In another part of the farm grounds, Blake and Yang enter a small shed and look around. The shed was mostly empty, save for a few shelves of random junk.
"Not much in here." Yang says after a few minutes, "Only some car batteries and spare parts."
"Well, it's better than nothing." Blake replied, then revealed the real reason she brought Yang with her "Yang, we need to talk."
"About what?"
Yang looked to Blake, who had a grim expression that answered the question.
Yang sighed, "You can't seriously still be siding with him. You saw what he is."
"That doesn't decide how you get to treat him all of a sudden." Blake argued, "You trusted him with your life."
"Yeah, I also trusted Ozpin!" Yang snapped, "That was before I realized he were hiding something important from us! Him and Julius alike!"
"Can you blame him?" Blake asked, "Yes, Ozpin was keeping something important, and so was Julius, but Julius probably had a reason."
"What, so he could sneak around and go behind our backs, just like Cinder and her gang did at Beacon? What if he only gets our trust just to turn on us? What reason do we have for trusting him at all anymore…"
Blake had had enough at this point hearing Yang saying these things, and before Yang could finish, Blake raised up her hand and slapped her across the face with a surprisingly loud smack. There were a few moments of silence as a stunned Yang looks back at Blake, holding her cheek.
"That's enough out of you!" Blake yelled, "I get you're upset; I am too. But I know Julius; he would never do anything like that to us!"
"Then why hide what he is from us?" Yang demanded.
"Because he was afraid" Blake replied, "I know; I was just like him. I ran from the White Fang and hid my identity as a faunus from you guys because I was afraid of how you would treat me if you knew. I wanted you to see me for who I am, not what. I can guarantee you Julius feels the same way. Ruby and I still see him for who he is, and I still love him, despite realizing what he is. And let me ask you this; if he was going to turn on us, then would Salem have tried to rip him to shreds when he was just a child?"
Yang though about what Blake had said, and slowly realized she was right. She hung her head in shame.
Blake continued, "You can be mad at Ozpin all you want, but don't take it out on Julius too."
Yang sighed, "You're right. I overreacted. This day's just been too crazy for me to handle."
Yang looked out the window as she said this and briefly noticed a figure resembling Adam staring at them from outside. She gasped and grabbed her shaking arm.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"It's nothing" Yang replied, "We should get back to the others; I don't want to be separated from them for this long."
Blake nodded, "And when we do, you owe your brother an apology."
A few minutes later, the two made it back to the main house.
"Anything?" Weiss asked.
"Not much" Yang replied, "Just a few spare parts and some random junk. There's something else though."
She walked over and sat next to Julius on the couch, who slightly leaned away.
"I may have overreacted when I lashed out at you. It was just a lot to take in for me and I wasn't thinking straight."
Before Julius could respond, Yang grabbed him in a hug and whispered "I'm sorry."
Julius was stunned for a few moments, but then hugged back "It's alright. I understand." Then, as he pulled back, he looked at the others "To be honest, I owe everyone here an apology for keeping this a secret. I was just afraid of what would happen if you knew."
Weiss shrugged: "Considering my parents aren't exactly great either, I don't blame you."
Blake sat on the opposite end of Julius and kissed his cheek "You don't need to apologize; I understand."
"We all do" Ruby added, "Let's just agree to not keep anything from each other from now on. Agreed."
The others nodded their assent.
A short while later, Ruby stares at the moon through a window, sitting on the staircase. Snow is drizzling outside. Ruby checks on Blake, Julius, Weiss, and Yang, who are sitting on the rug and staring at the fire from the fireplace. Blake and Julius are cuddled up lovingly with each other and Julius is stroking Blake's head. Maria reads a book while sitting on the sofa and Oscar is pacing back and forth. Novus stands in a corner of the room, looking over his shotgun. After checking on the others, Ruby stands up and walks toward Qrow.
Qrow is sitting nearby the window, looking outside with his feet propped on the drawer "Storm's cleared up for now. We should be able to leave by morning".
Ruby rubbed her arm "That's good".
"No... I don't have a good feeling about this place, especially with me around..." Qrow said.
Ruby looks down at a wine bottle on the floor with Qrow's hand hovering near it, then looks at him "Are you... okay?".
Qrow scoffs "Sure. Tell everyone to get some sleep. I'll wake you guys up just before sunrise".
Ruby walks away as Qrow drinks from the wine bottle. Ruby pauses and looks back at him before narrowing her eyes downward.
Back in the other room, the fire continues to burn. The book Maria is reading has a "III" on the cover, with the other two volumes on a nearby table.
"It's a diary?" Oscar asked.
