Did my profile say that this was supposed to be posted yesterday? Perhaps. Tragically, there's no way to prove it now.
Chapter 9: Symptomatic Serenity
The wind whipped through the manta's hold. Blake reached up to keep her hair out of her eyes while her aura deflected the worst of the weather's bite. Her fingers slipped free sooner than expected; it was going to take her a while to get used to the cut. As she squinted against the harsh sunlight pouring in, she stepped up to the edge alongside her team. Clover's voice echoed in her earpiece:
"Let's make it happen, people."
Ruby nodded at the rest of them before throwing herself into open air with an excited cry. Yang managed a full front flip to head out after her. Blake exchanged an amused smile with Weiss before they stepped out as well. Gravity latched onto her and pulled like a rope around her waist. With the wind whistling in her ears, she angled herself for the mining complex visible only as a dark collection of harsh edges in an otherwise spotless white tundra.
As she fell, eyes watering at the biting air that made it through her aura, her focus narrowed to a particular series of exposed pipes dotting the tallest buildings and her landing strategy took shape. While the rest of her team went with their own techniques, Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud and threw it. The pistol's blade hooked onto and bit into an exposed pipe, acting as a fulcrum while Blake swung high to bleed off momentum. She pulled her weapon free with an expert flick of the ribbon and repeated the process on another three pipes before doing a flip of her own and landing softly on the snow-covered ground before the gaping black maw that was the mine's main entrance.
She was the last of her team to land. To her right, Weiss had taken a knee next to an overturned cart. She brushed a bit of snow off of it to reveal the SDC brand. Not the snowflake, but the blunt emblem permanently seared into Adam's skin. Weiss's eyes pinched at the corners, though she couldn't know Adam's history.
"Have you been here before?" Blake asked quietly.
Weiss shook her head. "No. It was most likely decommissioned after I left for Beacon, not that my father ever let me actually see our mines for myself. I was just supposed to look and sound pretty for the cameras." Sighing, she stood. "It's one thing to hear your mission takes place at one of your family's mines in a briefing room. It's another to actually be here."
Blake glanced around again. The empty, abandoned buildings slowly giving into Solitas's brutal cold; the wind moaning through their hollow shells; the sunlight bright enough to burn her eyes bouncing off the snow. And, a blight upon it all: the black shadows almost seeming to seep from the entrance to the mine. It was hard to imagine this place as anything but a ruin, but there had been people here once. Blake shivered.
"See! Even Blake's cold!"
"Nah, sis, I think you're just a wimp." Yang flicked Ruby's forehead with a grin and then danced out of the way of Ruby's halfhearted retaliatory kick to her shin.
"It is cold," Weiss acknowledged as their two Ace-Ops chaperones approached from where they had been talking to a nearby squad of Atlesian soldiers. "Without aura or the right equipment, the harsh climate of Solitas can kill."
"All the more reason not to linger out here," said Harriet. She brought a hand up to her earpiece, her voice taking on an echo through the matching one in Blake's ear. "This is bravo squad. We're clear at the main entrance. The teams sweeping the buildings reported no signs of the geist."
"Alpha is clear as well. It's definitely in the mine."
Blake listened with half an ear while Clover reminded them of their mission. What went unspoken was that they were not allowed to leave the Ace-Ops' sight.
"Our biggest concern," Clover finished, "is that there could still be active Dust in this mine. Mind your attacks; we don't want to bring the ceiling down and compromise the launch site."
"And get crushed ourselves," Marrow said, though he wasn't transmitting. "Isn't that worth mentioning?"
Harriet rolled her eyes with a slight smile. "Understood. Bravo out." She lowered her hand and jerked her chin towards the entrance. "Let's get moving."
Marrow brought up the rear of their group. Blake's eyes adjusted quickly to the low light in the entrance, which opened up into a large cave just beyond its threshold. Old equipment lined the left wall. Dust processing? But why was it in the cave? And why was it so damaged?
"That's going to be a problem." Marrow's voice drew her gaze from the machines' shells to the sheet of darkness she'd assumed was just deeper shadow at first, but no, even after her eyes had adjusted, it hadn't moved. It was a massive wall of stone.
"Bravo again," Harriet said. "There's been a cave-in at the main entrance. Not sure if it's recent or was caused by the original accident. Either way, we'll have to do a little problem solving."
"Understood," replied Clover. "Let us know if you need anything."
Accident. A cave-in, broken machinery. Now that she was looking for them, she noted old scorch marks on the walls, more overturned carts, and twisted rails.
"What's wrong?" asked Yang.
"I just realized where we are. This mine was closed after an explosion."
Weiss drew in a sharp breath. "Of course. I remember this disaster; my father was furious. He tried for years to get it reapproved for operation but I guess he failed."
"It's hard to tell what sections might be load bearing," Harriet mused, tapping some of the fallen rubble with her knuckles. "And if there's any Dust left on the other side, we'll just make a bigger mess if we try to blast through." She glanced at the rest of them. "Why don't you make yourselves useful and look for another way? Call it out if you find anything."
"Leave it to us," declared Ruby. She produced her new scroll from her pocket to use as a flashlight. Yang and Weiss copied her example. Blake opted not to; she could see well enough without it and felt more comfortable having both hands free. While her teammates explored the rock pile, she headed back to the machinery. Something about its placement nagged at her, especially now that she knew exactly what this mine was.
