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Velvet sat on top of the town wall, her legs wrapped around the log's tapered end and wedged into the 'v' it formed with the adjacent ones. She hunched forward to keep balance as she and Yatsuhashi finished off their late lunch, overlooking the edge of the clearing from their relative safety. Wiping her hands on the log, she pulled out her scroll and checked the home screen the third time in the last hour. Nothing flashed new and she put it away with a small pout, catching Yatsuhashi's attention.
"Haven't heard anything from the others?"
"Nope," Velvet said, popping the word in mild annoyance.
"I'm sure they're just busy. Their zone is a while away, so they're probably just starting now."
"I know, but I was hoping she'd check in before they started."
"Maybe she tried to. I don't know if our scrolls are strong enough to get through that mountain on their own."
"What?" Velvet looked at her partner in worry before twisting around to see behind her. She spotted the CCT relay dish quickly, which stood nestled in the center of the inner wall and rose high above the rest of the town. Its polished dish caught the sunlight as it rotated a few degrees to find a new signal. The dish faced away from them, away from the mountain, and focused its array of transmitters and receivers towards Vale and the other neighboring villages.
"Hey," Yatsuhashi said, drawing her attention away from the dish. "It's Coco and Fox, they'll be fine."
"I know, I'm just worrying. I can't help it." She slumped over the dulled point of the log,
"That's not a bad thing, but for now we should get back to work. We'll see them tonight when they get back."
Velvet complied, though it didn't help her nerves. She shimmied down the log and landed softly, her ears perking when she did. The sound persisted: a low, deep groaning from far away. It stopped before she could locate it, only adding to her confusion.
"What is it?" Yatsuhashi asked with a grunt as he lowered himself to the ground.
"I'm not sure, but it was loud."
"I didn't hear anything, you sure?"
She looked off to their right, where the clearing gave way to forest and eventually to the low mountains not too far in the distance. "It was far away, maybe from that way?"
"Probably the mine, then. They just reopened yesterday."
"Huh," Velvet said, not convinced but without a clue of her own. She shook away the unease and refocused herself on the mission.
With a twist of her wrist, she powered up her box and picked Fox's weapon, waiting by the wall as it formed around her arms. Her body felt sore for a moment and a prickle crawled over her arms; she had never gotten used to feeling her aura sapped away and consumed, even after all these years. She twisted her arms around until the sensation went away and waited for Yatsuhashi.
"Is your shoulder healed from two nights ago?"
"Completely," Velvet said, knowing where this was going and already not liking it.
"Just let me take the front line today, no need to push yourself."
"It's not pushing myself, not any more than you are."
"I know Vel, but it's just risky. Aura is why we stand a fighting chance against grimm—"
"—and not using it to protect yourself is a bad idea," she said, finishing for him. "But my aura is how I fight the grimm. That's...me. It's part of who I am." She huffed to herself and subconsciously picked up her pace a little.
"I'm just asking you to be more careful."
"I am careful. I've been fighting this way for years."
"I know, but that doesn't mean it gets easier—and it's never less dangerous. Have you given any thought to telling others? Coco—"
"C'mon, we've talked about this before," Velvet started to plead, pushing out her lip into an annoyed pout. "Even if Coco doesn't make a big deal out of it, if Beacon finds out they'll try to put me on city missions. Low risk nonsense. I'm just as capable as anybody out here and just as safe. I'm here to be a huntress, and you all know I can, so there's no reason to bring it up."
Yatsuhashi sighed and dropped the subject for now, knowing he wouldn't get any further after having the same conversation several times during their first year. It was the only topic she ever gave him a hard time on and he quickly learned how stubborn she could be when she wanted to.
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Coco squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed away the dust and tears with the back of her hand before blinking them open and squinting into the cavern.
What the hell, she thought.
She widened her eyes until the air stung at them, reassuring her they were open. Her heartbeat picked up as realization set in. She waved her hand in front of her face, moving it closer and farther away but it made no difference, she couldn't even see its outline through the wall of black. It was total darkness.
