Hi folks! I'm back with another chapter, this time starring a broken nose, the proper way to evade a charge, and Specter being a prima donna.

61. Gone to Ground

Pitch darkness.

"Uh... Twiggy?"

Twiggy barked. Jaune reached for where he thought her head was... and found Pyrrha's hair instead. "Sorry!"

"It's alright."

"So, do either of you remember the way out?"

"Nnno..."

"It was over... here?"

Jaune followed Pyrrha's voice and smacked his head on stone. "Okay, that's enough of that." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his scroll. A little fiddling brought up the flashlight setting.

There was only one dragon-sized opening. It yawned wide and dark, and there were several large spiders crawling on the walls. "Great..."

"Shall we?" Pyrrha asked, stepping to the edge of the light cast by his scroll.

Jaune hesitated. "Um... do you think we've waited long enough? Like, is he gone?"

"There's only one way to find out." Pyrrha glanced into the dark. "And I'm not sure he'll leave on his own. In the worst case scenario, more dragons might join him to help him keep watch."

"Yep. Great. Super awesome."

"I'm sorry."

"No!" Jaune squeezed her shoulder. "No, don't be. I'm just freaking out a little, it's not your fault."

Twiggy rumbled nervously. He mustered up a grin. "What do you think, girl? Ready to go pick a fight with Tumbleweed?"

"Nno!"

"Yeah, well, me neither. It'll be okay. We'll just run past him, and... figure something out. Maybe lose him in the woods."

They turned off the flashlight once they reached the end of the tunnel. It turned out to be a wasted effort—Tumbleweed sat on his haunches in the larger cave entrance, which was still catching the last of the fading sunlight. He watched them impassively as Twiggy squirmed through the tighter places. Then, abruptly, the tighter spaces ended. Shattered stone lay scattered across the cave floor. Long gouge marks covered the walls.

Tumbleweed got to his feet.

"Hey there," Jaune said, with strained cheer. "You, uh... you wouldn't let us go if I gave you a big 'you're still in there' speech, would you?"

The old earth dragon broke into a trot. He was fast—he'd long since learned a strange, loping gait that let him travel quickly on only three legs. Twiggy squeaked and bolted left, while Pyrrha grabbed Jaune's hand and yanked him to the right.

In one instant he was running, and he could feel the warmth of Pyrrha's fingers. In the next, he lay on his back with his ears ringing. Pyrrha was across the room, reaching out for him, her eyes wide. Jaune coughed. His back hurt. So did his head.

Twiggy roared and charged the much bigger dragon. Tumbleweed—mild, gentle Tumbleweed who played with the younger dragons and even let Pyrrha ride him once—aimed a vicious bite at her throat.

Not that Twiggy was pulling any punches, either. With a horrible screech she buried her claws in his back and clawed at him, leaving a few deep gouges in his scales. He slammed her into the cave wall. Dirt and stones showered down around them. Jaune scrabbled in the dirt to get his hands under himself, but the second he moved the ground started rocking like a boat. And Jaune... really wasn't great with boats.

Thick muscles rippled along Tumbleweed's back legs and tail, and his forepaw and stump came down on Twiggy with enough force to shake the cave. She yelped and twisted, but he'd gotten his claws into her side and was using his weight to push her to the ground. His mouth opened—

A rock bounced off his nose.

Pyrrha tossed another from hand to hand, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet. Tumbleweed's head turned. Twiggy twisted herself free, bleeding from several long scratches on her shoulders and sides, but otherwise unhurt.

He coiled himself up and pounced. Pyrrha rolled under his stump, coming up on her feet with her ponytail streaming behind her. In the same fluid motion she drew back and launched the second rock at his face. It nailed him right in the eye.

Tumbleweed reared back. His startled, pained roar was the first time he'd acted like a dragon—but he recovered heartbeats later and lunged at Pyrrha a second time. She slid under a swipe from his forepaw, leaped over his tail, and dodged out of the way of a full-body slam that carried him into the wall of the cave. He hit it squarely with his shoulder.

Another shower of rocks came down, one of them narrowly missing Jaune's hand. His eyes went wide. All at once the shocked paralysis fell away, and he hauled himself to his feet. Paused, breathing hard, as he struggled not to throw up. When he straightened, Twiggy stood poised to hurl herself back into the fight and protect Pyrrha.

Jaune caught her eye and made a few frantic hand motions that he hoped would get his idea across. He couldn't tell if it had worked—the moment he'd finished she launched herself onto Tumbleweed's back and batted at him with both paws. Jaune couldn't help noticing that she was being a lot less aggressive now that he was standing up.

