Hello folks! Happy Friday, and I hope everyone enjoys their winter solstice holiday season! Or at least the breaks and whatnot that usually come with it!

88. Growth

Don't look down.

Ground.

Jade flared her wings. She hit a field at an angle, keeping Emerald tucked against her chest. Safe. Her body carved a long furrow in the grass. Rudder landed beside her and called out again.

That was good. She knew they needed help, but her voice wouldn't work.

Footsteps. Mercury.

"Jade..."

Don't look.

She picked her head up to search for someone. Anyone. They were in Atlas, now. Atlas would have doctors who could fix Emerald.

"Jade, I'm sorry, she's—"

Don't... look...

She snapped at him to shut him up. His voice was all wrong, too gentle for him, and she didn't want to hear it.

Movement. Finally someone was coming. Two humans. A dragon she knew, and one she didn't. Jade tensed—but then she noticed the red hood. That was good. This one wouldn't hurt them.

Mercury was still talking. She flicked her tail at him and made him jump back, and he stopped. Rudder whined low and tried to stick his head under her wings.

"No!" she roared.

She wouldn't let anybody look. Not until there was someone close who could fix it.

"Ruby! Wait!"

But the little human ignored her friend and rushed up to them. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Mercury said... something.

Don't listen.

It made Ruby rock back like someone had hit her. An awful hurt noise in the back of her throat. Then she was close, too close, and Jade snarled at her.

"Jade..."

"No!" She snapped and howled until they all backed away. That was good. Better.

Don't feel.

More people were coming now. They would come, and they would fix things, and until then she had to be blind and deaf and numb—because if she couldn't feel anything, then it didn't mean anything that she couldn't feel a heartbeat.

Talking. So much talking. She snapped at a man in a chair nearby who looked like he might be a doctor, but the way he was looking at her made her chest hurt so badly that she wanted to hide. But she couldn't hide under her wing, not now, not when she still hadn't found anyone, so she howled to drown it all out.

"—second time in two days, how is this all the warning we get?!" a man shouted. Then someone else said, "James," and he went quiet. A murmur she couldn't, wouldn't hear. A muttered curse.

"Jade? Jade, can you hear me?" Mercury. Still too soft.

"I'm sorry." A choked voice. Ruby. "But you need to let go now."

Someone else. "Ruby, don't—"

Don't look.

They didn't want her to see, either. Nobody wanted to see, so Jade would curl up tight and wait for the doctor.

A warm hand on her flank.

The only warmth she could feel that wasn't her own.

"That's it..." The hand vanished, replaced by two arms hugging tight around her neck. "That's it, just lift your wing a little.

"Nn... nno..."

"You gotta let their people work, right?" Mercury said. "They can't do that if they can't get to her."

The arms around her neck flinched.

Doctor. There must be a doctor, now. She'd heard someone say the word. So she lifted her wing and burrowed her head into the most familiar smell she could find, all machine oil and metal and old old iron, and Mercury made soft sounds and patted her nose. Rudder came up beside her and hid her under his wing, his tail twining with hers.

How did Ozpin stand it?

James grimaced and gripped the arms of his chair so tightly it groaned. The boy sat in front of him, his head down, in subdued silence. A gutted scroll lay on the desk between them. There was blood on some of the wires.

"Pietro? Can you get anything from this?"

"I won't know until I try."

"Don't let me keep you."

Pietro got the hint, scooped up the device, and left the room. Now there was only James, and Winter on his right, and the boy staring hollow-eyed at his own hands. He'd brought information, at least—James could feel confident in letting him stay without any restrictions. Except, of course, for making him set here now, instead of with the dragons.

But they needed to know. "What happened?"

The boy flinched. And James thought it again, the same stupid question—How did you stand it Oz? Stupid because he knew the answer had always been Ragnar.

"We were snooping around." He glanced up, then down again. "She wanted something to bring back so you'd believe us."

James bore that without reacting, and wondered if he was wrong. Maybe it hadn't been Ragnar. Maybe it hadn't been anything—maybe Oz had felt this lost, too.

