Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY or any of the franchises referenced in this work
Author's note: I'm planning a transformers chapter for sometime soon, maybe 2 or 3 chaps away. Since it's transformers, I have a problem, mainly with the names. There are two options right now, one I use the transformers names as it is with an intro for which RWBY character they are, eg Megatron (Salem) or two I do the reverse and it's Salem (Megatron). Right now I'm leaning towards option 1 but I have a poll up to collect feedback on which readers would prefer. You could vote there or put your preference in a review. Either way, I'll be putting the cast list at the start of the chapter.
Chapter 34: Trust Issues
Inspiration: Among Us
"Welcome back. Today's viewing is… something alright." Blank said once his audience filed in and took their seats.
"That does not fill me with confidence." Ironwood muttered.
"Please don't be another bad future, please don't be another bad future…" Ruby chanted over and over.
"You won't have to worry about that this time, this is a separate universe entirely." Blank answered, causing most of his audience to sigh in relief.
"So what kind of a universe is it?" Weiss asked.
"It's another universe set in the interstellar age. Although unlike the others, there's no major war ongoing." Blank said.
"So… what's the problem? No war is a good thing… right?" Yang hedged.
"There are always other threats besides war Ms Xiao Long." Ozpin answered.
"A virus maybe, equipment failure, any number of thin-"
"Aliens! It's got to be aliens!" Nora shouted, interrupting Ozpin.
"Nora, please sit down." Pyrrha urged her teammate to calm down before she could leap out of her seat and send popcorn flying everywhere again.
"Indeed, aliens, alien Grimm to be exact." Blank said.
"Alien Grimm… thank you for that image. Please tell me they look like cute fluffy bunnies that kill with by overloading your mind with cuteness." Qrow said drily and slammed his head against the headrest in front of him with a long-suffering sigh.
"It's… a disturbing prospect. The Grimm we face are already a big enough problem, the possibility of Grimm existing in space…" Winter trailed off.
"If it's set in space, then they must have weapons that can fight off the Grimm, right?" Goodwitch asked.
"Usable? Yes. Effective, efficient? Debatable. And of course, the biggest problem of getting a shot off in the first place." Blank said.
"Just shoot? It's not that hard." Mercury muttered.
"Idiot, obviously there's something different about these Grimm." Emerald shot back and slapped the back of his head, causing the two of them to start bickering again.
"I'll just start the viewing now." Blank said and flickered. The lights dimmed and the screen came on shortly after.
Jaune snapped awake with a jolt, his eyes widened in panic when he found himself unable to breathe. Coughing and hyperventilating, his lungs burned from being forced to suddenly start working again after such a long period of inactivity.
The cryo pod unsealed with a hiss and Jaune stumbled out of it, collapsing to his knees and grabbing at his throat, greedily sucking in as much life-giving air as possible. Shaking his head to clear his mind of the disorientation left over from the emergency awakening, nausea rose from the action and he vomited, a thin stream of yellowish bile and nutrient paste splattered onto the floor.
"Haaaah… and Vomit Boy strikes again." Yang sighed and shrugged.
"That's a side effect of the emergency thaw. It's meant to wake up the occupant fast, and that means a very rude awakening." Blank said.
"Surely there must be a safer, less painful way." Pyrrha muttered, more than a little creeped out about the idea of suddenly waking up unable to breathe right because her lungs refused to work.
"There are definitely more painless ways of awakening, but this method is the optimal mix of safety and expediency. Take too long to wake in an emergency and you won't wake at all."
"Ah. Makes sense." Yang shrugged again.
His vision wavered, the blurriness increasing as a sudden bout of weakness threatened to send him back to dreamland. Jaune shivered uncontrollably, cold sweat beading on his forehead despite the near freezing temperature of the cryo bay.
Everything felt so muted, like he was watching himself from a distance, nothing felt right and another full body shudder wracked his frame. As the last of his waking dreams faded, he was dimly aware of alarms blaring, red warning lights flooding the area with crimson.
"W-wha iz…" Jaune's tongue refused to form the words properly. The vestiges of his long cryo sleep refusing to lose their grip on him that easily.
"On your feet Arc, this is no time to be dawdling." A voice called out and Jaune was rudely hauled to his feet. He swayed about and the world spun from the sudden motion, but he managed to right himself, grabbing hold of his pod for added stability.
"That voice..." Ironwood muttered.
Looking up, he found an irritated Arthur Watts standing there, frost on his moustache indicating he had just been rudely awakened as well. Jaune coughed and rubbed his sore throat, wincing at how dry it felt. "What is going on?"
"Do I look like I have answers?" Watts growled in frustration. Shaking his head, he pointed to the door and spat to the side.
"Charming as always." Cinder sneered.
"He dies right? Tell me he dies."
"Door's jammed, remote override is fragged too. Help me pry it open."
Jaune nodded in lieu of stressing his throat any further, despite still feeling a little weak from the waking sickness, he had enough motor control now to not trip over his own feet. Following Watts to the door, he grabbed onto the emergency release lever and pulled as hard as he could.
Machinery groaned in protest but between the two of them, the jammed door started to give way, slowly opening up. But eventually they hit a point where it just wouldn't open any further, whatever mechanical issue the door was having refusing to give anymore.
"Good enough I think." Watts muttered and started squeezing himself through the gap they opened up. It was a tight fit but he managed to get through, and once he was over, it was Jaune's turn.
Sucking in his stomach, Jaune slowly squeezed himself through the narrow opening, fighting back the urge to vomit again from the exertion.
The corridor outside their cryo chamber wasn't in much better shape. Most of the lights were out and the only reason they weren't in perfect darkness was the red emergency lights illuminating the passageway, although from how weak they were and the intermittent flickering, it was anyone's guess how much longer they'd hold up.
"That's unacceptable, how badly maintained is the ship for the emergency lights to be failing like this? Those lights could be the difference between life and death for the crew." Winter scowled at the flickering lights.
"Tch, something must have happened to the reactors, and the emergency reserve power is failing too. Damnit, I told Captain Lionheart we needed to overhaul the goddamned systems ages ago, or at least get a proper backup." Watts cursed.
"Oh, that explains so much!" Qrow muttered.
"Of course he let things go to hell, he working with the Grimm here too?"
"No, but he didn't do much to stop them either." Blank said.
"Figures. Fingers crossed he bites it first." Qrow rolled his eyes.
"Qrow!" Goodwitch reprimanded.
"What? Excuse me if I don't feel very compassionate for a traitor." Qrow shrugged off her disapproving glare.
The ship rumbled as something struck it, the shaking nearly tossing both of them to the floor. Jaune leaned against the wall until the rumbling subsided, fighting down the urge to hurl again. "Did something just hit us?"
"God damnit, shields must be busted too. Come on, we need to fix this before we're space dust, then we go have a little chat with the captain about gross negligence." Watts growled and led the way through the darkened interiors of the ship.
"Watts making sense… this feels so… wrong." Ironwood grimaced.
"Self-preservation instincts are a wonderful thing general, you'd be surprised what they can do for a person." Roman muttered.
Jaune nodded quietly, quickly falling in step behind the ship's technical officer. Stumbling through the darkened corridors, they made their way to the shield generators and both heaved a sigh of relief when the generators appeared intact, no smoke or sparks to be seen anywhere.
"Blown fuse, some melted wires, fucking cheapskate skimmed on maintenance, again. Gimme that wrench boy!" Watts ordered and Jaune hurried to do his bidding, handing the officer whatever he needed to fix the shields.
"This is a common occurrence? How is the ship still flying?" Weiss asked.
"Duct tape and WD40." Blank said.
"…Again, how is the ship still flying?" Weiss said in a flat tone.
The ship rumbled several more times before the generator hummed to life and the yellow warning lights on it turned green. Watts wiped the sweat of his brow and gave the repaired generator one last check before nodding. "Alright, that should do it. It ain't perfect or pretty, but it should hold until we get to Atlas."
At the moment the lights came back on, returning the crimson world to normal. Jaune squinted and raised his hands to block the glare, his sensitive eyes burning after being too used to the dimness.
"Wonderful, someone fixed the lights, good to see not everyone is as useless as our dear captain." Watts sneered and headed for the door.