He really hoped she wouldn't do anything too rash if he screwed this up...

"Hey!" he shouted. Then, following Pyrrha's example, he lobbed a rock at Tumbleweed. Missed. Turned a little bit red and tried again. This time it bounced off the earth dragon's shoulder. He didn't wince, but he did notice that Jaune wasn't on the ground anymore. He drove Pyrrha back with a swipe of his tail, then turned and barreled towards him.

He realized an instant too late that dodging a dragon was a lot harder than Pyrrha made it look. Jaune only had time to hurl himself out of the way before Tumbleweed crashed into the wall. His outstretched paw caught him in the back as he jumped, spun him around in midair, and sent him slamming face-first into the ground. There was a burst of pain in his nose, and everything went grey and fuzzy for a few seconds.

Twiggy jumped over him and knocked Tumbleweed back into the wall. Pyrrha hauled him upright by his shoulder, but when she made to release him he grabbed her arm and leaned close to her ear.

"Get him to hit the walls," he whispered.

She stared at him for a moment, understanding dawning on her face. Then she shoved him unceremoniously out of the cave. He yelped, tripped over a branch, and almost landed on his face again, but managed to catch himself on his elbows instead.

He rolled over just in time to see Pyrrha baiting the towering earth dragon like a matador. Tumbleweed charged her at a lurching gallop. She rolled between his legs. He hit the wall just inside the cave entrance and, at the same time, Twiggy slammed into almost the same place. Her powers shook the ground.

Tumbleweed, sensing what was about to happen, tried to back away—but he was still reeling from hitting the wall, and Twiggy swept her tail under one of his back feet as she darted past him. He slipped. Twiggy grabbed the back of Pyrrha's shirt in her mouth, and the two of them slipped free of the cave just as it gave up and collapsed.

In the instant of stillness that followed, Jaune's stomach tied itself into a hot, sickly knot. Then there was an indignant roar from inside, muffled by all the rocks in the way, and a tremor sent a few pebbles skittering down the newly-made slope.

"We should probably—" he started to say. Twiggy seized him by his hood and yanked him up into the saddle in front of Pyrrha. He tried to laugh and stopped when it hurt too much. He ran a hand along his dragon's side, where a few cuts were still bleeding.

"You okay, girl?"

"Gud," Twiggy said, without breaking from her sprint. Jaune frowned and leaned over to examine the scratches more closely. They were long, but not very deep—his shoulders slumped in relief.

Once he was done checking on Twiggy, Pyrrha threw her arms around his neck and said, "That is not how you evade a charge."

"Yeah... I kinda figured that out." His voice came out thick and nasal. Gingerly, he prodded his nose and winced. His favorite sweatshirt was shredded in places, and bloody in others.

Pyrrha took his chin gently in her hand and tilted his face towards hers. "I think you broke your nose."

"Feels like it."

"Here." She pushed his head down so that he was looking at her lap. Jaune gave her a thumbs-up—then squeaked when she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Remind me to do that properly later," she said, with a little smirk. "As soon as your nose isn't bleeding."

"Specter. Hold still."

Weiss folded her arms and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her dragon. He whined pathetically and gave her a look of sheer, heart-wrenching betrayal. She threw her head back and groaned in exasperation. "Don't give me that! It's only mud, you're half covered in it already!"

A small noise drew her attention to Blake, who stood a few feet away. "I'm sorry," Weiss snapped, "did you just snicker? Because this was your idea in the first place."

"No!" Blake coughed into her hand. "No. Do you... want help?"

"Yes."

It was only fair, really, since this whole situation was her fault in the first place. Starting with an admittedly excellent suggestion that they should lay low until after the sun set—Pit was exhausted, there were enemy dragons patrolling the skies, and with Blake's night vision they could give their partners time to rest and have a better chance at avoiding detection.

Of course, that had led to the two of them sitting in a muddy, foul-smelling patch of forest, with nothing to do except wait and stew on their situation. Blake oh-so-innocently pointed out that Specter's pale blue scales might stick out too much in the dark. They might as well use the down time to camouflage him.

"No!" Specter scrabbled backwards as Blake approached him with a handful of mud. Weiss put her hands on her hips and watched, the corner of her mouth twitching upward in amusement.

"You could help too," Blake suggested. She lunged, smearing Specter's shoulder. He hissed at her and ruffled his wings indignantly.

"Specter." Weiss glared at him until he lowered his head in apology. "This will help avoid another chase. I promise we'll wash it all off as soon as we're out of danger."

"Ice," he whined.

She waited.

Defeated, he lowered his head and let them cover his scales.