The hand she trailed over its sides came away coated in dust. Wiping that off, she scrutinized the nearby area. Though Solitas's climate made it inhospitable to life, it usually preserved everything else far better than places like Vale and Menagerie. Things like the wood from destroyed crates and the padding used to separate out volatile Dust crystals. She knelt and picked up a shard of that wood, noting the char.
"What's got you so interested?" asked Marrow.
Blake let the shard fall. "It's unusual for a Dust mine to have its processing equipment inside the mine itself. They usually carry it to an external building in case any crystals get set off."
"You have a good eye." Marrow crossed his arms. "Yeah, it is strange. If I remember right, this mine was extracting Dust crystals of especially high purity—the kind so volatile that they can't even be exposed to sunlight without exploding."
Standing, Blake finally put the pieces together. "The explosion—the Dust here detonated. But…aren't these kinds of machines designed to contain explosions like that?"
"When they're properly maintained and the overseers don't order the miners to pile up the Dust right next to them, yeah, they are."
Blake's stomach sank. No wonder the machinery was so mangled. "The reports never stated an official cause."
"We both know the reason for that, and it's plastered all over this place."
The SDC. Blake chanced a look at Weiss, who was too preoccupied helping Ruby shift a few solitary boulders to notice. It wasn't her fault, it was her father's. Even so, that Weiss had been the heiress to that empire when this tragedy happened wasn't lost on Blake.
Sixty-three people had died. Nearly a hundred more had been critically injured. Twenty-seven workers' bodies were never recovered, forever buried in the tunnels too unstable to be excavated again. Adam had been apoplectic when he'd first heard about it and had gotten into the largest argument between himself and Sienna that Blake had ever witnessed over how to retaliate.
That retaliation he'd decided on: destroying an entire cargo train and everyone inside.
"Oh," she whispered, bringing her arms up to hug herself.
"What?"
She swallowed, forced her arms down. "It's nothing. I should go help everyone else."
Marrow's narrowed eyes stayed on her back until Harriet called for all of them. She gestured to a dark sliver near the right wall. "This looks like it might go all the way through, but we can't tell for sure from out here."
"I can fit!" Ruby said immediately. "With my semblance—"
Harriet held up a hand. "We don't know what's on the other side. Most of us would need to hold a light, and that puts us at a disadvantage if anything that can see in the dark without one decides to attack. Besides, your weapon is too bulky for a cramped corridor like that. I don't want you firing blind when there might be Dust in the walls."
"Maybe I could carry someone?" Ruby offered instead.
"And be dead weight on the other side? I don't think so."
"I can tell you without even trying that I won't fit through that," Marrow announced. "But maybe…?"
Everyone's eyes fell on Blake. She sized up the gap for herself, then nodded. "I'll give it my best shot."
Squeezing through was far from comfortable. She actually had to unclip her backpack and tie it to her ankle to make it, and even then, the rock scraped against her stomach and back. Even if she wasn't being crushed, the looming weight of the stone overhead made it hard to breathe. Her relief when that narrow passage widened out within a mere few feet left her as a sigh. After carefully extracting herself from the gap and putting her backpack on once more, she tapped her earpiece. "I'm through. The rocks left a passage here when they fell; there's only about a yard before it opens up."
"All right," said Marrow, "take a look around. Is there any Dust in the immediate area?"
She scanned her surroundings. Some thirty yards ahead, the mine's lights were still operational, their long-term Dust crystals thriving years after this place had been abandoned. Dust crystals of a myriad of colors glimmered along that passage's icy walls, but that multicolored light was limited to that passage alone. Around her was nothing but gray stone and unbroken ice, long since stripped of crystals. Whatever had remained had detonated when the cave collapsed.
Something by her foot caught her eye. Crouching, she picked it up, eyes narrowing while she tried to figure out what it was. The metal was twisted, part of the shape on its one end snapped off, but it was still plently clear what it was. A chill raced down her spine.
To her left, more of the machinery for processing volatile Dust lay in ruins, along with more shattered crates. Crates that would've had the SDC logo seared into them with brands exactly like the one she now held.
"Blake?"
She nearly threw it but changed that to a jerky toss at the last second. The metal clattered to the ground. Blake wiped her hand off on her jacket, swallowed, and opened the comm. "There's more debris and broken equipment." Her voice shook. She forced through a breath to steady herself. "No Dust, though. And no sign of the geist."
"Right," Harriet said. "Blake, stand back." The rest of her words came muffled through the stone since she was no longer talking on comms but rather directly to everyone else still on the other side. "I can break through this part so we can all make it to the corridor where Blake is. It shouldn't bring the ceiling down, but the rocks overhead will collapse. Marrow, I'm leaving that to you." A pause, then Harriet continued. "He'll go through last. The rest of you, get ready to move fast."
"Wait, if this is going to collapse once we're through, how are we going to get out of here?" asked Weiss.
"We'll take alpha squad's route. Are you ready? Three, two"—metal clicked—"one, now!"
Even though she'd heard it coming, Blake still flinched when the section of rock around the tunnel she'd crawled through exploded. Rumbles through the floor precluded more of the debris shifting, but before she could even draw breath to yell a warning, Marrow had snapped his fingers and called, "Stay!"
