the impact. Jack hauled back. The Handyman screamed, howling and flailing like a dog covered in ticks. Jack retracted the blades as fast as he dared, angling to throw Pyrrha in an arc, turning her into a red wrecking ball. Arms snapped and broke, twisting bonelessly into horrible mangled knots of limbs and hands.

He jerked the knives forwards, then disappeared them back to normal size. Pyrrha jerked back, spreading her arms and shield to control her momentum. Jack hardened his aura as best he knew how, lifted a foot, and reached out.

She rammed into him at a speed that would’ve splattered him without aura. Jack held on tight to her, pivoting on his foot to spin the momentum away as safely for Nikki as he could..

He wasn’t sure when he stopped and let her go. Probably around the time he was down on his hands and knees in the water and throwing up what he had for breakfast. Bacon did not feel just as good going out, that chef lied.

Pyrrha collapsed to her knees just upstream him and coughed hard. Her aura flickered and burned out like an old lightbulb’s last breath.

“We win?” he said, throat raw.

Pyrrha scooped up clean water and splashed fer face. She gave a weak little smile and looked over her shoulder.

The smile died.

Jack followed her gaze.

“Rape me with a rock,” he whispered wearily.

“I don’t think we’re the first to try that on it,” Pyrrha said with a weird little giggle at the end.

The massive body of the Handyman looked like a bowl of black, rotten noodles. Noodles that steamed off black ash. They’d done massive damage. Crippled it. But Jack realized the flaw in their plan too late.

His knives. Sure, Pyrrha had been a wrecking ball. The Handyman was far more broken than before the attack. But pulling her back, his knives had undone much of her work. He didn’t doubt for a second it had even tried on purpose to use Jack’s knives to prune itself.

New hands were budding all over the Handyman. They ripped and dug and tore at the broken limbs, tearing them off to let new ones grow. They could even see the weeping black wreck of the eye slowly pull itself back together.

Pyrrha grabbed Jack by the back of his jacket collar and pulled him to his feet.

“You got enough Aura to try again?” he asked quickly.

“No,” she breathed. “I—no, not enough.”

If she had, maybe they could have won. Kept up the attack until the Handyman just broke. But him and Nikki were near broken before they found it. The only way to win was a war of attrition, and him and her were dead in the water before the fight even started. Aura and muscles were spent.

“So, Pyrrha,” he said hoarsely. “Think if I repent now, I won’t go to hell?”

“Speak for yourself, slowpoke,” she said, staring at the reassembling Handyman. The grip on her weapons tightened. “I’m making this out alive.”

He sighed. “Yeah, wouldn’t be heaven without you there to harass.”

“I’m glad your priorities are in order.”

Jack barked a laugh. “Surviving this out of spite for you? You know it!”

And even Pyrrha smirked at that.

—16—​

Prooooobably won’t leave too bad a scar, Cielo mused as he walked, examining Flaps’ quick patch job. The wound had been cleaned, stitched, and wrapped with gauze, gently weeping blood. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and he was sure his aura would take care of it soon enough. Still, they hadn’t lost too much time patching him up. And a short break never hurt anyone.

“Hey, so, I don’t wanna bother you but—” Flaps said.

“Sshhhh.”

A persistent nagging scraped at the walls of Cielo’s skull. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of aura control quite yet, if something so basic as a pack of beowolves were enough to drain his reserves. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up looking more like a mass of sapient scar-tissue than a man.

“—things got a bit hectic back there and that explosion was pretty big—”

“Ssshhhhhh.

It reminded him a lot of his grandfather, in a way. Having spent his formative years under the care of a former Huntsmen, Cielo had always been just a bit more keen on them than most kids his age. It didn’t take long for him to realize what that line of work did to a person. Where most saw some kind of superhero, Cielo saw someone being pushed beyond their physical and mental breaking point. The stalwart bastions of discipline and power became lifeless, scarred automatons. People who’d repressed their emotions for so long like the Mantle Faceless of old Cielo sometimes wondered if they’d genuinely forgotten how to feel.

Even still, he couldn’t help but find a sort of nobility in their sacrifice. At least, as a child. He knew better now. It was probably the one thing he could thank the Branwen tribe for.

Between his grandfather and that craven rat he’d once been stupid enough to see as a mentor, Cielo wondered why anyone would want to become a Huntsmen. Maybe because some faux-opportunists thought they could use it as a way to catapult themselves to higher power. Laws or not, any would-be conqueror need only enough goons or aura to make short work of any number of small coastal towns and proclaim themselves Grand High Warlord of Podunk. Hell, if you kept the trade goods flowing to whom it may concern and didn’t hassle the traders, it was almost a coin toss to be considered the rightful authority by the rest of the world.

A simple lust for power might have been a more straightforward answer. It was why he’d come to Beacon in the first place, after all. Back in Mistral, the Noh’d lived their lives uninhibited by others.

“—and I’m just worried, you know? Like, are Ruby and Weiss okay?” Flaps continued. “And what about us? Are we still going the right way—?”

Cielo turned around and seized the young woman by her shoulders, leaning in until their noses almost touched.

Flaps hitched a breath and froze in her tracks, cheeks burning red.

“Ssshhhhhut the fuck up,” Cielo replied.

“Are you even taking this seriously?” Flaps asked, her sheepish expression went deadpan as she shrugged out of his grasp.

“I’m never not as unserious as you don’t think I’m not being, Fifty-Two Pickup,” Cielo singsonged as he continued moving.

“Yeah, well, you’re not good showing it, buster. I think?” Fifty-Two sighed, rubbing her arm as she followed him. “It’s just… Ruby and Weiss, you know? They said they’d meet us at the temple but that were a lot of Grimm back there. What if they don’t, you know, don’t make it? Should we try and find them?”

She must have really gotten attached to them. That, or she was just one of those ‘nice’ kinds of people. Cielo huffed a nasally sigh. “Don’t worry, I’m sure those girls can handle themselves. They seemed pretty resourceful.” Even if they were going the wrong way. “Right now, I’m we should focus on ourselves.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I get that you wanna head back and help ‘em, but without knowing where they were headed, going back’ll only get us into deeper trouble.”

A torn, troubled look made itself clear on Fifty-Two Pickup’s face, though she seemed to accept his words, however reluctantly. “Yeah. Alright.”

Not at all what he pictured in a budding Huntress. Neither was that Ruby girl, now that he thought about it. Fifty-Two just seemed so out of her league. He’d seen the way she fought. Doubtless, she had some training, but the awkward footwork and general hesitation in her strikes told him she had nothing in the way of actual combat experience or will to push on.

Still, the forest wasn’t the place to wallow in misery and concern. The girl was a praise junkie, something that had made itself painfully evident. He could appeal to that side of her. Keep her focused.

Cielo waved his bandaged arm. “By the by, nice work on the patch job there, doc. Really appreciate it.”

Fifty-Two Pickup smiled a small smile and jogged closer to Cielo. “Thanks. Uh, I used to get hurt a lot when I was little, so my dad thought it’d be good for me to learn how to fix myself up.”

He nodded along. “Well, if this cop/Huntress thing don’t pan out, there’s always—”

There was a crash like a crack of thunder that shook the air. Cielo’s instinctively glued his hands to his sword’s handle.

“I’m not the only one that heard that, right?” Fifty-Two asked.

Cielo said nothing. He flared his aura and his senses spread out. It was only for an instant, but the presence hit him like a downpour of bricks. An oppressive sensation that petered out as quickly as it appeared, until it was like a soft electric current pulsing throughout every inch of his body and soul. His hair raised on end.

It was obvious beforehand that it was Grimm, but this one was different. Nothing at all like those beowolves from earlier. Uncanny. A perverted imitation of a person.

The presence was moving. Chasing. Two other students, from the feel of it.

Fifty-Two squeaked, wrapping her arms around her torso. She was shaking. Her legs nearly buckled beneath her. She must have felt it out too. “C-Cielo? What was th-that?”

“Grimm. About a hundred or so meters that way.” He gestured a ways into the forest. “It’s engaging a pair of students.”

His partner swallowed, as though she was parched. Beads of sweat rolled down her face. “Do—do you think it’s them? Weiss and Ruby?”

Cielo shook his head. Cielo had heard that those with exceptionally high aura control could make out individuals from just their aura alone. And that wasn’t a skill Cielo possessed yet.

“Dunno. But there’s two of ‘em for sure.”

Fifty-Two hesitated. Then she looked to Cielo. “So what do we do?”

How nice of her to leave all the decision-making up to him. Cielo considered the situation, distantly aware of the trees crashing in the distance. They weren’t doing themselves any favors by confronting whatever… that was. Overeagerness was just as potent a killer as any Grimm or bandit. Even moreso. Fifty-Two was barely any help at all against basic beos and he had no idea what to expect from this newcomer.

On the other hand, it still didn’t sit right with him, leaving some other randos to die. No, it was more than that. The idea that he couldn’t play the hero if he wanted to felt like an admittance of weakness on his part. That was something that just wouldn’t stand.

“I-I think we should do something,” Fifty-Two finally said, looking at Cielo, eyes filled with a shaky sort of determination. Her legs were still quivering like a newborn doe’s, but he couldn’t deny the strength in her eyes.

He didn’t question what had gotten into her. He should have, but the fire in her eyes made it clear that she was going to do something. Anything. With or without his help.

Cielo nodded.

Wasting no time on idle chatter or mental ponderings, Cielo and Fifty-Two raced towards the commotion.

This area of forest was tightly packed with flora. You couldn’t move an inch without brushing past a tree or nearly tripping over an exposed root. Cielo grabbed Fifty-Two, leaping onto a nearby tree and moving along the branches. Fifty-Two piggybacked off of him, her arms wrapped around his torso for dear life.

Cielo flared his aura every few meters like the sonar on a submarine. Not that he needed to, it was getting closer if the uprooted trees were any indication. Seemed like the other two were actively engaging the Grimm instead of running away.

“There,” Cielo said as he came to a stop, hidden behind the foliage.

His partner dismounted him, though she kept a tight grip on his arm as she wobbled next to him. Probably didn’t climb very many trees in her kidhood.

“What is—?” Her voice was but a strangled whisper as the words got caught in her throat.

Across from them, next to a cliff face and a running creek was a hulking, skeletal abomination. A gross amalgamation of hands and twisted joints. Were it not for the shadow skin and hellish-red veins indicative of all Grimm, Cielo might have called it a very nasty Yokai.

One thing he knew, however: thing was ancient. Which meant it was strong. Very strong. A natural killer turned into an implacable survivor from untold decades of strife. What the hell was something like that doing at an initiation?

It towered over the two others. Despite the atrocity’s size, Cielo caught a good glimpse at the duo. Not Ruby and Weiss. Mistral’s golden child and Argus hometown hero, Pyrrha Nikos, and her rumored ex-beau, Manlius-Looking-Fairly-Averageus-Right-Now.

They looked ragged and beat down. Sweat-soaked, bruised up, caked in dirt and dried blood. Nikos’ right arm was wrapped in bloodied gauze. One more thing thing to bond over if they make it out alive.

And honestly, ‘if’ was seeming just a little too optimistic at the moment.

“W-we have to do something,” Cards whispered. More a hiss, actually. Despite her urgings, her arms tightened around Cielo’s as her entire body shook.

Before two could ping-pong any suggestions, the abomination raised its many hands, bony fingers splayed out like claws ready to come down on helpless prey.

Acting on simple instinct, Cielo wrenched his arms free of Cards’ grip. She squealed as she toppled onto the thick undergrowth.

Get there! Move! He shot forward, pushed by his Semblance, sword drawn mid-air. He used the momentum to carry the blade and himself through the abomination’s shadow skin. The sword carved through the flesh with surprising ease. Too easy, actually. Like a laser through parchment.

Cielo stabbed his sword into the ground, pivoted on its axis, and landed squarely on his feet.

The ‘Grimm’ was nearly completely bisected at the what might pass as its wasit. But nearly wasn’t good enough. Not that Cielo thought it would have mattered much. Its torn upper half stretched and deformed, stitching itself back onto its lower half. Regeneration?

“Oh, come on! Really?!”

“Don’t cut it!” Pyrrha shouted, waving an arm at Cielo.

“Gotta break limbs!” Averageus added. Him and Pyrrha were running in opposite but coordinated directions. “Else it just regrows!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Cielo sighed. “Cards! You get all that?”

The girl managed to free herself from the bush’s grasp. “Break its arms?!”

There was no time for an answer. The hellish creature that was too wrong to even be called Grimm loomed over Cielo. It roared. A deep, rumbling noise that shook the ground and sent vibrations through your legs. Despite its hulking size, it moved with frightening speed. The wind sheared as its claws slashed through the air.

Cielo dashed between its many hands, narrowly avoiding its attacks. His foot struck its torso as he activated his semblance. The blunt impact of the air kicked against the Grimm and shoved it back.

“Back it up, freakshow!”

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Cielo’s semblance didn’t actually grant him control over the air per se. An application of kinetic force was probably more accurate. The wind just happened to be a side effect.

Getting some distance between the Grimm and himself. He recovered with a roll, correcting himself so that he faced it. Cards stayed just behind him, her weapon drawn and ready. His arms and legs felt like steel bricks. His aura hadn’t recovered. His semblance wasn’t going to be of much help right now.

The Grimm kept its hands flared out, though it wasn’t actively pursuing them. That was something, at least. Its wounds were still healing. Was that its game? Play keep away while it recovered?

Nikos and Averegeus said to break its bones. So it had a weakness. What they needed now was a plan. The four of them had the advantage of numbers. However, the two of them were nearing the end of their rope. His aura was low and he doubted he could handle this thing with just Cards.

Cards.

Her weapon was blunt, unlike his or Nikos’. And her Semblance. He’d seen what it could do back when the beowolves had ambushed them. He still had no idea what Averegeus could do, but given the state of things, he doubted it was sufficient.

But hinging all of this on Cards’ shoulders? Was that something she was capable of handling?

“So…” she started, voice shaky. “Have any ideas?”

“Depends. How ya hangin’ with your aura?”

“G-good?” Cards replied. “Why?”

“I may have a plan, but…” Cielo sucked in a breath. “You may or may not be uninviting me from all your future birthday parties.”

—17—​

“You two, cut that tree. Hammer girl, stake the hand!” Jaune called out.

Chloe didn’t know who hammer girl and boy-with-pink-in-his-hair were. Didn’t even know why they’d gotten bogged down with this giant twitchy Grimm. Hell, what was the thing? It made her aura feel cold and frigid.

That didn’t stop her from whipping a kama through the base of a tree. Pinky fired the machines pistols in each hand to carve it into a stake, the bullets juggling the tree into the air.

Jaune threw himself to the side as the Nuckelavee slammed one of its stretchy arms into the ground where he’d been seconds ago. Right where they needed it.

“It’s Nora!” hammer girl said. She took a sprinting top out of a tall tree, giant hammer raised over head. “Get it right!”

Nora pounded the hammer into the giant stake like a hail. It shot down and impaled the Grimm through the wrist with a wet squelch. It tried to pull back, howling as it failed.

Jaune caught Nora before she hit the ground, quickly tossing her to her feet. “Guys,” he said. “We gotta go!”

“No!” Pinky said, loading fresh magazines into his guns. There was a frenzied look in his eyes, his teeth grit. Chloe didn’t think he was all there in the head. “It’s here. There’s four of us! We—”

Jaune backhanded him, expression cold. “No! Feel that thing with your aura. Look at yourself!”

He already knows how to gauge Grimm with his aura? Chloe thought. Damn! He really is an Arc!

The boy stumbled back in surprise. Jaune was right, of course. His green Mistrali clothing was dirty and he himself could barely breathe. He had blood streaking down his forehead. And when Jaune had struck him, his aura had been too slow to react.

“Ren!” Nora said, stressing his name. She grabbed his arm tight, eyes imploring him.

Ren’s grimace slackened as he look at her.

“Hey!” Chloe said, snapping her fingers. “Touchy feely later! We gotta—”

“Move!” Jaune barked, shoulder-checking Ren and Nora with her.

Jaune angled his hips sharply to the side, raising his shield. The Nuckelavee’s other fist rammed into Jaune, where where Nora and Ren had been seconds ago. And Jaune hit the fist with his shield head-on. His arm erupted with a flash of white aura. Jaune’s shoes sunk into the hard dirt below, but he remained in place.

Chloe could barely look away.

The Grimm let out a harsh wail, ripping its arm back. Its hand flailed like it were in almost comical pain, the normal crackle of bones of its extended arms sounding even more wrong and harmful. The horse half of the Grimm reared back.

“I said move!” Jaune barked, giving Chloe a push on the back. “Nora, you’re on Ren duty. Grab him if you have to!”

He made sure the others were moving before he brought up the rear.

“We were going?” Chloe asked.

“The goal,” Jaune said, long legs helping him catch up to the rest of the team. “I saw it from above. We can hold out there. There’s gotta be other students there. We work with them and we’ll survive.”

It was a good plan.

“Where’s that from here?” Nora asked, keeping one hand on her hammer, and one hand on Ren’s wrist.

“Same way I told you to go,” Jaune said, pointing his sword forward. “Just don’t stop!”

“And keep together,” Chloe added, more just to make sure she was part of the conversation than anything.

The Grimm roared from behind them, a shrill, bone-echoing sound that made Chloe’s shoulders hunch. Ren looks over his shoulder, that determined, hateful look in his eyes back. Nora jerked him forwards harder than needed to keep Ren’s attention ahead.

Those harsh, thundering footsteps echoed after them. The sound mixed with the crash of trees and branches until it all sounded like a Vacuo dust bowl. Chloe could remember hiding under her bed back in her home kraal as a kid, her grandma softly singing her songs until the storm passed, until they could come outside and see what damage the wind had wrought.

It made her guts twist.

“Stop that, Chloe,” Jaune said.

Chloe blinked. “Wha’?”

“We’re not running,” he said, flashing a smile. “We’re advancing in the opposite direction. With glory!”

She suppressed a scoff. “Work on your speeches, blondie.”

“Work on your cardio!”

Chloe’s nose wrinkled. “I’ll have you know everyday is leg day!”

“Prove it,” he said, grinning in a way that made Chloe seethe.

Before she could reply, all four burst out of the forest clearing. There, the goal. Not a temple. Just a sort of… open-air stone roundabout thing. Oversized chess pieces on pedestals. And four other girls, one of which she knew as the Schnee Dust girl.

“Big Grimm incoming!” Jaune shouted, never breaking stride.

“How big?” a short girl with a giant scythe replied, hopping up onto one of the ruined walls of the temple. Her black hair had gotten curly and windswept with sweat.

“About a ten on a ruins-your-day scale!” Nora said, hopping over a small wall onto the broken temple.

“I don’t have any more Dust!” the Schnee said.

The roar of the Nuckelavee drowned out whatever the blond girl of the group was saying.

The girl with the scythe slumped a little. Her weapon shifted form into an oversized cannon of a gun. “Anyone got any spare ammo?”

The Grimm burst from the forest line as all but scythe girl had taken cover in the temple. It let out a cry, head twitching like an epileptic fit. Still charging, it launched a hand at her.

Jaune reached up, grabbed the bottom on the girl’s red-and-black dress, and pulled her down.

“Don’t pants me in a fight!” she said, grabbing her waistline to keep it from falling.

The Grimm’s arm sailed over where she’d been a second ago and crashed into one of the stone pillars holding up the back of the temple.

“Then wear a belt, Red,” Jaune said. He grabbed her arm and hauled her up.

“It’s Ruby!” Red said.

Jaune ignored her. He was all business when fighting for their lives; Chloe respected that about him in that moment oh so hard. “Those hands are its weakness. We gotta pin them if we want to hurt it.”

The Grimm wasn’t charging the temple, not a first. Instead it galloped around, picking up more and more speed, like psyching itself up.

“And,” Jaune said, then just stopped. He stood in place, his eyes searching over the four new girls as if really seeing them for the first time. “You. You’re roughed up too. Seen a lot of Grimm. Really big and scary ones too?”

“Yeah,” a well-built, clothing-lacking blonde said. Her hair was a frizzy mess. Chloe did not envy her.

Jaune looked down at his feet, mounting something to himself. “He snapped up and pointed a finger at the Schnee girl. “You! Still have your scroll?”

The Schnee blinked. The dirt and sweat didn’t suit her well. A moment later she had her scroll. “Beacon issued us all one.”

The Nuckelavee rumbled the ground, moving faster and faster and faster.

Jaune spoke fast. “Contacts. School ones. Call a teacher. Some staff. Actual Huntsman. This can’t be normal, none of this should be happening. Get help!”

The girl bristled at the command. “How do you know?”

He grit his teeth and threw his hands up. “Because I read the brochure!”

“He’s right,” Ren said. His eyes never left the circling Grimm. His fingers drummed hard against the guns in his hands. Chloe didn’t like the cold look in his eyes, and nor did Nora, who never left his side. “That thing’s from Anima. It has no business in Vale.”

“Weiss, do it,” Ruby ordered, and the Schnee starting looking through her scroll. She tapped something and started a call.

And the Nuckelavee barreled into the temple with the force of Vacuo razorwind. It obliterated the walls and bowled into the very center of the other students. It pulled its hand back and spun it around itself like a cartoon. Its other arm joined, turning the temple into a giant blender.

Chloe slammed against a wall, her momentum carrying her over its short wall. She tumbled to the ground, clutching at her stinging chest. The Grimm tore the temple apart, sending stones and dust flying. Chloe couldn’t stand. She couldn’t breathe. Where was Jaune, Nora, Ren?

Her head spun. Her ears were ringing, no, roaring. A deafening sound. It was getting closer. She had to move. Had to. She wasn’t going to die here on her damn initiation. She and Jaune, and maybe those other two, had to be heroes together. Famous Grimm slayers, Huntsmen of legend, household names.

Keep it together, Chloe!

Why was the roaring in her ears getting worse?

She rolled onto her hands and knees and looking up.

The sky was on fire. The horizon burned, lighting up in explosions and shooting stars like New Year’s day.

A star landed atop the Nuckelavee’s neck, send its horse head face-first into the ground. Chloe remained fixed in place as the star stood up. A tall man in bulky armor. It looked a cross between an ancient knight and an Atlas elite soldier. Was he even human?

The Grimm roared, its rider diving down to bite. The man didn’t even flinch. He just reached out, grabbed the Grimm’s jaw with both hands, and held them open. No, he was pulling them further open. Chloe heard something inside its head popped as its skull noticeably jerked back. One of its arms pulled its horse head out from the ground, the other frantically grabbed at the armored man.

“Don’t just sit there,” someone said. Chloe blinked. That blonde girl with the big bracers pulled her off the ground.

“Who’s that?” she asked weakly.

The blonde looked up. In the second that passed, the man had somehow set the Grimm’s torso on fire and ripped the offending hand in half. The Nuckelavee bucked hard, throwing the man off and into the air. He pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, almost casually pointed it over his shoulder, and fired both barrels, launching himself back at it.

Whoever this guy was, the Grimm wanted no part. It was already running, whinnying now instead of howling. The man hit its back. He grabbed an arrow sticking out from its back and rammed it through the back of its mouth. The weapon stabbed all the way out through the front of its mouth.

A moment later he jumped off. He calmly reloaded his shotgun as burning giant rode off screaming into the forest.

The man turned to face Chloe and the blonde. He pointed a single finger upwards to the circling bullheads carrying Beacon’s coat of arms. His voice was as soft as gravel, but composed. Like a barrel-chested philosopher who’d walked away from too many bar fights.

“Initiation canceled.”

—18—​

The horizon ignited in a maelstrom of fire and dust. All directions. It shook the very earth. Rumbled up through Cards’ bones and shook her legs like trying to turn them to jelly.

For a fraction of a second a lance of fear ran through her. Is this that fire I started? But no. That didn’t make sense. Couldn’t be. Not unless the trees were made of Dust. And fire traveled across the forest at lightning speeds, popping and rupturing irregularly all over the forest.

So hey, at least she wasn’t the only one starting fires today.

Think positive, Cards.

Which was the one good thing she could imagine.

“So, what’s this plan of yours?” she asked.

The tall guy, the one with Pyrrha, slid into the dirt near her and Cielo. “Break things. Don’t stand still, or the Handyman’ll have a field day!”

“Sounds like a nursery rhyme character,” Cielo commented, darting to the side as a clawed hand stabbed where he’d been standing.

“I’m glad you can remain calm here!” the boy hissed, ramming an elbow into the Handyman’s hand. It bent, but didn’t give. The hand whipped to the side and rammed the boy’s chest, sending him flying.

“Please don’t encourage him! Not even ironically!” Cards said.

She really seemed sure he’d take that to heart as he flew away.

His partner, Pyrrha the cereal girl, did something. The knives in the boy’s hand pulled down. He held onto them and hit the dirt. “Jack!” she said.

“Fine, don’t waste aura,” he said fast. He let out a cough and gave her a push. The two took off in the other direction of the Handyman. “Work with calm boy and short round over there!”

Pyrrha looked over her shoulder at her. “Break limbs. Keep moving!”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time!” Cielo leapt over one of the Handyman’s tendrils, kicking hard enough to shatter the limb. Another swung through the air and swatted him to the ground.

Jack. Was that his name? Jack grabbed Pyrrha’s arm and hauled her up and around, just in time to avoid a handy hand. Pyrrha braced her shielded and swung down, Jack using her like a club to smash the tentacle-like arm.

They seemed to have things covered. Yeah. Covered. Good word.

As for her and Cielo?

She grabbed his hand and hauled him up alongside her. “C’mon, c’mon!”

“Cards! Your semblance! It’s a counter, right!?” Cielo asked. More like a demand. God help her if that wasn’t what it did.

“I mean, kinda?” Cards replied. A hand came for her. She stumbled back, blindly swinging her baton in wild arc. It hit the very tip of her baton, knocking her backwards, her heels digging into the dirt.

“Move!” Cielo tackled her, and the hand slipped past her. They rolled on the ground before Cielo used the momentum to stand himself back up, taking her up with him. A favor returned.

“It’s more like a mirror!” she said, trying to pick up where she left off. “I, it reflects force from me to other stuff!”

“Like a mirror?”

“Think stab-proof trampoline.”

“Coulda used those as a kid!” he snorted. He looked over at Jack and Pyrrha and shouted. “Nikos, Blondie, I need you to distract that thing!”

“Why?” Cards reflexively asked.

“You probably aren’t gonna like this,” Cielo said under his breath.

Pyrrha had paused, Jack beside her. She was looking out towards the exploding horizon. The constant whoomf, whoomf! of the explosion shook the trees like a hurricane. She was focusing on tiny black dots in the air. Airships?

She looked back towards Cards and Cielo. “Understood. Then you distract it for us! Jack, c’mon!”

Jack pointed back at them. “But y’all buyin’ the first round of drinks after this!”

“Can’t drink if I’m dead, suckers!” Cielo yelled, and it did not give Cards a good feeling.

“Why am I not gonna like this?” she asked.

Cielo grimaced. She could see ‘sorry about this’ written all over him. “Are you familiar with the term ‘fastball special?’”

“What?!” she cried. “Are you insane?!”

“Dunno—depends on your health plan!”

“I don’t have insurance!”

Cielo sucked in a breath. “Pretty insane, then!”

She tackled Cielo as another tentacled limb slammed down upon them.

“Take this seriously!” she snapped.

“Listen, I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I knew of any other way! Way I see it, you’re our only chance at beating that thing!” Cielo’s grimace deepened. Voice like he choked down a really bitter pill. “Much as I hate to admit it, I need your help here.”

What was she even doing here? Blindly stumbling around this forest. Fighting a monster she was sure even her wildest of nightmares couldn’t conjure with a boy that was almost definitely a madman!

A madman who’d needed her. Cards couldn’t recall a time before where somewhat had said those words to her.

‘I need your help here.’

He said those words and just like that she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Only what she wanted. To feel useful. Needed.

“Okay.” Her voice was small. Like a whisper. Cielo seemed to have gotten the message, though. He nodded, face calm.

“Alright,” he said, taking her hand. “I’ve got just enough aura in me to pull this off. Let’s just hope it’s enough.”

Cards nodded, face set. Resolute. “Right. Let’s do it.”

Hoisting her into his arms, Cielo made a dash through the stray Handy hands Jack and Pyrrha were unable to to keep pinned. Cards felt something pushing them through the air like a surge of wind. Against her better judgement, she looked down.

Oh God, they were so high up. So so high up. If she looked ahead, she was sure she’d be able to see the Academy from here. What if Cielo missed? What if the Handyman just moved? What if her timing was off?

Why hadn’t she thought about this any harder than not at all?

“Get ready!” Cielo cried as he grabbed her by the wrist.

The air—definitely Cielo’s semblance—spun them like a pinwheel. Faster and faster. Cards thought the G-force alone would rip her arm off if it didn’t kill her first. Her free hand held onto her beret for dear life.

Don’t fall, don’t fall!

“Kick his ass, Cards!”

“I’m gonna kick your—!”

She went flying.

Cards wanted to scream. She tried to. The air forced itself down her throat. Tears flooded her vision and it took every bit of willpower not to shield her eyes or look away. The Handyman. Pyrrha Nikos and her partner Jack. She could see them. Like ants at first. The grew bigger. And closer.

Her eyes narrowed. The Handyman. Focus on the Handyman. Kill him dead. Be the heroine. Just don’t panic.

Closer.

Closer!

Now!

“Get out of the way!”

There was no pain. She barely felt any pressure. The crown of her skull slammed into the Handyman’s face. And she stopped. The explosive surge of concussive force killed her forward momentum and repelled her into the air. All of that energy poured into the Handyman and drove him into the dirt.

A cloud of dust and dirt erupted and she went blind.

Even as she flew back, Cards could hear it. His bones splintering like bundles of wood. It screamed. A howl that rips through the air with the whoompf of the distant artillery. Goosebumps crop up along her flesh. She can’t feel her legs and isn’t sure if she’s pissed herself, but likes to believe that she didn’t. Very distantly she’s aware that she’s been caught. Pyrrha Nikos’ shield.

Her shield?

Her butt bounced off the top as it flew through the air. She went airborne for a second, then suddenly reality glitched out. There was an impossibly long, thin strip of the metal in the air. The shield hit the metal with a loud clang, ricocheting back towards Cards. It slipped under her like a dust scooper. Without thinking she grabbed its edges with her hands, and the world turned into a blender.

“Oh god my lunch!” she shouted, spinning fast enough that she was pretty sure she was screaming into her own ear.

She and shield both rammed into a gangly back hand, smashing the knuckle and flying off.

I’m still a weapon!

Cards swallowed, one hand still firmly held an edge of the shield, and let her other hand go. She slide off, free hand scrambling for her baton. She thought she was swinging, but at the speed she spun, it was anyone’s guess. But she felt her weapon colliding with hands and arms, the force running right up her arm and into her inner ear. Her totally kicking and not flailing legs fared little better.

One kick and Cards and her flying shield bounced away from a hand and towards the air, to freedom. Then one of those thin strips of metal appeared. The shield bounced off it before Cards could wrap her legs around it for safety.

Cards felt like a disco ball of doom.

She soared, twisting and spinning through the air like she were strapped to a vindictive gyroscope. Her safety shield—because it was hers now—went flying. Between the fading haze of airborne dirt and impromptu gymnastics routine, Cards was lost in the maelstrom of carnage. The dirt stung her eyes and clogged her sinuses. Then everything just sort of shut down.

It took her awhile to realize that she’d stopped spinning. Still, but airborne, as if held aloft by an invisible force.

And there went the morning’s breakfast. And yesterday’s lunch.

Half-digested chunks of bile ripped through her esophagus like fire and shredded glass as the pungent, sickly smell brought even more tears to her eyes and splattered onto the dirt like wet sausages. There it was, tumbling over her clothes and to the forest floor. Bye, food!

Her dangling, near lifeless limbs were like cinder blocks. Black splotches appeared along the edges of her vision.

As the dust faded alongside her consciousness, Cards lifted her head. There stood a blonde, bespectacled woman in a white blouse and pencil skirt.

Before exhaustion took her, Cards petered out, “Professor Goodwitch?”

 

Chapter 7: It’s Like We’re Too Old to Trick-or-Treat But Too Young To Die
“The shield gets smaller, so when I get tired of carrying it, I can just… put it away…”

— 19 —​

“Reminds me of home,” Jack said. From their vantage point at the edge of Beacon’s plateau, she and him could see what felt like the whole of the Emerald Forest. She suspected tomorrow it might have a new name, however. The Emerald Ash Heap. The fires of both raging inferno and cigarette cherry danced in his indigo eyes.

Hard to believe they’d been out there just a few hours ago. Or how when they’d been evacuated back to campus, the Kingdom of Vale had turned Beacon into nothing short of a forward military base. Pyrrha had seen the row upon row of Vale’s self-propelled guns as she’d left the commons and the other students to try to find where her partner had gone.

Like him or not, they’d locked eyes down there when those fires had been a forest. Unless he died, they’d need to have each other’s side for the next four years. The very least she could do is try to extend an olive branch. She figured she’d never hear the end of the I told you sos from him after his worried premonitions had turned out to be a skinwalker and Handyman, so maybe she could preemptively kill it with kindness.

It wasn’t baseless optimism, either. Jack genuinely seemed to react insufferably whenever confronted. She suspected it was some sort of defense mechanism, as irritating as it might be. He had a lot of defense mechanisms like that, she was coming to realize.

So Pyrrha sat down on the stone lip besides him. She waited for him to continue, already preparing to roll her eyes at whatever weird joke or piece of insanity he was trying to set up.

Instead, Jack merely took another drag on that oddly smelling cigarette. It reminded Pyrrha of a friend she’d had as a little girl back in Argus. He’d been the son of a local mechanic. Try though his grandmother did, his clothes always smelled like his father did, like a mix of motor oil and fine tobacco.

She wondered if he’d grown up to smell like his old man too. He’d left one day for a job outside the city limits. Her friend and his mother were still waiting for him to come home.

But Jack said nothing, and Pyrrha had to fill in the silence before it become too awkward for either of them to speak. “Maybe it’d be less homey if you weren’t a smoker,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Not direct confrontation, rather her trying to speak his language.

He looked at her as if having just noticed her, then laughed. “Please. This is Vale. Everyone smokes here.”

“Sorry, I thought you were Jack, not everyone,” she said. “Or was that another lie?”

Jack gave her a toothy, sidelong grin, then flicked his cigarette over the edge of the cliff. “Fine. But only because I like you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. I’m a terrible judge of character.” He reached into a pocket of his jacket. It looked oddly clean, at least compared to how dirty and battered everyone else looked. Part of the reason she’d left the student commons was because though she wanted one, she wasn’t about to stand three hours in a line for a shower. Had Jack actually taken the time to fastidiously clean himself like a preening bird?

He pulled out a small glass decanter and set it on the stone seating between himself and her. “It’s good Patch Scotch. Drink with me.”

She cocked a brow. “I saved your lungs already today, but I think rescuing both our livers counts as heroic time and a half.”

“Please. Not like you did me any good, Nikki. We got the Shine, remember? Aura.”

She eyed him flatly, folding her arms. “Surprised you still have any after today.”

Honestly, she was more surprised he had that decanter. How had it not been smashed during the fight today? Had he stashed it away somewhere secret on campus? Either Jack was far more gracefully careful than she’d given him credit for, or he was more devious than she’d imagined when it came to contraband. Neither would really surprise her at this point.

He sighed theatrically. “Look, it’s fine. I even got you a little shot glass. See? To celebrate teamwork. Our livers will be fine. The man who made me wanna be a Huntsman taught me that.”

Pyrrha eyed him curiously, unsure if he was trying to smooth talk her into a drink or about to say something genuine. Jack’s nature made it hard to tell where he was going with anything. He looks back at him from the corners of his indigo eyes. Every moment she spent trying to read him, she knew he was doing it twice as fast on her.

The Handyman had proved that. Jack could act insufferably stupid, but he was as sharp as his knives. He’d sensed a trap back in the forest when even Pyrrha’s own Aura couldn’t detect any Grimm. And then, after less than a mile of running, Jack had figured out how to beat the Handyman, intuiting a secret that had eluded a generation of dead Huntsman.

So the way to handle Jack was to think faster and with your gut. Strike him before he can conjure up some clever workaround to you. If she was going to stoop to his level, she would do it her way.

“This Huntsman, was he a hero of yours?” she asked.

Jack snorted. “Something that that.” He poured them both small drinks of the golden-brown liquid. “He said me that if you can slash yourself and heal it with Aura, then you can do the same innerly. Lungs, clean ’em. Liver, detox it. The likes of us don’t need to worry about the long-term.”

A pause.

“Even if we couldn’t do that,” he said slowly, even thoughtfully, picking up a glass and handing it to her, “it’s not like Huntsmen usually live long enough to die of cancer. Ain’t a luxury we get.”

Pyrrha didn’t even realize she’d accepted the drink until she was holding it. Neither of them drank. “He mustn’t have been a very good Huntsman if that’s what you think of being one. Why even become one?”

Jack looked away, out towards the forest. He idly rotated his little glass. He set his jaw, then let out a breath, shoulder relaxing Moonlight mixed with fire in his eyes. “Where I’m from—Catchfire, this piss-all district out here in Vale—only thing that mattered, matters is power. Used to think that was just Catchfire. That out there, in the nicer parts of the cities where ghetto orphans aren’t allowed, things are different. People help each other. Where I grew up, folks care more about how much money you got, how big your body count is, or how big of a cock you can swing around.”

He shook his head, staring into his drink. “Then I went out to the part of town which had a functioning fire department. Sure, the window looks nicer, the streets a little clearer, the fake tits a little better made. But brush it off, maybe give it a good spit-shine, and you find it’s all a thin veneer. Only difference between Catchfire and polite society is that polite society dolls it all up better. Power is power everywhere you go. What matters is knowing how to swing it.”

Pyrrha frowned. “So you… followed your hero’s lead. You became a Huntsman because you wanted to strong, be powerful. You wanted to matter.”

Jack didn’t react, not at first. She knew she’d struck something. He buried it well, but right now, in a moment of honest, she could see it. The important part was how Jack felt he mattered. She’d seen something in him, past that caustic, devil-may-care screen he put up.

If he mattered because he was a hero to people, that’d be enough for him. She could work with this. Help guide him in the right direction, the direction she knew he needed.

At length Jack made to shook his head, but stopped. He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know about you, but coming here just seemed like a smart call. I worked for it. But, I don’t know.”

“Do you promise to tell me when you do know?”

He flashed her a smirk. “Hey now, wheedling folks for info is my shtick, Pyrrha. Buzz off.”

“You called me Pyrrha,” she said, gesturing at him with the hand still holding the drinking glass. That mattered. It was less dismissive than his Nikki nickname. ‘Nikki’ kept her at arm’s length. ‘Pyrrha’ meant something. She knew it.

“Did I?” he said with mock surprise. “Now that is an occasion worth drinking to, ain’t it?” He held his glass up to toast with her.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“C’mon, Nikki, don’t be the first pretty girl in my life to refuse a free drink,” he said. And just like that, she could practically see his defenses dripping back to life. His façade creeping up in the way he smiled, the way his eyes twinkled.

She could play that game too. In a roundabout way, it might be the key to getting him to open up to her again.

She coyly turned her glass around before her eyes, examining it. “I’m a girl of many firsts, Jackie boy. I aim to impress after all.”

“And what if I said a sober girl can’t impress me at all?” he asked.

“I’d say I’m not trying to impress you.”

“Hm! So I’m not the only one who tries to seduce their reflection when they’re all alone.” He pretended to wipe sweat off his brow. “Whew!”

Pyrrha cringed, scooting back an inch down the stone railing from him. “If I take the shot, will you promise to never put that mental image in my head ever again?”

Jack laughed, holding his glass up for her to toast. “Please, Pyrrha. You and I are a team now. Partners. You’re gonna need a lot more than one. Be glad the first drink’s free.”

Against her better judgement, she clinked glasses with him and downed the Scotch all in one go. She had a frightful feeling that Jack was right on the money…

—20—​

Tired.

Tired.

Tired

The word played on loop in Jaune’s head, sometimes set to a jaunty beat. Like someone had plugged a broken record into a carousel’s speaker system.

Tired. Tired. Tired.

Every muscle he possessed played choragos to that exhausted feeling. A near deafening dirge that could just as easily lullaby him to sleep as to dying on his feet. He felt like he’d flayed himself alive and then neglected showering after a solid week of gym class. His sheathed sword felt like a lead ball trying to tie him to chain gang.

Jaune was holding his head. How long had he been doing that. He blinked, and his dry eyes stung. Another round of blinking and he realized he wasn’t where he started. Not entirely. He wasn’t sure if that was because he’s falling asleep on the move, or if he was starting to hallucinate.

Already the shadows here in the Beacon commons were alive. If it got too dark and he didn’t look at them, his peripheral vision conjured up crouching Grimm and tangled vines. He’d seen them, start awake, and then realize it was just his mind screwing with him.

The Beacon commons. Same place the student body had spent last night locked in. Of course, none of the students had dorms. Rules were four students a room (and he’d thought it’d be bad enough if it just you and your partner!), and since initiation was canceled, technically this year’s crop of student didn’t have fully established teams. Oh, and something about proper Huntsmen teams and Vale military forces had converted the dorms into barracks. Right now Beacon wasn’t an academy for future Huntsmen and Huntresses. They’d turned it into a major military base with an academic paint job. All because of whatever had been happening out there in the forest today.

But finally, after wandering through the commons, he found what he was looking for. Without a door, he just knocked on a nearby wall.

Ren didn’t move. He just sat there, legs crossed, looking out the window. Was he asleep? Nora, who’d been leaning against the wall beside Ren, looked over at Jaune. Her smile looked force. “Oh, heya, Jaune. It’s Jaune, right? Or Jon. John? Jean?”

“Stop spelling my name wrong,” Jaune said with a sigh, waving a hand at her.

Nora made a face.

“Just wanted to check on you two. Ren awake?”

She looked at her partner, then slowly shrugged. “For certain values, I guess.”

He didn’t know what that meant, but didn’t press it. “Alright. I just wanted to check on you guys. I—look, I’m no therapist. I’m barely even qualified to put on a sock puppet show for sick kids. But I know you and that thing back there—”

“A Nuckelavee,” Nora said, casting Ren a nervous glance. Ren didn’t stir.

“Yeah, that. I know you must have history. You’re both from Mistral, right?”

“How—” Nora paused. Shook her head. “Yeah, he and I both.”

Jaune looked away. He really didn’t know what to say. He’s not even entirely positive why he’s here. It just felt like the right thing to do. He couldn’t just take a shower and go to bed, not without this. But now that he was here, well, what?

“It bothered you. Both of you,” he said softly. It was stupid. Just state the obvious and hope Nora thought it was deep or caring. “I guess I wanted to make sure you were, well, okay is the wrong word.” He stole a glance at Ren. “At least no deeper into a mental breakdown.”

