The Grimm had disappeared, and the fighting had ceased. Nothing could be seen. It was more sightless than a darkened room, with a dead moon. Jaune steadied himself and carefully sheathed his newly reforged sword, lest he stab somebody by accident. That would probably be his luck.
He could still hear, though his ears rang from the shriek which had rung out before. It sounded worse than somebody dying, or wailing, beyond grief and into something he could not really understand. He wanted to.
Confused exchanges surrounded him, and it was hard to parse voice to voice because he could not see who was speaking.
Emerald over his shoulder hissed, "Stop poking me with that," which did not sound out of place, really, from her usual interactions with Mercury.
"That's not me," Mercury equally hissed back.
"My skin feels slimy—"
"— ow, my toes!—"
"Mercury would you STOP."
"Where did Nora go? Nora?"
"I'm here, dummy."
"Hey," Jaune cut in, above the intermingling voices, "let's figure out what we can do. You know, I used to play this game called Blackout when I was a kid. We'd turn all the lights off at night when my sisters were babysitting me and then I'd have to hide and run from them in the dark. It was really scary."
"This isn't a game," said Emerald.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but same difference. Let's get a hold of each other's hands if we can."
"Where are the Grimm gone?" he heard.
Jaune felt something wrong on his skin such that he did not want to answer. Instead, he tried to feel around for an outstretched hand, found one with his left, then eventually his right.
"Is your Semblance any help right now, Ren?" he tried.
Ren said back, strained, "Not especially for finding hands."
But definitely for seeing someone in my room, Jaune did not say.
"So did you win?" Emerald asked to his left.
He could not see her. He thought about his answer until Emerald prompted him again, and he said, "Um, no. No, I didn't usually. Not unless one of them was nice to me."
"And how often did that happen," she said back blandly.
"Not often?" He huffed. "Well, it sounds bad when you ask."
"So where the hell's Ruby," said Mercury, mercifully saving Jaune.
"RUBY?" Yang called, from somewhere near.
"Oscar?" he called out, after her. He did not want to lose Oscar again, either.
"I'm fine!" Oscar said, from what sounded like very far away. "I'm going to look for Ruby!"
"Be careful! Though they should be more afraid of you!"
Oscar laughed.
He could hear other Huntsmen and Huntresses near, speaking to one another through the dark. He was pretty sure Emerald was gripping his left hand and he might have been so lucky that Mercury was now to his right. Ren and Nora were accounted for; Yang's volume, too; Blake and Weiss was nearby, he could hear them calling for Ruby; who else, well, mostly everybody now. He only hoped that Winter was holding her end of things. The Maiden battle had been be heard from this far away.
At first he had thought it was a landslide or something cataclysmic like that, but Vacuo was flat. It was not until he remembered who was doing the fighting that he remembered the rumbles beneath Haven, and knew that Maiden fights were something else. Then, even over the roar of Grimm, he had heard it get louder. That meant only one other thing. Another Maiden had joined.
He did not know what Cinder would do to Winter. He let the thought go. They would just need to find Ruby, and make sure she was okay. He was not really angry at her. Something was wrong, and she had seen something disturbing, so disturbing she had not told him, or her, or anybody else. He wanted her to find her way back.
"If the Grimm are gone, what're we waiting for?" Nora asked, her high voice ringing out over the quiet.
"The Grimm aren't gone," Ren said quietly.
"Well they seem gone and no one's fighting. Do we just stand around and talk or are we going to do something like find a lighter?"
At that, Jaune saw Blake reappear in the dark, a small flint of Dust burning in her hand. She must have broken it off Gambol Shroud. Shadows danced across her face, her eyes bright in the dark. "How's this?"
"I can barely see you," Yang said. "I can't even see anybody else, how is it so dark?"
"Well, I can see just a bit… not much. Mostly outlines. I can't see Ruby."
Jaune could not see Ren, so he just watched Blake. He heard a rumble somewhere, and said, "Ren, is it what I think it is?"
"I'm afraid so, and I'm not sure what's going to happen when it stops."
"Could you let us in on the secret?" Nora bit out.
Jaune immediately felt sour. So he said, as straightforwardly as he could, "The dark's Grimm."
"The what," Mercury said.
"Oh, that's why I feel like I'm covered in creepy-crawlies," Emerald added.
"Then what did that?" and then it broke out again in questions, questions.
The fighting from earlier had stopped. In fact, it was the quietness that unnerved him more than the worry, and Ruby's disappearance. It had been thunderous, heard over the Grimm in local proximity, and the rest of it. Perhaps they had just stopped fighting because they, too, could not see. No, no, worse. They stopped because whoever had planned this knew what they were doing, and the Grimm had just been a distraction. This was not like Atlas. This was different. Ruby was right: something worse had come.
Then Nora cut through the chatter and said: "Is this anything you already know about, Jaune?"
"No," he said. "I don't… know what this is. I'm not even sure if Cinder does."
"Would she have told you," Yang said.
"Okay, I don't know how to explain it wasn't like that either. It's not like we talked… strategy."
"So then what did you talk about," Nora said, another non-question.
Jaune thought they had passed this, but then, what else did you do when you could not see and Grimm crawled all over your skin, unable to bite.
"I'm wondering the same thing," Emerald said. "Cinder doesn't talk."
"Cinder bossed us around," Mercury helpfully added. "Well, sometimes she talked, but it was mostly for her own uses."
"Is this necessary right now," Jaune tried. He tightened his grip in both of the hands inside his, out of pure nerves.
Mercury said, "I dunno, you tell us. Your girlfriend's probably beating the shit out of the Summer Maiden right now. Or Winter. Where's Winter?"
"Would you stop," Jaune hissed.
"Okay, okay, your soulmate or whatever."
He groaned. On some level, he probably deserved it. He was mildly thankful he could not see Nora's expression, or Ren's, or anybody else's. It felt like a confessional booth. He could just say what he really wanted to now, if he were confessing. Besides, he liked talking about her. It was somewhere to put his feelings for her that was not inside him.
"I mean, what do you think we talked about. We talked about most things, even what were supposed to be doing for Salem or… Ruby or Oz. At first we didn't talk except to argue," he eventually said.