Just like that, all of the shifting rubble slowed to a crawl. Harriet pulled her fists back and ushered Ruby, Yang, and Weiss through before following them. Marrow was, as planned, the last one through. Once they were all clear of the rocks, Marrow released his hold and they crashed to the ground. Though smaller rocks and pebbles trickled down from the mountain of stone, the rest of the pile remained undisturbed.
"Does all of your problem solving involve nearly getting crushed by falling rock?" Weiss asked, brushing some pulverized stone from her dress.
Harriet shrugged. "Could've been worse. We—" she stopped, looking at Marrow, who was frowning at the cave-in. "Something the matter?"
Blake followed his gaze. High on the pile of rubble was a spot of white, within which sat a glimmer of yellow and red. Was that—
Marrow unhooked his weapon, deployed it into its boomerang form, and unceremoniously hurled it at the speck. Harriet deployed her gauntlets in the same instant, prompting the rest of them to ready their weapons. Just before Marrow's boomerang could shear the mask from the rock, the geist gave up its hiding spot, pulled itself free, and narrowly flew out of the way. Marrow tsked as the geist fled.
"Come on!" Harriet said, and the chase was on. She tapped her earpiece. "This is bravo, we've made contact! It's fleeing deeper into the mine and we're in pursuit!"
"Understood. All teams, pick up the pace and box it in."
The geist shrieked before disappearing around a bend. The floor rumbled. Rocks tumbled down the walls and their whole group slowed.
"You don't think there's going to be another—" Yang started, only for a Grimm erupting inches from her toes to cut her off. She punched it on reflex, the echoing bang of her gauntlet startlingly loud in the tunnel. The writhing, centipede-like grimm—a centinel, Blake realized—quickly flipped from its back and reared up to hiss at all of them. Green, acidic spit dribbled out of its mouth and trailed from its mandibles.
Yang's face curled in disgust. "Okay, that's gross."
As though taking her words as a challenge, a veritable hive of centinels broke free of the mine's walls, floor, and ceiling all around them. The original one lunged at Yang but Ruby cut in front of her before anyone else could move, shearing off its head with Crescent Rose and then slamming the butt of the scythe into the floor.
"You're not going to hurt any of us," she declared.
Blake's eyes widened.
Harriet and Marrow didn't know about Ruby's eyes, though, and they were quick to jump ahead, only to lose all of their targets when silver light flooded the tunnel, brighter even than the harsh fluorescents lining the walls and made all-encompassing by the reflective ice and Dust.
Dying cries permeated the air while the centinels broke up. The stronger ones turned to stone before crumbling apart; the weaker ones died instantly. Harriet skidded to a stop, dumbfounded, while Marrow spun to look back at them.
Ruby blinked a few times, rubbed at her eyes, and then grinned.
"I thought your semblance was speed," Harriet said slowly.
"It is!"
Yang rested her arm on Ruby's head and ignored her sister's protests. "Ever heard of the silver-eyed warriors?"
"Those are just legends…"
Yang pushed off Ruby and held out her arms like she was showing off a painting of which she was particularly proud. "Then check out the legend for yourselves."
Marrow and Harriet exchanged a look before Harriet stepped forward. "How often can you do that?"
"Uh, I don't actually know. My eyes kinda feel weird and get super dry afterwards and Miss Caaaah," she coughed, "another person who has them that I talked to at some point"—Harriet cocked an eyebrow—"told me I can get a rebound headache if I overuse them, so…maybe every few minutes? I've never had to do it back-to-back before." She shifted to a mumble. "I've never really been able to do it on command before."
"But now you can," Yang said, her slap to Ruby's back literally knocking Ruby out of her uncertainty. "Anyway, seeing is believing. Now you know!"
"Right," said Marrow, still looking a bit lost. "Now we know."
"It's an impressive trick, but in the future, save it for when you need it." Harriet turned to the corridor. "And call it out next time. Any of the rest of you hiding something like that? No? Then let's keep moving."
Though Ruby's eyes had bought them a moment of reprieve, they had to fight for every yard beyond that corridor. The entire mine seethed with centinels. As Blake eviscerated one after another with Gambol Shroud flying through the air around her, its sheath cutting down any who made it through the gun-whip's arc, she wondered whether their tunneling had weakened the mine even before the explosion destroyed it.
She shifted her foot back to ready herself for pulling hard on the ribbon, only for a patch of ice under her heel to turn that slight shift into an awkward slide. Rather than fight the fall, she let it take her down so the lunging centinel passed harmlessly over her. She drove her feet into its underbelly, throwing it high into the air. "Yang!"
Her call was automatic, as was Yang's response: twin explosive shells from her gauntlets pulverized the centinel into nothing, not even a drop of its acid left to hit Blake as she flipped back onto her feet.
She made eye contact with Yang. They both nodded—Blake wasn't even wholly sure why herself, but this was a fight and it felt right—before they continued clearing out every Grimm in their path. Harriet was little more than a bolt of electricity shooting from one centinel to another, her exoskeleton letting her deliver punches with brutal force. Marrow's semblance kept any centinels from fleeing while he shot them with focused precision. Where bullets didn't work, the serrated edges of his boomerang did.
