"Yang, wake up. Something's wrong."
The blonde-haired girl opened her eyes to see the worried face of her partner. The cave was dimly lit now, enough to see by without too much trouble.
Yang sat up quickly. "Are you hurt?"
"No, nothing like that," Blake said, shaking her head. "We're not where we were last night."
"It looks like a cave to me," Yang replied, raising an eyebrow skeptically. "You saw it yesterday; is it not the same one?"
"No, look," Blake let out a frustrated grunt. "Just come outside, okay?"
The pair made their way to the exit, and Yang got her first glimpse of the outside. Her eyes widened in understanding.
"Oh. Yeah, we definitely didn't come through this to get to the cave."
There was no open space between the exit and the trees, and no sunlight made it through the thick canopy above them.
"When I got up, there was a thick fog that made it impossible to even see the tops of the trees. I came to wake you as soon as I realized that something weird was going on," said Blake.
Yang walked slowly out of the cave, taking in her surroundings. "We need to contact Ruby and Weiss."
Blake frowned. "I already tried. There's no connection - all our scrolls are good for, now, is aura measurement. Wherever they are, at least we know they're healthy," she continued, pointing to the full green bars below their teammates' faces on the screen.
"It's something, I guess," sighed Yang. "Anyway, we're not going to get anything done standing around. If we can't get help, we're just going to have to find our way back. If we just go straight for long enough, we'll eventually make it out of the forest."
"Should we get moving, then?"
"Let's."
The duo set out, straight from the exit of the cave, forging a path through the dense woods.
Hours Later
"I feel like we've walked through this part before," noted Yang.
"And I feel like I've seen that tree a hundred times," added Blake. "Everything in these woods looks the same, Yang. All we can really do is keep moving and hope that we come out in a place we recognize."
Suddenly, Yang tensed up.
"Something wrong?" asked Blake.
Yang carefully scanned her surroundings. "You ever have that feeling?"
"What feeling?"
Yang turned to face her partner. "That feeling that something's watching y-"
A shape blurred from behind a tree and smashed into Yang, knocking her over. The form disappeared as quickly as it had come. The blonde-haired fighter got up, wincing as she felt the deep gash on her cheek. Her aura healed it within a few seconds. Ember Celica expanded into full gauntlets on her hands, as she prepared for a second assault. Meanwhile, Blake stood in shock, unable to move.
"Blake! Get your ass in gear!" Yang shouted. The shape rushed her again, but she was able to avoid being bowled over. "Blake!"
Snapping out of her trance, the faunus girl turned to her partner. "Yang, I need you to put your weapons away."
"Are you crazy!?"
Blake walked slowly away from her. "Just do it," she whispered.
As the dark-haired girl moved forward, a shining pair of golden, feline eyes appeared in the darkness, some distance away. The eyes moved to meet her, and eventually she could make out a lithe form, black in color, its tail held low. Blake removed her bow; the ears of the beast were nearly identical to hers.
"I know you," the girl muttered to herself as she stopped, about ten feet from the creature, who had settled into a sitting position. "Why do I know you?"
Yang approached slowly, watching as her partner stared into the eyes of what had attacked them. She stood off to the side, unsure of what to do. She waited. Every minute that passed seemed like an hour. She was nervous, but that wasn't enough to outweigh her caution; she was far more worried about what would happen if she interrupted whatever was passing between her partner and the mysterious creature. An eternity later, the beast broke eye contact with Blake and turned to Yang. It watched her for a moment, almost thoughtfully, and then stalked away into the darkness.
Blake turned to her partner. "I know what we have to do."
"What do you mean, you know what we have to do?"
"It spoke to me, kind of. Not in words, but in pictures. It showed me the places we have to go, and what we have to get."
"You're being awfully informative."
Blake shook her head, exasperated. "Look, I can understand how you might be impatient, but this is a lot of information to process. I can't… I haven't found words, yet. I'll explain to you as we walk; believe me, we'll have plenty of time to kill."
"So we have a direction?" Yang perked up.
Blake smiled, and nodded. "Follow me."
A/N: I'm very interested to hear any speculation you guys might have about the nature of this place and the things in it. The next chapter is mostly done, and will have a lot of answers, but I want to hear some theories! Leave a review or drop me a PM.
