Alright, buckle up! This Friday Weiss makes an unpleasant discovery, and Sienna's headache doubles in size!

46. Full Bloom

Weiss wasn't proud of it, but the first voice she heard in that moment was Father's.

Smile. A blank mask is not convincing. She fixed on the polite smile that she hadn't needed in almost a year now, even as her heart beat frantically against her ribcage. Doctor Watts smiled back. "I hate to pester you, but I was wondering if I might test his field of vision as well?"

Redirect their attention. "That would be fine," she said, taking a small step to the side so that Specter's body would block his view of her left hand—held behind her back, much too conspicuous if she left it there. And, curled in her fist, a scrap of paper that was already damp with sweat. The handwriting must belong to Watts, it matched the other hundreds of hastily scrawled notes. Only its odd placement had attracted her attention. It had been hidden under several other papers that looked like they had once been neatly stacked, as if someone had swept them to one side to cover something up. And, at the top of the note, the word jumped out at her—glycinamide.

Watts circled around Specter. "Whistle when you can see my hand." Slowly, he moved towards the dragon's field of view, wiggling his fingers as he did so. While he was distracted, Weiss slipped the bit of paper into her pocket.

Glycinamide was a chemical solution that resisted the effects of Dust. It had once been touted as a revolution in egg injection—if there was a mistake in the process and too much Dust was used, people speculated that they could use it to neutralize everything and start fresh.

It had been a failure. Dragonets exposed to the mixture were often born with congenital defects, and the name faded into obscurity. Weiss had overheard hushed conversations about the chemical taking place in Father's study. Whole barrels of glycinamide had gone unused, abandoned and forgotten when it became clear that the substance was useless... unless you wanted water dragons that couldn't use their gills, or fire dragons without powers, or wind dragons so erratic that culling was almost inevitable.

Surely there was another explanation? It didn't make sense for Doctor Watts to use something that made dragons weaker. Was he trying to sabotage Cinder? Then why bring her to his lab? Maybe he'd found a use for it—he did seem quite brilliant. He could be trying to... to design better containers for particularly volatile Dust combinations, or...

Craft a lie that they want to believe, and they will do most of the work for you.

"Miss Schnee?" She inhaled sharply, but did manage not to jump. "You seem... distracted."

Specter whined and backed up a few paces. Weiss patted his back, trying to will him to relax... but he had noticed something was wrong. He pawed the ground, his ears and tail twitching anxiously. She could see Watts' gaze raking over the dragon, cataloging every uneasy movement. The gleam in his eyes had already been unsettling—now it made her skin crawl.

"I assure you, I'm paying close attention. Your theories about ice dragons' breath are fascinating."

"They are." He took a deliberate step forward, still watching Specter—waiting for his reaction. "Are you sure there is nothing troubling you?"

Weiss could feel the crumpled paper in her pocket, and dreaded that one wrong move might crinkle it and alert the doctor. "I'm a little tired. We haven't had much time to rest since we went out a few days ago. Perhaps we can continue this discussion another time?"

Specter balked at Watts' approach, shooting a few terrified glances towards Weiss. Green eyes bored into hers. "Of course," he said mildly. "I've quite enjoyed speaking with you—we must do this again at some point."

She could hear her own pulse. There was a horrible leap of intuition, the sinking realization that they were both playing the same game. A glimpse of something else behind the kind but eccentric doctor. "Yes," she blurted out, moving instinctively towards the door. "We should."

He moved. Before she could stop him, he ran a hand along the frills on Specter's neck. The touch was light and gentle, but the dragon reared up and screeched at him. Startled, Doctor Watts stumbled into a chair and knocked it to the ground. Then, just as suddenly, Specter relaxed.

"Don't touch him without asking me," Weiss snapped.

The ghost of a smile that passed across his face, in the instant that he recovered from the shock, made her stomach churn. "I don't need telling twice," he promised, dropping into a shallow bow and motioning towards the door. "And I won't keep you any longer."

Too easy. It was too easy, and alarm bells were going off in Weiss' head—but she needed to get out, now. She forced herself to walk to the door, open it slowly, and shut it without slamming it. Then she broke into a full sprint.

