A/N: His setting is based on a world I created for a tabletop RPG campaign years ago, that I've been wanting to write more in for a long time. Enjoy!
It's been three days since Blake last saw a human being. She's been moving across a vast glassy crater, empty of all life. Not even the Grimm venture out across a Ground Zero site, and the White Fang will never track her here.
She's safe, for the time being, although the land sheltering her may well be a greater threat than any living creature. The sunlight reflects off of the ground, blinding her and making her waste precious water. There are no water sources, no places to shelter if the weather turns worse. But Blake is alive at least, although barely. She can feel the broken ends of bone in her leg grating together each time she takes a step, but she isn't dead yet.
Blake pulls her scarf down further over her eyes in an attempt to block some of the glare. It doesn't particularly help.
The shadows across broken glass clarify and fuse. There are beings, at least two. Blake clutches her gun, which only has two clips of ammunition left, so she'll have to make them count in every fight.
Two humans. There is no point in trying to avoid them, and any group may be willing to take on a new member or at least lend Blake a little water before she continues.
"Hey!" one calls, voice too loud in the utter silence of the crater. "Why're you wandering around here?"
Blake approaches them, eventually distinguishing the two as more than shapes against light. One man, dressed in impractical but intimidating black, and a woman, more sensibly clothed in a hooded beige cotton robe over trousers, and shorter. The woman doesn't speak, but her eyes dart over Blake, and Blake doesn't doubt that she is a woman born of the desert, a Guide. The man is likely a stranger to this area, and one with reserves, if his garb is any indication.
"Just a drifter," Blake says. "Passing through. Spare some water?"
It's worth taking a chance. The Guide is likely to be hiding a weapon under her robe, but Blake has her weapons out, and isn't worth killing, to be blunt.
The man laughs, and exchanges a glance with the Guide.
"We don't need another person," the Guide says, looking at him disapprovingly.
"Who knows? Cinder might want labor, or target practice."
This Cinder is in charge of them both. Blake doesn't know the name, although it doesn't sound like White Fang.
"Who knows, maybe Cinder'll let me have her." The man licks his lips, letting his eyes travel across her body.
There is no space for compassion or mercy or charity in the desert. There is only the trade of water and fuel, and Blake has neither. She is prepared to barter every resource she has to survive, including her body, if such means do prove necessary.
The Guide looks disgusted. Blake remembers that they scorn all pleasures of the flesh, and those who go so far as to take too much precious water are considered outcast.
"Let's go," she says, plucking the gun from Blake's hip before she can resist. "You won't be needing this where you're going."
Blake has a few short blades and a crowbar partially hidden under her robes. They'll have to suffice as weapons.
She follows them, a few steps behind. The Guide turns to scowl at her, and drops to the back of the small group. The man picks his way across the landscape, almost daintily, until they reach a spot where the glass is shattered into powder, almost at the lowermost point of the crater. The glass funnels downward until it reaches a steel trapdoor, weathered but clear of dust.
"This place survived since before the war. It's an old military bunker."
The Guide gives him a glare and the man doesn't say more, simply climbing down to the hatch and opening it. The Guide pushes Blake, sending her stumbling downward.
When the trapdoor is shut, the room beyond is dark, lit only by the occasional fluorescent panel. Empty. Two doors lead away from it.
As Blake is manhandled through corridors, she tries to memorize the layout, or at least a route to the exit. She can't afford to trust anyone here.
…
It's a warm night, so there's no point in staying inside the truck to sleep. Nora simply stretches out across the roof and is snoring within minutes, while Yang and Pyrrha take their time to look at the stars, or the few that are visible through the clouded air.
"Nice night," Pyrrha says. She likes to say odd little platitudes like that. Yang nods.
"Looks like it'll be clear tomorrow, with no storms. We can keep searching."
Pyrrha winces.
"Yang, I know this is difficult for you, but they've been out here for months with no contact and almost no water. The odds of them surviving are low, to say the least."
"They're not dead," Yang insists, but it rings hollow even to her. "They can't be dead. You know they could have survived."
"Yang, we split up the team because it was that or die, and we found water too late to save them." Pyrrha's voice breaks. "I don't want them dead, but any further searching is nothing more than a formality. I'm sorry."
Yang knows that. She knows she doesn't have the luxury of hope. Her sister is dead, somewhere she'll be devoured by Grimm and scavengers quickly enough to leave no trace.
Yang leans into Pyrrha's shoulder and lets herself cry freely. Just once. Water is too precious to waste more on mourning. Pyrrha plants kisses on Yang's hair and forehead and nose and doesn't say a word, just holds her, and that's comfort enough.
They stretch out with Nora between them, and the girl stirs in her sleep and pulls them both closer.
In the desert, having a team makes the difference between life and death, so teams grow close. There should be more of them, curled slightly farther away but still close enough to hear their breathing.
Yang can't cry for them any more. Tears won't bring back the dead.
…
"There's something out there," Ruby says, peering again across the landscape. "I can't tell exactly what, but it's manmade."
"Worst case scenario, it's a group who kills us. But if we stay out here, we die anyway, so there's nothing to lose," Jaune says succinctly.
"Exactly." Ruby begins descending the small hill, feet slipping on the loose gravel. Jaune and Ren follow her, more cautiously.
The plain ahead of them is flat and empty, apart from the white structure in its center. Too boxy to be natural, and too bright to be abandoned. They have no way of knowing who is inside and how hostile they are.
Ruby doesn't tell her team to stay on their guard. They are already on edge, weapons ready, spreading out instinctively and searching for cover they won't find.
One corner of the white structure vanishes, and people begin to emerge. They wear bulky white suits, with helmets covering their faces. All of them carry guns.
As far as Ruby knows, there are no groups in this area. Tracking the territories and their shifting boundaries is vitally important to water rights, and Ruby will take painstaking note of their location on the maps once they've determined the threat.
The white structure is still too neat, the people too identical. No group has the resources to put together an operation on this scale.
They're not from this world, are they?
Ruby was born decades after the war, but she knows the old stories. She knows what the Cities did to everyone on earth.
"Retreat," she says, although she knows her team can't hear her. "It's too risky."
She can't stop them. The soldiers notice their approach and as one begin to fire.
Ruby can't dodge their bullets.
The Cities are here to finish what they started.