Cold walls. Hard floor. Subtle air movement against his bare skin. Again? Carmine opened his eyes to the hauntingly familiar perspective his position gave him. Sitting in the corner, back against the walls, arms draped over bent legs. He sighed to himself. Again.
Placing his hands on his knees, Carmine pushed himself to his feet. A glance at his bed—blanket and sheets strewn about in a messy pile—told him nothing new. He looked at the others in the still-dark room. The two faunus were still asleep as they usually were on such mornings, Ilex laying on his side facing away from his partner and Rhys somehow draped over the entirety of his bed, but Aspen was nowhere to be seen.
Carmine had found it difficult to get a read on his new teammate. There was something… off about her that he couldn't exactly place. He had developed an eye for immediately picking out faunus, even those who tried to hide it, and Aspen wasn't one. Based solely on their interaction the day before, she seemed as if she didn't quite understand how to interact with people. When she had come back from doing whatever she had done after changing, she had simply lain in her bed and stared at her Beowolf mask, almost completely ignoring Ilex's attempts at small-talk. Smart of her.
Smoothing out his bed as best he could, Carmine pulled a shirt from the closet and pulled it over his head. He quickly swapped his shorts for a pair of belted jeans before walking over to Ilex's bed and kicking the mattress as hard as he could. The faunus jolted awake, shooting his partner a tired glare. "The hell—?! Asshole, I told you not to do that!" Carmine grunted in response, sitting down to put a pair of socks on. Ilex sat up with a groan. "What time is it?"
"Don't care. We don't know when we're supposed to meet Mantis, so earlier is better."
Grumbling, Ilex scratched at the back of his head as he looked at the next bed over. "Where's Aspen?"
Carmine shrugged. "Don't know. Gone when I woke up." Slipping on his boots, the teen quickly laced them up. "She might be with Mantis already." He grabbed his jacket and headed to the door, pointing toward the still-sleeping Rhys. "Make sure the animal gets up."
The human heard a quiet "Prick," from his partner before he shut the door behind himself. It occurred to him that that had been one of the most civil exchanges between them in the last month at least. Shrugging it off, he made his way to the locker room to retrieve the rest of his gear.
Stillness prevailed over the Beacon campus, birds providing Carmine the only reprieve from the otherwise painful silence as he followed what he had long ago mapped to be the shortest route to his destination. By the time he reached the locker room, the sun was just beginning to edge up over the horizon.
Carmine opened his locker to see his gear exactly where he'd left it. It was perhaps a bit more crowded than most others, but experience had taught him that every piece was vital. Bending down, he began by strapping the pair of shin-guards to his legs before grabbing a large pouch that hung from one of the hooks. After a quick check confirmed that the set of optics were still inside, he looped one of the holster-style straps around his belt before securing the pouch with another strap wrapped around his left leg. Another set of pouches followed after, each containing a vial of Dust, and he clipped them onto his belt.
A pair of quivers was all that remained in the locker. Carmine pulled out the smaller, more rectangular of the two and counted the number of bolts it held. Fifty. Perfect. Once he'd strapped the quiver around his waist and secured it to his right hip, he pulled the second quiver containing his weapon and slung it over his shoulders. Time to see if I'm late or not.
As it turned out, Carmine was not late. Entering training room five, he found it to be empty, with no sign of Mantis or Tawny. Really should have expected this. Leaving the lights turned off, he walked to the far side of the room and sat down against the wall. The velcro holding the pouch on his thigh closed gave a quiet ripping sound as he opened it and removed the optics inside.
"You'll sit there until you get it right!"
Rubbing his left shoulder, Carmine slipped the glasses-like device onto his face. A tap on the side caused the dark room to take on various shades of green, giving the human near-perfect night vision. There. Happy now?
The teen sat in silence for several minutes, trying to ignore the dull ache in his upper arm, until the door finally opened again. "Opened" was a fairly uncharitable way to describe just what Rhys had done when he entered, but it was appropriate enough. As the shorter faunus wildly looked around in confusion, Mantis strolled in behind him, eating what looked to be either a bagel or a doughnut. Carmine barely had time to disable his optics and avoid being blinded before the Hunter hit the light switch.
