Azerra shuffled slightly as she woke up, deliberately crunching her eyelids closer together, trying desperately to let sleep take her again. Sadly, it seemed to have forsaken her. Still not ready to open her eyes she relished the feel of the rounded bark beneath her, albeit alien. As much as she clung to the feeling as one of the few reminders of home, she could tell but how smooth the texture was beneath her it wasn't an Oak or Beech tree which were found so commonly at home, nor could she smell the sweet sap produced by the maple trees in Autumn.
But even if she could ignore all of that, it was so hot here, there was no soft rustling in the tree's signifying a cooling breeze, no gentle lapping of the surf against the sands. Just the unrelenting beating of the sun that was starting to creep up from beyond the horizon. Against her better judgement her eyes slowly began to open, observing the blazing sky.
She looked around. She was nearly alone on her sole tree bared amongst a sea of sand and tough grass. It was everywhere she looked: North, South, East, West it was nothing after nothing, dune after dune. There was nothing in the sky either, no clouds, no birds. Its only companion being the scorching sun.
She was told by the captain of the Ferry that brought them there, a young man by the name of Tiller that the Vacuons never really respected any foreigners unless they were able to survive the desert. She didn't think she would have a problem, considering where she grew up, she was a survivalist at heart.
That however did not prepare her for the desert, nothing could. She quickly learned that there was no food, no streams, no natural shelter. Vacuo was so completely and utterly uninhabitable to anything that set foot there. She very quickly had an immense amount of respect for all the inhabitants and couldn't help but wonder how much they wasted their wilds back home in Vale.
It also made her feel very trapped. In any other Kingdom, if something went wrong, if they turned up, then she could grab her team and run into the wilds and let them chase her. It would keep the kingdom safe. At least for a little while. But here they had nowhere to go. Not until she learned how to deal with the desert.
Which is why when the Ferry pulled up alongside the port town of Zarmen she sent the rest of her team to have a rest after the long voyage, and immediately went on a search to find someone to help her understand the desert better.
When they had eventually made it into Vacuo, she decided to put her newfound knowledge to the test and camped out on a lone Acacia tree in the low-lying Savannah which surrounded Vacuo. She was happy that she managed to get through the night comfortably, although every single part of her felt like it was wrong being there.
Movement to her left caught her attention. Blocked by the sun, the silhouette of a person was moving towards her, contrasted against the dark towers of the city beyond. Above it was the hulking form of the amity coliseum, shimmering in the heat haze of the desert beyond. As the person got closer Azerra recognised the posture of her partner.
Ryan Acreshall was a very stoic individual, incredibly determined, yet so subtle in his personality you wouldn't know he was playing the game until he had already won. When they had first been teamed up, her often over optimistic personality had clashed with his more rational and careful thinking approach. Although it was rocky at first, they had learned to cooperate with each other and had become quite an effective team.
"Only you would consider trying to spend the night in the open desert for fun." Ryan sighed as he approached the bottom of her tree. Azerra twisted herself over the branch to look down at him. He had dumped his usual jumper for a loose-fitting t-shirt to help with the heat from the desert sun.
"What? Its useful knowledge to have if we're going to spend a while here." Azerra retorted a shifted into a crouching position on her branch as she wrapped up the sheet of cloth, she had used to help keep her heat in during the bitterly cold nights. Once she was done, she tied it to the backpack she had used as a pillow and rotated to face Ryan.
He had stepped sideways to get out of her path as she leapt from the tree, stumbling slightly as her feet sunk into the sand as she landed.
"Smooth." He said as she regained her balance. She shot him a glare in reply.
"So how was your night?" She asked.
"It was all right," he said "At least I wasn't freezing to death. Harry kept complaining about being underground though."
Azerra laughed, their bird-Faunus companion did not like being underground one bit. Most visitor accommodation in Vacuo is underground as the temperature is more stable. Visitors from other Kingdoms aren't used to the temperature extremes of the desert and find it more comfortable in the hotels built into a cavern system that ran under the city.
They walked up a nearby sand dune, clambering near the top to keep their grip on the loose sand. They sat at the top and looked out over the desert beyond.
"I had another one of those dreams tonight." Azerra said.
"I'm going to assume that because you still seem happy, it was about Alden and not Jarchell."