All the while, their group kept up its forward momentum. The floor sloped downwards. Sweat slid down Blake's neck; it was getting warmer.
"Ice slide ahead!" Harriet called. Blake's heels skidded over it and she strained to stabilize herself over the uneven surface. The old cart tracks were buried under the layer of glistening ice; there must have been a thaw in the glacier at some point that caused the water to drip down and re-freeze over this incline. More centinels attempted to ambush them, but Harriet and Ruby, who had managed to slide the fastest and take point, took them all down. All Blake got was a facefull of disintegrating Grimm.
Then the floor opened up under her. Her heart went into her throat but she threw Gambol Shroud at the nearest person, who turned out to be Marrow. He caught it and pulled while he slid by, only for the expanding sinkhole to catch him too. He slammed into the rock wall, but not even Harriet could reverse course on the ice fast enough to catch him. Yang came the closest, but her fingers missed his by inches.
"BLAKE!" Ruby, Weiss, and Yang cried. A gravity glyph shimmered to life over them, but it was too far to do more than slow them down.
"Get back from the edge!" ordered Harriet. "Marrow can handle it. Focus on the mission!"
The last Blake saw of her team before falling rock got in the way were Yang's wide and terrified eyes. Then a stone clipped her side, spinning her, and she caught a glimpse of a massive spindly leg retreating into a hole as she plummeted past, but that tunnel was there and gone before she could think to get Gambol Shroud back from Marrow.
Marrow—
Snapped fingers. "Stay!"
The world slowed. Blake. Slowed. Only her eyes moved the way she wanted, adjusting to the new dark in time to see Marrow play out what little slack he had in the ribbon to slow his fall. She was his anchor as he swung safely to the ground. In the next instant the world picked up speed again and Blake was falling fast. Marrow yanked on the ribbon to get her out of the way of the rubble bearing down on her head. His catch was inelegant and they both tumbled to the ground while the rest of the collapsing floor thundered down.
Coughing out the billowing dust, Blake rolled off Marrow with a choked-out apology for accidentally planting her elbow in his gut.
"Don't worry about it," he wheezed. "You're not hurt, are you?"
"No. Thanks for the save."
"Leave it to your senior."
They both got to their feet. Blake kept Gambol Shroud at the ready while she waited for her eyes to adjust.
And waited.
And waited.
She swallowed, fear crawling up her spine. "Can you see?"
"No, it's too dark. We need light."
"I'll use my scroll," she offered. "I can use my weapon one-handed."
"Good idea."
Blake shone light around them while Marrow tapped his earpiece. "Harriet? Clover? Anyone?"
The static they got in return spiked a bit, but it was impossible to make out any words. Without the signal boosters in the mine proper, their earpieces weren't powerful enough to get through the solid earth that surrounded them. As Blake examined the rough-hewn rock walls, though, a chill shot up her spine. It wasn't natural erosion. Something had burrowed clean through the rock. Something far, far bigger than a normal centinel, bigger even than the centinel she'd caught a glimpse of on the way down. She had to extend her arm almost completely in order to press a palm against the ceiling.
"What could do this?" she asked.
"Not sure." Marrow took a deep breath. "If I had to guess, an alpha centinel. They're rare, but if the number of those things we've seen is anything to go by, this hive is big enough to support one. And when they're not sleeping, they love ambushing their prey." He hefted his gun. "Stay on your guard."
Blake glanced behind her. The light illuminated nothing but a massive pile of rocks. "We can't go back the way we came. The only way out…" she shone the light ahead and swallowed. "Is wherever the alpha went."
"Welcome to the field. With that said," he pursed his lips, tail dipping, and sighed. "It's nice that Harriet believed in me, but frankly, I have no idea how we're getting out of this."
"I guess we just hope that it burrows back into the mine."
"Or it goes straight into a nest. One way to find out."
They started walking. Every time the floor sloped upwards, Blake's hopes lifted, only to fall when the floor dipped down. The supposed alpha didn't seem to have a destination in mind, and more than once, they found themselves at a crossroads. Choosing one path often ended with them back where they'd started as the Grimm turned back on itself. The only small mercy was that the regular centinels appeared to be more preoccupied with the teams in the mine itself rather than them.
She was careful to keep her thoughts from turning negative, and Marrow, trained as he was, had to be doing the same. It wasn't the same as Ren's semblance, but it was the best they could manage.
At the next tunnel branching off nearly perpendicularly from their main route, Marrow took the hard left. Blake jogged a few steps to catch up to the unexpected turn. It made sense; they would probably just waste time going in a big circle. Still, her mental map of these tunnels was quickly becoming confused. Could she make it back to where they started?
She shook her head, physically banishing those thoughts. They wouldn't get her anywhere down here—but if this crushing silence stayed, she wouldn't have anything else to focus on. She cleared her throat. "How long have you been with the Ace-Ops?"
Marrow glanced over at her and searched her face for a second, but there was nothing there but polite curiosity. He sighed. "A few months."
That explained the rookie comments. "What's it like?"
"Look, is there a point to this?"
"I don't mean to offend—"
"It's not—sorry." He stopped walking and faced her. "I'm just stressed, and usually when people start asking stuff like that, it's always about this." He gestured to his tail.
