Chapter 10: What the Spider Said

"Sometimes life is cock and ball torture, without the cock and ball."

— 24 —

Sticking around in the back, I couldn't do anything when Coco rushed forward. And I remained stuck behind Yatsuhashi pushing him through the tunnel when the gunfire sounded. Swearing under my breath, I got beside Shamrock and helped to push the giant through the crevices.

"Wait, hold up!" I called out as Fox and Velvet took off in as close to a sprint as they could manage in this passageway, following their leader. For his part, Yatsuhashi wriggled his shoulders like a man possessed, trying to inch his way through. It was a mistake to bring him down here, I was now convinced.

The only reason I was in the back was because Blake had pulled me aside in one of the previous rooms.

"They didn't make that," she whispered to me.

Instantly, I understood her meaning. I got beside her, our shoulders touching, so I could whisper, "Not CCHS. The White Fang."

In the glow of my flashlight, she looked pale, almost gaunt. "Yeah. They use it to mark supply cachés. If we had gone left instead of following the map, we probably would have found it."

"I don't think Fox sensed anybody around here."

She hugged herself. "Do you know that for sure? If he's a telepath, maybe he's talking to team CFVY, and leaving us out of the loop."

"I'm not keen to start suspecting our friends so soon," I said. "Fox, Coco, Velvet, Yatsuhashi—I don't think they'd keep things from us." I paused. "Should we check it out?"

Blake shook her head. "No. I don't want to explain how I know what it means and where to go from the directions."

I gave her a significant look. "So you're afraid they're not telling us everything, meanwhile you're not telling them everything."

She gave a sour face. "Yes, I'm a hypocrite. But I'd like to keep my affiliation with you-know-who a secret. Is that wrong of me?"

I thought it over for a moment, before sighing. I put a hand on her shoulder briefly and said nothing, following after the rest of the team.

Which brought us back to the present. I pushed at the Mistrali giant, unable to get him to move faster.

"Watch it!" he snapped.

I swore again, making a flapping motion with my hands as if trying to shake away the rush of anxiety. "This isn't working. Look, this is probably going to hurt. Shamrock, Weiss, Blake, you keep doing what you're doing. I need to get ahead."

"What?" he asked, only to grunt as powered up my Aura and used months of upper body training to climb over him. He probably would have buckled with a sudden force, but in the tight passageway, he couldn't even fall down.

I whispered an apology as I may or may not have accidentally stepped on his face to get over him. There was enough room above his shoulders to slide through. My rucksack caught on something, either his head or maybe the ceiling. Whatever the case, with an angry grunt from the giant and another kick, I managed to get past him.

"Dude, uncool!" he said. But I could apologize later. Or just conveniently forget about it and pretend like everything was normal. Whichever seemed the most pertinent course of action.

I stumbled through the mushrooms and the bugs on the ground, made my way through a turn in the passageway, and came up onto a dark ledge. Far beyond, the ceiling of a massive cave covered in little bits of glowing silk from predatory worms.

As soon as I appeared, Fox twitched awkwardly, his dead eyes going to me. He put his hand to his nose and sniffled. "Lower that thing," he hissed. "I can't think when you do that."

My Aura. But fuck it. I might need it.

Coco was there by the ledge, on her knees holding her purse. Velvet was trying to help her up.

"So you're okay?" Velvet was asking.

Running a hand through her brunette hair, Coco looked like she had just emerged from a stupor. I noticed she wasn't wearing her beret, and I didn't see her sunglasses tucked into her waistband.

"Yeah," Coco said, elongating the word like someone trying to speak through a broken jaw. She licked her lips. "I ran ahead. Almost fell. I have lost my hat."

"I can see that. Can you stand? You look really out of it," Velvet said, putting her arms under Coco's elbow and trying to lift her up.

I took my sword from its sheath in a quick motion. "Guys, scratch that. You feel that?"

"Feel what?" Velvet asked, looking around nervously. Her eyes settled on Fox, who was just staring at the two girls.

From his expression, I knew Fox sensed it too. It was an abject hole in reality a Huntsman could feel when they drew upon their Aura in the presence of Grimm. Ruby had once told me that someone who was constantly using their aura could become a savant, inherently becoming one with more advanced Aura sensing techniques. She had been cautioning me against constantly burning my Aura the way I like to for the sense of comfort it brought me. Someone like I imagined how Fox would be, the way he was blind and felt the world through Aura. I couldn't exactly pin down the location of the Grimm, but I knew it was somewhere nearby. Lurking somewhere in the shadows of this plateau ledge.