"The head of this household, Bartleby. Apparently, he and several other families founded this little settlement to try and live on their own. It sounds like it worked, at least for a spell" Maria answered.
"Grimm?" Oscar guessed.
"Just one of many hardships. Slowed down their farming, made everything harder... It's a shame, really. He seemed like quite the ambitious fellow, always thinking of new schemes to overcome the odds" Maria said.
Ruby walks back into the room "Hey guys. Qrow said we should get some sleep. We're gonna head out early tomorrow".
"Hmph, the last thing you'll catch me doing is letting some kid tell me what to do. Go to bed!" Maria scoffs as she sits on an armchair, turns on the lamp next to it and continues reading from the book.
Novus simply cocked his shotgun; it was clear he wasn't planning on getting sleep any time soon.
Ruby shrugs and smiles before getting ready to sleep herself.
By next morning, the fire is out. Sunlight seeps through the curtained window while Team RWBY, Julius, and Oscar sleep on the floor. Maria rests on the armchair, still holding the book she was reading. Novus had finally succumbed to exhaustion and was sleeping on a chair in a corner of the room, still holding his shotgun. Qrow sleeps on the chair by the window, still barely grasping the wine bottle in his hand. A couple other wine bottles are also on the floor. The bottle slips from his hand and clatters on the floor, causing Ruby to wake with a gasp. She looks around before rubbing her eyes. She walks over to the window and opens the curtains.
Weiss mutters in her sleep "Close the window!".
Ruby walks over to the entrance hall and picks up the empty bottle Qrow dropped before walking over to her uncle "Uncle Qrow. Come on, get up".
Ruby shakes Qrow's shoulder who groans "Leave me alone...".
"We overslept" Ruby said as she kept trying to wake him up.
Qrow, still groggy, just lightly shoves Ruby away. Ruby looks at the empty wine bottle, and after a moment, her hand starts shaking. She angrily throws it against the wall, shattering it and Qrow wakes up startled "What?" Qrow looks around, seeing Ruby stand before him and then to the shattered bottle "Oh, right. Sunrise".
Ruby's angry expression softens, and she hugs her uncle "You know, you can talk to me about stuff. Yang and Julius too".
Qrow hugs Ruby back "Let's just get outta here".
Qrow gets up from the chair, with Ruby following him. Later on, the group moves outside. Weiss is using Myrtenaster to weld a metal ball to a makeshift trailer hitch attached to Bumblebee. Weiss, Blake, Yang, Qrow and Oscar's pupils appear to be dilated, while Ruby's and Julius's are their usual size. It was difficult to tell with Novus since he was wearing his helmet at the time.
"There" Weiss said as she finished her work.
"Can we just go back to bed?" Oscar asked.
"If we're all so tired, maybe we should make breakfast?" Blake suggested.
Oscar looked at her "You wanna make it?".
"Not really" Blake answered.
Ruby and Qrow push the flatbed trailer behind Bumblebee. Once it's in position, Ruby walks up to Yang "You guys got the bikes ready?"
Yang just gestures to it. Julius walks his bike up next to Bumblebee and gives a thumbs up, signaling he too is ready.
"Well, it's done now. So let's hook this thing up and-" Qrow rests his foot on the side of the trailer, and the tire on the opposite side goes flat. He groans in frustration before checking on the tire.
"You people are just beacons for bad luck, aren't you?" Maria asked.
"You have no idea." Julius replied, clearly unamused.
Frustrated, Qrow just walks over to a nearby fence post and sits on the ground. Yang also sits on the ground by the well "I'm starting to think the universe just doesn't want us getting to Atlas".
Ruby sighs "It's just a flat tire, I'm sure there's a spare".
"It's not just that, it's everything. Storms, crashes, monsters..." Yang sighs "I'm so tired...".
"Me too. It feels like we're always having to fight to get by" Blake said.
"Yeah. But that's what we signed up for" Ruby reminded.
"We signed up to try and save the world, not just... delay the inevitable" Oscar, sounding defeated.
"It's not inevitable" Julius argued, "There's still a chance."
"Last night, I... I couldn't stop thinking - why are we even going to Atlas?" Weiss suddenly asked and everyone shares troubled looks.
"Weiss, we have to" Ruby declared.
"Why?" Yang asked while standing back up "Ozpin hid the Relics behind giant doors under enormous schools, but... how long would it take Salem to find a lamp in the middle of nowhere?".
Ruby looked at her in shock "What? The Grimm might-".
"They'd find it eventually, sure, but bury it or just throw it down the well, it would take years. It might not even happen in our lifetime. But we could be done with it now" Yang said, her tone sounding dead.
"Yang, you can't be serious?!" Julius demanded.
