Hello, and happy Friday! This chapter... well... the title sort of says it all tbh.
62. Everything is on Fire
Smoke choked the air. All around was the roar of flames, punctuated by falling trees and the pained wail of some distant animal. And through the ash and flying embers that blotted out everything more than ten feet away, a pair of eyes glowed like two open furnaces.
Sun must have been a real bastard in a past life.
"Left!" he wailed, clinging to Huo's neck and squinting through the haze. His dragon's wings were pulled all the way back, forming two walls over his head and shielding him from the worst of the heat—otherwise he'd probably have cooked already.
Yang and Fang were just close enough for him to see them, sprinting ahead of him and Huo. A tree came down right in front of Crucible, and for an instant he was lost in the smoke. Sun leaned forward, eyes straining for any sign of forest that wasn't on fire—there!
They broke through into open air. A cool, clean breeze ruffled Sun's hair, and it was hands-down the best thing he'd ever felt in his life. He breathed in...
A flaming wave rolled over them. Sun yelped and ducked down against Huo's neck, which shielded him from some of the worst of it. His pant legs caught fire anyway. Swearing at the top of his lungs, he kicked and thrashed and slapped at them until they were out—and suddenly found himself staring down the pyromaniac himself.
Crucible's nostril's flared. Sun felt about a year of his life leave him in one panicked exhale. Teeth fastened themselves in the fabric of his shirt. He had just enough time to realize that they were Huo's, and hope that he might live about half a second longer, before he was airborne.
Upside-down, about fifteen feet in the air, he had an instant's snapshot of Yang vaulting off of Fang's back. Things were so blurry from the smoke that he didn't realize there was a pond there until he hit the water face-first. By the time he surfaced, coughing and spluttering, Yang was treading water next to him.
"What now?"
Yang shrugged. "Not sure. It was Fang's idea."
More flames rolled overhead. Sun dove underwater, his hands scrabbling in the mud near the bottom. He found a gnarled root and held on as long as he could before he had to surface. The air wasn't all that much nicer to breathe than the water. He gagged on smoke, then accidentally dropped too low in the water and inhaled a mouthful.
Yang gripped his arm and helped him stay above the surface while he coughed. Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the woods, where nothing could be seen except an indistinct grey haze. The smoke turned a cherry red, backlit by blasts of fire some distance away. "Son of a—they're not fighting that thing, are they?!"
Sun opened his mouth to say no, of course not—then hesitated. Huo wouldn't pull something like that, surely. He knew Crucible was a fully grown dragon raised in the fighting pits. They all knew that the only thing they could do was run. Which they'd been doing, unsuccessfully, for a while now. And with Sun and Yang relatively safe in the pond...
"Fuck!" he blurted, and struck out for solid ground.
"This is the worst idea any of us has ever had!" Fang bellowed.
"No shit!" Huo and Fang were neck and neck, bolting at top speed over burning brush as sparks rained down around them. Crucible was close enough to snap at their tails. Their riders were safe, though—as safe as any squishy human could be in a forest fire, anyway. Even if this didn't work, they'd done everything they could.
Huo shook the thought away. Instead he forced himself to think about how annoying it would be to find them again once this was all over. Which it would be. Soon.
"We've gotta turn around!" Teeth snapped shut inches from his tail. His heart juddered frantically in his chest.
Fang shot him an incredulous look. "Are you serious?!"
"I'd rather not lose my tail before the fight even starts, you know!"
"...I hate this forest!" Fang tossed his head and, with a mighty roar, whirled around. Huo followed his lead, his claws digging into the ground. Together, they faced the much bigger dragon—for about half a second before everything went to hell.
Fire flared up right in Huo's face, making him squeeze his eyes shut instinctively to protect them. Claws raked across his face. Pain flared in his left ear. He reared back, but something slammed into his chest and knocked him onto his back. His eyes opened just as Crucible lunged for his throat.
Fang slammed into him from the side, rolling them both out of the way. Huo scrabbled to his feet and came up snarling. Crucible flared his wings—and all of a sudden he loomed as tall as the trees, taking up half the world as fire and smoke poured from his nostrils.
This was a mistake. Huo squawked in alarm, and he and Fang scrabbled backwards. Too late—Crucible's hindquarters coiled underneath him. They dived out of the way. Huo's belly hit the dirt. He tried to roll onto his side, but Fang slammed into him and he went careening into a stand of bushes.
He groaned and tried to blink the world back into focus. Two Crucibles grappled with a pair of blurry Fang's—and then there was only one Crucible, and his jaws sank into Fang's shoulder. An agonized howl brought Huo to his feet. He charged—then came to a screeching halt as their riders burst out of the haze of smoke.
"Get fucked!" Sun shouted, and hurled a rock at Crucible's head. It bounced off one of his horns. He turned towards them, wrenching Fang to one side. Yang's war cry was wordless. She drew her arm back and hurled a handful of mud directly into the pit dragon's eyes.
Crucible reared up. He released Fang, his jaws opening wide and glowing bright orange. They moved to dodge—not fast enough.