Finally, Fox said something. "Why aren't you answering me?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Not you, Coco," he snapped. "What do you mean it's wearing your face? Why aren't you responding?"

Coco just looked dizzy. "Oh, that. I'm not in a talkative mood."

"I'm talking in your head, Coco! This asshole and his Aura mean I can't pin down whatever's nearby. But why isn't my Semblance working on you."

If anything, Coco looked surprised. She held her purse close to her chest with this little squint to her eyes. "Okay. So I might have hit my head too. It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Coco, you're freaking me out!"

Velvet held on tightly to her friend. "Fox, you're freaking me out. What's gotten into you!"

The two of them fell silent. They just made a series of expressions at each other, and I had this annoyed sensation they were talking in their heads to leave me out of the conversation. My attention fell back on Coco, who seemed to be trying her best to follow along this invisible conversation. But when she noticed me watching her, she just smiled.

"Hey, pal. Would you kindly come over here?" she asked, trying to shake herself away from Velvet.

Something about the way she asked sent goose flesh down my back. The pauses were just a little too awkward between sentences and words. And she wasn't speaking like herself. Everyone had a unique cadence to them, this inherently human quality of speech. Coco was sounding more like a parrot, if I had to put it to anything. Someone who knew the correct words but didn't entirely understand them. Didn't know how they properly fit in the subtle ways of language.

All I could do was stare at her.

She gave me an apologetic smile. "There's something weird over here. I saw it when I was about to fall. I think you might know what it is."

Velvet and Fox seemed lost in their argument. And I could only figure it was an argument from the way they were scowling at each other and making vague gestures.

"Coco?" I asked slowly.

"Teammate," she said in the same tone, making it somehow sarcastic. "Don't be weird."

I got a shiver again. And I just couldn't shake the feeling that there was a Grimm nearby. I looked around, but couldn't see anything, and my flashlight didn't illuminate anything. All this was was a little plateau that seemed to branch off into a couple more paths along the cliff face. There wasn't anything up here. There was nowhere to hide, and I didn't think I had terribly long range on my Grimm-dar or whatever.

Slowly, I put my sword back in its sheath. Resting my hand on my revolver, I looked Coco dead in the eyes and said, "I can't. Don't you know what year it is? It's just past lunch time."

The bizarre sentence got Velvet to give me a weird look.

Coco didn't seem bothered. "We can make dinner in time for this year. Look, over here." She managed to slip her arms out of Velvet's grip. Coco pointed towards the edge of the cliff, and gestured for me to come hither.

Fox's question bubbled back into my head. What do you mean it's wearing your face? She wasn't replying to his telepathy, which I knew somehow had to relate to a connection. He needed to have an established connection with someone to do that. Coco wasn't replying, and he didn't have a connection. And with me around, he couldn't pinpoint any Grimm, but we both felt it with our Auras activated.

I swallowed. With all the anxious energy of a man going through the TSA and wondering if maybe he did accidentally bring a bomb and just forgot about it, I pulled out XO and aimed at her. My aim shook more than it typically did with this hand.

Coco didn't look bothered. "Put that away. Come here. I want to show you something; it's weird and I need your thoughts."

Velvet, on the other hand, took a step towards me quickly. "Jaune, what are you doing? Put that thing away."

"She didn't understand me," I said, and swallowed. "I did that speech inappropriate meme at her, and she just ignored it. That was a textbook linguistic ambiguity and she just moved on like, like, like a fucking Chinese room."

Obviously sensing something was about to get really bad, Velvet held up her hands. "Hold on, what are you saying? Why are you pointing a gun at my teammate?"

"Fox, you can't talk to her because it's not Coco. It's something wearing her face!"

Fox scowled at me. "Don't be absurd. She's—" And then he just froze, staring at Coco. The way she was just standing there, looking only mildly concerned, like she wasn't even really there in the head. "Coco, what are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything, Fox," she said, clasping her hands and her purse behind her back. "I just want to show Jaune something. But maybe you want to see it. I don't really know what it is. It's over here by the ledge."

Slowly, very slowly, Fox said, "You know I can't see it. Why would you ask that?"

Her head swiveled toward Velvet, almost like a rusty door hinge. "You, then."