As the lights came on, Rhys locked his eyes onto the teen, having apparently been looking for him. He let out a strange-sounding grunt to get Mantis's attention as he pointed to Carmine, who was rising to his feet. The Hunter regarded him with surprise before nodding and taking another bite of his bagel. "Figured you'd be da firs' one down here," he said around the food in his mouth. Mercifully, he swallowed before speaking again. "Rhys ran into me on his way to get his… uh…" He glanced at the massive cylinder the faunus carried easily on his back. "…whatever that is. He was trying to say something, but I don't speak sign language."
The energetic teen turned to Carmine and flashed his hands in front of himself. |Ilex said you and Aspen would be down here already. Where is she?| he asked, looking around again.
Good question. "Where's Aspen?" Carmine asked, looking toward the Hunter who was finishing off the last of his simple breakfast.
"She… She's got something else she's working on," he answered, brushing a few crumbs from his stubble. Despite his laid-back demeanor, Carmine picked up on the edge in the man's voice. "Something else" was probably not something they wanted to know about. "I'm guessing Ilex is taking his time getting ready?"
Carmine shrugged. "Probably. Guy's so vain you'd think he was a peacock." He hadn't actually encountered many non-mammalian faunus, but he knew they existed.
A frown appeared on the man's face as he approached the two teens. "Alright. We'll start with you, then." His eyebrow twitched downward, and it occurred to Carmine that he may have stepped over a line he shouldn't have. "What's your Semblance?"
The human bristled at the question. "I'm sure you have our files, so you already know the answer."
Mantis shrugged and began to pace. "We do, but I haven't actually read them yet." Judging from the circumstances, that was likely a lie. At the very least, he had some knowledge of their contents. "So… enlighten me."
Carmine sighed. "I don't have one."
"Why not?"
"Don't know," he answered truthfully, turning his palms up to show his own bemusement. "Maybe I just don't need one."
The Hunter stopped and regarded him with a look of curiosity. "What makes you say that?"
Carmine crossed his arms. "If I need something to make myself better, I can always make it myself."
"I assume that's why your weapon is what it is?"
I knew you were lying. Recognizing the unspoken request, Carmine reached back and removed his weapon from its quiver. The mass of short, black rods was deceptively simple looking. If one were to guess at their function, they might suppose it was a whip of some kind. While they would technically not be wrong, they would be grossly underestimating the weapon's potential. "Dynamic Mechanically Actuated Kinetic Rods," he said, aware of the pride in his own voice, "but you already know that."
"That's a bit of a mouthful, and not wholly creative," Mantis commented, giving it a once-over.
Carmine frowned. "Ilex calls it DyMAKiR. I don't really see the point in giving it a name."
The man shrugged before giving a small and surprisingly genuine smile. "Show me what it can do."
Out of the corner of his eye, Carmine saw Rhys looking at him with an expectant grin. Resisting the urge to scowl, he used a series of taps on the rod he held to call up one of the designs he'd preprogrammed into the weapon. In an instant, the black rods shifted themselves to form a handle within his grip, a cross guard over his hand, and a long, single-edged blade extending from it.
The teen gave the sword a few flashy swings to prove he knew how to use it before tapping out another combination. The rods reformed themselves again, taking the shape of a large spiked war hammer. He showed that one off a bit before changing the weapon a third time and swapping it to his left hand. Pulling one of the bolts from his quiver, he loaded it into the newly-composed crossbow before pointing it in Mantis's direction and pulling the trigger. The Hunter didn't even move as the projectile sliced through the air over his shoulder to bury itself in the door, mere inches from the eyes of a certain faunus trying to sneak in.
"What. The. HELL is wrong with you, Embry?!" Ilex shouted at his partner, ripping the bolt out of the door. "Actually, you know what, I don't really—"
"Ilex," Mantis greeted calmly, turning his attention to the faunus. Oddly enough, Carmine found himself feeling relieved that the Hunter wasn't focusing on him anymore. "Glad you could find the time to join us."
Ilex scratched at his jaw, looking around nervously. "I can't be that late," he defended, though his tone lacked any real bite. Predictably, he shifted the subject to something else that was just as predictable. "So, where's Aspen?"
"You don't need to worry about her right now." There was a hint of menace in the man's voice, one that was not lost on the vain faunus as he nervously edged his way toward Rhys. The messily dressed teen had a stupid smile on his face as he looked between the pair, but his hands were practically spasming at his sides with impatient energy. "Now, you seem like the kind of guy who likes to show and impress people."
You're not wrong, Carmine mentally agreed, noting the uneasy smile on his partner's face.
"Impress me."
