CHAPTER XXIV

Ghost Town

Penny was the first through the mining town's main gates. Contrary to the clatter of industrial machinery they expected, the entire settlement was silent. Only the wind made any noise.

"This is freaky," Leon said, looking around at the abandoned buildings. "I thought this place was supposed to be filled with people."

"I'm not sensing any animals nearby," Francine said. "The closest one I'm picking up on is in the woods, outside of the city walls."

"Why would the animals abandon this place?"

Ingrid looked over at Yuan, who had been preoccupied with something since they had set foot into town. "Something's bugging you," she said.

"I can't put my finger on it," he muttered. "It feels like...the Labyrinth."

"But, we're in..."

"Yeah, I know."

"Let's stick close together," Penny said as she led the way forward, both of her Dust swords fully materialized.

The town was derelict. Vehicles were left in awkward positions, some of them still running. Half-eaten meals were scattered about in restaurants and homes. Upon closer inspection, it seemed this place was devoid of any and all life. Even the insects had forsaken this town.

"This is seriously giving me the creeps," Justine said, clutching herself as a slight chill ran up and down her spine.

"Is anyone out there hearing this?" Penny said into a police car radio. "I repeat, is there anyone out there hearing this?"

They awaited an answer, but silence ruled the airwaves today.

"Let's head over to the admin building," Penny said, leading the way to the civic center. "Maybe we'll find some clues there."

Ingrid looked to the rooftops as they kept to the center of the dusty road. The wind blowing through the derelict town resembled a pained groan, as though the entire settlement itself was letting out its dying breaths.

"Hang on," Penny said, stopping the group just outside of the city hall. She reached into a pouch, pulling out a handful of golf-ball-sized drones and tossing them into the dark lobby. They began floating of their own volition before zipping off into different directions.

The rest of the group kept watch as Penny scanned the interior of the building. After a few minutes, the drones returned to her and she stowed them away.

"Anything?" Leon said.

"No," she said. "It's dead silent in there."

"D-Do you have to use the word 'dead'?" Justine said.

"C'mon," Ingrid said, stepping ahead of Penny. "Let's see if there's anything on security cameras or communication logs."

The group of seven kept their guard up as they moved through the lobby and into empty hallways toward the administrative area. Just as the rest of the town, there were signs of human activity abruptly halted, half-finished donuts, full coffee cups, monitors and radios still on, and doors half-opened.

Francine and Justine quickly faced another hallway, weapons at the ready.

"You hear something?" Leon said, standing beside the girls.

They stood silent for a bit before glancing at each other.

"Penny said she didn't catch anything on her drones," Francine began.

"Do you think you could've missed anything?" Justine said to Penny.

"I don't know what's going on here," she said. "I think it's worth the look."

The entire group remained together as they proceeded down the corridor. Penny led from the front with Leon just behind her. Yuan and Ingrid kept watch over the rear while the triplets stood by in the middle of the pack.

"I don't like this," Yuan mumbled.

"Me neither," Ingrid said. "This goes beyond death. There's not even the smell of rot."

"And my hair's been standing on end since we got to the town."

"You, too?"

He nodded.

"Fifty Lien says this is another mass disappearance," Francine said.

Penny made eye contact with Leon, who understood her intentions without a word. She would be the first through the open doorway, but Leon would be on guard to back her up or get her out of trouble if it got too hairy. She slowly pushed the door open with her free hand, Veritas ready for a thrust at whatever might be behind the door. She slowly panned right, performing a quick scan of the conference room. There were folders left on the table and sheets of paper scattered everywhere, blown around by an oscillating electric fan at the other side of the room. Another pass sent a few sheets of paper flying as Penny lowered her sword.

"That's a relief," Justine said.

"Wait," Ingrid said, turning in the direction from which they had come. "Francine, Justine, Nadine, are you guys hearing that, too?"

"I don't hear it," Francine began, taking a step back, "I see it!"

"What the heck is that thing?" Justine yelled as the misshapen creature hurried at them, gurgling as it scampered through the corridor.