I hissed in a breath. "She doesn't know her name. She's the only one of us we haven't named out loud!"

Velvet just looked between all of us, her hands raised. "Wait, hold on, what are you getting at? Would everyone please just calm down and explain why we're all taking crazy pills?"

"Ask her for your name," I told Velvet, aiming the revolver square between Coco's eyes. "Don't ask questions, girl, just do it."

Hesitantly, Velvet turned around and asked, "Coco, the boys are being crazy. But, I guess, what's my name?"

Coco stared at her for an uncomfortable moment. And then she smiled. "Oh, that's easy. Samantha."

You're supposed to hesitate and feel some kind of way when you look your friend in the eyes and put a bullet between them. That has to be the expected response, in any case. It was what the thing where in Coco's face it must have been counting on. And maybe on some level I was hesitating. But I think I got most of the hesitation in doubt out of my system just aiming down the sights at Coco

I recalled one time standing in line with a bunch of civilians for some Army assignment. A woman in line, a former veteran herself, was wearing a brace on her foot. As we waited and stood, she started to shake, and then she collapsed. But not before asking quietly for help as she started to slump over. Being the only one there in my Army combat uniform, I distinctly recall the sensation of no particular emotion as I went to her side and helped keep her standing, and worked with other people around her to get her situated on the ground. She collapsed to the floor in an awkward angle of limbs, panting heavily from the pain and exhaustion, and I couldn't find it in myself to care. Sure, I would do my duty, and sure, I would help her in any way I could, but I didn't have any kind of emotional reaction. She wasn't a brother-in-arms. I could intellectually understand what she was going through and help her, but I couldn't emotionally swing one way or the other. I didn't pity her, I wasn't worried, I wasn't anything. I recalled dryly remarking to the man in the suit next to me, once the paramedics had arrived, that, "At least we got some entertainment in the line."

In a sense, it was like how I felt for Yang. She was outside the narrow purview of people I genuinely cared for. Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Shamrock, and even in their own way Coco and Cardin. Fuck, maybe even Indigo. I could go through the proper motions, but I couldn't bring myself to bear honest emotional labor on their behalf.

There you go. Brief moment of panic, anxious introspection. A quick flashback. A reminder to myself that I needed to pull this trigger no matter what. That this wasn't Coco.

I exhaled a shaky breath and depressed the trigger.

"No!" Velvet screamed, powering up her Aura and ducking forwards. The bullet hit her in the arm, sending her spinning. She let out a series of panting breaths, grabbing her wrist. "Jaune, what the fuck are you doing?! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

I lost sight of Coco. "Velvet, you stupid bitch, it's not Coco!"

"You fucking shot me!"

"Look out!" I shouted, lunging forwards to shove the dumb bunny bitch aside.

Velvet went stumbling straight into Fox, who caught her. In the space where she had just been, Coco rammed her purse down. It hit me square in the armored chest with far more force than I could have ever thought a purse could manage.

"Velvet. Samantha," Coco said, her head twitching. "Close enough. It was worth a shot."

It, I reminded myself. Not 'her'. But wearing my friend's face, it was so hard to forget that. To will myself to think this was the monster it was.

Coco raised a finger to its mouth, like it were going to suckle itself. It put the index finger down to the knuckle, before biting with an audible crack of bone and cartilage. Blood leaked through its teeth as it pulled. It was a sound like wading through slime while sharpening a flint knife. Despite myself, I cringed, bringing my shoulder to my ear from the disgusting noise alone. When it pulled back, the finger had elongated into a long, sharp talon. It looked satisfied at its work, before opening its mouth wide, wider than any human mouth could go. Filled with glistening white teeth stained with red. It put both hands into its mouth and bit down with a cacophony of splitting cartilage. It looked like a bird preening its feathers.

"No you don't!" Fox roared, tackling into it with the blade on his arms.

It swung its arms wildly, the long black bone talons clashing against his blades. Smiling and with an almost serene expression, it spat the blood in its mouth right into his eyes. He yelled in surprise. It took the moment to knee him right in the balls. Fox doubled over, gagging.

The Grimm reared its claws back, only for Velvet to come out of nowhere with a flying jump kick to its center mass. The girl was still panting, her eyes red and wet.

"Fox!" she said, trying to pick him up.

