Look Up
"He cheated his way into Beacon!"
Russel's declaration rang in the close confines of the cave, as silence fell over the whole group. Blake blinked, once. That... well, it explained a lot.
She tried to imagine Jaune going through one of the hunter prep schools or passing the same test she had, and still bumbling around like he did in combat. As much as he did have some promising leadership qualities... she was actually a little disappointed in herself for not realizing sooner that there was no way he'd gotten into Beacon conventionally.
Glancing around, though, she saw Ruby staring open-mouthed at Jaune. The look on her face didn't bode well—though it was nothing like the thunderous expression Weiss was wearing. Apparently her complete lack of surprise was something of an outlier.
"Is... is that true?" Ruby asked quietly. Her voice seemed to wake the others—even the rest of team CRDL had to be shaken out of their shock. None of them looked surprised by the revelation itself, though—Blake suspected Russel had told them already.
Jaune was staring at the ground. "I-I..." he stammered, looking everywhere but at his classmates.
Pyrrha jumped to defend him. "It doesn't change anything," she asserted. "He's worked hard to get where he is, and he—"
"No," said Weiss, flatly. "Let him speak for himself."
Blake flinched, her ears flattening in sympathy—she couldn't help but remember those agonizing instants that had followed her own accidental confession last semester.
"Yeah," Jaune admitted, his voice cracking. "It's true."
"Oh," said Ruby.
"You can turn me in, if you want," he went on.
"Jaune, you don't have to—" Pyrrha started, but he shook his head.
"No," he said, his voice gaining some confidence. "It's up to them. After the mission... you can tell the headmaster, and I won't try to stop you."
"I'm not gonna do that, Jaune," Ruby decided. He stared at her, as though he couldn't quite believe his ears.
"You're still my friend, doofus," she reminded him, smiling weakly.
"Yeah!" Nora shouted, pointing her hammer dramatically at the cave ceiling. "You're our glorious leader, you can't get expelled!"
"You have improved drastically over the course of the year," Ren agreed.
The look on Jaune's face—something between dumbstruck joy and abject terror—was achingly familiar. Blake had to smile.
"I won't turn you in either," she assured him. Yang cheered.
It took a moment, to realize who hadn't yet spoken. Weiss was still staring at Jaune, her expression unreadable.
"Weiss?" he said hesitantly, shifting from foot to foot. Blake winced. She remembered that look all too well.
For a moment, it seemed like she wasn't going to say anything at all. Then, taking a deep breath, she hissed, "How stupid are you?"
Jaune tried to stammer something, and Pyrrha looked downright murderous, but Weiss didn't seem to care.
"Do you know how many times we've all nearly died since we got here?!" she demanded, waving a hand at the cave as if to offer it up as an example. "And that is with years of training and effort. Did you seriously think you could just walk in here and become a huntsman without doing anything?"
"No!" Jaune blurted. "I mean, I thought... I was training, but I never got into any of the prep schools, and then I kept falling behind. I wanted to be a hero, not some... some damsel in distress!" His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head. "I just wasn't good enough."
"Idiot." Weiss took another step forward, and seemed to be doing her best to vaporize him with her eyes.
Blake grinned. She knew that look, too.
"Those tests are there for a reason," Weiss snapped, in almost the exact same tone of voice she sometimes used on her partner. "This isn't like most schools where failure means washing out and going home. You could have gotten yourself killed!"
Hope dawned on Ruby's face, but Jaune didn't seem to notice.
"I'm sorry!" he wailed.
"Good," Weiss huffed. "I'll have you know, I expect you to be able to pass the entrance exam with flying colors by the end of the year."
Jaune blinked dumbly. "You mean..." he said, glancing between Weiss' disapproving frown and Ruby's grin. "You aren't going to report me?"
Weiss sighed. "No."
"Thank y—"
"On one condition." Jaune's mouth shut with a plop, and his blue eyes went wide.
Folding her arms, Weiss glared at him. "No flirting. No flowers. And no singing."
Jaune blinked. "Uh, okay?"
"Excellent."
Blake couldn't help but smile—the look of rapturous joy on Jaune's face was incredibly infectious.