Ilex briefly furrowed his brow in confusion, but he soon grinned and walked toward the Hunter. Stopping just a few feet away, he gave the man a once over before crossing his arms. "Nice guns you have there," he commented, pointing at the man's waist.
With a twitch in the corner of his mouth, Ilex sprang backward, leaving a near-invisible cloud in his place. The instant he had both feet on the floor, the faunus leapt up in a forward flip. A flint ignitor snapped out of one of his vambraces into his hand and, as he passed over the man's head, he used it to spark off the gas.
Had he not been ready for it, the concussive blast from the faunus's Semblance would have been strong enough to rock Carmine back on his heels. Only he had been expecting it. The whole maneuver had taken less than two seconds to perform, but the human had seen it coming a mile away thanks to one of Ilex's tells.
Apparently, Mantis had seen it coming as well; like the crossbow bolt, the blast hadn't seemed to phase the Hunter at all. In fact, as Ilex had passed over his head, he'd managed to both bat aside the hand reaching for his hat and tweak one of the faunus's ears. Despite his feelings toward the race, Carmine rarely resorted to physically abusing faunus—those without such restraint almost always wound up with a target on their back—and yet he still found himself suppressing a smirk at the annoyed look Ilex gave the Hunter as he rubbed at the pinched ear.
"If you're going to rely on deception in your fighting style," Mantis drawled, spinning on one heel to face the faunus, "you shouldn't be so obvious about it. That little smirk you get when you're about to try something?" He pointed up toward his own mouth. "Dead giveaway. Also, distracting someone by commenting on their weapon doesn't really work if you're looking at their hat. Now, please tell you have a proper weapon hidden up those sleeves of yours." Ilex grumbled to himself, but curled his fists and rolled them in toward his body. A blade snapped out from each bracer; the right one was straight and wide while the left was pronged with serrated edges.
The Hunter cocked his head in impartial acknowledgement before turning to the third member of the team. The faunus was practically bouncing now, already pulling the large, blocky weapon from his back. "Rhys." The teen grinned and his eyes lit up. "I want you to sit over there," Mantis said calmly, pointing to one of the benches on the side of the room.
Up until that point, Carmine had assumed the man was just an ass, but now it was clear he was intentionally pushing their buttons. Rhys loved fighting; it was practically the only thing he was good for. For Mantis to literally bench him and not even let him show his weapon was tantamount to torture for the faunus, and Carmine almost wished he'd thought of it. Not that he could exert any authority over his teammate.
Rhys looked at the man in confusion for several seconds before realizing he was serious. He bared his teeth in anger, shifting his weapon to his left hand so he could sign. |Why?!|
It was a basic sign, and apparently Mantis didn't need it translated. "You'll only get in the way. Best you stay over there until I need you."
The otter faunus stood there, fingers twitching with unfinished words until he brought his weapon up to hold with both hands. For a moment, Carmine wondered if Rhys would try to attack the Hunter, but he instead spun and threw the blocky weapon toward the wall behind the bench. With both hands free, Rhys gave the man a double middle finger before stomping over to where his weapon had come to a rest.
There was a small frown on Mantis's face as he turned to address the two remaining teens. "Alright. Let's get started."
(-)
Aspen snarled as she dug her fingers deeper, trying to get a firm grip. The Boarbatusk squealed in protest, shaking its head as it tried to free itself from the girl grabbing at its face plate. Eventually, Aspen managed to flip the Grimm—Why do they have two "m's?"—onto its side and pin one of its larger tusks to the ground with her knee. Momentarily pulling one hand away, she snapped off the smaller pair of tusks with a single punch before the creature could use them to bite her leg. With both hands on the plate again, she braced herself against the Grimm with her foot and pulled.
The Boarbatusk screamed as the bone ripped away from its face, and Aspen examined the inside of the plate. Bits of flesh that still clung to the surface quickly evaporated, leaving it pitted with small indents. It didn't seem as though the damage would affect its durability like the last one did, so she set it aside. Shifting her position, she planted one hand against the now-exposed flesh between the Grimm's eyes and began digging at the plate over its muzzle. With a few pops and another squeal from the boar, the bone tore off, and Aspen set it aside as well. Satisfied that there was nothing else to scavenge from the beast, she moved her hands to its tusks to keep it immobilized as she stood up. With one foot on its bony shoulder, she jerked the Boarbatusk's head towards herself, snapping its neck.
