Bearskin

Ruby was the first to recover from the fall.

It took time to learn to use a Semblance properly, and the speed she was capable of didn't exactly lend itself to avoiding accidents.

Of course with her Semblance active the collisions weren't as bad, but that didn't mean they didn't teach her how to manage impacts.

Not to mention an instinctive activation at the last moment.

She saw the others immediately, except Weiss, and rushed over to check on Yang.

There were no obvious signs of injury, not that she had much training, so she just rolled her sister onto her side.

That was what you were supposed to do with someone unconscious right?

What next...

She went to Oobleck.

As the professor assigned to the mission with them surely he had to know what they should be doing.

He didn't show any signs of injury either, and Ruby rolled him onto his side as well.

That left Zwei and Drei.

She... had no idea how to check them for injuries.

There weren't any limbs bent the wrong way (did Drei even have bones that could be broken?) and any lesser injuries would be hidden beneath their fur.

She didn't even know how they should lie to recover.

"Right, that's everyone. What's next?"

Weiss.

Ruby turned her attention to the corridor they were in.

There was dim light falling from above, clearly from the corridor they had fallen from, which faded quickly in one direction.

The other was blocked by rubble.

She cloud see the floor from the corridor mostly balanced on top of the rubble, making it clear where they'd landed.

She boosted towards the rubble, trying to climb.

"Weiss," she called in desperation.

She couldn't have lost her, the team had to still be fine, right?

It wasn't possible for her to climb the pile, so she started to work a piece of rock out of the heap.

"Urgh, I'm up... quit it already..."

Ruby spun at Yangs voice.

"Yang, you're alright!"

"This doesn't look like the dorm," Yang muttered, still waking up.

"We're in Mountain Glenn, I think Weiss is on the other side of this!"

"Mountain Glenn? White Fang! Taurus!"

Ruby flinched back in surprise at Yangs cries of realisation, bouncing off the rubble,

"R-right," she managed to squeak out, before shaking herself. "I think Weiss is trapped past here, help me shift this stuff."

"Uh, Ruby? I think you're only to make it fall apart onto us."

"But we can't just-"

"It is unlikely that there is no other access to the other side of the rubble," Ooblecks voice stated at a slower speed than normal, and Ruby turned to see him examining Zwei. "We'll need to explore this place for a way out anyway."

"But... Weiss..."

"We all seem to have come through just fine, making it unlikely that Weiss has been seriously injured. Now, would you check your scrolls for me?"

"Our scrolls? You don't expect us to have any signal?"

"No," Oobleck responded with a sharp shake of his head. "Your Huntress scrolls should have a mapping function, if they made it through the fall."

Ruby checked her pocket, finding her scroll intact. "Got it. No problems."

"Mines broken."

Ruby winced.

The way Yang tended to respond to her things being damaged was somewhat legendary back in Patch.

"Good thing I backed it up before we left."

"You can do that?"

Oobleck cleared his throat.

"My scroll was damaged in the fall. The map function doesn't seem to be working properly, but it seems to still be connected to yours. As such, if the two of you start exploring together while I stay here in case Weiss wakes up. This way both of us get access to a map."

"Right! Any idea what this place even is though?"

"I am not certain. Stay on guard."

Ruby nodded, before dragging Yang with her down the corridor, using her scrolls light to guide them as the display started to fill in the map.

Behind them Oobleck tested his leg and grimaced.

"Definitely broken," he muttered.

[]

The labs systems were in bad shape, most of the information lost or corrupted.

Which naturally included the map.

All that Weiss was able to salvage was that this 'Merlot' had been involved in the original construction of Mountain Glenn, claiming that he had caused the expansion to be constructed in the first place in order to have this secret lab.

A chill had run through her when she read that he had 'shifted his experiments' to the base.

He had taken Grimm into the city of Vale.

What sort of maniac was he?

He had sent people out to collect so many basic Grimm, countless Beowolves, Ursai and Nevermore, before finding ways to 'enhance' them, whether through technology or chemicals.