Naturally, someone had to ruin it.
"Seriously?!" Russel shouted, his eyes flickering between the eight of them before settling on Jaune. "What is wrong with you people?"
"What's wrong with you?" Weiss snapped back. "How stupid do you have to be to bring up something like this in the middle of enemy territory?"
Blake smirked. Good Weiss.
Russel flushed, and took a threatening step forward. Weiss didn't blink—team CRDL's dueling record wasn't exactly intimidating.
"He didn't earn this!" he shouted, waving his arms above his head. "And you all just accept that!? He's a danger to himself, and he's going to drag you down with him!"
"He's our leader," Pyrrha said, putting a hand on Jaune's shoulder. "And he's more than proven himself."
Russel let out a wordless scream of frustration, as Dove stepped up beside him.
"Let it go," his teammate advised. "It isn't important right now."
"It is!" Russel shouted back. "Some of us didn't have this handed to them! Some of us had to claw and fight to be here, and he gets to just walk in?!"
"Russ—" Sky began, but was cut off.
"And you!" Russel seethed, jabbing a finger at Weiss. She raised an eyebrow. "You think you're better than me?"
"Yes," Weiss replied, as if it were obvious. It was... probably the wrong thing to say.
"Bitch," Russel spat. Blake watched helplessly as the situation sailed straight past the point of no return and into thermonuclear territory.
"Excuse you?!"
"Yipe," Ruby squeaked, backing up a step. As much as she might've wanted to help her friend, next to Weiss probably wasn't a safe place to be right then.
"You heard me," the dead man shot back, stubbornly refusing to try and save himself.
"Uh, guys?" Yang said hesitantly. "Maybe we should—"
"Shut up!" Russel shouted. "At least I worked to get in here!"
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Weiss hissed, her hands balling themselves into fists. Blake grabbed Yang by the collar and pulled her back—there was nothing they could do for him now.
"It must be nice, being able to pull a few strings and waltz right into Beacon." He gave a dark chuckle. "Only the best for Daddy's little princess."
Blake was expecting her to snap at him, to unleash a verbal tirade that left him cowering. But, to her horror, Weiss flinched back as if slapped. Her hand flew up for an instant, as if to touch her cheek, and then fell limply to her side. Her face twisted, and before anyone could so much as blink Myrtenaster was in her hand.
"Weiss!" Ruby cried out, grabbing her arm. Blake could only gape at her friend as she snarled wordlessly, yanked herself free of Ruby's grip, and stalked off down the tunnel.
There was a moment of shocked silence. Then, Russel breathed, "Her eye." Blake remembered the aborted motion, but she hadn't made the connection—maybe because Weiss had been facing away from her.
Cardin sniggered. "Ow, Daddy!" he squeaked in a high falsetto, and broke down into laughter.
...And every day, my father would come home furious.
Something slimy curled around Blake's heart and squeezed.
"What the hell, Cardin?!" Dove was shouting, staring at his leader in disgust. Blake ignored him, turning to find Yang looking back at her. Their eyes met briefly, before they both turned to Ruby.
A handful of rose petals drifted silently to the ground.
"Come on!" Yang said, grabbing Blake by the arm. She nodded, sprinting after their leader. Soon, the tunnel darkened and Blake had to lead her partner, straining her eyes to catch the faint glimmer of distant flashlights.
As they disappeared from earshot, she could hear familiar voices.
"...such a jerk!"
"...gonna knock you into orbit!"
"What is wrong with you?!"
"...despicable excuse for a Huntsman!"
Blake decided in that moment that, if any of them ever asked her to, she would happily follow team JNPR into hell itself—no questions asked.
A few dozen yards down the tunnel, it split in two. The leftmost passage was emitting a faint light, so Blake decided to head that way. Her guess turned out to be correct, and by the time she and Yang found Weiss, Ruby was already there. She was fidgeting in place, looking desperate to say something but unsure of what it should be. Yang made a beeline for her sister's side, and laid a supportive hand on her shoulder.