A vice-like grip overcame Jaune. He nearly coughed as Nora squeeze him into a hug. “Thanks, tough guy,” she said, taking a step back. “I think Ren needs some rest. And if he sleeps like that, then the crick in his neck come morning will serve him right not not using the floor like a normal person!”

Jaune hesitated. “Your scrolls. Numbers. Some way to contact you.” Chloe might not like it, but as far as Jaune was concerned, the four of them might as well be a team.

Nora and him exchanged contact information. He made sure she spelled his name right in her phone (she’d tried titling him “Pants Boi” at first).

“Yeah. You need anything, both of you, don’t hesitate to call me,” he said.

Nora smiled. “Yeah, will do, Jaune.”

“You take care of Ren, yeah?”

She laughed. “That’s, like, my full time occupation. Someone’s gotta keep that goofball grounded in reality.”

Jaune simultaneous believed her and thought that was utter bullshit. Funny how that worked. He made to leave.

“Wait, where ya going?” she asked.

He didn’t know. So he made up the most likely thing. “I’m gonna find a teacher. Maybe that Headmaster guy. See if I can’t help out somehow. I feel so useless cooped up in here like they expect me to lay eggs.”

Nora snerked. “Well, if you got anything come morning, give us a ring.”

“Will do, Nora,” he said.

Back to his lonely thoughts. God, he was coming to hate being left to he, himself, and I. Today had been—well, like nothing he’d expected. Sure, Jaune knew it’d be hard. He didn’t come here expecting the easy life. No, that’s what his parents wanted for him. Maybe if they’d ever listened to him, he’d know.

Jaune had asked his father about being a Huntsman. Growing up where he did, they’d occasionally gone camping. He’d gotten good at it. Sometimes a noise would inspire silence in the whole of the forest. His father would unsheathe Crocea Mors, the very weapon weight down Jaune’s belt right now, and go slip off into the thicket

Killing Grimm, Jaune always knew. Dad had been a Huntsman, and a damn good one from what he gathered.

“Daddy, what’s it like killing Grimm?” he’d ask.

“Hell of a thing,” Dad replied. Those were always his answers. Vague, meaningless one-liners, like he was working out of a book of action movie one-liners that only sounded cool in your head. And always Dad would have this distant look in his eyes that made some part of Jaune ache, even if he couldn’t understand why.

“Daddy, why do you glow like that?”

“So that nothing hurts me ever again.”

“I don’t want anything to hurt me ever again.”

“Good. Means you won’t need to glow.”

“Stop bothering dad, Jaune,” one of his many older sisters would say.

Screw you, Saphron. You ran away the first chance you got. You never cared for Dad’s life or anything but yourself. The first chance Jaune got, he totally and not at all illegally borrowed Crocea Mors and left for Beacon. In one day he’d learned more about Huntsmen and Grimm than he’d learned in seventeen years as the son of Huntsmen.

Jaune bumped into someone, snapping from his thoughts.

“Ah, boy who pantsed me!” Ruby said quickly, holding her hands up and shrinking back apologetically. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

Jaune sniffed. Not at her accusation, but her smell. Ruby smelled like she’d just went through a pit fight against an entire department store’s perfume section. Even with a change of clothes into her PJs, she still looked grimy. Like she’d decided to skip the line for the girls’ showers and pray perfume was an adequate substitute for cleaning herself.

Part of his head instantly cranked out a way to turn her pantsing line into a way to hit on her. One of Dad’s genuinely good pieces of advice was that girls liked a guy with confidence, after all. But her smell strangled that thought in its crib. Honestly, he preferred the way the cigarettes of his sister Indigo smelled to this.

“No, it’s my fault, I wasn’t paying attention to my nose,” he said.

“I thought no one would notice!” she shouted, pressing herself back against the wall. “That line is like hours long, and I couldn’t find a garden hose outside!”

It took him a moment to realize what he said wasn’t a false compliment about the perfume, but a direct insult. Stupid, stupid!

“No, no, not what I mean,” he said, holding his own hands up. “You smell great. Like adventure, and fire. And cologne you could make a homemade flamethrower from. That’s, like, that’s hot.”

He could feel a part of himself dying inside.

Worst part was, Jaune couldn’t tell which of the two was more mortified.

“Your teammates!” he tried asking her.

And at the same time, she said: “Hi you've reached Ruby Rose, I'm not here right now. Please leave a message after the beep.” She looked about ready to break down.

He take a step back, then rallied himself. “I mean it, your teammates—”

“BEEP,” she shouted.

“Ruby!”

“BEEEEEEP!”

“I’m sor—”

“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

Jaune threw his hands up. “Did you all make it out okay after the Nuckelavee!?”

Although still pressing her back against the wall, Ruby stopped trying to pretend it like she was an answering machine. Instead it she was giving him a suspicious look.

“If you try to take their pants off too, I’m calling the police.”

“None of you even wear pants,” he said.

“Because of people like you!” she declared, stabbing a finger at him.

Jaune had no face. “Believe me,” he said flatly, “that chastity belt you call a personality will keep me well at bay.”

Harsh? Yes. Overly bitter? Yes. Satisfying to say? Hell yes.

“Hey!” she hissed, holding herself like he just punched her in the ovaries.

“I was the only boy in a family of girls, Ruby. Believe me, I've seen it all. Nothing you say or do will really phase me.” Not really true, but the lie somehow made him feel better. Heck, it was mostly true if you thought about it in the right light.

“Wait,” she said slowly. “We talking being accused of things, or the girls without pants part?”

Jaune just stared.

“Because both of those raise serious questions!”

He tossed his head back, making an exasperated face. “Look, Ruby. Let's start over, okay?”

“So no pulling my skirt down this time?”

“Deal. But let's not rule out the future.”

“So it's back to square one!”

Okay, fine. That was his fault. He should’ve known that would happen. He didn't really have a follow-up to that, but she seemed to interpret his silence as him staring her down.

Ruby deflated. “Okay, I'll be good.”

He let out a long, agonized sigh. “Hi there, short and quirky girl I've never met before, I'm Jaune Arc and I like swords.”

She snapped her fingers. “Hiya, Jaune. I'm Ruby Rose and I have thorns. Do not invade my personal space, as indicated by my sweetheart, Crescent Rose. In fact, please keep your hands and arms inside the Jaune ride at all times.”

Screw it. Jaune could work with this. He was too tired to try doing any better.

“Ruby,” he said carefully. “I’m trying to see how other students are doing. We’re practically locked up and the rumors from the other students don’t paint a pretty picture You and your friends were there with mine. Are you all okay?”

She compressed a breath. Hands on hips, she looked away. “I mean, I guess so. We stuck around after that big Slayer guy picked us up. My sister sprained an arm. Sucks for her, but she’ll be fine. And the Ice Queen remains subzero, so that probably means she’s fine. I was on my way to find them. Wanna come with? You can check on them.”

It was a weird offer. Jaune told her as much.

Ruby shrugged. “Hey, well, I can wonder the halls with the Grimm I don’t know or the one I do.” She elbows him playfully. “C’mon, you’re looking lonely.”

Mixed. Freakin’. Signals.

“No, just on a mission,” he said. “None of us are organized. I’m trying to make sure we’re all good.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh great. You’ve become class dad. That’s the worst thing.”

He repressed an urge to say something like Ooh, I like that, just call me daddy. That’d just be creepy. So he put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Alright. Might as well try to network with the other teams.”

— 21 —​

Jaune wasn’t where, but he’d found a little plastic box of wooden toothpicks. In lieu of gum to chew or coffee to chug, chewing on those helped keep him awake. Ruby was saying something, but it was hard to heard all of it. He was replying mechanically, by rote.

“Yeah, my sheath and shield are the same,” he felt himself saying. “The shield gets smaller. When I’m done holding it, I can just set it up on my arm. It’s like it’s not even there anymore.” How exactly it worked was beyond him. Dad had never really let him get to know or explore Crocea Mors. He’d been forced to snatch it from over the fireplace at night and train in the backyard to VidHub tutorial videos on his scroll.

Another of father’s failures, he was coming to think of them. He grit his teeth, breaking his toothpick. He spat it out into a trash can and brought out a new one to chew.

“Wouldn’t it weigh the same on your arm, though?” Ruby pointed out.

“I think of it as bicep training instead of hand training,” he said, not even trying to make the lie sound good.

Ruby made a face.

The two passed a pair of students. Jaune recognized one of them as that Manlius Maximus dude from the airship. He was walking nearly hip-to-hip with a bombshell redhead with legs as long as today felt and a bandaged up right arm. The two looked stylish, like they were trying to make every motion double as a pose, like something from an action movie poster. The only sounds the pair made were from low, calm conversation mostly covered up by the clacking of the knife the boy was rapidly twirling between his fingers.

Jaune envied them.

“It’s why we can’t stay here,” the redhead was saying, keeping her eyes forwards, her voice low. “Bring this up with the Headmaster.”

“I’m right behind ya, Nikki,” he said with a small smile. “I don’t fully get it, but you haven’t lead me to my death in at least four hours. I think I can spot you this.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Same. I just got some misgivings about Headmaster Ozpin,” he said, a touch uneasy. “Going up to him like this.”

He and Jaune made eye contact and nodded at each other. Jaune never knew why guys did that. He himself did it by instinct. If he had to guess, he thought it meant “Yes, we have made eye contact but it neither hostile nor homo, I wish you well on your day.”

Ruby looked at the guy, made a little laughing noise, and waved. “Heya, Indigo.”

Wait, Indigo? Manlius Maximus had a girl’s name? Or at least the same name as Jaune’s sister. The hell?

“It’s Jack,” not-Jaune’s-sister said. He balanced the tip of the knife on one finger. “Good to see you’re not dead, Ruby. And that you got good taste in boys.” He winked at her, but nodded Jaune’s way.

“Hey!” Ruby snapped, looking a little flustered.

The redhead with Jack rolled her eyes. “Trust me, you’ll be much happier in life if you ignore most things he says.”

Jack nodded. “Or adopt a hip flask of scotch. Whichever is cheaper.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Jaune said easily. “Personally, I can’t find any girl attractive who likes me, since that’s a dead ringer she’s got poor judgement.”

Jack barked a single laugh, and then both pairs had passed each other in the hallway.

“Friend of yours?” Jaune asked Ruby.

She snickered. “Hardly. Him and my sister Yang were flirting and it was just the cringiest thing.”

Jaune suddenly imagined an alternate reality where instead of Jack meeting Ruby and that blonde—Ruby’s sister—apparently, it had been Jaune. He saw himself swaggering up to them, trying to act suave, then vomiting all over their shoes.

In hindsight, getting stuck with that ass Cielo might not have been the worst thing in the world.

They stumbled upon a window with a sill large enough to lay across, all in a little nook made from bookshelves. Someone had hung a sign reading “Fort Kickassia: Your Authority Not Recognized” from one of the shelves.

The one girl in black whose name he didn’t know had her back to the window, eyes closed, a book open in her lap. Weiss, the girl in white with the hair to match—hot stuff for an ice queen, Jaune thought—was trying to arrange a number of books into a mattress.

“Ruby, there you are,” the girl who must’ve been Yang said, grabbing Ruby in a hug. Half a hug, at least. One of her arms was in a sling. “What took you so long?”

“Long line for the showers,” she said. “Right, Jaune? This is Jaune, by the way.”

“Quiet,” book-girl grumbled from the window.

Yang shot Jaune a look. “Why were you in the showers with my sister?”

Jaune met her scowl with an even look. “I will have no part in your tangled web of lies, Ruby.”

Yang sniffed, slowly looking around until she was glaring at her little sister. Judgmentally. Ruby just grimaced and tried to laugh it off, and it didn’t work. It gave Jaune an oddly warm feeling in his chest.

Weiss looked over her shoulder. “Wait, is that my perfume?”

“Nope!” Ruby said.

“Ruby!”

Jaune sighed, raising his hand. “Look, not her fault the cologne I let her borrow from me smells like your perfume. It was all they had at the gas station outside the bullhead hub.”

Ruby nodded vigorously.

He hoped this would earn him some brownie points in the next life, especially given the look the hot ice queen was giving him. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or if the topic was getting too weird to advance.

“So, Ruby, made a friend?” Yang asked, taking a step back.

“Sorta,” she said.

“I’m here checking on the rest of freshman class. Trying to see who’s still alive enough to go do… something,” he said. “I can’t be the only one feeling stir crazy in this building. People out there are going stuff, Huntsmen and soldiers, and we’re just stuck here with no clue what’s really going on.”

Jaune was making it up as he went. “So I wanted to see if anyone wanted to come with me, try to offer to help the Headmaster and the staff. We’re freshmen Huntsmen, not just random people off the street given weapons.”

Even though before today and that thing Chloe did to him, that’s pretty much what Jaune was. Still is, really.

Weiss undid the tie holding her ponytail in place. Girl looked good with her head spread out like that. Really good. “Jaune, right? No offense, but what can we do they can’t?”

“We can talk like we’re not quitters for starters,” Ruby said, earning her a scowl. “What? It’s true.”

“If they needed us, they’d get us,” Weiss said, pursing her lips.

“Please shut up,” the girl at the window moaned, shutting her eyes harder. “My head’s killing me.”

“Give it a rest,” Weiss went out in a loud whisper that didn’t seem to really help anything.

“I for one can’t,” Jaune said lowly. “Pretty sure if I stop moving, I’ll die of exhaustion. And if I gotta go, I’d rather die standing, out there, doing my best.”

Where was this coming from? Sure, most of that was bravado, just trying to sound bold and brash. Be all cool and leader-y. But another part of him was convinced that at this point he’d actually go through with the lie, like he was peer pressuring himself to jump off Mundane Bridge into Hero River. It was equal parts the Jaune he knew and… the Jaune that Chloe insisted on believing in.

Goddamnit, Chloe, this is all your fault.

Or maybe this was Jaune in a crisis. Before tonight the only crisis Jaune had known was pouring a bowl of Pumpkin Pete’s only to find out they were out of milk. When he thought about it, he’d had a level head for a long time now. Sure, he’d been internally close to a panic attack as soon as he stepped onto the airship to Beacon, but it didn’t seem like anyone had known. To people around him, he’d kept a cool, level head out there during the worst of the fighting in the Emerald Forest.

Jaune wasn’t sure which was which.

He chose to believe he was just a super secret hidden badass all along. It made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“Besides,” he said, “at this point in our lives, it’s not like we got anything better to do. We’re at the point where we’re too old to trick-to-treat but too young to die. And if I can’t be a hero getting candy, then maybe I can put that energy to figuring out whatever weird thing is going on out there, yeah?” He shrugging, trying to seem casual.

“I can still trick-or-treat,” Ruby said happily.

Jaune shot her a look. “Stop undermining me. I’m trying to do a speech about doing the right thing, whatever the right thing may or may not be. At least go above and beyond and get some recognition for being awesome. Something.”

“Okay, okay, yeah,” she replied with a sigh. “I think I’m with you here. Yang?”

Yang made a let-down face, lifting her slung arm. That seemed to be answer enough.

“Blake, Weiss?”

“No!” Blake moaned from her window, covering her head with her arms. She laid down in a sideways fetal position along the oversized windowsill.

Weiss was… just staring at her and Jaune. She glanced at Blake, then to Yang, before her gaze fell on Jaune. He cooly held her gaze with a casually little shrug. At length she grit her teeth. “Look, Ruby, you’re my partner, and I…” She shook her head side-to-side as if trying to dislodge water from an ear. She sighed. “Look, alright, sure, if you’re this stupid, I can’t have you dying on there the moment I take my eyes off you. I don’t trust Jaune to do that.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” he said dryly. But he doubted anyone but Ruby even believed such a poorly told lie. Still, he’d let Weiss keep her pride if that’s what she needed.

Yang pursed her lips with worry. “Guess me and Blake can hold down Fort Kickassia.” She didn’t sound happy about that in the least. “Just be safe, okay, Rubes?”

“Pff, safe,” Ruby dismissed. “When am I ever not safe?”

Yang gave her a flat look. “You nearly drowned in a bowl of cookie mix once.”

“Oatmeal raisin!” Ruby corrected loudly, prompting Blake to growl. “Sorry. But yeah. Oatmeal raisin is evil and I can’t be blamed for that day.”

Yang scoffed in the back of her throat, eyes rolling.

“Gimme a minute to fix my hair and get out of these PJs,” Weiss said, staring at Jaune. “That means go away, by the way.”

“Yeah, scoot. I need my real clothes too,” Ruby said, elbowing Jaune away.

He nodded. “Yeah.” Hands in pockets he left the little fort and idled near the end of the hallway. The girls hung sheets to enclose their case.

He leaned there against the wall, chewing on a toothpick, thinking. The wall wasn’t really comfortable, but it made him feel cool. It’s what someone who actually knew what they were doing would do. And if you can’t make it, fake it! And fake it Jaune could.

Until a girl shoved a large paper cup of coffee into his hands.

“Here,” Chloe said, hefting a machine in her arms. “I’ve only got so long before they realize I’ve stolen the coffee machine.”

“Oh my god, this isn’t coffee, this is dirt!” someone screamed from further on in the building.

“So short before they realize,” she amended.

Chloe looked good. Not just in the physical sense. By nature she was a well-built if not exactly tall brunette with a loose, shoulder-length ponytail. The thing here was, she looked clean. Like she’s been one of the rare girls to not only snag a shower, but somehow enjoy a trip to the washing machine. He imagined that’s why she’s vanished the moment the bullhead had brought them back to campus. The girl was vain like that.

She’d probably found some way to make money by barricading the showers and charging admissions for “VIP Fast Passes.” It seemed in-character of Chloe.

Jaune eyed the coffee she’d gifted him, then took a slug. He cringed. “Black.”

“What, you want cream? I’m a miracle worker, not a miracle itself,” Chloe said, leaning up against the wall with him. She took out the full pot of black gold and drank from it straight.

“Still, thank you, Chloe.”

She winks. “My pleasure, man. When I find a coffee, I’mma take a coffee. Which might be excessive here in Vale, but.” She shrugged.

“There not much coffee in Vacuo?” he asked.

“Eh, depends on where ya from,” she said. “I’m from a kraal called Kuraçao. Sort of outskirts of main Vacuo proper. Locals there made coffee from this weird nut that grew on cactus.” She stuck out her tongue and gagged.

“So, you’re basically from the Vacuo boonies,” Jaune said, nodding to himself. “Explains your accent.”

“I don’t got an accent, you’re the one who talks funny, Mr. Vale Man,” she said with a huff. “I’ll have you know I totally come from a noble lineage of foretrekkers and homesteaders.”

He laughed and took a sip of coffee. “Which is why you have so much to prove here, right?”

She puffed her cheeks. “Çies, man, enough about the past. Future time. Heard you were making friends and allies. Networking.”

Yeah, really artful dodge there, Chloe.

Jaune nodded. Took another sip. Black it might be, but damn did he need this. “I think everyone we met out there in the woods, they’re on sid if we need them. Me, Ruby, and Weiss were going to team up to see if we couldn’t offer to help the Headmaster. Do some good. And maybe earn us his praise.”

“Fanciest way of brown nosing I ever heard and—waaait a minute, you managed to snag the Schnee all on your own?” Chloe demanded, grabbing his shirt.

“Her partner’s crushing on me,” he lied, getting a snort from Chloe.

“Still, we got the Schnee on our team! We need a name. Jaune Arc, Weiss Schnee, Ruby McLastName, Chloe Weaver. What’s a color from that?”

Jaune pushed Chloe back. “No, those two already formed a team with two other girls.”

“Yeah, but they’re not official,” Chloe said, moonshards in her eyes. “We can still build a team to our liking.”

“But they’ve chosen each other. Besides, we met Ren and Nora. They should go with us.”

“They’re nobodies!” she huffed. And that Ren guys seems super unstable.”

Jaune gave it some thought. “I don’t know. I get a good feeling about those two. Us and Ruby’s team together?” Jaune shrugs. “I think doing this nights will get us noticed. We’re going to the Headmaster and insisting we can help, not just rest on our butts. We’re go-getters.”

Chloe pursed her lips, but gave in with a sign. “I like how you think, Jaune. I hate you. It’s great.”

“Weird. That’s exactly what my ex-girlfriend said about me.”

“Can’t imagine why,” she said, shaking her head.

“Is that coffee?” Ruby said, appearing in a suddenly burst. Holy hell, she was fast. Where had she even come from? Weiss was only just getting out of Fort Kickassia. “You’re my best friend, person girl!”

“But no cream or sugar,” Chloe said, and Ruby deflated.

“I don’t like you anymore, person girl,” Ruby said, dejected.

Jaune shook his head. “Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, this is Chloe Weaver. Chloe, likewise.” He downed the rest of his entire cup of coffee. “Now c’mon, ladies. Let’s go jump off a bridge together.”


a/n: Look at Jaune go. He’s being a proactive little bean. I, Eric, have been wanting to do more Jaune stuff for a while now. I liek him. I’m also hoping the Pyrrha/Jack scene from her POV helped establish her thoughts and her reasons for why she’s acting like she is.

Remember how we originally wanted to remain broadly on track with canon? Pretty sure we’ve broken that idea. Canon is broken, rocks fall and everyone dies. But hey, it’s fun!

 

Chapter 8: Wear Protection, Say No to Animal Girls
“I’m talking about kicking off the semester with a bang!
“I always kick my semesters off with a Yang!”
“Booooooooo!”

—22—​

There was a reason Cielo hated hospitals beyond the needles and surgical equipment. Hospital orderlies always seemed to lack that little bit of hospitality they’d so undeservedly been associated with. At least in his experience. Of course, when you were too poor to afford anything beyond a back-alley quack who cleaned his tools in whiskey and toilet water, you were bound to develop certain prejudices.

And once you developed your aura—if you developed your aura—they tended to matter even less.

Regardless, his experiences that day did very little to change his stance on doctors much. Okay, he could acknowledge that it might have been a little unfair judging them for their impatience considering the circumstances.

Beacon was on red-alert. The entire school had been converted into a glorified military camp, and its Huntsmen-grade medical facilities were being utilized as field hospitals. A good few students were who took part in the initiation were holed up in the infirmary. Many had only minor injuries at worst. Some others he’d seen were just one bandage away from wearing a full-body cast.

And then were the unconfirmed deaths, if the rumors proved true. Needless to say, his worries had been valid from the very start. He swore those feelings were sometimes the only thing standing between him and an unmarked ditch-grave.

“Initiations,” Cielo sighed, leaning back into his seat. “Hate to say I called it, but…”

Well, he did. And it explained a lot. That Handyman thing. Grimm that strong, that unique? That wasn’t something you’d use for a basic entrance test. Hell, you’d have a hard time finding something like that out in the wild.

So that meant someone had went through the endeavor of herding Grimm and planting them in the Emerald Forest. But how? He’d bet money that the forest had some sort of surveillance system. And even if it didn’t he couldn’t see any possible way someone could drag that Handyman thing around under Vale’s nose without raising a few eyebrows.

Furthermore, why plant them at the site of the initiation? Stick it to Beacon, sure, but what did a bunch of not-even first years matter? Why put in all of that effort for such little payoff?

Too many whats, hows, and whys. And that wasn’t even getting into the whos. The only group he could think of that might have had it out for Beacon would be the White Fang. Maybe they’d started taking their Grimm analogy a little too seriously. But even that seemed like a bit of a stretch, he’d admit. As unpleasant as his past run-ins with the group had been, he just couldn’t attach a possible motive to it.

A soft whimper roused him from his thoughts.

He peered down at the bedridden Huntress of the Law. She’d passed out right as Professor You’ve Been a Bad, Bad Boy had arrived with help. Not that he blamed her. Chick must’ve felt like she was on the roller coaster bound to Hell.

The nurses had allowed him to stay on the condition that he get the hell out as soon as she’d woken up.

“Yo,” Cielo called out, leaning forwards in his chair. “Sleepyhead. Wake up, my nimal.”

Cards grimaced as her red eyes cracked open. She covered them and slowly dragged her hand down her face, stretching it out like a drug-addled mule’s.

“Cielo?” she said as looked at him. Her eyes bulged and she propped herself up on her elbows. “Where—where are we? I… is this Hell?”

“Actually, you’re on board the mothership, my friend.” Cielo muttered a series of odd clicks and syllables vaguely resembling an alien language out of those campy, old space invader flicks. “I hope you got all that. God help you if you didn’t get all that.”

Her back hit the mattress with a thud that somehow managed to sound dejected.

“We’ll go and mark that as a ‘yes’ then.”

“Well, nuts to you too,” Cielo replied.

Cards dragged herself back until she rested against the headboard. She was still in her uniform. Hat and all. “Have you been sitting there this whole time?”

“Not this whole time, no,” he replied. “You’ve been out of it for the past few hours now.”

“Yeah? Well I feel like it,” she said, joints popping as she stretched. Something like realization slapped her in the face. She lunged at him, nearly tipping out of the bed. “The Handyman! Pyrrha Nikos! Jack Knife! What happened?!”

Cielo grimaced. “Settle down. Never known someone to wake up so full of life.”

“C’mon, don’t leave me in the dark on this! Especially not after tossing me around like some kind of death frisby! Did we win?”

He rolled his eyes. Winning wasn’t really the word he’d used. And he was still bitter on having to rely on Cards. And the staff butting in did little to soothe his wounded pride. What was worse was that he knew they’d be proper screwed were it not for the Professor and her entourage.

That was why he was here, after all. To improve. To get where he wouldn’t need to rely on impeccably-timed rescues. To be strong.

To be better than him.

“We took it out long enough for the professor to catch it, yeah,” he said after some time.

A triumphant squeal erupted out of Cards and she lurched at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck as she pressed against him. She laughed heartily as her grip constricted. A laugh full of pride and accomplishment. The kind from someone just happy to be alive.

He said nothing, letting her get it all out of her system. Had he not already been caked in dirt, sweat, and just a little bit of blood, he might’ve been a bit more averse to the gesture. More so than usual. Still, girl deserved some kind of catharsis, he felt.

She let go just before it became awkward. An embarrassed, but victorious smile danced across her face. “Heh, sorry about that. Got a little carried away.”

Cielo sighed, leaning back in his seat once more. Despite everything, he felt he had good enough idea of what was going through Cards’ head throughout the ordeal. Chick was scared. Terrified. But she powered through it. He supposed, in that regard, he was wrong about her.

“You done did decent, Cards,” he said.

“Huh?” she replied, as if snapping out of a daydream. “What did you say?”

“The Handyman,” he clarified, rolling his wrist as if telling her to keep up. “You handled yourself pretty good.”

“No no no! Not that!” Cards smiled. Wide and goofy, like a child that found his father’s porn stash. Unlimited video games in exchange for mom’s continued ignorance. “My name.”

“What about it?”

“You said it!” Shit, did he? “Now that I think about it, you’ve been saying it ever since we fought the Handyman!”

Shit, had he?

Cielo narrowed his eyes. “Y’all speakin’ a whole lotta nonsense, Euchre. Think you might wanna stay the night here. It’s clear that you’ve suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury. I’m an expert on those. I think. The brain damage makes it unclear.”

Her conceited, self-satisfied grinned widened, stretched from ear to ear. It only made him annul his earlier praise.

To his delight, her grin died as a lion’s roar shook the room. A tiny lion with a lot to compensate for locked deep within the depths of Cards’ belly. She hunched over, her arms circled her stomach. Given the day she’s had—they all had—he wasn’t surprised. He was feeling hunger pains as well.

Cielo pushed himself out of his seat. “Let’s get out of here and find some food before you waste away. You can walk, right?”

“Mhm, yeah.” Cards nodded as she climbed out of bed. She sniffed and flinched. “Ugh! You mind if we shower first?”

He shrugged. He was use to getting dirty. After a while your own smell ceased to bother you anymore. That probably wasn’t a very good thing.

Faculty and personnel stormed up and down the halls of Beacon. Place reminded him more of disaster relief center than an actual school. Through the windows overlooking the courtyard he could see rows of Beans with soldiers bumbling about.

Red-alert indeed. They looked like they were getting ready for war.

Cards was starstruck, eyes darting every which way as she beheld the organized chaos.

“Cielo, what’s going on?” she asked, jogging up to him.

He rolled his neck, scratching the back of his head. Right, he probably should have dropped this ball on her earlier. No time like the present, he supposed.

“Right, Beacon’s sorta been put on high alert.”

“What? Why?”

Cielo shot her a look that just had ‘come on, now’ written all over it. “It wasn’t an accident that we’d run into that Handyman fella. Someone’s got it out for Beacon, it seems.”

“Are you telling me someone put that thing there?”

He hummed an affirmative.

Cards wrinkled nose. “I don’t get it. Why would someone wanna do that? And it seems like a lot of trouble go through the just target a bunch of first years?”

“I was asking myself the same thing.” It seemed like a mix of terrifying brilliance and horrific stupidity to him. Unless there was something else he was missing. No way had someone gone that far just to stick it to a bunch of students-to-be.

“Has… has this gotten out?” his partner asked. She looked smaller than normal, shoulders tucked in as if she were awaiting bad news.

Cielo shook his head. “Ochi. Official story, from what I’ve been able to gather, is that some jackasses got a bit carried away with fire dust. Concerns were raised, but after a short investigation it only seemed to be an accident caused by this years extremely talented batch of freshmen. Stay inside. Listen and believe. Ignorance is strength.”

If her eyes were dinner plates, she could feed a family of ten plus the conjoined twin they kept locked in the attic. She buried her face in her palms. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. Bunch of dumbasses, am I right?” he replied, elbow bumping her. He sighed, voice dropping. Lower so that only she could hear him as they passed by more personnel. “They’re either hilariously wrong or this is a media blackout, in which case what the fuck are they covering up?”

Neither were comforting ideas.

“Maybe they want to avoid mass panic? Keep Beacon from looking incompetent?” Cards suggested.

“Maybe.” Cielo shrugged. “Dunno. I just got a bad feelin’ about all this.”

It was mostly silence the rest of the way. Cards made a few attempts at idle conversation, but Cielo’s thoughts distracted him. In general, it was just a really shitty day. One full of disappointments and unanswered questions.

A hot shower might’ve been just the thing he needed to soothe his nerves. The problem being that the pipes had long since gone cold. Considering the state of things, however, he supposed they were lucky to have even been able to catch a shower in the first place.

Took a good while before Cards emerged from the showers. Apparently some weirdo had seen it fit to barricade the girl’s bathroom with every chair in the main building in order to claim them for herself till she was done.

He hated this place and everyone in it.

When she finally came out, looking clean and refreshed, she’d changed out of her police outfit, wearing a pair of black shorts and a white t-shirt. Though she still wore the beret. Must’ve been really attached to that thing. Even with her life on the line, she never seemed willing to part with it. Really got the noggin joggin’.

Cielo opted for simplicity as well. A long-sleeved white tee and jeans.

“Nice shirt,” he said after a moment, hoisting his sword and duffel bag of dirty clothes onto his shoulder.

“Uh.” She looked at her plain, white tee, then back at him. “Th-thanks? Ditto.”

Her stomach rumbled again. As did his own. Food was a harrowing addiction. Very difficult to kick. He learned that when he passed an alleyway once and some pencil-thin hobo ran up to him and screamed, “I’m starving!”

The two exchanged uneasy glances and headed off in search of food. The cafeteria was probably their best bet, he figured. Call it a hunch.

—23—​

The place was huge. Cafeteria was really underselling it. It reminded him more of one of those ethereal dining halls for warriors who died in glorious battle or something. Much bigger than the one from Sanctum, if he was remembering his brief time there correctly.

Just imagine the food fights you could have.

Cielo and Cards had gotten their food—brown paper bags filled with sandwiches, fruits, milk, and animal crackers. Typical disaster food. He’d eaten worse, though. And he doubted Cards was feeling too picky herself.

Despite the sheer size of the place, it’d been a little tricky finding a place to rest their haunches. Eventually they just gave up and opted to go eat in the common room where all the other students had been shooed off to.

Chock full of students, sure, but at least they could eat on the floor without looking like savages.

The crowds of freshmen in the commons were much less tonight than the night before. He wondered how many were still in the hospital. How many were just gone.

He didn’t like thinking about it.

Cielo had noticed more than a few hollow, sunken faces. People who’d cried their eyes out. Most students seemed to be holding it together—or were at least trying to—but he doubted most were still there mentally. Second thoughts about what they were doing. He imagined at least a few were making preparations to head back home.

They’d gotten lucky with the Handyman. Had the staff not showed up, he had no doubts that thing would’ve put itself back together. They had no aura and no chance.

Just thinking about it brought a sneer to his face.

“What’s that?” Cards asked.

Cielo blinked, free from his thoughts. Cards pointed at some bookcases gathered around a window sill with a sign that read: “Fort Kickassia: Your Authority Not Recognized.”

“Fort Kickassia, obviously,” Cielo replied.

“Is it me, or does that just scream Ruby?” she asked

They’d barely known the girl, but Cards was right. It just seemed like the sort of thing Ruby might do.

Cards smiled and hurried towards the makeshift bookcase fortress. Cielo followed after her. He might not have shared the girl’s feelings of camaraderie with Ruby and Schnee, but maybe he could squeeze out any additional info they might have had. Chances were they knew even less than he did but he’d been surprised before.

“Ruby! Weiss!” Cards called out, rapping her knuckles against the bookcase like a door. Guess they hadn’t installed any doorbells yet.

“Go away!” came a muffled, suffering cry.

“Did you say Ruby?” came another. From the confines of the fortress appeared a tall blonde girl with one of her arms in a sling. Cielo recognized her as the one with Ruby back on the Bean.

Then his stomach dropped.

Ask him why and he couldn’t tell you, but there was something weird going on with Blondie here. Something that was off in a way he couldn’t quite place his finger on. A kind of déjà vu, he realized. Like he’d seen this girl before, but couldn’t recall for the life of him wherefrom.

On the Bean he’d been too busy screwing with Jeans and watching Manlius try to flirt his way out of getting fingered as a pickpocket. Coupled with how she’d been facing away from him, he hadn’t really gotten a good look at her.

Now that he’d gotten a decent look at her, he felt like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“You doing okay there, tall, dark, and spacey?” Blondie said.

“What?” Cielo sputtered as he snapped out of his thoughts.

“You kinda spaced out there for a second,” she said. “I thought you were having Great War flashbacks for a second and didn’t know if I should’ve tried throwing a blanket over you or something.”

He looked like an idiot.

He shrugged. “Just kinda burnt. If you don’t mind my asking, have we met before?”

An insufferable little smirk danced across her features. “You mean aside from your dreams,” she replied, winking at him.

Cielo hummed and nodded. Maybe he was just being crazy, but he couldn’t help but feel that she was somehow blowing him off.

“You two know each other?” Cards asked.

Blondie shrugged her one good arm. “In seriousness, sorry, Spacey. If we have, I certainly don’t remember it.” She cringed. “Uh, no offense.”

Cielo shrugged. A very “ what can you do?” kind of gesture.

It still bugged him. He had the feeling he’d be up all night because of it. A lot of bad feelings today, it seemed like.

“So…” Blondie started. “You guys said you know Ruby?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Cards replied. “Do you know where she is? Is she okay? What about Weiss, is she—”

“Woah woah!” Blondie cried, raising her hands as if to ward the overeager girl off. “Settle down for a second, okay?”

“Ah.” Cards deflated. “Uh, sorry. Sorry, I just get a little, you know, a little carried away sometimes.”

“No kidding.” Blondie looked at the smaller girl, something like pity glimmered in her eyes. She smiled, clapping Cards’ shoulder. “Hey, so you guys wanna hang with us?”

“No! Make them leave, Yang!” cried the other voice. Begged, really.

He had nothing better to do. And yet that still somehow seemed more appealing. “Nah, we gotta get—”

“Ah, crazy talk!” Blondie—or Yang, rather—had somehow managed to wrap her one good arm around both their necks and drag them into Fort Kickassia.

He’d stumbled into an array of books neatly stacked in such a way that resembled a bed. Weren’t so neatly stacked anymore. That was fine, though. He did whoever wanted to sleep on these a favor, he was sure.

Cielo stood at the furthest available corner, away from the others and reached into the brown paper bag.

In the back was a bow-haired girl in black. Her arms wrapped around her shins, hugging her legs close to her. She also sat on the window sill, eying them like a cat surrounded by rocking chairs until she laser focused on Cards. Her face furrowed like she’d been forced to do a handstand in a public restroom.

“You again?”

Cards looked like she wanted to die.

“Heeeyyy buuud—”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

He and Yang exchanged looks. No, it was still weird, and for some odd reason he found that he really didn’t like being around the blonde. Like he needed watch out for anything she might have said. Danger sense hadn’t betrayed him yet.

Back pressed against the wall, Cielo shrugged and stared out the window as he bit into his sandwich. Maybe if things got awkward enough she’d kick them out herself.

“Well things got sure quiet fast.”

Bowtie hummed. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with keeping that way, do you? No? Glad we had this talk.”

Yang rolled her eyes and took a seat on the half collapsed stack of books. “Ignore the sourpuss. You guys were looking for my sister, right? I’m so proud of the little scamp! At first I thought she’d have a hard time making friends because she was so young. Turn away for five seconds and she’s making a ton of ‘em!”

“I think ‘friends’ is putting it generously,” Cielo mumbled through a full mouth. It tasted like giving oral sex to a clinically depressed clown.

“Sister?” Cards repeated. “You mean you and Ruby?

“Mhm!” Honestly, he could see the resemblance. Not physically—not even remotely. Cards looked more like Ruby—but she had similar enough quirks that he could buy it. “So how do you guys know her? She didn’t blow up in your faces or anything, did she? For a second I was worried she might’ve been the one behind that fire earlier today.”

“Oh yeah!” Cards laughed, her voice pitched too high to be considered anywhere close to natural. “Can’t imagine who’d do such a thing? Right, Cielo?”

“Bastardly dastards,” he intoned.

She cough, laughter coming to a choppy and unnatural stop, fingers shakingly fiddled with the red and black hair that peeked from beneath her beret. “A-anyway, we only just met up during the initiation. Didn’t get to stick together for very long until we got ambushed and to split up. We wanted to meet at the temple but things just sorta fell apart from there.”

Yang nodded. “Yeah, no kidding. Things got pretty heckin’ wild out there.” A sigh escaped her. “Now she, Weiss, and a couple others’ve got it in their heads that they need to do something about it. I’d go with them, but…” she raised her injured arm.

“Do something about it?” Cards said. “So,” her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “So they think there’s something wrong here too? Like, maybe this was some kind of cover up or something?”

A low, frustrated noise drifted from between Cielo’s lips. He didn’t want to go around just spreading conspiracy theories willy-nilly. Too many people find out and practical information becomes harder to filter from the misunderstandings and rumors. He just wanted to go. Away from here. From this Yang girl.

“Cards.”

“What do you mean ‘cover up’?” Yang pressed, brow quirked. “You think Beacon’s hiding something?”

Cielo sighed. “Son of a bitch.”

Cards, at the very least, had the decency to make her cheeks flush as though she’d known she screwed up.

“Uh.” She looked at Cielo, an uneasy grin twitched the corners of her mouth. ‘Help me out here’ was what he got from it. He’d say something, but this tasteless turkey on dry wheat bread was absolutely dancing on his palate. “Uh, yeah. You know, because of how, well, how strange it all is that we ran into those Grimm. They’re like, really rare, or something.”

It was like watching an old lady trying to make a Chirpette account.

Another sigh. They’d be here all night if it were up to Cards.

“Those Grimm we encountered, those weren’t normal. Too powerful. And even if you did manage to find Grimm that unique in the wild, you’d have an even harder time finding someone who believed you,” he said. “So why would Beacon use them for something as basic as initiation? Remember Ozpin’s words? We were on our own and not to expect any outside help. Yet in the end the staff wound up saving us anyway.”

“Wait, you’re saying you think this was an attack?” Yang asked.

“I’m entertaining the idea, yes,” he replied, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

“Woah woah, slow down there, Spacey,” she interrupted as she stood up. “I think you might be jumping the gun a liiiittle bit here. Maybe things just spiraled outta control a bit more than they’d expected? Why would someone wanna attack Beacon anyway? Makes no sense.”

Cielo rolled his neck and folded his arms. “That’s something that’s stumping me too. The only possible group I can think of would be the White Fang.”

Bow-hair, who’d been as if she were a statue, jolted and made a high-pitched note of curiosity. Pained curiosity. The kind that’d killed the cat, no doubt.

“The White Fang?” she choked through what sounded like a dry mouth. Her back was completely rigid as she sat up.

Cielo shrugged. “Nai, White Fang. Problem with that: it seems outside their MO. I’ve had a few run-ins with them back in Mistral, and unless they’ve found a way to go all Whore in the Forest Clearing, it doesn’t really make sense, you know?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bow-tie asked.

If he shrugged anymore his arms would fall off, he was sure. “Some old religious doomsaying about a human and faunus getting it on and the resulting crotch gremlins being mega Grimm they can control. Generic end of days stuff.”

“That sounds completely ridiculous,” Bow-tie spat. “Who comes up with this crap anyway?”

“Obviously,” Cielo said, “someone who didn’t pull out in time and tried to turn his mistake into a moral lesson for future generations.”

“I don’t get it,” Cards said. She’d been remarkably quiet this whole time. Like she and Bow-tie had switched minds.

He gave the girl a pitiful look he pat her head, beret falling over her eyes. “You’re too pure for this world, Cards.”

She ducked, pulling the hat from over her face. “That really makes it sound like you’re about to kill me.”

“Only if you cross me, Cards.” He shook his head. “Moral of that story? Use protection; don’t jizz in animal girls. Especially when they’re in heat.”

Yang snerked. The kind of noise someone made when they didn’t want to admit they found a stupid joke a little funny and knew they were going to Hell for it.

Bow-tie’s face peeled back. “That’s disgusting!”

“Well geez, aren’t you racist? Fine,” Cielo said, “I guess you should wear gloves, too.”

Cards shook her head. “We’re getting sidetracked, guys!”

Cielo raised a curious brow. Forceful, and just a little bit defensive, like she’d desperately wanted to switch topics.

“Right, right,” he relented. “Point is, I can’t attach any possible motive to the White Fang here.”

Bow-tie’s posture relaxed with a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping as she leaned against the window. “Yeah. They’ve done some bad things in the past, but I can’t see them doing something this pointlessly cruel, to say nothing of any faunus students that’d get caught in the crossfire. They’d have nothing to gain and everything to lose if it ever got out.”

Cielo nodded. “More or less. I wouldn’t go so far as to completely rule it out, but it’s not a theory I’m all that eager to jump on either. Least not without something to substantiate it.”

He could see Bow-tie’s reflection chewing her lower lip as she gazed out the window.