Blake's ears drooped. "It…might be about that."
His eyes narrowed. "Are you asking just to get a heartwarming diversity story to spread around, or are you asking because you're faunus yourself?"
His hostility towards her wasn't just because of the whole Adam situation. There was something else there, and really, it could only be one thing. "I know opinions on my family are mixed." That drew him up short. "And even though I mainly came to Atlas to see the relic stored away in a vault, now that I'm here, I want to help. I saw how bad things were in Mantle and Adam made it pretty clear that the slums are way worse."
"He's a piece of work," Marrow noted. "I've seen stubborn pride. My own family won't take a single lien I send them. But him? A league of his own."
"He has his reasons."
"Yeah, I can see that. And your reasons? Trying to spread the Belladonna way? No offense, but if you try to convince me that peaceful protest is the 'one true way,' whatever follows will definitely draw Grimm right to us."
"I wanted to get your advice."
He blinked. "My advice?"
"I've never even been to this kingdom before. You grew up here, you made it onto the Ace-Ops, and we're stuck down here together. Who else would I ask?" She met his assessing silence with a resolute gaze. She had a plan forming in her head, and Marrow was the first step—assuming they made it out of this hole.
With a jerk of his chin, he signaled that they should keep walking. Blake fell into step next to him. "Advice on what, exactly?"
"I want to learn more about what it's like to live here. If I want to help—and I do—I need to hear about the problems the faunus in Atlas and Mantle are facing. I understand if you don't want to talk to me about those kinds of things, but do you know anyone who would?"
To her right, loose rocks shaken loose by the earlier collapse tumbled down. They both aimed their weapons towards the sound on reflex, only to let out twin sighs of relief when it turned out to be nothing and then carry on.
"I can't give you a perfect answer," Marrow said, "but there's a support group for faunus in the military that meets a few times a month. Our next meeting is in a few days; you can come if you want. A lot of people there would be willing to talk to you. Some of them might even be able to point you to people in the city and down in Mantle you should talk to."
"That would be great. Thank you."
"Yeah, you're welcome." He hefted his gun, slowing to a stop as they came to a hole in the wall. Unlike the others, this one looked natural, as though the Grimm they were tailing had incidentally tunneled through the walls of a natural cave system before angling away again. Blake peered through the gap.
"It slopes up," she noted.
"Worth a shot. How's your scroll's battery?"
"Nearly full."
He nodded and dropped down to the cave floor and waited for Blake to do the same before setting off at the same pace as before. They made it only a few steps before the walls shook. Blake tensed, ears flicking towards the sound of dislodged stones trickling down from the ceiling. The vibrations started to their right but went overhead with a loud grinding sound like Blake had never heard.
A glance at Marrow was the only confirmation she needed to start running. Behind her, mere steps, the wall imploded and a shrieking, whirling maw tore through the cave before punching through the other side with a roar like thunder. Shrapnel pinged off her aura.
The light from her scroll swung wildly from the pumping of her arms, but there was nothing she could do; to slow or stop was to die. The vibrations were still there, getting closer as the alpha swung around to cut them off.
"Do you have a plan?" Blake called, because she definitely didn't. The only thing Beacon had taught her for engaging with exceptionally large or powerful Grimm was to never do it in their territory, but they were as deep in the alpha centinel's territory as they could get.
"It's going to come straight at us," Marrow replied. "When it does—"
That underground thunder boomed again. Dust exploded from the path ahead and Blake's ears rang from the shriek that followed. Electric green acid splattered the walls, fizzling against the rock and filling the cave with eye-watering fumes as Blake twisted to avoid the same fate.
"STAY!" Marrow ordered with a snap of his fingers the instant the alpha centinel shoved its way through the haze. Its deathly spinning slowed to a crawl. Blake hurled Gambol Shroud over its head on reflex with a prayer that something saw fit to answer: the blade hooked around an edge of its bony armor.
"Marrow!"
He glanced over, saw the ribbon, and swiftly used it to boost himself over the creature that was nearly as tall as the cave's twenty-foot ceiling. Blake followed suit, heart in her throat when she saw the Grimm starting to speed up.
"Its armor is too strong, we're going for the skin!" Marrow shouted. "I'll break it open, you figure out a way to do as much damage as you can. We've got maybe ten seconds before it's freed."
Her boots clicked against the Grimm's bony armor and she recalled her weapon with a flick of her wrist. It flew back from the gap in the armor, leaving barely a scratch on the ancient plate. Gambol Shroud wasn't about firepower, and she didn't have time to reload with a Dust cartridge, never mind that, if she did so, it would be too dangerous to risk missing a shot and putting an explosive round directly into the cave ceiling, which was inches from the tops of her ears. She needed a different way.
Marrow had to crouch as he darted across the creature's head. If they had encountered the alpha in its own tunnels, there would have been nowhere to run.
They reached the gap. Marrow revved his boomerang and then dug its spinning blade into the bit of flesh exposed between the armor plates while Blake stuck her scroll in her teeth and pulled a shells of fire Dust from her backpack. She dumped most of them straight into the wound but, for the last, held her scroll between her fingers and pulled the shell apart with her teeth so she could pour the payload into the wound. She and Marrow both jumped back and, with Marrow's power fading, Blake fired a round into the exposed Dust. Heat and light bloomed in the gash, followed by a series of concussive blasts when the shells detonated.