Specter followed placidly behind her.

Too many guards. That was the problem.

There were guards at the evil place, guards by the tents full of supplies, even guards walking around the camp at night. She was getting better at moving around unnoticed... but she was getting bigger, too. The death smell had been in the air for days, and she was powerless to stop it.

She could sneak up on the guard at night. It would have to be the faceless man—he was the only one who guarded the evil place alone. That was dangerous. He was big, and he had a gun and a horrible sword that screamed and rattled and cut through whole trees. She'd seen it as a hatchling, when he went out to get wood for the fire. He'd nudged her with his boot and told her to move over so the tree wouldn't fall on her.

Dangerous. But not impossible. If she was very quiet, she knew she could get close enough to pounce without being seen. There were other tents all around that she could hide behind. She was bigger now than she used to be. Almost as big as he was. If they fought, and she surprised him, she would win.

Justice wouldn't want her to hurt him, but he didn't want her to destroy the evil place, either. He was gone. He'd promised, but he was gone and she shouldn't care what he thought. She should never have talked to him. If she saw him again, she would bite him.

...She didn't want to hurt the faceless man, either.

A frustrated hiss. It hurt to think about attacking him. It hurt to sleep in her den, when sometimes the wind would change and she'd pick up the smell of the evil place. No matter what she did, everything hurt. She hated the camp, she wished she could sleep there, she had to do something and she couldn't do anything...

There was a growl. She dropped into a defensive crouch, her hackles raised. Until now she'd thought the animals had learned to leave her alone, after she'd sent a pack of wolves running with their tails between their legs. Was it Justice?

The sound grew deeper, louder, until she shook where she stood. Even Brand didn't sound like that. She growled back, her own voice tiny and weak in comparison. Shadows shifted between the trees. She tensed, waiting for the dragon to step forward.

It wasn't a dragon. A paw extended from the shadows, covered in shaggy black fur that drank the moonlight. Then a head, thick and blocky and covered in a pale bone mask. Two red eyes fixed on her. For the first time in her life, she realized that there were worse smells than the ones that came from the evil place.

"S-stop!" She backed away. Sienna had talked about the creatures of Grimm, the horrible monsters that dragons were bred to destroy. She'd thought they were made-up.

It loped towards her, shaking the ground with every step. She bolted. It was too big, too strong, too heavily armored. She couldn't fight that thing alone, but there was nowhere to run...

Brand could do it, she realized. He's almost the same size. He could kill it by himself.

She was going the wrong way. Further into the woods, into the endless and horrible unknown. There might be more monsters. So she skidded to a halt, her whole body shaking, as the creature roared in anticipation. Then she slid between its four legs and pelted towards the camp.

You were made for this, she told herself, as the trees began to thin out near the clearing where the evil place stood. She could smell it, now. Her wings flared wide, and she threw herself at one of the nearby trees. For a wonderful instant, the air caught her. She was suspended... and then she slammed into the rough bark, scrabbling with her claws and clambering higher and higher. The monster didn't even slow down. It roared again in frustration, but now that it had caught onto other scents, it kept going towards the camp.

She hung there, her tail wound around the treetrunk, her heart beating like a rabbit's. Faunus were already swarming through the camp, most only half-dressed, all carrying weapons. Brand howled his own challenge. Even the faceless man was there, bellowing curses and brandishing the horrible sword.

He was supposed to guard the evil place tonight. She had learned the pattern, she knew he should be there. But with the monster about...

Her wings spread wide again, as she clung to one of the highest branches. The evil place was on the other side of the camp. Everyone had gone towards the commotion. She launched herself a second time, flapping frantically as she started to fall. Then she stabilized, landing gently behind one of the tents.

The monster wouldn't last long against Brand... and she didn't think an opportunity like this would come again.

"We have a morale problem."

Sienna very nearly slapped him. "Do we, Corsac?" she gritted out. "I hadn't noticed."

Brand sat on his hindquarters, watching the corpse of the Ursa crumble away. Without him, they might all have died. Harbinger had helped, of course, but he was still young. The veteran fire dragon had hardly batted an eye at a gigantic monster bearing down on him, and had killed the thing in minutes.