Yang sighed, falling back against the stack of books and further ruining the makeshift bed. “Ugh!” she groaned into her hand. “What the hell is Ruby getting herself mixed up with?”

“If you know where she went maybe we could help her?” Cards pleaded.

The blonde groaned again, kicking her feet and flailing her arms like a child being told not to play kickball with the family cat. “Fine! But you have to promise me you’ll watch over her.

Cards nodded. “I swear I’ll try my best not to completely screw up, yes.”

Yang looked uneasy.

Cards steeled herself, fingers intertwined with each other if only just to look busy. “I’ll do what I can. I swear. She’s our friend, too. Right, Cielo?”

“Eh,” he dismissed.

“Promise,” Cards insisted. So forceful all of a sudden, this girl.

“Cross my heart,” he sighed, tracing an X over his chest.

“And hope to die?”

“Every day, Cards.”

If desperate resignation had a sound, then that was certainly what came out of Yang’s mouth. “Guess that’s as good as I’m gonna get, isn’t it?”

Cielo shrugged. “My sales pitch is usually better than the actual product.”

An ungraceful pig-like snort came from Yang. “She and Weiss went with that Jaune guy and his girlfriend. Something about trying to get the Headmaster to let them help or something.”

“Jaune has a girlfriend?” Cielo said rising to his feet. “Oh boy, this day just gets weirder and weirder.”

Cards followed suit. He’d noticed she’d yet to even touch her sandwich. “We really appreciate it! Really. Thanks a lot Yang and… uh.”

Something like rusted gears grinding together scratched the air as Bow-tie turned to look at Cards. She still look like she’d just stepped in some wet and hairy, but otherwise unidentifiable mass in the bathroom.

“N-nevermind,” Cards whimpered, looking absolutely defeated.

There was an awkward silence that hung in the air until Bow-tie sighed. “Blake,” she said. “Cards and Cielo, right?”

Card beamed. “Mhm!”

Yang sat up, crossing her legs beneath her. “Well, Cards, Cielo, don’t let me down.”

“Nai,” Cielo replied, giving a half-hearted salute as he headed out of the fort.

“Uh, d-don’t worry about him. I will watch after her. Promise. Uh, again,” Cards assured Yang as she followed after him.

“Don’t forget your sandwich, Cards.”

“Oh right!” she said, hurriedly shoving it into her mouth as they left in search of Ruby and her gang.

Turned out the easiest way to find them was to just follow the lynch mob.



a/n: Glossary of Colloquialisms

“Bean” — 1) an airship — From the old Mistrali rhyming slang for airship, "beans-n'-dip." Antiquated airships resembled real-life zeppelins.

“Starstruck” — 1) To be in utter awe; awestruck; alternative to “[the] starlight shudders” — Derived from how rare the stars are to fully see for many people on Remnant due to living in light-polluted cities.

“Nai” — 1) (informal) yes, “yeah” — From old north Mistrali ναι (yes). Sounds very much like "nah/neh", which can cause confusion between Mistrali and outsiders. Due to both "nai" and "ochi" sounding like "nah" and "okay", but meaning the exact opposite respectively, a common derogatory stereotype is that Mistrali are date rapists.

 

Chapter 9: Juice your Colada
“Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be… DELICIOUS!”

— 24 —​

Despite the ever accumulating mountain of evidence to the contrary, Cards had somehow stupidly believed that the day had run out of ways to make her regret getting out of bed that morning. You didn’t really realize what exactly you’d gotten yourself into when you enrolled in Beacon until you saw a stampede of Huntsmen and at least one professor chasing after a girl with a coffee machine.

And it was something she’d be able to take comfort in not being apart of until she noticed Ruby and Weiss amongst the chaos.

“Do we even want to know?” she found herself asking as they chased after the stampede.

“Obviously those Huntsmen are going through severe caffeine withdrawal,” Cielo said. “Girl’s either trying to break ’em of their addiction or levy it against them. She who rules the bean, rules the world.”

At this point she’d honestly started believing that she’d only been accepted into Beacon because they needed to fulfill some kind of sanity quota.

Why couldn’t things just stay simple? They had a plan: find Ruby and Weiss, then approach the Headmaster on how they could help deal with a possible terrorist threat. Very clear and easy-to-follow instructions!

As they gained on the mob, Cielo wrapped his arm around Cards’ midsection. An unseen force catapulted them into the air over the mob of caffeine-deprived Huntsmen (and one professor with funky moss hair and ultra-thick glasses).

“Ruby! Weiss!” she cried as they soared towards the duo and their plus two—some blond guy and coffee girl.

Ruby peeked over her shoulder and squeed, “Cards, you’re okay!”

They hit the ground and just kept hauling it. “What’s happening?! What did you do?!” Cards asked.

“Long story! Not really sure either!”

“I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this!” Weiss cried. Really, she actually seemed like she was on the verge of tears.

The blond guy looked back towards the commotion. Eyes widening, he visibly blanched when his eyes fell on Cielo. “Oh God, not you!”

“Hey, Jeans!” her partner greeted with a cheery wave. “Long time, no chat! How’s ya dick hangin’?”

“Stop spelling my name wrong!”

“My bad, Jay!”

“Why is this happening?!” Cards screamed. Begged. She just wanted answers. Maybe a nice little corner to cry in when this was all over.

“Ask her!” the blond jabbed his finger at coffee girl as they turned a corner. “Chloe just give them back the coffee machine, please!”

“I licked it, Jaune!” Chloe said loudly. “It’s mine by right of conquest! Trust me, I played a lawyer in my school play; this is how it works.”

“Well, I’m convinced!” Cielo replied.

“No!” Jaune cried. “You are not allowed to encourage her! That goes for everyone, but especially you! No encourage the Chloe!”

Behind them the Huntsmen tore through the hallways. Their stampede was so great Cards swore she could see clouds of dust being kicked into the air. Oh God, their eyes. She couldn’t tell what they lusted after more, coffee or blood.

They turned another corner and her heart dropped into stomach then shot right up into her throat.

Nowhere else to turn. Nowhere else to run. They’d hit a dead-end. Which meant they were about to get dead. Was it too late for her to just go back home?

“Chloe,” Jaune tried, voice cracking as he backed into the wall, “I will give you all the money I have in my wallet to give them back the machine.”

“Have Weiss offer me that deal and I’ll consider it,” Chloe said. She snapped her teeth at someone who tried to grab the machine from her.

“I don’t carry cash; I use debit,” Weiss said happily.

“Then just buy her a new machine, Weiss!”

“Oh, can I get one too?” Cielo asked.

“Yeah! And with cream and sugar, too!” Ruby chimed in.

“It’s not about the money, Jaune!” Chloe hissed, growling at another of the coffee-deprived. “It’s about honor! Principle!” In a show of defiance, she dragged her tongue across the glass pot where the fresh coffee would flow into. “Upon this pot I will build my church!”

“Four years,” Jaune said with a heavy sigh to one in particular. At that moment, Cards felt a bit of kinship with the boy. “Next four years. I have to live with this girl for the next four years.”

Cielo whistled. “It’s great, right, Jeans?”

The crowd grew closer. Chloe hissed, pressing it protectively against her chest. Cards just pulled the beret over her face and prayed for death.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” boomed a voice. Strong and resonate, it pierced the air like the crack of a whip. Then came the actual crack of a whip.

Cards went rigid and felt goosebumps running down her arms and legs. Less a question, more an interrogation. It gave her flashbacks of mom’s training sessions. Well, mom in general. The whip was new, though.

The mob parted and in the middle stood a blonde woman in a white blouse and pencil-skirt. Cards recognized her as the woman who came to save them right before she passed out. Professor Goodwitch, if she remembered correctly.

Silence hung over the room like a tarp. Then somebody coughed.

“I guess no one heard me, then. What. Is. The. Meaning of this?” Glynda repeated, the room getting colder with each syllable.

“She stole the coffee machine!” the moss-haired professor said. If his voice meant anything, he was already on the verge of a caffeine overdose.

“Slander, falsehoods, lies, and deceit! The story you tell is incomplete!” Chloe barked.

Goodwitch had a resting you have fucked up face, and she aimed it at the professor in all its resting might. “Professor Oobleck, why aren’t you and your subordinates at your post?”

“The line for the staff coffee machine is too long,” he said quickly. “It was faster to chase this girl down than wait for the jarheads to finish getting their fix. I’m empty, Glynda. Empty! You and I both know I’m not legally responsible for my actions when I’m dry like this.”

Blank stare. Like there wasn’t enough benzos in the world. “I’m going to pretend like an adult chasing down a teenage girl isn’t grounds for a court case so long as you leave. Right now.”

“I’m dry, Glynda! Or do you want a repeat of the meat sock puppet incident?” Professor Oobleck pressed. “Because I for one would prefer my sock puppets to not voraciously crave human flesh, thank you very much! In fact, I would prefer them to teach children their ABCs!”

Cards stepped up. “Hi, is it too late for me to catch the bus back home?”

Goodwitch turned to her, expression strict but otherwise unreadable. Then towards Chloe. She waved her riding crop through the air and Chloe lurched forward.

“What? No!” she screamed, sliding across the floor as coffee machine pulled her towards the professor. “Stop! This violates my non-aggression principle!”

It slipped free and Chloe kissed the floor.

Professor Goodwitch sighed and levitated the machine into Professor Oobleck’s arms. “There, happy?”

He cooed, cradling the machine like soldier did his lover after returning home from the Great War. “Very much so.”

And like that, the mob dispersed, heading back to their individual posts until it was just them and the professor. Chloe was still on the ground, curled into ball made of loss and misery. To be honest, if it wasn’t her, it’d be Cards.

“You’ve won yourself a powerful enemy this day!” she declared.

Another sigh. The professor looked them over, Cards and Cielo specifically. The police Huntress-in-training tensed, arms flat against her hips as the professor approached. Feet together! At attention! Just like mom slapped into her!

“I hope, at least, that I don’t need to tell you all how much more I expected from each of you,” she scolded. “You’re supposed to be the ones to inherit the role as Remnant’s guiding light, yet here you all are prancing about like school children. What did you think you were trying to accomplish with that little stunt?”

“Would you believe us if we said we wanted to get Ozpin’s attention?” Cielo asked.

The professor narrowed her eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, the Headmaster is busy enough without having to deal with your games.”

“Well you know, I don’t really doubt that considering someone’s got a healthy hankerin’ for Beacon’s blood. You any closer to finding out who was behind that little fiasco?”

He let the statement hang in the air. Cards winced, his tone so casual and brusque. Everyone else honed in on him as well.

Professor Goodwitch eyed him impassively. A knowing smirk danced across her lips and she placed a hand on her hip. “Mr. Noel, correct?”

“’Suuup.”

“From what our reports say, it was your carelessness that led several acres of forest being burned to ash and the early cancellation of the initiation,” Goodwitch said.

“Nice dodge there, but I can’t take all the credit for that one,” Cielo replied. “Right, Cards?”

“Excuse me, I don’t know this man!” she insisted, giving her not-partner wide berth.

The blond boy, Jaune, stepped forward. “Please, Professor Goodwitch. Look, we know something’s going on here. Something bigger than just a forest fire. All we’re asking for is a chance to help.”

Goodwitch’s austere mien softened considerably as she looked at the group. Cards found herself able to relax, if only just a bit. Maybe if they pushed just a little harder they could get her to crack. “While your eagerness to be of aid is commendable, believe me when I say you have nothing to fear.”

“Which is why the school’s been converted into a pseudo-military camp, right?” Cielo said. “Dozens of Huntsmen and nary a firefighter to be seen. We’re not that naïve, miss. It doesn’t take a genius to put all the pieces together once you’ve got ‘em lined up in front of you.”

Cards had almost missed it, it was so subtle, but the Professor’s expression shifted. Her strict stoicism laxed for just a second. Just keep pushing.

“We came to Beacon to be Huntsmen. To help people,” Ruby had chimed in. Weiss had stepped up to join her in a show of solidarity.

Goodwitch sighed. “Enough. You can barely even be called students, let alone Huntsmen. The best you can do is go back to the commons and await further instructions.”

She hadn’t exactly denied anything that time.

“Even if we’re not fully-fledged Huntsmen, just sitting here feels, I dunno, it feels wrong!” Cards found herself speaking without even realizing it, ignited by everyone fire. “Those things nearly killed us! Our classmates! And now we’re just supposed to sit around twiddling our thumbs? How’re we gonna protect Remnant when we can’t even be expected to protect our own school? We have to do something! Anything!”

Did they even have a plan? And if they did, how would she even help? She’d only just woken up since the Initiation, and it wasn’t like she was of that much help until the very end.

Still, she wasn’t satisfied with just sitting around doing nothing.

“What they said!” Chloe declared, jabbing a finger at the professor.

“We’ve made up our minds, professor,” Jaune said, a little louder than everyone else. Like he was trying to draw more attention. “All of us have. You can either let us help, or we’ll figure out how to help on our own.”

A low-key ultimatum, that.

The air was still with silence. So quiet that Cards could hear the blood running through her veins. There was a sinking feeling in her belly, like they’d done something wrong. Maybe they pushed their luck a little too far?

She looked at Jaune, and he held the professor’s gaze.

“I swear,” Goodwitch sighed. “Every year you freshmen get a little too much smarter for your own good.”

Cards couldn’t fight back the smile pulling at her cheeks.

“Come with me,” the Professor said. “Just remember when I tried to warn you.”

— 25 —​

They weren’t cops, no, but that didn’t make Jack feel any better. He couldn’t help but twirl a knife in one hand, which was equal parts a show of confidence was it was a nervous tick. He’d only seen guys like this when a Catchfire fire had gotten so out of hand they’d put the whole district under martial law.

Not surprising, considering their favorite soccer team had just won the Vale Cup Championships.

This wasn’t a military here to corral some angry drunks. These men meant business.

He let Pyrrha do the talking. “The Headmaster, miss? Yeah, he’s that way.” “Yeah, over here, but he’s busy.” “That way? Yeah. Who’s asking?” And so forth.

While they were technically walking side-by-side, Pyrrha had an inch forwards. They were partners, equals, yet Jack deferred to her. He didn’t like it, but if she was so suicidally insistent of going to the Headmaster and co., stating how she thinks this is all wrong, and trying to help—well, better he stare at her and not Jack. He had zero interest in catching Ozpin’s eye. Had specifically been cautioned against it, even if the Right Man from the Government did want Jack to “let him know” if he learned anything “interesting” about the Headmaster.

This morning, Beacon had felt like a school. Now it felt like one of those Royal Emergency Management Agency camps the government half-assédly set up whenever Catchfire took up its namesake and they needed to house the masses until they could rebuild their slum with new and exciting ways to circumvent basic building codes.

He looked up and… huh. He nudged Pyrrha. “Nikki, look high.”

Even though Beacon was more than a hop, skip, and a bump from the major city, it was close enough that the night sky was much like it always was. So when Jack saw a star, and then saw it move closer, he knew something was up.

The lights on the horizon slowed down, and Jack could distantly make out the roar of engines. They were huge, like wow. Out in Catchfire there’d been a Great War supercarrier, the R.V.S. Say My Name. Either due to a drunken accident or an act of terrorism, someone had beached it along the coast during its maiden voyage.

“It’s a big ship,” someone had called it. Large enough that, a century after the war, it’d become a mix of a tourist trap and a shantytown. A whole wing of Catchfire extended up the beach and onto the last great warship the Four Kingdoms ever built.

The thing in the sky made it look like a joke. One ship, sleep and white, like a dagger pointed at the heart of Vale. Some patriotic part of Jack’s lizard-brain didn’t like it. He recalled reading somewhere that the advent of the aircraft carrier rendered the battleship obsolete. Whoever had packed those canons and gun batteries onto that ship up there had clearly never gotten the memo.

“Atlas airship,” Nikki said. “They must’ve starting flying here at top speed hours ago. More proof that something here is wrong, and the staff knows it.”

That’d been her conviction. While Jack had been playing aerial ping pong with that girl riding Nikki’s shield, Nikki had stepped aside to place a scroll call to the staff. Their scrolls were all new and Beacon-issued, save for Jack, who refused to let Beacon have his GPS location. He still used his own scroll. Point being, with the artillery and the Bullheads in the air, Nikki figured everything had gone tits up enough to call for help.

It’s why that Goodwitch woman had shown up. Jack had to admit, he never would have thought to just ask the staff for help.

Why this inspired Pyrrha to want to march up to Ozpin and demand to help, well, Jack didn’t follow the logic.

“You,” came a gruff, gravel voice. A tall man in sleek knight-like armor stepped in from of them. From the servos and other mechanical bobs on it, Jack figured he must be Atlas. A staff member? He blocked their way forwards.

A flying rhombus hovered around him like a bad smell. It made a little whirring sound, the large camera on its front adjusting to focus on them. It emitted a blue light over them.

“Pyrrha Nikos, freshman. Indigo Jack, freshman,” the rhombus said in a friendly, if mechanical voice. Like a more natural sounding text-to-speech reader. “They’re partners.”

The armored man turned his knight-like helmet to Pyrrha and pointed towards the student commons. “Leave.”

Pyrrha hesitated for just a moment. “We’re here to see Headmaster Ozpin.”

“No,” he said with the finality of a guillotine.

She didn’t back down. “Something happened down there in the forest. We have aright to know.”

“And a right to help,” Jack added, just trying to sound helpful. Nikki nodded in solidarity.

The man didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. The rhombus shifted its lens and even its shape. Jack wasn’t sure which of the two was staffer was staring down. Maybe he was using a lazy eye to look at both him and Nikki.

“I don’t think they’re moving,” the rhombus said, unnecessarily.

From the way it cringed backwards, Jack wondered if the staffer actually had three eyes under that helmet of his.

“It’s quite alright, professor,” said a calm, collected voice. All heads turned to a very tall man with white hair and a black suit. He walked with a cane, though Jack couldn’t see any reason he needed it.

Headmaster Ozpin.

The armored man gave the pair one last glare, then left without so much as a grunt. His rhombus followed. They returned to the outdoor war camp overlooking the burning emerald forest, join up with what looked like more teachers and professional Huntsmen.

“Pyrrha Nikos and Indigo Jack, I take it,” Ozpin said, feigning curiosity. Jack just knew it was fake. It made his skin crawl. Without thinking he found himself stepping closer to Pyrrha as if to reinforce her in a phalanx. “The girl who figured out the legendary Handyman’s weakness on her first meeting of it, and her partner.”

Jack bristled. He couldn’t tell if it was indignation or goosebumps. He wanted to correct the bastard. Say that no, Pyrrha had simply told the staff that during her scroll call. The realization had been all his. He was the smart one. But he couldn’t. Ozpin was praising Pyrrha for this, and Jack didn’t want that man’s praise or attention.

Nameless Thirteenth, but did he feel exposed.

“Thank you,” Nikki said graciously, “but it was a team effort. I couldn’t have done it without Jack.”

Jack held the man’s gaze. He didn’t even realize he was white knuckling the knife he’d been previously twirling. He put the weapon away with a sleight of hands.

“Yes, the initiation does make strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?” Ozpin asked.

What the hell do you know, Ozpin? Jack found himself thinking. Maybe it was paranoia, maybe something else, but Jack’s gut told him Ozpin knew more about him and Nikki than he was letting on. Nikki he could understand. Rumor had it she was such a hotshot she appeared on cereal boxes, but Jack? The Right Man’s forged transcripts had been honest about what Jack could do, but was careful to hide Jack’s less than legal history.

So Jack gave Ozpin a displeased look. It was better than keeping a poker face. Too many people think not reacting is a good way to hide your emotions when the truth was no reaction was almost more telling.

He was overthinking this.

Pyrrha wasn’t. “With all due respect, sir, something happened out there that wasn’t supposed to. I caught sight of some of your cameras and sensors out there. The moment a skinwalker of Handyman entered the Emerald Forest, you should have stepped it. Delayed Initiations, even. Instead,” she said, gesturing to the warcamp, “this happened.”

Ozpin cocked a brow. He wasn’t going to tip his hand this early. He was seeing what Pyrrha knew. It’d give him a base to work with.

Jack interrupted before Pyrrha let Ozpin have the cards. “Then you lock the freshmen up like last night,” he said, folding his arms. “With all possible disrespect, sir, that’s a load of crap. We may be freshmen, but we held our own out there in a situation bad enough you need to call up an Atlas warship. If you don’t want to give us answers, fine, but don’t sideline us.”

The things Jack does for a teammate…

Pyrrha nodded. “We want to help.”

The Headmaster regarded the two as he leaned on his cane. Slowly his head moved in what could have been a nod, could have been a stiff breeze. Before he could say anything, a portly teacher came up to him.

“Headmaster, Ironwood’s calling you from the ship,” he said before being dismissed.

“If nothing else,” Ozpin said slowly, “I like your initiative. I can see great future Hunters in you both.”

“But?” Jack prompted.

The man flashed a little smile and adjusting his glasses. “Now what would possess you to think I’d throw away two students with a drive like yours?”

Jack just knew the man had omitted a “but” there purely because Jack had called him on it. As if the man had a compulsion not to be predicted or outplayed. He was just like the Right Man had said he’d be like. Which begged the question, if the Right Man already knew so much about the Headmaster, why the hell did he need Jack to tell him what Ozpin was up to?

“What about if there were six more?” a stern, desperately unhappy woman said. Professor Goodwitch. The same woman Pyrrha’s scroll call had summoned.

And she had brought company.

The frown on Ozpin’s face made following Pyrrha here totally worth it.

Ruby and her boytoy, he recognized. Same with that Cielo guy and the human frisbee, Cards. The brunette and white-blonde girl with a resting “I’m out of your league” face, he couldn’t place.

“On the plus side,” Ozpin said, “not all of the media’s cover story is a lie now. We do appear to have an outstanding crop of first-years.” He shot Pyrrha a look, which Jack was thankful was aimed her way, not his. “A shame you’re all too clever by half.”

— 26 —​

It was official. Today was a bad day.

Ozpin could handle the security breach. He could handle the letters he’d need to send the families of the recently deceased. He could handle needing to call General Ironwood here all the way from Atlas. He could even handle the diplomatic… well, let’s call it a “mess.” The diplomatic mess the viral attack on Beacon was shaping up to be.

What he wasn’t happy to handle on top of all that were the eight students now demanding he fess up and let them help on a matter they shouldn't have been involved with.

It was like talking with… about three Ambers. He shuddered internally at the thought, bless her departed soul. What was left of it.

But not being able to handle something never stopped Ozpin from dealing with things before. No reason to throw it the towel now.

He’s had worse.

Like Amber.

On the plus side, it seemed like the eight before him would shape up perfectly well as the first two official teams of the semester. If only so he could better organize the students he knew who would be the dedicated ferrets.

A quick glance and he figured out the ringleaders. Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune Arc, and Cielo Noel. The other seems to be following their friends. From the way one Indigo Jack was holding himself, he doubted he’d ever be in Ozpin’s presence if not for his partner. Ozpin supposed that’s what he should expect from a student who’d come here on an official government contract. Unfortunately for Mr. Jack, the suspicion that entailed always meant he kept a close eye those students.

All in all, it was a strange crop of students who’d come together. Jaune, with the hilariously forged transcripts. Pyrrha, an athletic prodigy. Ruby, let in early, and with the same eyes as her mother. A Sanctum washout who’d nevertheless shown up with a recommendation from a Huntsmen Ozpin trusted. That Government boy. The Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.

The only ones who didn’t come pre-equipped with enough baggage to break a camel’s back were Cards Adler and Chloe Weaver, who were as close to “generic Beacon students” as you could get. Ironically, that itself made them stand out from the others.

Definitely going to be one of the stranger classes here at Beacon. And he’d had Team STRQ.

Still, in a very real sense, he didn’t have time for his preferred methods. Talking down students like these took time he no longer had. That’s why he was in the command center of the forward operations camp, and not behind his desk enjoying himself a cup of his thickest xocōlāt with a mountain of whipped cream to help him relax. Ironwood would be arriving in minutes, and he didn’t much care to juggle eight precocious students alongside James.

“In my defense,” Glynda said, arms folded, “I tried to stop the ones behind me. Those two,” she said, nodding at Jack and Pyrrha, “are on you.”

Pyrrha stood resolute, like she was trying to look good for a photo op. Her partner put hands in his pocket and remained at her side. He was eying the other six who’d come in with Glynda.

“Eh, we’re eight teenagers with attitude,” Mr. Noel replied, shrugging. “You couldn’t ask for a better fighting force.”

If Qrow were here he could at least take comfort in the idea that liquor was nearby. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d pinched the man’s sunshine.Where was he anyway? Even during a crisis, that man’s propensity for fashionable lateness was a never-changing constant.

Ozpin brought the mug of coffee to his lips. Maybe if he pretended it was liquor…

“Listen, students,” he began with a conditioned sort of calmness. “While your eagerness to be of aid is—”

“—commendable,” Ms. Chloe Weaver interjected. “Believe me when I say you have nothing to fear. Something to that effect, I think?”

Ozpin adjusted his shades, if only so that they couldn’t see him blink. He was either really off-center if a student had seen through him, or he missed adding a new Queen Lancer.

“Like I said,” Glynda sighed. “I tried to stop them. Didn’t work. Now we’re here.”

“That appears to be the case,” he replied, fighting back the frustrated sigh.

If Glynda couldn’t convince them, he very much doubted anything he said in the available time was have much effect. Even if he did refuse them, hard-learned experience told him they would find a way to insert themselves into a situation that was well out of their league. But having a group of teenagers running about unaccounted for was not something he could afford.

The simple reality of the situation was that he had nothing for them to do. The ideal would be for them to sit tight and support each other like Hunters while the adults took care of business, but if he couldn’t dissuade them then better he focus all of that youthful energy towards something distracting. The trick was getting to know what each of them had wanted to hear.

These kids—the Beacon Eight, the provisional term already floating through his head—time would tell whether they were a blessing or a curse.

One final sigh.

“It appears as though I have my hands tied,” he conceded, a fatherly smile stretched across the corners of his lips. Muted cheers cropped up amongst the group—namely Ruby Rose, Jaune Arc, and Cards Adler. The others withheld their celebration, waiting patiently for him to continue.

He needed something. Something utterly menial but made them feel useful. And he thought he had just the thing. “Today has been eventful, as you’ve seen firsthand. Despite the outpour of support, there’s simply not enough Huntsmen or soldiers on hand yet to fully contain this.” He adjusted his glasses, making a show of the pause. “While tonight’s incident largely isolated itself to the Emerald Forest, quite a number of small, younger Grimm have escaped our attempts to corral them and made it to the Forever Fall forest nearby. They are a problem, pure and simple, and I don’t have the resources to deal with those Grimm when I have to deal with this terrorist attack against Beacon.”

He paused, letting the shock of the words sink in with the Beacon Eight. It’d serve to occupy their minds and distract them from the reality of how menial this task truly was.

“The plan had been to simply add more escort to future class excursions until things calmed down. But if you’d be inclined, your tackling of the Forever Fall Forest issue would be greatly appreciated. We’d be free to focus our attention on the clear and present danger,” he concluded, making sure to look every student in the eyes. At least those who’d meet his gaze.

One of the shorter students, Cards Adler, raised her hand after a time.

“How may I assist you, Miss Adler?” he replied.

“So, uh, Headmaster Mr. Ozpin—this whole terrorist thing,” she said. “Do you guys know who’s behind all this? Like, who’d want to come after Beacon, in the first place?”

“We don’t know yet. We do know that some of the code in the virus that compromised Beacon’s surveillance of the Emerald Forest has the telltale signs of Atlesian programming,” he said, his eyes going to Weiss Schnee, “which is why we’ve summoned General Ironwood and his staff to assist us in cracking the rest of the program and identifying the source.”

The Schnee perked up. Like he’d hoped, she’d picked up on the subtle implication that her sister, Winter, might now be in town. Ozpin believed the two had a positive relationship, and this seemed to confirm that. This would serve well to motivate Weiss and keep her focus off anything too substantial.

Drip-feed important-sounding information just right and you can hide the forest through the plastic trees.

“Any further questions?”

“Only when we can get a Bullhead to the Forever Fall,” Pyrrha said. She looked over to the others.

“Yeah, same,” Jaune Arc said.

“Do you think there’s any free showers on campus?” Ruby Rose added, which for some reason earned her a suspicious look from the Schnee.

Ozpin smiled. “I might be able to arrange something for you all.”

“And a coffee machine!” Chloe Weaver said, holding up a finger.

“That’s Professors Oobleck’s domain,” Ozpin said, kicking the question downstairs. Like he’d never had one of his kids come to him because his husband or wife had told them no. The girl grimaced and made a noise.

His eyes drifted across the line up, falling upon Pyrrha’s partner, Mr. Jack. He looked somewhere between defensive of his partner and suspicious of Ozpin himself. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping mum. As if he realized what Ozpin was doing but preferred the diversion over sticking around in his presence.

Reading him was so easy that Ozpin wondered if it was a purposeful façade meant to distract him.

Mr. Noel similarly kept to himself. Suspicious but and very much unwilling to come forward about it, as if unable to determine where honesty ended and the misdirection began.

Intelligent boys, if not a bit too smart for their own good. All of them were. And it was his responsibility to protect them from that intellect. Keep them from overestimating their abilities. What most might have seen as a dismissal of their abilities was what would save their lives. In truth, the Beacon Eight were likely the soldiers he’d need one day. If they truly felt the calling to something more, there was always room in his plans for smart-alek agents and murder-machines that looked far too cute for the mayhem they caused.

But until that day came, they were still children, however skilled. And they still had much to learn.

“If there are no further questions,” he said. “Rest a bit and I’ll see about those showers. You depart before dawn.”


a/n: Glossary of Terms

Dedicated Ferret(s) — 1) Someone who thoroughly investigates, especially into secret matters with the intent of making them public, 2) Dedicated investigative journalist — A term named after a Faunus-owned newspaper famous for its thorough investigative reporting. While not inherently political, politicians accused them of yellow journalism or tabloidism, but their works lead to the resignation of several corrupt politicians. There’s an award named after them for journalists

Sunshine — 1) High-proof alcohol (especially whiskey) that is often, but not always, produced illegally. — It’s moonshine, but called 'sun' because you have to make it during the day, Grimm come out at night, and the Grimm's bad vibes ruin good booze, or so the superstition goes.

 

Chapter 10: No Love
“You and I were going to change the world, remember? We were destined light to the fires of revolution!”

— 27 —​

“Please, Adam. Please!” she cried, banging fists on the door. Clawing at it in desperation. She choked down a sob. “Don’t do this to me, Adam. Please. Please!”

Adam Taurus stood there, arms folded, expression set as if in stone behind his mask. The man besides him was a joke. The messy white hair and lab coat turned what might have been and intimidating human into something from a budget sci-fi movie. To say nothing of his mechanical left eye. It actually glowed red.

Completely ridiculous. Like he was trying to look like an evil mad scientist. The only thing that muddled the image was the man’s deep, rather sonorous voice. Way too coherent for any self-respecting mad scientist.

He looked to the poorly hidden camera in the tree. The one pointed right at him. “You’re sure they can’t see us?”

Dr. Merlot held out his scroll. “See for yourself, Adam. Between you and me, that Watts may have an ego even among scientists, but his Ghostwalker protocols are second to none.”

The scroll showed a live video feed from the very camera pointed at Adam and the human. The screen showed nothing, just a normal part of the Emerald Forest. Adam kicked over a rock. On the screen a Grimm darted across the clearing and kicked the rock over.

She banged on the metal door again, screaming, howling in tears. “Adam please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t do this to me!”

It made his skin crawl.

On Dr. Merlot’s screen he could hear the rustle of leaves in the wind. The distant cry of a Grimm. But nothing of the girl in the metal box.

Screw it.

He pressed the button, opening the door. A door on the other side of the cage. The screams stopped. A figure darted out and into the forest.

Adam looked back at the human. “I don’t like Skinwalkers. They’re creepy.”

The human grinned, stroking his beard. Somehow he kept finding ways to look comically evil, and it took all of Adam’s willpower not to roll his eyes. Forget the mask, anybody could see he was sick of this human’s shit.

“Yes, but they’re useful,” the human said. “Such a rare breed of Grimm, too. A superior type of being, potentially. Pure. Determined. Did you know they’re more attuned to auras than even the Seven Sins Grimm? Though I remain unsure if they can this attunement to actually manipulate—”

“I don’t care,” Adam said flatly. He walked around the cage, looking after where the skinwalker had fled. He couldn’t shake the feeling like this was a terrible idea. Because it was, speaking frankly, the worst idea he’d ever heard. He meant that. And he’d had people like Ghira, all due respect for his work during the war, seriously suggest to him that violence wouldn’t work. This was on a comparable level of terrible.

He couldn’t care less about some graduating class of Huntsmen. Live, die, fail, whatever. As far as he cared, they were just a bunch of dumb kids with a starry-eyed view of the system as something less corrupt than it really was. What bothered him was that this was Beacon. Like any kingdom, Vale had sins to answer for. But unlike places like Atlas or Haven, The Great And Terrible Ozpin mostly kept himself above the corrupt politics, and was more open to recruiting and training faunus Huntsmen. Even if he didn’t press it like some wished he would, Adam clearly saw the man got results by being discrete.

That didn’t mean Vale and Beacon were innocent by any stretch of the imagination. But they were a damn sight more tolerable than Mistral and its Haven Academy. Haven's Faunus headmaster was nothing more than a cowardly diversity hire put in place to be a yesman housepet for the humans in a pathetic attempt at putting blinders on Mistral’s faunus. “Oh no, Mistral doesn’t really discriminate against the faunus. Look, our Huntsmen academy’s headmaster is a faunus!”

Adam clenched his fist. He was here doing this because of her. Cinder. If that was even her name. He’d love nothing more than to carve that smug grin off the bitch’s face. But he knew there was no challenging her, not yet. He needed time to figure out how to stop her.

Right now, all he had were fantasies. Like stripping Cinder of that designer dress and carving all seven names of the men and women she’d killed that night onto her naked flesh. Making her say every name and beg forgiveness. There were two kinds of evil as far as Adam saw it: evil through inaction, and evil though action. Cinder was the latter, and it’s why she needed to die. But Adam had seen what Cinder could do. Doing right by the dead was a long ways away.

Until then, Adam had to grit his teeth and ignore the fact that what the White Fang were doing today was putting faunus lives at risk. Humans dying out here? Whatever. But those faunus at Beacon were innocent. They were just trying to do good. Be heroes. They were delusional idiots, yes, but Adam couldn’t fault them their heart. Sometimes they even wised up and joined the right side.

“Well,” Merlot said with a huff, “I care. I would think an organization that calls itself the beowolves among the sheep would make you people respect the creatures that truly rule the world, but no. All this effort to capture, tag, and release Grimm, and you act like it’s nothing.”

Adam kept a level face. The doctor had insisted Adam had his own appreciation for the Grimm when they’d met before. But Merlot couldn’t get it through his thick human head that Adam didn’t don the Grimm mask because he identified with Grimm, but as a symbol. It made him faceless. It let other faunus imagine themselves behind the mask in Adam’s place. As far as he was concerned, any other symbolism was merely a happily adopted accident.

So once again he let Merlot’s ignorance slide. He couldn’t murder Dr. Merlot, not yet. Not until he knew he could handle Cinder and her reprisals first.

“I’m here as a favor for her, doctor,” Adam said, unable to keep one hand off the hilt of his sheathed sword. “I don’t care about you or your fetishes.”

Merlot looked disappointed. “Kids these days. I suppose I can’t fault you your ignorance. I shouldn’t have expected any better, honestly.”

He closed his eyes and counted back from ten. It was something Blake had taught him to do once. One of the few good ideas she’d ever had. When it was over, he was able to take his hand from his sword and pretend like he wasn’t bothered.

“Are you done?” he asked.

Merlot held up his scroll. “Your other teams are slow. The skinwalker is clear, but the team with the Handyman is stalling. Do your job, beat them some sense into them, and we can all call it a day.”

“They’ll do what they’re told,” he said, trying very hard not to imagine Dr. Merlot as a Schnee Dust Company taskmaster. “They know the stakes. They’re disciplined.”

Merlot leaned against the metal crate. ‘Merlot Industries’ was emblazoned on its side. “Lie to yourself if you want, but the sensors don’t. The scroll here says they’re not doing their job, so they’re not doing their job. You didn’t train your subordinates like I told you to.” He waved his scroll. “The Beacon Initiation begins in a few hours, and I for one would like our poison in place when we start watching the pests drop like flies.”

Comically evil, Adam thought. The man was a complete joke. A killing joke. One who could work with Grimm on this scale. It made him want to strangle Cinder and her lackey all the more. The Grimm masks the White Fang had worn for years were never meant to be taken this literally.

When Merlot showed Adam the scroll, Adam caught sight of the list of names on one tab. Students. The auras of the freshmen class. According to the reader from some kid named Jaune Arc, he was already dead. Cool. Not that anyone in the student body particularly mattered. Save for any poor faunus who—

His heart stopped.

“Give me that,” he demanded, grabbing the scroll.

“Animals. No manners,” Merlot said with a sneer.

Adam scrolled up and down the list. The name remained there. Blake Belladonna. Bullshit, it had to be one of those people who’d named their kid after the Belladonnas during the Revolution. Lots of faunus without surnames had done that. He tapped on the name. It brought up a photo of her. She’d adopted a bow to hide her ears since last they met, but yeah, it was the Blake he knew.

Something inside him felt hollow. More like he knew exactly what it was, but still didn’t want to face it.

A blender of emotions danced in his chest. Blake Belladonna. Once upon a time she and him had…

Why was she at Beacon? How’d they even let her in? Gods above, she was going to die here. He looked the direction the skinwalker had gone, hand going to his sword hilt. Maybe he could do something. Prevent the more deadly Grimm from finding her. Maybe show up and warn her. Or…

Or…

He took a breath, taking his hand from his weapon. His heart pulsed.

Blake had made her choice. “Goodbye.” All they’d had together, all they’d done, and she…

She’d made her choice. Blake was a big girl. She’d made a big mistake. Everyone does from time to time. He’d been beside himself with furious grief, but Ilia and Waldrich had talked sense into him. couldn’t blame her for that, even if he still wanted to blame her. He let out a long breath. He’d seen Blake fight. He’d trained her as much as she’d trained him. He knew how she fought, how she operated.

Blake didn’t need a knight in shining armor to save her. She’d made her choice, and Adam had made his.

“Here,” he said, giving the scroll back. He kept telling himself he wouldn’t think about Blake. Live or die, that was all on her and her merits right now. Nothing to do with him.

And if she died, then that was another name he’d carve across Cinder’s body.

“Oh hey,” Merlot said, “they’ve released the Handyman. Finally.”

“Good,” he said, reaching for his own scroll. “Because we’re leaving this place.”

— 28 —​

No one. Here. Deserved. To live.

Simple at that.

No one but Adam himself.

“It’s a shame so many Grimm died,” Dr. Merlot said, sitting at his end of the table. “So many prime specimens put to the sword. At least the Handyman and Nuckelavee are alive. Not even Beacon’s best could destroy such innovative creatures.”

God, the way he spoke! It was just a candid insanity. He was the kind of guy who’d say something like “Yeah, this beer is good, but did you know that the genocide of the faunus during the Great War was overblown propaganda, and in fact Mantle never had a plan to kill the faunus; the ones who died in Mantle slave camps was due to accidental typhoid exposure.”

Roman Torchwick? Scum. He ran drugs for the hell of it. Just for himself. At least when the White Fang did it, it was to make money for the cause, and they never sold any cut or cheap shit in faunus neighborhoods. In fact, once Adam had been put in charge of the Vale branch of the White Fang, he’d made it a point to clean the faunus ghettos of human or crooked Faunus drug dealers. If the humans wanted their fix, they could OD on all the shinespark they wanted. But the faunus would remain safe.

And Cinder Fall?

“A necessary loss Dr. Merlot,” she said tersely. “Will that be all?”

Stop. Talking. Like. This! It made Adam grind his teeth. Stupid bitch, not a single one of us is convinced by your femme fatale schtick. Just talk like a normal person so we can be rid of you faster.

Just—the way she spoke made it hard to listen to her. Hard to follow along with anything she said. Half the time Adam found himself playing games with himself. “What’s her next word going to be?” It was a good way to occupy himself during the long gaps between her every. Other. Word.

The meeting had taken an hour. And Adam could have summed it all up in three sentences. “The attack on Beacon was a perfect distraction. Our virus did what we wanted and now I’m going to lay low for a while. We’re all going out for ice cream to celebrate.”

You could’ve done it over a group-text and saved everyone the risk of being all in one place at the same time.

“No,” Merlot said, replying to Cinder. He was steepling his fingers. “There’s a matter of where we put our sleeping beauty. We can’t keep her in Vale if we want to truly understand how this power works. Scientific and quantifiably. You can’t keep putting the topic off, Cinder.”

Maidens. That’s what he was talking about. Another term in Cinder and co.’s word salad. All Adam knew, Maidens were something Cinder wanted. Something about the power Cinder had. He suspected it was some powerful hereditary semblance, like what the Schnees had with their ability to raise the dead to serve them. Beacon’s Headmaster had one in a machine; Cinder and Dr. Merlot’s automata had done a surgical strike to take it. Near as Adam could tell, the doctor’s protests were the only reason why this maiden woman hadn’t been deep sixed in the incident.

Exactly why Merlot cared was… odd, Adam thought. One of the few things here that genuinely had his interest. Adam did his homework. Dr. Merlot was a disgraced scientist like Dr. Watts, another of Cinder’s associates. Merlot was a Grimm cultist whackjob, supposedly dying in Mountain Glenn. Why he was now constantly mentioning aura and “soul bonding” and “the parasite,” Adam couldn’t figure. His priorities had morphed.

“I’m with him,” Torchwick said, tapping his cane. “Beacon’s dumb, but give them enough time, and that won’t be much, and they’ll figure where the pieces fell. I took a look at the machine the girl’s in and I’m inclined to agree with the good doctor. That’s some hefty aura stuff. There’s a lot we could learn from it.”

Cinder arched a brow, keeping a cool face. “Funny. I don’t recall giving you permission to inspect it.”

Torchwick shrugged happily. “Oh, I didn’t want to worry you. You know my ‘specialist’ connections, so I figured I’d use my clinical knowhow for you out of the goodness of my golden heart. And the doc’s right.”

Merlot nodded, staring Cinder down, almost a challenge. “She was very specific. You’ll get what you want in the end, but I have jurisdiction of this research. Nobody knows how he did this, and we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to study his handiwork. To uncover all of the Wizard’s’s secrets.” He flexed his fingers as if in want of a pen and pad.

Cinder’s face was flat. Unimpressed. Unhappy. Adam leaned forwards slightly. He’d been under the impression Cinder had complete control here. Was she merely a proxy like he was for her? How deep did the rabbit hole go?