As the corpse began to disintegrate, Aspen bent over to inspect her prizes. The muzzle plate was in a similar state as the face plate, and the girl was particularly drawn to the two barbed hooks toward the front. Lifting it up, she placed it against her leather-wrapped forearm. She would have to split it into two halves, but it otherwise suited her purposes nicely. Setting it into her bag with several other bone plates, she picked up the Grimm mask as well. Like the muzzle plate, it was wider and flatter than she would have liked but, set against the black leather on her thigh, it looked as if it would work as well.
Dropping the plate inside, Aspen swung the soft fabric container—Laurel had called it a "duffel bag"—onto her shoulder and closed her eyes. It was midday; she had been out in the forest for several hours, hunting Grimm in order to strip them of any plates she could use for armor. After what Ruby and the Goliaths had done to her, she knew she needed some way to protect herself in the future. She had broached the idea to Laurel early that morning and, while she had been annoyed for some reason, the Huntress had helped her get a set of black leather armor to use as a base. She had warned Aspen that it wouldn't breathe—of course it wouldn't; the animals the material had come from were dead—but the girl had already made her decision by that point.
Since she'd started her hunt, however, Aspen had sensed two people following her. Though she couldn't see them, she had felt their auras before: one like a piece of steel covered in dirt and the other felt like a prickly, green plant—a cactus—caught in a sandstorm. It was the two teens from the night before, the ones who were with the woman who felt like rotted fruit. She wasn't sure why they were following her but, so long as they didn't interfere, she didn't care.
Continuing through the forest, Aspen found herself emerging into a familiar gap. Large furrows in the ground and scattered Grimm-bone spikes marked it as the site of her encounter with the Goliaths the day before. She felt a small pinprick of emotion, one she identified as shame. She pushed the feeling off with a huff.
Making to continue, the girl stopped as something caught her eye. One of the Goliaths' tusks lay in the dirt not far from the tree line, and she moved over to inspect it. The ivory bone had broken off somewhere near its base, but it appeared to be otherwise undamaged. She ran her fingers along the surface, brushing dirt and bits of wood from the grooved striations along its length. When had it broken? She hadn't done it, and there hadn't been anyone else in the forest at the time, so how? Closing her eyes, she thought back to the final moments of the fight. The feeling of blood covering her arm as she buried it in the Goliath's eye, the intense pain as the bones in her arm snapped, the feeling of weightlessness as she was thrown off, the explosive cracking sound as... As what?
Aspen looked up at the trees nearest to her. They were several feet thick and had avoided being trampled when the Grimm had chased after her, but there was one that still bore a scar in spite of that. Judging by the height of the impact, it seemed as though the Goliath Aspen blinded had accidentally struck the tree in its throes and snapped its tusk off.
Satisfied with her analysis, Aspen looked back at the bone. It wouldn't serve any practical use for her armor, but something in her mind was telling her take it. Opening her duffel, she carefully set the tusk inside. The bag was nearly full, and she had taken enough plates to offer an acceptable level of protection, but there was still one thing she wanted to investigate while she was still in the forest.
Several minutes later, Aspen was standing on the edge of the cliff where she had found the oddly shaped stone—a "Queen" from some game called "Chess." Reaching out, she searched for the presence she had felt the day before. She could feel the two auras following her, several small animals crawling through the underbrush and, if she pushed herself as hard as she could, the very edges of Laurel's scorched-powder aura back at the cliff. None of it was what she was looking for. It seemed as if whatever she had felt before was—
There. There it was. The feeling of blood rose up to meet her, not as sudden or as powerful as the last time, but undoubtedly the same. Leaning forward, she peered down into the chasm at her feet. A layer of fog kept her from seeing to the bottom but, several hundred feet below her, a collapsed pillar leaned against the cliff face.
At least she wouldn't have to climb all the way back up.
(- -)
"What do you think she's doing?"
Emerald scoffed lightly. "How would I know? She's been ripping plates off of Grimm for the last three hours. Until yesterday, I didn't even know that was possible."
Next to her, Mercury lazily scratched at his chin. From their position near the back of the ruins, they had a perfect view of the girl standing at the edge of the cliff. "You don't think she knows we're here, do you?"
"Why would she? We haven't even been within—"
Emerald stopped mid-sentence as a sudden feeling of dread washed over her. It slipped and oozed at the corner of her mind, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. The whole world seemed to freeze, leaving her unable to move. Judging by the way Mercury had stiffened, she could only assume he'd felt it too.