"Stop doing that!" I shouted, getting back on my feet. I had just enough time, just enough reach with my sword, to swing and parry its claws away from her. But the angle I needed to swing sent me off balance.

I didn't bother holding on to the weapon. I let it drop. Instead reaching down from my revolver again.

The thing wearing Coco's face, its mouth far too wide open, looked in two different directions at once like a chameleon. Seeing Fox still struggling to breathe, it went for me. I got off one round before it was too close to shoot. Those long claws wrapped around my hand and tugged me forwards.

"I have something to show you," it said, saliva leaking from its jaw. "What do you think?"

With a single rough tug hard enough to nearly jerk my arm from its socket, it spun and threw me towards the cliff edge. I had a sudden moment of terrified weightlessness before I crashed into the ground and skidded, my armor dragging as I clawed frantically for the rock. I caught myself just in time for it to kick me in the face, sending my forehead slamming into the rock hard enough to break the stone. I felt hot blood from a new gash on my forehead. It sent me skittering backwards.

My legs went over the edge first. My heart stopped working as I grasped for straws. Flailing and swinging my arms and hands wildly, trying to find purchase on something, anything, before I fell into the darkness. A hand grabbed a rock that just so happened to be steady enough. I held on with both hands for all that was worth, fingers still around the revolver in an awkward grip.

Coco chased me on all fours, held up like a spider on the edges of its long claws. I tried to angle the revolver to get a shot off without losing my grip, and failed. It put its claws beneath my hand and flung them upwards like a catapult. The revolver went flying towards the roof of the cave, the hand holding it losing the grip. Coco pulled her arm back, extending two claws as if to stab my eyes out. She was breathing heavily, spitting on me with every breath, this fetid smell like bog water and maggots.

"It'll be fun," it said in a completely toneless voice. "Come here, pal. I have something to show you. Show you, show you, show you!"

Velvet came sliding on the ground, kicking Coco's leg out from under her. Coco's spine twisted at an unnatural angle like the neck of an owl, just so it could get its hands on the ground and catch itself. Before it could lash out, Fox, who was holding Velvet's hand, pulled her back. The girl landed in a crowd, and sprung back towards Coco. Her shoe hit the Grimm in the face. Fox pulled his teammate back before it could claw her, as if he were using Velvet as a flail.

This time when she landed, she jumped with the full force of her Aura into the air, with Fox pushing her up.

Coco didn't wait for the attack. It dug its hands into the rock and catapulted itself towards Fox. Velvet landed where Coco had been a moment ago, and immediately lost her footing. Coco tackled Fox, wrapping its legs around his waist in an almost sexual way.

"Show you!" it said, and bit down into his neck. The elongated mouth nearly swallowed his entire throat.

"Fox!" Velvet called out uselessly.

Biting the boy even harder, wrestling him with its jaw, It dug its claws into his side and back. With a secured grip, it put its legs back on the ground and pivoted, putting Fox between itself and Velvet.

Velvet hesitated, just standing there, with her eyes wide and wet.

"Fucking!" Fox tried. "Get it off me!"

Coco leaned back, still biting, and started to drag him towards the edge. Whenever Velvet moved, it pivoted, using the boy as a human shield.

The entire thing took seconds. I glanced up to see my revolver finally coming down. My sword was too far away to grab. And with its attention focused on Fox and Velvet, it had forgotten me, and given me an angle.

I stopped trying to hold on with both arms. Chest day had been two days prior. I could hold myself up with the one arm and a good grip. The other hand, my free hand, I flexed in a particular gesture and made use of a trick Ruby and I had worked together to build in the Fishery.

Grav Dust microtech—a weapons engineering breakthrough from the house of Graad's very own Volikov!

I felt the heavy weight of XO slam into my palm. Hanging from the awkward angle, I couldn't hope to get a solid shot off. Unsteady would have to do.

Across short distances, the Volikov interface tech will lift and fly straight to an implanted bio alloy gravity Dust chip in a compatible glove.

But unsteady would mean I couldn't get a proper shot at Coco or Fox. They were too close together, and a tangle of limbs as it dragged him screaming and flailing towards the ledge.

"Keep your Aura up as strong as possible, Fox!" I shouted.

Almost silent, the generator delivers total capacity in a ten-second burst.

I took aim with one hand and fired. And fired. Four rounds in the cylinder when I began.