"Jeez Ryan, you should become a psychiatrist." Azerra deadpanned, causing a slight smile to form on Ryan's face.
"What was it about?"
"When the others first came for him."
"And he survives?"
"Yep, just about thankfully."
"Just about?"
"No aura, bashed through a tree, airlifted out by a medical aircraft… you know, the usual." Azerra said waving her hand in a disregarding manner.
"Sounds familiar." Ryan said, turning to face her.
"Hey!"
"You were shot."
"And?"
"Through both lungs."
"Pfft… it was just a scratch."
"If you consider a "scratch" to be a gaping hole in both sides of your abdomen then yeah, pretty much."
Azerra quietly laughed and laid back against the sand. "it seems to run in the… what do you call it? Soul-line?"
"I'd say that's a pretty good name for it."
After a pause Azerra shot back up to a sitting position. "There were only two." She said.
"What?"
"He was only attacked by two of them…"
"Are you saying that…?"
"Either they've already lost one, or one of them have already broken away before they go for him."
"Well, that's great isn't it?" Ryan said looking hopeful
"Hopefully. Or… they're changing up their plans."
"Possibly, but that's a depressing thought, so let's not focus on that until we know more."
"Yeah, you're right." Azerra said.
"Hey, so you have dreams of both Jarchell and Alden. Before and after. So, does that mean that Alden could have dreams of you and whoever comes after him?"
Azerra thought for a moment, "well, we know Jarchell also did it so… yes? I don't think there's anything stopping him from doing that."
"So that should mean we might be able to talk to him, right?"
"What are you basing that on? Jarchell never talks."
"That's because Jarchell was corrupted from the get-go. From what your telling me Alden is actively resisting too."
"For now, yes." Azerra said, turning to face him.
"So, Alden will definitely want to talk to you, he'll be confused about it all, possibly alone, which is not good at all."
"Maybe not." Azerra said.
"What?"
"I may be wrong but seems to have quite a few friends with him. It was only the beginning so for as far as I know, they know much less than us."
"But there's only one way to find out."
"How?"
Ryan shook his head and smiled at her, "We ask them, silly."
Alden shook his head, his eyes refocusing as a few pieces of paper was placed on the desk before him. He had been replaying last night's dream in his head over and over. He stifled a Yawn; he didn't get a very good night's sleep. He smiled in thanks to the professor as she moved on placing another small stack in front of Maya.
When Professor Peach had finished delivering the tests to the students she returned to the front of the class and sat on the desk, crossing one leg over the other and addressed the class:
"Well sadly everyone, it is unquestionably one of the worst times of the year. Seriously how some teachers expect their classes to sit in silence for hours on end on a regular basis is utterly beyond me, but this time I don't have a choice." She held up and fluttered about a piece of paper in the air.
"These are the instructions, I'm supposed to read them to you, but you've heard them thousand times before, so I'll spare your time." She then threw the piece of paper behind her shoulder much to the delight of her students.
"All right… When you're ready, you can start."
The room was filled with the noise of paper being flipped and the steady silence of everyone scanning the first question:
What is the process called when two forms of dust are fused together?
From the corner of his eye he could see Nite silently groan and knock her head against the table, Aegan quietly stared at the question blinking a few times as he tried to remember. To his right he could see Maya furiously scribbling, probably on question five or six by now knowing her. He knew Yang, Ruby and the rest of their friends were somewhere behind him, but he couldn't look behind him to see what they were doing without getting into trouble. He looked back to his paper and uncapped his pen.
He turned his attention back to the arena. After spending two hours in Peach's classroom for the exam it was a popular opinion of the class to head to the ring to let off some steam.
A red blur shot past his face and shot into the air, it bursted and Ruby appeared aiming down the sights of her weapon. Two shots rang out, but Maya had sidestepped the first and deflected the second.
Ruby landed and the pair rushed towards each other. Sparks flew as their blades screeched against one another. They locked in the middle and Ruby tried firing again to dislodge Maya's blade, but she remained stubbornly locked. Mya jumped and twisted, forcing Ruby's scythe back. She flipped and landed behind Ruby and twisted her foot around Ruby's ankle and yanked forwards, unbalancing her before ramming the handle of her glaive backwards, causing her to fall to the ground.
Yang winced next to him, keenly observing the spectacle.