"Come, everyone who's awake should be assembling in the cafeteria now. Hopefully with the shields online again we can go back into cryo, the less I have to deal with those monkeys the better."
"Friendly sort, isn't he?" Taiyang folded his arms, unimpressed.
"Yes sir." Jaune sighed and followed his superior out. To say the Haven's crew were… at odds with one another was an understatement, but a job was a job. Just needed to soak up the experience and then maybe he could transfer out to another ship. With better pay preferably.
"Ah yes… I remember interning before becoming a teacher a signal." Qrow's eyes glazed over as he recalled the dark times.
"Low pay, constant danger, enough bullshit to fertilize half the farms on Remnant. Why did I take up the job again?"
"Because you needed the cash to feed your drinking habits." Taiyang answered.
"Oh yeah."
"Constant danger? Isn't teaching supposed to be less dangerous than being out in the field?" Weiss asked.
"Normally yes. But when bad luck follows you around haaaaa… I've lost count of the number of 'accidents' and 'misfires' or sudden random flying weapons I've had to dodge." Qrow sighed, uncapped his flask and took a long swig to bury those repressed memories again.
Jaune shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Positioned between their cook Neo and one of the security officers Torchwick, there were eight of them in the cafeteria already. The normally spacious dining area felt strangely cramped and claustrophobic with all of them huddled around a single table and the most of the lights not working.
"Security officer Torchwick… there's a joke in there somewhere, isn't there?" Roman frowned. Neo giggled silently next to him.
The air was charged with nervous energy, everyone largely keeping to themselves while they waited to see if anyone else was coming to join them. Jaune swallowed hard and shrank into his chair, trying not to draw unnecessary attention to himself.
"Is this everyone?" Roman picked his teeth with a toothpick once the doors opened to admit the last stragglers, a bleary Ruby and annoyed Emerald.
"Yeah..." Ruby yawned out, reaching up, she rubbed her eyes sleepily.
"Didn't see anyone else behind us when we came from the engines. What happened."
"We have um a situation, that is to say-" Lionheart began, his eyes flicking about nervously.
"What our captain is trying to say, is that we're up shit creek without a paddle." Mercury snorted.
"Basically, we're fucked."
"…An accurate but crass summation." Goodwitch huffed in annoyance.
"Calling it like I see em… aw hell, this means I'm dead too, doesn't it?" Mercury's cheer evaporated and his shoulders slumped.
"How eloquent Black, do you have nothing better to do than waste our oxygen with prattle. But thank you for pointing out the obvious, I'm sure we couldn't tell that something is wrong." Watts spat.
"Dick." Mercury said.
"You! Don't make me-" Mercury snarled back only for Cinder to interrupt the brewing argument by slamming her palms against the table.
"Enough! Both of you! We have bigger problems to worry about without you two trying to kill one another! But to answer the question, right now, we're drifting. Most of our systems are badly damaged and need to be repaired asap or we'll never make it to Atlas in one piece."
"Drifting? How? The ship was fine when we left port." Emerald protested.
"Yeah well, things change kiddo. Maybe things weren't as fine as you thought." Roman said, ignoring the glare Emerald shot his way for the slight.
"Mmm mmm." Roman hummed a happy tune while Emerald echoed her counterpart and glared at him.
"Everyone's gonna be pulling triple duty at least till we get to Atlas." He said to a chorus of groans and complaints.
"Triple duty? Is that really necessary?" Glynda adjusted her glasses and frowned at Roman.
"Unfortunately, it is. Haven is supposed to be crewed by forty, right now, the ten of us is all we've got." Roman shrugged, all eyes suddenly on him.
"Everyone else didn't make it."
"…They're off to a great start. Seventy-five percent fatalities and we've barely begun." Qrow muttered.
Silence dominated the cafeteria, until Ruby broke it with a horrified 'what?'.
"Power failure, radiation bleed, pod smashed by falling machinery. I'm sure it could have been avoided with proper maintenance but alas… at least they died quick… I think." Roman shrugged again.
Slowly everyone turned to stare at Lionheart, waiting for their esteemed captain to give an answer. He hmm and hawed nervously before shaking his head. "L-look, right now getting this ship in order so we can reach Atlas is our main priority, we can sort out everything later!"
"Weaselling out of responsibility? How so very like him." Ironwood sneered.
"Hmmph, he's always been more interested in his own safety than anything else. Ahh got a bullet with his name on it." Qrow's fists clenched tightly.
"So, our ship's fragged, we have to put it back together again and we need to do the work of four people each because we sure as hell are not getting to Atlas in one piece otherwise. Wonderful. Anyone else have any more good news they want to share?" Watts snapped in frustration.
"Actually yes, we do have one more problem." Cinder nodded and allowed her arms to fall to the side, close to but not quite on her sidearm. Her eyes swept the room, the suspicion in them evident.
"When we left port, we had forty on board Haven. Before you say it, there were no stowaways, the biosensors are among the only things on this damned ship still working fine." She said, several confused and impatient acknowledgements greeted her.
"Right now, there are ten of us here."
"Yes, we can count, what's your point Fall?" Watts growled.
"The point is, we found thirty-one corpses in their pods." Cinder dropped the bombshell.
"Ooooh… there's an extra crewmate." Nora leaned forwards excitedly.
"That means one of them must be a Grimm in disguise." Ren summed up.
"That's… which one is it? They all look human!" Pyrrha replied.
"You'll just have to keep watching." Blank said.
"…That can't be right. That makes forty-one of us." Jaune spoke up.
"Yes, forty-one. Unfortunately, while the pods are keyed to only be accessible to crewmembers, they don't have fixed assignments, and some of the bodies are badly damaged enough we can't tell who they used to be." Cinder said.
"So where does that leave us?" Glynda asked.
"Well, it's quite simple, some of you aren't who you appear to be. Crewmates! There is one impostor among us." Roman finished for Cinder.
"And the impostor is going to go around icing people." Roman stated.
"This Grimm… it's blending in perfectly. We don't… we don't have anything like that on Remnant right?" Winter asked.
"No fortunately you do not. The closest Grimm to these perfect infiltrator types would be the Chill, but those are easily noticed." Blank said and an audible sigh of relief went through the audience.
Accusations and furious denials started flying immediately and the cafeteria descended into chaos. Lionheart tried to speak, but he was quickly shouted down by the rest. Jaune, Ruby and Neo simply sat there in silence while tensions rose, Jaune and Ruby distinctly uncomfortable and Neo just appearing not to care.
Finally Glynda intervened and slammed her fists against the desk, the loud thump shutting everyone up for the moment. "Quiet! This isn't helping any of us! I'm sure there must be some logical explanation for this. One that doesn't involve one of us being… fake."
"True, impostor among them or not, panicking won't help anyone." Goodwitch concurred with her other self.
"It'll just make it easier to sow discord and pick off anyone who's isolated."
"Maybe there was a mistake with the passenger manifest? Maybe there were forty-one of us from the start?" Emerald voiced her theory.
"Not possible. We did a manual headcount before launch, and the biosensors swept everything else. We started with forty, and there are now forty-one bodies on board." Cinder shook her head.
"But whether or not our stowaway were there at the start is irrelevant. Right now, the Haven is in bad shape, we have to repair the ship if we want to make it to Atlas in one piece. And I do wonder, how much of our current problems are due to poor maintenance and how much is due to sabotage."
"Great, just great. Fuck do we do now?" Mercury tossed his arms up in frustration.
"Got anything to add Cap?"
Lionheart took a deep breath, using the moment to steel himself and run through the various possible actions they could take. Exhaling slowly, he knit his fingers together and aired his thoughts, whatever his crew's opinion of him, he was still captain, and they were his responsibility. "Alright, first order of business, everyone get into your suits and make sure they haven't been tampered with. If there is a saboteur aboard, they could go after life support, the suits will keep us alive long enough to hopefully fix the thing."
Several noncommittal grunts and nods made Lionheart relax a little even if he didn't let it show. No objections should mean he wasn't suggesting something that would tank their confidence in him any further. "We need to fix the Haven before things get any worse, but our first priority is to get the distress beacon operational, the odds of a passing ship… aren't good, but on the chance there is one, it could be the break we need."