The first shot went through Coco's shoulder, straight into Fox's chest, and blew the thing's arm clear off. The Grimm flinched badly, and took a chunk of the boy's neck in its mouth. He let out a noise that was half scream, half gurgle.

The second shot hit Coco center mass at an angle. It howled, letting him go. Fox fell backwards, clutching at the gushing hole that was his neck. Blood soaked through his fingers and into his sleeve. Wide-eyed, Coco turned to face me. The last two shots blew its thigh to pieces and exploded the Grimm's heart. If it had one.

Coco collapsed onto the ground, writhing and flailing, and honest to God bleeding. Without an arm, and with a leg it couldn't use, it wasn't able to move. I flicked XO, triggering the auto loader.

Velvet rushed for Fox, only to pivot away at the last moment. Tears streaming down her face, she lifted her foot and smashed into Coco's skull. She screamed and grunted with every stomp, kicking and hitting it until the face cracked. The skull split open. And whatever passed for brains smeared across the stone.

That didn't stop her. She just kept stomping at the bits of bone and gray matter. Like a little girl who just found the strength to kill a spider, and didn't know when enough was enough.

By the time I had crawled back onto the ledge, Velvet was openly sobbing and trying to treat Fox. As dark as he was, I couldn't tell if he was pale or not from blood loss. It looked like a lot, but he wasn't dead yet.

"Didn't," he moaned, laying on the ground as Velvet put pressure on his neck. "Get the artery."

"Fox, just hold on, just hold on, don't talk, just hold on!" Velvet kept screaming, repeating it almost like a mantra.

He was glowing hard, but his aura was shimmering like it was about to break. That must have been why he wasn't speaking through his telepathy. "Won't die. But, fuuuck."

I didn't know what to do. I just stood there helplessly, staring at the scene. It wasn't like I could fit any more hands onto his wound. And it wasn't like I was about to shove Velvet away from her teammate. I did the only thing I could do: I grabbed my sword off the ground and collapsed my ass onto a rock, covering my face with my hands. Trying to get a hold of my breathing and my destroyed nerves. They came in quick, short sputters of oxygen.

"Jaune!" Blake shouted, her voice approaching rapidly. "We heard gunfire, what—Oh my God, Coco!"

I spread my fingers to see the rest of the squad coming out of the tight passageway. Yatsuhashi was looking frantic, his shoulders torn up and nearly destroyed. Weiss' white skirt had gotten sullied in the passage. Shamrock had jumped into action, sprinting towards Fox, while Blake ran to me.

Blake tried to grab me, her eyes wide and filled with terror. I held up a hand toward her off, letting out a sharp breath

"Fine. I'm fine," I said, wiping the blood off my face. "It's not Coco. It was a Grimm wearing her face. We killed it." I felt a dawning sense of horror. This inarticulate dread I couldn't explain. "You know first aid, right?" I croaked.

My partner nodded wordlessly.

I gestured it sharply towards Fox. "Help Fox. It bit his neck."

She just stood there and stared.

"Goddamn it, Blake, now!" I snapped.

She looked like she were trying to say something, but just turned and went to Fox. She rummaged through her backpack to find gauze or whatever.

Yatsuhashi was pacing around like a caged lion, anxious. He was useless and he knew it. I know that feeling, buddy.

Weiss was just standing over Coco's corpse, mouth agape. "It's… it's a wendigo," she breathed. "A skinwalker! I didn't even know they were real. This, this is—oh my God."

A dozen or so internet horror stories bubbled to mind. Most of them from the /x/ board of 4chan. I might not have been a native to this world, but I picked up enough cultural osmosis to figure out a couple of things in common between Remnant and Earth. If the name's the same, odds are so is the modus operandi. And I had been familiar with those paranormal urban legends for years now. Even if things were sufficiently different here, I didn't exactly feel the need to ask questions and get the deep dive worldbuilding or whatever. I didn't care, and it would be extraneous. There were real issues to tackle.

"It copies people's faces, and their voices, and tries to lure people," Weiss said, looking at Coco's purse on the ground. "This thing had a plan. It took Coco's face."

The skinwalker wasn't decaying correctly. Grimm were supposed to rapidly turn into ash when you killed them. This one was leaving behind a human body. The only place that smoked were the gunshot wounds. As if remaining a human corpse were part of the continued mind game, a postmortem attempt to fuck with us even more. It meant all the blood and gore stuck to Velvet's boots.