Thankfully many of them didn't seem to have survived.

But that still meant that there could be a lot of Grimm, enhanced Grimm, in the facility with her.

Upon reaching that realisation she nearly dropped her scroll, preparing Myrtenaser as she fumbled her scroll onto her belt.

The air remained still, but felt much more dangerous.

Weiss did her best to still her breathing, keeping an ear out for Grimm, as she checked her scrolls mapping function.

It was working, the lab room itself marked as well as the blocked corridor, so she started towards the first of the other exits.

The floor had stains from the broken tubes, but with no signs of footsteps leading down the route she had chosen, so Weiss stepped forward more confidently.

That confidence didn't last too long as the light of her scroll was swallowed by the darkness.

Nevertheless, it was down to Weiss to rescue herself.

[]

Yang followed her sister carefully, walking backwards in case they were attacked from behind.

The corridor had soon led to a T-junction, leaving them no choice but to follow one corridor and hope nothing was coming from the other.

Even with Yang on the watch.

After all, with her scroll broken (and how did Rubys survive just fine?), they only had Rubys scroll for light, and she needed it to see where she was going.

"Huh, that's odd."

"Odd how," Yang glanced over her shoulder, to see a green glow from around a corner ahead.

"Does that look like a light to you?"

Yang frowned. "Could be a room. Wonder why it would have a green light."

There was a soft crunch, and the light grew brighter.

"Uh, Rubes, I don't think that's a light."

Ruby clipped her scroll to her belt, quietly readying Crescent Rose.

A foot stepped past the corner.

At first Yang thought it was an Alpha Ursa, it was large enough and seemed to match the look of an Ursa, but there was something... off about it.

Then its head passed round the corner.

The skull mask wasn't that of an Ursa.

Not with the green glow in place of eyes.

A glow facing their direction.

Ember Celica snapped into place.

The Grimm roared.

[]

Weiss paused to check her scroll.

For a moment she thought it had developed an error, adding unexplored areas to the map, before she realised it must be connecting to the scroll of another member of team RWBY.

There was a blip, and another length of corridor appeared on the map, ruining her idea of contacting the team.

Without a connection to the CCT there just wasn't a strong enough signal between the scrolls to communicate.

At least she could try and work out a route to rejoin them.

Even if it would have been easier if they weren't heading away from each other.

"And of course it would be too much to ask for Ruby to notice and turn round," she muttered to herself, watching another section of corridor blip onto the map before dropping the scroll back onto her belt.

There was a sound from somewhere up ahead, and Weiss readied herself once more.

There wasn't much visible, except maybe a hint of green.

A green that became more visible as she watched.

As though some kind of green glow was approaching from round a corner.

Which was ridiculous, as there wasn't any kind of green light source she could expect to encounter here.

Lights would be white for greater visibility or red for reduced energy. There was no practical use for green lights.

And yet something was creating the green light that was approaching round the corner.

This... felt alien to her, and a sense of uncertainty ran through her.

A growl sounded from ahead.

The glow grew in intensity more rapidly, and a shape appeared from round a corner before her.

It looked larger than an ursa, but Weiss wasn't able to tell with any certainty, her scrolls light not reaching that far and the glowing patches not doing much to illuminate it.

One thing that was apparent from the little light that reached that far was that it bore the mask of the Grimm.

Or possibly, just possibly, the mask of the White Fang.

Either way, it was an enemy.

Weiss took her fencers pose, readied a Glyph, and lunged forward.

AN: Sorry for the delays and short chapter. Even just hearing about what happened to Ironwoods character damaged my motivation, and then I had a cat taking over the room I write in. And as everyone with a cat will understand, their delight in walking all over a keyboard makes legible writing problematic. I have not given up on any of my stories, and there is still only one on hiatus.

The ones that still update somewhat regularly are written on my phone, as they don't need a desktop computer to work on.

As for the chapter, I was somewhat surprised by the sudden genre shift into survival horror...