The centinel shrieked, broke free of Marrow's hold, and thrashed. Thrown, Blake slammed into the wall but couldn't get a grip to kick back off. Gravity pulled her down towards the alpha's knifelike legs. A shadow bought her a precious second to hurl Gambol Shroud and use the joint connecting the nearest leg to the creature's body as an anchor to swing back to safety.
Her arc wasn't quite high enough, but another throw to a protruding rock on the ceiling got her back on top. With the alpha still bucking and slamming itself into the rock walls, she stayed suspended from the ribbon, curled up as tight as she could manage. The cave rumbled in warning, the earth itself trembling at the alpha's rage. The light clutched again between her teeth shook as she did.
She didn't see Marrow—
His boomerang hurled out of the murky dark, shearing off two legs in its arc before it curved under Blake and flew back to where it had come from. Marrow jumped up off the wall a moment later, clothes torn and visibly panting but alive and with his aura intact. He found a grip on the alpha's armor and held on, eyes wide in worry before they tracked the light to Blake's.
"Can you get a shot on it?" he yelled. "I can keep it distracted back here."
"What about light?"
"I'll manage! I can't make it back up there, so it's up to you!"
Blake angled her scroll towards the head. The wound they'd created was leaking viscous black blood, making it hard to see, but she set her jaw.
She used the last seconds of her respite to swap to fire Dust rounds, keeping her standard ammunition handy in case she was forced to switch back. With her arms now feeling the strain of keeping her suspended, Blake swung once, twice, and then pulled her weapon free. She landed on the closest armor plate and rolled, riding the motion of the alpha's struggles like she would a ship in a storm.
It felt her when she stepped near the wound. Her only warning was a tensing of the flesh beneath her before the centinel hunched and threw its head upward, fully intending to crush her between itself and the ceiling. Blake flattened herself in the gap between its armor plates and squeezed her eyes shut. Her back slammed into the wall, she saw stars, and the breath left her in a pained gasp, but she wasn't crushed. The plates were just barely high enough to protect her.
"Blake!"
She forced air into her aching lungs, tried to set aside the anxiety her flickering aura created, and temporarily pulled her scroll out of her mouth. "I'm okay!"
It attempted to crush her again. She let out an involuntary groan from the impact and her aura flickered again. How much did she have left? Could she take another hit like that?
Marrow's weapon roared as it sheared through more of the creature's legs. The centinel wailed and lurched forward, now trying to shake him off. Blake dug her sheath into its flesh as an anchor, aimed at the wound, and emptied her entire magazine as fast as she could. Each explosive round blew away chunks of flesh, both widening and deepening the injury. If she could just reach its spine—
With a deafening wail, the alpha finally seemed to cut its losses. It threw itself into the nearest wall. Blake yanked her sheath free and lunged off its back to avoid being slammed into the ceiling. She recovered in time to land on shaky legs thanks to a shadow bleeding off her momentum and staggered several steps farther. She turned to see the rest of the alpha's segmented body disappearing into the tunnel—the tunnel that was sloping almost vertically upwards.
Marrow was sprinting towards her, mere steps away, and a plan of her own took shape.
No time to think it through. She acted, throwing Gambol Shroud once again to hook onto the very last plate. Marrow's eyes went wide but he grabbed her outstretched hand anyway. Blake braced herself but couldn't prevent the grunt that escaped her when the ribbon pulled taut and she was abruptly supporting both her own weight and Marrow's. They did what they could to kick off the floor, but it was so steep that there was nothing they could do. Even kicking off the walls only slowed them down; the centinel was moving too fast and Blake couldn't get enough slack in the ribbon to flick her weapon free. Her shoulders were screaming.
Her earpiece crackled.
"Harriet?" Marrow shouted. "Anyone? Can anyone hear me?"
"—row? That—ou?"
"Yes! We encountered the apha centinel, it's burrowing upwards. We're both low on aura but alive."
Her knuckles were white, the muscles in her jaw twitching from how hard she was grinding her teeth. A little more, she urged herself, just a little farther.
"—gaged with pe—ra gigas. Where are you?"
Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped down her neck. The temperature was climbing again, and there was a buzzing in the air she felt in her bones.
"The signal's getting better," Marrow gasped. "All squads, I think we're about to crash your party!"
"Wh—"
The alpha centinel erupted from the main chamber floor in a whirlwind of acid, bladed legs, and pulverized rock. The ribbon went slack and Blake found herself flying high in the air, the world of stark light and dark exchanged for a veritable rainbow of glowing Dust crystals all around her. Marrow lost his grip on her. She twisted in the air, looking to find him, and instead watched in awe as the centinel succumbed to the reduced gravity in the chamber and crashed down onto a petra gigas that had already lost one of its arms, throwing up more dust now laced with glimmering shards of ice.
"Blake!"
Weiss's voice drew her eye to the white glyphs appearing in the air around her. Blake pushed herself towards them with a shadow. Her traversal was unsteady and awkward from exhaustion and the strange gravity, but it was enough. When she landed, she glanced over at Marrow, who was in Vine's glowing embrace. He saw her looking and offered her a shaky salute and a wry smile, which she returned before going to one knee to catch her breath.