“Exactly,” Torchwick added with a smile. “Besides, who knows what’ll happen if we take the girl out of the machine? I couldn’t find one, but I get the feeling Ozpin’s the type of person to have a self-destruct failsafe on that kind of device.”

Merlot nodded. “Oh there won’t be, the only security measure is one’s valuing of the girl’s remaining life. But I won’t deny Ozpin’s craft. Quite the schemer. To think, all those years working shoulder to shoulder and he never once thought to inform me he had intimate knowledge of the Grimm’s origin. Disgusting!”

Origin of the Grimm? What?

The doctor cleared his throat. “Excuse me. As I was saying, Ms. Fall, she already decided how we’ll proceed, and this comes first. I’m just reminding you before witnesses so you stay focused.” He gave a flippant shrug.

Cinder’s expression tightened.

“We’ll be arranging to extract the girl and her sarcophagus to my island.” He flashed a conspiratorial grin. “To Salem’s Other Lot.”

Cinder looked genuinely annoyed. “Don’t use that name.”

“It’s not like they get it,” Merlot said with an innocent shrug.

Nor do I care, Adam thought, resisting the urge to tap at the hilt of his sword. When it came down to it all, he realized, this entire meeting was people who thought too highly of themselves trying and failing to play the super-spy game. Maybe there were bigger implications beyond their constant use of ten-Lien words. But none of it mattered to Adam and his cause at the end of the day.

Torchwick looked to Adam. “You. Get some White Fang to help move the girl. Merlot, ditto with your robots.”

Adam’s lips tightened. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Ah, right,” Torchwick said with wink and a nod. “Yo, my nimal, gonna need some boys to help move the special magic doom lady.”

“My automata can handle it; I don’t need your pets,” Merlot dismissed.

“Yes, you do,” Roman said quickly. “I’d say this operation needed a little human touch, but, well.” He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

Adam stood up. “Call me when you’re done. I’m not here to watch you all—” wave your dicks at each other“—bicker like schoolkids. I’ve got a job to do.” He looked at Cinder, who gave a single, slow nod. Even her motions were frustratingly sluggish. “Keep in touch,” he lied, hoping she’d vanish off the face of Remnant. “You know where to find me.

“What he said,” Torchwick added, standing up to leave. He turned towards the door Adam was moving towards, which made Adam irrationally angry.

But Adam ignored it as best he could. Out the door and into the warren of Torchwick’s abandoned warehouse, the type of place along the Catchfire docks that could safely house a meeting of supervillains.

That’s what they were. Supervillains. And being invited here made Adam feel dirty. Here was a drug lord, here was a Grimm-loving terrorist, here was an evil bitch bent on world domination or something. He didn’t belong here.

A girl appeared from thin air. Human. Carrying an umbrella. Short enough he wondered if she’d wandered off from a daycare. The hall was too cramped and narrow for him to get past easily.

“Move,” he said, and the girl merely cocked her head quizzically.

Adam wasn’t going to repeat himself. He knew that if she was here, she was either with Torchwick or Cinder. And if she was blocking his way, that meant…

He turned around to find Roman Torchwick there, smiling. “Why, my friend Adam. What a whacky coincidence, meeting here like this.”

“What do you want?”

“And there’s the million Lien question,” Torchwick replied, leaning forward on his cane. “Straight to the point. I like you.”

“Funny. I don’t like you,” Adam said dryly.

Torchwick grabbed at his chest. “Ow. You’re killing me here, Adam. Why the negativity? Why, we’re natural friends, not enemies!”

The silent girl on Adam’s other side nodded in solidarity

“I mean,” Torchwick continued, “I get you, my man. You're a smart, dedicated guy. I respect that. But it seems like you and me have the same problem.”

“You sell drugs to kids. We don’t any problems in common,” Adam said. “Or anything else, come to think.”

Torchwick grimaced. “See, you say that, but I’m not feeling that. C’mon, my nimal, let’s play ball.”

Adam had to work very hard not to drop into a defensive posture and break the man’s jaw. “If Cinder wouldn’t kill my men for it, I’d murder you right here and now.”

“Exactly, see?” he said with a smile. “The same problem. Now, I get it, Adam. Humans? They suck. I would know. I actively help them suck. But you and me? See, that’s where there’s some common ground. What we want ain’t so different.”

Adam bit. “And what do we want?”

Torchwick smiled. “To survive. And to get rid of that Cinder bitch.”

“That’s an idea that can get you killed.”

“Yeah, but I’m human,” Torchwick said, twirling cane. “What’s my death matter to you?”

Adam didn’t reply.

“Exactly!” Torchwick said. “Now see, Cinder’s given me control of your White Fang out in Vale. So I’m technically in charge of a whole bunch of faunus lives. It’s all her idea of trying to give you plausible deniability in case things go tits up. Now, depending on how good I follow my orders, I can do something that gets them all killed, or keep them all alive. Either way gets Cinder what she wants.”

Adam bristled. “Don’t you dare.”

The man looked like a snake, the way his lips creased. “So, here’s the deal, my nimal. You and me, let’s work together. We’re, shall we say, confederates of need. I think you’re a misguided bigoted, and you think I’m a human. But we can both agree that Cinder Fall is going to destroy us and everything we hold dear unless we work together.”

“So?” Adam found himself saying. God but how he wanted to strangle Torchwick.

“So!” Torchwick grinned. “You work with me, scratch my back, and I return the favor. I’ll do my best to preserve faunus life, and in return, well, let’s keep things open. No plans survives first contact with the enemy, right?”

“And?” Adam said. There was more to this. He could read it in Torchwick’s face. The bastard thought he was so clever.

“Well, Cinder wants to screw over Beacon,” Torchwick said solemnly. “And as it just so happens, I have a man inside. A boy, really. A student we could use to help steer Ozpin in the right direction. Placate Cinder with one hand, free ourselves with the other.”

“You’re an idiot,” Adam said, turning to leave. All he did was face the silent girl with the umbrella. He stared her down, waiting for her to leave him alone.

“You’ll have to be more creative with the name-calling,” Torchwick said, examining his fingernails. “My old man’s called me far worse. Do we have a deal?”

“You’ve awfully candid about your want to betray Cinder,” Adam said slowly. Halfway through he started speaking faster, purely because he didn’t want to sound as slow as Cinder did.

“Are you a loyalist?” Torchwick asked. “The way you stare ahead blankly under the mask. All phased out and probably listening to Nimals in Atlas in your head. You’re not a diehard like that Merlot is, nor Cinder’s two lackeys.”

Adam. Said. Nothing. But god how his hands burned.

“First step is making sure you work with me to get White Fang to Merlot’s super secret island,” Roman went on. “ In truth, I have zero idea what that weird Atlas sarcophagus does, but the lie buys us more time. Because, more to the point, knowing where the Lot and this Amber girl are will be an ace up our sleeve.”

“Move,” he told Torchwick’s girl, which actually obliged him. She stepped out of the ways, making a ‘who, little old me?’ gesture in the process.

“We’ll be in touch,” Torchwick said. “Pleasure knowing I can count on your help. And rest assured,” he continued, his tone getting deeper, “I’ll make sure the only casualties we sustain on my end of things are human.”

“Yeah,” Adam said.

End of Volume 1​

a/n: Yes. “Nimals in Atlas” is a total RWBYfied version of N***** in Paris. Roman is being overtly and trollishly racist. Roman is trying to act clever and scheme here. He’s not going to passively accept Cinder’s machinations if he thinks he has other options.

Which brings us to Adam. He’s gotten something of a makeover. Or, maybe a making-down. We’ve given him a slightly different interpretation than the way he was portrayed since the season 3. Instead of a reckless psychopath, he’s being portrayed more sane, coherent, focused. Adam is still an extremist, still seeing red, but in a coldy rational way. The kind of man who could sit you town and calmly explain the rationale and logic behind a terror attack in a crowded public place. He’s a much more Joshua Graham type figure. A villain, a terrorist, even a monster on some levels, but someone you can understand. Maybe relate to. Not a hero, but not a black-and-white monster.

And in case you can’t recall, Dr. Merlot is the antagonist from RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. He was responsible in large part for the disaster at Mountain Glenn and believed Grimm were a superior life form due to their “purity” of form and lack of higher thought. Real god complex. We’ve only scraped the surface.

 

Volume 2: And Other Broken Things
Chapter 1: Not Everything with a Long Title is a Song by Forever Fallout Boy
“He is even worse than a Faunus, he is—may the gods of Light and Dark forgive me for uttering this word—Cielo!”

— 1 —​

She had that dream again.

Sweat licked at her like a lonely puppy. Not enough to soak Ruby, but enough to make her really want a shower.

She realized she was cradling her scythe. She didn’t suspect she wasn’t going back to sleep again. Not that she wanted to. Her cloak was soft and comfy; it’s why she bought it. But she hadn’t entirely worked out the best way to turn it into a pillow yet.

One day she would. Then she could sleep anywhere.

Until then, her neck hurt.

She stood to massage it, halfheartedly pulling her cape over her shoulders. Fort Kickassia had come about to protect her newborn team. Once she’d found her big sister Yang during the Initiation, she couldn’t let her go. Thus her hastily building this fort to guilt her into sticking around so her partner, that Blake girl, could rest. Weiss came along too for some reason.

Yang’s partner slept by the window. If you looked past Blake’s figure, you could see the embers of the burning horizon. The distant inferno looked so much like dawn she had to do a double-check on her scroll to make sure it really was as early as she thought it was.

It made her feel, well, she wasn’t sure. Like there was something out there she could be doing. Should be doing. Not to knock Jaune and his idea, but Ozpin’s task for them felt like a brush-off.

“Why, yes,” Headmaster Ozpin had been like, “there’s lot of bad stuff going on here. Why not go off to somewhere not bad and just walk around.”

It’s how it felt in Ruby’s gut, at least.

Fort Kickassia should’ve been built by an air vent. Place was too stuffy. She reached out to wake Yang, but then didn’t. She couldn’t say why. It just felt wrong. Rude. Made her think of how when they’d come to Beacon yesterday, Yang hadn’t wanted to be on a team with Ruby. She’s practically just abandoned her to be with friends from her class at Signal.

So she retracted her hand. Ruby wanted to go out for some air, but not alone. But who else? Blake? Ruby had really tried to connect with her, and all she’d done was give her the cold shoulder. But as opposed to the ice shoulder, it wasn’t bad.

Yeah. Weiss. Her partner. And—well, Weiss was mean. Frustrating. And she liked to yell at Ruby. She was only going with Ruby, her dang partner, because she was worried Ruby would drop dead without her supervision. Odds were if Ruby woke Weiss up, she’d just scream and yell and wake everyone up and they’d all blame Ruby and everyone would be angry at her!

Ruby felt her flesh peel away into ribbons of roses. Before she knew it, she was beyond the protective borders of Fort Kickassia. Alone. Where the air was cold.

Beacon’s main building was like a cathedral. Ruby had one been inside one once. It’d been an abandoned place near her mother’s grave. She’d once asked if that’s where Mom and Dad had gotten married, and Dad had laughed and said, “Do I really look that old, Rubes?”

“You’re the oldest person I know!” Ruby had said, prompting her Uncle Qrow to laugh and ask if Dad needed some of the sunshine from his flask.

Beacon was like that place if it hadn’t been abandoned. Even the back halls and little side rooms she found had these tall ceilings. Like it had been built for giants. Giant cats, probably. It made the most sense, since the doors were people sized, and cats could get through anything their head could get though. Giant cats could make full use of the overhead and the doors.

She chuckled to herself. That was a dumb through and she knew it. Didn’t make it any less fun to imagine.

Ruby clenched her eyes.

“No, stop it,” she told herself. “You’re a Huntress now. Act like it.”

No more little kid thoughts like that. She was at Beacon. Meant she had to grow up.

Before she really knew where she was going, Ruby found herself out back the main building. There area was too thin and narrow for the military or graduated Huntsmen, so it was pretty lonely. Lots of places to walk around, picnic, or stare out at the all-consuming fire on the horizon.

She found a table with an umbrella and just… stared. The air out here gave her goosebumps, but she could manage. She could always cinch up her coat if it got too bad.

Out in the still-burning forest, she could still hear Grimm. Even with a campaign of white phosphorus and high-yield Burn Dust, it wouldn’t be enough to stop them. There’d be more. Always would be until you solved the problem off at the root.

Incompleteness.

Her mother had told her once about the Wheel of Souls. That Grimm were the souls of people who died with their souls incomplete. Which meant all her life she’d wondered what Grimm her mother was. Because of course Summer Rose had become a Grimm after her death. There’s no way she’d died not wanting to see Ruby and Yang again. It was how the stories always started out: the monster trying to get back to its family but unable to resist hurting them. Her mother was out there, looking for her. In every town, cottage, and hamlet.

Someday her mother would be free.

And who knew? Do that, and maybe she’d see her mother again.

Ruby unfurled her scythe, planted the blade into the ground, and sighted down the barrel out at the forest. In lieu of binoculars, her scope would do. Once upon a time she closed one eye when looking down the sight, until her Uncle Qrow convinced her to keep both eyes open.

“Keeps you from getting tunnel vision,” he’d said. That meant only being able to focus on one narrow thing. With both eyes open, one could focus on the narrow thing, and the other could keep watching. It was like being your own one-girl sniper team.

Which is how she saw that tall redhead coming to sit with her.

“Hi,” Ruby said, collapsing her scythe. Pyrrha, if she recalled from last night. She didn’t know where else to begin the conversation. Maybe she shouldn’t have spoken at all. What was she even doing here?

The girl smiled. “I saw you last night. You’re one of the people who’s going with us today, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. My name’s Ruby.”

“Ruby?” she asked.

“Yeah. Like the flower.”

Pyrrha frowned, and it took everything Ruby had to keep a poker face. Oh my did that take a lot. Her cloak didn’t have any pockets for this spaghetti!

“You’re…” Pyrrha awkwardly rubbed her shoulder with a hand. “Holding up well.”

Ruby would take it. “Yeah. I’m ready to get back out there.” She kept her eyes up on Pyrrha’s nose. Success! But don’t cheer, you’ll just look weird! “Just wish I was going out there with a better team.”

Pyrrha faced out at the forest. “Not a member of your partner’s fan club?”

No longer being eyed, Ruby relaxed enough to give a humorless laugh. “A million stars, seven planets, like twenty time zones, five continents, four Huntsmen Academies, and I just happen to make eye contact with her first. Her name is Weiss, by the way. She says she’s rich and I believe her because she’s acting like those rich people my Uncle Qrow used to talk about.”

“At least I know I’m not the only one,” she said with the ghost of a smile.

“Huh?”

“Partners.”

“…wanna trade?” Ruby offered like she were trying to sell a schoolmate bootleg Shadow Monsters cards.

“I was going to make the offer myself,” Pyrrha said with a chuckle. “But however tempting it gets, I don’t want to be indirectly responsible for a homicide.”

“I don’t get it.”

Pyrrha let out an oddly mom-like sigh and turned to face Ruby, folding her arms across the table. She lowered her head, looking equal parts relaxed and thoughtful towards Ruby. “I think I learned something yesterday. Why the Headmaster organizes partners like he does.”

“You mean random chance.”

The woman nodded. Wait, no, girl. But it was hard to think of Pyrrha as a girl. A girl was someone like Ruby. A woman was, like, Glynda Goodwitch. An adult.

What I want to be, she thought.

“It’s the opposite of something my dad used to tell me,” Pyrrha said. “‘You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.’” She gave a weird little smile, and Ruby chuckled awkwardly, more than a little homesick at the reminder of listening to her dad and Qrow’s old ‘bullshitting sessions’ after her dad got better. “What I mean is, not everything here will go as expected. The first lesson at Beacon isn’t to survive the landing. It’s that you can’t control the hand you’re dealt. You have to banish expectation, soak in the moment, and adapt.

“In other words, Ruby,” she added with a smile, “suck it up and deal.”

Ruby immediately frowned. “But, no booties ’bout it, my partner suuuucks! How’m I supposed to deal with that?”

“Mm,” Pyrrha hummed with an amused little smile Ruby tried not to get tingly over. “I’ll let you know when I figure that part out myself.” She re-folded her arms. “I think it has something to do with beating your head against a wall until the wall breaks first.”

“And my wall is Weiss?”

Pyrrha nodded. “It’s what I’m doing, and it’s worked so well I’ve only resorted to drinking once.”

“It’s only been one day!” Only her uncle was supposed to be that bad off!

The redhead winked. “Which means it’ll be easy to break my record.”

Ruby squinted. “I… can’t tell if you’re being genuine or messing with me, Pyrrha.”

She laughed. “Now you know how I feel every time I talk to Jack. I think he’s rubbing off. Maybe I gave him too many chances and this is my punishment?”

“Right. Gotcha. Headbutt Weiss until I gain her powers.”

A smile. “Now you’re getting it, Ruby!” In any case, she stood up. “I’m going for a morning jog, maybe get a last round of exploration on campus before we head out. You care you join me, Ruby?”

“I have the cardio of malnourished pug,” Ruby said, making skeptical eyes. “And pugs can’t even breathe. They’re literally bred so you can slowly watch a thing you love suffocate and die.”

“Then do you expect to get around as a Huntress?”

Ruby beamed. “Soul Magic Bull-Pucky!”

Her body ribboned away into rose petals and stormed past Pyrrha, who in minutes was doing her best to keep up with the red bullet in front of her.

— 2 —​

“Yeah, it’s official, this list is lame, man,” Chloe said, making a face at the paper in her hands. She looked up at Jaune and cocked a brow, daring him to deny her.

Instead, he started counting off his fingers. “Eight of us, a day or two alone, times three balanced meals a day, and other amenities to cook and stay dressed. No, this is the barebones.”

Chloe scoffed. “Why you tryna plan it out? Just live off the land. It’s too early for crap.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed from the back of his throat. “Do you know what lives out there? Plants and animals. Stuff to eat.”

“Of course!”

“In Vale’s Forever Fall Forest?” he insisted.

“How hard could it be? I’m from the breadbasket of Vacuo. Finding food outside is a talent of mine,” she said.

“She’s got a point,” Ruby added, oiling her scythe weapon gun thing. She didn’t seem distracted by the bullhead hanger she and everyone else was set up in as they waited for the ride out. “Pack light. Lets us move faster.”

Chloe snapped her fingers. “See? Tiny red sniper girl knows what’s up! I like her.”

“Yeah!” Ruby beamed. Truth be told, there were more reasons Chloe liked Ruby Rose. Aside from being Weiss Schnee’s partner, the girl was a mere fifteen. Getting into Beacon like that requires some serious talents. She must have impressed someone important. That meisie there was someone to keep an eye on.

Jaune gave them all a flat look. His gaze eventually fell to the Schnee girl, who was sitting on a crate and loading Dust into her rapier. Past her and all there was was the pre-dawn light outside Beacon’s airship hangers. Jaune pulled out a hunting knife he’d taken as supplies earlier. “Weiss, you have fire Dust; you’re on cooking duty.”

She looked up sharply. “Excuse me?”

“Ruby, use your speed to chase.”

Red made a funny face.

“Chloe, you cut ’em off,” he concluded. He adjusted the knife. “I’ll do the butchering. We’ll draw straws who gets the pelt.”

“What are we doing?” Weiss asked.

Jaune shrugged. “I mean, if we’re going be living off the land, we’re gonna work out how to hunt, clean, and cook some meat. Have any of you ladies ever gutted a deer? How about plucking clean a bird of paradise?”

Well, Chloe thought he was trying too hard. A for effort, though. She was golf clapping for him in her head.

Ruby rose a hand. “I’ve killed Grimm. Does that count?”

“Ruby, how good of you to volunteer,” he said, ignoring her question. “Why, yes, we’d love to put your talents to use hunting down rabbits. We could use the lean meat.”

“What, no!” Red said. “I’m not killing any bunnies.”

“Then we’re packing up the food before we leave,” he concluded, pounding a hand into the fist. It looked somehow silly. Like he was trying to be more final than he was coming across.

“Who died and made you leader?” Weiss asked, hand on hip.

“Technically that list hasn’t been made public yet,” Chloe pointed out, trying to distract and lend Jaune some help. “But, probably lots of kids during the Initiation.”

Everyone looked away. A bullhead was landing outside the hanger, kicking up dust and particulate.

“Fine,” Red said. “We’ll pack ahead of time. Just—no killing bunnies.”

“But you’re carrying the stuff!” Chloe declared, and the other girls all nodded.

Jaune sighed. “Y’know what, if it keeps everyone from dying, deal.” Then, in a lower voice: “Besides, I’ve been shopping with my sister. I’m pretty much bred for lifting things.”

Chloe stood up and stretched her legs. It felt good. She was still sore from the Initiation yesterday. Someone was helping taxi in that bullhead over to their marked landing pad. The whole area was a hub of activity, but this was was at least heading towards Chloe and the gang.

Speaking of, she looked out over her team. While Jaune and the girls insisted this was a temp thing, Chloe had other ideas. Jaune Arc, Chloe Weaver, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee. How to make a team name for that?

JWSR (Juicer), SAWR (Sawyer), CRAW (Craw, like the fish), RWWJ (Rouge)? No, beginning with a J or A felt better. Jaune seemed to be stepping up to the leader plate, which was a little frustrating. Meant he might steal some of Chloe’s limelight. But, if he was going to be barking out orders and ideas, Chloe could live with it. Just so long as they all knew she was the brains behind the team.

Then again, team leaders didn’t always have first name in an color. While that was usually the case, sometimes you just had to rearrange a name to make it work. Chloe imagined there were tons of awesome team comps out there in the past who never became a thing because they couldn’t be made a good color or color-reminding thing.

“Look alive, people,” Pyrrha called out to all eight here.

“Ride’s here,” her partner, the complete nobody with the hummuna-hummuna eyes, added. Like he was trying to remind people he was here and important.

The short one in the dirty police cosplay stepped up, followed by her partner. Tall guy. Cello or something.

“If we were gonna go back out like this why did we even shower in the first place?” Police Girl—Cards, she could have sworn that was her name—asked, cringing in her uniform. It was still absolutely caked in specs of blood, grime, and sweat.

Cello Man shrugged. “You asked.”

“Because,” Chloe said with a huff, “ain’t no self-respecting Huntress ever looks anything but her best. We have an image to sell, girlie! A brand to maintain.”

“Please don’t get her started,” Jaune said, cringing into himself.

Police Girl tugged at her outfit, grimacing like she had cockroaches in her veins. “I’d hardly call this looking my best. I mean, I can feel dirt in places I didn’t even know I had. And right after dealing with—” she paused, her gaze settling on Chloe “—that one girl who tried to claim the showers for herself.” Then her eyes narrowed into murderously-thin slits, no doubt jealous of Chloe’s impeccable personal hygiene, as most girls are. “That was you!”

“Showering is also a part of the image!” Chloe said, folding her arms. She would bare no dissent from dirty cop girl over here!

“You just piled up all the chairs from the main building into the locker room to form a barricade!” Police girl ranted. “That wasn’t even funny!”

“We’re Huntresses, not the junior girls volleyball team!” she spat, clicking her tongue in disgust. “Girl’s gotta have some standards! It’s something you’re gonna have to learn some day, Police Girl.”

She glared Chloe, biting her lip as if to keep herself from saying something she might regret.

“Chloe,” Jaune said disapprovingly.

“Vacuoans have standards?” Cello Man asked with a quirked brow, placing a hand on Police Girl’s head.

Chloe turned her nose up. “Yeah. They’re called at least I’m not you. Try it sometime. Life’ll get better.”

“So being you is somehow a better alternative?” He asked. “No thanks, I like being from a country that isn’t Atlas’ bitch.”

Chloe slammed a hand down on a box, ignoring the conscious way that Weiss was looking anywhere but the argument. “You wanna say that to my face, Mr. Mistrali man? Need to be closer. Think there’s some language barrier here preventing point A from reaching point B. But, I guess you have that problems with lots of girls, huh, Mistrali?”

“I don’t get it, was that an insult or reference?” Ruby whispered rather loudly to her partner. “Felt like she was trying to set something up.”

Cello looked to Weiss. “Hey, you’re a Schnee, right? Mind muzzling your Vacuo pet?”

Oh, that sonofabitch! Chloe was gonna rip out his eyes and shove them where his b—

Jaune grabbed Chloe by the shoulder. She yelped as he pulled her back. “No,” he said sternly. “Bad Chloe, bad. Don’t make me get out the spray bottle.” He turned sharply to the mans whose eyeballs were forfeit one day. “And Cielo, stop being an asshole, man. I get that’s your thing, but c’mon.”

Cello met his glare. “Then keep your bitch on her leash, Jaune.”

“Hey, settle down!” Police Girl insisted, shoving herself between the two. “All of you!”

“I sense great things from this team comp,” indigo eyes commented idly, twirling one of his knives.

Beside him Pyrrha nodded gravely. “We’re not doomed at all.”

“Exactly, Nikki!”

Yeesh, he had a pet name for her? Maybe the two really were boning. Chloe wondered how she could use this knowledge to her advantage.

“Glad to see we’re all in such high spirits,” Weiss groaned, massaging her eyelids. She traced the scar over her eye as if reminding herself it was there.

The Bullhead doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. Out stepped a man in the earthy green-and-brown colors, a Valite Ranger. Rifle slung over his back, he jumped down onto the concrete and looked across all eight assembled students.

“You the kids we here for?” he asked, pulling up the visor of his helmet.

Eager to get away from Jaune and instrument boy, Chloe hopped to her feet. “Yep, that’s us. Ready and able, man.”

The man grunted and said something into a helmet microphone that Chloe couldn’t hear over the cooling Bullhead engines. Then, louder, and thumbing over his shoulder: “It’s your gig now, kids. Stack up your stuff while they swap out the pilot. Me and Baker Company gonna hit the R&R.”

Baker, or BAKR? Did the military do theme or color naming like Huntsmen did? If so, it’d have to be one funky way of spelling Baker. She counted thirteen guys and gals in the bullhead gathering bags or stretching.

“Loud and clear, Captain!” Ruby cheered, saluting the man.

“Captain?” Fatigues scoffed as he passed Chloe by. “Please. Have you seen my paycheck?”

— 3 —​

As Jaune found out, it wasn’t the flight that got him sick. It was the takeoff. The sudden way airships rose up, then bobbed as they stabilized to find a suitable cruising speed. He sat back in one of the seats, eyes closed. He needed to get used to this. Airships were the fastest way from Beacon to Vale. Unless he wanted to be stuck on campus all day (or rely on any more of Ozpin’s giant springs), he needed to learn how to handle this.

Another thing to deal with, the spat between Chloe and Cielo. Whenever he opened his eyes he noted his team and that guy’s team were broadly on other sides of the ship. Save for Indigo and Pyrrha. They were sitting together between the groups.

Oh god, eyes open too long. Too long!

When he’d calmed his stomach, he found Chloe trying to strike up a chat with Ruby about weapons. Ruby’s reaper scythe was also a gun, and Chloe’s kama doubled as shotguns (and she often cheated by loading them not only with buckshot but slugs and grenades). Weiss was giving Jaune a curious look. He flashed her a weak smile and went back to pretending the bullhead cabin didn’t have this air of forced awkwardness.

This feeling sucked. The nausea mixed with a desire not to look over at the other half of this eight-man team. Last time he’d felt this mix of emotions, well, it’d been the day he’d decided he’d make something of his life and become a Huntsman by any means necessary.

Jaune screwed his eyes shut harder. It wasn’t a day he liked to remember. Save for that one ray of gold at the end, the entire thing made his chest hot with shame and embarrassment.

He idly wondered if he could use memories of that to remain wide awake during long nights. The thought made him snort a laugh.

Chloe elbowed him. “Yo, Jaune, sup?”

He half-lidded her with a grimace. “Flying sucks.” He stole a glance at Cielo, seeing if he’d make some demeaning remark.

He didn’t. In fact, he didn’t even seem to be paying any attention at all. Or anyone for that matter. He just rested his head against his seat as if in a daydream. His partner, Cards, seemed to occasionally bring him back down to Remnant. Highest record was a whopping nine seconds.

If only everyone had that sort of attention span. At least it wouldn’t be too much of him to ask for everyone to just forget the last hour.

“Sure that’s the only thing on your mind, boss boy?”

Plenty was on his mind. If he tried to lay out a comprehensive list in terms of severity, it’d take the rest of the trip, the entire mission, and the ride back to Beacon.

The most pressing thing, though, was their little group. Jaune didn’t think he could have gotten a more dysfunctional team if he’d begged the Headmaster for one. If he was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t fully trust Cielo. That Cards girl seemed nice, he supposed. She and Cielo were partners, and he seemed pretty protective of her if that scene in the hanger meant anything at all, so who knew what that said about her. Indigo Jack seemed okay, but that was mostly because they hadn’t spoken yet. Not for real.

Then there was Pyrrha Nikos. Chloe had been awfully intent on getting her on their team. Apparently she was a super famous athlete in Mistral. Enough to get sponsored by Pumpkin Pete. Now that he thought about it, was it normal for Huntsmen to get sponsorship deals?

Maybe Ren and Nora could’ve helped round this team out with some sanity. But despite what Nora said last they spoke, she hadn’t answered her scroll when he called her this morning to ask if she was up for this mission. Might’ve been because he was calling her at four in the morning, but, still.

All together, what did this mean for Jaune?

Worries. He had worries and concerns. But could he tell Chloe all of that? Or maybe it’d be better to put on a brave face. Act bold and confident and hope the others followed his example.

Jaune sighed and put on a smile. “I like when you call me boss boy. Really inspires me to think of a name for you, too.”

She cocked a brow, impressed. “For the record, that’s as far as I’m going. ‘Daddy’ is strictly off-limits.”

Jaune leaned over. “Hey, Ruby, will you call me daddy?”

Ruby turned and gave Jaune a weird look. She finished loading a cartridge into her weapon. “You’re not my dad.”

“Step-daddy it is,” Jaune said, grinning. He let himself believe stupid humor like this was the way to break the ice. Now they would all drown together in the frozen water!

“Would you stop hitting on Ruby?” Weiss asked.

Ruby did a double-take. “He was hitting on me?”

Chloe snerked. “Honestly, it was bad enough I’d consider it closer to ‘domestic abuse’ than flirtation.”

Jaune sighed, rolling his eyes. But at least he felt like the plan was working. While his pride didn’t like it, he’d take one for the team like this if it, y’know, meant the team could remain a team, Be in high spirits. Something like that.

At least half of the group was semi-functional. He couldn’t really say anything about the other four.

Something made a calming boop from the ceiling. “Attention, ladies and bitches,” an unhappy woman said over the intercom, “we’re about to arrive at our destination. We hope you’ve enjoyed flying with the 479th Cavalry, and ask that in the future you learn how to walk so we can do our actual jobs.”

“Wow,” Pyrrha said with a whistle. “The military sure is passive aggressive here.”

“Well those thumbs ain’t gonna twiddle themselves,” Cielo replied, stepping up to the door.

“So does anyone know who we’re with?” Cards asked. “You know, like teams and stuff?”

Pyrrha shook her head. “I know I’m with Jack. Other than that there’s nothing official.”

The guy with the name of Jaune’s sister nodded. His indigo eyes were flickering over everyone, and for some reason it made Jaune uncomfortable. As if he were being judged like a slab of prime rib again. He looked away at Cielo, and when he glanced back, Jack was pausing on Jaune.

Look somewhere else!

“Oh,” Cards replied. “I kinda thought we’d be splitting up. So we can cover more ground?”

Weiss quirked a brow. “Doesn’t that usually get people killed?”

“Depends where you are,” Jack said with a confident little smile. “Since all we have are our partners, no sense in not mixing and matching. Hey, Cielo, Cards, we fought the Handyman. Work with us. We can swap out later.” He glanced back at Jaune, as if looking for his approval.

No, not approval. Support.

Goddamn self-collected bastard. I bet your Pyrrha isn’t as volatile as my Chloe is!

Jaune nodded. “Yeah, sounds cool. Weiss, Ruby, stick with me and Chloe.”

The two men met eyes. Another of those ‘I’m not gay’ nods passed between them. He even flashed a little smile. Jaune didn’t like it.

“We just need to establish a base camp and a time table,” Jaune continued, trying to get a leg up. Prove to himself he wasn’t just following Jack’s lead. Jaune had his own good independent ideas!

The bullhead came to a stop and the door opened to a sea of red leaves.

“Wait, aren’t we going to land?!” Weiss said, standing up. She had to yell just to be heard over the roar of the engine.

“I think she wants us to jump out!” Ruby replied.

“Damn right I do!” the woman’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Don’t they teach you kids landing strategies at Beacon?”

“This is the fourth time in two days!” Cards cried, staring down vast red expanse. “Am I cursed?!”

Jaune stepped closer towards the edge. They were still pretty high up. Seriously, was the pilot just this lazy?

Oh boy.

“So… uh, who’s going first?!” he coughed, forcing the dread back down his throat. “Wanna draw stra—?”

“Last one to hit the ground’s a rotten egg!” Ruby cheered as she leapt off the edge with a running start.

Of course it was Ruby.

“Well when she puts it like that,” Cielo replied, calmly strolling off the edge. Weiss and Chloe followed them out immediately after, his partner patting him roughly on the back before somersaulting out the airship.

Cards massaged her arms like she was trying to stave off an intense chill. She breathed in and breathed out and palmed her cheeks. “Doubt and die, Cards,” he heard her say to herself despite the engine. She walked to the back of the cabin before sprinting out into the air. “Doubt and die!”

No seriously, did someone christen this “Steal Jaune’s Thunder” day while he wasn’t looking? Because he was feeling oddly bereft of thunder. What kind of leader was he supposed to be? The kind that hid out in a safe, cozy spot while the rest of his team took the initiative.

After that it was just himself, not-his-sister-Indigo, and Pyrrha Nikos. She said something to silver-blond boy—completely unintelligible over the engine’s howl. Indigo nodded before giving them a two finger salute and leapt to join the others.

Aura or not, that was a fall he was staring down. Did Huntsmen just take these kinds of falls on the regular? Could he even take the fall? Had it not been for Chloe, he knew with certain clarity that he would have died before the Initiation had even really started.

Just staring down this shifting sea of red leaves made him feel like some phantom force was pushing him forward towards certain death. He hadn’t even realized he’d been stepping away from the open door until he felt a hand—firm, but gentle—pressing against his shoulder.

Pyrrha Nikos stood behind him, smiling. Mom-like was probably the first word that popped into Jaune’s head. Which was weird considering they were probably around the same age and that he found her kind of hot.

Jaune shook his head, if only to keep the confusing thoughts and subsequent psychiatric therapy bills at bay with a sharp, pointy stick.

“Are you doing alright?” she asked, patting his shoulders. “Need some help? I guess these falls can seem pretty scary sometimes, hm?”

Was that how he looked to her? To all of them? Scared? Like he needed someone to hold his hand like a little kid in the dark?

It reminded him of his sisters, in a way. Condescending smiles and hollow pep-talks. Even if they did mean well, he couldn’t help but feel they were just… just laughing at him behind his back. Looking down on him. Jaune thought that’d end when he became taller than them, but no. They seemed to take it as a challenge. The tall baby of the family.

Was it going to be the same here?

Jaune shrugged Pyrrha’s hand from his shoulder.

“Hey, I can make the jump just fine,” he insisted, voice more bitter than he’d meant.

She stepped back, hands raised to placate him. “It’s okay to be nervous. It’s not like combat schools really teach skydiving in their curricula.” She leaned in as if letting him in on a dark secret. “Just between you and me, I nearly fainted my first time in the air. I could barely walk even after I landed.”

Jaune’s fists tightened. Was she trying to connect with him? What could they possibly have had in common? Even if he was taller than the girl, that at this distance she had to angle her head up to look him in the eye, it still felt like she was looking downwards.

“You’ll get used to it,” Pyrrha said. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go look for help when you’re afraid. We have teammates for a reason, after all.”

“I said I got it!” he snapped. Harsher than intended, it took all of his willpower to keep himself from flinching at the tone of his own voice.

Pyrrha sucked on her bottom lip slightly, giving Jaune a single nod. She mercifully remained silent. All she did was look at him expectantly and gesture for him to go first.

He looked from her out to the swaying canopy of red beneath the bullhead’s engines. She was watching him. Jaune could feel it on the back of his neck. And if she was waiting on him, he had to jump. He felt equal parts spiteful and thankful for her.

It’s like Dad always used to say. “The key to success is to pretend like hot girls are watching.”

Time for rubber to meet the road.

Jaune balled his fists, flared his aura, and took a running leap into the Forever Fall.


a/n: Time to start on Ruby herself and our odd take on her. Also, you go, Jaune. Totally making smart choices there, huh, hotshot? Aside from that, it seems that our 8 man brigade here isn’t perfectly friendly with each other. The C-Team [Chloe/Cielo/Cards] seems to be at odds with each other.

And this is the chapter where we officially changed our plans. We were originally gonna have team Jaune-Weaver-Valkyrie-Lie (JWVL). But here we’ve gone for Jaune to be the leader of the soon-to-be confusingly named Ruby-Weiss-Weaver-Jaune. We just liked the character dynamic more.

 

Chapter 2: Just Because You Can Is Legal Grounds For Why You Should
“In my defense, you left me unsupervised.”

— 4 —​

Trees.

Man, fuck trees.

Jack thought they’d be landing past some simple trees. Nothing major. Maybe a story or two, like the trees he knew back in the city parks back in Vale. He thought he’d drop past the canopy, do a cool landing, and call it a day.

Turned out that the shifting red leaves were the top layer of some true giants. He plummeted through the leaves and was in freefall again. Down toward what looked like a town of tents outside some old stonework, the kind he’d caught glimpses of back in the Emerald Forest.

He drew his knives and extended them towards the ground. They stabbed the earth and stopped his fall. He pulled them back and let himself fall the rest of the way safely. He landed on a landing pad the forest had worked hard to claim for itself. Jack quickly stood up and tugged at the collar of his jacket. He had to keep his cool appearance up at all time.

Everyone but Pyrrha and Jaune had landed. That guy had looked a touch nervous. Jack and Pyrrha had caught onto it. And like the weird MILF Pyrrha was trying to become, she’d wanted to hang back and give the boy a hand. Didn’t matter much to Jack.

What did were the denizens of the drop zone. The ones besides his classmates. Various men and women stood looked out from their tents. A few even approached. From the way they were dressed, he doubted they were some whackos who’d gone native.

“Gods, took you long enough,” a pink-haired woman dressed for a Vacuo safari. Her dog-like ears were perking up. The woman carried this wood and gold hip flask around her neck. Jack didn’t know what was inside it, but he knew he wanted it.

She folded her arms, looking for all the world like she didn’t want the students to be here. “Do you know how dangerous it is right now to be without the Rangers? It’s been two hours an already we’ve seen Grimm roaming the outskirt. The nerve of Ozpin, I swear!”

She turned to walk away. Paused. Looked back. “Well? Don’t just stand there. C’mon!”

Cielo huffed a sigh. “Figured that old coot would pull something like this.”

“Huh?” Weiss replied. “What do you mean?”

“Please, that guy’s so clearly full of shit I wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes were brown behind those shades,” he scoffed and trudged along with Pinky. “Basically, he sent us to be your babysitters?”

The woman’s lips curled. “Babysitters?” she scoffed, sounding all self-important. “This is an important archaeological expedition sanctioned by the Prime Minister of Vale himself! One we can’t afford to lose just because Beacon let its Grimm overflow and get out of hand.”

Jack thought the woman doth protest too much. Trying to convince herself more than the students of the value of whatever she was here doing.

“Yes. Very important,” Cielo said. “Which is why he sent a bunch of bratty teenagers that spent half the night being a massive thorn in his side, obviously.”

“Wait, so, we’re not here to hunt down Grimm?” Ruby asked, putting things in far simpler terms.

Jack folded his arms, looking over the scene. He wanted to object as well, but waited for the group consensus. Depending on how things went, he didn’t want to stand out too much. Or be seen as any sort of leader here. That for Pyrrha and, apparently, Jaune.

Speaking of…

Jaune came crashing through the treetops even less gracefully than Jack had, which was impressive. His white aura was glowing so strong Jack had to squint to look at him. He lamely flopped through the air like an epileptic fish.

Like a trained skydiver, Pyrrha came right after him. The distant roar of the bullhead engines dissipated as she rocketed past Jaune with all the precision of a surgeon’s knife. But not before brushing past Jaune for just a second, putting her hands on him, and righting him.

Jack jabbed a blade up, extending it. Pyrrha grabbed it at an angle and spun down in like a professional pole-dancer. She landed besides him with cat-like grace.

Jaune just sort of crashed into a tent and obliterated it.

“I’m… I’m okay!” he called out from the dust cloud he’d kicked up. And then he was coughing.

“No, the coffee machine!” someone shouted in utter despair.

“Well, I guess the gang’s all here,” Cards sighed.

The pink-haired woman gave them all a disgusted sneer. “Could you be any less professional?”

Jack nudged Pyrrha. “Oz lied. We’re actually working with some diggy boys to keep them safe. I imagine there’s some bureaucratic reason for this.”

Pyrrha’s pursed her lips, then stepped forwards. “Hi there. My name is Pyrrha Nikos, and these are my friends and teammates. We were told we’d be useful to hunting Grimm.”

He watched her go, letting her take the lead. He didn’t exactly dig her diplomacy here. Truth be told a part of him felt cheated. But he’d have Pyrrha’s back, he supposed. He was hoping to cash in his “I helped you out” points somewhere down the line with her to get her to do something for him.

The woman groaned, rolling her eyes. “Well, you can make yourself useful by keeping the camp safe from Grimm. Same for the ruins we’re working on. Apparently none of you were useful enough to keep the Grimm in the Emerald Forest, but I won’t hold that against you.”

You just did! Jack thought.

“What matters,” she went on, “is not dying while we do our job. You do that and, I don’t know, I’ll write you a five-star review or whatever it is you want on your sophmore report cards.”

“We’re freshmen,” Pyrrha said, and that got a funny look from the woman and some of her similar-dressed cohorts. Almost grave.

“Wow,” the woman whistled. “Just how desperate is Beacon?”

“Gotta say, this isn’t an assignment I’d mind getting an F on,” Cielo intoned.

“Coraline,” a burly man by pink-hair’s side said. He had a pickaxe slung over his back and a utility belt full of little brushes. “Stay on topic.”

Coraline adjusted her glasses. “Look, your handler back at Beacon filled you in on what you need to do. So, see to that, and we’ll call you if we need you in particular.”

Brushing dirt off himself, Jaune stumbled into the picture. Despite his hard landing, he didn’t look scratched up in the slightest. “Hold on, what’s going on here? Who are these people?”

The woman blinked and her ears twitched. “Wait, what? You… you don’t know?”

“Know what?” Jaune asked, looking around. “I didn’t miss anything while I was packing food, did I?”