She turned her head and searched the room in vain, not even sure where the rock walls of the cavern were. She pulled up her knees to her chest, shrinking away from coolness of the damp floor.
"Fox? You there?" Coco recoiled, taken aback by the strangeness of her voice in the small chamber. It broke the deafening silence, but she had to remind herself it was her own.
"Yeah, no signal on the scroll."
"As expected. Can you turn on your flashlight? Mine's dead."
"I don't have a flashlight on mine, why would I?"
"Oh—nevermind." Okay, she thought, so they can't see for a while. She can deal with that.
Coco reached out her hand and felt the wall on her right, edging to it before she stood up. She only made it to her knees, bashing her head on the rock ceiling.
"Ah, damn!" Her head throbbed and she felt the area with gentle fingers, probing under her beret until she was satisfied she wasn't bleeding from it.
Not even enough room to stand. The realization knocked her confidence down a peg.
Her back was hunched over so she decided to kneel instead, inching along on her knees until her fingertips dipped into a crevasse between two boulders that sealed them in. She felt further in until she touched the soft mud that filled in the gaps and blocked out the light. Another thought hit her. Their best shot would be to dig out a smaller rock and try to squeeze through. And once the mud was cleared away they could get some light in here. That part itself shouldn't take too long.
Mud splattered against the ground as Coco shoveled out scoops and tossed them aside, using an empty clip of dust rounds to speed along the digging. She got one corner of a boulder cleared out before her arm and shoulder ached at the repetitive motion.
"Fox, c'mon." She nodded her head at him but knew the gesture was lost. "Your blades might make a better shovel."
"No, Coco. There's too much. I don't hear or feel anything, not the forest or the grimm outside. There's just too much between us and them. We can't dig through that."
"How much?" Loose dirt slid through fingers to the ground. "It's not impossible. We don't know that."
Fox shrugged but that was also lost on Coco. Instead she stood in silence for a long moment. "I don't know. It's enough for me to be blind, really truly blind. Aura can usually get through a few feet of anything."
"A few feet? Come on, that's doable. Right? It's just a matter of time."
"They're boulders, Coco. They aren't moving."
"Then how else can we get out? We can't just sit here and…" she said, trailing off as she ran through their options and mentally checked them off, one by one. She stuck her hand into the wrist deep tunnel to keep trying, only for her fingers to scrape against a solid rock at the back of it.
"I think we'll have to wait it out, Coco."
"No, not yet. The rocks at the top aren't stuck, we can get those out. There has to be another way, Fox. There always is. We're not helpless here."
Coco abandoned the shallow indent she was working on and felt her way up to another gap between the smaller boulders and the ceiling. Still on her knees, she reached up and started brushing out the debris, sputtering as dirt and pebbles fell down.
She muttered to herself. Her fingers throbbed as she pulled out her hand from the elbow deep hole, barely wide enough to fit her arm into. She stuck her other hand in between the rocks and felt the face of another rock, far too big to pull out. She tried to push out against it until her hands ached in protest.
Nothing, not even a little. Was that it? Wasn't there anything else she could do? They were supposed to be huntsmen, for god's sake. Training to be the best and most capable people anywhere. Coco sunk to the floor and began to think, going through everything she had on her.
The minigun was useless unless they both wanted to go deaf, so was Fox's not even considering the ricochet. She had used most of the dust rounds in the fight, but there was still a few clips of normal ones. That could give her light, she thought, but...how much air will that use? Burning the fire dust they used as propellant. Would it? Another fear crept into her and nearly paralyzed her at the thought. What if they suffocated?
She pounded a fist against the ground and a pulse of pain ran through her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut out of habit and shook her mind off the thought.
No, she couldn't think about that. What else was there? A few empty belts, two useless scrolls. Fox might have some fire dust left, but that might take up even more air. But it was dust, would that burn air? She didn't know. She felt around her belt for anything left. A half a clip of ice dust. That...that might work.