"We'll see to it that her sacrifice wasn't in vain."

The boy scoffed. "It wasn't a fucking sacrifice. There wasn't supposed to be anything down there."

"Down where?"

"The lab. I—fuck."

"Take your time," Winter cut in. "Start at the beginning."

It was as short and painless as James could make it—which wasn't very much of either. When they were done he escorted the boy back to the earth barns.

An indigo streak darted out of the entrance, and James swore aloud. They hadn't known what to do with Jade, so they'd put her up in one of the empty earth barns. He'd forgotten how close Gigas would be.

"Go back to your rider," he said, but he could tell from the dragonet's wide eyes that he'd already seen. Shit. "Winter, can you...?"

"I'll make sure he stays there until she settles."

"Thank you."

He and Mercury aimed for the southernmost barn—just in time to hear a long groan and the crack of splintering wood. James broke into a run.

Inside, a small crowd was already forming around the entrance to Jade's temporary stall. Ruby and Pyrrha, Harpy and Storm, a handful of their teammates... and Pietro. It wasn't clear what had made her tear down one wall of the stall, but she'd already subsided into a corner. Rudder whined and nudged her with his nose. And, a little off to the side, sitting stiff and awkward, was Justice.

Oh, hell. James looked around, but Ilia wasn't there. So he grabbed Blake's shoulder and murmured, "Can you get him out of here?"

"Don't."

He blinked. Turned towards Mercury. "What?"

"They're siblings."

"...Ah."

He came in closer. Ruby was kneeling by Jade's head, murmuring soothing nonsense, while Yang rubbed her back. Tempest watched over them, with one wing draped over the younger dragon and her tail curled around Ruby. No imminent crises that he could see. Except then he glanced at Pietro, who was sitting a respectful distance away, talking rapidly and quietly to Storm.

No. To Penny.

"—very sorry, my dear."

"I'm happy to help!"

Storm whined.

James strode over. "What's going on? I thought you were working on the device they brought back."

"I am." Pietro fiddled with something on the back of Penny's chassis and exposed a panel of wires. He twined one around a cord leading to his own scroll, and started flicking through it. "There's another version of Penny on it. Or rather..." He glanced up and winced. "Well. I expect it was a clone at one point."

Storm made another distressed noise. Penny didn't react, as far as James could see, except for the light that went red.

"It's... well, it's optimized quite well for combat and just about useless for anything else. Incapable of growing past its current parameters. Not alive the way Penny is."

"That's a relief. Makes destroying the devices a lot simpler."

Storm yipped indignantly.

Pietro made a face. "It's barbaric, is what it is. But never mind. Penny has a basic awareness of her body, which means that this... thing might contain some information about the physical devices as well. Weak points, perhaps."

James surged forward. "Where?"

A sheepish cough. "Well, that's the problem. I... don't quite remember where I put it. And I'm not certain this stripped down version even has it."

"You don't remember where you put it." James pinched the bridge of his nose. "Pietro."

"Why don't you try finding a specific function in all this?" Pietro gestured at the display on his scroll—a dizzying green-and-black starscape with, as far as James could see, no organization at all. "And don't tell me that's my own fault, the whole point of this coding language is to allow the program to evolve. I might as well be poking around in a human brain to find the parts that handle balance."

Storm whimpered. Pietro winced and patted her neck. "Without any of the... ah, mess and risk the comparison might imply. I'm only looking, my dear, I won't do any harm."

"Would it help if I shut down non-emergency functions for a few minutes?" Penny asked.

"No need for that," Pietro said hastily. James wasn't sure he agreed. "Just keep focusing and it should light up for me. If it takes a few hours and a bit of a stiff neck, that's a small price to pay."

"It wouldn't be difficult..."

He smiled and rested a hand on her chassis. "Wouldn't it? Storm doesn't seem to agree."

An apologetic whine, which he shushed. "You've done nothing wrong. Far from it. And what are you still doing here?" He flapped a hand at James. "Go. Shoo. This won't go any faster with you looking over my shoulder."

"Pietro... there's one other thing you need to know."

"Hmm?" He was already half-absorbed in looking at the code.