"Or call down a swarm of pirates." Mercury snarked.
"Shut up Mercury, you have a better plan!?" Emerald hissed at him. Mercury just snorted and shrugged, falling silent.
"And, I suggest everyone arm themselves with at least a sidearm from the armoury." Lionheart finished.
"Woah, you suggesting we hand out guns to whoever the impostor is? The hell!? You just asking them to shoot us in the back!" Roman protested immediately.
"Or they shoot one another in a panic because they got the wrong guy pinned." Roman muttered.
"No. As much as it pains me to admit it, the captain is right." Watts grimaced, the distaste written all over his face.
"After all, what are the odds our little pest problem isn't already armed? Besides, the biometric security should still be online, even if our impostors can look like us, unless they have the same biometrics as us, they shouldn't be able to use the guns anyways."
"Gee, don't everybody hold back on the good news now. Anyone got anything else they want to add about how screwed we are right now?" Mercury clapped sarcastically.
"No one? God damn, then let's get this show on the road. The sooner we get to Atlas and I never have to see any of you again the better. And don't mind me, but I get the rifle."
"Yeesh, I'm flying my own death flags real high today." Mercury shook his head in disappointment.
"You do that every day." Emerald pointed out.
Mercury's response was a single raised finger.
"What the hell is this gunk?" Jaune grimaced, scrubbing away at the navigation console's internal wiring with a brush. While the others worked on other parts of the ship, Jaune's first task was to fix up navigations, find out where they drifted off too and replot a course to Atlas if necessary.
That hit a snag when the navigation systems were completely offline. A quick peek under the hood revealed the reason why, severed wires everywhere and viscous black goop coating everything. From the pit marks and discolouration left wherever the goop was, the damn thing was corrosive as all hell and a clear sign of sabotage.
"Ewww, that's disgusting!" Ruby recoiled.
"Can that even be fixed? If something like that got in my bike, it's pretty much totalled for good." Yang added.
After scooping out as much of the gunk as he could and watching it start eating into the steel floor, Jaune gulped and called it in. "Navigation is down completely, someone cut the wiring and dumped some kind of acid thing on the rest of the internals. I'm trying to fix it now, definite sabotage."
Gingerly stepping around the smoking puddle, Jaune got to work taking the rest of the console apart, salvaging whatever he could. "Okay… I can work with this. Looks worse than it is, I think."
Jaune flinched back as several wires sparked in warning. Taking a deep breath, Jaune started reconnecting the wires and replacing damaged parts with spares from a nearby storage locker. The Haven was an old ship, and that meant things broke often, paradoxically, it also meant that things were built to last.
If they were on a newer ship, this level of damage meant they were well and truly screwed. All the new tech that went into the latest models meant it'd be easier to just replace the entire system than try to fix it, and out in space, that was a death sentence. But the Haven belonged to an older way of thinking, things were less advanced, broke easily and could be fixed up just as easily with a little elbow grease. It wouldn't look pretty and the result would probably give a technophile a heart attack, but it would work.
"Come on… come on… come on… YES! IT WORKS!" Jaune cheered as the navigation panel flickered to life.
"Guess that answers that question." Blake said.
"What works?" Ruby's voice called out from behind Jaune.
"Hmm? Ruby? Didn't hear you come in. Navigation is online again, just need to go ahead and plot our course back to Atlas. At least we don't have to be worried about being lost in space anymore" Jaune replied.
"How are things on your end?"
Ruby sighed and her shoulders slumped. "Engineering is a mess and so is electrical. And I think we have a fuel leak. But navigation is working? I thought you said it was down completely."
"Yeah well, this bucket of bolts is hard to kill I'll give it that much. Pain to fix, but it's fixed." Jaune shrugged. As if to spite Jaune's proclamation, emergency alarms sounded immediately.
"Never challenge fate to screw with you, you never win." Qrow sighed.
"Unless you're born lucky." Summer said.
"Eh, you'll run out of good luck eventually, but bad luck though? No end to that." Qrow said.
"Fuck! Something screwed with the oxygen supplies! Damnit, someone go fix it. Hurry!" Mercury's panicky yell came through the comms. Jaune and Ruby exchanged a worried glance before dashing out of navigation, rushing to the O2 room to check on their life support systems.
"Ergh! What is this stuff!?" Ruby recoiled in disgust at the black goop covering the instruments.
"Damnit, not here too." Jaune cursed and stepped around the sludge, using a wrench, he swept as much off the sensitive machinery as he could.
"You handle the busted wires, I'll force an emergency system reboot, that should get the oxygen supply back online."
"Got it!" Ruby saluted and got to work reconnecting the wires post haste. Jaune on the other hand busied himself with the control panel, entering the emergency override codes to force the reset.
After several tense minutes of their limited oxygen supplies dwindling away and the two of them working furiously to resolve the issue, Glynda arrived as well to aid in the repair work. But even with the three of them on the job, it was still an uphill battle to fix everything and get the O2 working again.
Just when they were beginning to despair, the lights switched back to blue and a small ping on their terminals indicated the oxygen depletion was halted. All three of them breathed a sigh of relief, death by suffocation narrowly avoided.
"So the Grimm can sabotage their systems at will. Can it cause the ship to explode remotely or something?" Taiyang asked.
"No. Here the ships' age and sketchy maintenance record works against the Grimm. With all the bypasses and jury-rigged modifications used to keep the ship working, its systems are actually better insulated from cascading critical failures than other ships." Blank answered.
"And I suppose the trade off is that the crew needs to devote more effort to maintenance and external technicians would have difficulty conducting repairs." Ironwood said.
"Correct."
Their good mood vanished when a communique from Watts came through. "Emergency meeting in the cafeteria now. Our little impostor has struck."
"Yes, we know about the oxygen problem, it's already dealt with." Glynda replied.
"A little busy at the moment Arthur!" Mercury called out.
"Ya know, trying to keep the asteroids from turning us to space dust? Who the hell is supposed to be flying this thing anyways? Can we please leave the asteroid field for fuck's sake!?"
Jaune coughed sheepishly, the oxygen depletion emergency interrupting him before he could chart a course to safety.
"Would it have been wiser to plot the course then go fix the problem?" Goodwitch asked.
"I believe Mr Arc counted on the repaired shields protecting the ship and the oxygen supply was the pressing concern." Ozpin said.
"We're busy trying to fix the ship now, what the hell is so important it can't wait? Who died and made you captain anyways?" Roman's voice came through the comms next.
"Lionheart did." Was Watts' only reply.
"What?" Cinder asked.
"I found his body, what's left of it anyways."
"Awww… I was hoping we'd get to see that coward bite it." Qrow complained.
"He died screaming yes?"
"Indeed." Blank confirmed.
"Good, I hope he suffered." Qrow rubbed his hands together and smiled at the thought of introducing Harbinger to their own Lionheart's innards.
The tension in the cafeteria was thick enough to cut with a knife. Just nine of them left now, most were acting nonchalant, but a twitch here, a slight tightening of the muscles there betrayed just how rattled they were at losing Lionheart.
"Let's get this out of the way, I found Lionheart's body in Admin, whatever killed him did it by slicing him in half. It's… not pretty." Watts moustache twitched as he recalled the gory sight.
"Hmm… his call for everyone to be armed was the correct one it seems. Pity it didn't save him." Ozpin shrugged.
"Sliced in half?" Blake raised an eyebrow.
"Wasn't a gun then, so the Grimm's threat is more than just its ability to mimic others." Ren said.
"he was looking through the airlock logs, not sure what he was searching for but the airlock was only opened once and there's something about a cloud of dust being let into the ship. Not sure what relevance that has to anything but the filters got rid of the dust so no chance of equipment damage from it, not unless something got exposed to the dust cloud, then in that case some of it might have stuck." Watts said.
"Admin? Whoever did it should have been captured on cameras right?" Jaune hedged.
"Yeah… about that." Roman winced.
"Someone sabotaged the tapes. The cameras don't record anymore, only way to catch the killer is have someone at the monitors watching for them." Cinder said.
"Isn't that your job Fall? You and Torchwick are our god damned security officers, so do your bloody job!" Watts sneered.
"One day… one day…" Cinder growled and narrowed her eyes.