"Even arguing with Cinder is like pulling teeth," Mercury said. "She doesn't argue except with Salem."
"I don't know, it just kept happening. I wanted to understand… why she was the way she was. And I guess she did too."
Emerald said hesitantly, gripping his hand, "She didn't show me that kind of interest when I helped her."
Jaune swallowed. "I didn't want anything else from her. I knew we'd fight again, but not then. That time I found her I didn't want to."
That was it. He would be circling around that moment forever, maybe as much as anything else in the rest of his life. That one time and then everything else, when he kept talking to her when he should not have.
The others had grown quiet. He could hear Yang talking to Blake about where Ruby possibly be, and if there were any way to find her.
"Tell us your weirdest Cinder fact, then. You owe me," said Mercury. He bumped his shoulder into Jaune's.
Jaune sighed. "I… don't know, she's… kind of weird."
"What," Emerald said.
"She's weird. Like, the Cinder I know."
"Weird," Mercury repeated.
"Well, by normal standards of weird. I don't know what I could tell you. She snores."
"I know that," Emerald said, and she sounded like she was suppressing a laugh, but it was sad.
Jaune felt a bizarre flare of jealousy, that someone else knew that before he did. He remembered the first night he had noticed. He remembered every night with her. He wanted to say something really mean, something personal, like, she let me inside her head and I saw how lonely she was, or something like, I've seen the inside curve of her thigh and I wanted to lick it. Like he had to prove how much he wanted her, or prove like, what, he got there first? Jaune had never felt possessive. But then he had wished to keep her to himself, had he not. So maybe he was.
"I'm not sure what's appropriate to say," he said. "Or what you'd even want to hear."
"Right, so, Emerald, I guess we can confirm it's salacious. Gross."
"Shut up, Mercury. Lovingly."
"Yeah, shut up, Mercury," Jaune muttered.
"Do we have to keep holding hands?"
"We could fumble around in the dark until we find the school, and then wait for the Summer Maiden to come beat us bloody. Or we could stay right here, where Jaune's going to keep telling us about Cinder and maybe somebody will find where Ruby's gone," Emerald said. "Nora, how are you holding up?"
"Fine," said Nora tightly. "I'm just wondering where Robyn is. Was Qrow in the school?"
"Qrow's with Theodore," Yang said. "And team CFVY, I think. The Vault's got some sort of extra lock on it, so that will buy us time. Should we… go? To the school?"
It felt helpless. He was used to seeing. But worse than that, it felt very wrong, that the battle had simply ceased. It should have been as easy as Grimm turning up, fighting the Grimm, then waiting for Salem to make the next move. But then, they could not kill Salem. So maybe it was not that simple.
"Weiss?" they crew heard Winter call, interrupting the pitch-black conversation. "WEISS?"
Above them hovered Winter on her blue pixie dust-like cloud, electricity crackling in her hand, the only thing alighting her face, the red of her cheeks and her now-red clothes.
"I'm here, Winter!" Weiss called back. "Well, you can't see me, but I'm fine! Are you alright?"
"Yes!" Winter said. "I'm fine. I just— needed to make sure."
Jaune would have paid attention to their conversation, Weiss brightly chatting to her sister as if all the dark would clear at the sound of her voice, when he felt that now well-familiar feeling, starting in his gut and working up his neck, his back straightening with it. He could not see her, of course, but he felt her, as he always did, and he wanted to reach out and touch her but he was holding onto Emerald and Mercury.
He was not sure what she would do, or what she was doing. Why use this moment now to call out. Was she not in the school yet? What was she thinking? She could not hurt him, he knew that. She had warned him before; what would she warn him of now? It all ran through his head so quickly until it disappeared at the first sensation of her touching his shoulder, only his pauldron, and then he felt her heated hand against him properly on his skin. It burnt away that slick-sick feeling, and her fingers were so delicate and lovely, it could not have been anyone else, even if he could not see her and could hardly hear her he would know it was her. Then she travelled up his throat, soft touch, and settled on his jaw. He could not help how his breath came.
He felt silly, being jealous. Even if he could not have her all— and how terribly he would have liked her all, like a stupid boy— he had this, her wanting to put her hand on him, and for what reason? She ignored his calls and he wondered if she did not really want to see him. But at least he could offer her this if she wanted it, just a little, just touch him a bit as you please.
Then she went. Of course she did. A bitter, jealous part of him wondered if she would come back. There were people who could not come back, not anymore. She could. He believed that he would see her again, but it was not quite the same thing as sleeping in the same bed or eating the same food, was it. He felt something pull in his stomach, mean. He knew her. He wanted her to know him.
Winter was surveying them all now, calling out names and waiting for those near but unseen to respond. Then she said, "Wondering why I'm here?"
"You're here to check on me," Weiss said, like she was answering on a question in class.
"That's right, Weiss," Winter replied, sparkle-blue flickering across her face. "I'm also here to inform you that there's something which went into the school which I cannot fight, and that the Summer Maiden is already in the school. I do not currently know where Cinder Fall is. I am, however, of the opinion that if the Relic is unleashed, we are best to meet it out here. Like the Relic of Creation, its safest place may be… outside the Vault. We carry the Lamp, at least."
Then a chorus called out: what's in the school? What? We can't just leave the Relic!
That last one was Nora.
"Go and FIGHT HER," he heard, "go and FIGHT!"
Calmly, Winter said, "The only reason I'm standing here right now is Cinder Fall's mercy. I might ask that you cease. There's no guarantee I can fight in the dark. Speaking of, where goes Ruby Rose?"
"Who put you in charge anyway!"
Jaune saw Winter's face screw up. Who was in charge: Ghira and the White Fang? Robyn and the Happy Huntresses? Winter, the Winter Maiden? Theodore, somewhere inside the school, guarding the Vault?
"When I received this power," Winter said slowly, "it was a gift I had to learn to use responsibly. I am still learning. I only ask that you follow my plan because I know exactly what Carmine is capable of. Our saving grace right now is that the Grimm are gone. Pray tell, what should I do, facing the Summer Maiden?"
"Beat the shit out of her," Mercury offered.
"Helpful. And how do you propose I do that."
"Shoot lightning bolts at her."