"I spoke to Mercury about what happened. He says the girl was killed by young hybrids... in a lab run by Doctor Watts."

Pietro froze. "Arthur..."

The terminal was dark and dead. Wires tumbled from the edge of the table, snapped and frayed, dangling broken connectors. Blood and scorch marks smeared the floor, and the talons of the gathered hatchlings.

Doctor Watts heaved a sigh. He supposed it could have been worse—if he hadn't kept Glory and the other pit dragons close at hand... ah. Right. He grimaced. It would have been worth the loss of one of them to keep the two brats from spreading what they knew, but they'd gone and gotten... away...

He looked down. One of the hybrids was dead, too, facedown in a pool of its own poison. Watts frowned and knelt—gingerly, to avoid touching it. There was a silver footprint on the concrete. "Interesting."

A good sign... but no. He couldn't count on the poison killing both of them, and even if it did, their dragons were still up and moving. They had one of his prototypes. The word would spread.

Watts clicked his fingers. The hybrids lined up, stepping carefully around the streaks of poison on the floor. He prepared the first needle mechanically, hardly paying attention, and the oldest living hybrid padded up to him, presenting its foreleg.

There wasn't much to the process. He simply injected same solution of Dust that had gone into the creature's egg, if a little less potent. A happy accident that had resulted from an attempt to coax some sort of elemental ability out of a dragonet that had been born with a brood dragon's guileless silver eyes and no sign of any powers. It hadn't worked as intended... but the creature had nearly doubled in size in just two days.

He smiled. This particular success was an excellent reminder of the benefits of using multiple sources of information. Playing the board, so to speak. It was the third hybrid to survive past its first day of life, and the first to last more than a week. Already too big to leave the room, but he could easily bring one of the pit dragons over to clear the way. Could, except...

Watts clucked critically, lifting the creature's wings. They were almost laughably small, dwarfed by the jagged bony plates of armor that covered its body. It should be big enough to carry him... but he would count himself lucky if it could keep itself in the air long enough for them to take their leave. If it couldn't, he'd have to leave it behind.

A flick of his hand. Next. On came the second oldest, a fire and lightning hybrid with slitted pupils. Hybrid Nineteen. Also big enough to carry him, and its wings were perfectly proportional to its body. But its scales were searing hot, and stayed that way no matter how he fiddled with its code. Not rideable.

His scroll chirped from its place in the back corner of the lab. Too risky to keep it above ground, after all—Cinder might do something drastic if she saw it go off. She just wouldn't appreciate the lengths he went to in order to prevent the Council from tracing it. Or the people he used it to contact.

"Doctor Watts," he said, when he'd picked up the scroll. Even as he talked he prepped the next injection. This one needed a particular needle, made of tungsten so it wouldn't melt, and thick leather gloves.

"Arthur." His lip curled. Doctor Watts, thank you very much... "How soon will you be ready to leave."

Watts sized up the row of hatchlings. One was nearly big enough, but had a hacking cough that made him think it might not last the next few days. Another was quite small, but its wings were already bigger than most of the others'. Perhaps in a pinch... "Another week or two, ideally. Days, if it's urgent." Which it was—he doubted he could stall Cinder for much longer. She was understandably eager to move on now that the students had brought their location to Ironwood.

"If it's urgent," the man on the scroll seethed. "Only if you consider a full-scale rebellion urgent."

Ah, Pepon. Always so dramatic. "I'm afraid I can't speed things up any more than that."

"We can send you transport—"

"Not an option, unfortunately."

"We need you here. Now! There isn't time for your... whatever it is that you're doing! They'll be on our doorstep by then, and we can't hold them all off with rifles!"

Watts rolled his eyes. "So distract them."

"Arthur—!" He hung up. Honestly, if it weren't so convenient he might start to be irritated by other people demanding that he solve their problems.

He was about to climb back up the stairs when a flash of red caught his attention. One of the indicator lights on the incubators had lit up. It was the last egg—he'd been forced to stop adding Dust to new ones, since the very youngest hatchlings would be unable to fly. Even this way, a few of them would have to be left behind or carried by the others.