Huo threw himself at Crucible's head, digging his claws into the underside of his jaw and forcing it shut. The head whipped to one side. For an instant he was weightless, and his claws started to slip. Fang grabbed one of Crucible's horns and tried to force his head towards the ground.
He raked his forepaw down Huo's back. It felt like lines of fire across his scales—and he knew they couldn't win this. Crucible had been fighting since he was younger than they were, he outweighed both of them put together, he was monstrously strong...
But they weren't fighting Crucible. They were fighting the human doctor.
Huo let himself hang from Crucible's forehead as the pit dragon struggled, gritting his teeth as those claws tore more furrows into his side. The device was right in front of him, fixed between his horns.
If this doesn't work, he thought, I'm going to kill Sun for being dumb enough to follow us.
He felt bubbling in his guts. This stupid human hurt Fang. Just like he hurt Storm and Specter, and just like he wanted to hurt Sun. The bubbling became a hot, sickly churning. Fixing a poisonous glare on the shiny metal plate, he narrowed his eyes and roared, "Survive this!"
Plasma burned its way down Huo's throat. It hit the metal plate dead on, and a gout of disgusting black smoke billowed up in his face. It smelled like a tire fire mixed with burning plastic—the stench of sweet victory. Molten slag dripped down Crucible's snout, landing in hissing puddles at his feet.
Crucible froze. Slowly, he tilted his head to one side and looked at Huo. His eyes crossed.
Huo tossed his head and said, "You're welcome."
This was the wrong thing to say. Crucible tossed his head viciously to one side and Huo, not expecting to be thrown like that, went pinwheeling through the air. He hit the ground on his side, rolled onto his stomach, and lay there for a moment, thoroughly disoriented.
"No!" the pit dragon bellowed. "No more! NO!"
Huo curled into a ball, his good ear flat against his skull. Crucible shoved him into the dirt and, with a parting bite to the back of his neck that thankfully didn't do much more than break skin, he was off. He sprinted full-tilt in a seemingly random direction, shouldering trees aside whenever they got in his way, and leaving a swathe of destruction in his wake.
"Huo!"
He groaned and lay his head in the dirt. Sun crouched beside him, gingerly poking at the bite and the scratches on his face, back, and sides. "Shit, dude," his rider said breathlessly. "I should be mad—and I'm gonna be mad in a minute—but damn. That was epic."
Huo flicked his good ear. Sun hadn't done too badly himself. His eyes drooped halfway closed, but he mustered just enough energy to look sideways at Fang. His rider was fussing over him, too. No injuries besides the shoulder—though it looked nasty.
Satisfied that no one had died, Huo shut his eyes and lay his head down on his paws. As far as he was concerned, that had gone way better than they'd planned.
"I'm not saying we should turn around," the red-eyed man—who Ilia had since learned was named Qrow—snapped. "I'm saying we should start covering more ground. They might be close."
"This is still part of Vacuo," Winter shot back. "And coverage might be very spotty, but it's not gone. There's no point wasting time on a search pattern."
"Maybe your fancy military tech's still got some coverage, but mine's been dead for half an hour. They're kids, not a bunch of your tin birds."
"I don't know how it's done in Beacon," Winter sneered, "but in Atlas we were assigned military grade technology."
"Okay!" Tai finally cut through the argument. "Let's give it another few minutes before we spread out."
Ilia pressed her fingers to throbbing temples.
They started to fly in what was apparently an advanced search pattern but looked like a back-and-forth squiggle. Qrow pestered Winter. Flat, scrubby forest turned to rugged mountain foothills furred with pine trees. Winter sniped at Qrow. True mountains speared up into the sky. Ilia wondered how Tai had survived this long alone with the two of them.
Qrow opened his mouth. Ilia braced for another argument—but his expression had turned deadly serious. "Shit! I think I see 'em!"
"What?" Tai looked down.
"That way." Qrow pointed at the horizon. Ilia squinted until she spotted a slight gray haze between two mountains. As they grew closer, she recognized it for what it really was. A plume of smoke that billowed over a swathe of blackened forest. Fire still flickered at its edges, though it looked like it was starting to lose momentum.
Ilia dug her nails into her forearm, willing herself not to change color. Please don't be Blake...
They dove. Ilia caught Qrow and Winter each giving her wary looks, and tried her best to pretend she hadn't noticed. As they swept low over the field of ash and charred twigs, two dragons stood out against the dark background—along with two blond heads.
"'Ang!" bellowed Tai's earth dragon. One of the humans below them looked up. They were close enough now that Ilia could see her wave.
Tai and Qrow vaulted off their dragons before they'd even finished landing. Yang launched herself at them, slinging an arm around each of their necks and catching them both in a crushing hug. "You actually..." she trailed off, pulled away. Hugged her father again. "You came."
"'Course we did," Qrow said, grinning. "Can't let you rugrats have all the fun!"
Winter cleared her throat. "I only see two dragons," she said, her eyes flicking over the barren landscape.
The other blond walked over to them, this one a boy—a boy with a monkey tail. One human rider, then, and one faunus. He grinned sheepishly and rubbed a hand through filthy, ash-streaked hair. "Yeah, about that..."
