Good morning folks! Here's another chapter, starring White Fang dragons and a knapsack of unusual significance.

57. In Too Deep

Justice pounced on Gigas. The little hatchling snapped playfully at his paws, squirming and whacking him with his tail. He huffed smoke. Violet eyes stared up at him, wide and innocent like he had no idea what the problem could possibly be.

His leash, chewed almost all the way through, tangled in Flux's horns. She whined and tugged on it to try and free her head. The sharp points dragged against the rope as it slid off, until it was hanging on by a thread.

"I already told you," Justice groaned. "You can't go outside without your rider. If the human sees you, he'll tell his boss, and they might attack us."

Gigas' ears drooped. He poked his head towards the tent's entrance—it was mostly obscured by crates, but a little light could be seen falling across the floor. Justice nosed at him and said, "I know, but the Lieutenant will take you outside soon. They just want to make sure you don't... get lost."

It was her fault, really. Everyone knew that dragons were loyal, and that none of them would ever abandon their riders... none except for her. Justice growled, making Gigas twang in alarm and try to hide his head under one of his stubby wings.

"Not you," he mumbled, licking the dragonet's nose in apology.

The tent flap moved. Justice shuffled his wings awkwardly so that he could turn in the cramped space. It was Ilia. There was something about the look on her face that made him tense, instinctively bracing for enemies to appear.

She frowned at the hatchlings and said, "Come outside." Gigas protested loudly at being left out of the conversation, and started chewing on his leash again.

Ilia saw the damage and winced. She moved towards the door, hesitated, cursed under her breath, then stopped long enough to tie the two almost-severed ends of the rope together. Gigas chomped on one of her pant legs, which she ignored. He also resumed his attempts to chew through the leash. When Justice tried to scold him, she just sighed and shook her head and gestured for him to come outside.

Justice followed his rider to the tent she slept in and waited while she picked up a rucksack and slung it over her shoulder, then saddled him in a rush. Once his tack was adjusted, she led him to the edge of the woods. She made to go further. He balked.

"I know it's dark," she whispered, "but it's okay. I'll lead you."

"Muh. Miss-uhn?"

Her skin changed color. He couldn't tell what it had changed into, it was too dark outside, but he could see that it had gone several shades paler. "No. It's not a mission." She shot an anxious glance towards the camp. "We need to go."

Go? Go where? He rumbled his confusion, and she shushed him. "They think—it's not important right now. We just can't stay here."

Justice's tail lashed behind him. Did she mean they needed to move camp? But no one else was outside. Hardly anyone was even awake—except the ones on watch, and Ilia had taken care to avoid them.

His head reared up as he realized. "Rrrun? Lake?"

Ilia looked down. "Yeah. Like Blake."

"Nno!"

"Shh!" She ran a hand along his neck. "I need you to trust me. There are... there are people in the camp that are suspicious of us—me, it's isn't your fault—and I don't think we're safe anymore."

He shook his head. Why couldn't they tell Sienna or the Lieutenant or... well, maybe not the Albains, but they could tell someone that there were people saying those things about them. They were more loyal than anyone! How could she just—?

"It isn't just that." Ilia stroked his nose. "I wanted to go on other missions. Ones where you'd meet good people, where you'd only have to fight Grimm. And that got them suspicious, like I must be going soft if I don't want to leave a trail of dead hikers—" She cut herself off, much too late.

She was taking him away again. Like she had at Haven, or when he met Brand the first time. He finally, finally had siblings that wrestled each other under his belly and pounced on his tail, ones he could talk to, and she wanted to take him away again. Because of the human hikers. Because she was scared of him.

He sat down and said, "No."

"Justice! We need to move!"

He put his head on his paws and shut his eyes pointedly.

Frustrated, Ilia ground her foot into the dirt. "You don't even like it here!"

He hadn't. Still didn't, really, but now Gigas and Flux were in the camp too, which meant it was better than everywhere else. Much better than where Blake and all those humans were.

"We're going," Ilia said flatly. "Now. Or... or I'll feed you fish and tubers, like Harbinger eats!"

Justice didn't move. Not even an ear flick. He would just do what she did and hunt in the woods. It couldn't be that hard if a hatchling could figure it out.

"I have a little money with me. We'll find a dragon-friendly store and get all the treats you want."

Smoke curled between his jaws. There wasn't a treat or toy in the world that could make being alone again okay.

"Justice, please!" They might hurt us, do you understand? If they think we're the ones who keep setting off the Dust..." She put a hand on his back.

Justice didn't respond. She had done that, not him or Ilia. He wasn't going to leave the little ones alone with her just because some of the Fang were wrong.

A terrible, steely edge came into Ilia's voice. "We're doing this. Follow me now, or follow me later. I don't care."

Twigs broke. His heart leaping in his chest, Justice craned his neck to see his rider stalking further into the trees. She looked over her shoulder as she walked, moving slowly and making a noise with every step.