She spread her hands out and glided them across the floor around her as she crawled back to where was first sitting. After a few seconds, they collided with her gun and the bag of used clips. She found the ice dust with ease—the only one weighted down with spare bullets—and emptied it onto the floor. She rolled one of the rounds between her fingers, feeling the slight ridge where the cartridge hugged the soft lead bullet.
"Fox, I need your blade."
Nothing.
"Fox?"
Her mind jumped to the worst and she scrambled over to him, feeling the floor until she bumped into his arm. It was limp. Her training kicked in, though laced with panic, as she felt up his arm to find his head, and hovered her ear over his nose.
She felt breath.
She cradled her hands behind his head, feeling through his hair. No bleeding there.
She checked the rest of the body, sliding her hands underneath him to look for bleeding, and then gently prodding his face, ribs, pelvis, and so on. Just as they were taught, searching for anything broken.
Nothing broken. She called out his name again, then pinched down on one of his fingernails until he half-groaned.
He was responsive at least, but only to pain. Coco tried to think back on what that meant for her, on what next and how to help him, but their medical classes felt like distant memories now. She didn't know.
One last thing to check, she remembered. Aura. She pressed her hands over his arm and willed up her aura, trying to feel any response from his. It was Fox, she had seen his aura used all the time, so it shouldn't be hard to feel this way. All she needed was some response. Any, to show it was still there to protect him from her false-threat.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Coco swallowed hard. That could've been it. Had his aura broken, falling unconscious wasn't unheard of. The body will take away all control you have when it needs to heal. Was he hit during the collapse? Or was it drained from their fight earlier?
Coco slumped back against the cold wall, cradling one of Fox's limp hands in hers. She had no idea.
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Yatsuhashi flicked the tip of his blade into the bathtub and turned on the water, watching idly as it filled the tub and pushed the black sludge down the drain. He ran a rag down the length of the blade, pushing the film of grimm blood off and into the water. Once satisfied, he finished with a thin coat of oil and sheathed it. He was putting away the oil when a knock came at the door with a short pause before Velvet let herself in.
"Oh," she said, her voice falling when she saw the otherwise empty room.
"Something wrong?"
"No, I just thought they'd be back by now." She closed the door behind her and took a seat on Fox's bed, not wanting to go back to her own empty room. "Have you heard from them yet? I haven't."
Yatsuhashi leaned over to the window and pulled back a curtain, surprised to see the sun fading behind the mountain. They'll be back any minute now, I'm sure. The trail back here is a hike."
"I know, it's just getting darker really fast, especially in the forest."
"Fox can find their way back. Besides, they were just doing aerial grimm today, they didn't go into the forest," Yatsuhashi said, looking at her for a moment longer. "But you've been worried about this all day. You feel something isn't right?"
"I do. I don't know why, I just do."
"Alright. I'm not one to ignore instincts." He hooked the sword back onto his shoulder plate and strapped it on. "We can at least wait for them at the gate"
"Can we?" Her eyes lit up and she slid off the bed in an instant. "Wait," she said, her ears perked and she turned, looking intently at the door. She bounded over and opened it, dismayed when it was Port climbing the stairs at the end of the hall, instead of the rest of their team.
She stepped out and went to him, with Yatsuhashi following close behind.
"Ah, how did it go today?" Port said when he saw them coming, stopping in the hallway for them.
"Good, but have you heard from Coco and Fox?" Velvet said, cutting away any small talk.
"No, haven't they come back?"
"No, and we don't see their scrolls on the map."
"Mm, bad signal. These mountains are tricky." Port glanced between them and spotted their weapons still on them. He frowned, assuming the worst. "I understand, I'll go out to the pass and look for them. But stay in the town tonight, I'll need somebody to call if they come back, and we can't leave this town with nobody else here.
"Look for them…" Velvet echoed and recoiled back. Panic leaked into her voice and pain stabbed at her chest as reality hit. "They really are missing."
Port bowed his head and took Yatsuhashi's shoulder. "You two mustn't go out tonight, it's too easy for you both to get lost as well, and that's the last thing we want."