It was the first Grimm that had attacked their camp in a long time. Part of the problem was the chaos that had erupted elsewhere in Vale. With the council struggling to clamp down on their power, and most of the Riders in the area still shaken by the fall of Beacon, Grimm populations were exploding. But she wasn't about to kid herself—the far bigger issue was food. Namely, their lack of it.

She'd put guards on the supply tents, but the saboteur had managed to wreak havoc on their food stores in a very short period of time. A resupply was on its way... but it took time to haul wagons full of cans into the middle of the woods. Their people were hungry. Hunger bred negativity, and that drew Grimm. She was sure the Ursa wouldn't be the last.

"We should post scouts around the perimeter of the camp," she decided. "At least we'll be able to see it coming next time."

"It wasn't exactly subtle," the Lieutenant pointed out, as he slipped his massive chainsaw through his belt.

"Not all of them will be kind enough to roar so loud they'd wake the dead."

"I agree," Corsac said. "But morale will only drop if we force them to stay awake all night."

She rolled her eyes. "Do shifts, then. And get as many as you can with nocturnal traits to deal with the night hours. That should help."

"We aren't fools, Sienna." Fennec's tone was light and joking, but his twitching ears betrayed his irritation.

Sienna was about to try to soothe his bruised ego when her scroll went off. Cinder's name flashed across the screen. Oh, hell.

She raised the scroll to her ear. "What?"

"Try lightning Dust with fire. Only a trace of fire, less than a tenth of a percent."

She blinked. "How did you—"

"Just do it."

The line went dead. It was the shortest, and thus most pleasant conversation she'd ever had with Cinder. Sienna recounted the message.

"She has another scientist," Corsac decided. "There's no other explanation."

"We're out of time," his brother agreed.

"Not yet." Sienna's mind raced. "If she isn't telling us that, then she must plan to keep partnering with us a while longer."

"We're going to keep bowing and scraping to these humans?" The Lieutenant's mask gave nothing away, but Sienna could hear the scowl in his voice.

"Of course not. I'm saying we still have time for our exit strategy." Sienna smirked. "We'll inject as many with that combination as we can, since it's more likely to be viable, and keep all but one. As for the rest of the eggs... let's say we tell her about half the healthy ones. The rest... well. This sabotage problem is getting out of hand."

They shared a few glances. It had, in fact, been weeks since the last act of sabotage. The guards on the tent had worked wonders—

There was a sharp crack, followed by a rumble of thunder. Very loud thunder. The sky above them was completely cloudless.

Sienna sprinted to the lab, but was far too late—by the time she arrived, there was a smoking crater a few dozen yards behind it, and no sign of the intruder. The air stank of ozone. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she waited for one of the technicians to dart inside and confirm what she already suspected.

Every single vial of lightning Dust had just gone off.

She took a few deep, calming breaths. Then, in a flash of inspiration, she rounded on the technician. She hadn't paid much attention to the hybrid the traitor had stolen, but she did know a few things about him. "Prepare an injection. Gravity and earth dust—let's say... one twentieth of a percent of earth." Actually, on second thought... "If we have the Dust for it, make more. Vary the proportion of earth, but keep it under one percent."

When he nodded and ducked back inside, she rounded on the Lieutenant. "Plan a raid as soon as you can."

"It'll be harder to get lightning," he said. "Most of it gets used to power the city grid."

"Can we take some of that?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I'll see what I can do."

"Excellent. Thank you." He strode off, leaving her with the Albains.

Corsac was giving her a strange look. "Do you have any objections?" she asked impatiently.

"No. But we need to discuss the saboteur."

"We do." She scowled at the crater. "Now we know that whoever it was, they weren't in the group that fought the Ursa... which was almost everyone. We can ask around, see who was missing—"

"If it was one of us in the camp."

"What do you mean, if? They know far too much about us for it to be anything else."

Fennec spoke up, his ears twitching. "You sent sister Ilia away from the camp."

"I did."

"She has... unfortunate associations."