Hmm. He'd need to go through them and decide which ones to keep, later. Certainly not the water and gravity hybrid that had just died, but its formula would be important to keep in mind. They were quite potent, even if they didn't seem to live very long.

Watts approached the incubator. There was still no sign of life he could detect, but that light meant that the dragons could hear or smell something. So he bustled about in the back of the room, listening with half an ear as the taps and cracks of a new hatching began.

A squeal, and a tiny thump. Watts scowled over his shoulder. It had somehow managed to tip itself off the edge of the incubator and land on the floor. He watched, curious to see how his newest program would work. The other dragonets approached their newest member, and one dragged over a box of jerky.

The dragonet made a small hiccuping sound, and something thick and molten oozed from the corners of its mouth. Ah—yes, that would be the earth and fire hybrid. Most of the dragons backed off. Hybrid Nineteen licked away what was left of the egg goo, which had already started to hiss and steam on contact with the little creature. It squeaked and licked back, rubbing its head affectionately against the older dragon and leaving little streaks of magma.

Another one that couldn't control its powers very well. Watts snapped his fingers impatiently, and Hybrid Nineteen grabbed it by the scruff. It squeaked and flailed, flapping its wings in confusion and sending droplets of molten stone flying everywhere.

Hybrid Nineteen stopped just in front of Watts, holding the dragonet firmly in its teeth as it struggled. He finished prepping the device and bent down to attach it, and was glad once again that he'd finally patched the melting problem. Bad enough to lose Crucible that way, and worse that the brute seemed to remember the trick. But he'd had time to refine the design, now, and it wouldn't be so easy to break them.

That didn't mean the blasted thing was easy to put on. "Hold it still," he said, but there was only one of Hybrid Nineteen. He glanced around, snapped at a wind and water hybrid. A stable combination, but not a particularly noteworthy one. Easy to replicate. It held down the new dragonet by the tail while Hybrid Nineteen gripped its head and neck, and Watts fitted on the device without any more difficulty.

It stopped moving. The wind and water hybrid limped away on burned paws.

The cell was clean, well-lit, and comfortable. A soft bed, a desk and chair, a shelf of books to pass the time. There was even a small terminal to play music or games on, though it couldn't connect to the network.

May ignored all of it, and curled up with a blanket underneath the desk. The only time she moved was to force herself to eat, or to check the time on the terminal, counting down the minutes until noon. Then she would be escorted to another room, down the hall. She could throw her arms around Flurry's neck and whisper false reassurances in his ear while the Council soldiers watched.

Routine was law, here. Every meal arrived at the same time. The lights went off at ten o'clock sharp, and came on again at six. And always, always, time dragged by like molasses.

Until she heard footsteps in the corridor outside at eight twenty-four in the morning. May sat bolt upright, uncurling herself enough to peer out through the window of her door. She recognized the suited man instantly—he was one of Vale's Councilmen.

The rush of dread almost made her throw up. She staggered back, and then he was at the door and the soldiers outside were opening it. So she backed away some more, like a caged rat, because she was too frazzled with adrenaline to realize that a Councilor wouldn't have come here in person to tell her they were going to kill Flurry.

"Please don't hurt him," she blurted, the instant the man crossed the threshold. "It was my fault, he didn't know, and I—I could tell him to listen to someone else, and he could fight Grimm, he can fly just fine without me..."

She trailed off into a quiet despair—she might as well be talking to a wall, for all the good it would do Flurry. Then the man smiled, and she had to squash the urge to punch him.

"Why, I have no intention of harming your dragon. I'm here because I've heard your story—a tragedy, really, but hardly his fault." And there it was, a sharp glittering in his eyes. "I'd like you to tell that story, May Zedong."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Again? Why? You said they already told you."

"Not to me. But I think some people deserve to know the truth. General Ironwood, for instance."

May hugged her arms around herself, and hoped that would be enough to keep her from caving in. She was so tired...

"I'll do it," she said dully.

"Excellent." A pat on the shoulder that made her skin crawl. "We'll take good care of Flurry while you're gone."