"We were planning on waiting at the gate, but..." he trailed off and shrugged, unsure of what they would do now.
"Then do that, but if they aren't back within the hour, try to get some sleep. If I can't find them on the trail, then we really do have a problem and I'll need you both rested to go into the valley tomorrow morning." Port gave them both one last nod before he fetched his weapon and left.
"Still want to go to the gate?" Yatsuhashi looked down at Velvet, whose hands were cupped over her mouth in a silent gasp.
"No, we have help find them," she said after a moment, regaining some of her composure.
"Agreed, but how?"
Her voice wavered. "I—I don't know."
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Coco slid her fourth and final dust round under the metal corner of her handbag and sat on top of it, curling her knuckles away from the edge of Fox's blade and placing it in the ridge where the shell and bullet met.
The ice dust was in the tip of the bullet, so she placed the blade midway through it and pressed down to make a lip in the soft lead bullet. Make a ridge and it pry out...again. This was the last one, though. Finally, she thought, almost there. The other three bullets weighed down her pocket, their shells discarded against the wall.
She hunched over the blade and pressed down with all her weight, the flat edge digging into her palms as she kept up the pressure for another few seconds until she took away the blade and fingered the small indent in the soft lead.
Another few minutes of practically sitting on the blade and there was enough of an indent to pry it from without slipping.
She'd have to buy him a new blade when we get back to Beacon. The thought of them returning helped.
She angled the blade away from her and lined it up with the indent, using her hands and feet to push down and out on the bullet. Her fingers began to cramp but she pushed harder, leaning into it with all of her weight until the bullet gave way and began to slide out.
The blade slipped and caught her finger, leaving a bruise as her aura stopped it from slicing in. She resituated it and tightened her grip, sliding out the rest of the bullet in one final push and sending it bouncing across the wet ground and into the dark.
Coco huffed at losing the was just insult to injury.
She dropped to her hands and knees and started feeling around, inching her way forward in the darkness until she found it and pocket the small ice dust filled tip with the others.
It would work. Her idea, their way out. She left her way back to Fox and gave his hand a squeeze before checking his pulse one more time. It was strong, but his hands were cold. So were her own, she realized.
No time to sit and worry, she finally had the dust out of all her ice rounds after hours of prying.
She fished out the other three dust bullets and clutched them tightly as she fumbled through the pitch black, reaching out her free hand until it met the opposite wall.
It'll work, she told herself. It was ice dust—even if she didn't like it for fighting, nothing would stop the crystals once it sets off. Not even rock.
She ran her hand through the loose dirt that filled the dozens of small gaps until she felt a looser patch that fell away at her touch. Another step forward and her knee landed in a pile of loose dirt, confirming it. She scooped out the small mounds that formed in the hole she was digging at earlier and reached in until her arm couldn't possibly get any deeper. She dropped the handful of four small, precious lead canisters into the depths, placing all of her faith into them and pushing them as far back as they could go.
This was it.
She backed her arm a few inches out of the hole and closed her eyes out of habit, widening her stance as she touched the lead casings and concentrated on them.
'Aura can ignite dust, butwith modern advances it's one of the least efficient means to do so.' One of Glynda's classes came back to her, willing her forward as aura started to gather around her hand. 'But it's still a formidable weapon with the right huntsman. The ancients used it for millennia as their only way to fight grimm, and that ability lies inherent in all of us. To ignite dust, you must learn to concentrate your aura, which will be today's class.' Coco's supporting arm grew tired and she leaned against the wall instead, feeling light headed at the attempt. They had practiced in class on refined dust crystals, not the manufactured powder that she isolated from her ammunition. These were proving much harder.
If only Velvet were here, Coco mused, she knows more about mixing aura and dust than any of us. Another memory popped into her head, from when they were fist years all getting to know each other for the first time. 'A little bit of aura to start it up, but after that the dust does all the work. It looks fancy but it's really not that interesting. How does yours get so compact?' Velvet's voice filled her head, explaining the very basics of how her weapon worked.