Weiss, it seemed, had stormed off down the corridor and found a side passage to hide in. Her sword was leaning on the wall beside her, the Dust in its blade glowing a dull red that cast burnt-looking shadows across the walls.
Ruby fidgeted in place a moment, before turning to throw a desperate, pleading look at her sister.
"Um," Yang said, very unhelpfully.
As much as she wanted to be annoyed with them, Blake had to admit that she couldn't figure out what to say, either. She could see Weiss' patience rapidly evaporating.
"We wanted to ask..." Ruby managed, before devolving into unintelligible mumbling.
"What?" Weiss snapped, folding her arms and glaring at them.
Her partner's back went ramrod straight as she blurted, "Your scar! We, um, wanted to know what happened."
If there had been a right way to ask, that hadn't been it. Weiss flushed scarlet and hissed, "None of your business!"
Ruby recoiled as if stung, murmuring a nearly inaudibly apology. The look on her face was enough to make Blake feel guilty just for being there, so it was no surprise when Weiss heaved a sigh and spoke again.
"It was a training accident, if you must know." She broke eye contact before she got halfway through the sentence, leveling a half-hearted glare at the floor. Blake felt her heart sink.
"You don't have to protect him," she said, doing her best to sound sympathetic. For a moment, honest bewilderment flickered across her teammate's face. Then it was gone, replaced by irritation.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss demanded.
"Weiss... you can talk to us. We promised, remember?"
"My father doesn't beat me, if that's what you're implying," Weiss snarled. A muscle in her jaw jumped. She turned away, crossing her arms.
"Sorry to disappoint you," she huffed over her shoulder.
Blake gritted her teeth, forcing down the rush of indignant fury. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone," she said, keeping her tone as even as she could. "Especially not a friend."
Weiss winced. "I know." It wasn't quite an apology, but the sentiment was there.
"It's okay."
"Is that what you think he's like?" Weiss blurted, turning to glance between the three of them.
"Um?" Ruby said, squirming in place. "Well, you don't really talk about him much..."
Weiss raised an eyebrow. "So naturally he must be a monster."
Blake had thought that long before she'd met Weiss, but bringing it up would only reopen an old argument.
"I've seen him on the news," she said instead. "He always seemed—" Slimy. Soulless. "Cold."
"He is," Weiss replied, without hesitation, "but wouldn't try to hurt me, not like that. Okay?"
No. Not okay. There were far too many words in that sentence, words like, 'try to,' and, 'like that.' But Yang and Ruby each mustered a smile, and Blake forced herself to do the same.
"You know..." Yang said, "you're still allowed to complain about him, if you want. My dad does annoying stuff all the time, and I still love him." Weiss frowned.
"Like sending you dogs in the mail?" she asked, sounding skeptical.
"Eh," Yang replied flippantly. "That's about a six out of ten, for him."
"Then what—" Weiss clapped a hand over her own mouth. "Forget I asked," she continued, voice now muffled. "I don't want to know." Ruby giggled, though there was a nervous undercurrent to it.
Silence reigned for a few moments. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but the atmosphere still had a certain tense feeling to it. Not that it lasted long—Ruby started vibrating in place, and soon spoke up again.
"Are... are you mad?" she asked timidly. Blake could pinpoint the exact instant that Weiss gave up on trying to be exasperated.
"No. I know you—hey!"
The instant the word 'no' left her mouth, Ruby leapt forward and threw her arms around her partner's shoulders. Blake started counting.
On four, Weiss began struggling. "Will you get off?"
Ruby leapt back, bouncing on her heels and beaming. As she should—it was a new record.
Weiss, on the other hand, was looking guiltily at the ground. After a moment she murmured, "My scar. It... wasn't exactly a training accident."
Blake looked up sharply, feeling the pit in her stomach returning full force.
"I got it during a test, to see if I could go to Beacon instead of Atlas." Seeing the looks of horror on their faces, she held up a hand.
"But," she continued, "It was my decision to keep going when my aura ran low. No one else's." Her eyes took on a steely quality, one Blake usually only saw in the middle of life-or-death fights.
They stood in silence for a moment, silently absorbing Weiss' declaration. Ruby started to fidget.