The sun was just touching the tops of the mountains when they finished. A grumpy Specter then insisted that they do the same to Pit... only for him to toss his tail dismissively and roll around in the mud of his own accord. It didn't make much of a difference—his scales already blended into the trees.

"There," Weiss said, patting Specter's nose. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

Specter's head rolled to the side, his ears and tail drooping as he let out a haunted moan. Weiss scoffed. "Oh, don't be such a drama king."

"You know..." She jumped—Blake had spoken from right behind her. "Your jacket isn't very camouflaged either."

"What—no!"

Too late. Weiss made a noise she would later deny sounded anything like a squeak and ducked out of the way. Blake's first attack missed her by a hair. She danced backwards, her arms up in a defensive position.

"Blake Belladonna, don't you dare!"

Her only answer was an evil smirk. Weiss slid in the mud and had to windmill her arms to stay upright. Blake advanced on her. She looked to Specter for help, but he and Pit just watched them with bemused expressions on their faces. And, in Specter's case, maybe a little bit of schadenfreude.

Traitor.

"Let's talk about this!" Weiss backed up even further. "We can—"

She lunged. Weiss tried to jump out of the way, but her foot slipped again. Blake's hand shot out to catch her, but she'd been expecting Weiss to be farther away, and—her stomach lurched. There was an arm wound tightly around her waist, and hair tickling the back of her neck, and she didn't dare look back because she knew exactly what she would see if she did.

That smirk.

She'd been seeing it a lot lately, and there was no getting around the little jolt that came with it. Not when they'd spent so much time together under Specter's wings, which just so happened to cast a rosy glow on everything underneath them when the light hit them in just the right way—which it seemed to do distressingly often. So Weiss stood frozen, knowing that if she moved she would do something incredibly impulsive, and trying not to wonder if that was why Blake wasn't moving either.

After several long seconds, Blake came to her senses. She jumped back and tucked the offending hand under her other arm. "I'm so sorry—I didn't mean to do that."

Weiss looked down. There was a handprint on her shirt. That didn't matter much, not when the ends of her sleeve were already charred anyway. Everything she was wearing had been a lost cause weeks ago. She opened her mouth to say as much to Blake and found that she couldn't quite string the words together.

There was a terrible silence, during which Blake's ears slowly rotated backwards until they lay flat against her hair. Weiss bent down and swept one finger along the ground. She paused. Reached out... and painted a streak across Blake's cheek.

Blake kept standing there, stock still, like she was waiting for an explosion. That was unacceptable. Weiss fumbled for the right words to tell her that she didn't mind, came up blank and, running on a form of logic that would be unfathomable to her in a few minutes... lunged.

She pulled away from the kiss with her mind, surprisingly, clearer than before. Clear enough to be absolutely mortified. Her head turned, with agonizing slowness, towards the dragons. Pit reared back, though he looked startled rather than upset. Specter tilted his head to one side and chirped.

Well. That was bullets one and two dodged. Reluctantly, she faced Blake. "Um... I apologize for—"

"There's no need." There it was—the smirk. "We should probably get moving..." She gestured at the sky, which had deepened to indigo without Weiss realizing it. "But if you want, I'd like to do that again. Later. When we aren't being chased."

"Yes. Good." Weiss floundered. Specter came to her rescue by strutting up to her and, with an exaggerated huff, indicating his saddle with his nose.

"Thank you," she murmured, patting his neck.

It was nearly sunset before Vacuo's northern forest started looking like real woods, rather than a collection of scrubby trees scattered across the dunes. The change happened so gradually that it was a bit of a shock to look down and see green instead of brown.

Winter took a deep breath. Glanced to her right, where Tai and Qrow flew on their own dragons. This wasn't the first time she'd been glad that it was so difficult to talk in the air, and she doubted it would be the last. If Qrow noticed how tense she was, she might have to kill him.

Even after years in the flight squad, dozens of missions, many of them far more dangerous than this one... she grimaced. Steele had been right. Weiss could handle herself, and she had Specter. All night. While Winter and the two idiots she'd brought with her landed and set up camp, because it was getting too dark to search any longer.

Was she already failing Weiss as badly as she'd failed Whitley?

Her grip tightened on the reins. Steele glanced back at her. Winter shook her head and hand-signaled that she was fine. The waiting couldn't be helped, and at least the pit dragons would be as hindered by the darkness as they were. Unless the White Fang was involved, which she couldn't entirely rule out. Because of course Weiss had somehow managed to make enemies with the council, the rebellion against the council, and bloodthirsty terrorists—all in less than a year.

If it was the White Fang... but she couldn't think about that. Not without thinking about the hole where her little brother had been.