Something's wrong Summer said, They're not acting like themselves.
Ruby thought about it before detaches the Relic of Knowledge from her belt, glancing at it before looking up at her teammates, who appear to all have dazed looks as if they were in a trance. Ruby stares at the Relic one more time before walking over to the well.
"I am... really... tired..." Ruby starts to have the same dazed look on her face as she holds Relic out above the pitch-black darkness of the well. Julius finally notices their expressions and reaches out, grabbing Ruby's wrist.
"Don't do it, Ruby." he advised.
However, instead of dropping it immediately, Ruby hesitates for a bit before composing herself. She starts to pull the Relic back, but then notices a pair of glowing red eyes at the bottom of the well, startling her and snapping her out of her trance-like state. In her fright, she accidentally drops the Relic into the well. Julius notices the eyes too and whips out his gun, firing a few shots into the well.
Ruby helplessly watches it fall into the darkness below "No! No! No! I didn't mean to!".
Her teammates continue to stare at her with dazed looks before Weiss speaks "Ruby, it's okay".
"No! No, there's something down there! I saw it, it was looking at me!" Ruby said as she looks back inside the well, only to notice the glowing pair of red eyes are gone.
"What was that?" Julius asked.
"I don't know" Ruby replied, "But we have to get the Relic!"
Yang puts a hand on her sister's shoulder "Hey, it's okay. You just said you're tired. It's probably nothing. Now let's go".
Ruby swats Yang's hand off "What's wrong with you?! We can't just leave; we have to go down there! We have to get the lamp back! Oh, what was I thinking?!".
"All we have to do is fix this trailer. Hey, farm boy, check the shed for a spare" Qrow said.
"I'm not leaving without the lamp!" Ruby snapped, finally putting her foot down as she's had just about enough of everyone giving up.
"I'm with you, sis." Julius added, equally as frustrated.
Ruby arrives at the tunnel, and finds the Relic of Knowledge on the ground. She runs over and picks it up "Guys, I-".
Julius immediately holds up his gun "Ruby, don't make any sudden moves."
Ruby then looks up behind the Relic, adopting a horrified expression on her face. Multiple humanoid-looking Grimm of different sizes are bunched together. They turn their heads toward Ruby, reaching their arms out to her. Ruby lets out a terrified scream as Julius fires off multiple shots, killing the closest ones.
Yang gasps "Ruby?!" Ruby backs away and runs out of the tunnel, Julius following behind "What is it?".
The rest of the team notice the skeletal Grimm slowly trudging out of the tunnel. Ruby takes out Crescent Rose and fires multiple rounds at them. One of the Grimm lets out an ear-piercing scream, causing Team RWBY to struggle to stand. Julius covers his hears as his head erupts into pain. Only Novus seems to be unaffected, and he already has his super shotgun out, firing into the Grimm.
"What is this...?" Yang asked.
"My weapon... feels heavy..." Blake answered.
"Run!" Maria suddenly appeared "Now!".
Maria turns around and runs as Ruby shouts "Go, go!".
They turn around and run, catching up with Maria. They see daylight coming from the well, but more of the Grimm appear and block their path. Another ear-piercing scream is heard, affecting everyone except Novus.
Ruby notices another tunnel entrance next to her "This way!".
They run into the tunnel. They continue to run through the complex underground passages while avoiding more of the Grimm's kind along the way. They then make their way to an underground room. However, they notice a much larger group of the Grimm at one end of the room. A light flares from behind them, but it wasn't daylight. Rather, floating up from behind the Grimm are floating, horned skeletal, heads wreathed in fire. They make a run toward the other way, but one of the Grimm lets out another scream, causing Team RWBY, Julius, and Maria to collapse on all fours.
"I can't... do this... I can't..." Yang said in a hopeless tone.
Maria gets back up, using her cane to support herself before collapsing again. On her fall, she feels a set of stairs in front of her "An exit. An exit!".
Ruby looks up and notices the stairs leading up to the cellar door. She then crawls forward to Weiss "Come on!".
Suddenly, a more ear-piercing scream is heard behind them as one of the heads shoots forward, its jaw open.
Ruby braces herself when Julius sprang forward, firing at the head, which died in a burst of flame. Another one of the skulls screech, incapacitating Julius and causing him to fall to the ground, clutching his now bleeding ears with his hand as the Grimm inched closer. Seeing this Blake immediately snapped out of her trance.
"No!" she cried as she rushed forward, only to be blocked by another skull as it charged her, forcing her to jump back as it exploded. Ruby saw that the Grimm were practically on top of Julius just as he recovered, a look of fear on his face as he saw the Grimm's hands close in.