"So, um..." she hedged, reaching behind her back to put a hand on her scythe. "Do you want to head back?"
Weiss frowned, then nodded. "I... apologize for my behavior, earlier," she said, a bit reluctantly.
Yang responded with an ever-elegant, "Huh?"
"With Russel." Her lip curled, mirroring the kind of expression she might wear if she were looking at a dead rat. "We shouldn't be fighting each other right now."
"No!" Ruby blurted, then paused. "I mean, that wasn't your fault. He was being a big..." she stopped, apparently searching for a suitably scathing word. "...Poophead."
Weiss let out a startled laugh before she managed to muffle it with her hand. "Right," she said, clearing her throat in an attempt to regain some level of dignity. "We should go."
And they went, with Weiss holding up her rapier to light their way. The tunnel was, if anything, even eerier in the dim red glow of the Dust, but before long they could spot their classmates' flashlights.
Blake strode up to them, her anger suddenly returning to her all at once. She still wanted to flay Cardin to within an inch of his life for that joke, even if it wasn't true. But, when she approached, she realized that team JNPR had probably already covered that.
Cardin was sulking on the floor, and she noticed that the rest of his team had moved to the opposite side of the tunnel as if to distance themselves as much as possible. Everyone looked up when Weiss walked in. They seemed distinctly uncomfortable.
Surprisingly enough, it was Russel who spoke first. He stood from where he'd been sitting and stared Weiss right in the eye.
"I'm sorry for what I said," he told her. "I didn't know."
"You still don't," she snapped. "It was a training accident."
He blinked, startled, though Blake couldn't really tell if he believed her or not.
"You don't know me," Weiss continued. "And frankly, I don't want to know you. So stop making assumptions, or at least have the decency to keep them to yourself." With that, she strode off, back the way they'd come.
When no one moved to follow her, she tossed a glare over her shoulder and prompted, "Well?"
Ruby was the first to unfreeze, jogging along after her partner and fumbling around with her flashlight. Well, Weiss' flashlight—her own was still in her pack somewhere, or maybe back at their room. Blake and Yang fell into step behind them, and soon the rest of their class followed. Cardin walked a long way behind the group, arms folded across his chest.
Of course, they didn't get that far—just to the fork in the tunnel where Weiss had stopped. Jaune craned his neck to peer down each passage and said, "I guess we wait."
"Awesome," Sky snarked under his breath. Blake turned to glare at him, and he shrank back. She sighed. Maybe it wasn't totally fair to blame him for what his teammates had just done, but she hadn't forgotten how he'd helped torment Velvet, either.
As it turned out, they didn't have to wait that long. Another of the ant-like Grimm came shuffling out of the left-hand tunnel. It blinked blearily at them, as if it wasn't quite sure what they were doing there, before Ruby planted her scythe in its skull. Its carapace began to flake off, little motes of black mist forming and floating off in the direction it had come from.
"Well," Ruby said, planting a hand on her hip. "I guess we go that way."
"Those things need a name," Jaune decided, as they plodded along yet another stone tunnel.
"Like what?" Pyrrha asked.
"Like... I don't know, Ant-Monsters?" He wilted slightly as everyone turned to stare at him. "But, you know, better than that."
Yang grinned. "How about Antagonists?" The others groaned. Blake, who had seen the play on words coming a mile away, just shook her head and sighed.
"Maybe Workers?" Ruby suggested. "You know, like worker ants."
"That works, I guess," Jaune agreed with a shrug. Yang twitched at his choice of words, and Blake shot her a quelling look.
They went on in silence for a while after that. The tunnel widened gradually around them, until all twelve could walk abreast. The extra space made her nervous—it meant that there were four directions for the Grimm to attack from, rather than two.
The feeling was only magnified when they stepped out into another massive cavern. This one was totally empty of Dust, though there were a few stone stalagmites jutting from the floor. Their group formed a rough circle, with Ruby and Ren in the middle holding flashlights. Soon enough, Yang fumbled in her own pack and brought out another. Blake took to watching their rear, where there was less light.