"Yeesh. What a catch 22. Fix the ship, can't look at the cams, get screamed at. Look at the cams, can't fix the ship, get screamed at. Them's the sticks." Roman shook his head.
Cinder snorted and folded her arms, her unamused stare clearly indicating she thought of the man as something on the same level as pond scum. "Why, of courseI'll be willing to sit at the monitors for the rest of our journey. I suppose that means you're volunteering to do my share of the repair work?"
"Tch." Watts folded his arms and looked away.
"So… what do we do now?" Ruby shrank back when all eyes turned to her.
"I-I mean… w-where was everyone. I was at electrical before going to navigation and I found Jaune there."
"That's halfway across the ship, awfully far to walk, and admin is along the way…" Emerald narrowed her eyes at Ruby.
"I needed to find someone to help me with repairs in electrical! There's too much clutter in there!" Ruby protested her innocence.
"Emerald, enough. Accusing someone without proof doesn't help at all." Cinder said and Emerald bowed her head at the rebuke.
"This is so weird…" Ruby trailed off. Having her counterpart be defended by Cinder of all people was… certainly something.
"No kidding." Yang agreed.
"Of course Cinder." Emerald bowed her head.
"Emerald and I were in the cafeteria already when you called the meeting Watts, we were fixing the wiring in this place. It's why we're not sitting in darkness again." Cinder continued, providing an alibi for Emerald and herself.
"I was shooting down the asteroids before they could sink us. You're all welcome for that by the way." Mercury mock bowed.
"I was in the med bay getting our medical suite back online, then I headed to O2 to fix it when it went down. Arc and Rose were already working to fix it by the time I arrived."
"Yeah, I fixed navigation, Ruby arrived then the oxygen alarm went off." Jaune added.
"Neo and I were in the reactor room restarting the damn thing. That's what kicked us out of lightspeed by the way, someone shut it down then our jump drives lost power. Until it's completely online again, we're not jumping anywhere." Roman said, Neo giving an emphatic nod to back him up.
"And I was in communications dealing with the emergency beacon. Needed to get to admin to clear the codes, and that's where I found the captain. With the blood everywhere and the absence of drag marks or other trails, I think it's safe he was killed on the spot instead of the corpse being dragged and dumped there." Watts finished.
"Sounds like everyone is accounted for." Summer said.
"Someone's lying, or at least not telling the full truth." Winter followed up.
"Question is, who is it? Everyone who was by themselves at any point in time is a possible Grimm… unless the Grimm can be in two places at the same time." Qrow drank from his flask again.
"It must have some kind of limit. If the Grimm was capable of it, it would have killed them all by now. The fact that it's not attacking them right now must mean it can be overwhelmed." Goodwitch analysed.
"Unless it's sadistic enough to let paranoia cripple the crew." Qrow said and Winter sighed.
"Thank you for the image. Really. Thank you."
"Great, we're back to square one then. One dead captain and no suspects." Mercury complained.
"Everyone's a suspect." Cinder corrected.
"For now everyone has an alibi, but there's no way to tell when Leo was killed and whose alibi doesn't hold up. At this point it's too dangerous to go alone, everyone buddy up and move with someone else. It'll slow down repairs but this is the only way we don't get picked off one by one."
"Woah, and what happens if we get paired with the impostor then!?" Mercury shouted.
"Then you take one for the team." Roman said grimly, seeing where Cinder was going with her plan.
"You watch your buddy's back and they watch yours. Anyone suddenly down a partner… should be pretty obvious then, isn't it?"
"That's… cold." Pyrrha said.
"Gotta do what you gotta do to survive." Roman said, then shrugged a moment later.
"And my life expectancy is all the way down now, definitely not making it off the ship alive."
"So. How do we decide who's going with who?" Glynda asked.
"Sync your terminals, we'll just have it draw lots and work with it. And of course, since there's nine of us now, one group will have three." Cinder said. The rest nodded and held their breaths while the random number generator churned out the groups.
"Alright. Watts and Goodwitch. Arc and Rose, Black and myself, the last three as a group." Cinder read out the results.
"But Cinder!" Emerald's protests was met with a raised hand from Cinder.
"It is done. Everyone, complete your tasks so we can get the hell out of this place. And above all else, watch your own backs."
"It's a good idea? I think?" Mercury said.
"On paper. The issue is what happens if the ship gets sabotaged again and partners get split up." Cinder critiqued.
"And of course, with the Grimm among them at this moment. It knows the plan too and will react accordingly."
"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said this place was a mess." Jaune grunted and shoved the twisted metal girdle out of the way. Electrical was in bad shape, very bad shape. Busted machinery, sparking panels and collapsed supports everywhere, the only upside right now was the lack of that black sludge signalling enemy action.
"Lemme help with that." Ruby grabbed onto another fallen support beam and pushed, gritting her teeth from the exertion and slowly but surely shifting it. Slowly the two of them managed to clear a sizable working space to begin their repairs.
"Ugh… this is going to take a while." Jaune groaned at the sheer magnitude of the repair work.
"Wouldn't want to be them right now." Yang muttered.
"Haaaah… we better get started." Ruby commiserated with a sigh, then squared her shoulders and started untangling the mass of wires, taking care not to damage the systems by accident.
Jaune flinched back when several damaged wires showered sparks onto him. Mentally chastising himself for it when his suit would protect him from the sparks, he dived back into the task, slowly decoupling the instruments from the main power grid so he could safely remove the fused wires and damage circuit boards and replace them with spares.
Ruby's terminal pinged and she paused her work to read the message. "Jaune! Emerald says the reactor is fully online again, I'm going to divert the power towards communications so we can get the emergency beacon some extra oomph."
"Sure go ahead, I'll be right here, call if you need anything." Jaune nodded and returned his attention to his tasks. Ruby gave a thumbs up and headed deeper into electrical, disappearing into the forest of steel trees and vine like wires.
"No way that's safe." Weiss said.
"Some of those steel beams look like they could fall over at any second and take everything down with them."
"That may be so, but some risks have to be taken. If they can't fix the ship, they'll never make it to Atlas." Winter replied.
"Of course sister, I just… would prefer if there was some safer way of doing things." Weiss nodded.
Jaune hummed a small tune to keep his mind off the unknown. There wasn't anything he could do about the impostor right now and worrying about it would only drive him crazy.
"Red to red, blue to blue…" Sounding out his work kept his mind from wandering. The wires in his hands were something he could work with and directly affect, and right now, the mundane, monotonous task he would have dreaded in any other scenario was strangely calming.
"Okay… that's the wiring fixed, now to plug it bac-" Jaune nearly bit his own tongue off when the lights suddenly failed and dumped him into total darkness. Aside from several small indicator lights on the few working instruments inside electrical, it was pitch black and Jaune could barely see his fingers even when he held his palm right in front of his face.
"Oh no." Blake shook her head.
"Here comes the next death." Ren said quietly.
Cursing vehemently, Jaune fumbled with his holster, drawing his sidearm and holding it at the ready. Bitterly regretting not getting a flashlight attachment from the armoury earlier, Jaune made do by awkwardly holding up his terminal, using the light from the data pad to illuminate a short area in front of him.
"Who turned out the lights!? I can't see anything in the dark!" Emerald yelled through the comms.
"Anyone in electrical that can fix OW! Damnit! Someone fix the damn lights already!" Mercury's frustrated shout came next after he tripped on something in the darkness.
"Hang on Ruby and I are in electrical, we'll try and get this sorted out asa-" Muted gunfire and a scream interrupted Jaune.
"What the hell was that!?"
"Who's shooting!? Report!" Cinder roared.
"Tch, nothing on my end, can't see a damn thing." Watts cursed.
"It's coming from next door! I got the lights!" Ruby shouted several seconds later from deeper inside electrical. When the lights came back on and Jaune blinked away the spots in his eyes, he saw Ruby standing by the fuse box.
"Moment of truth." Pyrrha clasped her hands together.
"Report! Partner check now!" Cinder ordered.
"Ruby's with me, she just fixed whatever knocked out the lights." Jaune reported.
"We're just peachy over here." Watts was next to go.
"Emerald? Roman?" Cinder asked again once the silence dragged on and no reply was forthcoming from the group of three.