"You mean Blake Belladonna," Sienna said. "I know. That's why she was the best person for the job."

"You sent her to speak to the traitor?" Corsac hissed. "Are you mad?"

"We know that Blake has no issues with abandoning a cause," Sienna said dryly. "I sent Ilia to give her a push. The more we can weaken Cinder, the better."

Fennec's eyes glittered. "And you are sure that she went?"

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. "What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"Only that sister Ilia could easily pass unseen." Corsac's tail flicked back and forth as he spoke. "No one should be above suspicion."

Sienna scowled. "She's been a loyal member of the Fang for years."

"Of course," Fennac crooned.

Corsac flashed an oily smile. "Sleep on it. That's all we ask."

Sienna left them with ugly questions stirring in her mind, and a headache pounding at her temples.

Something rocketed around the side of a cabin and slammed into Yang, knocking her into the wall. Fang reared, baring his fangs in response to the new threat... only to pull up short when Specter trotted up to them. The white blur that had hit his rider turned out to be Weiss.

"Whoa!" Yang reached out to steady them both. "Are you—"

Weiss grabbed her by the wrist and took off again, dragging her in her wake. Fang barked indignantly and barreled after them, as Yang yelped and blurted out, "What the—?"

"No time," Weiss snapped. "Just run."

The four of them crashed into Blake and Pit in almost the same way. Blake did a double-take, her face turning very pale. "Did he do something?" she demanded. "What's going on?"

"We're leaving. Now. I'll explain when we have more people."

Fang snorted irritably. He was tired of dashing around the camp without knowing what was going on. "Do you know what she's panicking about?" he asked Specter, but the ice dragon kept his head down and ignored the question. Fang grumbled under his breath, but let it drop.

Most of the others were in the woods around the valley, but they still weren't hard to find. Weiss started to explain in between gasps for breath.

"Doctor Watts... in his lab... there was a note about... glycinamide."

"What language is that even?" Yang burst out.

"It's a chemical." Weiss leaned against Specter's side. He continued to stare fixedly into the woods. Fang craned his neck to look in the same direction, but there was nothing there.

Weiss pulled a crumpled scrap of paper out of her pocket. "It causes mutations in hatchlings."

There was a long silence. At first, Fang was just confused. Then he looked from Twiggy, to Nimbus, to Ao Guang...

"Our year had so many problems," Blake said, horror creeping into her voice.

Weiss' expression was grim. "Exactly. I didn't understand at first, Watts has no motive... but Cinder got a lot of rogue students out of this."

Jaune swore softly. "So they... they did this? On purpose?"

"If I'm right." Weiss swallowed, glancing over her shoulder towards the valley. "And... I think he knows that I know."

"Shit." Yang pressed her hands to her face. "We have to get out of here. Like... now."

"Does anybody have anything in the cabins they can't go without?" Sun asked.

Scarlet winced. "Does... all our gear count?"

"Okay." Sun ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. Our team can grab all that stuff."

"We'll get the dragons saddled," Jaune offered.

"And we'll try to warn everyone else," Ruby finished. "Our professors, the pit dragons—Mercury's still out on that mission, but I'll find Emerald—"

"Ruby..." Weiss said, very carefully. "She might not..."

"She doesn't know about this. I'm sure she doesn't." Ruby swung herself onto Storm's back.

Fang trotted after them, with Pit and Specter on either side of him. Pit looked around, trying to spot a pit dragon in the trees—they hadn't managed to find any of them yet. Specter mostly watched the others.

"Are you okay?" Fang asked him. "The mad scientist guy didn't try to hurt you and Weiss, did he?"

Specter looked away and didn't answer.

Finding their professors was easy. Ruby checked the cabin they usually stayed in and almost tripped over Professor Port, who was doing push-ups in the middle of the room. Professor Goodwitch stood nearby, flipping through what looked like a textbook.

"We have to go!" Ruby blurted out.

Goodwitch glanced up, startled. "Miss Rose? Is something the matter?"

Instead of explaining everything all over again, Weiss shoved the scrap of paper into her hands. She read it quickly. Then she was silent for a few seconds, her face looking more and more like a stormcloud. "Bastards," she spat. "Let's move."