Penny was quick to place herself between the youngsters and the abomination. It walked on two legs, but there was a third, vestigial one which hung off to the side, though it had what appeared to be a single claw to snag anything that got too close. Its arms were asymmetrical, one larger than the other. The eldest in the group attacked first, slashing the creature with Veritas before following up with a stab from Aequitas. To her shock, the monster began to groan in disturbing fashion as its flesh began to pull her Dust sword in.

"What's it doing?" Francine yelled as Penny tried unsuccessfully to pull her sword back out.

"Penny!" Leon said, rushing to aid her, but something beat him to the punch. He glanced over at Nadine, who had launched her spiked meteor hammer at the monster's face, knocking it into a daze and causing it to release its grip on Penny's weapon.

"We've got company on this side!" Ingrid said as she and Yuan squared off against a growing crowd of monsters they had never seen before.

"These aren't Corrupted," Yuan mumbled. "They're completely different from our usual enemy."

"Keep a tight formation!" Penny said, heading a defense on her side of the hall with Nadine the youngest of the Belladonna triplets. "Yuan, Ingrid, that end's all yours!"

"On it!" Ingrid said, standing side by side with Yuan.

"We've got your back, sis," Francine said as she and Justine joined their eldest sister in battle while Leon moved to support Penny and Nadine.

"What the heck are these?" Justine said. "They're not like any Grimm we've ever fought before."

"Yeah, these things are disgusting," Francine said.

"We've never fought these either," Ingrid said, after decapitating one of the monsters. "This is our first time seeing them, too."

"But I thought you guys were part of that Labyrinth Task Force thing they started over in Mistral."

"We are," Yuan said. "But there's still a lot we don't understand about the Labyrinth or the magic associated with it."

"Your Wraith-Knight powers aren't working here either, are they?" Ingrid said.

He shook his head. "We're not in the Labyrinth, not fully anyway. I don't know what the heck is going on, but it's like we're getting the effects of being partially drawn into that world."

A flash of light originated from his body and Ingrid stared at him.

"What?" he said.

"You didn't see that?" she said.

"See what?"

"For a moment, I thought you were glowing."

"Yeah, I saw it, too," Justine said.

"What is that thing?" Francine screamed as a monster slowly approached them from down the hall, one that could only be described as a jellyfish-like thing which floated in the air, expelling a green gas beneath its electrified tentacles.

"I don't like the look of that," Ingrid said before sending a clone powered with Explosive Dust, but the effect was minimal, only serving to slow down its advance.

"This way!" Penny yelled. "Yuan! Cover our rear!"

He nodded, readying a grenade loaded with Fire Dust. Before he could remove the safety pin, his right hand began to pulsate. He looked at the back of his fist. A Water Rune flickered into existence before disappearing.

"What's going on?" Ingrid said.

Without answering, Yuan took a gamble. He held out his right hand, calling on the power of the Water Rune.

"Frostatem," he said, commanding his rune to expel a blast of cold air, which froze the entire hallway, creating a thick wall of ice to block the monsters' path.

"I thought you said your magic wasn't working right now," Francine said.

"Who cares!" Leon yelled, leading from the front with Penny. "I'll take what we can get! Let's go!"

Their path was mostly unimpeded. The few monsters that did bar their escape were easy pickings for the experienced Team LILY and the well-trained Belladonna triplets. Ingrid looked back toward her sisters to make sure all three were still with them and when she was satisfied, she turned back to the front, but she skidded to a halt.

"Whoa, what's the matter?" Francine said as she, Justine, and Nadine caught up to their eldest sister.

"What...?" Justine said, looking ahead at an empty hallway. "G-Guys? Where did everybody go?"

In a panic, Ingrid turned to her sisters, who were all there with her. She quickly scanned their environment, which had shifted into decrepit form, though the world had yet to go completely pitch black.

"What happened?" Francine said.

"I think we slipped into the Second Layer of the Labyrinth," Nadine said. "That's what it's called, right, sis?"

Ingrid nodded, swallowing hard. It was one thing for the whole team to be participating in a Labyrinth run together. It was entirely different when they were separated from Yuan and the stronger members of the team like Penny, Ivory, and Athena. To make matters worse, she was stuck with her younger sisters, none of whom had any experience whatsoever in the Labyrinth.