“No, I’m afraid Jaune is correct,” Pyrrha said, trying to diffuse any potential situation before there was so much as a spark. She stepped forwards.

“The Headmaster just told us we’d be slaying Grimm out in the Forever Fall,” Weiss added. “That we’d be helping to alleviate the pressure on Beacon.”

Ruby nodded. “Yeah. And that was about it. Show up, defeat some monsters for about a day or two, come back as helpful heroes.”

Coraline took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Oh my gods,” she groaned in a strained voice. “Did they care about us that little?”

“Not really, no,” Jaune said, shaking his head. “Why not make us care right now?”

“Alright. I’ll make this quick.”

Aaand that was how Jack learned Coraline de Scavi was a bold-faced liar.

— 5 —​

“You figure if we just toss that Coraline lady to the Grimm her colleagues might thank us for it?” Cielo commented.

“I’m sure she’s a lovely person once you get to know her,” Pyrrha said, leading the four-man-party into the stone halls of the ruins. She held the lantern, not that Jack thought it was needed. This complex was old and broken enough that the early morning sunbeams kept most of the halls bright enough to see. “She’s just stressed, I’m sure.”

Jack leveled a gaze at Nikki. “Think she’ll act nice if I offer her one of my cigarettes?”

Nikki half-scoffed, then considered. “Hmm. Depends. Is it true everyone in Vale smokes?”

“I tried it once in combat school,” Cards said. “My friend told me I’d look cool but I accidentally swallowed it and almost suffocated.”

She gave Cards a concerned look. “Did it work?”

The girl frowned. “No. I hacked so hard I threw up all over her blouse, so she got mad and made everyone promise not to speak to me ever again.”

“You were the Jaune before there was a Jaune!” Cielo said with a whistle. “Only better at it.”

Cards squinted. “That’s… a compliment, right? I’m choosing to be complimented.”

Jack zeroed in on the Jaune bit. It’s why he and Pyrrha elected to team up with Cielo and Cards instead of any of the other four. While he had nothing against Jaune, it seemed he and his partner didn’t jive with Cielo or Cards. He wasn’t sure what happened to spark that between them, but, well, he figured it’d be better to take these two along. Keep the infighting apart.

Their half of the job was simple. Jaune’s group were going after some Grimm, and Jack’s team was going after other Grimm. Well, technically, it was more a “hey, can you go through this old ruined castle thing and make sure our work camps are safe?” Functionally it was all the same thing. He wondered if he could pawn anything he found in those camps. It’s not like anyone going to be there to stop him, right?

He stopped to examine the room they’d entered. According to the map, this was one of their work camps within the ruined complex, and they’d labeled it “Feasting Hall.” The room was lengthy with an arched roof whose roof had long since rotten away, leaving only the walls and a large garden of assaulting plants.

The diggers had roped off a part of the room for study, a large over by a wall covered in carvings. Some of the writing he thought he recognized, though not the words in their entirety.

“The writing goes from right-to-left,” he said, prompting Pyrrha to stop and look up with him. “All backwards.”

“So it's like a manga or something?” Cards asked.

“I think it’s the Old Script of Vale,” Pyrrha said. She shifted her lantern light at a deeper furrow in the stonework. “But there, Grimm signs. Scratching to mark their territory.”

“Grimm have territory?” he asked. “Figured they just—roamed, I guess.”

“Some eventually get around to home-owning. Interior decorating. That kinda thing,” Cielo said. “The older ones with packs do, at least. Happens with loners as well, but much less frequently.”

Jack gave Cielo an appraising look. “I take it you both know a bit about Grimm? I’m only saying this since I never even seen one till yesterday.”

“Weird choice of schools, then,” the other boy replied, examining the scratch marks. “But yeah, I stumbled into a few Grimm-hunting jobs back in Mistral.”

Jack suppressed a grimace. He’d never so much as been to grade school. Not that he’d let fact slip. People with an education looked down on those who’d gone without. “I had a sheltered childhood,” he lied, which earned him an amused look from Nikki.

“Mistral,” she said to Cielo. “Did you go to Sanctum?”

“For a bit,” he was all he seemed to have to say.

The two talked. Even during the casual conversation, Cielo appeared to never let his guard down. He was like Jack in that way, his eyes always scanning for some threat, always somewhere between relaxed and on the defensive. He’d seen guys like him before, and all Jack could think was how much Cielo reminded him of a ninja, even if the guy’s grey and blue button-up looked pretty Vale. But that’s what ninjas did, blended in save for the cold of their eyes.

Of course, the one ninja Jack had met had tried to seriously convince them that dipping your dick in wasabi was the healthy, natural way to care for your man parts. So maybe Jack should take ninjas with a grain of salt.

Still, if nothing else, this gave Jack another name to help him remember Cielo by. Which meant he had a good feel for two of what would probably end up as his team. He was himself and obviously the best of the bunch, of course. Then came his partner, who apparently used to fight for money, which meant the girl had to be something brutal under the surface. Jack was on a team with himself, a ninja, and a pit fighter. He couldn’t say anything of the sort for Cards.

So as Nikki and the ninja talked, Jack paced the room, looking at the scratches on the wall. The carvings that looked to be Grimm, and those more like the claw-marks Nikki had pointed out.

“So…” Cards began. She’d followed him further into the ruins. It was like him thinking of her was enough to attract her attention. “Does this mean the place is crawling with Grimm? I’d really rather not get swarmed again.”

He looked down at the Cards. Something about the way she dressed inherently made the back of Jack’s neck buzz. She looked like some kind of cop. It made him want to ignore her and hope she got bored enough to leave.

Only, that wouldn’t work well for a team. Besides, look at her. She was like a solid foot shorter than him. Even if she looked like a miniature version of his mortal foe, he figured he should at least pretend to make an effort.

“Coraline wanted us to flush the area out, make sure it was safe for her team to resume work today,” Jack said. “I imagine that means that, yes, this means there’s more Grimm here.”

It was a painfully generic, by-the-books answer, and Jack didn’t like it. But really, it’s not like he really knew anything about Grimm. If you pressed him, he supposed Grimm were the the spirits of the evil dead or something, returned to life in meaty husks to reap vengeance upon the living. Or something like that. It’s not like anyone really knew much about the Grimm.

Save for Nikki and the ninja, apparently. It made him wonder what sort of secret Grimm knowledge the Huntsmen kept to themselves, in the same way that knowledge of how to activate one’s aura remained less than public knowledge.

“Nice,” Cards sighed. “Here’s hoping it isn’t another Handyman thing.” The girl visibly shivered. “I’m not really looking forward to being used as a weaponized frisbee again.”

“Shame,” Jack said, hands in his pockets. He pushed over a fallen chair with his boot, revealing a camera. “Figured that was your hidden calling in life.”

Her cheeks puffed, like she was trying to make herself look bigger and more threatening. “Hey, you know it was at least half your fault I was getting bounced around out there like I was trapped in some kind of demented pinball machine!”

The camera had blood on it, fresh enough to still be sticky. It’d collected a lot of dirt that way. Being on the floor, it was now his property by right of divine finders-keepers. He turned it on and looked over the photos, not really paying Cards much mind. It mostly seemed to be document this room when it was being actively worked on. The last two photos were off Grimm, including a large white beowolf with these weird green-glowing cracks along its alabaster skin.

“Next time I’ll see how you do as a disco ball,” he said. “Deal?”

Cards sighed. “I hope Pyrrha’s normal, at least.” Then, in a lower voice: “Considering her choice in boyfriends, I somehow doubt it.”

Jack looked over his shoulder at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?” she squeaked. “I-I didn’t hear anything.”

He kept staring her down. “That’s what I thought.” He glanced up and called out, “Hey, Nikki, are Grimm supposed to glow green?”

The moment she called out, he saw her drop into a defensive crouch, weapons out. She scanned the room, only to notice the camera Jack was holding. Looking a bit sheepish, she eased up and jogged over the room. “On the camera?”

“Left by the dig boys,” Jack said, showering her the photos of the white beowolf.

Pyrrha looked over the photos, flickering between them with a frown. “This… is not normal, Jack, no.”

“So. We got radioactive Grimm here or something?” he asked.

Her frown deepened. “I don’t think radiation glows green outside of comic books.”

“Does aura protect against radiation, at least?”

Nikki squinted. “I… don’t know.” She shook her head. “Focus, Jack. This photos proves there’s a deceptively strong Grimm lurking the area. One of some unknown variation.”

Jack clicked his tongue at Cards. “You. Text Jaune’s team the info.”

Her face went flat as she fished her scroll from her pocket. “Hey, Cielo, you and Chloe aren’t the biggest jerks I’ve met anymore.”

Cielo nodded. “I’m sure that means a lot to somebody that isn’t me.”

Pyrrha frowned. “Could we not start an argument every other minute?”

Jack shrugged. “I’m trying to bring a lil’ spice to our life, Nikki.”

She compressed a sigh and looked at Cards. “Whatever my partner said, I’m sorry. He’s a bit of a jerk at times, but he means well.”

“I only mean bad things, Nikki,” Jack said. “Very bad things. I once parked in a handicapped space!”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” she replied.

“It does once you realize I don’t even own a car!” he said, throwing his hands up.

Nikki rolled her eyes and looked back at Cards. “See what I mean? You have to learn to ignore most of what he says.”

“Mine’s just as bad,” she replied, thumbing over her shoulder at Cielo, who just pointed at himself.

“Wanna trade?” Nikkia asked, earning an offended look from Jack. He went as far as to put a hand over his chest and wince with pain.

“I’m feeling really, really objectified right now,” Cielo said, fanning himself and wiping away false tears. “And I’m just not sure if I can deal with such a toxic environment!”

Jack nodded. “Such is our new life at Beacon, man. Our rockin’ bods make the girls thing we’re just here for their eye candy. But damn it, we have feelings too, Nikki!”

“Pose with me, brother,” he said, curling his arms. “Flex the pain away!”

Jack couldn’t resist. He whipped out his butterfly knives and extended the blades, bending them at angles to creative a latticework fortress of blades around himself. All while flexing his biceps. “Their words can’t hurt me from here!”

“Weird flex, but okay,” Cielo said blankly.

Pyrrha’s eyes were like slits. “I question my life choices everyday, Cards.”

Cards just nodded solemnly.

Jack sheathed his blades and the fortress that protected him from the female gaze.

“By the way, did the B Team get back to you yet?” Cielo asked Cards.

She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, all she said was ‘loud and clear XD’ plus an okay emoji.”

“I get how y’all don’t see eye to eye,” Jack said, “but there’s no reason to call Jaune a girl.”

Cards shook her head. “No, I don’t have his number. Only Ruby’s.”

“The vertically-challenged’ve gotta stick together.” Cielo nodded. “It’s a big, scary world. For you, at least.”

“That’s not true, I like Pyrrha here, and she’s mannishly tall,” Cards said, wrapping a protective arm around Pyrrha’s waist.

Nikki continued to have problems keeping any face for more than a millisecond. “Thanks, Cards. That… that means a lot.”

“Anything for you, only sane friend I have!” Cards chirped.

“Far be it for me to ruin this up-and-coming clam jam,” Cielo interjected. “But I’m feeling bizarrely bitter today, so screw it, weren’t we looking out for Cancer Grimm? I feel like that’s sort of important.”

Something tickled Jack’s inner ear. He jerked his head to the side, pulling his knives out with a flick of the wrists. “Shh!” he hissed.

“You tripped a flag!” Card angrily whispered at Cielo.

He elbowed her a little harder than he needed to shut her up. There it was. At the very limits of human hearing. A faint scratching sound from one of the hallways outside. Jack pointed, then started speaking in one-handed sign language before realizing nobody present knew any of the basic gestures.

At least Nikki seemed to understand his body language, and was already armed at Jack’s side. Cards and Cielo followed suit.

Something sniffed loudly in the hall. Then another. And another. Nikki pulsed her aura, shining red for just a second. Her face fell and she quickly put out her lantern.

Jack put his own aura up. Nikki had said you could use it to sense Grimm.

He didn’t really know how to read the feeling. Had no real frame of reference. He’d felt this in the Emerald Forest, but just thought it was nerves. But no, this was something colder. Something in the soul.

And there was only one way to interpret the feeling.

Bad.

Nobody moved. No one wanted to attract the Grimm until they knew what they were dealing with. Jack sensed the mass getting closer. It felt… like nothing. And everything. A cold., hollow lack, as if using his soul to sense a hole in reality itself.

That was what Grimm felt like.

The presences seemed to move past them, electing not to travel towards where Jack and his team were.

Until Cards’ scroll went off.

A chorus of howling Grimm answered the call.

 

Chapter 3: And Remember, No Mistrali
“I got bounce, I got booby
I got shake, I got booty.”
—Cards’ Creed

— 6 —​

As far as Weiss was concerned, her only role here was to remind Ruby how to breathe. She had a terrible feeling that unless she was keeping watch, Ruby would forget, die, and then Weiss would be blamed for it all.

So she chose to stay with Ruby, the scraggly guy she seemed to like, and Jaune’s klepto partner as they tracked a target through the Forever Forest. Weiss would’ve preferred to remain with Pyrrha and her partner. They seemed to have their act together if nothing else. But then Chloe and that Cielo guy would’ve probably killed each other.

Sad reality was, this was the only team composition that didn’t result in some sort of murder-suicide pact. Weiss would have to content herself with that, even if that meant having to follow Ruby’s boyfriend. Chloe defaulted to him, as did Ruby, and no one seemed to take her suggestions very seriously. Which was stupid. It proved everyone but her was stupid.

As Jaune lead the troup along a shallow river, Weiss occupied herself by watching their flanks. And constantly cycling the Dust cylinders of Myrtenaster, her custom modified rapier. She was well aware she was the only one of the eight here who had any real idea how to use Dust. More to the point, this entire forest made the scar over her left eye itch, which was never a good sign. It’d itched like mad right before she’d accidentally locked eyes with Ruby back in the Emerald Forest, after all.

“This way,” Jaune said, crouching by the gentle creek. He gestured over the water. “He must’ve been putting up one hell of a fight.”

No duh, genius. Any idiot could follow the tracks. Why Chloe and Ruby acted like this was so special, Weiss had no idea.

According to Coraline de Scavi, a clearly overworked woman whose plight the rest of her peers couldn’t seem to grasp, yesterday during the whole debacle in the Emerald Forest Grimm had attacked the archaeologists camp. They’d been working with a skeleton crew of Valite Rangers who’d been caught utterly off guard. In the commotion the Grimm had broken into camp and actually dragged someone off. While the Grimm were driven back, the man had still been kidnapped. Grimm violence was nothing new, but the Grimm actually taking someone? That was new.

And weird.

“Anyone sense any Grimm?” Chloe asked, idly twirling a kama in her hand.

Chloe was… a Chloe, Weiss surmised. She had more sense than Ruby, but less than Jaune. Which is about on par with what Weiss expected. The girl was from Vacuo; Weiss could tell by the accent. However, from experience she knew it was the kind of accent you usually only saw in Schnee Dust Company taskmasters or the various mercenary forces the SDC employed out in the region. It was endemic to the hardy (and entirely human) Vacuoans from outland places like Transkhaal, Leeuwin, or the Western Free State.

Ruby held up her scroll. “Got a text from the B Team,” she said. “They found evidence of a white beowolf. Sounds cool.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, girl,” Chloe said.

Jaune pulsed his aura. After that rough landing he’d made, Weiss found herself faintly surprised he still had any. “Don’t think so. Ruby, are there any limits to that petal thing you do?”

“What, my semblance?” she asked. “I mean, it can’t go slow if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It leaves a trail,” Weiss said, compulsively cycling her Dust cylinders. It was an idle action that helped put her at ease for some reason. “You can smell it, too.”

“The smell doesn’t last long. I tried a few times, but it just went poof,” Ruby grumbled. She hefted her Crescent Rose over one shoulder. The weapon looked comically large in her hands. It emphasized how Ruby was still just some kid, really.

“Did they say anything else?” Jaune asked. “About the white beowolves, I mean.”

Ruby was typing away on her scroll. “…aaaand okay-emoji,” she said. “What?”

“This white beowolf,” Jaune said. “Why’s it white? What’s it look like?”

“It’s a rare form of Alpha Beowolf,” Weiss said, quoting by rote from something she’d studied up on back in Atlas. “The all-white status signifies full-body bone armor and pack leader status, meaning above-average strength and intelligence. They should not be faced alone.”

Everyone looked at her.

“What?” she asked, shrugging. “I read a lot. We’re fighting Grimm. You’d have to be dumb not to do your homework.”

“Funny,” Jaune said slowly, frowning. “Never saw any Grimm books in my local library. Or online. Save fairy tales.”

“She’s Weiss Schnee,” Chloe said with a nod. “She probably had better access to good research and rare books. No wonder she knows this kinda stuff.”

Weiss smiled and decided that, yes, without a doubt Chloe was better than Ruby. “Yes, exactly.”

It wasn’t exactly the most surprising revelation to Weiss. She saw parts of herself in Chloe, like how both of them had tried to get partnered with people like Pyrrha. The girl just didn’t have the same legacy Weiss had to live up to driving her. Chloe had a generic drive, but Weiss was a Schnee, after all; she could afford nothing but her very best.

Yet somehow with all that driving her, Weiss had still wound up with someone like Ruby.

Frustrating.

“Uh-huh,” Jaune said with a suspicious edge. But, not directed at Weiss herself. Like he was bothered by some grand social conspiracy he knew he didn’t have time for. “In any case, ask the others if they got more info.”

“Roger dodger,” Ruby said, tapping Cards’ contact info on her scroll. It rang. And rang. And went to voicemail, which was a generic ‘this person cannot answer her scroll at the moment.’ Ruby huffed. “Busy, I guess.”

“Does this, I don’t know, worry anyone else?” Jaune asked, gesturing his sword to the side.

Ruby cocked a brow. “Why? I don’t answer calls all the time. Especially on a mission.”

“So… text her instead?”

“C’mon, Jaune, don’t be crazy,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “I already just texted her. It’d be weird to send a bunch of texts without an answer. That’s how you look like a stalker.”

Jaune blinked. “What.”

“Duh. It’s something my sister taught me.”

“A-are you trying to coordinate with Cards or hit her up with your text game?” he asked, tilting his head, jaw agape

Ruby squinted. “What kind of games can you play over text?”

He leaned forwards, staring her down. “Are—are you doing this on purpose, or…? You know what forget it. I’m sure they’re fine. They got Guy with a Girl’s Name and Pyrrha Nikos.”

Weiss could emphasize with Jaune. Something about Ruby just seemed… off. It was probably her age. The girl had somehow made it into Beacon at age fifteen. And given how Weiss had seen the girl slaughter Grimm with her scythe back in the Emerald Forest, Weiss could understand why she’d been allowed into Beacon early. What she couldn’t, would not, excuse was just how much of an immature brat that left Ruby. It was going to get her killed one day, and worry about losing her partner and failing Beacon is the only reason she was out here today.

“Look, Ruby,” Jaune said, shaking his head. “Use your semblance to scout ahead. That way. Dart forwards, dart back. You’re our forward eyes and ears. Hit us up if you get even the first sign of danger. And don’t go far in case the trail goes a funny direction on us, okay?”

She pulled back the bolt on her scythe to chamber a fresh round. “Can do, Jaune.”

She evaporated into a mass of rose petals and zooped off over the creek and in the direction of the trail they were following.

Chloe put hands on hips and whistled. “So, is she like an idiot savant or something?”

Weiss snerked. She couldn’t help herself. “That’d explain things.”

“Guys, we’re a team,” Jaune chastised softly. “Let’s not be dicks to each other.”

“It’s not mean if you’re being honest,” Weiss said, holding her ground. But Jaune didn’t care to argue, already trudging across the shallow waters to the other side of the water. Weiss followed, summoning little glyphs to act as a footpath so she didn’t get her shoes wet.

They called this place Forever Fall, but that didn’t seem accurate to Weiss. She’d seen normal autumns and they didn’t look like this. There was nothing of the muted browns, yellows, and reds that typicalized the season. Instead, the treetops, bushes, and even the grass here looked like rust that’d been polished to a shine. It made her think of an aging opera star who’d smeared too much lipstick on her face in an effort to appear more viewable. The bark on the trees had a sickly ashen quality to them, like something had coated them in a thin layer of dust.

There was a special name for this type of wood, not that she could place it. Back in Atlas she’d had a desk made from the stuff. It was expensive, whatever it was called. Maybe because the only place you could harvest it were these Grimm-invested woods.

Weiss imagined if she asked, she’d get some lengthy mythical reason for why Forever Fall was the way it was. Every place you went had stories like that. Myths and legends that didn’t play nice with the founding myths of anywhere else.

“The world is old,” a teacher of hers had once said. He’d been a prince of Mantle’s old royal family. Their power was little more than prestige and the money of the vast estates they still owned. The Schnee Dust Company leased three of its most profitable Dust mines from the House of Spardaemon to this day.

“When Mistral was little more than a collection of pastoral nomads,” her teacher had told her, “the world was still old. Every city, every tribe human or faunus, had its own founding legend and considered it the center of their universe, and would scoff at the ignorance of we who would reduce their entire existence to a mere paragraph. Even today, Vale supposes it can trace the lineage of their old king to before the shattering of the moon, where monarchs lived thousands of years. And why wouldn’t they? In a world with so many unanswered questions, legend sates mankind’s need to know when science only shrugs.”

Her scar itched.

Ruby appeared in a storm of rose petals once they’d forded the creek. “No Grimm up ahead. Path seems to go to the side, though.”

Or, not so infested. The lack of Grimm made all the more eager to press on. Something was wrong here.

Jaune thanked her. “Alright, perfect. So this idea works. In the future, when I make this gesture—this one, see?—you follow where I’m pointing and rose petal ahead to check.”

“Why not just say it?”

“Because words are loud,” Chloe said.

Ruby stroked her chin, nodding. “So we’re developing our own secret Huntsman sign language. I can roll with that.”

“You can fly when you do it, too, right?” Jaune asked. Even as he spoke, his voice low, his blues eyes kept flicking to his surroundings. Like Weiss, it seemed Jaune wasn’t at ease here in the slightest.

Ruby shrugged, sucking in air through her teeth. “Sorta kinda. I can ‘fly’ in the way a car can if it hits a ramp. Which basically means I’m just falling with style.”

“She means it’s based on inertia,” Weiss added. “At least from what I saw of it.”

“Yeah, that.”

Jaune craned his neck. “Weiss, do your flying snowflake things—”

“Glyphs,” she corrected with a huff.

“Glyphs have to be near the ground?”

“No,” Weiss said, catching on to what he was getting at. “Just within a certain range of myself. I could use them to quickly reach a high place.”

“And can they carry multiple people?”

“If I make them big enough, yes,” she replied.

He thoughtfully poked his tongue into a cheek. “Alright. Interesting. I’ll keep that in mind. Gives me some ideas.”

Chloe folded her arms. “He wants to get you two up high and then launch Ruby as a projectile.”

Jaune made a face. “Or just all get high so we can point and laugh at any Grimm beneath us.”

Ruby snorted. “Wow, that’s lame. We’re Huntsmen-tressess-people-ers. We’re supposed to be in the thick of it, not just standing back taking pot shots.” She punched him in the arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I have this terrible disease called ‘wanting to live,’” Jaune said dryly. “I’m glad it’s not contagious.”

Weiss opened her mouth, only for the distant trumpeting of something to cut her off.

Everyone dropped low. It took Weiss a moment to figure out exactly where the sound had come from, and only then because she had followed where Jaune had snapped his head.

“Same direction as the kidnappé?” Jaune asked.

Ruby nodded, hefting her oversized scythe. “Over the bend and to the left, yeah.”

Jaune blew out a puff of breath. “Well, looks like we know where we’re going.” He gave the sign and pointed, and Ruby darted off in a supersonic cloud of petals. “Let’s rock and roll, team.”

Weiss legitimately gagged from how much she cringed right then and there.

— 7 —​

So it looked like “obnoxiously remind Cards to put her scroll on vibrate at the beginning every mission for the rest of their term at Beacon” was at the top of Cielo’s to-do list. Provided they didn’t getting ripped and torn to death by the Grimm pack it was something to look forward to. So at the very least he had something to motivate him. Aside from the whole wanting to live thing.

Pure black crashed into the room through the halls like a like a tidal wave of ink accompanied by an orchestra of howls and snarls. At the head of the deluge, shining like a beacon, was a beowolf with fur as bone-white as the shattered moon. Vein-like cracks ran along its armored parts, radiating a soft, ghostly green glow. Clearly the Cancer Grimm from the photos on that camera that Jack had shown them.

The rest of the beowolves lacked their characteristic bone armor. Cubs, it looked like. Young and stupid, but utterly devoted to their alpha. Easy to kill, but extraordinary dangerous in the paws of a competent pack leader. And boy howdy, were there a lot.

The ground floor was an ocean of black. Blood red eyes peered up at them. Fangs gnashed. Claws slashed through the air. The ruins were overgrown. Large patches of shrubs and tree roots grew out of the walls and rubble that extended all the way up towards the roof. And that was where they wanted to be. Buy some time. Come up with a plan.

“I specifically wished for this to not happen!” Cards cried as she clung to the thick bramble that ran along the walls and rumble of the ruins.

Cielo kicked off the wall and snatched Cards as a Beowolf smashed into where she’d been. They landed on a ruined platform just barely held aloft by a stone column. Probably the remains of what used to be the upper floor. “Well maybe someone should’ve remembered to keep her scroll on vibrate! Not naming any names, Cards!”

Aaaand it’d already worn out its allure.

Not so young and stupid that climbing was that much of a foreign concept, the beos scrambled along walls and up the rubble after the group.

“You two!” Pyrrha called from above. “Up here!”

She and Jack were already overlooking the battlefield from the edges of the roof. With Cards still in his grasp, Cielo leapt towards the roof. Honestly, they’d done this so many times he wondered if he should have started charging her flight admission.

“Pyrrha. Jack,” Cielo said as he landed next to the duo. Cards fell from his grip and landed with an oof. “Cards too, I guess.” He spared a glance at the chaos below. Those things wouldn’t stay down there forever. “Guys, I don’t think we have enough newspapers for this.”

“We’re glenned, aren’t we?” Cards asked.

Honestly, those beo cubs wouldn’t’ve been too tall an order with the four of them fighting together. They had greater numbers, sure, but the four of them worked well together. Or at least, they did against the Handyman.

No, the real problem was that White Cancer Wolf. Cielo probably had the most hands-on experience with Grimm out of the four of them, and he’d only ever heard vague local legends and rumors about white Grimm, let alone actually saw one. And he wasn’t quite retarded enough to engage in a head-to-head fight without knowing what it was capable of. Was that going to be a recurring theme at Beacon? Running into ultra-rare Grimm during seemingly low-to-no stake missions?

But if something like that was lurking around here, did that mean there was something more to the mission than Ozpin had let on? Or was this all some sort of (un)happy coincidence? Either way, Cielo figured he’d chalk it up as another learning experience. Survive and grow. Just like he always did.

“So what now?” Cards asked. “Cut and run, or…?”

Jack twirled the knives he had in each hand. “Bring down the roof and crush ’em all?”

“We can’t,” Pyrrha said firmly, earning her a sour look. “This whole complex is an archaeological site. We can’t just destroy this history and ruin Coraline and her team’s work.”

Jack sighed. “Great. There goes the easy solution.”

“Do you just hate fun, Pyrrha?” Cielo asked, running some possible solutions through his head. They could just sit up on the roof taking potshots at them while having a pleasant conversation. Though with the beos’ numbers they’d run out of ammunition before long.

Jack’s knife was different, though. Such a simple weapon. No ammunition needed. But did he have enough aura for all of these things?

Cielo eyed the man and thought back to his earlier words. Sheltered, his ass. For someone who’d never seen a Grimm before yesterday, he was remarkably composed. A cool-head was a welcomed trait in any team, but it was borderline uncanny. He’d already made note of it back on the Bean when they’d first arrived at Beacon: the guy was someone he’d need to keep an eye on.

“She does,” Jack said seriously. “Trust me. I’m a Nikki expert. You have to actually bully her into so much as jaywalking.”

“Traffic laws exists for a reason,” Pyrrha said defensively.

“Wooow,” Cards whispered. “My mom’s a cop and even I’m sorta cringing at that.”

Cielo looked to Pyrrha and gestured at Cards as if to say “come on now!”

“I like how I’m right about you even when I’m just making shit up,” Jack told his partner, who merely pursed her lips at him in annoyance.

“Pyrrha being conformist sheep aside,” Cielo said. “Could you use that blade flex thing and just kill them all at once?”

Jack frowned. “It takes a lot out of me. I do that, bend the blade to gut them all, and I’ll be useless if it turns out there’s more of them.” He looked sheepish. “Prooobably shouldn’t have done that back there, come to think. I blame peer pressure from all this workplace sexual harassment.”

Cielo nodded in understanding. “S’all good, man. It’s a serious issue that warrants much discuss—” he shook his head. Focus, damn it!

“I do great against crowds,” Jack said. “But I need to angle myself to do that right. And up here, I couldn’t get more than a few at a time.”

Pyrrha squinted. “I thought you said you never faced Grimm before yesterday.”

Jack pointedly ignored her.

Teammate was potentially a mass murderer. Got it. Nothing Cielo hadn’t worked with in the past. He supposed, from a certain point of view, that he could also be considered a murderer. Although he liked to differentiate between actual murder and wholesome adventure murder.

“If we can’t do anything from up here then we need to focus on separating the White Wolf from the rest of its horde,” Cielo explained. “Without a pack leader, the rest ’em are fairly easy pickings. Probably the one of the few times where you can indulge in mass baby-killing and still come out morally unscathed.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Cards asked. “And before you say anything, I am not going to be the bait!”

Pyrrha hummed to herself and turned to Jack. “Your knives. Use them to create a barrier and wall them off from each other. That shouldn’t strain you too badly, right?”

Jack sucked in a breath. “It shouldn’t, but hey, it’s never too late for things to go tits up at the worst possible time.”

“I like that attitude,” Cielo replied.

“I can help Jack with sectioning them off,” Cards said, fishing through her backpack. She procured a capsule of ice dust and loaded it into her baton. Making walls with ice dust, huh?

Pyrrha nodded. “That leaves Cielo and I to handle the rest.” She flashed him a grin. “Think you can keep up?”

“Holding me to some pretty high standards, Pyrrha,” he sighed. “We’ll go on you guys’ marks, yeah?”

They nodded.

Jack’s balisongs shot forth. The elongated blades zig-zagged and tore through the Grimm like a pair of homicidal lattice-bar gates. At the same time, ice pulsed from Cards’ baton. Frigid stalagmites erupted along the ruined earth and impaled even more beasts.

Cielo and Pyrrha leapt into the fray, sliding down the pillar of ice left behind from Cards’ blast.

Kettled off and in a tangle, the Grimm scrambled to move. They clawed up the icy pillar. Cielo kicked off. His foot stamped one’s muzzle and rode the beo the rest of the way down.

The older, more experienced Grimm would often stalk you from the shadows, size you up. Get a feel for what you might have been capable of. Watching your pack get exterminated probably instilled a sense of caution. Cubs had no such pool of experience to draw from. And that made them reckless.

They hit the ground. The beo’s skull crunched beneath his boot. In that instant another one lunged at him.

The two sprung at each other. Cielo’s foot slammed into the beo’s throat. Spittle splashed against his cheek. Another kick landed as he twisted mid-air at the summit of his jump. His sword flashed from its scabbard and cleaved through the beowolf right down the middle as they landed.

More from his side. Pyrrha vaulted over him. Her javelin pierced through the nearest pup. She launched from it and drove her heel into another of his attacker’s maw. Her shield went flying and smashed into another wolf. It crashed into another of its brethren as Pyrrha’s shield returned to her.

The duo sprung back as White Wolf torpedoed into them and shattered the stone floor beneath it. A cloud of debris erupted from the crater. Definitely not something they wanted to get hit with.

“Cards!” Pyrrha called out. The White Wolf dashed from its clouded camouflage.

“On it!” Cards replied, as if she’d know exactly what Pyrrha had in mind. Another ray of ice crashed into the White Wolf. It went careening into an oversized root, the ice trapping it thereupon. The phantom beast thrashed against its frigid prison. Small flecks of ice chipped and sprinkled along the ground. That wasn’t going to last forever. And Cards would run out of dust sooner or later.

The two of them stood back-by-back. Jack’s knives had shaved a nice chunk of their numbers together alongside Cards’ ice walls, and they did well corralling the Grimm into digestible sections. They were divided. Time to conquer.

Cubs were fast, but lacked hardiness—all black and no bone-armor. Cielo’s sword sliced through them like melted butter. Their bodies and severed limbs lay scattered in disorganized piles. Pyrrha was like a dancer in a ballroom. Movements flowing like water from one motion to the next as the beowolves dropped around her like flies.

Maybe now wasn’t the best time to get all dazzled like.

The horde had slowed down. No longer pressing their attack or their luck. They straggled towards the edges of the ice walls. It wasn’t just caution. No, it was fear. Soft whimpers slipped from between their blood-red fangs. Every sudden movement pushed them closer towards the ground. It was absolutely pitiful to look at.

And that’s exactly what they were going for. One of the few worthwhile lessons his old mentor had imparted onto him: when cornered and with no other options, it wasn’t uncommon for the Grimm, especially cubs, to feign submission. You let your guard down. They struck you down. Empathy got you killed.

There were times where Cielo thought he might’ve taken that lesson a bit too close to heart.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that here. Grimm weren’t people. They didn’t have souls. They didn’t feel.

Cielo pushed forward and gored the nearest Grimm through whatever it called a heart. His aura flared. More rushed from behind. His sword separated—one end remained inside the beowolf while the other morphed into a pistol. He spun on his heels and opened fire on the advancing beasts.

Bullets ripped through their hide. The barrel’s roar drowned out their yelps. When the few survivors neared him, he pulled his other blade free from the monster. The momentum carried him forward. Cielo’s swords slashed in wide, spinning arcs. The beowolves’ limbs scattered into the air and their bodies dropped.

“Cielo, over here!” Pyrrha cried. She danced through pack of retreating beos. Her shield parried their paltry attacks. Her sword carried her through their bodies like they were made out of air. Girl was a straight pro. Definitely earned those brand deals.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit envious of her skill.

“Pyrrha,” he replied, ignoring the bitter taste on his tongue. Once more they were at each others backs. Only a scant few cubs remained. Sometimes it really helped to take the edge off and just let loose. Even if he did occasionally remind himself that he was indulging in what was ostensibly mass child-murder.

The rest of the beos seemed to pick up on that. The few remaining Grimm took slow, cautious steps away from the duo. More of that fear. Looked genuine this time.

And it was. They turned tail and ran, heading for where the team had entered the room. That led them closer to the entrance. And the archeologists.

“They’re running,” Pyrrha unhelpfully pointed out.

As much as he would have loved tossing that Coraline broad to the literal wolves, he supposed he had just too much of a conscience to let the rest of the dig boys suffer for her. If anything, he was almost positive her bitchiness had caused the infestation.

Towards the entrance was a large stone pillar. If he could hit it just right, he could bury them under it.

“Sorry, hafta Cards ya!” Cielo pardoned as he grabbed Pyrrha’s arm.

“What—?” just barely escaped her lungs before he spun her ’round and ’round. He let go and she went soaring like a missle. To her credit, it seemed she’d manage to work out what he had in mind in the short gap of time it took for her to get to the other end of the room.

Pyrrha flipped through the air on her shield. She cannon balled into the stone column and it tumbled over onto the retreating Grimm. The crashing rubble drowned out their yelps and left them buried beneath the wreckage.

Were all girls aerodynamic?

The beo cubs continued to writhe, trapped beneath the columns remains.

“We’re women, not weapons!” Cards yelled from the roof.

“Debatable!” Cielo yelled back.

Pyrrha stuck the landing looking no worse for wear. She sighed as she looked over the mess they’d made. “I don’t think Coraline will like this too much.”

He flashed her a cheery grin and shot off a pair of finger guns. “Hey, and I’ll let you know when I care how she feels.”

The redhead pursed her lips in disapproval but said nothing.

Then there was a crash. Cielo’s head swerved towards the giant root. The White Wolf’s prison shattered, the ice crystals shattered onto the ground. The Wolf was gone. Disappeared. Then he felt a presence above him. Something like vengeance. Best served cold and as a bloody pile of himself.

Instinctively, Cielo juked to the side. The White Wolf crashed where he’d been. It didn’t look too happy. Its eyes shined a malicious green. Thick, viscous drool dripped from between its snarling fangs. The cubs were child’s play. This thing was not going down without a fight.

“I think he’s mad,” Pyrrha said.

The White Wolf rushed the both of them. Its glowing claws ripped through the air. A storm of pure violence and malice. He and Pyrrha were on the defensive. Evading. Guarding. Waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Every blow hit like a train on greased tracks. Tremors of impact wracked Cielo’s arm up to the shoulder. His sword nearly went flying from his grip with every parry.

The next slash went wide as Cielo jumped back.

“Gee, I can’t imagine where you got that idea,” he replied.

Thing was ferocious. Like it was something personal. And it was fast. Very fast. Managed to contend with the both of them while leaving little-to-no opening to exploit. Until they found the proverbial chink in the armor they were just targets with an annoying instinct for self-preservation.

Something whistled. Like steel slicing through the air. The White Wolf’s pectoral erupted with some radioactive-looking green ichor.

Hold on. Blood? From Grimm?

Jack’s knife stabbed through the Wolf’s chest and into the ground. Then came Cards, riding along the blade with her baton like a zipline. She let go and went flying straight for the White Wolf.

Her baton smashed into the Wolf’s jaw. Cards’ aura flashed a bright red and the beast went flying into a stone column supporting a platform. It shattered and the platform crashed on top of the Grimm.

Cards hit the ground rolling until she crashed into large tree root near Pyrrha’s feet. Jack just calmly rode his knife down.

“Howdy, bitches,” he said with a nod.

“Oh God!” Cards cried as she pushed herself up. “I can’t believe that worked!”

The stone debris rumbled and white claw punched its way out with a flash of emerald. It reminded Cielo of the posters for those pulpy horror flicks.

“Oh God, I can’t believe that didn’t work!” Cards cried.

Add tough to the list of Ways This Thing Can Ruin Your Day And Why Are You Still Even Trying? The White Wolf pushed through the rubble and shook itself off. It was like the bastard hadn’t even felt it.

“Alright, one mo’ ‘gain?” Cielo intoned. “Bring it.”

“Nikki, ninja, plans?” Jack asked.

Ninja? How reductive and somewhat racist.

Cielo shrugged. “Well there’s four of us and one of whatever the hell he is. Time we remind him of why he always snuck off to the library during recess.”

“Cielo,” Pyrrha said, twirling her sword. “You stick with me. Jack, use your knives to immobilized him once you get a clear shot.” And to Cards, “Once he’s pinned, I want you to hit it with everything you’ve got. Dust. Your semblance. Anything. Got it?”

“Man, I love coordinated bullying!” Cielo beamed.

He and Pyrrha shot forward. The White Wolf did the same. It side-stepped as Pyrrha thrust her sword-spear at it. Cielo’s semblance blasted him up over and behind the Wolf. His trajectory shifted like he’d kicked off an invisible wall, and he torpedoed at its back sword first. Once more it dodged. A clawed hand grabbed Cielo’s wrist and hurled him at Pyrrha.

So that was what it felt like. This thing made him feel like Cards and now he going to kill it even harder.

Pyrrha caught him. Or tried to. They both went careening into a stone pillar. Through a stone pillar. Cielo wished he could say that was the first time something like that happened to him.

“Damn,” Cielo growled as he forced himself up. Dust and bits of rubble tumbled off his body. His vision cleared as he blinked.

“We’re just sky-eel fishing trying to hit it by ourselves,” Pyrrha said. The two pressed their assault. “Just keep it busy for now!”

The White Wolf kept up with them with scary ease. Like it had an almost intuitive grasp of their fighting styles. Their every attack blocked or evaded. Those wide, savage swipes were anything but. They were aimed with careful precision and deadly intent. The two could only do just enough to keep up their defenses. Cielo was starting to feel as though the Wolf was intentionally dropping its assault just to bait them into attacking a fake opening.

They dodged an attack that cratered the floor beneath them. Jack had moved into position behind them. Cielo looked to Pyrrha who seemed to have similar thoughts. She nodded.

“Now, Jack!” Cielo growled.

Jack twirled a knife and thrust it out. “Think fast!” he said.

The two had just enough time to dart off towards opposite ends of the room.

The blade extended like a beam. The White Wolf must’ve anticipated that. It side-stepped just before the knife touched him. Jack had made himself top priority and now it was after him.

Then the blade curved back and pierced the Wolf at the waist. More of that funky green blood spilled onto the ground.

It howled and tried to get away, only for Jack’s knife to twist, the tip turned into a shackle. Jack braced the knife like a pike and rammed forwards. He shoved the wolf against the wall. It roared, spit in its mouth turning to a sickly foam.

“Cielo!” Pyrrha called out.

They rammed their swords into the soft parts not protected by its bone armor. Soft being relative. It roared some more. The ichor splashed on their faces and in their eyes. It smelled rancid—like something out of a corpse—and Cielo could’ve sworn he tasted it on his tongue.

They yanked their swords, ripping out the beast’s sides.

“Cards, you’re up!” Cielo said.

The girl’s club was a revolver. Something like cannon fire erupted from it. A fire Dust bullet. The White Wolf went hellish red. Its screams—its screams echoed off the walls of the room. Despite his best efforts, Cielo couldn’t stop the chill in his veins.

Jack’s knife ripped from its corpse and it fell writhing to the ground. The screaming eventually died with the Wolf. As did the fire, It’s once moon white coat had blackened. If he squinted hard enough, it almost looked like your typical beowolf.

The White Wolf was down, but they weren’t done yet.

There was a low rumble. Something like bits of rock being shifted around. The beowolves they’d trapped beneath the column remains clawed themselves to freedom. But they didn’t run like Cielo had expected. Their eyes turned towards them. No. Past them. At what he couldn’t figure. Nor did he particularly care. Maybe they’d just whatever the Grimm equivalent was of sanity.

Then they rushed, giving the team wide berth. Were they trying to encircle them? No, their numbers were too thin for that. He didn’t give it much more thought. One launched itself into the air. Cielo followed after it. It may as well have been made of wet tissue paper. His sword ripped through its hide with trivial ease.

He saw another running along the ground. He dove, his semblance propelling him through the air like a bullet. He skewered the beast through the back. It writhed, claws scraping at the ground to get away from him. Cielo pressed his boot against its back and twisted the blade. There was a crack. The Grimm went stiff. Then it went limp.

Silence. He looked around the room. Pyrrha pulled her javelin-sword from a dead Grimm. Jack’s knife retracted, the pair of Grimm it’d shishkabob’d dropped to the ground. Black flakes filtered the air as the corpses ashed.