'A little bit' my ass, Coco thought. This dust wasn't budging at all.
She reached back into the hole. Focus, she told herself. Focus.
Her aura let off a soft glow, the light lost to her closed eyes, and it pulled at her fingertips as it passed through the thin lead and into the powdered dust. The pulling sensation dulled into a tugging, and she tensed when it seemingly vanished.
Then her aura started to push back. She knew that sensation. It was happening! She ripped her arm out of the hole and stumbled back, bracing herself over Fox's body as she waited for the explosion. The ice dust sizzled for a tense moment before igniting, expanding outward with several sharp pops as the lead casings broke open. The crystals filled the hole, pressing against the boulders as two forces of nature pitted against each other. The boulders shook and groaned, pushed apart from each other as new cracks formed in the wall. It went on for a long minute, the boulders shifting and settling and shaking pebbled loose from the ceiling as they did. Each one that fell onto Coco sent a shock of fear through her, feeling like the ceiling was ready to collapse and crush them in retribution. The last of the pebbles fell and the boulders settled into a new place, mixed in with the ice crystals and the cracks refilled with new layers of mud..
Coco stood up, intent on finding a new way out, a new passage that formed around the large scar of ice that was forever frozen into the wall. She crawled over, her hope flickering in the darkness when she slammed into the ground, knocked down from behind and laying there sprawled and breathless. She clutched her chest, a deep pain passed through her as she gasped for air.
Nothing. The air was frozen in her throat, unmoving.
Her eyes went wide in confusion. It didn't make sense. She tried pushing out her chest to breathe. It was in vain and a nervous, scared lump welled up in her throat.
No, it was okay. She was just winded. It couldn't be that bad. It would go away in a second.
She squeezed out a small sigh to open her throat and sucked in a shallow breath. A wave of dizziness swept over her as she stared into the blackness, into nothing. Her lungs burned for air and her chest throbbed, as if it was trying to pull out and abandon her there on the ground.
Fox! She shouted the thought in her mind, hanging onto it like a thread of hope. She couldn't leave him here. To stop fighting would be to abandon him, and she simply refused to.
Her chest tightened again as she tried to breath in. Her body jolted and her throat rasped, sucking in air and washing away her brief panic. It worked! Just barely, but it worked. She laid there only focused on breathing, in and out, until she felt strong enough to get back up.
She winced as she bumped her head again trying to stand. She felt above her, too low to be the ceiling, and she shivered her hand rested on a painfully cold ice crystal that extended several feet out from the wall.
So that's what hit her, she thought. She felt up her ribcage and tenderly prodded every few inches, tensing each time for the shooting pain that never came. No pain, nothing broken. Good. If it hit wrong or too hard it would have broken a rib, and she couldn't afford that right now.
She took a deep breath of the still air before getting up, hefting up her handbag and hacking away at the ice crystals.
After a few minutes and breaking a sweat, she knocked loose the long crystal that filled in the hole and pulled it out, letting them clatter to the ground and being careful to avoid anything falling too close to where Fox laid. She stuck her hand back in the hole and pushed against the rock with all her might, sliding back across the ground as she threw her weight into it.
Not even a millimeter. "Budge, dammit!" Her voice cracked with desperation.
She pulled up her sleeve and switched arms, her other one wet from the small puddles of water still in the hole. She shoved herself against the wall again and again, her upper arm starting to bruise where it hit the opening until she sank against the rock.
The dust hadn't done anything. It was worthless, and her only hope at getting them both out of this.
It was supposed to work. It had to.
She thrashed at the wall, trying to pull the boulders free one last time until her aura flickered and her fingertips busted open with a thin trickle of blood.
She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to inject some confidence into herself, but her reservoir was long dry.
"I'm sorry, Fox. I'm so sorry. I can't get us out. I can't do anything." She sank against the wall, her head cradled in her hands as reality came crashing down on her. Fox simply laid there, motionless and silent. "What kind of leader am I?"
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