"JULIUUUUSS!" Upon yelling out her brother's name, Ruby's eyes start to glow brightly, causing the Grimm to back away in pain. The floating skulls are vaporized instantly.
Weiss runs up the stairs and tries to get the doors open, but they don't budge "They're locked!".
"Out of my way!" Yang runs up the stairs. The Grimm recover from their incapacitation, and another scream is let out. Team RWBY and Maria collapse once again. Yang reaches for the cellar door "No... No...!".
As the Grimm inch closer, Maria crawls toward Ruby, only able to see the world in shades of cyan "Ruby... what color are your eyes?".
"They're... silver..." Ruby answered
Maria lets out a gasp of excitement "You have a family? Friends?".
"What?" Ruby asked as she looks up to see the Grimm getting closer, but Maria lays her head down and covers her ears.
"Maria's next words sound slightly muffled "Don't think about them. Think about the people who love you. Focus on the thought of them, the way they make you feel. Focus!".
Taking Maria's advice, Ruby closes her eyes and concentrates. While Maria speaks, Weiss tries to budge the doors open, and Yang reaches out in desperation before falling under a trance, her eyes even more blank than before. Julius manages to stand and make his way over to the others, only to be sent into another wave of pain from the scream.
"Life... is beautiful. It is precious. And it must... be protected" Maria finished.
After focusing, Ruby opens her eyes, the silver gleaming. She sits up and her eyes glow brightly once more, driving the Grimm back and disintegrating them all. Maria and Ruby stare in awe while Weiss, Blake and Yang recover. Yang crawls up the stairs and punches the doors open with her prosthetic arm while firing from its gun. With Blake propping Julius over her shoulder, they all run out and find themselves in the basement that Ruby and Weiss discovered the day before.
"We're back in the house?" Blake asked.
Qrow noticed the others "Finally! What took you so long!?".
Suddenly, another screech is heard, and the group turn around to see another skull smacked out of the air as Novus rushes to join them, a group of Grimm and skulls close behind him. Novus motions for them to step back as he readies his rocket launcher and fires into the tunnel. The resulting explosion sets the tunnel ablaze, and the others begin to run as the fire spreads to the house. With the screams gone, and Summer's help, Julius quickly recovers as his healing factor kicks in.
"Get to the bikes!" Julius shouts.
Outisde, everyone sits in the flatbed trailer while Yang and Julius start up their motorcycles. They waste no time driving away from the now burning house, Novus sitting in the back of the trailer and shooting at any Grimm walking out of the house with his shotgun. All they could hear as they drove off, was the pained screeches of the Grimm.
Yang continues driving Bumblebee down the snowy road with everyone sitting in the trailer being pulled behind her.
"The Apathy. They're not strong or ferocious. They drain your will to go on. Bartleby's estate was hemorrhaging money towards the end. He wanted to cut costs on Huntsman protection, but in order to do that, he needed everyone calm... always" Maria explained.
Oscar was reading from the book "Managed to get two away from their pack. Hike back was miserable, but got the bastards in the cellar. Wife thinks I was out sealing the waterway entrance. I'll do it tomorrow and tell her the truth once these things take the edge off of everyone. I'm tired".
"The next page proves that he did, but not before the rest of the pack followed their missing pair all the way home. My guess is they made their way beneath the estate through the water tunnels that Bartleby sealed up the next morning. Bartleby's plan worked" Maria takes the book from Oscar "No one was angry or sad or scared. No one was anything. And then... no one was left".
Maria takes one more look at the final page of the diary, the last words written down being I'm tired. She then closes the book and tosses it out into the snow, the cover having "VIII" on it, while the group continues to drive down the road.
"I'm... sorry for what I said... about giving up" Weiss said.
Upon hearing this, Yang stops driving "Me too. We can't quit until the lamp is safe".
"It's not your fault. It was those... things" Blake assured.
"I should have known. The signs were all there, but I'd never seen an entire settlement withered away like that. I suppose my mind just isn't what it used to be" Maria said.
Blake leaned over to see Julius driving next to Yang "How're your ears?"
"Healing" Julius replied, "Those things didn't drain my will; all they managed to do was incapacitate me, along with those skull things."
"Yeah, those flying skulls" Weiss asked, "What were those?"
Novus pulled up a holographic file on his gauntlet, showing the creature. Oscar read from it "They were demons called Lost Souls. They float around until a potential host comes along, then they strike, using their screams to disorient the target."
Ruby looked at Maria "Miss Calavera? How do you know so much about the Grimm? And in the tunnels, you knew exactly what to say to make me... to make my eyes do that. How?"
Maria smiles "Well, isn't it obvious, girl? I had Silver Eyes".
Let me know what you think so far!