"It was trying to lure us over the edge of the cliff!" Velvet said, grabbing her rabbit ears and pulling them like hair.

That knowing sense of dread I couldn't articulate hit me at once. With a sudden gasp of breath, I shot to my feet. "Holy fuck, Coco's still out there. The real one! There's nobody here, and it was trying to lure us over the edge, holy fuck that's what it did to her, what it was trying to do to us—holy fuck, holy fuck."

I grabbed my forehead, pacing back and forth. Trying to get a coherent stream of thoughts together. Every other thought was just fuck or shit. Nothing productive. Just a horrified realization that while we were up here, Coco could have been down there, bleeding out and dying, and we were just fighting and arguing this entire time.

What the hell do you do here? Do I, do I, no, maybe I should, no, not—

I threw my hands and screamed. "Fuck!"

I spun around and saw everyone watching me. At least the ones who weren't trying to keep Fox alive. The sinking feeling in my gut went lower. Straight down into my balls. Without Coco here, I was the team leader. And whether they were conscious of it or not, that look they were giving me—expectant. I was supposed to have the answers. I was supposed to have the plan. I was Coco's protégé. The only figure with authority left.

And I didn't know what the fuck to do at all.

No. No, no, no! Sure, I was theoretically the leader, but what did that mean in practice? I hadn't been doing anything befitting a leader in months. And even when I had been a leader, I'd been drunk or high or otherwise totally incapable of being a functioning human being. I didn't have any real experience doing this. Just a couple of small squads back in the Army due to the technicality of more senior noncommissioned officers being gone. This was the moment I was supposed to look towards a veteran NCO and just take orders without question. I didn't know how to take the initiative. Didn't know how to project calm confidence and reassure people looking up to me. I wasn't someone you were supposed to look up to; I functioned best in social situations, talking and empathizing with people, not leading us to death and battle!

I felt the sweat coming down in rivers despite the cold of the cave. I brushed it off, trying to get control of my breathing. My blood pressure was through the roof. Spots at the corner of my vision. Mouth dry. The gash on my forehead leaked blood into my eyes. The bruise where Coco had hit me with the purse burned with a cold fury of pain to come.

I closed my eyes and took off my glove. Hands shaking, I pressed my thumb into the tips of every one of my fingers back and forth. An old technique my therapist once taught me to ground myself in the moment. Don't panic. Don't think about what happened. Don't think about what will happen. Just have a fucking plan, Jaune.

With a swallow, I open my eyes. Channeling every bit of my old sergeant, I set my feet on the ground as if expecting to be shoved backwards by the force of my own words.

"She's down there. We're going to get her."

Velvet was practically prancing in place like a toddler who had to piss. "Maybe she's fine. She's a Huntress; we all have landing strategies. We heard gunfire before we showed up. Maybe—"

"Those involve a weapon," I said, gesturing to the purse on the ground. "Which it stole."

Just speaking without stuttering was a Herculean effort. I kept pressing my thumb into my fingers, willing the shaking to stop.

"Oh my God," Velvet whispered, tugging on her ears.

Weiss peered over the edge, into the sea of bioluminescent deep down into the darkness. "I don't—that's a long way down. If that thing wanted to drag you off the edge, how do we know Coco is still alive?"

I gave her a look so hard that Weiss visibly flinched. "We don't. And that's why we're going after her. Every one of us will die before we leave a man behind."

"What?" Shamrock asked, speaking their first word of this disaster.

I gave her the same look. "I will never leave a fallen comrade. I won't leave you behind, and you won't leave me behind. We're not leaving Coco behind either. Even if that just means we're bringing back a body, she deserves everything. Do I make myself understood?"

Shamrock and Weiss both nodded. Their agreement slid a couple pounds of weight off my heart. I was defaulting to old soldier programming. And trying not to LARP too hard. It was like soldiers in military intelligence being a little too hooah and pretending they were infantry, just pure cringe. They embarrassed themselves and the Army both. I didn't want to come across as that pathetic in front of everyone. It would destroy my nascent credibility as a leader.

"We can't leave Fox behind, either," Blake said, still bandaging his neck.

I ran my hands down my face, pacing towards the edge of the cliff. "And I don't know how to get down there safely. My landing strategy were ad hoc at best."

My attention went to Weiss. "Girl, how much weight can one of your glyphs hold?"

Weiss blinked, then gave me a squinting look. "Uh, I'm not sure. A couple hundred pounds? More if I make them smaller."