Ruby instantly had flipped back to her feet and took a wide low swing at Maya who hurdled the blade and swung down herself. Ruby managed to block the swing and swiped her blade all the way round, catching Maya in the side and sending her flying towards the edge of the ring.
"Yeah! Good one Ruby!" Yang called out.
Maya rammed her blade into the floor and came skidding to a halt just before the edge of the ring. Causing some cheering from the spectators, as they took sides and bets. Ruby had an evil glint in her eye and rushed forward using her semblance, trying to knock Maya out of the ring.
In the snap second it took Ruby to cross the ring Maya had seen her coming and vanished. Ruby slowed down ever so slightly as she didn't know where Maya was. Just as she was about to turn and head back towards the centre, Maya shimmered back into view behind Ruby and swung her glaive out wide like an oversized golf club and slammed it into Ruby's back causing her to stumble out of the ring.
"Knockout!" Nite called.
Ruby looked around surprised and looked down to see her feet had indeed left the ring's boundaries. She looked up to see Maya smiling apologetically at her. She huffed in annoyance at herself. And the pair left the ring.
"Ha ha." Alden said smugly to Yang who childishly stuck her tongue out at him.
"Who's up next?" Someone called from the gathered crowd.
"I'll go!" Nora shouted and vaulted over the barricade. Standing in the middle of the ring, gleefully holding her hammer. She examined the crowd before picking Neera, the leader of team NOVA. She too, jumped over the barricade and approached Nora, her trident held high.
Yang looked down at her scroll, checking the time. She looked back up at Alden.
"I've gotta run, need to help Weiss prepare the ballroom for the dance tomorrow. Sure you don't want to come?"
Alden shook his head, "Need to go to town today, none of us thought to take anything "formal" with us to Beacon."
Yang looked at him sceptically, "Knowing you, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have anything at all which would be appropriate for a dance."
Alden sighed, "I know… I might have one thing, but I need to go and check. If not… shopping." He said as his head dropped in despair.
Yang huffed and playfully shoved his shoulder "Hey, at least all of your team is coming along."
"Who's not going?" He asked.
"Blake…" Yang sighed, "I'm going to talk to her later, see if I can convince her to come."
"But knowing Blake… she can be more stubborn than you."
"I would be offended… if it wasn't true." Yang said.
Everyone had noticed the third member of team RWBY had seemed down in the dumps lately, her test scores had plummeted, and dark rings surrounded her eyes. Alden, Yang, Maya, Ruby Nite, Aegan hell, even Jaune had been observant enough to notice her state and had tried to get her to open up, to the point that now she was avoiding pretty much everyone.
"But how are you going to convince her if you can't event talk to her in the first place?"
"I just need to corner her, it'll be easy." Alden raised an eyebrow.
"Yang she's a Cat Faunus, I don't think she even understands what being cornered is."
"Which is what this is for!" Yang said proudly holding a silver tube. As Alden looked quizzically at it, she pointed it at him and pressed a button, making a bright red dot appear on his chest.
Alden looked down at it and his eyes widened. "Is that a…!?" He didn't finish his sentence, Yang just smiled and nodded.
"That cannot end well…" Alden said, still eyeing the device.
"Why not?" Yang laughed.
"This is Blake we're talking about; she isn't the… happiest when people play jokes on her." Alden said.
"It'll be fine. Everyone loves me." Yang said pocketing her new toy.
"To the exception of team Cardinal and Professor Port, you are so lucky that's true." Alden pointed out.
Yang smiled and shrugged "meh."
Yang's ringtone played from her pocket to which she fished out her scroll which was dominated by a picture of Weiss.
"Talking about people with no sense of humour." Yang said as she pressed the answer button. "Hello?"
"Yang!" Came Weiss' muffled voice from Yang's scroll. "You said You'll be here five minutes ago!"
"Sorry." Yang said sheepishly, "I got caught up talking to Alden."
"Well, talk to him after. We don't have time to waste!"
"Sheesh, keep your skirt on." Yang mumbled.
"What? I haven't taken my skirt off all day!" Weiss replied irritably.
Yang and Alden on the other hand were trying to stifle their laughs.
"Aww." Yang cooed to Alden "she's so innocent!"
"What was that?" Weiss snapped.
"Nothing!" Yang quickly replied as she winked at Alden. "I'm on my way, I'll be there in a sec." She hung up and repocketed her scroll.