"And this is the part where I'm dead." Roman shrugged before reaching over to pat Neo on the head when she started gnashing her teeth together.
"Ow! Quit it you crazy bitch!" Emerald's pained yell was punctuated by several crashes.
"We have a grah! Cut it out! I was fixing the wires right next to you!"
"Report! What's going on down there, where's Roman?" Cinder hissed, urgency in her tone.
"Roma-ga! Roman's dead. Something took him out when the lights went down. OW! Quit it! I was next to you, how the hell am I supposed to have killed him without moving!?"
"Haaah… called it." Roman sighed.
"You don't seem very broken up about it." Taiyang said.
"Eh, well. I try to detach myself from it. That's not me-me if you know what I mean." Roman shrugged.
"Sucks for the other me though."
"Dead? What do you mean dead?" Glynda asked.
"God damnit Neo, I'm trying to give a damn report, it wasn't me and you know it!" Several seconds of silence passed before Emerald started speaking.
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it!? Cinder, Neo and I were fixing wires outside security. Roman went in to check the cam feed then the lights went out. I… have no idea what attacked him but he started shooting and… well, there's bits of him splattered all over the monitors now."
"There's only one entrance to security. The corridor you two were in." Mercury said.
"Yeah. But nothing passed us. Couldn't see anything in the dark but we didn't see or hear anyone moving past, the lights just cut out and Roman started screaming immediately." Emerald replied.
"Is there anything out of place? If nothing got by you, then the killer must have some other way of moving through the ship." Cinder reasoned out.
"There's nothin-what is it Neo!? I-scratch that, there's something here. Some black ooze in the ventilation shafts, it wasn't there before." Emerald answered.
"It's in the vents!? Shit, everyone watch them, check for ooze or anything else out of place. I don't know what we're dealing with so eyes sharp people. And don't do anything stupid." Cinder ordered.
"Hmmph, that's a tall order given Watts' presence." Cinder sneered.
"How are they supposed to fight the Grimm? If it can go through the vents and knock out the lights at the same time, it can kill someone and disappear before anyone notices." Emerald said.
"Keep a flashlight on and stay away from the vents? And be prepared to shoot or run like hell I guess." Mercury answered.
"And what happens if someone needs to fix something next to a vent?" Emerald challenged.
"Then there's gonna be a new dead body." Mercury's simple answer shut her up.
"We have ooze in the med bay now, it wasn't there when I was setting things up earlier. It's… inert, I'll try to analyse the samples here, see what we're dealing with." Glynda's terse voice came through.
"I'll keep an eye on the good doc, emergency beacon is up and running already. Got some stuff to fix here so I might as well do this first." Watts said.
"Go ahead. But be careful." Cinder stressed.
"Whatever we're dealing with is clearly hostile and might not be human at all."
"No kidding. Do they not have Grimm countermeasures?" Qrow asked.
"No, unlike with your world where everyone knows about Grimm. Grimm are a fairy tale in theirs, nothing more than ghost stories for cheap frights." Blank said.
"…Hard to defend against a threat you don't even know exists." Ironwood grimaced.
Jaune let the empty fuel canister drop to the floor with a small thud. Screwing the lid back onto the tank, he slapped the cover close and double checked the gauges and readouts to make sure everything was working as per normal.
"Leak's plugged, refuelling complete and pressure is normal." Jaune lifted up his visor and wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on his face from the exertion of repair work.
"Yup! Everything's good on this end too! Engine outputs are perfectly aligned." Ruby called out from the other side of the Haven's massive engines.
"Upper engine was fixed by Mercury and we just finished the lower one. We're done here then, hmm what's left?" Jaune pulled out his terminal to consult it.
"What do you know, we're actually making good progress on the repairs overall." Jaune smiled grimly as he noticed the repair tasks being ticked off once the surviving crew members got around to them. But there was still the spectre of the unknown killer weighing on them.
"Guess we're almost done huh?" Ruby shuffled her feet nervously.
"So uh, who do you think is the… you know…" She trailed off.
Jaune shook his head and sighed. "I don't know. So far everyone is accounted for, I just… don't know. And the idea that someone we know is… not themselves is creepy."
Ruby nodded quietly as a bout of shivering took Jaune. "Where next?"
"Shields and communications, either or. Gotta check if that power surge earlier damaged anything. Watts and I fixed the shields earlier, but… it's a little on the sketchy side." Jaune answered, shrugging helplessly.
"Alright, let's go then." Ruby offered a smile to reassure Jaune before leading the way out. Before Jaune could follow however, the doors slammed shut between them, sealing him inside the engine room and Ruby outside.
"One of them is dead." Emerald's dry laughter drew several angry glares from the rest.
"What? I'm just pointing out the obvious."
"Hmm… could it… no, that can't be." Blake shook her head to rid herself of her negative thoughts.
"What is it Blake?" Yang asked.
"Nothing. Just a… just a thought I had. It's probably nothing." Blake brushed it off.
"W-what the hell!?" Jaune stumbled backwards from the suddenness of it, his heart was in his throat at the near miss. Another half step forwards and he'd be a mangled red mess.
"Jaune? JAUNE!" Frantic pounding on the other side of the metal doors indicated that Ruby was okay too and Jaune heaved a sigh of relief.
"I'm fine! Door just shut on its own." Jaune called out. Turning his attention to the door controls, his fingers danced over the keypads, trying to unlock them. He flinched when the controls sparked and promptly exploded.
"Gah!" Shaking his hand to get rid of the flaming metal bits stuck to his suit, Jaune growled and glared at the destroyed controls. The black sludge leaking out of the destroyed pad told him everything he need to know.
"Door's busted, something sabotaged it. I'm… stuck here until I fix it." Jaune called out, bitterly cursing the sudden turn of events. He could go the long way around the ship instead but with an unknown killer on the loose, odds were good one of them wouldn't survive long enough to make it to the rendezvous.
"O-okay. I'll just wait on this side then." Ruby replied.
"Be careful, no telling when the impostor might appear." Jaune tested the door's emergency release, sighing when it failed to work. Kneeling down, he pulled out a small screwdriver and got to work taking off the hatches so he could get to the wiring underneath and force a manual override.
"Y-yeah. I'll just… if it stops, then you know…" Ruby trailed off, only the sound of her knuckles rapping against the steel door piercing the barrier between them.
Jaune nodded grimly despite knowing she couldn't see it. Redoubling his effort to the unlock the door, he shut out the thoughts of someone getting the jump on them. Ruby was in a straight corridor, anyone wanting to get to her would have to get past her gun, and Ruby was a far better shot that he was, so no worry on that front.
Instead, his eyes shifted to an innocuous metal vent situated in a corner. No black sludge anywhere to be seen on that at least and the grate didn't so much as vibrate. Even so, Jaune shifted his position slightly to keep the vent visible at all times, his pistol lay on the floor, ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice.
"Again, glad we don't have to deal with that here." Qrow said.
"The paranoia alone is enough to kill, even if there isn't a Grimm around."
"Trust is so fragile. Just a little push and friends become enemies." Ozpin muttered.
"It's tragic."
With the way the lights in the engine room were situated, that little corner was shrouded in shadows, and his nerves made them dance. Several times he thought he saw movement in them only for it to be nothing more than a trick of his eyes.
"This impostor thing is making me paranoid." Jaune shook his head to clear his thoughts. He needed to focus on his task lest he accidentally lock the door down further. Ruby's rhythmic tapping was a lifeline his sanity grasped onto at least, the rhythm wasn't perfect, she mistimed a few beats here and there but the strange sort of melody kept him from feeling isolated.
"Ooze sample analysis is complete. It's got traces of human DNA and something definitely alien in there. Goodwitch hypothesises it's traces of our impostor's true form. We've finished calibrating the scanner to pick up any traces of-wha!? Where'd you come froAHHHHRRRGG!" Watt's report was cut off with a scream and then a wet gurgle and then a meaty thud when something hit the floor.
"Not as satisfying as seeing it happen, but I'll take it." Cinder smiled happily.
"Watts!? Watts! Report! Damnit, Goodwitch, what's the status of your partner!?" Cinder's roar was loud enough to hurt Jaune's ears through the earpiece.