I let out a long breath. "Alright. Weiss, you and me. Make glyphs as small as you can, just far enough down so we can land without breaking our knees. We'll hop, skip, and jump our way down to Coco."

"And what are the rest of us supposed to do, huh?!" Velvet hissed. "Just stand here like a bunch of idiots?"

I gave her the most even expression I could manage, trying to will myself to look authoritative. Exactly the way I didn't feel inside. "The weight requirement rules out Yatsuhashi coming with. I need you to stay with my partner. Blake, I need you to keep Fox alive; I don't want him moving until we know he's good."

And that was assuming it would be good. But it was better to suggest optimism.

"I'm… not that bad," Fox croaked, and I ignored him.

"Velvet, Shamrock, you two scout along the cliff. There's probably a slower way down, safer one. One that doesn't involve jumping into the abyss. Coco might have already found it and be on her way up as we speak. Use one of the flare guns I had you pack if you find a way down safely to the bottom so we can follow you and link up once we have Coco."

Also assuming she wasn't dead. Which I was categorically refusing to countenance.

"Right," Shamrock said with a nod. She was white knuckling her weapon hard.

Velvet looked at Shamrock, before her attention went back to me. "How do you know that? I'm pretty light; I could go with you two!"

My gut instinct was to call her a stupid bitch again. To try to demean her to make her obey. But that wasn't leadership, that was just bullying with extra paternalistic steps. And I had a feeling she wouldn't respond well to that.

"That's not a good idea," I said.

"Like you're a font of good ideas," she snapped. "You shot me. You shot Fox!"

"He what?" Blake asked.

"Friendly. Fire," Fox groaned. "To kill the Grimm. His aim sucks."

"Shh! Stop talking," Blake said.

"So let me come and help before you accidentally shoot the real Coco or something," Velvet said, throwing her arms out.

"We're already splitting the party, an absolute no-go," I said as evenly as I could manage. It was a force of will to accomplish. "If there's more of these things out there, I don't want any of us being alone. Unless you want to be the next one with your face stolen."

Velvet paused. She grit her teeth and just hugged herself. "No, that's not what I—"

"So we stick together in pairs or trios, and we get this done quick. The more we argue, the more time Coco is alone down there, hurt or dying or anything. Now do you want to argue, or do you want to save our friend's life?"

"But—"

"Do you or don't you want to save Coco?"

She looked away. "Okay."

It didn't sound like she agreed.

"Velvet, do you trust me?"

She didn't say anything.

"I need you to trust me here. If we can't trust each other, then all we're doing is getting each other killed. I want to save Coco just as much as you. I'm sorry I accidentally shot you, but it was an honest mistake in the heat of the moment. Right now, however, I need you to trust me, and I need you to listen. Okay? It's the only way we can save Coco—working together."

Gritting her teeth, she nodded. "I… okay, Jaune."

"But do you trust me?" I insisted. "Do you trust that I'm doing everything I can to save Coco?"

Velvet was silent

"Velvet."

She compressed a breath. "I… okay. Jaune, I—I trust you. I think. Just promise me you won't shoot Coco. The real Coco."

I wiped the blood off my forehead. It mixed with sweat and stung the cut. "I promise. If I can trust you to follow my lead, you can trust me not to shoot Coco or do anything stupid. Yeah?"

Velvet just hugged herself tighter. "Yeah."

I suppressed the urge to sigh. "Okay, now! No more arguing. Everyone just follow our plan and stick together, and we'll make it through this, I know it. Weiss, conmigo."

Looking as if she were in a trance, Weiss stepped to my side. We were on the precipice, literally and figuratively. I took up Coco's purse in my hand, and the damn thing was extremely heavy. But Coco would need it. Weiss made a noise of surprise as I put my arm under hers and held her close.

"Keep the glyphs narrow as possible," I said. "And hold on to me so we don't fall apart."

She hesitated only slightly, a vague rosiness to her cheeks before tightening her arm against me. Holding on with all her might. "Right."

With her other hand, she withdrew her rapier and spun the Dust cylinder. A moment later, and there was a snowflake-like platform a couple feet in diameter a good couple of yards down.

She and I exchanged glances, and nodded.

As everyone moved into position, Yatsuhashi with Blake, and Shamrock with Velvet, Weiss and I held on to each other and jumped feet first into hell.