Justice howled. He tried to smother it, but the sound ripped its way free of him anyway. Ilia stopped. Waited a moment. When he still didn't move, she pushed further into the shadows. He watched her disappear.

He curled into himself, burying his head under one wing. It muffled the pathetic whines and whimpers he made—the sounds of a new hatchling. His tail wound around his legs. The small noises turned into a roar that shook his entire frame. His chest heaved, every breath squeezed out of him the moment he took it in, like Brand had put his paws down on his back and was pressing...

Others heard the noise. He recognized familiar shouts, a stream of curses in the Lieutenant's deep voice. Harbinger's paw at his back. A touch, soft and warm and heartwrenching, of Brand's nose against his side.

When he didn't rouse, they vanished. Many went into the woods. Others returned to the camp muttering among themselves. Harbinger and Brand hovered until he spat fire and shrieked at them to go away.

Silence. And into that silence, paws padding almost soundlessly against the earth. A soft whiff of breath.

Justice exploded out of the ball he'd crunched himself into, snarling and steaming in the cool evening air. She melted back into the shadows... but he could still feel her sun-yellow eyes on him. Watching. Pitying, like this wasn't her fault in the first place. Like she hadn't told him...

And then she, too, was gone.

Even with her nightvision, Ilia could hardly see. Everything had gone blurry after she heard Justice's horrible, anguished shriek. Stupid, thinking he wouldn't make noise. She'd expected him to follow once she showed him she was really serious. Now the whole camp was awake.

She turned back around. Hesitated. If she popped out now, would he just dig in his heels again?

Too late. Members of the Fang came crashing through the undergrowth, made clumsy by panic. Questions rained down around Justice, while Ilia backed further into the trees. Fear made her freeze, her skin rippling into deep greys and blacks. Even faunus eyes slid right past her—but they were getting closer. She recognized the beginning of a spiral search pattern.

Ilia retreated into the woods. She lost sight of Justice, lost sight of everything except the flashes of unfriendly eyes in the dark. And there she stayed, caught between the Fang and her unwillingness to leave her partner behind.

It took a long time for the searchers to stop. They kept driving her further and further into the woods, until she wasn't totally sure where Justice was anymore. Would they lead him back to the camp? Would he go?

Her foot skidded on wet leaves. She landed hard on her side, tried to push herself up... fell back, her breath hitching. He'd hate her now. He should hate her.

Branches shifted overhead, bathing her in moonlight. She froze for a moment, breathless, waiting for a shout—this would be as good as a spotlight to a faunus. There was nothing. The Fang had all gone back to the camp. She didn't get up. Why should she? Blake, the Fang, and now Justice—she'd finally managed to ruin everything good in her worthless life.

A noise behind her, like sandpaper rasping over stone. Ilia shot to her feet in an instant. Her ears strained to listen over the hammering of her heart. She looked around and saw only thick foliage and thicker shadows.

"Justice?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

It wasn't Justice.

Motion near the corner of her eye. Ilia jumped and cricked her neck searching for the source. Every time she thought she'd spotted it, whatever was moving in the dark vanished again. Tension wound tighter and tighter in her gut, until a sudden explosion of sound overhead made her yelp and throw her arms up.

A dragon landed in front of her.

Ilia stumbled backwards, tripped over a tree root, and landed sprawled in the dirt. Its face emerged into the moonlight, making its pale yellow eyes shine like miniature suns. Sienna's hybrid—alive and well and angry.

The saboteur had never been one of the Fang. Of course posting guards on the grunts' tents hadn't worked. All this time they should have been searching the woods...

Cold dread settled in the pit of her stomach as the other shoe dropped. This was what had happened to the missing hunters. Ilia fumbled for the knife she kept in her boot. The hybrid let out another threatening hiss. She froze. Drew her hand back, slowly.

"Do—" her voice cracked with fright. "Do you remember me?"

The creature stepped closer. It had grown. Now it was almost as tall as she was at the shoulder, easily the size of a horse. The hiss petered off, but it pulled back its muzzle to bare long, needle-thin fangs. Hot, dry breath ruffled her hair.

Ilia swallowed. She needed to get away from this thing and find Justice. If she told Sienna and the others that the real saboteur was out here...

No. It had been avoiding detection for weeks, months, now. She couldn't count on finding it again. Couldn't count on the others believing her if she did. Couldn't count on much of anything, anymore.

She'd steal a trick from its book, then. Grab the knife, strike fast, go for the eyes to blind it, then run while it was distracted and in pain. Ilia waited, tense and coiled like a spring, as the dragon approached. There was almost no sound as its paws touched the ground. Its pale eyes stayed fixed on her. A little closer...