Not even a quarter of the way through the cavern, she started to hear a low metallic clanging coming from Sky, who was shaking in his armor. Blake might have found it pathetic, if she wasn't biting her own lip to try to keep her composure. Even Ren, normally so stoic, was flicking his light back and forth, sweeping the cavern with obvious nervousness.
The intense unease only mounted as they walked. With every step, it felt as though they were being watched with hostile eyes. It took far too long for Blake to remember it—a mission from a long time ago, before she'd gone to Beacon. She and Adam had been in the trees, waiting for a truck full of Dust to pass below them. When she'd asked why they had to jump down, rather than just waiting on the ground, he'd smiled his old smile—the playful one he'd lost in the years since.
"Humans never look up," he'd said.
Slowly, dread pooling in her gut, Blake craned her neck upward—and screamed.
Not fifteen feet above her hovered a white mask that was covered with eyes. They were arrayed haphazardly with no patterns to be seen, all blood red and bulging with hatred. Above it, a fat and distended body hung by eight impossibly long legs, flailing wildly as it descended toward her.
It took the others a moment to realize what she was looking at, and when they did they all scrambled to dodge the monsters. Monsters—because there were more of them, dozens of them, and Blake had to throw herself sideways to avoid the one that had nearly landed on her head without her noticing. She tucked into a roll and came up on her feet, flinging Gambol Shroud at the creature. It hissed, a low and dissonant noise that sent chills running down her spine.
Gritting her teeth, she slipped off her heavy pack and let it drop to the ground. Now unencumbered, she leapt upward, leaving behind a clone that was skewered by the Spider's fangs. As it paused, apparently confused, she landed on its back and shoved her sword through its abdomen. It shrieked, spasmed once, and died.
Not even a second later, she heard someone yelp—probably Jaune, if she were to guess. Blake spared a glance at her friends, and gasped as she realized that there were only three flashlights, and none of them had decent night-vision.
Weiss was faring reasonably well on her own—her rapier glowed enough for her to track her opponents, though two of them were trying to flank her. Nora, too, was fine—Ren had positioned himself behind her and was doing his best to keep his flashlight pointed toward the Spiders. Ruby and Yang were giving similar assistance to Pyrrha and Jaune. It was spotty, because these Grimm, much like the Centipede they'd fought before, seemed to target light sources. Not as single-mindedly, but enough that they kept having to dodge attacks and plunge the others into darkness.
Team CRDL, meanwhile, was suffering badly. They were trying to clump toward the others and avoid being caught in the dark, but weren't having much luck. Sky was shaking so badly he looked like he was about to drop his halberd, and Russel was holding both his daggers in his mouth as he fumbled blindly in his bag for a light.
Blake grimaced, but reluctantly made her way to the struggling group and engaged a particularly large Grimm that had been bearing down on Dove without him noticing. The boy startled at the sound of Gambol Shroud clashing against the monster's pincers, then raised his own blade.
"Hurry up, Russ!" roared Cardin. One of the Spiders knocked him over and pinned him with one leg, and his partner abruptly abandoned the bag he'd been searching in to slash at it with his daggers. They weren't glowing, not like Weiss' sword—did he not have any Dust in them?
Blake growled in frustration as she watched something dark and round slip free of his bag, bounce once, and disappear down a low slope into the depths of the cavern. Idiot.
She focused on the monster in front of her, weaving around in front of its face and managing to cut it across three of its eyes. They closed over, but at least a dozen more continued to glare at her.
"This isn't working!" Yang called out. Blake glanced over, just in time to see her drop her flashlight. She jogged to where Nora and Ren were fending off three of the beasts and once and shouted, "Nora! Hit me!"
"What?!" Sky yelped, ducking a lunge from one of the Grimm. It was all anyone had the chance to say before Nora obeyed.
Her hammer smashed into Yang's crossed forearms, knocking her back a good ten feet before she slammed into one of the stalactites. Blake flinched, heart wrenching—and then, light exploded into being.