"Wh-stay back! What the hell are you!?" Glynda's panicked shouts were picked up by Watt's still active mic. Gunfire and the sound of bullets shattering glass and striking metal followed.
"STAY AWAY!"
More muted gunfire.
Jaune cursed and hurried to put the unlock the doors. On the other side, Ruby's tapping had become a lot faster, possibly from nerves.
"No! There's t-" Glynda's last words were silenced abruptly with a crunch when something smashed Watt's communicator to pieces.
"Goodwitch!? Glynda! Come in! Report! Fuck! What the hell is going on!?" Cinder roared angrily.
Nothing, the line was dead.
"Ah, I made it further than I thought I would at least." Goodwitch's shoulders slumped.
"FUCK! Anyone still alive, regroup in the cafeteria now!" Cinder ordered after a few seconds when it was clear Glynda wasn't going to speak ever again.
Jaune bit his lip and hurried to shove the last few wires into place, finishing the bypass. The doors audibly unlocked and slid apart with a hiss. Jaune looked up and found himself face to face with Ruby's sidearm.
"O-oh! S-sorry Jaune, you scared me." Ruby lowered her pistol but didn't holster it, keeping it in her shaking grip.
"Watts and Goodwitch, they're…" She trailed off, staring at the ground.
"Yeah." Jaune exhaled slowly.
"Let's just get to the cafeteria and regroup with the rest."
"Six to go. Looking like a total party kill incoming." Roman said.
"Must you be that pessimistic?" Goodwitch adjusted her glasses and gave him a disapproving stare.
"Hey, I'm just saying. People dying left and right and no one has any clue who's the killer." Roman held his arms up in surrender.
"He is right though, they don't figure something out fast, there won't be anyone left soon." Summer said.
The six survivors sat at a lone table. Emerald was looking to Cinder for guidance, Neo was sullen but cold hate burned in her eyes, Mercury was glaring at everyone suspiciously and Cinder had a perfect poker face. Jaune and Ruby simply sat there and fidgeted nervously.
"So. What now? It's just the six of us left." Emerald rubbed her arm, unease written all over her face.
"I'm thinking." Cinder knit her fingers together and frowned.
"How close are we to getting this ship fully repaired?"
"We're almost done actually. The Haven doesn't look pretty but she'll fly. The only issue is if someone sabotages things en route to Atlas." Jaune answered.
"Even if they finish repairs, they won't make it to Atlas without dealing with the Grimm first. Not to mention what happens if the Grimm is still undetected and makes it onto another ship." Winter growled.
"It'll impersonate someone else and go on a killing spree again." Ironwood folded his arms.
"Does the ship have a self-destruct system?"
"Woah, woah! Jimmy, you're not suggesting they blow themselves up are you!?" Qrow sputtered out.
"Of course not! I was thinking they could arm the self-destruct as a last resort. The Grimm is too dangerous to be left alive, it must be destroyed no matter what. In the event the Grimm does succeed in killing everyone, the ship can be set to blow once all humans are dead, take the Grimm down with them." Ironwood elaborated.
"It is a sound plan. Unfortunately, this is a civilian ship and does not possess a self-destruct system like military vessels." Blank said.
"Something that they've proven capable of doing. And since we can't block off the vents, there's no way to stop them from traversing the ship even if we do manage a remote lockdown from Admin." Cinder muttered.
"What the hell are we even dealing with anyways!? This is bullshit!" Mercury slammed a fist against the table angrily.
"Grimm?" Jaune hazarded a guess and a hush fell over them.
"Grimm don't exist. They're just fairy tales to scare young children." Cinder said after a moment.
"But something is definitely picking us off, and it's not human. Not to mention that black sludge…" Emerald countered.
"…It does fit the stories." Ruby offered in a quiet voice.
"Don't those stories end with everyone dead and another ghost ship to tempt others into bringing the Grimm aboard?" Mercury groused.
"Bring it… aboard?" Cinder frowned in thought.
"The captain… no never mind. Watts said the scanners were calibrated to identify the impostors. If it's still intact we should use it to settle the issue once and for all."
"Good. I have a few bullets with their name on it." Mercury snarled, Neo echoed his sentiment by thumbing the safety on her sidearm off.
"And if the scanner doesn't work?" Emerald asked.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Everyone space out. I don't want the impostor to have an easy kill if we're all clumped up." Cinder said. She waited for everyone to nod before rising from her seat.
"Let's go."
"She's figured out something." Ozpin stated.
"But the scanner must have been destroyed. The Grimm would have heard the announcement and destroyed any chance of them being identified." Ironwood countered.
"True. But something tells me she's counting on something else to expose the impostor." Ozpin replied.
The journey back to medical was a quiet one, only the stomping of their boots on the metal floor and the echoes broke the silence. The six of them kept their thoughts to themselves, one hand close to their weapons in case one of the others suddenly turned on them.
But any hopes of using the scanner to identify the impostor was dashed when they arrived. The entire medical bay had been destroyed completely. Bullet holes and plasma scoring marred the once pristine walls. Most of the beds had been overturned and punctured with holes if not outright sliced to pieces.
But worst of all was the scanner, the sensitive machinery was completely wrecked. It was just a horrific mishmash of twisted metal and broken glass now, if they didn't know it was a scanner beforehand, there would have been no way to identify what it was.
"Guess it really was too much to hope for it to still be intact." Pyrrha frowned.
"I'm sure they'll think of something. Fearless leader is not going down without a fight." Nora tried to cheer her friend up.
And of course, viscous black sludge coated much of the wreckage. But unlike the rest of the sludge Jaune had encountered, bits of it were 'dried out' if that was the term for it. Most notably wherever there was plasma scoring.
Jaune frowned and watched the sludge flow away, some of it dripping into the vent as that section of the floor was slightly angled. Jaune's frown deepened when he saw the sludge flow away without staining the floor beneath it, something about that made his skin crawl.
There was something important about it but for the life of him, he just couldn't put his finger on it.
"It's… it's not dissolving the floor." Blake whispered, the frown on her face deepening.
"Is that important?" Weiss asked, not seeing where Blake was going with it.
"Look earlier we saw the damage to the navigation systems. The sludge was eating into the metal there, why not here?" Blake's mind ran through the different theories.
"Because the floor is made of a different material? The Grimm just didn't want to melt the floor?" Weiss fired off several suggestions and Blake shook her head.
"Not sure about the different material, but if the Grimm's objective is to kill everyone aboard, wouldn't more damage be better? Why melt some parts and not others?"
"Where are you going with this kitty cat?" Yang asked.
"How sure are we that there's only one Grimm aboard?" Blake's question left them in silence.
"NO! You gotta be fucking shitting me!" Mercury swore a blue streak and kicked away a piece of debris in frustration.
"As I expected, the impostor destroyed the scanner. Watts shouldn't have announced it like that." Cinder's thin smile held a tiny hint of amusement.
"Definitely up to something." Qrow muttered.
"So this was for nothing?" Ruby asked.
"Oh quite the contrary Rose. It's everything we need." Cinder said.
"I-it is? I… I don't understand." Emerald admitted.
"Hmm… I don't know what my other self has found, but I'm sure she knows what she's doing. She is me after all." Cinder affirmed.
"It… is? But… the scanner's destroyed? How do we figure out who's the impostor now?" Emerald tilted her head in confusion.
"I knew the scanner wasn't an option from the start. The impostor is one of us, has access to our comms. No way they wouldn't have heard Watts's announcement and take actions to rectify that threat to their cover." Cinder said.
"But the impostor forgot one thing. Heh, I suppose this will be the first and last time I thank Lionheart for anything." She chuckled.
"I don't follow." Jaune admitted, several nods from the rest indicated they were in the dark as well.
"I don't care about the full body scanner. I'm interested in the contaminant one." Cinder drew her sidearm and stepped towards a small control panel that was still intact, ignoring the shocked and worried cries of the others backing away from her.
"Woah, woah! Easy with the gun! You know I'm human." Mercury raised his arms in surrender, taking a step back from Cinder and incidentally towards the others.
"That is irrelevant at the moment. I have you all exactly where I want you." Cinder's smirk had a cruel tint to it.
"C-Cinder? You're the impostor!?" Emerald stuttered and the others save Mercury paled.