"Well make sure you get something nice for tomorrow, Oh! And perhaps ask Maya for advice? She's got a better style choice than you!"
Alden looked mockingly offended. "Ow!"
"She's right though." Alden suddenly heard Maya say as she came to stand beside him and waved to Yang as she jogged off.
"And you're rude." Alden countered, "Good fight against Ruby by the way."
"Thanks," she smiled, "She moves so fast!"
"And you learned this… when?" Alden said. Maya exasperatedly rolled her eyes and nudged his shoulder out the way as she walked past.
"Come on everyone," She called "we need to hit the town."
Alden squinted as he descended from the ramp of the airship. The sun was high in the sky and there was little shade to take shelter in from its glare.
"So… on our list today is…." Maya said as she examined her scroll. "I need to head to mine to pick something up and ask my dad something, Alden needs to get to Patch. Aegan, you said that you have something at home?" Aegan almost nervously nodded, leading to some concerned glances from the rest of the team but Maya continued, "And finally we need to take Nite shopping because she doesn't have anything suitable."
"Sounds about right." Nite said. "So, what are we doing first?"
"How about we split up?" Maya asked, "Alden and I will go to mine, you go with Aegan to his. When we're done, we can all go to patch and then sort you out on the way back?"
"That's not a bad idea." Alden said.
"All right we'll see you at the port later then." Nite said. She and Aegan turned the corner and headed Eastwards towards Aegan's house.
Alden and Maya carried on and soon entered a small market square, dominated by colourful banners and large cloth gazebos filled with tables and sales calls drifted on the breeze. Something obviously caught Maya's eyes as she looked to him and said, "I'll be back in a sec." and jogged off to the other side of the square.
Alden looked through the mass of tents and examined the goods on show. As he walked about, he noticed a small ice cream stand. Suddenly noticing the beating sun, it seemed an ever increasingly enticing idea. He walked up to the stand and smiled at the attendant.
"Hello! What can I get for you?" The woman asked. Gesturing to the large refrigerated apparatus before her filled with every flavour of ice cream under the baking sun. Alden examined them and thought back to the other situations when the team had stopped for an ice cream break, trying to figure out what Maya's favourite was.
"I'll have…" he said, straining to remember. "A rum and raisin one please and a chocolate one if that's okay?" He asked.
The woman nodded and joined the cabinet holding a large scoop. Mid way though sorting It out she looked over her shoulder towards a van parked behind it. "Tad! Can you bring out another box of the chocolate please?" She called.
"On it!" a voice could be heard from inside before a slim looking man hopped out of the van carrying a box. As he approached the woman removed another from the counter and gave it to the man and took the one, he was carrying. Before she turned Alden noticed he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as they exchanged boxes. She slotted the box back in and swiftly finished his order.
Alden fished his wallet from his pocket and counted out his money and placed it on the counter. The woman smiled at him and handed over his order. "Have a nice day!" She said. Alden smiled
"You too!" and turned when he saw Maya approaching from the corner of his eye. He held out her ice cream.
"I got this for you." They both said simultaneously. Confused they looked down at each other's hands. In one hand Maya was holding her own rum and raisin ice cream, and in the other she was offering him a chocolate one, mirrored by Alden.
"Aww! Aren't they cute?" The woman said to her husband, causing blushes to erupt on their faces.
"What? We're not… ugh…" Maya huffed. Alden laughed at her discomfort even though his own face felt hot. She looked cute when she was blushing…
Where did that thought come from? He rapidly chased it out of his head before it could delay his brain any further.
"Meh, I'm good having two. The more the merrier right?" He said as held both cones in one hand and took the one from Maya before offering hers back. She quickly snatched it off him and began to walk away from the couple who was still laughing at them.
"Thanks!" Alden called before marching off to catch up with Maya. They quickly excited the square and back onto the gridded streets. They weaved through the crowds bustling about the shops and hanging up even more Vytal festival decorations.
They soon came across Ferendale park and the pair found a bench overlooking the sea and sat. eagerly tucking into their ice creams as they were rapidly melting. They sat in silence and left each other to their thoughts. As Alden looked over the sea, he was reminded of Azerra standing in the turf.
"You need to learn to trust your team with this." He could hear Yang say. Alden sighed, she was right, He needed to talk about it to them, before something forced the conversation onto the topic.