The feeling vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Emerald couldn't stop the violent shiver that ran through her body. "What… the hell… was that?" Mercury didn't move, his muscles clenched as he stared out toward the cliff. Aspen was gone; Emerald hadn't even seen her jump. At least, she assumed she'd jumped. "We're not… we're not going to go after her, are we?"
In any other situation, the green-haired thief doubted her partner would have even given a second thought to following the girl, but now he just stared at the duffel bag sitting on the edge of nothingness. "Well… She's got to come back for her stuff eventually, right?"
Emerald breathed a small sigh of relief. "Yeah. We can follow her when she comes back up."
(- -)
The bottom of the chasm was much colder than the surface, but the change in temperature didn't bother Aspen at all. Dropping off the fallen column, she took a look at her surroundings. The fog above her blocked out much of the light, but she could still make out more rubble from whatever structure had once stood there. What must have been centuries of erosion had caused numerous landslides, causing huge piles of dirt and stone to collect at the base of the cliff. All in all, nothing registered as out of the ordinary in her brain, though she wasn't sure what would qualify as—
The girl's eyes settled on a massive boulder that had come from the structure she'd climbed down on. Behind it, she could make out an angular indentation in the wall. That was unusual. Walking over to the rubble, she looked it over more carefully. There were several other large stones of varying sizes surrounding it, but she was able to move them aside with relative ease. Moving the main boulder, however, proved to be more difficult.
The ground cracked beneath Aspen's feet as she pushed on the stone's mossy face. She ground her teeth, pushing even harder. The boulder began to give. With a yell, she threw all of her strength into moving her obstacle and it slid aside. It didn't go far, but it was enough to reveal what it had been hiding.
A wide tunnel opened up into the base of the cliff. The edges were worn down and loose dirt and stones covered the ground, but it was clearly artificial. How did she know that? Straight lines. Sharp edges. Stairs. Slipping through the narrow entrance she had created, Aspen continued her descent.
It wasn't long until the sparse light from the surface wasn't enough to light her way, so the girl had to rely on her other senses to move forward. A light current of air brushed against her skin, leading her further into the tunnel. At some point, the stair steps levelled out into a smooth floor, and still she continued. Up ahead, she caught sight of a faint glow that outlined the exit to the shaft and allowed her to move more confidently.
The room Aspen found herself in was both alien and familiar at the same time. The ceiling was over a hundred feet high, with small, glowing white orbs hanging down, offering the only light. Spaced evenly throughout the room as far as she could see were large metal cylinders, around ten feet tall. Each one had a large, transparent panel that had been opened upward, revealing them to be hollow.
Aspen walked through the room, examining the cylinders—Pods. I've been here. Aspen frowned. She couldn't have been here before. She couldn't remember anything before the desert, but she was certain she had never been in this room before. Why is it so familiar, then?
A flicker of movement to her right caught her attention, and she turned to face it. Nothing. She couldn't sense any auras either, but she knew she wasn't alone. Grimm? It was possible. She readied herself to fight. Once the Grimm noticed her, it would growl at her. That was what they always did.
Something crashed into Aspen from behind, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She didn't have time to react before whatever had attacked her picked her up and threw her against a nearby pod, denting it. She collapsed to the ground, unable to recover as she was lifted up by the throat. In her vulnerable position, she was finally able to see her attacker clearly.
It was a man with pale skin, black hair, and red eyes. Red eyes that looked at her in recognition. He released her and took a step back.
"You… You are rephaim."
Rephaim, huh? What exactly does that mean? Well, I'm not telling just yet. You'll have to come back for the next chapter to get that answer (though I wouldn't be surprised if some of you have figured it out already).
I'm pretty happy with what I was able to do with this chapter. Fleshing out new characters is always fun, and we get to see a side of Oliver we haven't really seen before. Meanwhile, Aspen is off being Aspen, casually torturing Grimm so she can have some armor and jumping off cliffs. Nothing new there, but always fun to write.
Just a heads up before I go, the next couple of chapters may be a bit shorter and choppier than usual. I've got a bunch of different threads to address in this arc and I don't want to drag anything out more than it needs to be. I'm also getting toward the end of my other story, Wayward Son, and once that's done, I'll be able to focus more on this story.
So, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I would recommend following the story so you don't miss the next one. If you want to leave a review, I love getting feedback, but no pressure. Au revoir!