Steele whistled to get her attention. Seconds later, she spotted what he had—a single speck against the darkening sky. Winter's heart leaped into her throat, then sank as she looked closer and saw that it was the smoky grey of a fire dragon.

They still weren't far enough to the north for this to be one of the students, and neither of the surviving fire dragons were grey. Winter's eyes narrowed as the speck drew nearer. A probable enemy, then. She ran a hand along Steele's spine, and felt him tense in response.

Winter had some pointed questions for this dragon's rider.

Somehow, in all the arguing she and Justice had done over leaving the White Fang, he'd never thought to ask where else they could go.

Ilia had assumed, mostly unconsciously, that she would find Blake and tell her she'd been right. But once they were in the air and she held the reins, she remembered that if she'd done her job right, Blake was gone. And if she wasn't, she was with Cinder.

So. Where to go. Ilia gripped the reins in a white-knuckled grip and angled Justice towards Vacuo. If nothing else, she was fairly sure she could find someplace to crash there. After that... well, the longer she could avoid thinking about after that, the better.

A distant dragon appeared on the horizon. Ilia tensed, squinting in an attempt to make out what color it was against the sun's glare. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her skin turned bright yellow to match her nerves. She told herself that it was fine. Harbinger couldn't fly with a rider yet. At worst it would be Brand, who she doubted would hurt her even if Hazel ordered him to.

The other dragon drew closer. It wasn't Brand—its was pale silver, not orange. There were two more specks behind it. Could these be some of the students? Ilia couldn't think of anyone else who'd have reason to be out here.

Closer still. The dragons were definitely too big to belong to students. They had changed direction slightly to head straight towards her and Justice. She could see white hair flapping behind the rider of the silver one.

Is... is that Winter fucking Schnee?!

It took everything Ilia had not to turn tail and fly like a Nevermore was chasing them. Instead she took deep breaths, soothing Justice when he picked up on her anxiety, and stayed the course.

As the three riders approached, the one in the middle, a blond man from what she could see, waved at her. Ilia waved back. The white-haired rider—definitely a Schnee, if she was riding an ice dragon—jabbed a finger towards the ground. They landed in a small clearing.

"Hey!" The blond man hopped off his earth dragon and jogged over to Justice. "Are you a Beacon student?"

Ilia's pulse kicked up another notch. "Sort of," she said, with a forced smile. "I studied there for a little while after the incident at Haven." She wracked her brain for some lie she could tell them that would explain why she was still between dragonries instead of studying at the new Beacon like a good little Council drone.

Fortunately the third rider, a man with dark greying hair and red eyes, spoke first. "I'm guessing if you're out here on your own, you're not exactly welcome back. We're not asking why—" he glanced at Justice, "—but we're looking for some of your old classmates."

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes flicking towards the Schnee who still hadn't spoken. "I wasn't there long, I'm not sure—"

"You must have known some of them." A little suspicion had crept into his voice.

Panicked, Ilia blurted, "I had a friend—Blake."

The blond man's eyes lit up. "Then you must have met my daughters!"

"Tai—" the red-eyed man started to say, but the blond man—Tai—bulled right over him.

"Yang, my oldest, she's pretty hard to miss—tall, blonde, her fire dragon's got almost as much attitude as she does. And my youngest—"

"Ruby," Ilia guessed. She'd memorized the names of Blake's teammates. "Yeah, uh... I saw them around. But they were mostly friends of a friend, I don't know where they went."

"You sure?" The red-eyed man stepped up. "My nieces told us they were in this area. We're not here to hurt them, if that's what you're worried about."

Nieces. Daughters. Ilia swallowed hard and glanced at the Schnee again. So that was why Winter Schnee was out here in the middle of nowhere—she was looking for the younger one. The younger one... who was probably still with Blake.

Fuck.

Ilia didn't have to fake reluctance. "I was hoping to find Blake, but... I don't know any more than you do about where they are. Just that they're near this forest."

"Would you like to come with us?" Tai smiled at her, all innocence. "I'd rather not put leaving a teenager out here alone on my conscience."

The red-eyed man put a hand to his forehead. "Tai."

"What? We're obviously heading in the same direction."

Winter Schnee shot Ilia a suspicious glare. "Indeed," she said, her eyes narrowed. "This way we can keep an eye out for one another."

"Um..." Justice turned his head to stare at Ilia, pleading with his eyes for her to say no. "Yes. Thank you."

His ears went back, as if to say, What are you doing?

"I don't know!" she whispered into his ear as she remounted. "What else was I supposed to tell them?"

Besides, if Blake was still hanging around the Schnee... she couldn't let Winter find them first.