"I had another dream last night." He said, looking out over the great blue nothing. Maya turned to him and nodded, silently encouraging him to continue. "It was with Azerra again, she was with her team in Vacuo."
"I thought you said she was a Valeian?" Maya asked, wiping a bit of melted ice cream off her cone with a finger.
"It's during the Vytal festival." Alden said.
"ahh." Maya replied.
"She was talking to a friend; I think he was a member of her team. They were discussing these dreams we have."
Maya swivelled to face him, "She got theses dreams too?" Alden nodded.
"From what I can tell she had a dream of us at forever fall."
"Forever fall?" Alden nodded again.
"Which has led to a very important point, we may be able to communicate with them, through these dreams."
"But isn't that relying on them being able to see precisely the moment you want to talk to them at?"
"Not necessarily. I think it's possible to call attention to important events. I mean what was the chance that I would drop in at the exact moment they talk about communicating with us? What's the chance that she could drop in precisely at that moment in forever fall?"
"So how do we know if you can do this?"
"We test it." Alden said, crossing his legs and swivelled to face her. "Go on, say something to Azerra and her team and I'll tell you if she replies."
"Why are you asking me to say something to them, why aren't you?"
"Because I'm being nice. If this works you may be the first person ever to have a friendly conversation with someone from the past!" He smiled cheekily at her, "You'll be quite literally breaking history!"
Maya rolled her eyes at the pun. "Well what am I supposed to tell her?"
"I don't know." Alden said "Ask her something that won't be easily answered by accident in a conversation. Something she'll physically have to talk to us for."
"Umm…" Maya looked around looking for inspiration. Her eyes fell to her hands, where a half-nibbled ice cream cone still remained. She looked back to him "What's her favourite ice cream flavour?"
Alden smiled. "That's a good one, hopefully, we'll get an answer, and if we do…"
"We can learn about what the hell this is" Maya said, "We can try and figure it out with someone who has already gone through it."
"Exactly." Alden said.
They got to their feet after finishing the last of their ice creams. "Which way?" Alden asked her, looking around.
"Over here." Maya said and headed off, crossing width ways across the park, passing underneath a tree on the edge before entering back onto the streets.
The streets were getting busier and busier as the weeks wore on with more and more visitors arriving from the different Kingdoms for the festival.
"So, have you been to any of this kind of dance before?" Maya asked.
"Nope, not one." Alden replied, scuffing his feet. "As much as I'm sure it'll be fun, I've been dreading it since I knew it was happening."
"Why's that?"
"Because it seems I've inherited my dad's complete inability to dance the "posh" dances." He seemed to shudder at the thought, "I've just been better at avoiding the dance in the first place."
Maya laughed, "You can't be that bad." She said.
"Oh, trust me, I can."
"And yet you're going anyway?" she asked.
"Yeah," Alden said rubbing the back of his neck "Since Yang's organising it, I don't exactly get a choice in the matter. Plus, you guys are going to so I'm hoping they won't be as catastrophically bad as they were in my previous experiences."
Maya laughed at his overdramatic hand gestures during his monologue. He really was a child at times.
"So, have you been to any?" Alden asked her.
"A few." She replied.
"And how did they go?"
"Umm…"
"That bad?"
"No, it's just my dad is councilwoman Veera's assistant. So occasionally we get invited to big high-class balls. Some of them are all right, it's just that most don't really appreciate Faunus."
"So, most of them haven't grown up yet?" Alden asked.
"Pretty much" Maya replied, she then used a mock posh Valeian accent: "I Admit, she's… cute. I mean remove the tail and she's stunningly Beautiful…" She sighed, "Never have I somehow been flattered and flat out insulted at the same time."
"Someone said that to you!?" Alden asked horrified.
"Well not to me… But to my dad when I was standing next to him."
"What happened after that? Please tell me you or your dad broke something on him."
"No, I mean, I wanted to, but my dad told me not to."
"So, nothing happened to him?"
"Oh no, Dad then went and told Veera what he said."
"And?"
"Let's just say there's a new role in the Valeian government: Supreme lord of the stationary cupboard."
Alden burst out laughing and had to hold onto a lamppost to hold himself up.
"That's good, I like that. So, what's his actual job title?"
"That, it actually says that on his badge: Supreme lord of the stationary cupboard. He has to work there for a year before he's allowed out."