Shrieks echoed all around them, inhuman and buzzing with eerie undertones that made her flesh crawl. Blake couldn't help but sympathize with the Grimm—the sudden flash left her squinting and cursing under her breath. The others, though, were finally able to see what they were doing. Flashlights were one thing, a human sized bonfire was quite another—it was as though the sun had descended into their cave, and the battle began to turn in their favor. Perhaps more importantly, Ruby and Ren had dropped their flashlights and were able to step into the fight themselves. Meanwhile, Yang threw herself at the Spiders with wild abandon, whooping and hollering as she smashed one of their skulls into an oily black pulp.
Blake herself wasn't really affected by the new light, but she did find that she had more breathing room and fewer opponents. There were only a handful of the monsters near her, and team CRDL had recovered enough that they were holding their own. In fact, she could swear there were less than a dozen of the creatures engaging them. Had her sudden fear made her inflate their numbers in her head?
A yelp from behind her drew her attention back to the other end of the impromptu circle they'd made, where Jaune was struggling against a Spider nearly twice his size. His sword was jammed into its fangs, and it was gnashing them in a frenzied rage. Foam gathered in its mouth as it struggled, until Pyrrha planted her spear through its side and shoved it off of him.
But that wasn't really what worried Blake—what worried her was the sudden realization that no, she hadn't miscounted when she first saw the horde of Grimm—they were just all on that side. Her gaze flickered over her classmates, until she focused on Yang.
Her partner was, rather predictably, in the thick of the action. The only difference was that now, she was literally in the middle of a maelstrom of pincers and legs and hairy black bodies, with some Grimm even crawling over one another to get to her. Team JNPR, who had been closest when she first burst into flame, were trying to do damage control as best they could, but they were having trouble managing the sheer weight of the monsters. Ruby and Weiss had noticed too, but there were too many Spiders near them for them to disengage.
Cursing herself for not realizing sooner, Blake rushed to her partner's side. She swore again when she realized that the Grimm were blocking the light with their bodies, making it that much more difficult for the others to defend themselves. It was a miracle they hadn't been overwhelmed yet—and a large part of that was probably that the Grimm closest to Yang had been blinded. They thrashed about indiscriminately, sometimes hurting each other with their attacks.
Gambol Shroud flew into the press of bodies, and Blake sent it spinning directly into one of the Spider's eyes. A shot of the pistol drove the blade into its brain, killing it on the spot. Another three surged forward to take its place. Grimacing, she inserted herself into the front line, pulling Yang back so that only her front was exposed to the melee—and so that the flames in her hair could properly light the battlefield.
The next few seconds were mostly a blur. Nearly a dozen Grimm died that Blake could see, most to Nora's hammer or Yang's gauntlets, but they just kept coming. How many had there been on the ceiling, watching them with multitudes of gleaming red eyes, descending in silence as they plodded guilelessly through this deathtrap?
Then, someone screamed. Blake risked a glance over her shoulder, alarmed, and caught a glimpse of Russel falling bonelessly to the floor. Cardin rushed over to him, brandishing his mace. The Spider that had attacked his partner reeled back to finish him off, and he lunged forward and smashed its head in.
Blake grimaced, but turned back to the press of monsters in front of her. She wanted to help—because she would rather have CRDL at her back than the Grimm, if only barely—but she couldn't afford to move away from where she was.
One of the Spiders snapped its jaws just inches from her face, close enough that she could see inky venom dripping from its fangs. Yang pushed its head aside just in time, then blasted it into oblivion with her gauntlet. Blake offered her a nod of thanks, before returning her attention to the swarm of monsters in front of her. Seconds later, she heard Cardin yell, "Shit!"
"What?" Ruby called out, flourishing her scythe and decapitating two of the Grimm in one blow.
"They're poisonous!" As he spoke, Blake heard a nasty metallic screech—presumably one of the Grimm landing a hit on his armor.
"Obviously," Weiss snapped back, stepping forward and raising a wall of ice that cut a jagged path through the swarm. The Spiders paid it very little mind, simply choosing to crawl over it and continue trying to bite her head off.
"No!" Cardin shouted. "I mean, it's paralysis! Russ can't move!"