"Ah, yes, in the narrow strip of the Vault I surely have room to out manoeuvre her. At the slimmest peak of the school. Myself, and Qrow against… Tyrian and two Maidens, and an unknown who presently conducts this darkness, and screamed a scream so strong it nearly deafened me."
"Winter's right," Jaune said, amongst the dissent. "The minute the Relic's out, Salem has less reason to stay here. So… yeah, it wasn't a great idea before to try and give the Staff to her, but now?"
Nora said, "You just don't want Cinder getting hurt."
"No, I don't," he agreed.
"So you want the Relic on the loose because you don't want Winter fighting Cinder."
"In deference to your squabble—" Winter began, blithely, but Nora interrupted her.
"It's not a squabble. He lied to us and now he thinks it's a good idea we just let them have the Sword."
Jaune's mouth twisted where he could not see. So he finally said, "This is still about Pyrrha, isn't it."
"Can we do this another time," Ren said quietly.
"Do you think Cinder asked me for forgiveness?"
He waited for Nora to reply. She said nothing. He had nothing else to go off of.
So he said, "She didn't ask me. She thinks it's impossible. That's why she left. She doesn't think we can stop Salem or that she can be forgiven, so there's no point. So I lost her before I even had her."
He breathed in very heavily, and felt embarrassed, even if he meant what he said. He felt too much, and they had been there each other for Pyrrha's loss. That had made it easier to saddle and accept. Now Cinder's loss was his and his alone, and she was not even dead. She could still come back.
"You… really love her," Ren said into the quiet.
Nora still yet said nothing.
"Like, capital L love her," he said again. "I thought— I didn't— with the way my Semblance has changed, I have to read… what I'm being shown. I've seen love a lot. It's everywhere. Fear, too, and anxiety, and anger, and… the rest, but it's hard distinguishing where they begin and end, because half of it's what we tell ourselves it is." He laughed. "But you— it's so heavy, I wonder how you carry that by yourself."
"It's not—"
"No, no, I've seen love so many times and it's a different sight every time, even if I know the shape of it, the colour's always changing. I had seen it before on you, earlier, I'm not really sure when. I wrote it up to something else, I guess, because I didn't know why you'd be feeling it, and that's how you see it too, isn't it?" He sighed then, sounding tired, but pushing on. "The colour's really pretty."
Jaune lowered his head shyly, as if to hide. "What colour?"
"It's like an opal."
That was what shimmered in the air when she appeared to him. He smiled, dumbly, though nobody could see it, not even if his rogue Cinder Fall appeared.
"You don't have to be okay with it," Jaune said. "That's not what I'm asking you to do. The only thing I'd want is… well, remember when we found out we couldn't kill Salem?"
"I remember. You were upset."
"What if we didn't want to kill Salem. What if you knew her? And you… at first I thought it was just the bond, stopping us hurting each other, because our Aura are one in the same in some sort of way… I'm still me and she's still her, but there's a give and take, I guess. And now bond or no bond I wouldn't touch her, you couldn't make me. I guess I just wonder— could we do things differently?" He shrugged and he saw nothing.
Ren thought long for a moment. Jaune thought he had upset him, but he said, thoughtfully, "So it's not like Oz and Oscar?"
"No… it's different."
"How do you know."
"I— I just do," he tried, searching for a way to explain it. "I'm more of me and she's more of her, but I guess we let each other in. I don't know. It's not like there's much precedence for this."
Cinder and her dark curse, he and his Semblance and his insistence. What a cocktail.
"I thought it was bad luck when I found her," he said. "The worst luck and the only luck."
"And here's Qrow," Winter announced. She cast a flash of light which magnified itself at the same time he turned from bird into man.
He fell to his knees, and then dug his face into the sand and began to sob. The light went out, then. What was probably Theodore was calling his name, and a few others were, too, as it went on and on and on. It was like that thing earlier, but muffled and suppressed. The sand buried the sound.
"They've got the Relic," said Theodore. "Almost certainly by now. Tyrian— I don't know what Tyrian is doing—"
Qrow only stopped at intervals for breath. That only drove up the talking.
"What's happened to him—" Winter tried, but it went on again.
It was like somebody had died, or something worse than that.
"Is it Ruby?" Yang tried, now stumbling around, her footsteps kicked up sand as she went over to where Qrow was, only heard and not seen now. "Qrow, Qrow, what's wrong?"
"That sounds… really bad," Jaune said, as two hands squeezed against his.
Then the sobbing started. When it did, Emerald said, "That's what Cinder being tortured used to sound like."
It was so matter of fact, Jaune was not sure he heard correctly. He digested what she had said. "You saw?" he asked.
"Heard. Didn't always see. It was just the way things were. It's what made me leave, anyway."
Mercury's silence said more than he could have speaking. Jaune remembered what he walked in on at the tomb. So Emerald had turned away because she realised what Salem did to Cinder, and Mercury turned away because he chose Emerald everybody else.
"I'm sorry," Jaune said.
"Ugh, no mushy feelings," Emerald said, and Mercury made a noise of agreement.
Cinder liked his mushy feelings.
His thoughts were sobered by Qrow sobbing. He cried, and cried, and cried, and beat a fist into the sand. Winter hovered over his shoulder, offering a little light, and the people he could see who brandished lights from their pockets watched on with curiosity. Qrow was not even sitting up bothering to fight. He just cried. Every eye that could see was on him. Theodore put a hand on his other shoulder, and Yang kept calling out for Ruby. They were all searching for her, and it was one voice after another building up into a crescendoed chorus: Ruby! Ruby! Ruby! fumbling around in the nothingness, wondering where she had flown to.
The dimmest of faintest of red lights opened up. At first Jaune thought it were Ruby's petals, when she spun fast and split herself up. It was a different shape he knew, but had only seen once, its red-black mouth opening to give way to the Spring Maiden. No warning, no nothing, just punctuated by one sob and another, and Raven stepped out into the pitch black, her pale face lightened by her portal. She must have heard his cry, across that long distance.
"Mom?" said Yang. "I thought you were with Dad."
"Raven?" Qrow said, the first sensical word he had uttered in a while now.