“Did we do a thing?” Cielo asked, spitting out the ichor. He really hoped that didn’t mean he’d turn into a white beowolf every full moon.

“I… think?” Cards replied. When nothing happened she beamed and nodded. “We did it, guys!” Her hand went up for a high-five. No one reciprocated so she high-fived herself.

“Nice work,” Pyrrha sighed with relief, sheathing her sword. “I couldn’t have done it without all of you.” Her face flattened when she looked to Cielo. “Could’ve done without the spontaneous flight lessons, of course.”

“Spontaneity is the spice of life.” He shrugged, wincing as a jolt of pain pierced through him. His eyes fell on Pyrrha. Beowolf cubs were nothing worth fussing over, but watching her dance around and rip through them just as easily as he did, if not more effortlessly—Cielo couldn’t help but feel… lacking somehow. His expression tightened. A fraction of a split second. You would’ve had to have been looking for it to see it.

Shelve it. You aren’t doing yourself any favors getting worked up over it.

“Ditto,” he continued with a practiced sort of blitheness. “Totally earned that Pumpkin Pete sponsorship.”

“Well, it certainly helped put food on the table.” She awkwardly averted her eyes. “Kind of backfired after multiple studies singled out Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes as Mistral’s leading cause of childhood diabetes.”

Cielo sucked his tongue. “I’ve only tried it once. Kinda swore off it after I had a nightmare where I woke up too early and collapsed face-first into a bowl that then proceeded to eat my face as penance for its brothers that I’d eaten that morning.”

“I… eat Pumpkin Pete’s for breakfast all the time,” Cards whimpered.

“Look on the brightside:” Jack consoled. “Now you know where to aim the lawsuit when you have that stroke.”

“I’m not responsible for organ damage,” Pyrrha said quickly. “It’s actually in my contract. Not at fault. Only thing that affects me is the lingering guilt.”

“Typical corporate ass-covering,” Cielo dismissed.

“Guys,” Cards said, rubbing at her arm. “Hey, um, guys?”

“What?” he asked.

She just pointed at the White Wolf.

The very dead White Wolf.

A Grimm that left behind a corpse.

“I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?” Jack asked.

“Jack,” Pyrrha said very patiently, “when you kill a Grimm, it turns to ash.”

“Oh,” he said. He swung downwards, his knife extending to pierce the beowolf’s lung. It didn’t react, save for a new hole for sickly green fluid to ooze from. Cielo still wasn’t getting over that. “I think it’s already dead.”

“That’s… that’s not supposed to happen,” Pyrrha said, staring at the corpse. Her eyes were wide.

Jack scrunched his face. “Why not? I’ve seen mounted Grimm heads.”

Cielo grunted. His eyes never left the White Wolf. First the blood and now this? “A lot of faux-Huntsmen like to try and pass fake trophies off as authentic. Most folks ain’t ever seen a Grimm, so how’re they gonna argue?”

“It’s usually papier-mâché,” Pyrrha added.

“People actually fall for that?” Cielo said. That actually distracted him.

Cards shot Jack a vindictive little grimace. “He does, apparently.”

Jack ignored her, instead staring at the beowolf. “So, this is a world’s first?”

Pyrrha nodded.

He clapped his hands together and grinned. “Perfect! We can make money off this. For science!”

“Technically I discovered it first, so I obviously have the most coming to me,” Cards proudly declared as she puffed out her chest.

“Hm, no,” he dismissed, walking over to the corpse. He poked at it with the toe of his boot. “I like it more than you, so I deserve it.”

“How do you even quantify that?” she asked.

Pyrrha had joined Jack’s side. Still armed, she slowly knelt down and examined the body. She reminded Cielo of a man taking the spoils off the recently dead.

“Sorry, Pyrrha,” Cielo said. “I think he blew all of his cash on hookers and Dust salts.”

Holding the beowolf by the chin, she turned over its head. She barely seemed to be paying attention to Cielo until she said, “Funny. You’d think he’d have earned more from his sponsorship.”

Cielo joined her on the ground.

Well, would ya look at that.

Jack bent over to look at what she was eying, hands on his knees. “Merlot?” he asked. “So is the secret to Grimm longevity the miracle of alcohol? Does this mean I’m immortal?”

She gave her partner a flat look. “This Grimm has a brand on it.”

“Imagine the balls on that guy,” Cielo whistled.

“Wait,” Cards added, adjusting her beret. “Merlot. As in, Merlot Industries? As in that guy who screwed over Mountain Glenn because he was trying to sex-up some Grimm?”

Cielo threw his hands in the air. “And the balls just keep getting bigger!”

“Who?” Pyrrha asked.

“Bad guy. He used to run this really big research company in Vale and was an ex-teacher at Beacon,” Cards said, gesturing with her hands. “My mom used to live in Mountain Glenn. It’s this city on the edge of Vale that got overrun by Grimm. Vale barely managed to quarantine the area before the Grimm got any deeper into the kingdom. Mom told me all about it.”

Jack was nodding. “Yeah, heard of it. Place got glenned.”

“Thus that there phrase,” she pointed out.

“Huh.”

“Wait,” Cielo said. “Brandings. Ex-professor at Beacon—as someone who might know a way around its security.” It was a bit of a longshot admittedly, but something was connecting those dots. He just knew it. “Did any of you get a good enough look at the Grimm during the initiation? Anything like brandings? Maybe a tag or something?”

“It’d be hard to say,” Pyrrha said, letting the Grimm’s head drop. She made a face at some of the green blood on her hand. “The brand’s not on a super obvious location. I wouldn’t have been able to see it if the beowolf weren’t all white, I think.”

“Meaning it’s possible,” Jack said, “but it’s like trying to spot teardrops in a canal.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “Not that any Grimm we killed in the forest last very long in any case.”

“Hold on, no,” Cards said, shaking her head. “Merlot’s dead. Everyone knows that. Got eaten by his own pets back in the Glenn.”

“Did anyone actually see it happen?” Cielo asked. “The dead sometimes have this annoying habit of not actually being that.”

She hesitated. “I mean, how else do we know if he got eaten? Probably some Huntsmen saw it when they were evacuating the city.”

Pyrrha was wiping off the blood on a cloth Jack had handed her. “We can argue this all we want, but we’re just guessing.”

“So what are we gonna do about him?” Cards asked, gesturing at the White Wolf.

“We don’t know what to do with this ourselves,” Pyrrha said. “I don’t want to risk leaving it here where it might evaporate on its own or maybe fall victim to scavengers.”

Cards frowned in thought. “Like other Grimm?”

Pyrrha shrugged. “Maybe. They’ve been known to pick at dead people, why not one of their own? So if the corpse isn’t ashing, then we should wrap it up and bring it back to Beacon.”

“Hand it to Ozpin on a silver plate?” Jack asked, seemingly oddly skeptical of the idea.

“Ahem,” Cielo interjected. “I think you mean smugly rub it in his face.”

She let out a long breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “This may have been a clever way to get us off his back, but what we have here, my gut says it’s important. And hey, we managed to turn busy work into something meaningful. Found a piece to a puzzle we didn’t even know existed.”

Jack made a so-so gesture. “A for effort, but you need to work on your inspirational speeches. I’m not really feeling it, y’know? Plus I don’t see how this makes me any money.”

“You, shush,” she said to him sharply.

He held his hands up, reluctantly relenting.

“Let’s get this thing back to the camp,” Cielo said. “See what the archeo bros have to say about it.”

Strange things were happening. First the initiation and now this? The two were definitely connected. Way moreso than Ozpin had sold to them. There were still way too many questions fogging up the big picture. But at least they finally had a name to pin to all of this.

“Let’s just hope this rabbit hole doesn’t go too far,” Pyrrha said.

And that was the moment Cielo knew the world was doomed.

 

Chapter 4: I Don’t Give a Damn, Not an Iota—Motherfucker, I’m the Straightest Shota
“Here, Jaune, let me help you up. So I can touch you. Did you hurt your rear end, too?”

— 8 —​

Moments like these made the world make sense. Between the chaos of other people and the insanity of daily life, it was this violence, the fight, where Ruby found herself at home. She could focus. Find a method to the world’s madness. Soar the roar. Use her scythe, muscles, and semblance to their fullest.

And slice up Grimm into itty-bitty pieces.

In a word, it was beautiful. Simple. Serene.

She chambered a round and fired. The recoil ripped the beowolf’s head off and sent her flying. She spun with the motion. Her scythe ripped another in half. Flesh split from muscle, tendon, and sindew, coating Ruby in gore, the kind that faded to ash on its way out. You didn’t need to worry about the future, about washing your outfit. All that mattered was the present, her happy ending would come if she did good now.

Besides, she wore red for a reason. It’s not like anyone would notice what she looked like in the moments before the blood dissipated.

Ruby twisted her body, landing in a crouch on Jaune’s shield.

“That one!” he shouted, spinning on the ball of his foot towards an elephant-like Grimm. As small as it was, it had to be a young goliath. Jaune shoved forwards, and Ruby used her recoil to springboard off Jaune’s shield at the Grimm.

Once more into the air, and once more in her own little world. And why shouldn’t she be there? It better than reality. Reality murdered your mother and abandoned your half-sister. Reality was a drunken uncle doing his best to be a dad once a month while yours was having another “episode.”

Reality sucked. Reality screwed you over for no reason. Didn’t make sense.

She swung her scythe upwards in an arc. It caught the elephant in the trunk, shredding it down the center. It let out an aborted trumpet that sounded like a wet fart. Kind of funny, really. She latched onto one of its tusks with a hand, using her interia to pivot her around so she could jam her scythe between the Grimm’s eyes. Straight into the heavy armor plating there.

Satisfying.

One day people like her would kill the Grimm. Every last one of them. Then people like Ruby could rest, lay down their weapons, and finally have a true happy ending. One that didn’t end in sequel-bait. But until the butcher’s work was done, this was everything that mattered.

Kill the Grimm. Be a Huntress. Save the world. Until it was done.

The mindset posed a problem. She knew this on some level. Thinking positively, having hope, that was how you made most Grimm ignore you. You needed hatred, you needed anger, if you wanted to draw more Grimm to you so you could rip them apart.

Ruby didn’t hate Grimm. In fact, as she cleaved the goliath’s head off, she didn’t feel anything towards the Grimm but a sense of sadness. Grimm were nothing more than people who couldn’t complete their souls in life. Fallen into darkness, only to return as darkness incarnate. To slay Grimm was merciful, moral, should be everyone's highest priority. A Grimm disintegrating meant a soul freed to the Wheel, give them another chance at life.

A loving mother who died in a blizzard, her final wish to see her children one last time, would finally see her family again. Better that than how the stories portrayed the Grimm who found their loved ones—unable to see them for who they were, and always ending in tragedy.

Ruby could see it in her mind’s eyes, her mother, a monster whose mournful crying twisted into bloodcurdling howls, red eyes seeing only a haze of evil. That’s what Summer said it was like to become a Grimm.

Someday she’d find her mother and kill her.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. On reflex she spun around intent to decapitate whatever was touching her. Jaune merely grappled her in a terrified hung, far too close to be hit.

Her cheeks reddened. “Don’t scare me like that!”

His shield extended, he dropped down into a crouching, forcing Ruby down with him.

The withering goliath exploded behind her. The shockwave shoved her face into Jaune’s chest, bending her neck at an awkward angle. An acid-like green misted over the air before settled over the crimson grass of the Forever Fall forest.

“Pachamama’s perkies,” Jaune said. “What was that? The Grimm just exploded!”

Ruby cleared her throat. “Can, uh, can you let me go?”

He blinked, then abruptly stood up with a sheepish look on his face. “Like. Yeah.” He pointed at where the goliath had fallen.

The grass and dirt there looked like it’d been eaten away. Ruby had seen that kind of burn in a workshopping class she had back at Signal. A guy was trying to use Dust to make his weapon shoot acid, but all it did was ruin the school’s garden. Ruby had wanted to help clean up, but when she saw all the damage and how much work that’d take, she thought to herself “Nuh-uh.”

It all looked a lot like the camp they were currently in. The ruined camps filled with the ash of decaying Grimm. Palisades, gates, wrecked tents, and crates. “Merlot Industries,” the old boxes’ logos read. It didn’t look old to Ruby, but it did look wrecked, like it’d been trashed in a hurry.

She wondered if Jaune had realized that yet or not. Ruby didn’t want to risk annoying him by stealing his observational thunder. Or worse, risk stating the obvious, and being even more annoying.

Weiss dropped down from the air. She’d been riding one of her glyphs in the air like Jaune had suggested. “Did you get a look at its ears?”

Ruby shrugged. “Big, black, and floppy.”

She made a circular gesture with a finger. “No, behind them. Like along the neck. They swelled up before the whole Grimm exploded.”

Ruby shook her head.

That Chloe girl emerged from one of the bigger tents, twirling her kama like nunchucks. Which was weird. Ruby didn’t remember there being a string holding the weapons together. “I think it was sick. Do Grimm get sick?”

Ruby gave it some thought, using the moment to collapse her scythe and store it under her cloak. “My uncle said he once fought a Grimm who kept sneezing. Don’t really remember if it was sick or because it was just fighting him that way.”

Jaune looked at his shield. “Do we need to wash our hands or something?”

“You can if you want,” Ruby said with a shrug. “I never do.”

That got her several weird looks. Jaune looks at his own hands and grimaced.

“What?” she asked. “It’s faster to use some Sunrise sanitizer and my semblance than operate some gross public restroom sink.”

Jaune didn’t seem to really understand, so he just shook his head. “Moving on…”

“It makes sense!”

“Moving. On,” he said, and Ruby sucked on her lips. She didn’t want to keep on the issue and risk annoying Jaune or anyone else. And she already felt like she was dangerously close to that.

Jaune looked at the girls. “Chloe, Weiss, did you find anything at least? That guy we were looking for, I mean.”

“I didn’t see any obvious trail leading from the camp,” Weiss said, scanning her surroundings. “It ends here.”

Chloe grimaced and thumbed over her shoulder. “Found some blood in there. Some big crates with locks on ’em too.”

“Can you pick it?” Jaune asked.

Chloe folded her arms and huffed. “No. Why would you say that?”

He held his hands up. “No, I—”

“Because I’m from Vacuo? I just must know how to steal.”

“Yeah, Jaune,” Weiss added, a strange little twitch to her lips. “Stealing is a crime and crime is for faunus. Have some manners.”

Chloe snorted. “That’s awful. You’re awful. Never tell a joke again.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Weiss said with a little smile.

Ruby felt a little uncomfortable. She was pretty sure that kind of joke isn’t something you should really say in public. Or maybe it was normal humor in Atlas. Ruby hadn’t really known many faunus. There weren’t many on Patch and even fewer in Signal.

She looked to Jaune, hoping he’d tell the two off, but he just seemed relieved the issue with Chloe was over. Ruby didn’t want to speak up and ostracize herself, so she ignored the problem too.

“Ruby, what caliber is your rifle?” Jaune asked.

“The kind that ruins your day,” she said with a nod.

“Think it can blow off a lock?”

She smiled. “Wanna find out?”

— 9 —​

Filthy.

Why did Cards even bother taking a shower that night if this was where she was going to end up? She figured they’d at least have some time to rest up and recuperate. More than a few measly hours at least. Enough time to grime and sweat and blood out of her outfit. Her suit was more brown than blue at this point! She could feel the dirt and sweat mingling beneath her clothes with every step.

Absolutely filthy.

An uneasy queasiness welled up in her gut when she remembered Chloe’s words back at the hanger. Cards bit her lip. She knew that Huntsmen had an image to maintain. Standards to meet. No one knew that more than her. Her mom never let her forget that Huntsmen were Remnant’s guiding light. People looked at them and saw heroes. Someone to admire. Who was going to admire a little girl covered in muck and grime?

Just absolutely filthy.

No one had any clue whatsoever about the white beowolf she and her team had dragged back to the camp. The science staff was just enthralled. A white Grimm that bled and whose body remained postmortem. An extraordinarily rare, if not completely unprecedented phenomenon. It was a scientific marvel from the way they talked about it.

Beyond the fear and uncertainty, something like pride welled up Cards’ belly. Not only had she’d been the one to kill it—and she’d fight anyone who argued that—but she’d been among the first witnesses of such a discovery.

She wondered what mom would say is she were here right now. Maybe she could email her once they got back to Beacon? The thought made her giddy enough to dance. So she did. Then her hip banged against a desk carrying some equipment.

It rattled and a few of the archaeologists glared at her.

“Uh,” she stammered, face red. “S-sorry.”

Cards took a look around the tent. The biggest one from what she’d seen of the others. Apparently it belonged to Coraline de Scavi. Aside from a few young-looking archaeologists, she was all by her lonesome. Jack mentioned something about needing to use the restroom. After about ten minutes, Pyrrha had gotten worried and took off to find him. She muttered something about needing a leash.

Cards made a mental note to ask about that later in vivid detail.

Cielo had just… vanished. One second he was there and when Cards turned to look back he was just gone. Poof. Maybe he really was a ninja? Or would he just call her racist for saying that? Cards puffed her cheeks. He was one to talk.

She hadn’t realized how weird she looked puffing herself up at no one at all until she heard a voice.

“Merlot Industries?” a moss-haired archaeologist said. “As in Doctor ‘if it’s a Grimm, stick it in ’im’ Merlot?”

“Nah, I think Doctor ‘I’ve got one more bone for ’em’ Merlot is a bit snappier,” another replied. A woman this time.

Was this an actual conversation she was hearing?

“Actually, you’re both stupid,” a bespectacled archaeologist replied. “But real talk, I think I might’ve seen some Merlot stuff in the area lately. Not much worth looking at. Just a bunch of leftover junk from previous expeditions like ours.”

“Don’t tell me Merlot got to this thing first,” the moss-haired archaeologist said.

“If he did then this thing was probably grateful to die,” replied Glasses.

“Godsdamned scratchers,” de Scavi said with a huff. “It’s like you can’t even find good help anymore.”

Cards nodded, feeling a little odd without her teammates. She wasn’t even the leading partner between her and Cielo. She was, like, the un-leader. “Yeah. Anyways. The wolf.”

The older archaeologist adjusted her spectacles and sighed. “As much as some of us would like to study this thing, none of us know anything about Grimm. Isn’t that right, Henry?”

The moss-haired archeologist looked away sheepishly. Cards felt for the guy.

“We don’t have the facilities, either,” she said. De Scavi kept fidgeting with her glasses like it were some tic. She took a moment to think before saying, “You… probably want to send this to Beacon. Fantastic. We get some good help and now we gotta send ’em back because science demands it. Freakin’ unbelievable.”

Cards wanted to offer to stay, just to be polite or something. But she really didn’t want to be out in the forest doing meaningless busywork. The idea to come here had been kind of cool before, but it had been Cielo’s idea, not hers.

More importantly, she’d checked. No showers here. The only place to wash her anything was in a little creek nearby, and the idea of getting naked in a forest full of Grimm where some random people could ogle her—Cards squirmed in the filthy rags she insisted was her outfit.

“Well,” she feebly offered. She had absolutely no idea where she was going with this. “I’m pretty positive the Headmaster’ll need someone to help him with this thing. I mean, it’s only fair. Right?”

It sounded fair. To Cards, it did. At the very least he could credit de Scavi with its discovery. Or re-discovery. After Cards and her team, of course. Especially after Cards.

De Scavi scoffed. She looked like she needed a drink. She proved Cards right when she brought the wooden flask around her neck to her lips. “Beware of Bitch” was engraved on the gold surface. “You think someone with a team of all scratchers matters enough to be let on board a project like this?”

That was the second time she used that word.

“Scratchers?” Cards said.

The older woman gestured around the room as she knocked back a second gulp. “Most of these kids here are just that. Kids. A good half of ’em haven’t even graduated yet. Doing work no one else really wants. We call those scratchers.”

Cards nodded. “So what about you?”

“I’ve been doin’ this for twenty-years. I’m no scratcher, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. Again, she adjusted her glasses. “You ever heard of the Archaeolog Guild?”

Cards shook her head.

The archaeologist sighed. “Figures. It’s a multinational organization that aims to standardize archaeology and ensure that findings don’t end up lost in museums. All high-minded but still a bureaucratic mess.” She took another drink. “We also handle the training and assignment of archaeologists in Vale. Well, depending on where you live. You know what I mean.” Another sigh. “You’d think with a master’s they’d have me working anything besides mostly just excavating areas in the city before new buildings got built over them, but, well, here I am. Don’t wanna say it’s because I’m a faunus, but…”

Cards squeezed her fingers and bit her lip.

De Scavi shook her head. “Yeah yeah, I know. A ’nimal can’t complain too much, I guess. Better working in Vale than Mistral or Atlas.” She looked at the young Huntress-in-training. “By the way, where’d the rest of your team go?”

“Not far away enough, unfortunately,” droned a dry, lethargic voice.

Cielo walked into the tent.

“Where’ve you been?” Cards asked. Between the three of them, Pyrrha would have been a bit more appreciated. Still, she was almost certain that spat back at the hangar was because Cielo was defending her from Chloe in his own way. Maybe. So she felt like she could depend on Cielo. Sometimes, at least.

“Out,” he simply stated. It didn’t look like this was one of those times.

“What about Jack and Pyrrha?”

He shrugged. “Playing scrabble in one of the tents, maybe? Or screwing. Or both. Screwble.”

Cards was genuinely worried that de Scavi was about to succumb to alcohol poisoning. “Beacon isn’t very good at vetting the people they let in, are they?” the older woman asked.

Cielo shrugged. “I like to think that I have a second semblance that causes peoples’ standards for acceptable company to drop. It’s the only thing that explains why people don’t try to kill me more often.”

The conversation was already off the rails. Cards chimed in. “Hey so, uh, de Scavi over here wants to know what we plan on doing with the white Grimm.”

“Sell it for parts,” Cielo suggested with a shrug. “I’m sure some wizened Mistrali shaman can grind its penis up into a cure for something.”

Did Grimm even have penises? She’d once seen a Grimm dakimakura, so… maybe? It took effort not to check the corpse to be sure.

Externally, Cards had no face. “Be serious.”

“Like I said back in the whatever,” he replied, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the ruins. “Personally, I’d love to smugly rub it in Ozpin’s slightly-less-smug-by-comparison face. But it’s not really up to just me. Figured we’d wait for Jaune and his group. Vote or something.”

Part of Cards wished Cielo had just agreed with her. Turn the wolf over to the Headmaster, go home, and shower. Again. At the same time, she found herself feeling for de Scavi despite the older woman’s brusqueness. And more than that, what would the Headmaster do if they had returned the white Grimm? Pat them on the head and send them on their way again? There was no way she could accept that. Could she?

But the more Cards thought about it, the more she realized just how in over their heads they were. What could they have done anyway? They could barely be considered freshmen. What were they going to do about the attack on Beacon that the Headmaster and the military couldn’t? And the whole Merlot thing just made the situation even muddier!

Cards hadn’t realized how lost she’d gotten in her thoughts until a vibrant red blob thing torpedoed into the tent. Rose petals danced in the air with the kicked up the dirt and grass. When the petals cleared she saw Ruby. Her breath came out in labored pants and she was hunched over with her hands resting on her knees.

“Now see,” Cielo said, snatching the petals out of the air. “Normally I’d be quite miffed, but roses are edible so thanks for the free food, sucker.”

“Ruby?” Cards said. That uneasiness returned as Cielo gagged on his snack. What had her so winded? “Uh, are you okay?”

The girl gasped. “We’re all gonna die!”

It was then that Cards realized how unlikely it was that she’d get another shower before the day was up.

 

Chapter 5: I’m Not Paralyzed, but I Seem To Be Struck By You
“I’ve decided that the stuff falling through the cracks is confetti and I’m having a party.”


— 10 —​

“I belong here,” Jack told the archaeologist, his body language firm. Commanding. A man expecting to be obeyed as a matter of course.

The archaeologist hesitated. He looked around the room, the main trove. It’s where they stored personal supplies and recovered artifacts both.

Or so Jack was figuring.

“You can go now. I’ve got it covered,” Jack said, making a brushing motion.

At length the archaeologist nodded. He adjusted his safari helmet and started for the tent entrance. “Right, Huntsman. Yeah. Sorry to bother you.”

Jack watched him go, hands in his jean pockets. Then Jack was alone with everything valuable the camp had.

Too easy.

Almost scary, really. The man had called Jack a Huntsman, as if merely showing up at Beacon had made Jack some paragon of honor and strength instead of one of the Valefor’s own. He understood that’s how people treated Huntsmen; it was one of his reasons for wanting to be one. What Jack failed to understand was how that lie continued to be taken as the granted truth.

Maybe it can't be helped; Jack’s the type of boy to check under a gift whore’s skirt, after all. But, it’s hard to follow how people can still view Huntsmen so heroically in light of basic facts.

Case in point. The moment Jack found himself alone, he started doing his best impression of a window shopper among the sealed artifacts and personal. Why, yes. I like that one, this one, and yon two.

Well, no. Bad example. This was just the price of business instead of any abuse of Huntsman power. Couldn’t be helped. Like, if they really wanted to keep this stuff to themselves, they wouldn’t have had secured their things with such easily picked locks.

Any reasonable person would agree.

Like Nikki, standing there at the entrance to the tent, hands on hips. She was totally a reasonable person.

“I’m never gonna be able to go to the bathroom in peace anymore, Jack,” she said, shaking her head. Girl wasn’t happy. “Not without being scared that without me you’ll get up to this sorta thing.”

He turned her way, an easygoing smile on his lips. “What? Not my fault I’m high maintenance.”

Looking around the room as if on the hunt for anything missing, she made her way over to Jack. “So what exactly is your fault, then?”

Jack shrugged and gestured vaguely. “I found this tent. The one tent with air conditioning. Air conditioning, Nikki. Kick back and relax with me.” He sat down in a room chair and kicked his feet up. “And I prefer the term ‘credit’ instead of ‘fault.’ Word connotation matters.”

She wasn't buying it. In fact, scowling, she pushed his boots off the, uh, Ottoman? It was a rock with scribbles on it. And a transparent plastic tarp.

“Please don’t put your boots on the priceless relics, Jack,” she said with an exasperated breath.

“Worthless,” he corrected offhandedly. “If you can’t pawn them quickly off, might as well be heavy garbage.”

She gave him a long, speculative look as she stood over him. Jack just enjoyed his comfy chair and gave her a small wave. He was all friendly smiles. Nothing fishy going on here. And please don’t check his pockets; Jackie-boy liked his new artisan wooden watch.

At length, and with another sigh, she put her hands on a desk and leaned her back against it. Like she was going to sit on it but got cold feet at the last moment.

“Put it back, Jack,” she said.

“Nuh-uh. My dad’s ghost would beat me with a spatula if he knew I touched the thermostat twice.”

She gave him a glare, but without any heat. It was almost a look of concern. But big girls like Pyrrha didn’t show concern for people like Jack, now did they?

“The stuff you stole,” she said, folding get arms.

“Stealing? Me? That sounds like the kind of thing I would do very often if every day were opposite day. Sadly, it is regular day.” He shrugged. “I mean, I guess it’s your unbirthday. But still not opposite day.”

“So you didn’t steal my airpass?”

Jack folded his arms behind his head and rolled his eyes. “Are you still on that? I told you it was an honest mistake.”

“You reached into my back pocket by mistake?”

He shrugged, kicking his feet back up on the worthless stone thing. “Not my fault your legs are so long I can’t go nowhere without tripping over them.”

Pyrrha wasn't impressed. “You mean credit.”

Jack screwed his face up. “Word connotation, Nikki.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

He stood up abruptly, facing her with a contemplative expression. “Your legs, my hands. Just one of those accidents. Need a demonstration?”

For a moment there, her face resembled a featureless wall. Jack wanted to hang a poster up on it to make it look less blank and empty. Maybe one of those Hang in there, baby! posters. Jack had always liked how the cat on that branch was probably dead by now. It felt poetic that a dead kitty was encouraging you.

“No,” she said. “Just make sure no one loses anything when we leave, Jack.”

Duly noted. No flirting out of this. Best to just play along. So he held his hands up at her in mock defense. “Just so long as we leave soon. And find a way to profit off the white wolf.”

“Is that all you think about?” Pyrrha chided with a resigned sigh. “We still haven’t come to an agreement on what we’re going to do with that thing.”

“I’m just focused on what matters, Nikki,” Jack said, now twirling a knife. “And right now, what matters is.”

Jack stopped. Something was wrong. Some detail his subconscious had picked up on which hadn't yet filtered up into coherent thought. A kind of premonition of real knowledge.

“Jack?” Nikki asked, annoyed.

Something the Right Man had one told him bubbled to the surface. “When you just can’t get along with someone but have to work together to defeat the big bad, someone is going to snap first and betray the other. You gotta prepare for it. Either have some deterrent or, more fun, make sure they suffer badly when they make that first move against you.”

Why was that coming to mind?

With a flick of the wrists he was holding a knife in each hand. Fiddling with them like he were trying to pick his nails. He put the Shine to use and got to his feet. “Nikki, heads up,” he said in a cool demeanor, all previous playfulness gone.

Pyrrha gave him a skeptical look. Like she thought he was still screwing with her. Then she flashed her own Aura and took a quick, sharp breath.

Jack glanced her way. He’d put his Aura up because of a bad read of something on a level deeper than conscious. Just something he trusted to stay alive. Pyrrha, on the other hand, had used her Shine for something. He didn’t really follow what. Back in the Emerald Forest she’d pulsed her Aura like sonar, and Jack hadn’t understood it.

Was a lot he didn't know about Aura, really. Stuff Nikki did know.

“Grimm. Lots,” she said, weapon already in hand.

“I blame your negative accusations for drawing them in.” He clicked his tongue, trying to add some levity to the situation. “You need to learn to blindly trust and accept everything I say.”

Before she could reply, Jaune Arc sprinted into the tent. He tried to stop so suddenly he lost his footing. Pyrrha grabbed his shoulder so he didn’t fall. The boy was panting, sword and shield in hand.

“Grimm. Lots. Everywhere,” he said, dragging a sweat-soaked sleeve across his dripping forehead. “No radio. Phones dead. Everyone. Gotta defend!”

Pyrrha nodded. “Got it. Where’s your team, setting up defenses?”

Seemed like she was just accepting this without issue. Just following orders. And apparently Jaune had assumed command. Somehow.

Jack didn’t take things on faith. He pulled out his scroll. It wasn’t Beacon issued. Something the Right Man had given him. “Communications are down?”

Jaune sucked in a breath. “Can’t send for help. Need to send a runner.”

His scroll was flying at full sail. He had a perfect connection. He was about to volunteer this information when the Right Man popped into his head again.

“So your temporary friends going to betray you? Fun! Minimize the damage. Become a hard target. Or find a way to get out quickly. Best yet, ensure that your common enemy hurts them worse than they can hurt you when the fight is over. That last one leaves you in the best position, Jackie.”

Get out of my head.

All the same, Jack kept his lips shut. He doesn’t know the full scope of what was wrong, just that something wasn’t right. And he would rather play this card close to his chest for the moment, just in case it proved helpful. More to the point, there had to be someone else with a signal. Because if it was only him, well, that’d look more than a tad suss.

He puts his scroll away. “So what are we going to do?”

“Find the others,” Jaune said quickly. “Prepare a defense. Maybe you smoke signals or something to call for help! I don’t know, but it’s gonna get bad.”

— 11 —​

“We’re all gonna die!”

Truly this was a sign of great things to come.

“Obviously some day, Reuben,” Cielo rasped, choking down the last of the rose petals with tears in his eyes. “But once you truly realize and accept that, you find that all of life’s options open up to you and that they’re all equally pointless. Now use your endless optimism to spin that into something more inspiring than it really is. Your semblance tastes awful, by the way.”

“I’ll drink to that,” de Scavi replied, raising her flask.

Choked gasps and strangled coughs were all they got as Ruby struggled to remain upright, bent at the waist with her hands on her knees as her oxygen-deprived lungs fought against her. Cards leaned next to the girl but stared up at Cielo. Pyrrha was somewhere, so he guessed that meant he was supposed to be calling the shots for the time being until they ran into literally anyone else.

Yay.

Before he could say anything, a commotion reached the tent. Something like confused, panicked mutterings. Easily the most exciting things had sounded at camp since they showed up with the White Wolf.

Ignoring the shit’s fucked, bro feeling in his stomach, Cielo flashed his aura. For that brief instance, he really wished he hadn’t. His soul, his entire being, was engulfed in a sea of black. Itchy, creeping dread crawled up his spine and clawed at his flesh as ice water froze his veins solid. The sheer volume of them; it was like he was sensing the Grimm for the first time in his life again. Staring deep down into that well of empty, yet entrapping darkness. He had to force down the urge to vomit from the utter wrongness of it.

He trembled. And despite the sudden chill, sweat rolled down Cielo’s neck.

“Oh,” was all he said as the shock subsided. His voice was a little more light than he’d like. Almost a breath, really.

“Huh?” Cards replied. “Cielo are you okay? What’s going on?”

He sucked in a breath and tensed his neck, scratching the scar across the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, we’re probably gonna die. We’ve got Grimm. A lot of Grimm.”

“How many?” de Scavi interjected, a slight tremble in her voice.

Cielo made a show of counting on his fingers. “A lot.” An army, if the Grimm were even capable of forming such a thing. Hundreds, he had to imagine. Plural. They were coming from all around. And they were coming fast.

When he realized the world was doomed, he figured he’d have at least a couple of days to barter some kind of deal with the gods. He was pretty sure he was still going to hell for that one time he killed an orphanage. The entire building. The orphans were fine, though. Just upset and confused.

“Ruby,” he said. “What happened to the rest of your group?”

Before the girl sucked down enough air to speak, Weiss Schnee came stumbling into the tent just as winded as her teammate. The old gang was back together again!

“We’re all gonna—”

“Die. Yeah, we kinda got that,” de Scavi interjected.

“Slow down!” Cards pleaded. “Where’re all these Grimm supposed to be coming from?

“All around,” Schnee choked breathlessly, her silver-white hair dangled raggedly in front of her face. “We’ve got maybe a few minutes before they overrun the camp!”

De Scavi swore under her breath, taking a deep gulp of whatever she had in her flask. They could stand around all day theorizing where the Grimm had come from so suddenly and why there were so many of them, but they were short on time.

Cielo sighed. They were, as the Valites would say, Glenned, going up against those things’ numbers. The best the could do would be to hold out until help arrived.

“Where’re the other two?” he asked.

The Dust heiress straightened herself, flipping her ponytail back over her shoulder as she smoothed her hair. Probably to regain some lost regality. Gotta stay prim and pretty, even in the face of certain death. “Chloe’s busy alerting the archeologists. And Jaune is, I don’t know. With Pyrrha and that Jack guy, probably?”

Cielo nodded and stepped outside. Cards and the others followed him. Best way to describe the state of the camp would have been “outright frenzy.” A lone archeologist with horribly greasy, slicked-back hair attempted to corral his panicked-looking colleagues, many of whom kept mother-like death grips on their tools, documents, et cetera. He seemed to have given up after getting shoulder checked one too many times.

That’s right. They were the only active security detail. He’d almost forgotten about that in the excitement of things. Though it didn’t really surprise him that weren’t very many bodies to spare. From what he understood of Vale, they set the standard in ‘totally not an army, we swear, hey come check out our field day.’

“Shit!” the archeo bro hissed as he slapped his scroll against his palm. He looked pretty young. Older than the rest of them, just not by so much that Cielo was in any hurry to start calling him “mister” or anything. Looked like he was freshly out of college, which made just as much a "kid" as the rest of them. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“What’s up?” Cielo asked.

The archeologist clicked his tongue. “Been trying to get into contact with Beacon but no dice. It’s like the signal’s not going through or something.”

Nothing about that sounded even abstractly alright to him. Cielo whipped out his scroll and pulled up his contacts. Cards. She was his only contact. His soul died a little bit. He sent her random, innocuous message. “That stupid hat can’t hide your secrets forever, you little bitchdumpling.”

Totally innocent.

“Huh?” Schnee said. “That doesn’t make any sense. We passed a relay tower on the way here. It should be strong enough to stretch the signal from here to Beacon. Maybe yours is just old and busted? That and/or you’ve got really bad coverage.”

“Well it isn’t. And I don’t,” the archeologist grumbled. “I spent my last paycheck on this model, so it’s up to date and all that jazz.”

“Putting aside such financial irresponsibility, I’m running into the same problem here,” Cielo said, staring at the red text on the screen. He’d hit resend four times now and was met with no success. He gave up before it actually went through and made things awkward. Much like the archaeologist, he wasn’t getting any bars either. “Signal’s totally lost, bro.”

Schnee gave them both a look like she was done with their stupidity and would have revoked their right to procreate had she the authority.

“This is ridiculous,” she scoffed as she pulled out her own scroll. Cards and Ruby did the same. She punched in some numbers and held the device to her ear. A moment passed. Then another. Schnee’s snow white face somehow looked more pale than usual. “What the?” she sputtered.

“Mine isn’t working either,” Cards added with a panicked edge in her voice.

“Same,” Ruby supported, biting her lip.

Well what an unfortunate set of circumstances.

“Hell’s bells,” the archeologist growled. “Signal isn’t lost, it’s getting jammed.”

Right as they were about to be rammed from all sides by a wave of Grimm? Yeah, that seemed to be the case. Call him paranoid but Cielo didn’t buy into coincidences, especially not when they were so impeccably timed. But that would mean that someone was keeping tabs on them—and clearly not liking what they saw—which seemed just a bit too extravagant to him. And if someone was watching, why would they wait until now to make a move?

All in all: the hell was going on?

“Well, what the hell are we supposed to do now?” de Scavi twined.

“We need to meet with Pyrrha and them others to discuss our options,” Cielo said. He wasn’t sure what those were yet. Stuck where they were, surrounded by an ever encroaching swarm of Grimm, and with no way to call for help, there weren’t a lot of ways for this to end. Actually there were. It was just that almost all of them just ended with them getting bad ended.

It appeared that the comically inept entity that wrote the joke that was his life’s story was still capable of some mercies. Through a curtain of archeologists came Jack, Pyrrha, Jaune, and his pet (that Chloe girl).

“Guys!” the smaller of the two blond boys called out when he saw them. “Guys, we got trouble!”

“Yeah, I know,” Cielo interrupted. “But wait, there’s more: communications between us and Beacon are being jammed.”

“Yeah, we’ve already figured that,” Jaune replied, biting his thumb.

“Which mean we can’t call for evacuation,” Pyrrha sighed.

Ruby made a concerned noise. “No way, c’mon. Someone’s gotta have a singal” She darted over to Jaune and grabbed his scroll.

“Hey!” he said.

“Nothing,” she said, tosses it back to him and rushing for Pyrrha’s. “No signal here, either. You, diggy guy, gimme your scroll!”

“So now what do we do?” Chloe asked as Ruby went on her scroll nabbing rampage

Cielo shrugged. “Still trying to figure that bit out.”

“And we can’t fight our way out or run?” Jack asked, arms folded.

Putting his scroll back in his pocket, Jaune said with a little bafflement, “Can you not, like, feel that with your Aura, man?”

Jack briefly flashed indigo, and shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

Jaune just shook his head and moved on.

Cards hummed. “Depending on how strong the jammer is, whoever’s trying to keep us trapped out here might be nearby.”

“Yeah maybe,” Jaune replied. “But we don't really have the time to look for someone who may or may not be there. Nor do we have the manpower.”

They didn’t have the manpower to hold off the horde that was coming for them either with a skeleton crew of eight students, one archeologist trying to keep a level head, and an alcoholic. The camp was set up in the middle of a wide clearing, and the tall, crowded trees surrounding them allowed the Grimm to attack them from the shadows at all angles. What they needed was some kind of barrier. Something to protect them while they found a fix for their little “no way home” problem.

Or at the very least just kept them alive for a little bit longer.

“What the heck?” Ruby’s cacophonic voice cut him off. She was standing by Jack, looking almost triumphant, and holding up his scroll. “Why does he have bars?”

“I’unno, I don’t listen to rap,” Cielo replied offhandedly.

Jack patted his pocket furiously, then for the briefest of moments looked like going to punch her. “Don’t you dare steal my scroll and my gimmick!”

Then, like a child wondering why that car’s headlights were getting brighter, it hit Cielo. “Say what now?”

Ruby held Jack’s scroll out to the group. It was a nice model, and very clearly not the kind Beacon had issued the students. Like Ruby had said, full bars. Just to be sure, Cielo checked his own. No signal, same as before.

“Well how ’bout that?” Jack said, grabbing the scroll back.

How about that, indeed. Why was Jack’s scroll the only one working?

“Yeah, that is weird,” Cards said. “How’re you getting a signal? Is it, like, some super prototype you got a tech tech showcase?

Cielo would’ve figured he stole it, really. Jack was an odd man. “Sheltered” by his own claim, but eerily calm in the face of Grimm. And he was obviously skilled with those knives of his. There was definitely more to him than the lovable trickster guise he wore. It reminded him of his old mentor.

He only hoped that was as far as it went.

“I splurged on the unlimited data plan,” he replied, voice easy.

Cielo wasn’t convinced. It was too smooth a reply. Plus, something just seemed off. It was too convenient, for one. And if the signal was being jammed then the plan provider shouldn't matter, should it?

Pyrrha was staring at him, though with a tired sort of bewilderment.

“Who cares how?” Schnee snapped. “What’s important is that we can use it to call for help.”

“She’s right,” Pyrrha agreed, sounding almost reluctant. “Right now, ensuring that the archeologists get safely evacuated is our top priority.”

True. The hows and whys could wait until they were all safe and sound back at Beacon.

“Yeah, Cards,” Cielo sneered with a pig-like tone. “Jeez!”

The police girl lightly slapped his stomach.

Pyrrha nodded at Jack. Instead of jumping to action, he just stood there, meeting Pyrrha’s gaze. He almost looked hostile. No, Cielo realized, he looked more like a petulant child trying to act independent when they really had no choice in the matter.

“I’ll need a bit of time,” Jack said.

Schnee made a shooing gesture. “Fine, whatever. Just do it.”

“While that’s being taken care of, we need to think of something to hold the Grimm off,” Jaune said.

“A barrier,” Cielo remembered. He turned to Cards. “Ice dust, how much you got left?”

The girl fished through her bags. Her face fell a bit. “A bit. Not much, really,” she said with a shake of the head. Then she perked up. “But—”

“I’ve got some,” Schnee finished.

“Right, I see what you’re driving at,” Jaune commented, sounding a little amazed at his own realization. “Make an ice fortress to compensate for the lack of defense.”

“That’s the long and short of it, yeah,” Cielo agreed. He looked at the ice queen. “Think you can handle that?”