"I like this woman already." Alden said regaining his balance and standing upright again. Maya nodded.
"She's a great councilwoman, she takes care of the Alethas really well. She's always on the news supporting the Faunus and their protests."
Alden nodded "I've seen her before; she's done some really…"
Alden's voice drowned out of her attention when her eyes landed on a shop. It's windows still had bullet holes in them, and they had been darkened to stop anyone looking in, with police tape blocking the door: Tukson's book trade. She closed her eyes an took manual control of her breathing, trying to stop the panic welling up inside her chest as the memories flashed before her eyes.
She was snapped back to reality when she felt Alden very carefully, almost nervously threaded his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. He had a grimm smile on his face.
"Come on." He said quietly, "Let's get out of here." And slowly began to pull her away from the shop, her eyes lingering on as she allowed herself to move. They walked on in silence for a minute before moving over a bridge. Once they got midway across it, Maya stopped again and leaned against the railing, looking down at the water below.
Since seeing the shop her thoughts were all jumbled, and it was proving difficult to get her head straight. "I'm sorry." She apologised to Alden who had moved to stand beside her.
"Don't apologise." He said, turning to face her "You take as long as you need." Maya nodded but kept her head trained on the water, watching it flow between the supports of the bridge. It seemed to help calm her and she started to feel better after a few minutes.
"Okay," She said, flicking part of her fringe away from her eye, "Let's go." Alden was eyeing her sceptically but relented.
Once they reached the other side of the bridge, they crossed two more roads, and walked the length of a third before they reached Maya's house. This time since they weren't being ushered in Alden took a longer look at the place.
Although it was nice Alden didn't think the place could be any different from his, firstly there were two other house directly next to it, rather than at least a few hundred feet away, it was made of brick instead of wood, with a garden big enough to hold a single car. Beyond that was a small gravel circle with a grass island in the centre, with a small water feature in the middle. It was nice, but it made him all the more thankful he lived on Patch.
Maya walked past the car and Opened the door, walking in and holding it open for Alden. He shut it behind them and found himself back within the white hallway. He watched Maya slowly walk down it and entered the kitchen where her parents where. They looked up when she entered.
"Maya!" Beth said and rushed over to crush her in a hug. Followed soon by John.
"How are you holding out?" He asked.
"I- I'm alright." She said, looking down at the floor, "I passed his shop on the way here."
Beth nodded, a sad smile on her face. "I'm sure you'll find who did this."
"Which leads me to one reason why I came round. But first: There's this big dance going on tomorrow, and I don't have anything appropriate for it. Any Ideas?" She asked her mother.
Beth paused in fourth for a second before perking up. "Yep, I know which one." Beth quickly hurried down the hallway to the stairs and spotted Alden by the door.
"Alden! So good to see you!" She said, smiling in greeting. "Why are you hiding down here?"
"It seemed like a family moment," He replied, "I didn't want to intrude."
"Oh nonsense, you're always welcome here!" Alden smiled in thanks, "Go on," Beth said nodding behind her shoulder, "They're talking about huntress stuff."
"All right I'll do that." He said and made his way down the hallway.
"I didn't want to talk about this over the phone just in case," Maya said, pressing buttons on her scroll, bringing up the video Aegan had taken outside Tukson's shop. And placed it on the table. "Any idea who these people are?"
John saw the blank masks and all the colour drained from his face. "Maya, where did you see these people?"
"Outside Tukson's, I was told it made the news," She said looking at Alden, "But I never saw it myself."
"It did, but their faces were blurred out." Alden corrected; John nodded at him.
"That they were. I didn't call you at the time, figured you'd probably wanted time to yourself."
Maya sadly nodded. "Yeah, that was probably best."
"I have seen several mentions in various reports about these masked people, but the reports will suddenly get classified. Even Veera can't get at them, which means at least one of the other councilmen are hiding it.
"Great." Maya said, "So Furla was right."
"who?" John asked.
"Oh, a friend from Beacon." Well, that's mostly true. Alden thought. John looked puzzled with a hint of recognition on his face, but he seemed to pass it off.
John sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Look, all I can tell is that they're not like other organisations such as the White-Fang that just want attention. These people don't want to be known and they do it with brutal efficiency."
"They were quite easy to beat actually." Alden muttered.