"Tai's fine." Raven sheathed her sword. "I simply received word from a little friend."
"I thought you came because—"
"Partly that," she interrupted. Then she nodded at Winter, now Raven's face blue. "How are you holding up?"
Warily, Winter said, "Fine enough."
"Is the power giving you trouble?"
"No, no, but I'm still… acclimating."
"Good. Give it time." Then she turned her red eyes to Qrow, flitted the half-shadow of them briefly across the gathering in the desert.
"Little friend?" Yang prompted.
"Neopolitan. You might remember that I scared her terribly once. Well, she came to warn me this time instead." Raven smirked. "She was watching the school. Said that the shade went. It was obvious where. I thought she had stayed on the island, for that matter."
"Yeah, someone got her out," said Yang.
"How fickle. Well, it's no matter to me. She was of good use. So here I am. Where's Salem?"
"Somewhere close," Ren murmured, quiet enough Jaune almost did not hear him.
The sliver of Raven's gaze surveyed the dark. Then she said, "Qrow, get up."
"I can't," he mourned.
"I told you. Get up. Whatever that's happened can be fixed. You just need to pull yourself together."
"I don't think that's helping him," Yang said.
"Do you want some pity, then? Is that it? Go look in the dictionary between sh—"
"Mom!" Yang snapped. "Come on! We talked about this!"
"—between shit and syphilis, then you'll find it," she finished.
Then Qrow laughed. Then Mercury laughed. Yang did not laugh.
"That's from a movie I know," said Mercury. "Your mom's got good taste, Yang."
"You shouldn't get away with that," Yang muttered.
Somehow that made Qrow laugh harder. His head was not buried in the sand now, at least. Jaune wondered what was going on. At least they had two Maidens on their side, and look at that: Neo had helped them. He swept his gaze across the little dots of light spreading out around Shade that he could see. Some were still stumbling around. Some had come closer to see what the racket was. There were lit up faces near him, between them absolute nothingness.
"How was Vale?" asked Qrow, his voice rough and nasal.
"Quieter than usual. Hence our suspicion." Raven cleared her throat. "… and how are you, Yang?"
"I can't find Ruby and I can't see. I'm doing great," answered Yang.
"You'll find her. You always do."
Yang grumbled something Jaune could not hear this far. Then he thought about where Qrow had come from. They did not have very long, if they had long at all. The darkness was the Summer Maiden's problem as much as it was theirs, though. That meant it either would not last, or they would try to club each other blindly.
She might just leave. She might just go straight to wherever Salem was, hanging on the edge, pass the Relic and let it be done with. The Lamp would really be the reason to stick around, and that was securely fastened to Ruby's waist. Who was now missing.
Jaune was losing this game of Blackout. "Alright. Let's go look for Ruby."
"Just amble around in the dark," said Mercury.
"Well, we could just keep standing here and wait for Carmine to do something, or we could go find the person who's carrying a Relic."
"Fine. Your funeral."
So Jaune borrowed Dust from Blake and Weiss, passed flints of it to Emerald and Mercury, and then Ren and Nora, where he could find them, and said to Ren, "Ren, does Ruby's Aura look different to anybody else's?"
"Based on what I've seen in the past few hours… yes," Ren admitted.
"Okay. You lead the way."
"Me?"
"You can see better than us," he said.
Somewhere behind him Blake said, "I can too!"
"Then you search with Yang and Weiss around this side, we'll head east. If I know where east is. Ren, which way is east."
"I can't sense compass directions," Ren said drily.
"I can," Nora huffed. She paused, and hummed. "It's that way."
"I can't see where you're pointing."
"Oh. Well, follow me for a bit then."
Jaune followed Emerald who followed Ren who followed Nora, and Mercury trailed around them somewhere. Every now and then Jaune would lose his footing and then one of the two turncoats would yank him back up. They walked past faces lit by fire, lit by torch, lit by lighter here and there. It was quiet in some places and in others as loud as a festial, once voice over another building until he could not hear what the others were trying to say.
Everybody wondered where the Grimm went. He did not want to tell them where they were, but they had to, else what would happen when they came back?
"It's Grimm," they each said as they walked past, "it's Grimm, not shadow."
That only seemed to invite more questions, and they kept searching for Ruby— Jaune kept searching for Cinder— but they had to stop every few paces and say, "Don't let your guard down," because the Grimm crawled all over their skin. Where else did they go, inside them?
It made their trek longer, and with little sight it made navigating feel like it would go on forever and ever. Every time Ren said, "Wait, stop," and he surveyed Aura, Jaune's heart would start kickbeating in anticipation, shrouded by the black cloud and then he would say, "Sorry, no."
Jaune would find his way to Ren and amplify his Aura, because reading Aura might have been second-nature to him now, it still made a demand of him.
Mercury made idle chatter between warning people, passing the message on. The Grimm were not gone. Mercury was bad at telling jokes. Emerald laughed at his bad jokes.
They called for Ruby. Jaune fell over again. One at a time, they helped each other up an unseen ledge, which must have been near the wind towers on the eastern edge. They were close where they intended to go. Ruby could not have gone far, and why had she fled so? They kept walking, navigating a pavilion, and then they saw the remnants of flame. There had been a fight here. There were fences aflame, miscellanea barrels and bric-a-brac of the city edge, near the prison. It was all burning and burnt, based on what he could see. It was destroyed.
They went north-east, then. Hoped for the best.
"Why did she leave?" asked Emerald. "It's not like her."
"Maybe her silver eyes feel funny," Mercury suggested, catching Jaune's hand before he ran into a wall.
He saw the wall before he ran into it anyway.
"Like, silver eyes repel Grimm but maybe it makes her sick," Mercury said. "You know… there's too much of it, I don't know. This isn't my thing."
"No, you might be right," Ren said. "Her silver eyes made her pass out the first time she used them, so… there's no telling what this much Grimm would do. If she could use them, though…"
"We could clear the dark," Nora said. "Oh. Oh! Oh! But first we just need to make sure she's alright."
"Yeah," Jaune said warily, feeling very worried.
They kept going. It grew quieter and quieter, and the only thing they heard was the lonely wind. The Dust in hand had burnt out, and he had nothing else left on him, and the others too. They might be able to feel their way back, but then, he felt worry fill him. He could not see. He did not know where Cinder or Ruby were. The others had fallen silent, too, though he did not know why.