"Are you okay?" Ruby and Yang asked simultaneously.
"What happened?" Weiss added.
"Time enough for a debrief later," Clover called. Both the alpha centinel and the petra gigas were recovering, and after some hissing at the ice giant, the centinel turned on the huntsmen. "We've got bigger targets."
"Your eyes?" Blake asked Ruby, who shook her head.
"I just tried to use them on the geist, but I guess it doesn't work when it's possessing something. I can feel it in my head; I don't think I should use them again."
"The centinel is wounded just behind its head," Marrow said into the comms. "If we can get enough force there, we might be able to take its head off."
"Blake, hold still," said Jaune, out of breath from running over to them. His semblance sent a wave of soothing warmth over Blake's aching body.
Clover's eyes went skyward to where icy stalactites hung from the ceiling. "Elm."
The burly woman's eyes sparkled. "Coming right up!"
"The Ace-Ops other than Elm and Qrow will handle the petra gigas," Clover continued. "Teams RWBY and JNR, take out that centinel's legs. Time to show us what you've got."
Yang slammed her gauntlets together. "I've got a word or two I'd like to say to that thing." She glanced at Blake, who was, against Jaune's protests, getting up. "Are you good?"
She readied Gambol Shroud. "I have my own grudge."
Yang's smile was wild and vicious. As one, their whole team threw themselves into the chaos of the mine floor. JNR followed an instant later, led by Nora using her weapon like a lurching hoverboard.
Blake barely processed the ensuing battle beyond her immediate objectives. Ruby called out specific targets and team attacks when she noticed particular patterns to the centinel's movements. Weiss made plentiful use of her ice Dust to hold the centinel as best she could while they went to work on its legs. Yang's shotgun blasts, Nora's hammer, Ren's daggers, or Blake's blade alone couldn't sever a leg, but if they worked in pairs to weaken one first, they could swing through and shear it away. Only a strong swing of Jaune's broadsword and Ruby's recoil-assisted scythe could tear one off in a single blow.
At one point, as she and Ruby, who was in petal form, swung over to the centinel's other side, the petra gigas attempted a stray swing at them. Ruby easily dodged, but Blake couldn't muster the focus to form a shadow. The ice block eclipsed her vision.
Vine's glowing hands fastened around the Grimm's arm to slow it and then Qrow was there to drag her from the line of fire. Marrow's boomerang severed the arm completely an instant later and it shattered against the ground.
"Ready!" Elm called. "Firing in three, two, one, now!"
Blake saw her on one knee on a raised platform on the far wall, her hammer shifted into a rocket launcher. Twin rockets burst from the launcher and spiraled up to the largest stalactite and the only one that didn't have Dust embedded in it. Both rockets exploded in brilliant blooms and cracks sliced through the ancient ice and stone. Elm stood, shifted her launcher back to its hammer form, planted her feet on the ground, and summarily slammed her hammer into the wall hard enough to shatter stone.
Far, far overhead, the stalactite broke free and hurtled down. Ruby, who had been taunting the centinel from directly in front to keep it still, made a face at the creature, grinned, and darted out of the way of its final acid burst in a flutter of red petals.
Even in the reduced gravity, the stalactite tore through the centinel's flesh like paper. The creature didn't even get a last screech before it was breaking apart.
A moment later, Clover yanked the geist from its icy defenses and Qrow put it down with a single slash of his scythe.
The mine was silent. Blake sat down hard, adrenaline still buzzing but no longer strong enough to outweigh the exhaustion smothering her muscles. She fumbled for her scroll, only then realizing that its light was still on. Ruby, Yang, and Weiss gathered near her, all of them looking pretty winded too. Blake stared at her own aura reading with numb eyes. In the red. No wonder she felt so awful. After a beat, she took Yang's offered hand and let her pull her back up to her feet.
"I'm glad you're okay," Yang said, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck with her other hand.
"Thanks."
Nora patted Blake on the shoulder with a grin, and even Ren nodded. Jaune gave her a thumbs-up.
The Ace-Ops and Qrow strode over. Clover stayed back to radio in the all-clear.
"Hey, Red."
Ruby perked up at Harriet's words.
"You made a big promise to the general when he saw us off."
"Uh, yep! Pressure of the moment, you know how it is, heh."
In that moment, with the mantas waiting behind them and Ironwood looking over them like the general he was, Ruby had stepped forward with as much resolve as she'd had when facing down the colossus. "I know we messed up at the start," she'd said, "but we're going to prove you can trust us, General. We're here to help."
The ace speedster smiled. "Make sure you keep it."
"That's the spirit!" declared Elm, her slap on Harriet's back nearly bowling Harriet over. "I like them too. So much heart!"
"Heart," Harriet gasped. "You got it, Elm."
There was remarkably little to do in his cell besides wallow in his own failures, an activity of which Adam was growing quite sick. He stared at the ceiling and had to remind himself to blink, so deep was his boredom.
The creaking of the door opening, therefore, was more than enough to get him on his feet. He stared through the wall, which was far closer to opaque than what he remembered, and tried to glean any details about the new arrival while maintaining a mask of indifference. All he could see were the familiar colors and shapes of two guards around a much smaller figure. A child?