"That's not possible. Unless she can be in two places at the same time there's no way for her to be the killer." Mercury shot down the suggestion immediately, vouching for Cinder and inwardly wondering if sticking up for the person holding them at gunpoint was a good idea.
"Impostor, me? No. But I'm about to expose them. See, we had forty bodies on board at the start and while we were in cryo, there became forty-one. Our extra must have come in sometime during the trip and it just so happened the airlock was opened once." Cinder grinned and input the code to start up the contaminant scanner.
"And it just so happened there was a cloud of dust sucked in too, the filters would have cleared everything, everything except…" Cinder trailed off with a victorious smirk once the scanner lights on the ceiling lit up.
"So that's the play. Brilliant, even if I do say so myself." Cinder preened.
"Everything except the dust on the impostor." Jaune finished.
Emerald struck immediately.
"Gurghk!" Mercury's cry of pain came out as a gurgle when a pitch-black spike sprouted through his chest. He collapsed to the floor when Emerald ripped her arm blade free and leapt away from the hail of gunfire sent her way.
"Stabbed in the back, wonderful." Mercury drawled, unamused with the sudden backstabbing.
"M-me!? I'm a Grimm!?" Emerald was taken aback by the sudden revelation.
"To be accurate, you're one of the crewmates found dead in your pod. The Grimm stole your form and burned the corpse so it couldn't be recognised." Blank said and Emerald paled.
"So she did kill Roman, Neo was right after all." Yang said.
"Oh no." Blake sighed.
"What is it?" Ruby asked.
"There really are at least two Grimm aboard. She was next to Cinder the whole time when Lionheart was murdered. That means someone else did it." Blake said.
"T-then who is the other?" Ruby's question was met with silence from Blake.
"Damn that insufferable captain." Emerald growled, her voice morphing into something inhuman.
"Your bullets won't work on me." The impostor grinned, her face splitting wide open to reveal two rows of razor-sharp teeth. Dark laughter filled the medical bay as the thing that used to be Emerald simply absorbed the shots Cinder was firing at it, the bullets tearing through its suit but failing to make any kind of impact.
Ripping the helmet off to expose its head, the Emerald impostor spat a globule of black ooze at Cinder, forcing the security officer to dodge away. She cursed when she saw the wad of 'spit' hit the wall and start eating through it immediately, corroding the metal away into nothing.
"Time to dieAAAAHHHGG!" The Emerald thing screamed when Neo slashed at it with a plasma scalpel, slicing through the suit and into whatever passed for flesh underneath.
The diminutive cook wore a nightmarish slasher smile of her own as she wielded the medical tool as an instrument of murder. Launching herself at the impostor with a soundless scream, she began slicing and stabbing with all the strength the power of hate granted her.
"Grraagh!" The Emerald thing snarled and roared in frustration. Neo was simply too small and too agile for it to take out easily. Its acid spit was dodged and when it tried cutting Neo down with arm blades or sprouting extra spines from its body, Neo simply sliced them apart with her scalpel.
Jaune's eyes widened when he saw another transformed arm blade hit the deck and start bubbling away into nothingness. "That's it! It's weak to heat!"
Switching his sidearm to its plasma setting and praying he didn't hit anything critical to the ship's continued existence, he took aim and opened fire, peppering the Emerald thing with luminescent green bolts.
"Plasma eh, go to hell!" Cinder got back to her feet and likewise started spraying plasma bolts at Emerald.
"Look's like you're going down Em." Mercury poked her in the side, trying to get a rise out of her.
"Yeah! Fry that bitch!" Unexpectedly, Emerald was cheering Cinder, Jaune and Neo on instead.
"Uh… they're killing you right now you know." Mercury pointed out.
"Huh? Didn't you hear the floating light bulb? That thing killed me and stole my face! I want to see it burn!" Emerald fired back before gluing her eyes to the screen, watching the Grimm get its comeuppance.
An unholy screech tore at their ears and Emerald's attacks started getting a lot more haphazard and desperate. It was shapeshifting too, revealing its true form as an amorphous mass of constantly shifting semi-solid semi-liquid goop.
With teeth.
A lot of teeth.
"Ah bloody hell! That's disgusting!" Roman recoiled.
"Ugh, the screaming hurts! It's like nails on a chalkboard!" Blake hissed and pressed her hands over her cat ears, trying to block out the terrible, terrible noise.
"Ah so that's what I was forgetting, here you go." Blank flickered once and a pair of earmuffs designed for faunus ears appeared out of thin air and dropped into Blake's lap.
The cat faunus made a small noise of appreciation before grabbing them and jamming them on. Once the unbearable noise had been shut out, she sighed in relief and slumped in her seat.
Jaune stumbled backwards as an extra mouth large enough to swallow his head whole suddenly sprouted on the impostor's back and shot towards him on a tendril of shadow. The knife-like teeth and furious snapping left no illusions about what would happen if it managed to get him.
Tripping over a fallen oxygen canister, Jaune fell to the ground in a heap, his fall just barely causing the lunging jaw to miss. Cursing, Jaune rolled away and brought his pistol up, firing directly into the mouth when it came back around for another pass.
Another unholy screech made him want to claw at his ears until they bled, but the plasma bolts did their job. The tendril whipped about in the air before crumbling away into dust, giving Jaune some breathing room.
He glanced up to see Ruby still there, holding her gun in a shaky grip but not firing. "Ruby! What are you waiting for! Shoot it! SHOOT IT!"
"I… I… aa… ahhhhaah…" She was babbling incoherently.
"Ooh… bad time to have a panic attack Rubes." Yang winced.
"It's not a panic attack." Blake denied.
"Huh? Looks like she's panicking to me." Weiss chimed in.
"Not panicking-oh… oh no." Nora clammed up quickly.
"What is it?" Ren asked.
"Ruby arrived at the cafeteria with Emerald at the start." Nora answered in a quiet tone.
"Ruby's the second Grimm!?" Pyrrha exclaimed.
"Almost definitely. They were the last to arrive, if she wasn't a Grimm, the Emerald impostor would have killed her and just announced she was the only one left." Blake followed up.
"Having only nine people at the meeting would have helped keep the presence of the Grimm under wraps for a bit longer too."
"Damnit!" Jaune swore and turned away from her. Ruby had gone into shock and the only he could do now was try to kill the impostor before the shock could get Ruby killed. At least Emerald was too busy focused on the three people attacking it to deal with the immobile Ruby.
"What does it take to kill you!?" Cinder roared and ejected the spent energy cell, rapidly inserting a new one to resume firing.
"More than you've got-ahrg! I have had enough of you!" Emerald's angry glare turned towards Neo, the cook having hacked off another one of its limbs for the umpteenth time with her scalpel.
A mind-tearing scream was the only warning Neo got before Emerald's form exploded in a mass of pitch-black tendrils. Neo hacked down some of them, Jaune and Cinder shot apart several more, but there were just too many of them and several managed to wrap around her waist.
Emerald shook Neo about like a ragdoll, forcing Jaune and Cinder to watch their shots lest they hit her by mistake. When Neo refused to drop her weapon and slashed almost all the way through the tendril holding her prisoner, Emerald had enough of her defiance.
With another piercing scream, Emerald flung Neo at the far wall with a whipcrack of the tendril. The pint-sized cook struck with a sickening crunch and collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
"Oh, that's gotta hurt." Mercury shrugged.
"Looks like there's a new member of the murdered by Not-Em club."
"Yay." Emerald said flatly.
Neo simply gnashed her teeth in frustration. Roman's killer was right there and it looked like she was taken out of the fight already.
"NO!" Jaune shouted and planted several well-placed shots into Emerald's face, melting half of it off and make the impostor look even more monstrous, especially when it started smiling.
"I've had enough of you too. Here, for fixing navigation." Emerald's arm extended, grabbing hold of a broken bed and using it as an oversized club to bat Jaune across the room.
Jaune's eyes widened and he just managed to brace himself before the impact hit. Crashing into a row of gurneys and bowling them over, Jaune bit back a scream of pain when he felt his arm break on impact.
But there was no time to deal with his injury. Emerald's transformed arm had already grabbed onto him and dragged him back into the fray by the ankle. The impostor laughed and dangled it in front of Cinder, using him as a human shield.