He heard something snuffle. It sounded almost like a Grimm, not an animal, darker and scarier. The scent in the air was not sulphuric like the Grimm, but it was muskier, wilder, nearer to brimstone.
Something moved in the sand, and Ren said quietly, "Ruby?"
Then the great thing that made that noise snuffled out again, as if answering the call. He heard a pitiful whine, and whether that was Ruby or whatever the thing was he was not sure. Something big and heavy then swept through the sand, and it sounded rhythmic, like a tail. Sweep, sweep, it swept sand in the air and some of it got in Jaune's eyes, for all the good that would do.
"Ruby?" he tried.
"Oh," he heard, from up high, up very high. The voice was blood-curdlingly familiar. It was slow and droll. "Your friends are here, Ruby Rose."
He swallowed and stepped back.
"Ruby," he said again.
Mercury and Emerald were very, very silent. Nobody moved. Ruby had the Lamp strapped to her waist, but Salem did not know that. At least he assumed so. They had seen Salem and fled before, though he did admit they had Hazel and Oscar to spare a hand. Hazel had saved Emerald, Emerald had saved Oscar, Oscar had saved them. On and on it went, until Jaune killed Penny.
"Is my Summer Maiden finished with the Vault?" asked Salem, as if they were her underlings.
Jaune answered honestly, voice not even shaking, "Yeah. She'll be out soon, or she already is."
"Excellent. Thank you. I wish you had those manners the first time we met." Then Salem clucked her tongue. "What have you done with my Fall Maiden… Jaune, is it?"
Jaune stepped back and ran into Ren, who caught him. Jaune said, because he knew Salem liked the truth, "She resisted me, if that's what you're wondering."
He tried to frame it like it was his strategic intention. It was probably the only way it would be intelligible to her. He was getting tired of explaining it. He just wanted her back. Not to explain it to her, that she would even want it. He just wanted to show them how he saw her.
Salem laughed, high and clear. "Oh, she did indeed! See, Ruby. There are things yet to hope for before I wipe everything out."
Ruby whimpered.
"Ren?" Jaune said. "Ren, find Ruby."
"I've got her," Ren said quietly, down low.
Jaune did not move, as the great thing moved. Was it a Grimm? Its hot breath felt strangely near, but the breath of a Grimm was cold, colder than ice, too cold to even burn; it would just slough your skin off, easy as, peel it back for a snack. He drew his sword, the sound of it so loud it sliced at his ears. He held it with both hands, pointed low, back straight, waiting for the first move.
Then it bumped his head. It was so big he was sure it would bowl him over. It sniffed him. It made a noise which was almost like recognition, then it growled, but it sounded like a laugh. He thought it might try to eat him. He could not see what it was.
"Ruby, we've got to move," Nora said quietly to her.
Emerald and Mercury said nothing. They must have been certain if they spoke, Salem would kill them on sight. It must not have been easy, betraying her. He wondered if they regretted it at all, if they would have asked Salem to take them with her now. But they were steadfast beside him, breathing quietly. He felt Mercury find his shoulder eventually, what for he did not know, but perhaps it was less to steady Jaune and more to steady himself.
"Enlighten me," Salem said, "how did you enrapture her?"
She was speaking to Jaune. Jaune figured, if the deathless queen of the Grimm asked him a question, he had better answer. He was pretty sure a lie would lead to something terrible.
He settled on, "We talked."
"Such a clever way of understating things. If talking led to love everywhere, then, well, I think Cinder might have left me much sooner, don't you think? Alas, she did not now. So you have failed in that. That's quite fine by me. I'm only curious. I missed so much when I slept."
Jaune lowered his sword completely. He told her, "Does it matter now?"
"You found her. You thought to free her." Salem laughed, and again it sounded like windchimes. "You remind me of somebody! I hope you fail just like him."
"Ruby, get up," he pleaded quietly. He did not know what they were to do. Could they just run? They had what they needed.
"She won't," Salem snapped. "She won't move for you, nor for me. What was it you saw again, child? Tell them, too."
"Tell us what?"
He heard rustling, and Ren hushing Ruby, Nora helping her too. He felt so lost. How did she feel, alone here with Salem? This was how Salem broke down Cinder. That was exactly what Emerald and Mercury were thinking: this was where it started, knees in the ground, and then you never got up again. He heard rumbles, increasing until it sounded like somebody was coming at them very quickly. Jaune drew his shield out now, too, and felt around for Ren and then planted himself in front of them. Then they fell quiet.
"I got what you asked for," Carmine announced, holding a flaming sword. It was red and silver, silver on fire. It was shining, bouncing off Carmine's shrewd gold eyes, no need for a light in the other hand. Just that sword, high in the air.
"Wonderful. Hand it over," she snapped coldly. Her face lit alight, reflecting a black rainbow, like the Dust runoff from a car, thick and slick on the ground.
"Yeaaaaaaaah," Carmine said from up high, holding eye contact with Salem's dark shadow-face. "About that. We wanted a kingdom."
"And you've retrieved it," Salem said tightly.
"Jaune," Ren hissed in his ear, quietly as possible, "we should go."
They started crawling away, hoping the Summer Maiden did not notice them. It was only by the grace of Salem's distraction, and the great, loud heaving breaths of the beast that their steps in the sand were silenced. Its long tail made such noise, tapping it angrily. He wondered what angered it.
"No, we haven't," Carmine said. "In fact, Vacuo might be blacked out right now, but the Grimm have barely touched their numbers. Gillian told me that Tyrian didn't even kill any of the council members. Cinder tried to pull one over me more than once. By the time my new friend calls off this shit, what are we going to do?"
"It's none of my concern," said Salem.
"You're not negotiating very well."
Jaune lingered. He heard the others go ahead, but he stayed, because this sounded bad.
"I have no need to negotiate. Hand over the Relic, girl, and I'll get you what you want, your kingdom and all. It's not much to rule over."
"Not much? This is Gillian's—"
"This whole world is an embarrassing shadow. You have not seen a great kingdom. You will never know a great kingdom. It was taken, and it's gone. Give me the Relic. I'll show you a better place."