Blake clenched her teeth, lashing out in an arc to get the Spiders to back up a few paces. They did not oblige, choosing instead to surge toward her. Gambol Shroud's ribbon caught in the press, tangling on one of the monsters' legs. She was yanked off balance, but Ren caught her arm and helped her keep her feet. A moment later, there was a loud snap as Nora kindly and violently removed the snag.
Even when her weapon was once again spinning over her head, Blake felt her heart pounding in her throat. She was certain that it was only a matter of time before something disastrous happened—and the Grimm were only too eager to prove her right.
The monsters thronging around Yang were all fighting blind. They were not smart, and they were not accurate—but they were many, and only one of them had to get lucky.
Blake didn't even see it happen. One moment, she and her partner and team JNPR were all huddled in a ragged line, blasting away at the sea of Grimm. The next, Yang slumped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, and plunged the cave into near-total blackness.
It took a moment for her to understand what had happened. The Grimm pressed in around her, and Blake lunged toward her partner, her friend—but the wall of chitin made it impossible to reach her, segmented legs blocking her path like prison bars. One of the Spiders began spinning dark thread, knotting Yang's ankles together.
"Someone clear a path!" Blake shouted desperately, but she was the only one who could see, and soon even her eyes wouldn't be able to pick out Yang's blonde hair through the wall of arachnids.
"Flashlight!" someone screamed. "We need light!"
"That is enough!" Blake recognized Weiss' voice, before a blaze of light threw the cavern walls into stark relief. She yelped, shielding her eyes with one hand and stumbling backward as a cone of fire several yards across erupted into being and cut all the way to the back of the cavern. Standing at its end, Weiss swayed in place, using her rapier to support herself.
"Nora!" Blake cried out, as soon as she could push past the throbbing pain in her temple from the sudden influx of light. "I need to get through!"
"Got it!" Nora chirped, leaping forward and bowling over at least half a dozen of the Spiders. It wasn't exactly a clear path, but Blake didn't care—she rushed forward, dodging past fangs and slipping between long and slender legs until she spotted her partner.
Yang was still on the ground, covered up to her waist in silk as an absolutely gargantuan Grimm hunkered over her. It looked up with at least a hundred eyes, giving Blake a look she could only describe as greedy, and skittered forward.
"We need to go!" she heard Jaune yell over the noise of battle, and the monster's attention was diverted for a moment. Seizing her chance, Blake flashed forward with the help of a clone and slashed at its legs. Two of them on its right side were severed entirely, clattering to the floor in a pool of black ichor. It howled, but kept its balance—so she decided to try and cut off a few more.
"Get back," she snarled, baring her teeth in an expression that felt positively feral.
Her friends had started to advance, too—Pyrrha came up on Blake's left and launched her javelin through the Grimm's abdomen. It still didn't die—but it backed off, hissing and spitting.
"No you don't," Blake growled under her breath, tossing Gambol Shroud and yanking the beast's last two right legs out from under it. Crashing to the ground, it landed in a tangled heap in front of Yang. Her sheath flicked out, and its head rolled away.
"Grab Yang!" Pyrrha called to her, pulling her weapon free of the dead Grimm. "We need to retreat!"
Nodding, Blake scooped her partner off the floor. It wasn't easy. Yang was heavy, and even if the Spiders had lost their special interest in her, they could still spot a helpless target when it was hobbling around under their noses. If it weren't for Pyrrha, she would have been overwhelmed—but every time one of the beasts lunged at them, it only bounced off her shield, or met a grisly end at the point of her spear.
"Follow the fire!" Ruby called as she emerged from the fray. Then, she spotted Yang and paled. "Really, really fast please!" she added, sprinting over and doing her best to support some of her sister's weight. Together, the pair of them made it to the wall of flame.
Weiss was waiting there for them, half-hanging off Jaune's shoulder. For a moment, Blake thought she'd been bitten—but she was still making an attempt at walking, so it had to be exhaustion from using so much Dust at once. It was serious, though, if she was willing to lean on Jaune.
As for Russel, Cardin had hoisted him into a fireman's carry, since he'd gone entirely limp. Luckily he wasn't wearing any heavy armor, and enormous strength was his partner's only positive quality.