Port jumped. "Glynda? What's—"

"I'll explain later."

He shrugged and started packing his things.

They spent almost fifteen minutes sprinting in every direction, looking for the pit dragons. "Tumbleweed!" Ruby shouted. "Inkwell! Glory! Anyone?!"

Yang cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey Crucible! We made a saddle for you!"

When he didn't jump out of the trees and try to set them on fire, she slumped. "Yeah, this isn't working."

"We'll find Emerald first," Ruby decided. "Then we can try again."

"We don't have time." Weiss glanced over her shoulder. "If everyone knew this, no one would follow Cinder. She knows that. She might kill us over this, we have to go!"

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. "I know! I just... I have to talk to Emerald." She did her best to ignore the pained looks her friends gave her.

She didn't find Emerald—Emerald found her.

"I heard you shouting," she said, as she and Jade walked out from between two cabins. "Is everything okay?"

Ruby looked down. "We have to go."

"Go?"

"Away. For good. We found something... really bad."

"What?" Emerald backed up a step. "But you—"

"Watts was working with something, um..." She glanced at Weiss. "Some chemical that causes problems for hatchlings. The only reason Cinder's plans got this far was that there were so many students with dragons that would be culled, and—"

"So you think she did it on purpose?" Emerald stared at her. "She's trying to help, not kill them! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Hey!" Yang jabbed a finger at her. "This isn't exactly coming out of nowhere. First the things with the White Fang, and now this?"

"Ask her, then! I'm sure there's a reason!"

Ruby glanced behind her. Weiss and Blake were both shaking their heads, while Yang glared at Emerald. "I don't..."

"Where are the pit dragons."

"What?" Emerald stared at Blake. "What are you talking about?"

Blake's voice stayed quiet. "We've been trying to find them for a while now. They go out hunting, but there's always at least a few nearby. Where are they?"

"They're with Cinder. She had Strike ask them, they were eating too much game right around here so she took them further away. It's just hard to feed them. Not a big deal."

"And when did she say this?" Blake was still calm, almost sad.

"About half an hour ago. Why?"

Weiss gave a stiff nod. "That's right after I left."

"So?" Emerald glared at them. "I can't believe you. I can't fucking believe you! You're all going to run off because of a coincidence?"

Ruby squeezed Storm's shoulders. "We have to," she mumbled.

It took a moment for her to dare to look up. She wished she hadn't—the betrayed look on Emerald's face was somehow worse than realizing Cinder had been tricking them. "It's not just one coincidence. She keeps hiding things, and they're always bad! Every time, we talk about it and we decide that maybe she has her reasons and we'll stick around until the next thing, but... this is too much. We can't stay."

"Then go," Emerald snapped. "Get the fuck out of here."

"You're not going to try and stop us?" Yang sat up in Fang's saddle, as if daring her to try.

"No." Emerald turned away from them. "There's almost twenty of you. I'm not stupid."

"We wouldn't..." Ruby tried to say, and chocked on the last words. We wouldn't hurt you. But that was what they were doing now, wasn't it?

They met up with the others in the woods, and minutes later they were on their way. No one followed them. No one tried to stop them. Ruby pressed her face against Storm's neck, and jumped when she met cold steel instead.

"Elevated stress levels detected," Penny said. "Enabling combat—"

Ruby wiped her face on her sleeve. "Penny, don't."

"You seem upset. Are you sure you aren't in danger?"

"...Different kind of upset, Penny."

"Oh."

The metal plate retracted, the light blinking yellow and red the way it did when Penny was thinking hard about something. Ruby was just glad to rest her forehead against warm scales. She'd done the right thing. For Storm, and all the hatchlings that had been born at risk of culling, and Tornado, who Cinder might as well have killed herself.

She really wished doing the right thing didn't make her feel so guilty.

Glycinamide is a real thing, though it obviously isn't used with Dust. It's a buffer solution, which means it's resistant to changes in pH, which seemed about as similar to what I wanted the made-up chemical to do as I was gonna get, considering we don't have any magic around here...