"How about no," Carmine said blandly, ignoring Salem.
Her deathlessness scowled with anger. Her blackened eyes, peering straight through hatred. All he had was a scene dancing on the wall, Carmine's expression illuminated by the Relic. It was angry.
"Do not test me," Salem said lowly, deadly. He had never heard anybody so angry. It sounded like she was barely restraining herself from killing Carmine, and he supposed that she could have, if she wanted to. He wondered what held her back. Then she continued, "You Maidens think yourselves so precious with Ozma's power. He was a fool to give it to you. You squander it."
He wondered how many times Salem had died. If it felt different every time, or more of the same. Did she always see it coming? Was it easier to see, with how familiar she was with it? But then, she had never really died, and when Carmine did the thing he did not expect her to do, Salem may have been as shocked as he was. She did not scream; her mouth was an open howl, before she disappeared again, split into a thousand pieces. Carmine had used the Sword, so he ran very far, and did not wait to watch. He did not have the heart to tell Carmine it probably did not work.
He heard that great beast run. It ran, galloped more like, and its footsteps were as loud as rocks crashing together, sand being kicked in the air as it went. He heard Ren calling his name.
By the time he ran fast enough to catch up with the others, the direction unknown to him, just following blind instinct, he called, "Carmine used the Sword on Salem!"
"Are you serious?" Emerald said.
"No, I'm telling a joke!" It would be one with a bad punchline anyway.
"How could it even work—"
"It probably didn't, that's the thing. I don't know when Salem will be back—"
"— she'll be angry when she is," Mercury finished for him.
They had stopped running. They took shelter for a moment.
"Is Ruby okay?" he asked.
"I'm… fine," said Ruby in the dark.
"Do you wanna talk about it now or just keep moving?"
"Keep moving." Then she added quietly, "Thank you."
Jaune bent over and put his hands on his knees, his weapon put away unused. Then he thought really hard about what just happened. If Carmine turned against Salem, she herself was certainly not finished here. Of course not. She wanted the city, not whatever Salem wanted to give her. Not that Salem would show her a better kingdom at all. He thought Salem might have had use for her in Vale; that she had more allegiance to Salem than she really did. I'm starting to like you, she had said to Tyrian, but then, had she really meant it? She must have not. He wondered where Tyrian was now.
Ren was going to have to lead them all back. None of them could see, and they could not ask Ruby if her special silver sight worked now. They had to get back to the others, where the light was, and hopefully warn them of Carmine. So they moved again and the game restarted. Jaune was losing at Blackout.
He had Emerald and Mercury holding onto his hands and they moved in a line to make sure nobody got left behind. Ren instructed them when they came to steps, or had to climb fences, though they could see the debris on fire they had to avoid.
"I have an idea," he said, when they came to a great flaming stack.
"That sounds dangerous," Emerald said.
Mercury laughed.
Jaune unsheathed his sword and went to the fire. It burnt a very hot blue, warm and familiar. It was uncontained and uncontrolled. He dipped his sword in some spilt oil nearby, and then did the selfsame action into the fire, then held it aloft. It was not a lot of light, but it was something.
He walked beside Ren, holding the flaming sword. It was a mockery of the Sword of Destruction. His remade sword, reforged in Cinder's hands.
"We found Ruby!" Emerald called out.
At that, there were sighs of relief so pronounced Jaune did not need to see their faces for what they were thinking. He stabbed his sword in the sand to put the fire out, since he did not want to carry that around and poke someone in the eye. He sheathed it. Ruby ran forward into Yang's arms, like she already knew where her sister was even if they could not see very well.
"Salem was struck by the Sword," Jaune said into the dark. He wondered where Oscar was. "She's not reformed yet. We won't know when."
He heard a little noise of recognition, which must have been him. He searched, and with some of the light Winter was providing, he could see Oscar coloured pixie blue.
"I think you can tell us now," Jaune tried. "It's not easy."
"Oh." There was a sharp intake of breath. "Yes, Oz… is scared of that one."
"Great," he heard Yang say.
They waited. Jaune wondered what could be so bad about it. They already knew about Ozma's ex-wife and the old world. The only thing that might have surprised Jaune was Ozma having another secret wife or something.
"I know, I know. Alright."
"On the bright side, it can't be that bad," Weiss said.
There was a pause, the faint sound of desert wind. "He was ashamed." Oscar sighed. "He doesn't want to tell it, so I'll tell it for you. It costs Aura every time it's used. Oz sacrificed several lifetimes of Aura that he had built up… to end the Great War. It cost... many lives, more than you could imagine. It's part of why he founded the academies."
"What's a little more blood," said Raven, from very far.
Nobody said a word. That was how the Great War was won, paid with life. Easy as that. No wonder he locked the Relics up. It must have been devastating.
"So he put the responsibility of the Relics on the Maidens," Jaune said into the silence.
"Yes, I suppose he did," Oscar agreed.
There was only one Maiden left still tied to her Relic. In freeing the Relic, the Summer Maiden did not realise that she lost her use to Salem. But she had her own ends anyway. She would have been there by then, since they had floundered around in the dark, so he knew what she was doing.
"What do we do now?" He ran his hands across his face, but the hardness of his gauntlets did little to soothe him.
He did not call Cinder. Cinder would not answer, not again. So she would turn up soon, and they would fight her, and he would have to do everything he could to protect her from that Relic. He wished that he could feel what she was feeling, but he only went inside her when she let him. He felt so lonely, so sad then. He believed in her. It still hurt.
Jaune felt a hand on his shoulder. He leant into it, though he did not know who it was.
"Are you alright?" Ren asked quietly.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You don't seem it."
"I miss her," he admitted. "I didn't think it would be something you'd want to hear."
"It must be hard," Ren said. "I know, I know, obviously… we all have our reservations, but she's not here, and we're… turning you away too. For what it's worth, that day you turned up, when we thought we'd lost you, that was horrible— we'd thought you were dead. But you said she got you out of there. I'm thankful for that."
"You really mean it?"
"I do," he said, as solemn as Ren always was. "Who's ever so lucky. But then it wasn't luck, was it? It was something else. And I'm glad."