"Only you left Cinder. Can you shoot through him to get to me?"
"She would." Roman said, Neo nodding empathetically
"He's a dead man." Mercury added.
"This version of Arc got a few good shots in on the Grimm so I'll give him props for that, but he's dead." Emerald sighed.
"You know I will." Cinder retorted, but stayed her hand. Less because she was worried about blasting Jaune and more because those would mean wasted shots, and she didn't have many left before another reload was necessary.
"Saved by ammunition troubles… so that's a thing." Qrow shook his head.
Whatever Emerald was about to say next would forever be lost to the void when a still very much alive Mercury rolled over and raised his rifle… right under Emerald's guard.
"Not dead yet bitch." He growled and unloaded right into Emerald's exposed underside. The impostor screeched in pain as the plasma bolts burned through its suit, the substance underneath and then the suit again.
Mercury refused to let up on the trigger even when Emerald stabbed him in the chest again with another spike, continuing to fire until the ceiling was raining molten metal on top of Emerald, searing its flesh with every drop.
"Gotcha." Mercury crowed victoriously.
"You know those wounds are fatal right?" Emerald said.
"Pretty sure the first stab got me in the lung so I'm a dead man anyways. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging." Mercury replied.
The impostor shook in pain, its massive bulk was starting to shrivel as the heat vaporised its insides. Emerald bent over backwards, almost folding itself in half and then suddenly detaching the top half of its body, leaving the rest to crumble to nothing under the combined fire of Cinder and Mercury.
"It's going for the vents! Stop it!" Jaune hissed out, hoping someone would hear his warning.
Fortunately for him, Cinder did.
As Emerald nearly made it to the vent and safety, a small canister sailed over her head and clattered to a stop on top of the vent. "Huh?"
It was the same oxygen canister Jaune had tripped over earlier. Emerald's eyes widened and she turned back to see a smug Cinder already taking aim at it. "Burn."
The plasma bolt struck true, impacting the oxygen canister and igniting it, causing a mighty explosion that engulfed the remains of the Emerald impostor. By itself, it wouldn't have been enough to put down the abomination, but the shock of it coupled with the damage it had already sustained sealed its fate.
Cinder tossed aside her spent pistol and retrieved Mercury's rifle from his fading grip. Standing over the beaten impostor, she raised her weapon and squeeze the trigger, cruel grin plastered firmly across her face, making absolutely sure it was the last thing Emerald ever saw.
Only once the impostor had been reduced to nothing did she let go of the trigger. "Hmmph, I win. I always win."
"Perfect." Cinder smiled.
"But… if that version of me is also an impostor and none of them realise it…" Ruby trailed off.
Cinder's smile died a swift death.
"I-is it over?" Jaune asked and picked himself off the floor painfully. His broken arm felt like someone was driving a thousand red hot needles into it, but he still lived.
As for Neo and Mercury…
Jaune and Cinder lay them side by side, both of them were still alive but fading fast from their injuries. Ruby stood off to the side, the shocked look still on her face.
"Damnit, if Glynda were still alive and the med bay was still intact…" Cinder cursed. Her plan to draw out the impostor had damaged the medical bay beyond salvation, all the equipment smashed, the medicine cabinets crushed… unforeseen results.
"Kah! W-we got the bitch r-right?" Mercury coughed, offering them a bloody smile.
"We did. Excellent shooting Mercury." Cinder nodded.
"Goo-haak! Good. Never… never liked the bitch anyways." His eyes were glassy and his breaths coming in shorter gasps now.
"Fuck!" Jaune cursed and looked away.
"Oi, t-the hell you crying about? Never… never liked you too… I can… can sleep now. Wake me wh-when I'm not on the Haven anymore…" Mercury exhaled and his chest didn't rise again.
Neo on the other hand was quieter, no grunt of pain or dying curses. Just an oddly out of place peaceful smile on her face. Even if she was mute, she still managed to mouth her last words and Jaune caught them. 'I… have… avenged… you…'
"Neo." Roman began, causing her to look at him.
"No matter what happens to me in the future, you do not kill yourself trying to avenge me yeah?" He said with full seriousness.
"Living on is the most important thing. Do NOT throw away your life, I'm not worth it."
Neo stared at him for a moment before typing something into her scroll and displaying it to him.
'I disagree.'
"What do we do now?" Jaune reached down and swept his palm over their faces, closing their eyes for the last time.
"We still need to get to Atlas and report this. The Haven's almost fixed, once we're done, we'll be underway. You're in no condition to do anything more, just stay here and rest." Cinder said.
"Rose!"
"Y-yes!" Ruby snapped out of her funk when Cinder shouted her name.
"Help me move these bodies to storage. We'll put them with the rest, they can get a proper funeral once we're in safe harbour. After that, we finish repairs and get the hell out of this cursed system." Cinder ordered.
"O-okay!" Ruby saluted and hurried to do Cinder's bidding, leaving Jaune to see to his own injuries and pop some painkillers.
Once the medication started kicking in, drowsiness struck fast and his eyelids became so heavy. Unable to fight sleep off anymore, he was unconscious before he even knew it.
"Guess Cinder Fall's dead too huh." Qrow surmised.
"Damnit, they were too caught up with destroying the one Grimm they forgot about the inconsistencies." Ironwood slammed his fist against the armrest in anger.
"Was it planned? For the Emerald impostor to reveal itself and draw attention away from the other?" Ozpin asked.
"Yes. For the successful slaughter of everyone on board, the sacrifice of their brethren is acceptable, especially when there's no possible way to hide the truth any further such as having the space dust be picked up by the scanner." Blank said.
"Its intelligence is the most terrifying part of it, shapeshifting can be dealt with, but that intelligence… it's a living nightmare." Winter said.
Jaune was pulled back to wakefulness when he shifted in his sleep and caused his injured arm to bump against the wall.
"Gah! That hurts! I ah, Ruby?" He looked up to find Ruby walking into the med bay alone.
"Where's Cinder?"
"Elsewhere. Things are almost done here, even with the close call earlier." She said, turning away from Jaune to inspect what remained of Emerald.
"Yeah… we made it somehow. Can't wait to get to Atlas, but after all this… I'm not sure if things will ever be… normal again you know." Jaune closed his eyes with a sigh.
"Oh, don't you worry Jaune. Things will be just fine…" Ruby said.
Turning back to Jaune, her eyes were pitch black with red irises.
"Everything's under control."
The screen faded to black and Jaune's scream rang out before being cut off. Then the lights came on signalling the end of the viewing.
"I just have a question, when did… when did Ruby get replaced? She was the one who let the other Grimm aboard through the airlock wasn't she?" Blake asked.
"That Grimm is that universe's version of Ruby Rose. An infiltrator that can mingle with humans in a port, finding employment aboard a ship and eventually sending it on its doomed voyage. Smaller ships can be wiped out by a single Grimm, when it comes to medium sized vessels such as the Haven, they can simply engineer a situation to bring aboard reinforcements and overrun the crew together." Blank said.
"What is their goal?" Ozpin asked.
"Death. They exist only to kill in space. And they are very good at that."
"Again, so happy we don't have to deal with that here." Qrow said.
"Well, in any case, that's the end of this viewing. I'll leave you all to get refreshed while I go prepare the next one." Blank said and his audience filed out.
Author's note: Again, I have the poll up for the transformers chapter. Megatron (Salem) and then Megatron all the way or Salem (Megatron) and then Salem all the way. Personally, I'd prefer Megatron all the way, but I'm open to seeing what readers prefer. Also, I've joined a new discord server for RWBY fanfics the RWBY inn, it's open to readers and writers and everyone's free to join. It's still new and a little small at the moment but there are a few other authors on there already so do check it out if you're interested, discord. gg/mkQrr9j For a more writer focused discord, there's also the RWBY nook, discord. gg/eUNpfsp
Cast list:
Jaune Arc: Crewmate
Ruby Rose: Impostor
Glynda Goodwitch: Crewmate
Roman Torchwick: Crewmate
Neopolitan: Crewmate
Cinder Fall: Crewmate
Mercury Black: Crewmate
Emerald Sustrai: Impostor
Arthur Watts: Crewmate
Leonardo Lionheart: Crewmate