For a moment she looked insulted, as if she couldn’t believe he had the gall to ask her that. Then her face shifted thoughtfully. “Actually… I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Under different circumstances, one with less people and even less Grimm, I’d be able to make a sturdy enough dome, but I don’t have enough dust to form something that big that would be able to weather a sustained attack for very long.”

Jaune’s eyes narrowed, placing a hand beneath his chin. “What about something a bit more crude? A shield that covers our back and flanks?”

Pyrrha nodded. “Preferably something that forces the Grimm to narrow their attack.”

“Oh! I can help with that! I should have just enough for that at least,” Cards interjected, eagerly thrusting her hand towards the sky as if trying to get her teacher’s attention.

“There’s that small valley leading up to the camp,” Cielo continued with a nod. “Think we can use that to bottleneck them?”

“It’s worth a shot, I guess,” Jaune said.

“I can use my semblance to set traps,” Chloe suggested after a moment.

Her partner nodded, then made a face. “What the hell is your semblance, anyway?”

She patted the boy’s fluffy, blond mane. “Jaune, you know there’re just some things you never ask a girl.”

A plan was coming along, Jack—somehow—had a signal, which meant that evac would be on its way. Still, Cielo couldn’t quell the uneasiness welling up inside of him. Aside from the hundred of Grimm closing in on them, he couldn’t shake the idea that this was all orchestrated by someone, as paranoid as it might’ve sounded. Was it the same people responsible for what happened at Beacon?

“Help’s on the way.” The other blond boy had joined back up with them.

“Jack,” Cielo started. “You think you can do that murder-gate thing with your knives again?”

He shrugged in the vague affirmative, still doing something on his scroll.

“Alright, I’ll uh, help coordinate civilian safety,” Jaune said. He seemed a bit unsure, Cielo noticed. Must’ve been the pre-massacre jitters. Happened to everyone.

“Aww, look at us plan together like a real team!” Ruby cheered, side hugging both Schnee and Cards. “I’m so proud! We should take a picture together!”

“Yeah, no,” Schnee scoffed, pulling from the girl’s grasp. “I don’t trust any one of you to not try and sell it online.”

“Busted,” Cielo replied, rolling his eyes.

“Way to make it obvious, Red,” Chloe said. Cielo didn’t pay it much mind, so long as she was picking on her own partner and not his.

A distant, hellish wail whipped through the air and ravaged the forest. Cielo scowled and cupped his ears at the discordant alarm siren. It echoed through his bones, and it drop-kicked him in the soul stomach. He half-believed it’d echo out his mouth if he opened it. Like some kind of suped-up air raid siren from a Great War flick.

Why the hell was the camp’s alarm so loud?

Jack, as usual, seemed so collected that Cielo wonder if the sirens were just in his head. All blondie was doing was scanning the camp. When the roar of the siren died down, a brief lull, he just said, “There’s no sirens in camp.”

Cielo felt something churning in his guts. Jack was right. This camp had no alarm sirens. So where the hell was the noise—

The sirens made a horrified warbling noise. Like someone strangling the life out of seven sparrow hatchlings. Exactly seven. All the while putting it up to a microphone for some depraved reason. And then they laughed, a malicious, vicious sound. Cielo and everyone else could pinpoint it was coming from the direction of the little valley and nearby stream, the direction the Grimm were coming from.

“Don’t touch that dial, folks!” came the voice straight out of an old radio, only louder, and hatefully eager.

Nothing about today was going their way.

 

Chapter 6: I Used to do Drugs, Now I do Racism
“How can it be a hate crime if I loved doing it?”


— 12 —​

“You don’t need to be afraid of it,” Adam said, giving the new recruits an optimistic species of look. He held out his hands, and the new Fangist gave him the rifle he’d been pawing at.

Adam had never been one for guns. Now, if he were someone like Cinder, he’d probably say something like blades don’t need reloading or I like to get in close for the kill. It might even be what some of the faunus here expected of him. Part of his image.

The truth was unflatteringly boring. His Semblance only worked on blades. Plus, as a kid, he’d hated carrying the extra weight of all those 7.629mm magazines. A mix of simple laziness and Semblance convenience had turned Adam into a fan of swords.

“This is a Avtomat Volikova, your iconic AV-27,” Adam announced for all to see. “If you’ve ever played a video game, you know what this is. It hits harder than Rashaun’s mother and doesn’t care how much you abuse it, also like Rashaun’s mother.”

Rashaun, sitting over on a crate and watching the training, gave Adam a happy little wave. A cheeky gesture, but one Adam allowed. Sometimes you could excuse that behavior. Best to let the boy stay in high spirits. Besides, Rashaun could spin up some catchy song verses for the Cause when he was in a good mood. If Adam recall rightly, the boy’s latest EP, “Fuzzy Skinhead,” was still near the top of the underground hits chart.

Morale mattered. Keep spirits high enough and men will do anything. A soft hand when it mattered, and the bull’s horn when needed.

“You can run it over with your truck, bury it in the mud, then dig it up in winter to use as a snowshoe and it’ll still kill the thing you aim it at,” Adam said, showing off the rifle. “In fact their original manuals recommended buying two for just that purpose. Don’t pussyfoot your Volikov; treat it like your bitch.”

He punctuated himself by punching the receiver closed and wrenching back the bolt. Then it was to demonstrate how to aim and fire. Here in their compact base under Mountain Glen, they had plenty of room to practice without risk of outside molestation.

Adam recalled the first time he’d been shown how to use one of these rifles. Ghira Belladonna, back when he’d still led the White Fang. Before the Conquest of the Six and Eighty had fully changed him.

A complete lion of a man with an infectious laugh, he’d told Adam the same thing: “It’s a Volikov; treat it like your bitch.” A phrase Adam had found himself using here, because it just fit so perfectly.

There’d been a time when Ghira had known the value of violence. He’d been raised in a time where you didn’t have time to smell the roses; if you were faunus, you ate the flowers because it was all you had. Ghira had known his way around a Volikov because he needed to, not because he wanted to. The Lion of Belladonna hadn’t become a hero to the faunus through non-violence.

That was the Ghira young Adam had met. The Ghira that had come to visit Atlas in the aftermath of Logan’s Run. Despite being a mostly illiterate slave child, the Lion of Belladonna had smiled warmly at Adam and his peers and treated them like people. Treated them like, to use a phrase Adam hated, human beings. It was the first time Adam learned that faunus could be better than what they were. And that Adam could work to change things if only he were willing to fight for what was right

After telling this joke to Adam, a pair of slender arms had wrapped around Ghira’s neck from behind. His wife, Kali. “You know,” she’d purred, loud enough for everyone watching to hear, “I’m a cat and not a dog, right?”

He’d never seen a man that big go that small and red so fast.

It’d been that very same mental image of Ghira that had popped into mind that first time he’d accidentally made Blake blush. Her cheeks reddened the exact same way as her father’s, her ears pressing down as if to hide themselves. Adam had been so glad for his mask; it made it easier to hide just how much that blush had flustered him.

But, those were memories from simpler times.

His scroll vibrated. Torchwick’s number.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Adam handed the rifle back and went into the refurbished undercity. The White Fang only had a small part of the undercity secured, just the area around the old metro to Vale, but it served adequate. The base was safe, easily stocked, and allowed for easy access to and from Vale without being seen, where the White Fang operated a number of safehouses and business fronts.

The ruins of Mountain Glenn always drew Adam’s eye. Even now, in the brief scrap of the city they’d eked out for themselves, he caught himself staring. Something about the ruins people left behind just fascinated. Especially the way Mountain had tried moving the entire city underground, creating a corpse warren of human civilization buried beneath the foundation of the original city. It boggled the mind how such cities could slowly spring up over generations yet become ruins in the span of a day.

Made him think of the city of Misery. He’d been there before to train under “the Wolf.”

“Keep up, meat,” the Wolf had said calmly as he lead Adam through the ruins of an ancient skyscraper. At the end of the Great War, the Godhammer had ripped the massive structure out of the ground and send it tumbling. Now that ancient financial center laid on its side, with an entire river passing through its dark interior.

“If there was ever a time for us to leave this place, it is now. Do not let the shadows distract.”

It had taken Adam a force of will to pry his eyes away from the ash-shadows on the wall. The way they moved in the corner of his eye. How he could hear them giggling and whispering his name at the very edge of his hearing.

Of all the horror that befell Mountain Glenn, it couldn’t hold a candle to the aftermath of Vale’s very own superweapon. The Godhammer. Misery had been a festering, necromantic corpse. Meanwhile, Mountain Glenn had a certain quiet about it, as if after it’s human inhabitants had died, the very concrete itself had given up and resigned itself to loneliness.

Humans could do far worse things than the Grimm ever could, a thought that made Adam unconsciously stroke his mask.

It didn’t take long for Adam to find himself in what had once been a second story café. He’d made this a sort of personal command room. Something about the faded coffee posters and the old menu gave him a weird sense of familiar comfort. Of course he’d cleaned it up, refurbished it for his own use, but he liked the original aesthetic too much to disturb.

Dialing Torchwick’s number, he rapped a knuckle on the counter. “Doubleshot sunshard expresso, black,” he told the faded patch of blood on the wall. Some little joke of his.

Torchwich didn’t answer. Adam sucked in his lip and was about to slam a fist onto the counter in frustration when he saw the coffee mug. The fresh, steaming mug of coffee on the counter before him what wasn’t there a second ago.

He just stared at it in confusion. And then sucked in a breath. Throwing the scroll to the side, he had his sword in hand in an instant, and thrust. Both the coffee mug and the air before the counter shattered like glass. A girl—human—barely five feet tall was standing there instead. She effortlessly parried his sword with a fucking umbrella of all things.

Adam jumped back. “You. You’re Torchwick’s girl,” he said, teeth grit.

She shrugged silently, wearing small smile. Like this was funny to her in an “I saw an amusing meme” way, and it made Adam want to break the human’s neck.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Adam could hear the periods between each clap. Someone trying and failing to start one of those slow claps that only existed in fiction. There, on Adam’s couch, sat Torchwich. Like the girl, he hadn’t been there moments ago.

“You know you’re supposed to drink coffee, not stab it, right?” he said, smiling just the same as his girl.

Adam didn’t sheathe the sword, instead holding the human’s gaze. He was obviously here through some trick. Did one of them have a stealth Semblance. “You know you’re not supposed to sleep with the kids you pick up at daycare, right?”

Torchwick’s girl sneered in genuine offense, tightening her grip on the umbrella. She tensed, readying for some kind of jab. It gave Adam the warm fuzzies somehow.

“Actually, I picked her up at the abortion clinic,” Torchwick said with a shrug. “Her mother was shocked they wouldn’t accept her in her 33rd trimester.”

And just like that, the casual ease the human had deflected the jab officially ruined Adam’s day. Even if the girl still looked a little hurt, he’d been trying to piss the drug lord off. He’d even seen it in his eyes. For a moment, he’d been about to fight Adam and defend the girl.

Instead, this.

“How’d you get in here?” Adam demanded.

Torchwick sat forwards, leaning on his cane. “There was a door. We knocked. And legally if no answers the door, the home and everything in it belongs to you. I know faunus can see in the dark, but do you have to keep things so dim here? Serious mood lighting issues.”

“Why are you here?”

“There’s been some complications I’m aiming to exploit, my boy, and I had the sneaking suspicion that asking you over scroll would get a no. You’re more about the face-to-face. Besides,” he added offhandedly, “I’ve always wanted to see how faunus hold scrolls. Like, which ears, the human ones, or the animal ones.”

Adam wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. Besides, any idiot could look at Adam and tell his trait was his horns. Adam Taurus. Not exactly the most subtle name, but after the Faunus Rights Revolution, the often barely literate faunus were just excited to have surname for themselves. Made them feel like people. Most of those names weren’t very complex, or were just lifted wholesale from their faunus heroes. That’s why you got so many people named Khan, Belladonna, or Jingwei. What would you expect from recently freed slaves?

Keeping one eye on the still rather offended girl and her obnoxiously tri-colored hair, Adam leaned down to grab his scroll off the ground. He could tell Roman’s not going to give any answers but what he came here for.

“Complications,” Adam echoed, finally sheathing his sword.

The gangster tapped on his cane, still sitting there on Adam’s very comfortable couch. Honestly, Adam was more pissed that he’d stolen the couch than a lot of other things right now. He couldn’t sit down now. And it wasn’t like Adam was going to sit next to the racist bastard.

“Merlot’s pets are freaking out in the Forever Fall Forest. Apparently some Huntsmen got ahold of a rather important experiment of his.”

“And this concerns me how?” Adam asked.

“Merlot’s trying to isolate the problem, but I’m pretty sure that means he’s turning it into an experiment,” Torchwick said. “And that gives us an opportunity. For now it seems only a few people know about the situation.”

Adam knew a good deal about the Forever Fall Forest. As with most places in or around Vale, the White Fang had hidden caches there and predetermined trails. Also, its name was a lie. It snowed there. He’d seen it. More to the point, like the now burning Emerald Forest, it was near enough to Beacon Academy to make major events there a threat to the school. Students often went out that way to train. And give the presence of the Atlas military at the school…

“So no one knows about this but us?”

“Merlot jammed communications in the area for anything not running our proprietary software. They’re alone in the dark. I only know because I have my ear to Merlot’s wall. A couple wallflies here and there.” He shrugged, gesturing with his cane.

Adam contemplated. “If they die, Merlot wins, and conceals his involvement in the area. At least for the time being. Meanwhile, if we commit resources to helping them subtly, we’d further distract and tax Atlas and Vale. This is where you’re going with.”

“Look who’s on the ball! Clap, clap, clap, my poignant circus seal.”

Someday soon Adam would kill this human. He swore it to himself for the umpteenth time. Something he did so often it was starting to lose meaning, like repeating a word over and over until it’s just noise. I swear murder on you, I swear murder on you, I swear murder on you. He should just make business cards and hand them out to Torchwick. He’d count the cards on the human’s corpse to figure out how many times he’s promised himself to kill the man.

It seemed more efficient than the countless silent grudges.

“I don’t fully see how this helps me.”

Torchwick sighed and stood. “Look, I’m trying to be polite. That fiery bitch in the designer dress made it clear I could use your foals and fillies in Vale as I saw fit. I’m trying to be diplomatic and get your okay and cooperation, Adam.” He swung his cane over his shoulder. “Just because we’ll betray each other as soon as Cinder’s gone doesn’t mean we can’t be civil till then.”

Somehow, that got a toothy little smile from Adam.

“So, Mr. Taurus,” Torchwich continued, making his way over to the coffee counter, swinging that cane like a two-bit musical. “We use White Fang units in the area to help the kids. Background, of course. Maybe just blow up some of the Dust we’re hiding in the area. Maybe use White Fangs agents embedded in Atlas’ little fleet. And once Vale and Atlas move their military in to bomb another problem, and while Merlot is panicked, we do our ops in the city. Maybe ‘lose’ a few Dust shipments. Skim a little off the top for us, and not Cinder. She and Merlot will be too distracted to notice.”

“It’s very ad-hoc,” Adam said noncommittally. Especially the part about White Fang in the fleet. True or not, those would be Logan’s men, not Adam’s. But Adam doubted Roman was privy to or cared about the differences between White Fang cells.

“It’s a new development,” the gangster said easily. “I’m making things up as I go. Came here like greased lightning as soon as smelled we had us an opportunity. I’m going to take it, no matter how little ground it gets us. Ground advanced is, after all, ground advanced. You’ve been there, I’m sure.” He gave a flippant, one-handed shrug. “Same logic as bombing schools or whatever you’d be doing without my guidance.”

Adam grunted, folding his arms in an almost unconsciously defensive gesture.

Torchwick smiled. “So, you in?”

No. He could feel the word on his lips. Sure, Torchwick’s plan had merit. But it was too aggressive. Too risky. And impulsive as a jackalope. While Adam hated Merlot and Cinder as much as the gangster did, he wasn’t about to risk this. Faunus could die needlessly doing it. It might risk White Fang sleeper assets in Atlas’ fleet. And it was so brazen it risked Cinder finding out. No.

But it never came out. As Torchwick leaned against the bartop, his girl set an ashtray from under the counter before him. The man looked mildly surprised and pleased in equal measure. A moment later he’d taken a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket, shook one out, and set it against the packet’s sidelong ignition patch.

“So how ’bout it?” he said around the cigarette, only to frown at Adam’s expression. “What, not a fan of smoking? C’mon. This is Vale; everyone smokes. Back home in Atlas they were trying to outlaw these things.”

“That brand,” Adam said, prompting Torchwick to hold the packet up. The logo read Nine Lives. “It’s from Menagerie.”

Torchwick looked at the pack passively. “Best tobacco (and cheapest cigarettes) come from Menagerie. The price matters. You know how much sales tax they put on these?” He grumbled. “’S about the only tax I even pay anymore.”

But Adam barely heard him. Nine Lives. That’d been Ghira’s favorite brand. Hell, Adam had a pack of that very same brand lying around somewhere in this room. He wasn’t a smoker, but, y’know, sometimes. Another habit he’d picked up from Ghira which the old lion had eventually discarded.

Why’s the brand I buy the same one Ghira bought?

A world and a decade away, and Adam kept finding bits of Ghira in his life. Or rather, the man Ghira used to be. The Lion of Belladonna. And then there was Adam Taurus. Leader of Vale’s White Fang. Who and what was he, really?

Was he Logan Rawne, the legendary insurgent who led the Atlas White Fang. Or maybe Sister Tadaimo, the prophet of Tekitomura, rallying the poor of Mistral. Perhaps he was the gorgeous Songbird, the hidden dagger fighting for every faunus in Vacuo. Possibly he was like his Grimm-eating mentor, the Wolf, who was more animal than man, but always there when faunus needed him. Could he hold a candle to Sienna Khan, the hardened veteran of the Northern Expedition, and the hero who turned the White Fang once more into an organization for progress and chance?

There were heroes. And then there was Adam Taurus. The cowed dog who lurked in the shadows of Vale’s underbelly, hiding behind his mask, and wagging his tail scared whenever that Cinder bitch snapped her manicured fingers. He should be a hero. He can feel it in his gut; his White Fang are on some historical precipice. They were close to greatness. Are close to something great. But instead of making the difference he’s always dreamed of, striking at the hearts of faunuskind’s oppressors, he’s just some bunny on a superheated leash.

A coward. A weakling. Ghira Belladonna come again. And no one will care.

If Ghira were me, he’d tell Torchwick no for the same reasons I was going to.

“Alright, fine,” Torchwick said with exasperation. “These are yours. Neo and I stole them before you got here. Happy?”

“Yes,” he said, the word slipping out as if he’d sprung a verbal leak.

Torchwick blinked, like that was the last thing he’d been expected. “Oh, uh, that’s good, I guess. Happiness is nice.”

“No,” Adam said quietly, flexing his fingers, and staring at his hands. “Not those. The plan. Yes, the White Fang is in.”

He knew who he was. He was Adam Taurus. The slave boy from Mantle. He’d come from less than nothing to the champion of half a continent’s faunus. He was the man who would break the chains binding his people and use them to strangle their oppressors. Starting with Cinder.

For the price of freedom is eternal violence.

 

Chapter 7: Dead Air
“Scientifically speaking, alcohol is a solution.”

— 13—​

Twenty years.

You’d think after spending twenty years—working her ass off and burying herself in student debt. Subsisting off cheap microwaveables. Being anonymously gifted with chew toys and dog biscuits and keeping her tail tucked like a good little housepet—that Coraline de Scavi would have more going on for her than babysitting a bunch of scratchers whose asses were greener than their khakis and a crippling drinking problem. At forty-four she’d already spent the last fifteen of those years thinking of herself as barely more than a walking corpse.

De Scavi reflexively white-knuckled her flask, half-expecting the smooth, polish oak to splinter beneath her fingers as the siren continued to blare. It was a gift from her father, who had also been part of the Archaeology Guild. “Yeah, I know you don’t drink, but neither did I.” That was the only joke she’d ever heard from him. Looking back on it, she wasn’t sure if that was his way of expressing pride in her, or if he was telling her it wasn’t too late to turn back.

It didn’t matter now.

Cracks formed along the crude ice walls that covered the most open parts of their encampment. It’d be amazing how fast the kids had set it up. A testament to what Huntsman could do. With just a little dust and effort, they’re turned the palisade walls around camp into an icy fortress. Sure, some areas of the camp had been cordoned off by the ice to better funnel the Grimm in, but that was just proof of how smart these Hunters were. It was about the only reassuring thought she had, and she was clinging to it like fuzz on ears.

Grimm that weren’t busy crashing into the walls squeezed through the gaps in its defense. Gunfire ripped through the camp. The walls and hail of bullets were just enough to keep the wave of darkness from immediately engulfing them. De Scavi’s heart dipped when she saw more flakes of ice break off the walls. She wondered how black the forest would be had it not been for the ice shields.

Without realizing, she had backed off further into the herd of scratchers. The campsite was just large enough to accommodate her and twenty other junior archaeologists, so the wannabe Huntsmen rounded them up near de Scavi’s tent next to the ice wall behind them covering their backs and flanks.

She was scared. Who wouldn’t be with some dipshit kid from the prestigious Beacon Academy zipping around the campsite screaming about how they were all going to die like she was tweaked out on pure Pumpkin Pete extract? All the red-hooded twerp accomplished was working the scratchers into a frenzy. Students or no, they were the Grimm specialists here. So if they thought things were fucked then you could safely say that things were well and truly fucked.

And then was that damn siren. It never let up, only getting closer and louder. Where the hell was it coming from? And what was that voice? “Don’t touch that dial, folks!” Far off and warbling. Hateful. It wasn’t so much speaking as it was vomiting words.

Something crackled behind her. De Scavi locked up as something warm and sticky drip down the neckline of her shirt.

“Oh shit,” one of the scratchers bleated. “Oh fuck me.”

She didn’t need to look. Nor did she want to. Every cell in her body screamed for her not to look. Just run. Run and don’t look back. Her legs were like wet noodles and buckled beneath her before she could even lift them off the ground.

Don’t look. Don’t look.

She looked and wished she hadn’t. A gaping chasm, wide enough to swallow her whole, fell upon her. A savage tongue that looked like it could out-sandpaper a cat’s. Teeth like dead men’s fingers, reaching to pull her into the void. Hot spittle flecked her glasses. Everything went numb as her world fell into a sea of black. Maybe it’d be quick and she wouldn’t feel it? If she just closed her eyes—?

Something slammed into the Grimm’s gaping maw with an audible cracking, boney crunch. A pair of golden-bronze plated boots. It crashed, digging a shallow ditch in the dirt. A pair of elongated knives drove themselves in its skull and pinned it to the ground.

“Miss de Scavi, are you okay?!” asked one of the Junior Huntsmen, just barely audible over the sirens. The tall redhead—Pyrrha Nikos. One of two names she hadn’t expected to find all the way out here. That a girl nearly half her age sounded so damned motherly filled De Scavi with this chimera of comfort and shame.

“Y-yeah,” she answered after a moment of awed silence.

“They’re scaling the walls, Nikki,” her knife-wielding companion cut in. The really handsome one de Scavi couldn’t decide reassured her or made her skin crawl. He was the only one who didn’t seem to be panicking on some level. When his indigo eyes met hers, and she caught that almost faintly amused glint in them, she looked away.

“As if things aren’t bad enough,” Pyrrha replied, squeezing her eyes shut. “Cielo! Ruby!”

That tall, dark-haired Junior Huntsmen with the scar across his face and blue outfit—Cielo, she remembered that Cards girl calling him—clashed with a Beowolf. The way he—all of them moved. To her eyes they were almost blurs, just as fast if not a little faster than the Grimm. Another lunged at him from an angle de Scavi hadn’t even seen. He slid under the first wolf and let it take the hit. “What?! Pyrrha, your sense of timing is impeccably atrocious!”

Pyrrha Nikos screamed over the siren and motioned at the wall, “Can you two make it up the walls and cover our backs?!”

“Nai—kay, one second!” he growled, ducking a swipe. He swung in a wide-reaching arc. De Scavi could barely make out a blue-tinted, translucent blade slash through the two beowolves. “Ah, damn, that’s loud! Nai, I hear you! Red, tell me you caught that!”

“I’m with ya, Blue!” that one red-hooded brat rogered, a single booming shot smashing through a stampeding Ursa. Just like before, she turned into a vibrant red missile and took off towards the top of the wall with that Cielo kid.

“Sure, leave us to pick up the slack!” the green-clad girl with sickle-shotguns barked. It was something like Chloe, right? She shoved that one kid Jean—Jon? John—to the ground as a Beowolf sprang at them. “Have fun. I’ll just be here til it rains, I guess!”

A mirthless titter—almost a breath—fell out of de Scavi. Were any of them other than Pyrrha Nikos taking this at all seriously?

“Dig boys ain’t doing theyselves no favors just standing there,” Knife Boy pointed out. Still looking like he was in complete control of the situation, he withdrew a glass soda bottle from somewhere. &pd Up Null, or Amped Up Null. Some diet amphetamine cola, she thought. His thumb glew a stronger indigo; he used it to pop the bottlecap.

Was now really the time for some shitty energy drink? Goddamnit, someone take this seriously!

But with his head tilted back, his eyes went wide. His hand again flashed with a stronger bit of that strange Huntsman forcefield thing. With a flex of the palm, Knife Boy shattered the glass bottle and swung it. The sharp edges of broken glass extended upwards at an impossible speed and speared through condor-sized flying Grimm that was dive bombing for Pyrrha and de Scavi. It burst and the aging archaeologist skittered back as glowing, thick, green ichor sizzled as it splashed onto the dirt.

He paused for a moment to look a little surprised at himself, and a touch disappointed he’d just lost his drink before he turned back to the girl. He looked like he wanted to boast before he noticed her expression. “Nikki, quit spacing out. You can fantasize about me later.”

“Nai, I—I’ll be okay,” she panted. With every passing second, the redhead seemed to be growing more winded, covering her ears as the siren grew louder whenever she had a moment.

Sure it was loud, but was it that bad? Her partner didn’t seem to be reacting much to it at all aside from some annoyance. Same as her as the rest of the scratchers.

“That isn’t blood,” she trailed off, staring at the green fluid. A viscous kind of acid, the way it burned the red grass.

“Maybe not. Think we can stuff them boys in the big boss’ tent?” Knife Boy asked, glossing over her observation.

Pyrrha Nikos shook her head, an action that seemed to take more out of her than it should have. De Scavi felt herself grow cold at the sight. “No, it’s way too small to accommodate all of them. It’d be like gift-wrapping them for the Grimm.”

That was true, but…

De Scavi leapt to her feet and pushed through the crowd of scratchers, grabbing one with horribly greasy, slicked-back hair. Basil, his name was. One of the more tolerable scratchers and a smart kid—if not horrifically irresponsible with his finances. The paper-thin veneer of calm he had been fronting had long since crumbled, hyperventilating as his fingers clawed at his scalp. Like he was trying to physically rip the nightmare around him out of his head. Not that she blamed him. Unlike the others, he at least tried to do something aside from shitting his britches.

“Professor de Scavi?” he fussed as she pulled him toward the tent. “Where’re we going?”

They hurried past that Cards girl firing an oversized revolver at a Grimm that dashed through the bullets with ungodly agility. Their bloody red eyes glowed just bright enough that de Scavi could follow them. The little police girl tripped over what had to be her own two feet as the thing zig-zagged through her fire. She thought she’d have to watch that girl get ripped apart before a white glyph hurled the beast into the air.

“W-Weiss! Thank—!”

“You can thank me later! Just focus!” Weiss Schnee snapped.

De Scavi wasn’t going to stick around to see how much time it may or may not have bought the girl. She liked Cards well enough—it was like looking into a mirror and seeing a younger, dream-filled version of herself—but there wasn’t any time to waste.

— 14 —​

De Scavi all but tossed Basil into the tent. The tanned fabric did little to mute the carnage outside. Least of all the sirens.

“The safe,” she instructed, pointing past the table holding the white Beowolf. There was a large gun safe in the back surrounded by various tools and equipment she couldn’t begin to give a shit about.

Realization crept onto Basil’s face. “Y-you aren’t serious, are you?”

“Basil, open the damn safe!” she barked. Huntsmen or no, she wasn’t going to let one of those things get to her. “The passcode’s 1-2-3-5.”

Nobody ever guessed 1-2-3-5.

A small duralumin case peeked from under de Scavi’s bed. She pulled it out and unlocked the latch. Inside was a silver-barreled, eight shot revolver chambered in .357 Magnum. The only other gift her father had given her. And another thing that she should have taken as a warning. Feeling its weight in her hands brought her no warmth or any kind of solace whatsoever.

There was a negatory beep followed by a diminutive “Shit” from the back. Basil just stared at the safe and clutched his hands close to the rest of him, shivering like a newborn pup.

For obvious reasons, the Archaeolog Guild mandated rudimentary firearms training to its members. Good dig sites rarely existed within the safe confines of the Four Kingdoms. To say nothing of looters and raiders who’d smash and grab the stuff at your isolated dig site to sell to some rich asshole. Up till now, de Scavi had been one of the lucky ones. In the twenty years she had been with the guild, she’d only ever pulled her gun once. And it wasn’t even during an excavation. She just picked the worst part of town to have a drink in. So of course she understood.

De Scavi strode towards the back and punched in the code. The safe had just enough time to open before she ripped the long barreled, grey 5.56mm rifles off their racks and shoved them into Basil’s arms. The spares left over for the Rangers the students had replaced. About five guns in total. Enough for the scratchers who had demonstrated appropriate competence at the range.

Buncha good-for-nothings.

“Keep it together,” she said through gritted teeth. It was all she could do to keep them from chattering. Couldn’t let any of these scratchers think the Bitch of Arnesi was capable of feeling anything that wasn't cold fury. She spent too long cultivating that image. Besides, all of these kids were her responsibility. Even if it meant shit all, she had to keep it together for their sake.

As the two scrambled to load the rifles, which was taking them a painfully long amount of time, an air-rippling boom shook the ten. The rifle de Scavi held tumbled to the ground as something crashed to the ground outside.

What the fuck was happening?

“Did that thing just explode?! Jaune, are you okay?!”

“I’m fine!”

Things were most certainly not fine. This wasn’t supposed to be a humdrum, thankless excavation. This was an important archaeological expedition sanctioned by the Goddamned Prime Minister of Vale! She dragged her tits through broken glass for this!

The white beowolf fell into de Scavi’s line of sight. A Grimm that left behind a corpse. If there was one good thing that came out of all of this, it was that.

“Look out!” cried a voice.

A solid mass of black fur and bone crashed into the tent and tumbled to a halt. A beowolf. De Scavi froze before its red eyes had a chance to meet her own. The fucking thing had to hunch over to keep from hitting the ceiling.

Soft growls rumbled from its throat. Her blood froze solid when they turned to snarls. Its fangs were slick in a thick layer of runny, viscous drool. She saw her own mangled body staring back at her from between its jaws. She felt every individual drop of sweat squeezing through her pores. Her nerves tingled. Her tail hung between her legs and her heart clawed at her ribcage as the beast leered at her. Through her.

A bright flash blinded de Scavi as the thunder crack that tore through the air nearly blew her eardrums out. It happened again. And again. Her arms hurt. Her eyes burned. Her ears screamed. Every reverberant bang bounced off the walls of the tent.

Screams dug at de Scavi’s beaten eardrums and all she wanted was that it just shut up. No dice. It just kept going. And going. It didn’t stop even after she realized it was coming from her.

Eight shots gone. Just empty clicks. Smoke wafted from the gun’s silver barrel. Her arms felt loose in their sockets. Fresh tears filled her eyes as sweat drained into them. The ringing wasn’t getting any better.

The Beowolf snorted in a way that was too much like a laugh. Every bit of willpower that kept de Scavi on her feet had evaporated when it reached up and casually clawed three of the eight shots she’d fired off out of its flesh and onto the ground, like a cat doing some self-grooming. It shook itself; any wounds she might have given it disappeared behind its thick, shadowy coat.

A very distant “Fuck” scratched at her ears.

The monster pounced. That spark self-preservation compelled Coraline to duck. Something—someone shoved her closer to the dirt. Basil? Her hands flew over her head, clutching at the roots in her hair. There was nothing remotely dignified in how she took solace beneath Basil’s weight. So long as something was between her and that thing.

She’d expected Basil’s screams. His flesh ripped to tatters. His blood soaking her clothes. Just so long as it gave her a few extra seconds of life.

There was snarling. Tearing. Wet, fleshy chunks being ripped from the bone. But no screaming. No crimson warmth keeping the chills in her veins at bay.

“It’s…” Basil said, voice barely even a whisper. Between the ringing in her ears and the sirens, she was surprised she could even tell it was him.

De Scavi dragged her eyes out of the dirt like a pair of dumbells had been stitched onto them and peered up at the Beowolf. It gorged itself on the white Grimm. Its blood—still vibrant green—spilled from the wheeled table it rested on.

“No!” de Scavi screamed. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew that Grimm was important. It was something unique found at her dig site! Bringing it back with them would make this all worth it, she was sure. So were the kids, too. She didn’t come all this way to have her discovery ripped away when it was just within her grasp!

A roar—just another scream, really—filled the tent. She only just recognized it as that John kid. He shot through the tent, sword and shield in hand. The blade ripped through the Grimm’s back and got wedged in between the small segments of bone armor.

“Crap, crap, crap, crap!” he hissed, yanking on the sword. He pried it loose on the third tug, just before the Grimm backhanded him. Sparks bounced off his shield as he went tumbling to the ground.

The Beowolf lunged at the blond kid. Another gunshot. This one louder. Heavier. Like a shotgun on steroids. The beast flew back over the remains of the white Grimm. It clawed itself back up before another shot blew its head apart.

“Chloe?” John grunted, pushing himself to his feet. “Thanks, I owe you.”

Now that she got a better look at him, he looked no better than Pyrrha Nikos. Far worse, actually. Wincing each time the sirens picked up a note or averting his gaze every time he concentrated on any one thing for longer than a second.

“Lekker! You get what I’ve been putting down,” she replied. Her hair was ragged. Sweat and grime caked her face. Blood poured from thin cuts all over her. The cheeky, but that clearly forced grin wasn’t fooling de Scavi. Same as with John and Pyrrha, things seemed to have a trying time keeping her attention.

“Is everything alright?” John asked the two, extending a helping hand. Basil had moved off her, so she accepted. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand without any help to begin with.

“I’m fine. I just need a damn drink—”

“What are you two doing in here?!” Weiss Schnee interjected. That pretty white skirt she was wearing was a lot more dirt brown now. She was just as bloodied as her companions. All except for Knife Boy standing beside her, who only looked a little roughed up. “I’ll break it down in case you’ve somehow forgotten: we’re fighting a war out there, so pretend you’ve got your act together and help us!”

The heiress had disappeared back outside as quickly as she’d entered. John and Chloe exchanged looks with each other, then de Scavi and Basil. It probably wasn’t any safer with them than it was in the tent. She decided it best not to look at Knife Boy

“We’re coming,” she said. “Just give us a second.”

Chloe didn’t waste much time jumping back into the fray outside. John nodded and took a few shaky breaths. The vice-grip he kept on his sword didn’t keep it from visibly quaking. Or his legs. What the hell? Wasn’t he supposed to be ready for this kind of stuff? Did Beacon really not vet the kids they let in?

Handsome McKnife remained. He had this odd look on his face as he eyed the white Grimm. Mental gears clicking. De Scavi didn’t like it. But whatever he figured in the end, he left too.

Once it was just the two of them, de Scavi turned back to the white Grimm. Large, bloodied chunks had been torn from its torso and legs, but it was in better shape than she had been worrying. What the hell was going on? Grimm weren’t scavengers. At least not when it came to each other. There was never a body left to desecrate in the first place. So why?

There weren’t many insane enough to study a live specimen, so you only ever got those once-in-a-whole-moon psychos like Merlot who knew anything worth knowing. But this was a unique specimen. One with a corpse to study. Something that would put respect on Coraline de Scavi’s name.

She gathered up the rifles and shoved them onto Basil.

“You know who to give those to,” she said, reloading her revolver. She may as well have been shooting plastic darts at that thing, but she took some comfort in knowing she had options. “You aren’t to fire unless absolutely necessary. Do you understand?”

“But—hold on!”

“Get it?!”

Basil rolled his jaw. “Y-yeah I get that, but what are you going to do?”

De Scavi poorly reloaded and holstered her—more or less useless—pistol beneath her coat as she secured the Grimm onto the makeshift gurney. They’d be sneezing dust if they lost it. “I’m going to make sure our prize doesn’t get lost in all of this.” It was more for show than anything. She didn’t have a plan, but that wouldn’t stop her from pretending she was still in charge.

The boy, Basil actually, looked like he wanted to say something. Maybe warn her that her priorities were in the wrong place. She wasn’t so unaware as to what she was doing. But no matter how you cut the proverbial shit sandwich, her future—all of their futures—were on the line here. Chances like this didn’t come around often enough. If he lived long enough, he’d be thanking her.

“Quit gawking at me and—!”

“The sirens stopped.”

“What?” de Scavi made a face. He was right, they had stopped playing, but it’d more or less become background noise. Oppressive and worrisome, but the night’s problems had a way of fighting over the spotlight.

Then it came. That damn voice again. Like a twisted radio host. “Don’t touch that dial, folks!” it retched. “’Cause you don’t wanna miss this next little number!”

Consciously aware that she’d come to regret it, de Scavi disregarded every cell telling her to stay put. She followed Basil out of the tent and back into the chaos. As if to reaffirm how glenned they were, the clearing was just as much of a warzone as it was before she’d entered the tent. The ice barriers sported all new gaps and missing chunks in them. Small craters and ditches littered the land.

There was a muffled explosion on the other side of the barriers. The ice walls buckled and a large chunk fissured off.

De Scavi didn’t like what she saw behind it.

A pair of colossal, black, clawed hands reached through the mess of trees at the edge of the clearing. With contemptuous ease, it pushed them aside like a child’s toys. What emerged from the woods sent her mind reeling in primal panic as her tail curled between her legs.

It was tall and thin. Too thin. Even with her limited knowledge of biology, she knew that any other creature would’ve been carried off by a stiff breeze. Just another reason to not bother trying to apply conventional logic to these things.

Black, leathery skin stretched taut over its skeletal figure marked it out as some kind of colossal Grimm. It knuckle-walked towards the ice barriers like a gorilla, massive talons the length of a limo supporting its thin, goat-like hooves. Its most striking feature, however, were the pair of sirens attached to a pole made of wood, wires, and Grimm flesh where its head should have been. The sirens themselves were similar, the rusted metal meeting stark white hunks of bone. An ungodly melding of the mundane and the alien.

The harsh whine of the Emergency Relay System assaulted de Scavi’s battered ears. Loud. The noise shook her brain like a damn newborn. The wiry siren-headed Grimm plodded for the ice walls, its foot-and-knucklefalls heavier than its thin frame suggested they’d be.

“Attention! Attention!” came its digital and pitchless, but somehow hateful voice. Someone spitefully copy-and-pasting from a radio broadcast. “This is the Emergency Relay System. Multiple Grimm sightings reported in the area. This is not a drill. Repeat: Multiple Grimm sightings reported in the area. Do not attempt to evacuate. It is too late to evacuate. Repeat: It is too late to evacuate. Please remain calm and stay tuned for further instructions.”

Tonight was one for the history books. Assuming any of them lived to write this bit. De Scavi had heard stories of Grimm with the ability to mimic speech, like skinwalkers, but this was different. Its speech was already too choppy. Too erratic—from a warped, enthusiastically disdainful radio host, to robotic and coldly malicious.

“G-guys?” John faltered. A Grimm with claws like butcher's knives pressed him, gouging at his shield until an amazingly clumsy sword swipe pushed it back. “Hey guys? Please tell me I’m not the only one who has no idea what the hell that is.”

Don’t say that.

“I… can’t say I do,” Pyrrha admitted as the siren-headed freak lumbered towards the ruined ice shield. She winced at the Grimm’s every word.

Don't fucking say that!

De Scavi went cold and screwed her eyes so tightly it hurt as it pulled its giant fist back and slammed it into the ice wall. Hopefully a large enough chunk would come flying her way before those things did.

Something crashed and buckled. She’d expected shattering followed by death wails. The whole shebang.

De Scavi pried open her eyes. Through the missing chunk, she saw a circular, white glyph like the one Weiss had conjured before. Only larger. The sirenheaded thing reeled back as if it’d just taken a punch.

“Weiss! That’s my girl!” Chloe hooted. “And I do mean my girl! When this is over I’m licking you to prove ownership!”

Weiss Schnee held a pose that looked like a guard of some kind. De Scavi could almost see every puff of breath as the girl panted, every exhale pushing back the haze of dust in the air, sweat running down her pale face. She swished her rapier like a conductor’s baton. The white glyph multiplied and fastened themselves onto the siren freak’s limbs.

“Whoever’s in charge of the single brain cell between you all, come up with a plan!” she snapped. De Scavi could hear the dry patches in her throat. “I don’t think I can—”

The sirens blared again. Louder than before. De Scavi winced, but the junior Huntsmen didn’t seem to handle it nearly as well. One of her glyph locks shattered like glass. The snow-haired girl screamed—a shrill cry of searing agony—as she pulsed white and dropped to one knee.

A slug-like Grimm with arms like sickles slithered for the heiress like easy pickings. Pyrrha Nikos placed herself between the vulnerable Schnee (not two words she’d ever thought she’d see side by side) and the slug Grimm.

Her shield took the hit. Pyrrha buckled behind it, feet digging into the dirt. In what was either a well-thought decision or a happy accident, she dropped her guard and let the slug stumble forward. A quick, somewhat artless slash sliced it in two.

“Weiss?! Can you stand?!”

“Don’t worry about me! Do something about that thi—” More of Weiss’ glyphs shattered. Again, she cried out as she flashed white.

Another one of those flying Grimm seemed to dive for the two girls. Only for it to change its path mid-flight.

What was it—

A beowolf that Cards fought broke off from the engagement, chasing after the flying Grimm like it was running away. What the fuck? Where were they go—?

The tent. The white Grimm. Something had compelled that beowolf to tear it to ribbons. What if… was it attracting them? It was like something had sucker punched de Scavi in her soul.

“The tent!” she cried. “Protect the tent!”

Pyrrha Nikos gave De Scavi a concerned look, then eyed the tent. The sword in her hands seamlessly transformed into a rifle. The first round missed the beowolf by a frankly embarrassing margin. The next one was just a little closer.

The redhead grimaced, peering through her scope to line up the shot.

The rule of three never failed. The third bullet ripped through the beowolf’s leg, sending it crashing to the ground.

She didn’t know where who shot the next couple of rounds. But one true shot ignited the flying Grimm. Ignited. Damn thing exploded in a fiery-red hell that actually knocked de Scavi onto her haunches. Had someone really been using fire Dust rounds? Fuck goddamnit!