"Thank you," Jaune said.
He hoped, that somehow by their magic, she would turn up at that. It felt like one of those moments where she should have, when he turned his neck on the beach and saw her, maybe felt apathetic about it, stretched thin he was then. He took it for granted, nearly, and he even wanted that wet sand, and the stench of seawater clinging to him— her nagging at him to wash because he smelt brined— something he did not know how to value then, did not even know at all what she would come to mean to him.
It would have been nice. So by the time Raven had grilled him about Carmine, and Winter had checked everybody again, when a voice from the nothing spoke he turned his head, as always, thinking: Cinder? It sounded smug and self-satisfied. Very loudly, in a performance, she said, "You are free! Vacuo, the people of the desert, I'm here to tell you I slayed the Grimm Queen, and I'll fight off the dark."
The flaming sword was there again.
"With my friends… we'll kill… the shadow. There's a Fall Maiden in your midst who works for the devil queen."
Jaune heard gasps, but he did not gasp, just watched Carmine hard. He wondered if this had been her plan all along. She really needed to work on her heroic speeches.
"Ready your arms, to fight off the Grimm, and then show me your headmaster. I'd like a word… and a word with your… government? If there is much of one. Now say I if you're with me, and Queen Gillian!"
Jaune heard a few. Then he heard shushing.
"You trafficked people! And killed people!" he heard a voice cry out. It sounded like Ilia.
"You killed people!" Carmine mocked in a high-pitched voice, waving her flaming sword. "Don't talk back at me, or I'll find you and I'll cut you down, how does that sound? Now where's that little scorpion? I want a word."
"If you really want to stop Salem, you can't hurt people," Ilia pushed. She must have been somewhere nearby with the White Fang, and Ghira.
"Oh, where the hell are you," Carmine said, and then she lowered herself, waving her sword, searching for the crowd. "Go on, say something, I'll find you and slit your stupid throat, you think you're so cute."
Ilia was somewhere a few paces away. It was hard to tell, what with the lack of sight. Carmine was prowling over the gathered Huntsmen and Huntresses, all too frozen in fear to move. The other Maidens had stopped gathering lightning in their hands, and burning-bright ice carrying something alight inside it: no, everybody had switched their lights off instead. Gillian must have been nearby, with her Aura-sucking, like Jaune but different.
They had nowhere to go, and none of them could see except the Faunus, or those who sensed things with their Aura. He heard murmuring and shuffling, and when Carmine hovered near them, he made sure to step very, very far away, staying safe in the shadow.
"Where's that team CFVY? Let's have a word about what we'll do for Vacuo," Carmine taunted. She lowered herself, floating on shifting, floating molten metal, black then grey then gold. She glared at a Huntress Jaune did not know the name of. "Do you know where CFVY is?"
"I don't," she shuddered out. "Aren't they the ones from Beacon?"
"They kept you underinformed."
He felt cold. The girl was gone, face lit alight by the sword's cold flame.
Jaune let out a long, long breath of shock. She disappeared, as if she had never existed. Whatever it was to make something, it was unmade, made never born or something like it.
"Seriously, if you want to talk about morals, I'm game," the Summer Maiden said. "Where is that chick, maybe you'd get along with Gillian. I was never even big on this, you know, not at first, and neither was she. I guess we made each other better."
"You don't have to be like this!" Ilia burst out, like she could not help it. "It doesn't have to be like this at all. I know how you feel. It feels right. You feel righteous, and like you could make everything the way you want—"
"Bingo, found you! Oh, wait, you moved again."
"— but please—"
"I don't care about making stuff right. I care about Gillian. I don't care about the rest. I'll choose her over Salem, and all of you, and Tyrian, and you know what? Even the Crown. They know that. Where are you, boys?"
The boys jeered. It was hard to tell who was who. Yet, even as Carmine held the audience captive, Jaune thought, how lucky was Gillian. The pair of them had chosen themselves over everybody else, even Salem, and decided to take the rest down with them for what they wanted.
"But what home is that to live in? Is that the world you want to make—"
"Alright. Sick of hearing from you. You're boring," Carmine said, raising the sword. She carried it lazily, like she did not like the idea of just a sword. Few did. Most added guns or extra bells and whistles.
Jaune could not see Ilia, not amidst the people between him and where he could see Carmine hovering. He heard whimpers, and Blake shouting, and probably Sun too. Team SSSN were here somewhere, then, and he tried to imagine every face that stood there, and every face that would be blinked out in a second. Somebody would have to seize the opportunity on Carmine's turned back before she used the Relic. Once she used the Relic, there would be no choice, no stopping her.
His stomach swooped low, and he drew in a long, long breath. He could not see anything, and there was nothing he could change. Who would she pick next? He could not take Carmine on: he had tried that once with Cinder, and she had played with him. Anybody near enough to her might meet the Sword, so you would have to be very sure.
The dark had gone on for so long. He had begun to adjust to it. Carmine, floating in the air on her metal netting into the shape of a cloud, was the only thing there for all to see. Where she moved, faces flashed here and there. It spelt only danger. They were all a little scared in their own way, not sure how to make the first move. Ren said to him once it was like he had no fear. He did. He made sure to stand in front of whomever was near him, moving them away from Carmine, and he thought about hundreds of ways it could have gone.
He could not see Ilia's face. They blindly moved according to the rules of Blackout they were playing. Carmine held the Sword aloft. Then it rained fire. It was the way a thunderstorm swept in: loudly, and all at once. It did not come from the sword. It was a fire which did not burn, and it was like stars, or comets, falling so prettily, but landing without hurting.
Of course, his sight took some time to adjust, and at first he was not sure what it was and he had to look hard. But the distance fooled his skimming eye, and at the heart of it, there Cinder was.
She was aflame. On the horizon a wind blew with it dust and sand, only illuminated by the fire carrying it. It swirled around and created a wall like a wave, water in still motion. It encased Carmine, and cut off one side more or less from the other. He heard movement to go behind it, instinctively seeking shielding.
The great fountain of glass was beautiful. That was his first silly thought. It was clear straight through, crystalline and perfect. He could see it because she lit the way. He watched her punch Carmine and he felt something completely unnameable. Of course it was her. It was always her.