Yang looked down. "We split up. They were chasing us, and we couldn't get away all together—and there's... Storm got hurt. She can't fly right now."
Tai swallowed. "So, Ruby..."
"She and Storm hid. I don't know where. I'm sorry, I—"
"Hey." Qrow slung an arm across her shoulders. "It's okay. We're gonna find them."
"I should've stayed where they were. I should've—"
Tai folded her into another hug. "Don't," he said, ruffling her hair—much to her obvious displeasure. "You did good."
Great, just what he wanted—more enemy dragons. Justice eyed the pair of them with mistrust, in case they made any aggressive moves towards Ilia. She hissed at him to, "Pretend to be friendly!" He huffed and ignored them both. That was as friendly as they were going to get.
Their riders talked among themselves as the adults planned their next move. It was getting late, and both the new dragons looked like they'd just been used as chew toys, so Winter called a halt.
Justice watched her from the corner of his eye as she settled cross-legged in front of Steele, discussing logistics with Qrow and Tai. She was a lot more normal-looking than he'd expected, though she did have the snow-white hair and ice-blue eyes. They're frozen all the way through, Sienna had said. She didn't act very frozen—even now, she was snarling at Qrow for something he'd said.
His ear twitched. When he glanced to the side, he found one of the new fire dragons—he was pretty sure this red one was Fang—staring right at him.
"What?" Justice demanded, his hackles raising.
"Do you know her or something?" Fang asked, jabbing his tail in Winter's direction.
He huffed. "No."
This was apparently the wrong answer. Fang's eyes narrowed suspiciously, then flicked towards Ilia. "You weren't at Beacon."
"Not for long," Justice said, as if it was irrelevant. His tail twitched back and forth. Yang and Sun hadn't said anything... were there enough students at Beacon that they thought they'd just missed Ilia?
"Your rider knows Blake."
Justice nodded warily.
"So you know Pit."
"A little." Justice turned away from the other dragon's suspicious stare. "He's the—" He choked on the word hybrid, realizing just in time that they wouldn't tell just anyone about that. "The big earth dragon, right?"
"The big earth dragon? I thought you knew him."
"I only met him once," Justice grumbled. It had been very dark, and it was because of stupid Blake and the stupid Schnee and their dragons that he had to leave before he talked to Brand. He wasn't even sure what color Pit's scales were. "Ilia and Blake don't know each other that well."
A little growl slipped out as he said the name. Fang tilted his head to one side. "You don't like Blake much."
"No." Justice's ears went back. "It's annoying when she's around and Ilia stops making sense."
At that, Huo glanced over at them. "Ugh," he grumbled. "Who has a stupid crush now?"
"It's not," Justice snarled.
Fang's suspicion evaporated—now he looked like he was holding back laughter. "It's okay," he said, with an amused chuff. "They get like that for a while, but once they finally do something about it they get way less annoying."
"What would you know?" Huo demanded irritably.
"I hear things!"
"You don't know anything," Justice hissed. Blake was a traitor. Just because Ilia was running away too, didn't mean she'd forgiven her. Even if she wanted to find her. That was just... just for safety. But Blake had left Ilia alone—she wouldn't like her like that anymore.
Fang reared up, startled. "Whoa! What's your problem?"
Justice snapped at him. He backed up, his green eyes narrowing.
"Seriously?" Huo drawled. "Come on, quit it."
"Scared?" Justice taunted.
Fang snorted and rolled his eyes. "After the day we just had? Not really."
Justice pounced at him. All amusement evaporated as he tried to take a step back, leaned on one of his injuries, and went down hard on his side.
"Hey!" Yang and Sun both leaped to their feet, with Ilia an instant behind them.
"Justice, stop!" she ordered. He hissed and bared his teeth at the other two dragons. Huo swiped at his head. He barreled into him, shoving him onto his side and snapping at his shoulder.
"Huo!" Sun waded into the fight. "Back up!"
Yang grabbed one of Fang's horns as he was about to bite Justice. He shook her off, his scales steaming in the cool evening air.
Fire boiled up in Justice's guts. He let smoke pour from his jaws as he lunged at them both, his claws outstretched—
"Sit. Down. Now."
Justice froze. He looked up, directly into the eyes of the silver ice dragon. Steele stared him down. Slowly, reluctantly, he sat.
"Thank you, Steele." Winter folded her arms and glared at them. "My patience is already hanging by a fine thread. Do not test it further."
His attempt at a defiant growl turned into a squeak when Steele bared his teeth. Huo and Fang, looking similarly cowed, slunk away from him to lie down with their riders. That left Justice alone with Ilia—which, in his opinion, was worth the close call with Steele. Judging by the look on her face, his rider disagreed.
"What the hell was that about?" she demanded.
He gave her a surly shrug.
"Justice."
His shoulders hunched up—the echo of an empty forest made him admit, "Lake."
"Blake?" Ilia crouched next to his head. "Why were you talking about her?"
"Nno... like... Lake."
"They don't like—" He snarled, and Ilia's eyes went wide. "You don't like..."
"No."
"Justice..." She scratched under his chin. "You've never even met her."
He scoffed. He didn't need to. She hurt his rider—that was all he cared to know.