He narrowed his eyes as the soldiers threw the child into the cell adjacent to his own. The new prisoner's high-pitched yelp of pain solidified their status as a child, as did their hopeless dash back towards the open wall. The solid light wall came up just in time for them to slam into it and get hurled back all over again, now accompanied by a sharp snap of electricity. The guards laughed as they left.
Atlas was imprisoning children now. How predictable. How absurd.
The child picked themselves up and seemed to notice Adam for the first time. As they approached the wall, the barrier started to clear up.
Adam crouched to be on the child's level more out of curiosity than anything. They—he, most likely—was wearing battered boots too big for his feet and poorly laced up, tattered pants, and an oversized reflective jacket that hung over his frame like a smock. A child miner? Why bring them to the central base instead of whatever prison was closest? What was so special about this child?
The haze in front of the kid's face cleared. He was looking straight at Adam, but Adam's questions froze in his throat.
Red hair. Growing horns. Blue eyes. And an SDC scar still weeping pus and blood.
The sound of the door opening again came like a clap of thunder. He sat up with a jolt, heart pounding, eyes wide behind his blindfold from the nightmare—but upon seeing the new arrival, he schooled his expression into cold neutrality as he swung his legs over the bench and stood. "Do all death row prisoners enjoy a visit from the esteemed general?"
James Ironwood stopped a few feet from the buzzing wall and clasped his hands behind his back. "No, but we both know you're somewhat of an exception to the rule. I would have seen you sooner, but…" His poker face was good, but he couldn't hide those bags under his eyes. "Well, other matters demanded my attention."
"And now here you are."
Ironwood regarded him for a moment, then swept his gaze over the entirety of his cell before returning to him. "I watched the conversation you had with Blake Belladonna."
"I figured you would." In the moment, his own anger at Blake's obstinance had outweighed his caution—but he'd known that the camera wouldn't miss any of it. What was done was done.
"For the record, what happened to you—"
"Don't waste your breath."
Ironwood's lips thinned. "Of course." He drew in a short breath and let it out as a sigh, then straightened his shoulders. "I want to confirm again your objective here in Atlas. Why did Qrow and the rest think you could be an ally if you claim to have threatened them into bringing here?"
Ah, he'd been wondering when Ironwood would poke at that hole in his story. "As you already know, I was informed of your grand quest to defeat Salem. If you want me to be honest, then I will say what I said before: I have a quest of my own."
"And what quest is that, exactly?"
He smiled. It was all teeth. "Destroying Cinder Fall the way she destroyed me. Ripping apart every carefully-laid plan until she has nothing left." He hesitated a moment and then, since he had nothing left to lose, forged ahead. "We could make a deal, General Ironwood."
Ironwood was silent for a long moment before he simply said, "I don't make deals with criminals. Your sentence is up to the Council. Though they don't make such decisions quickly, I suspect that you won't have to worry about your fate for much longer."
Adam's knee-jerk response was cut off by the door opening again. A soldier poked his head in. "Sir, the Ace-Ops and the huntsmen-in-training have arrived at the site."
"Are the ships and arena ready?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll be done with this shortly."
The soldier nodded and retreated, but his interruption had given Adam the time he needed to form an actual argument. "I can prove my intentions," he said. "Robyn Hill's semblance—"
Ironwood shook his head. "You are far too much of a risk to be released, no matter what you claim or what proof you can offer. You sealed your fate with your own actions. Do you really think they're that easily undone?"
Adam curled his hand into a fist tight enough to feel his nails' bite even through his gloves. "I am asking for only one person. One chance. You could demand a guard, an escort. Just let me find her. Isn't she your enemy too?"
But Ironwood was already walking away. Adam's last words were to his back and the closing door. He clenched his other hand into a fist, battled against the urge to hit the wall—it would only hurt—and finally turned away with a snarl. He began to pace in an effort to bleed off the heat in his veins.
No deals. No way off death row. He took a deep breath. He'd given the general his chance, so now his fate was in his own hands, which was the only place it belonged.
He had no weapons. All he had were the clothes on his back and his aura. His aura, which also meant his semblance. They were too careful about recovering any silverware they gave him to allow him something to channel it, but—and the thought made him pause—did he even need to channel it for this? Using Wilt to project his wilting power had been the first way he'd ever used his semblance. Of course, at the time, it had been a different weapon, and it had taken a lot of trial and error to figure out what metals and alloys could withstand his power without suffering its effects. The entire idea of needing a weapon to use his semblance at all had been assumed but never tested.
He looked down at his hands. Flexed his fingers.
Wilt helped him condense and project his energy to cut through his opponents' defenses, but the energy itself, the wilt, came from him. It was, in theory, already here. Sure, without that condensing and projecting, he had to make direct contact and probably couldn't get through aura, which naturally resisted his semblance's effects, instantly. But, and here he raised his gaze to the cell walls, Dust was not aura.
He'd need to start small to make sure, and he couldn't use the walls. The guards would most likely get some kind of alert the moment he compromised the walls' integrity and from there he wouldn't have long at all. So yes, he would have to start small.
But he would start.
Shoutout to the person who planted the idea of Adam's semblance evolving in my head in PM conversation months ago. You know who you are.
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