"Stay as close to the fire as you can!" Ruby ordered, doing her best to run toward the distant end of the cavern despite Yang's weight. The Spiders were reluctant to pass through the inferno, and were instead crawling around it to come at them from the other side.
Pyrrha led the charge, the firelight glinting off her armor and weapons and making her look like some kind of war goddess as she waded through her foes. Dove, Ren, and Nora protected their flank, slashing, shooting, and blasting their way through Grimm at an impressive rate. Sky, meanwhile, brought up the rear, stumbling along backwards behind them and brandishing his halberd wildly at anything that moved.
It took what felt like an eternity to reach the nearest exit. Blake focused on Yang's breathing—it was harsh and loud in her ear, uneven and unsteady and maybe the best thing she'd ever heard in her life. Then, finally, they were through. Pyrrha stopped, turned, and charged back through the door, her red sash swirling around her as she went.
One by one, her classmates piled into the tunnel. Cardin dumped Russel unceremoniously on the ground and stood like a solid wall of steel in the passage entrance. Jaune laid Weiss down as quickly and as gently as he could, stammering out a few apologies Blake really didn't think were warranted, then went to stand beside his partner. They held for a moment, before the sheer volume of Grimm forced them backward.
"We can't fight this many!" Jaune cried out, grunting as a Spider leaned its full weight against his shield and snapped at his head. "Nora! Bring it down!"
"No!" Sky yelled back. "We might get caught in the cave-in!"
Ruby turned to Weiss, who was still on the ground. "Can you—"
"On it."
Jaune, Pyrrha, and Cardin all dove out of the way, and Weiss managed to point her rapier in the general direction of the oncoming horde. Ice burst from the weapon, sealing the tunnel and plunging them into total and absolute blackness, so dark that even Blake couldn't see a thing.
Then, a few moments later, Dove clicked on a light, revealing Weiss lying flat on her back, her sword abandoned on the floor next to her. After a cursory glance to confirm that she was still conscious—barely—Blake knelt beside Yang. She muffled a gasp as she took in the livid purple bite on her friend's left bicep. It was deeper than she'd thought, and bleeding heavily.
The silk would be a problem, too. She unsheathed Gambol Shroud and started sawing away. The fibrous material parted reluctantly, coating her hands as she tore it away. Bile rose in the back of her throat at the sticky texture. Wordlessly, Ruby crouched down to help her, and between the two of them they ripped the rest of it away. The lack of physical restraints only highlighted the fact that Yang still wasn't moving.
"You're going to be okay," Ruby murmured. She looked around, biting her lip. "...As soon as we find some bandages."
Blake looked up, startled, and realized with growing dread that she had left her pack behind in the cavern. It had been second nature to slip free of it, and she hadn't spared it a thought since.
"Does anyone have their gear?" she called out, glancing over their ragged group.
"I do." Blake looked up and saw Dove holding out a roll of bandages and what looked like disinfectant. She eyed him warily for a moment, before grabbing them with a curt thanks and turning back to her team.
Ruby was doing her best to put pressure on the wound. Blake nudged her shoulder, holding up the first aid supplies in explanation. Her leader moved aside to give her room, and for a moment she could focus on cleaning and dressing the bite, letting her fears settle. Then, once her work was done, she spared a glance around the tunnel. Cardin and his team were dealing with Russel, who had a similar wound on his calf. Everyone else seemed tired and worn, but uninjured. Blake allowed herself a moment to feel relieved by that. It was better than dwelling on the fact that this tunnel wasn't familiar—which meant that they'd sealed off the way they'd come.
Sky, surprisingly enough, was the next to speak. "We left the flashlights," he mumbled, pushing a hand through his hair. It was a sobering thought. Blake did a mental headcount—Weiss, Yang, Ren, and Sky had all lost their lights. She herself hadn't bothered to pack one, and if no one else had their supplies...
She turned to stare at Dove, who was holding their only flashlight.
"Shit," Cardin said, neatly summing up the whole situation. For once, Blake was in total agreement.
So, we've finally gotten far enough into the story that I can reveal the theme I used for these Grimm: Things I've found in my shower. (Only partly joking...)