One hit would kill her. He worried for her, of course he did. She was clever and cunning, but she had to not get hit. Cinder was good at letting herself be hurt. There was nothing he could do: he could only watch her dive and hit, dive and hit, graceful as a swan.
Then he went around checking on his teammates. Ruby ran beside him and he found the others, all shaken but fine, and he could see. He could see very well, so well he could see the Crown attacking students, and so well, then, he could watch Cinder match Carmine hit for hit, confusing her, keeping her from using the Relic. She would know what to do.
Jaune struck his sword at a man who had come behind him, his ears still attuned to movement as his sight. It was one strike, then two, before he cut him down, cleanly through, thinking of someone else's swordstrikes as he did. He hoped he was only knocked out from his broken Aura. Jaune did not like much the idea he would spend the attack on Vacuo fighting people and not Grimm.
He covered Nora and Ren, and flicked his gaze every now and then to Cinder. He had never been able to watch her like this, totally in her element, with a common enemy. He wondered what she was thinking, and what she wanted. She was so agile, so lovely. Every time Carmine tried to strike at her she missed, every time Carmine tried to use her Maiden power over the Sword, Cinder would swipe at her and distract her. She waved her own Staff around to taunt Carmine, too.
She looked dangerous. He could not imagine that anybody would look at her and think her possible to challenge, like he did, stupidly, foolishly, hoping that he would be enough to distract her once and let her cut him down. But he knew that she struggled, and she was dancing now, like a Maiden. He was almost envious of Carmine again.
He shielded Nora when she took a shot. Then he looked back up at Cinder. The two Maidens who had helped herd the younger students behind the glass wave now took up the mantle beside Cinder, and, he realised, for the first time in a long time, every Maiden was gathered together. He wondered what that would look like. Probably a small cataclysm. For a terrible moment he thought that Raven and Winter meant to harm Cinder, but then he realised that she had accepted their help, and they wove together as if they had always worked together. He thought it would be harder than that, if he ever dreamt of three Maidens ever on the same side. That was only for the story.
"We need to get somewhere away from that," he said to Ruby. "It's not safe. I'll cover you clearing everybody. Hang onto that Relic."
"I'm hanging," said Ruby.
Jaune worked protection. He could hold his own whilst the others ferried the students and older Huntsmen and Huntresses held off the Crown's numbers. Light fell. He heard the revolver of Raven's chamber shoot hard, and the roar of one of Winter's Summons. Cinder's fire, fire, fire. It was like nothing he had ever seen. It was not the sort of thing you saw anymore, magic like that, then all of their separate special tricks. That was when Carmine lost the Sword, of course, and it fell, as everything did. It was the prize.
Ilia was quick on her feet, her skin changing from fiery red to blue as she dove for it. He saw her pick it up, where she had braved the firefight to grab it, as Carmine howled.
She cast out a storm, and Jaune thought it was probably a good moment to move. If Ilia intended to use the Relic, she would need help, though he did not know the effects of the Aura exchanged. Oz could use it because he had lifetimes stored; what of a regular Faunus, trying to protect the peoples she cared about? There was Ilia, and the fire rain, and then he recognised Gillian, coming from the shadow. He wondered where Tyrian was, and what he was doing.
"Do queens fight?" he asked tightly. He circled her, narrow, as the Sword shook in Ilia's hands.
"No," Gillian answered. She was not even holding a weapon. Maybe Carmine had intended the Relic for her. So much Carmine had done for her: make a deal with Salem, become the Summer Maiden, break her out of prison, repurpose a tomb as a palace, sack Vacuo. What was just a little more pushing the envelope. Then he found it funny how it came down to this, he and her watching each other, with the same sort of Semblance but not quite, both of their Maidens up there clawing at each other's throats. He should have been more ready when she reached out and sucked his Aura. He could have dodged it. But Ilia had the Relic, and it was her or him, and it would always be somebody else.
It felt like being split in two. It was the opposite of what the bond felt like, and it hurt.
"It's just in case," she said. "Do you think it's possible for you to die, with that bond?"
Nora came out of the dark framed by pink lightning and fire. She might have once walloped Gillian over the head, but her sparkling fingers dragged Gillian away first for Ren to take her before she covered Jaune behind him. It was a three-way firefight, Maidens and Huntsmen and the Crown, fought under the shroud of Grimm and the lightshow of fire.
In the fire-rain he shared a look with Ilia. She had to protect the Relic; it would become a relay race now. Blake appeared to guide her back behind the glass wave, and he held his shield aloft as they moved, doing their dodging and running.
"Oh, oh, it's you," he heard, but paid little mind to it. If Carmine saw that Ilia had the Relic, then he would stay planted where he was. "I've been saving you!"
It had seemed like a really good idea until he figured out who Carmine meant. Then he did some quick arithmetic, the kind which never seemed to work in his favour, and felt his Aura break. That did not happen to him often. It grew back without him really checking, and he just knew how to make it faster, but there it was gone. It sparkled a bit then disappeared. The stream of hot molten lead through his stomach was sort of the last thing he needed. It was with a dim sense of acceptance that he felt it: first the shock, like always, then the dim radiation of pain. Usually it was everybody else he worried about. He was built strong and he had plentiful Aura. Try and touch him and it would probably not last.
The scream he heard then was the second that day to break his hearing, which he was quite impressed by. He felt sort of vaguely confused: what for, who was hurt? His Aura was broken, and he could not help them. He was dying. Something like it, as he fell forward on his forearms and heard people around him saying stuff he did not understand, fighting somebody, or something, more fighting up high where the angels were. The red and the blue and the orange fought off the nothing-blackness.
He ran a hand to his stomach, and he found blood on the wrong side. It should have been inside him, not gushing out where he could see it, mixing with the sand. Then there was another strike before he heard the other Maidens begin fighting again. When he felt his back, he found the metal had pierced him right through. He observed it with detachment: he had a hole in him. She had sent more his way and it pierced lower, and some of it had burnt his arms. It missed his armour. He had to give it to her; she was a pretty good shot.
One of the angels fell to the earth. He just wanted Cinder to hold him. Everything around him kept burning and falling.