It moved within arms reach. Ilia burst into motion, shoving her hand into her boot and drawing the knife. Her hand came up in a wide slash—and it struck like a viper. Teeth clamped down on her forearm. She dropped the knife with a sharp scream. Then the world lurched and something slammed into her back, and the next thing she knew her mouth tasted like dirt and blood. She'd bitten her tongue.

A roar sounded in the woods nearby, sending birds scattering in a panic. Ilia groaned and tried to roll over, but landed on the arm that had just been bitten and almost blacked out. Something enormous rushed over her head. When she finally pushed herself up so that she could see, Justice was rearing up in front of her, and several trees were on fire. The hybrid fell into a crouch, screeched in outrage, and vanished into the woods.

Silence.

"Justice..." She tried to get up, forgetting about the arm again. When she yelped, he surged forward. Ilia wrapped her good arm around his neck and buried her face in his scales. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, please..."

He nudged her away. Her heart dropped as though she'd missed a step—but it wasn't a rejection. Instead, he let out a little bark and nuzzled at her arm. She extended it and winced. Not as bad as it might have been... but there were several long, deep scratches.

"Lah... sssrry."

"No." She hugged him again, heedless of her bleeding arm. It could have fallen off, and in that moment she wouldn't have cared. "Don't—I didn't—you—"

Ilia couldn't speak. All she could manage were mangled fragments, in between hiccups and sobs, and Justice wasn't listening to those anyway. He crooned softly and licked her face and whimpered like he had when he was young.

She left him alone, and he was sorry. So she squeezed tighter and forced herself to say, fragment by fragment, "I won't—again—never—I promise."

He purred in her ear. "Gud."

"We really should go," she said, once she'd recovered enough to speak. "I'm not leaving without you. But if we stay here... things are going to get bad. We'll probably get hurt. We might die."

Justice whined. He glanced over his shoulder at the camp, the agony of the decision etched in every line of his body. His head drooped. Finally, with a defeated slump to his shoulders, he took the back of her shirt gently in his teeth and lifted her onto his back.

After takeoff, as the night air whipped at her face, she couldn't stop thinking about Blake. She'd run away when things got bad. So had Ilia. But Brand never did. Adam shouted at him, hit him, chained him up all alone in a cave... and in quiet moments, he still purred when his rider scratched him behind the ears. Ilia tore Justice away from the only real home he'd ever known. He crooned to her and licked her wounds and told her he was sorry.

Ilia had known dragons were loyal—but it was one thing to know it intellectually, and another to feel Justice comforting her even after she'd abandoned him in the dark. The bond wasn't just some nebulous thing riders liked to talk about. It was unbreakable trust and pure devotion.

So... what the hell happened to that hybrid?

Another mission followed the bad one, the one that made Cinder yell at them. This one went better, but it didn't really feel like it—Jade and Rudder weren't allowed to go. It was supposed to be about stealth. Jade had to admit that it was hard being stealthy in human buildings, especially when there were stairs involved. Waiting was still awful.

Their riders came back with good news, at least. They'd infiltrated the same SDC injection site, this time with several vials of burn and energy Dust. Mercury cheerfully reported that the machinery on the top floor was pretty much melted slag, and they'd even managed to slip out without dealing with Jacques' mercenaries.

Cinder shouted at them anyway. They were gone too long, and Mercury was too smug, and were they really patting themselves on the back for something they should have already done?

Jade almost snapped at her. Only Emerald's hand on her neck and Strike's piercing glare stopped her.

It was Watts Cinder was really angry at. Jade knew that. She also knew that the pit dragons weren't on a mission like she'd said. They wouldn't go just because some human asked them to. Not all of them, anyway. She didn't know where they were, but the silence around the lab made her uneasy.

Emerald was uneasy, too. She tried to stay out of Cinder's way, and glared at Watts whenever their paths crossed. There was a bag next to her bedroll. It used to have a lockpicking kit and a few other tools for breaking into buildings, as well as a bit of food and a change of clothes. Everything she might need on a mission. As Watts' smiles widened and Cinder's temper frayed, the rest of Emerald's belongings migrated into the pack. A beat up paperback, all her lien, a wooden queen long since separated from her pawns, polished smooth by calloused fingertips.

That night, the tension peaked. Jade couldn't sleep. Instead she wandered the empty valley, feeling the absence of the pit dragons and the students like a physical force. It was still dark when Emerald slipped out of the room she shared with Mercury. She eased the door closed behind her, whisper silent, and walked past Watts' lab. She reached the door of Cinder's cabin and knocked softly.

The door opened. Warm light spilled out. It closed again, and Jade sat in the shadows for a long while. When Emerald emerged again, she retraced her steps back to her own cabin. The next morning the book, the lien, and the chess piece were back in their places beside her sleeping bag.

She didn't talk about it. Jade didn't ask. It was hard enough hiding her disappointment... and she didn't think she wanted to know what Cinder had said.