The dying Grimm careened into the tent. Its fabric blackened, exploding into a small inferno as the smoldering monster writhed on top of it.

“No!” she wailed, head spinning. “You stupid bastards!”

Another loud siren blare. Another of Schnee’s ear-splitting screams. The last of her shackles snowflaked as she kissed the ground.

“Weiss!” Chloe called out, shotgunning a stray Grimm that had gotten just a bit too close to the dust heiress. “I gotcha!”

The Sirenhead stumbled forward into their protective barrier as more Grimm pinched through the widening gaps.

“I got it!” cried a voice. Like a kid that broke something and thought they could fix it before daddy came home and beat her with a belt.

There was a strong gale force that would have pushed de Scavi over had she not already been on her ass in the first place. A red blob trailing roses rushed for the Sirenhead. That twerp.

“Goddammit, Red, we’ve got a script for a reason! Quit ad-libbing!” chided another. Cielo. De Scavi’s head swiveled behind her to the wall they’d been defending. The kid rained fire on the advancing Grimm clawing up the walls. One managed to just reach the peak before he cut it down.

What reprieve it brought was short lived when a four-legged Grimm—bigger than any lion, with these udder-like, murky green sacs on its back and jaws like a shark—tackled him from over the lip. Why did some Grimm have those weird mutations?

They crashed. A cloud of dirt erupted. The two wrestled on the ground with Cielo’s sword being the only thing keeping his guts away from that thing's talons. It pressed down, shoving the flat side of the blade into the kid’s chest.

Fangs longer than de Scavi’s forearm gnashed. Its mouth was a waterfall. Cielo pushed the blade up just in time for it to catch the Grimm by the jaw. It yanked at the now smoking blade as if to wrench it from the kid's grasp.

“Nasty bastard!” he growled, struggling beneath the beast. Thick gobbets splattering onto him. Vicious and green, like the acid “blood” they’d been leaking. He howled in pain as it dripped onto his arms, his chest, his neck, sizzling as it burned through his clothes and exposed flesh.

A bullet slammed into Four Legs’ bony hide. The thing stumbled, the sword falling from between it's rippling jaws.

Cards charged them with a long-winded, strained cry of effort. Her baton smashed into its chops. It reeled back. So she smashed it again. And again. It wasn’t a graceful or magnificent show of power by any stretch of the imagination. She just screamed and desperately wailed on the thing until it dismounted Cielo.

“Idiot, get back!” the boy snapped at his savior. He lurched as he rolled over, probably still feeling those burns. “Shitdammit!”

“B-but—!”

“Guys!” Blondie shouted frantically. The other blondie. The one who didn’t low-key freak de Scavi out. John, she thought. “It’s gonna blow! I’ve seen ’em!”

Cielo and Cards barely seemed to notice. But the semi-crushed Grimm with the ruined face was vibrating, the sickly, green sacs on its back undulating like a stripper trying a little too hard to earn her next meal. Not that de Scavi would know about that. Or the crippling price of college.

John just stood there, a respectable distance from the Grimm. He put his hands to the sides of his head, grabbing at himself. “Guys, listen! Move!”

“They can’t hear you, John!” de Scavi shouted, pointing towards where she knew the siren-headed Grimm was.

The boy shot her a savage look, teeth grit. “Stop spelling. My name. Wrong!” he all but screamed, and threw his shield at the Grimm. It didn’t really make it. Instead, it hit the dirt and bounced. Enough to hit Cards’ feet and knock her to the ground. She grabbed Cielo and nearly took him down with her.

Cielo spun around to face the girl, before looking over at John. Blondie frantically pantomimed an explosion, pointing at the Grimm.

It took a stomach-churning moment for the idea to get across, Cielo just standing there looking at John like he were a vaguely annoying species of bed louse. Then with a start, Cielo grabbed Cards and the shield. He got onto his knees and held it up to the Grimm.

Which exploded into a shrapnel of green puss and smokey Grimm entrails not a moment later. They sizzled the red Forever Fall grass, steaming away the water and sweat on John’s shield.

The acid burst had knocked the two back some couple of feet, but the shield had shouldered the worst of it.

“Thanks, Jean,” Cielo said, peeking over the slightly corroded shield.

Jean started as if he were about to say something. Instead he simply balled his fist and chewed his lip. It was a very keep it together kind of gesture. She wasn’t sure what that was about, but Cielo very obviously had a way of getting under peoples’ skin.

“Where’s that damn backup already?!” the blonde shouted as Cielo tossed him back his shield.

As if in mocking reply, Sirenhead echoed in a polite (and very artificial) woman’s voice, “I’m sorry, the number you have reached is not in service at this time.” The way it walked was wrong. It paced the far side of the ice wall like a young baby getting to grip with the idea of leg. It only seemed steady when in knuckle-walked gorilla-style. “Please check your number or try again.”

Cards helped her companion up. “Look, screw that! Weiss is down! Where’s Ruby?!” she pressed.

Anxious seconds of relative silence. Cielo’s face warped into a disdainful sneer. His teeth were showing, as if watching some asshole take up four parking spaces.

“Cielo!” the girl insisted.

He blinked, clenching his eyes tightly. Then he nodded at the Sirenhead. It busied itself with trying to swat an obnoxious red rose blob out of the air. But it kept the Grimm mostly stationed, focused on her.

“Bitch ’boutta get ate or somethin’,” Cielo said. A look ran across his face. He jolted upright and hissed, “Shit! The back!”

He was either some kind of jinx, or the gods had a twisted sense of timing. Grimm of every flavor de Scavi never wanted to try vaulted over the back wall. If she wasn’t already half-deaf, she was sure damn near every scratcher with a rifle firing at once would have done the trick. They may have well been shooting a brick wall with styrofoam pellets for all the good it did. And that was assuming any of these under-the-stars college kids were lucky enough to hit their mark.

Two of her students either too slow or too paralyzed to get out of the way were crushed beneath the descending Grimm. Not that she was that much different from either of them. All she’d done was pick a marginally better spot to lock up.

One of them—Russett, she thought his name was—gods, he was still alive. Conscious. It was like watching a pair of guard dogs fight over a chew toy. His screams sunk into her skin like fish hooks. They shook her bones and rattled her teeth.

Dark red pooled at Russett’s waistline. The shearing of flesh. The snap crackle of his bones and ligaments. De Scavi hadn’t the strength to avert her gaze. Like her entire body just didn’t belong to her anymore. She just felt that cold, polished sandalwood grip in her palms. Heard the click of the hammer. The distant pop of the barrel. The screams had faded. Complete silence. Stillness.

A fire-orange light flashed in her periphery. The heat-tinged air lightly caressed her cheek. All of a sudden, there was the painfully familiar stink of the soil. She was on the ground now. Something crashed into her. Someone. Young. Greasy, black hair. Basil?

He was saying something to her. Distantly, she noted the way his forehead vein pulsed whenever he got really heated about something. A very once-in-a-whole-moon kind of thing. Who pissed him off?

Her head hurt, like her brain had been sloshing against the walls of her skull. Her vision swam. Poorly-manicured fingers stabbed her skin through her dirty coat. He was shaking her? “—eed to get up!”

“Wha—?” she bleated.

“Get the fuck up or you’re going to—!” He shoved her back down, draped over her once more like a protective blanket. A shadow-black mass flew over them. Basil took aim. The rifle went flying from his grip as the shot fired. The thing raised its claws.

Another Grimm smashed into it. Who—?

Hands roughly yanked De Scavi to her feet. “Snap out of it, ma’am! If we don’t move, we die!”

Die? Of course they were going to die. Just like Russett. De Scavi. Basil. The rest of the scratchers and the junior Huntsmen. Already dead.

But there was hope, right?

— 15 —​

“Momma,” Sirenhead divulged, sounding like a little girl over loudspeaker, “where are you?” Then beeping like someone was winning a game show jackpot on some distant TV. Faster than de Scavi expected, it twisted its spindly arm, clawed snatching after Ruby.

Ruby turned her scythe around and fired a round. It hit Sirenhead’s hand, snapped it back, and sent her flying back. A practiced move. Until de Scavi saw the back of the siren’s arm. Glowing green crystals driven in like a forest of railroad spikes. The hit to the hand bent and angled the arm just enough to clear its line of fire; the spikes shot out at red.

She spun her scythe like a whirlwind, deflected every one of them. They shattered into a haze. Ruby screamed as something thick and red fell from her to the ground. A moment later the girl followed, hitting the dirt in a storm of rose petals. The girl looked blurry, there on the other side of the ice wall.

It wasn’t blood like De Scavi had expected. But it didn’t matter much. The girl almost looked like she’s been shot through the stomach as clutched at her melting weapon. Still sizzling in places from the green crystal stuff. It was hard to make out details.

About as hard as the knuckle that slammed into the distracted girl. She flashed a soft red as her body rocketed into and through the ice wall, shattered a breach. Her slagged weapon went tumbled out of her limp hands.

“Red!” Cielo shouted, rocketing towards her. He used his power to create a torrent of air. It caught the girl, letting her come to a more gentle stop instead of rolling until she shattered her neck.

“Pull her—pull them all back!” Pyrrha shouted. She almost sounded drunk. Hurting, and drunk. Even the oddly in-control Knife Boy beside her couldn’t ignore it; a crack in his cool façade. “Narrow the perimeter!”

“Man, watch the wall!” Jean shouted, whiteknuckling his shield.

“The white zone is for loading and unloading only,” Sirenhead said helpfully as the swarm poured in through the new gap in the defenses.

“To hell with the wall! We aren’t leaving them there!” Cards rushed for the pouring deluge and the Sirenhead as they closed in on Ruby and Cielo. The blue boy swung his sword. A shining blue outburst exploded from in front of the swarm. The surge of air was almost enough to knock de Scavi onto her ass again. And it actually tossed Ruby some distance. Enough to buy her a few extra seconds while the Grimm distracted themselves with Cielo.

Or maybe not. It sliced through the front of the swarm, and strong-armed the rest, shoving them back like rows of dominoes. The Sirenhead’s talons dug narrow trenches in the dirt as it reeled on its haunches.

Cielo fell forward on his sword as it stabbed the ground like a sharpened cane.

The colossal siren Grimm threw all of its weight behind a wild haymaker. Another sword swing. This time like it weighed and extra ton-and-a-half. Another flash—not as brilliant as before, but the glow still stung her eyes. The boy torpedoed through the air, flickering blue all the while. By some godly miracle he stayed conscious long enough to dig the blade into the dirt. A useless attempt to prop himself up on something, anything.

About as worthwhile as anything else anyone here could do.

Sirenhead raised its fist again, ready to drop it like a hammer on Cielo and Ruby. De Scavi just hoped it’d be that quick for her. Like a boot stomping out a bug.

It hesitated, its pole-like head facing off to the side. Towards the still burning tent. Almost like it was looking for approval from some celestial being. Or maybe making sure the Gods weren’t watching.

Was it because the white Grimm was in there?

Its clawed fist dropped. Only to mash against the air above the Huntsman. No! Both of Knife Boy’s extended blades, there parrying the claws enough to give breathing him. De Scavi glanced over to see him holding the knives out, with Pyrrha helping hold his arms steady, their Aura both alite. It would have almost looked romantic, if the girl didn’t look about ready to pass out.

Then again, some guys were into that.

Strands of thread—oasis green like something that just belonged in the desert—spun from Chloe’s fingertips. They wrapped around Cielo and Ruby like long, skinny fingers and yanked them back. The two rolled in the dirt next to a laid-up Weiss Schnee.

“Guys!” Cards skid on her knees next to the three with Jean. Shake them as much as she liked, it rarely garnered much more than a pained wince from any of them. She leaned over the Cielo, lightly slapping him. “Cielo, tell me you’ve got something like a plan, right? Y-you always have some stupidly-insane idea! Remember? The Handyman? Beacon getting attacked? Doctor Merlot?”

“Rap with me a second, Cards—” A pained gasp cut him off. “Do you remember me slapping you around like a cheap Vacuo hooker while you were all laid up?”

“Cielo,” she whimpered, “why are you…?”

“Speaking thereof,” he grunted, and looked at Jean, “tell your bitch I said thanks, Jean. And Jack too, I guess.”

Jean just made a vaguely aggravated face.

The panicked cry of one of de Scavi’s scratchers strained her ears. She saw one of them—a girl whose name she couldn’t bother to remember—break off from the crowded pack.

De Scavi supposed it was her job to tell the girl to come back? Cheer her on and hope she somehow managed to escape? Did it really matter? It would have ended the same way regardless. The girl very quickly ended up between one of those acid-spitting four-leg’s jaws. And all de Scavi had for her was a distant, unsympathetic “what did you think would happen?”

Grimm from the front. Grimm from behind. And whatever winged Grimm from above. If she looked down she was sure she’d see them digging out from below.

She could hear Russett screaming again—see his body breaking—right before she ki—she saved him. These things were drawn to suffering. Human. Faunus. It didn’t matter. They lived for pain. If they could help it, they’ll take their time. Draw it out. Savor it.

And they would. Each and every one of them. Just like with Russet. Just like what was happening to that girl. She didn’t need to be an expert to know that much.

De Scavi fingered the cylinder of her revolver, her warped reflection staring back at her with a vacant stare.

No. No no no no! Not her. Not her, Goddammit! She wasn’t anyone’s to savor! Her pain won’t be used to make more of these things! Her pain wasn’t going to be their pleasure!

It was her fucking life! She spent too long letting people tell her how to live, but no one was going to tell her how to die! That choice was hers and no one else’s!

She saved Russet. Now it was time to save herself!

She wouldn’t even feel it. Right between the eyes. Easy. Like switching off the lights. Just darkness.

Easy.

Over.

Easy.

“Hey, old lady,” a boy said, sounding in thoughtful control of himself.

She tore her eyes open, and had to look away from the dark barrel before her. Towards Knife Boy, standing there over a collapsed Pyrrha. He looked so clean. Scratched up, a little dirty, but like he’d avoided almost all the fighting. Wearing those dark colors. For a moment she wanted to turn the gun to him. He couldn’t be human. He couldn’t be! A skinwalker. A Grimm in human form. It was the only way he could be that clean, that self-collected. But she was shaking too badly to move the gun.

That’s because his power is long-ranged, a voice somewhere reminded her.

“The white beowolf is still back there, right?” he said, kneeling a touch and putting his fingers in his teammate’s mouth. “In the burning loot tent.”

“Yeah.” The word tumbled out. Like the boy was black hole, he just pulled it out of her.

He wiped Pyrrha’s spit on the bit of his arm he exposed. “Tet la tête, Nikki.” Then slapped at his own skin four times. He was sticking something there, using her saliva to keep it in place. Had he put something in the girl’s mouth too?

“Thanks,” he said to de Scavi, rolling down the sleeve. He inhaled sharply, and suddenly there were knives in his hand. “I got this here ins.”

If she wasn’t shaking like this, she’d be aiming at him. Something was wrong with him. On a deep, deep level. But she lost track of him as he surged forward, towards his downed teammates. Fast, too.

Pyrrha jumped up with a frantic start, sweating swords. She’d gone from being unable to stand on two feet, still wincing at the siren, and looking about ready to vomit, but she was somehow standing.

De Scavi only caught sight of the boy sticking something small in Ruby’s mouth before she lost track of him. No mean feat for a boy that tall. He disappeared into the packs of Grimm that… were only barely paying the survivors any mind. They almost looked to be searching for something. In-between eating the dead.

No, not searching. Pacing. Anxious. They were around the burning tent, which had gone from small fire to outright conflagration in a matter of minutes. If she had anywhere left for her stomach to sink, it would have. All that work. All those finds from the ancient Final Empire. Priceless relics. Everything was burning. It was almost funny how little willpower she could muster to care for everything she’d worked for for hellish, sleepless months.

The Grimm didn’t seem to want to rush into the fire. They wanted in. Wanted after the white wolf, she somehow knew. But as suicidal their attacks on humans were, they seemed to gain some level of self preservation towards the fire. So they just pace around it. Even the Sirenhead, which its massive arms, seems hesitant.

“Mom?” Ruby said, stirring from her half-conscious state as Pyrrha had. Then, roaring: “Mom!” She whirled to the side, cutting a beowolf’s head off using the white haired girl’s sword. “Where’s Crescent Rose? Where is it!” She was frantic in a way that would have scared de Scavi, if all those fear neurons hadn’t overworked herself to burnt crisps.

The air hissed. De Scavi looked up. It was from around the forest. Bright orange emergency flares. A score of them. Was this Knife Boy’s doing?

The emaciated Sirenhead monster stopped lumbering near the tent. It reared its pole-head up, standing tall. The mouths inside the siren horns were gnashing the dead air. “Would you like to place a collect call? Please wait one moment while we route your number.”

Wolves howled. The main tent ripped apart in a storm of long, whirling blades. Fire and debris erupted outwards, like the haphazard debris of a tornado. De Scavi almost didn’t care about whatever dig-up treasures that had to have been destroyed. Until she saw one of the boy’s long blades stab high in the aim. The boy had impaled the dead white wolf on it, and was holding it high in the air.

The Grimm in the camp all snapped their attention to it. They stopped eating, or going for the students, or pacing around the tent, all to stare at the high prize. The very thing this would have all been worth it for if only de Scavi or someone could recover it.

“Those damn Duke boys; they drive me to drink!” the Sirenhead klaxoned, knuckling for the wolf as fast as its lumbering gait would take it. A chorus of howling, roaring, screeching voices joined it.

Still high in the air, the wolf wolf darted towards the treeline. And the Grimm started to chase it.

They were after the white beowolf, she dimly noted, still there on her knees, gun to her head. That was their goal. It’s what they all wanted. And now he’s using it as bait.

What was left of the woman’s stomach dropped. Without nowhere to go internally, it fell right out her ass and onto the dirt below.

She saw Knife Boy in the air for a moment, emerging from the top of the conflagration, still spearing the wolf above him. He came down hard on a Grimm, and wasted no time jumping up onto another one. Glowing a bright electric indigo, he went running over the top of the herd like an overeager border collie.

He should have died, but it was like the Grimm were barely aware of him, too busy jumping and swatting at the hooked wolf none of them could ever hope to reach. There was an angler-like rhythm to it. Lower it to get their attention, and extend the blades to pull it out of them reach. Fast and rapid. It reminded her of days back at Arnesi University when some bitch had tried dangling a dog toy in front of her. De Scavi had eventually got so pissed she’d tried tackling the toy, only to have it pulled back as part of the cruel game. And while de Scavi was smart enough to just break that bitch’s jaw, the Grimm just kept going for their toy.

He used the advantage to get up onto a rampart of the temple they’d been excavating. And just kept running. And running.

Then he was gone. Her prize—the reason for all this had happened. Gone. She couldn’t help but laugh. The irony was going to kill her long before any Grimm might.

At least the swarm had gone with the boy. Well, not all of them. But nothing like they’d been, and no longer focused on any of the survivors. Just enough stragglers that they could rally and defend themselves against the monsters, just as Ruby and Pyrrha were doing.

The flares still burned in the air.

So, that was it. Just like that? They were saved. Rescue might not be here, but the Huntsmen in camp were able to hold off. And it somehow felt… anticlimating. Here she was, alive.

Part of her hoped that counting her birds before they hatched would jinx her. That in saying she would survive, some twist of irony would kill her.

It didn’t. Pyrrha decapitated the closest Grimm to de Scavi. She was still soaked with sweat and dirt and blood. De Scavi could only imagine how she must have smelled. How she herself had smelled. She had a vague feeling she’d pissed herself somewhere along the way.

The Jean boy was barely standing too. He seemed to have nowhere to look, either. Like de Scavi, he didn’t seem interested in catching sight of the corpses. It made him have to hold his head at an angle, one hand to the side of his face.

“I think we’re gonna make it,” Chloe said, walking towards him with a slight limp.

Jean just looked at her like he didn’t know her. “I guess.”

She stopped before him. Before eventually smiling. “So I learned a long time ago it was bad form to—”

He held up his hand. “Chloe, no. Not now. Just, stop being you for a moment.”

The girl winced. “I… okay. I was just trying—”

“People are dead, dammit!” he snapped. “Please just stop being you. Just help us clean up.”

“I… yeah.” She hugged herself. “Yeah okay.”

Jean sucked on his lip. Before his attention turned to the flares still slowfalling to the earth. He squinted at something past them. “Wait, what’s that?”

A harsh whir separate from the now distant Sirenhead erupted through the air. The forest around the camp erupted in a storm of bright, burning energy and roaring explosions that shook de Scavi’s guts. She fell to the ground, feeling her inner throat vibrate.

“THE CAVALRY HAS COME,” a massive voice boomed over the sky. As more explosions ripped the surrounding apart, de Scavi was able to see it. The massive outline in the sky of an Atlas airship, firing its main battery to wipe out the swarm. “PLEASE REMAIN STATIONARY. AND THANKS FOR THE TARGETING FLARES, KIDS.”

She somehow felt she’d caused that to happen. Rescue was here. It’d just been a little too late.

“The fuck took these guys?” Cielo asked, struggling to pull himself up with his sword. Cards tended to him until he shrugged her off. A harsh gesture. “Worry about them other two.” He nodded at the frantically moving around Ruby and frantically unconscious Weiss Schnee.

Pyrrha slumped, like she'd released a long pent-up breath. She eyed the forest with a suspicious glare. How she was still on her feet amazed de Scavi. “Targeting flares?” she repeated. “There were no targeting flares. Were there?” She squinted. Rubbed her eyes. Seemed to see the flares for the first time.

She looked about ready to faint. And then, in a lower, concerned voice meant for herself: “Skata, Jack, what did you do?”

Honestly, at this point, de Scavi couldn’t care. She hadn’t had nearly enough to drink. Not nearly enough golden liquid to help stay awake anymore. If even Pyrrha was ready to knock out, there was no shame if de Scavi closed her eyes and just letting thing take their course

No shame at all.

Even if it didn’t come from the barrel of a gun, the sweet embrace of dark oblivion overtook her.

a/n: Easily our longest chapter yet.

Glossary of Colloquialisms
a.) “Ins/innie” — 1) (Slang) Intuition, a gut feeling, hunch — Contrary to folk etymology, the term is slang shortening of “inland empire,” a now dated psychological term referring to one's unfiltered emotions, dreams, and forebodings. The original term is sometimes used, although its meaning is almost always in the colloquial term (usage: Vale, primary Catchfire)
b.) Lekker — (Interjection) 1) yum!, yummy!, delicious!, 2) goody! hah!, used sarcastically to show disapproval, disrespect or contempt — Literally means “licker,” of which is it a localized corruption found mostly in the outer Vacuoan kraals. The slang term originally just meant something was tasty, nice, or (informally) “sexy.”
c.) “When/till it rains” — 1) An indeterminate faraway time. 2) Never — It doesn’t rain in Vacuo very much. So, to say “I’ll do it when it rains” or “wait till it rains” in Vacuo could be a very long time, and by extension, “never.”
d.) Nai — 1) (informal) yes, “yeah” — From old north Mistrali ναι (yes). Sounds very much like "nah/neh," which can cause confusion between Mistrali and outsiders. Due to both "nai" (yes) and "ochi" (no) sounding like "nah" and "okay," but meaning the exact opposite respectively, a common derogatory stereotype is that Mistrali are date rapists.
e.) Skata — 1) (vulgar) shit, fuck, damn it, crap — From old Northern Mitralia σκατά (skatá). Ancestral to Common “scat.” Due to dialectical nature, it is seen as a vaguely more polite or refined way of swearing.
f.) Once in a whole moon — 1) (idiomatic) Very rarely; very infrequently — Every so often, the rotations and orbits of Remnant and the moon will line the shards of the moon up such that the moon looks whole. This is a very rare occurrence.
g.) Tet la tête, to — 1) (idiomatic) To hit with a rush of energy; to suddenly see clearly; to wake up — A multilingual corruption meaning“Tetrameth to the head.” Said like “tay-la-tay.”Often used ironically. Can be used as a verb or a stock phrase. “Tet la tête, girl.” “The good news gave him the tet la tête.”
h.) “Housepet” — 1) (derogatory) A faunus who is very subservient to human authority.
— The term “housepet” is used as a derogatory epithet for an excessively subservient faunus, particularly when that person perceives their own lower-class status based on race. It is similarly used to negatively describe a person who betrays their own group by participating in its oppression, whether or not they do so willingly. It is similar to snitch, betrayer, or coward.
i.) “Under-the-stars” — 1) In a situation which one is poorly prepared or unprepared to handle; to be way out of one's depth. — Most people live in brightly lit cities without stars. To be under the stars is to imply being far from home and/or in alien circumstances
j.) “Sneezing dust” — 1) To waste something (often valuable) — Dust is fine particles which, if inhaled, can cause sneezing. That ruins Dust, which is valuable.

 

Chapter 8: Oh God Cinder has Airpods in, She Can’t Hear You!
“...and a Fall Maiden with a surname so appropriate, she probably picked it herself. Something tells me you’ve got more than a slight case of egomania, is that right?”


— 16 —​

The Number hurt. It did that from time to time. There was always the Number. Ozpin made sure of that. At first it was with a knife. Still usually was. But self-mutilation is a practice not endorsed by the makers of the new flesh, and rarely welcome to new flesh either. So sometimes it was a knife. Sometimes he used a brand. More recently, it’d become easier to tattoo the Number into his skin.

The Number hurt. He could feel the outline of the tattoo. Even without seeing it, he could read the count. It reminded him of how far he’d come, and how often he’d failed before. Why it hurt was beyond Ozpin. The strands of altered carbon that made him up from corpse to corpse were never consistent. Sometimes it hurt with a kind of premonition of real knowledge, leading him to make better choices. Sometimes it hurt when someone was lying to him. Occasionally, the Number ached because it was going to rain. One might even be tempted to say there was nothing consistent about the Number. But live as long as Ozpin has, and you’ll find the patterns.

The Number hurt. And this time Ozpin knew why.

The report on his desk was, at best, schizophrenic, and at worst nearly useless. Gathered by Atlas officials from an inured, barely coherent team of fresh-faced students, Ozpin supposed he couldn’t help it. And it was bad for the kids, too.

Just look at Ruby Rose. Severe bruising, a concussion, mild acid burns, a ruptured eardrum and a critical case of exhaustion so bad the Atlas medical officers almost administered her tetrameth. The siren-headed Grimm now known as “Dead Air” had possessed some debilitating effect on everyone out there with an active Aura. Things looked awful even before you got to Indigo Jack, currently listed as “missing” only because Ozpin refused to admit to another dead student so soon after the Emerald Forest disaster. Not if he could put it off any longer.

His plan had been perfect, too. Eight young and motivated students, including Summer Rose’s daughter, the heir to Nicholas’ legacy, and an Arc with a heart in the right place, had wanted to help and be Huntsmen. Ozpin had sent them somewhere nearby where they could feel important, but wouldn’t really be doing anything. A way to get them out of his overworked hair while letting them feel like he trusted them. His inland empire said those eight students would come in use one day. Two more team STRQs in the making.

Ozpin sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was getting ahead of himself. Professor Gylnda had tried to tighten up the report into something more manageable. Practically bullet points.

Students show up to archaeologist dig in Forever Fall Forest. Students wander. Encounter strange crates, odd Grimm behavior, and a mutant white beowolf that left a corpse. Students recover it to camp. Camp is attacked by a swarm of Grimm. Scrolls are down so no one can call for help, but a random unscheduled radar scan done by mistake of a faunus signals officer on an Atlas battleship sees the horde and goes to help.

Students build defenses with Dust. Local head archaeologist, Coraline de Scavi, attempts to protect treasures. Dead Air arrives; its sounds cause pain and damage to the students. Weiss Schnee overuses her Aura and goes down. Dead Air brings in more Grimm and breaks the defenses. Ruby Rose, Cielo Noel, Cards Adler are badly injured. Pyrrha Nikos is wounded somehow too. Jaune Arc and Chloe Weaver try to protect wounded friends. Indigo Jack realizes the Grimm are actually there for a purpose; he grabs the mysterious white wolf and runs off with it, taking the swarm with him. Mysterious flares show up to help the battleship aim, as even its radio communications are jammed.

All that was pieced together from seven sketchy student reports and the official AAR from Atlas. They were plagued with conflicting information. Two students expressly noted that Indigo Jack called for help, for example, despite no such call existing. There’s a reason why there’s a class at Beacon to teach Huntsman how to write and tell reports.

Someone’s watch beeped. Ozpin looked up from his desk. Glynda Goodwitch, Headmistress of Beacon, pretended like it wasn’t her fault just long enough for Oz to go from a pang of annoyance to a smudge of amusement. She straightened out her black pencil skirt as if trying to look good before a crowd.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said dryly. “That’s your five minutes of silent brooding used up for the day. I’m afraid you’ll have to brood out loud or get back to work.”

Ozpin sighed, reaching for his coffee cup. From the window of his office, he could see… well, nothing. Vale’s artillery corps had been more than a little overzealous. Perhaps trying to compete with Atlas’ airship batteries. Or maybe just trying to flex on Huntsmen. Whatever the case, the Emerald Forest was still burning. Even in broad daylight, the fires turned the air a dusky red. The ash and dust had gotten so bad the word had been given from the officials that anyone on the campus grounds outside had to wear a mask. They said it’d be a day or two longer before the fire finally burned through the last of the fuel in the perimeter and air cleared up. Till then, Atlas’ ships only flew but for the grace of three-dimensional radar.

“Six minutes,” Ozpin said, humoring her. Negotiating.

“No,” Glynda said.

“Don’t I pay your salary?”

“You’re lucky I’m not hourly,” she groused.

“Oh, I’m sure I could write it off on the school’s taxes somehow,” he said, sipping the coffee. He wasn’t kidding. Ozpin’s last life had helped write Vale’s modern tax code. He knew the loopholes. He put them there on purpose. Democracy was a joke. Just like any form of government. “So allow me to think out loud.”

Glynda took a chair and folded her arms.

“Right now our cigarette is burning,” he said. “And I can’t afford to let people know when we ash it. Fresh students are dead. We’ve lost both the Emerald Forest and Forever Fall Forest to legendary Grimm. The same people who tried to kill Amber now possess her. It’s like Mountain Glenn all over again.”

Or Hartsford. Old Esztergom. Dar-es-Salaam. Really, he could go on. As frustrating and terrifying as times like this could be, they were things that happened. Sometimes Ozpin won. Sometimes she won. Most of the time you couldn’t really tell which was which.

The Number Hurt.

Callous as it was, the forest and dead children were the least of his problems. Just more complications to the Amber issue. Every monitor in the forest had been hacked. Sophisticated software, too. And just when Ozpin had committed the teachers, veteran students, and the Brothers-kissed military to help the freshmen, the facilities beneath Beacon bore witness to a surgical strike. Advanced combat droids and three Aura users. And he only knew that from eyewitness accounts.

In hindsight, it was obvious. He should have seen what was going to happen. The smartest move should have left the freshmen to their fate in order to shore Amber up. Dead children meant little in the long run when it came to a Maiden.

But evil through inaction is as bad as evil through action. See, the human eye is an amazing organ. With just the tiniest bit of effort, it can ignore even the most blatant of evils. Effort, though, was key. And Ozpin was, to the surprise of many, lazy at heart.

“I think this is all established, Ozpin,” Glynda said. “I feel like you’re on loop now.”

“Just the facts,” he said, removing his glasses. “I see the problems, but the tools I require to quickly resolve it are out of reach. We don’t have a team STRQ anymore. Of the current student body we have no Huntsmen ready to fill those shoes. I had hopes for those eight students to fill the role, but you can see where they are.”

“So resolve it slowly.”

“Time would usually be on my side, but.” He made a distracted gesture. “This is different. I usually can play defense. But this looks like it requires an offensive touch.”

No new real information. It was just an annoying admission of the facts. Denial wasn’t something Ozpin had ever been good at, in any case. Right now was a moment where, while not helpless, he was just in a bad place.

But he’d been in worse places before, and Remnant was still standing.

Glynda threw her blonde hair back. “The brooding rule applies to you, too. You wanted to be here so badly.”

The only other person loitering about Ozpin’s towertop office looked over his shoulder. Seven feet tall in his black and white armor, the Slayer looked more like a Grimm than a man. More than a handful of students had made that mistake. Thank your pagan god of choice that Beacon has top notch healthcare. And that he had a professor’s tenure.

Ozpin had to wonder if his ever-present suit looked that way due to personal preference, or some sort of self-administered punishment from when he was one of her agents. Like how he insisted no one use his actual name, electing instead to use Slayer, an archaic term for Huntsmen still in use out in the parts of the frontier the man had come from.

Honestly, it was probably because the man just liked to pretend he was more mysterious than he was. He’d found an image for himself he liked and wanted to keep it. His name was Atreus, by the way.

Rather than directly reply, the Slayer held “Core-tan” in one massive armored hand.. Rhombus shaped, his mechanical normally hovered around the man. There was something childish and petulant in the way he softly stroked the deactivated robot. Maybe it was for the best he was wearing his helmet. His expression might have made Ozpin laugh.

Glynda rolled her eyes. “Please. Like I was going to let your voice assistant record this.”

“Useful,” the Slayer rumbled, his voice like something loudly mumbling from within an oaken barrel. It hurt him to speak too much.

“Oh, please.”

The man stiffened. Ozpin half thought he was about to launch the robot at her. Instead, he said, “Resume activities. Prepare for Vytal.”

She made a show of counting off her fingers. “Hmm. Five words. A new record.”

“Speech Therapy’s helping.” Something in that rumble brought to Ozpin’s mind a scrappy tyke trying to stand up to the neighborhood bully. Pathetically, but trying.

The Slayer did a lot of trying. Ozpin suspected some of it was from jealousy. A desire to be given more responsibility than someone like Glynda or Qrow. Sure, his time with the Grimm Reaper had educated him more on silver eyes than your average teacher, but he wasn’t part of Ozpin’s innermost circle. Just someone incredibly knowledgeable, useful, and most important violent that Ozpin knew best to keep at close distance. The Slayer didn’t know the full story behind anything, and it was probably better to keep it that way. Ozpin had a lot of people like that. Ask Professor Oobleck or “the Mailman.”

“He’s right,” Ozpin said before Glynda and the man could start arguing. “Stating the obvious, but right. This is the new normal. We will do our best to pretend like it’s the old normal. We’ll get classes back. Resume work on the upcoming Vytal festival. Try to pull some victory out of all this for the public. That’s the most important part. Soothing public doubts and worries.

“And working beneath it to track Amber down,” Glynda said

Ozpin nodded. “There are a great many factors at work. A great many obstacles, too. Most of them human.”

The Slayer shifted, his heavy armor rattling softly. “Silver eyes.”

Ozpins’s expression went wry. He templed his hands before himself. Without full knowledge of Maidens, that would be his main point. “Miss Rose isn’t even aware she has them, much less knows how to use them. It’ll be a project. One we shouldn’t rush.”

“You and your secrets,” he groused with a hint of annoyance.

You have no idea, Atreus, Ozpin thought.

“That being the case,” Glynda added, “as much as I’m loathe to admit it, we’ll probably need to contact Qrow. Wherever he is.”

“Because he’ll be so thrilled to discover I’ve drafted his niece into Beacon and nearly gotten her killed twice in as many days.” Ozpin said with a grimace.

“He has a spare niece,” the Slayer said.

Ozpin chuckled despite himself. It was going to be a long couple of days filled with little sleep, lots of scroll calls, and mountains of paperwork.

Sometimes, he almost thought it’d be easier to just let her win. Almost.

— 17 —​

Of all the flaws most jumpsome to the human form, none was worse than casual addiction. Doctor Merlot knew this for a fact. He’d once tried to give a beowolf a cigarette, and not only had it not gotten addicted, it murdered and ate the man who offered it the free hit.

That alone was proof of the superiority of Grimm.

Still, there was something electric in the way Cinder snapped her fingers to light the good doctor’s cigarette. It was her Semblance, he knew. She’d once called it Scorching Caress. But the parasite had enhanced it. Turned it from merely an expression of the soul into something sharing an origin with the Grimm themselves.

The Old Magic.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a drag on the cigarette. One eye looked across his island, his other and mechanical eye scrolled through data. Hacked information from Beacon, data feeds from current experiments here on the island, a livestream from a Grimm eating a dead archaeologist. He flipped through them, scanning for relevant information, and moved on.

Salem’s Other Lot was a recent name for his little slice of heaven. Something he couldn’t stop himself from. The island of Doctor Merlot wasn’t on any maps. You’d be amazed how much of the world was still a mystery. Back when Merlot Industries was still an economic titan, he’d purchased the island from a pirate warlord in exchange for helping him launder his plunder. Best part was he had been able to write off the purchase on his taxes.

Everything had come together to let him build his true laboratory here. Mountain Glenn had just been a proof of concept. Here, he had his automata, his factories, testing sites, and miles of empty wilderness. Usually empty. Sometimes the slaves he bought to help test Grimm on tried to form communities out there. It was funny. Their sacrifice for the greater destiny of humanity would not go in vain.

Another drag on the cigarette. He stood there on a balcony, overlooking his little harbor. It was mostly drones and automata down there, loading and unloading captured Grimm. Recently, and to his annoyance, Cinder had insisted on using White Fang agents to help on the island. That fool Roman’s ideas. Helping them study the Fall Maiden and her soul sarcophagus. Like he needed their help. But their alliance was a delicate balance.

Oh, and Skipper. Good ol’ Skipper was down there too.

The gorgeous Cinder Fall smiled that wicked smile of hers at him. That was the thing about Cinder. She had the face of an angel, but a personality like the sound of an ironing board being unfolded. “So this won’t be a problem, then?”

Dr. Merlot held his cigarette in his right arm, a mechanical thing with red circuits. Like his left eye, another casualty of what needed to be done in Mountain Glenn. When he thought of it like that, he could almost forgive Summer Rose for cutting it off. As if merely dying could keep the good doctor from his work.

“We lost a lot of our lusi naturae out there,” Dr. Merlot said, gesturing vaguely. “The few of our medically enhanced specimens out there were put in danger. We’re down to a handful, plus Dead Air. I hate losing progress, but what’s done is done.” He ashed the cigarettes over the edge of the balcony, checking his plants in Beacon’s system. “They still have no idea I’m in the area. The only thing they know is that you’re working for her when we captured Amber. And even then, nothing specific.”

Cinder frowned tightly. He knew how badly she wanted to kill Amber. Equip that magnificent glove from Salem herself and steal what was left of Amber’s soul. She was this close to unimaginable power. Dr. Merlot would never let that happen so long as there was something in this to study. Breakthroughs to make.

Our Lady of the Upside-Down knew about her Grimm. She had answers to questions that plagued Merlot for decades. But, in a strange twist of fate, she didn’t know the science behind it. What actually makes Grimm tick? Why does the sentient soul express itself in Aura? How does magic, once he had confirmation from Our Lady it was real, actually work? She had tried to play it off, but Dr. Merlot saw through the façade.

Sufficiently studied magic is indistinguishable from science.

And as long as he had the cards in his deck to leverage it, he would keep Cinder away from the other half of the Maiden’s power. The powers of the Great and Terrible Ozpin were only half of the puzzle. The Old Magic. The rest lay in Salem and the Grimm.

“That being said,” Cinder added, looking out meaningfully at a faunus down below, “the real danger are our allies.”

Dr. Merlot frowned. “Roman and Adam? Who cares about them. Use them. Destroy Beacon to buy us more time before Ozpin can get back to work. Let them all die in the carnage afterwards.”

“You don’t find it funny how White Fang agents just happened to be in the area?”

He shrugged. “They helped prevent Ozpin from getting his hands on my work. All else is barely relevant. Besides, you recruited them. They know if they cross us, they’ll die.”

“When,” she insisted.

The good doctor dragged on his cigarette. “Time is on our side either way,” he dismissed. “Beacon is wounded. Ozpin is on the backfoot. And more importantly, we have the Fall Maiden. All we have to do is play defense. Keep our cards close to our chest. Distract Oz and his cronies with the occasional attack and false flag. The ball is in our court.”

Cinder leaned against the balcony railing. He was correct and she didn’t like it. Dr. Merlot couldn’t entirely blame her. All the work she put in, and now they were in the best possible position they could be in. But Cinder wasn’t a girl who liked to sit back. She may have been personally chosen by Salem, but she didn’t have the old witch’s patience. Couldn’t sit back and build.

Dr. Merlot hoped it would get her killed.

The ageless Salem could afford patience. To a degree that the good doctor envied. It was part of her mystique, her allure. Orcus need not leave his throne if his enemies will die of old age before they reach him. The only problem was her motivation. In Salem he had seen perfection. He had seen synthesis. Human of soul, yet Grimm of flesh. Unknown to death, nor known to life. The melding of Light and Dark. The destiny of the human race. And with his research, the Old Magic understood by the New Science, Dr. Merlot knew he could reproduce what Salem was.

The Red Queen Hypothesis come to its logical conclusion. Evolution would run aground upon the shores of perfection.

The sound of seagulls and the mechanical crane only interrupted when she let out a sigh. “I’m going to Beacon,” she said. “Infiltrating it. As a student.”

“I generally approve when humans commit suicide,” he said mildly.

“Roman and Adam are useful, but they need nearby reminders to stay loyal until we’re done with them,” she said. “And we need people close to the ground to react to anything when it comes up.”

“You’re hamstering,” he said, exhaling smoke. “I can see the little rodent in your head, right now. Running and running on his wheel to find excuses to do this. Feed him a carrot or something for his effort, woman.”

She turned her amber eyes to him sharply. “I don’t need your approval.”

“Just my support.”

“You will support me because you have no choice.”

Debatable. And Dr. Merlot would win that debate. Goddamn Beacon Academy debate club chairman three years running, he was. Ozpin had to kick him out because he made too many of Beacon’s students cry, since it was “behavior unbecoming a teacher.” Another reason why he hated Ozpin.

“Alright,” Dr. Merlot said, having no desire to stand in her way. More time spent not bothering him was more time he didn’t have to worry about her jumping the gun and killing Amber. Cider couldn’t sit still. That was fine. And she wanted to micromanage her enslaved allies. Fine by the good doctor.

Cinder nodded with the finality of a plastic guillotine. “Excellent. Now!” She turned towards the industrial harbor. “I’m going to need transport back to Vale.”

a/n: A somewhat slower chapter. Mostly just summarizes events and sets out goals for Ozpin, Cinder, and Dr. Merlot.

a/n: Glossary of Colloquialisms
a.) Inland Empire — 1) Intuition, a gut feeling, hunch — A now dated psychological term referring to one’s unfiltered emotions, dreams, and forebodings. Nowadays it is mostly only heard as “ins/innie,” which is Vale Catchfire slang. The original term is sometimes used, although its meaning is almost always in the colloquial term.