"That's because they likely haven't gone up against huntsman and huntresses before." John said
"But if you knew about them, surly others have as well and why hasn't anyone asked any hunters to investigate?" Maya asked.
"Someone has…" John said with a dark look in his eyes.
"And?" Maya pressed.
"She disappeared off the face of the planet, no one knows where she went. Anyone else doesn't want to run the risk, me included I'm afraid."
"Right, so not only are they running around kidnapping people left, right and centre they have an official government seal to boot. Am I the only one whose highly, highly concerned about this?"
"I'm afraid I may already know the answer, but the fact you just asked me about them means you're not dropping them, are you?" John said.
"We can't, we think they have a massive link to the dust robberies that are going on, as well as they have a girl as a hostage."
"If they're semi-official why do they need a hostage?" John asked, scrunching his eyebrows.
"They're using her to control a dust scientist." Alden said.
"And they have something to do with the dust robberies, makes sense. You aren't going into this in the dark are you"
Maya shook her head, we're doing the shadow missions soon, so we'll be going with an actual huntsman or huntress."
John nodded slowly. "And when will you be leaving?"
"Probably the day after tomorrow."
"And there's no way I can talk you out of this?"
"They're holding a girl hostage dad, if they find out that we've freed her father…"
"Wait-
"It's a long story," Maya said, "If they find out we've freed him, we don't know what they'll do to her."
"But diving headfirst into their operations? It's too dangerous."
"If they had me, or Mike or Jack, and then the only huntsmen and huntresses that knew about it wouldn't go because it was "too dangerous" how would you feel?"
John sighed, "I…"
Maya turned to look at Alden "We have to try." She said. "She's counting on us."
John slowly nodded, "Ok… just be safe, and call us before you leave."
"I will." Maya said and hugged him. She looked up to see her mother resting against the doorframe, with a clothes bag rolled up in her hands.
Maya pulled away and also hugged her mother before accepting the rolled bag and placing it inside her rucksack.
"Come home safe." Beth said.
"Course I will. Can't make any promises for the rest of these idiots though." She said whilst smiling back at Alden.
"Wow…" Alden said, "That's because you use us to take the hits for you so you can take three years to sneak up behind them."
"I do not!"
"You do!"
"When?" She challenged crossing her arms.
"That fight against Weiss and Blake in Goodwitch's class two weeks ago is just one example."
"I was not using you!"
"Your words were, and I quote: Keep them distracted I'll get behind them."
"It was a valid tactic!"
"It took you three years before you got back in the fight!"
"That's because Blake would be able to hear me move."
"I was deliberately using all the fire dust I had to make as much noise to cover for you!"
Beth looked at John, "Geese they argue any more than this and they'll be married by the end of next week."
Maya suddenly stopped her rant. "What was that?"
"Nothing!" She singed.
"You're up to som-
She was interrupted when hers and Alden's scroll buzzed in their pockets, she reached in to have a look at it.
"Aegan and Nite are waiting for us at the park." She said, shouldering her bag. "We should probably get going." Maya hugged her parents once more before filing out into the corridor.
"Well, I'll call you on Saturday before we leave, and hope nothing goes wro-
Alden slapped his hand over her mouth.
"We do not say those words Maya, the universe is an imaginative place, we do not need to give it inspiration."
Maya sighed and pushed his hand away, "Fair point, nothing ever good has happened when someone has said that."
"No, it hasn't." Alden turned and smiled at John and Beth "It was good seeing you again, in more… peaceful circumstances."
"likewise." Beth said. "When you come back get your team round, celebratory dinners on us."
Alden smiled and nodded. "I'd like that."
Alden and May turned and waved as they headed back onto the street and turned right and headed back to the park.
So, the chapter was so nearly ready to go out, and then I thought I better double check what Vacuo was like because I was bad and didn't do my research first so sue me. Turns out Vacuo isn't a coastal city which meant the entire Azerra scene needed re writing which cause holes in the rest of the chapter, so I had a lot of patching to do Sorry!
On other news, Volume 2 is now as big as volume 1 in its entirety and we're still not done so I really hope you're enjoying this. Also, the 100 A4 page barrier for volume 2 has been broken with this chapter, so this is a record chapter.
Join us next time as we visit Aegan's home and learn about his family and return to Patch before the dance.