"Okay," the eldest said, standing in a circle with her sisters. "You all still have the red gemstones we passed out to you before we left District 6, right?"

Each one pulled out their rune-inscribed rubies.

"Do not lose these. They're what keeps you human in this world."

"Reality anchors, that's what you called them, right?" Francine said.

Ingrid nodded. "In short, they use magical runes to surround your body with a stable reality that doesn't get influenced as strongly by the encroaching Labyrinth."

"You said 'doesn't get influenced as strongly'," Justine began. "Does that mean this isn't a sure thing?"

"We don't know how well they can resist the deepest layers of the Labyrinth. We're only in the Second Layer, so the effects of the ambient magic are still really weak, but if we end up descending into the Third Layer, the reality around us gets really unstable. Worse if we somehow find ourselves in the Fourth Layer."

"Let's make sure to stay close to each other, then," Nadine said. "Maybe the magic is stronger as long as the rocks are closer together."

"And everybody thinks you're nothing more than a berserker," Francine said. "Why don't you talk more in class and stuff?"

She shrugged.

"Dude, just leave her alone," Justine said. "She's got her own thing and I think it's cool."

"Oh, great," Francine said. "Are you gonna give her Semblance a super extra name, too?"

"Hey! And besides, we don't know what it is yet!"

"Shh!" Ingrid said, holding both halves of Shadow Blitz at the ready.

The four Belladonna sisters were tense as something rounded the corner.

"Should we fight it?" Justine whispered.

"No," Ingrid replied. "Let's try and avoid combat as much as possible."

The triplets nodded before following after the eldest.

"Ingrid!" Yuan called out.

"No sign of them here either," Leon said, returning to the hallway from an adjacent room.

"Damn it!"

"Hey!" Penny said, grabbing him by the shoulders and looking him in the eye. "Keep it together. You're not gonna blame yourself for this, got it?"

"Yes, senpai," he said with a heavy sigh.

"Now, focus. My scanners are limited to what they can detect, but your Wraith-Knight lets you feel out things instinctively. Where is it pointing you toward?"

He closed his eyes. While it was true that he had been feeling an ominous vibe since setting foot in this town, there was certainly something which stood out more than anything else. There was a presence in the very center of the town square, something he could not explain.

"I think I know where to go," he said.

"Town square?" Penny said.

"How did you know?"

"I sent a few drones out when we realized the girls were missing. I lost one of them completely when it entered the airspace over the town square."

"Shouldn't we be avoiding that place, then?" Leon said.

"It could also be a rift," Yuan said. "Although, not one I've ever felt before. This one feels so...chaotic."

"Let's go," Penny said. "And keep your eyes peeled for bogies or for Ingrid and her sisters.

The trio set out for the exit. Along the way there, the environment intermittently morphed all around them, shifting from partly decayed to outright grotesque and back to normal again.

"Gods, this is so chaotic," Penny said. "You weren't kidding, Yuan."

"Yes," he said. "Usually, despite the inherent instability of the Labyrinths we've been going into, there's still a certain amount of order to it all. We can mostly predict what will happen given certain conditions. I can use my magic in the Labyrinth, but it's completely useless in the real world, unlike Lilly's magic. The First Layer is an exact replica of the real world, only gray, and has no monsters. The Second Layer has few monsters scattered about and is constantly obscured by fog, and is in a state of disrepair compared to the First Layer. And then the Third Layer is the darkest and most distant from reality and with an abundance of horrific Corrupted."

"Until we get into the Fourth Layer," Leon said. "That's where things can get really screwy. Or it could be completely identical to the real world, all depends on the person in the core. How do we explain what's going on in this town, then?"

"There's something that's been bothering me, too," Yuan continued. "Penny-senpai, you've been getting constant streams of information from your scanners, right?"

"I have a pretty good amount of data built up, sure," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I'm sensing, it feels almost like this entire town is one gigantic rift."

She stopped walking, concentrating on sorting and analyzing all of the information she had been gathering since their arrival here. "From the particle and wavelength data, I think you might be right. I've been picking up the same stuff all throughout town that we would find in the Rift Generator back at Liam's lab. If this is true, it certainly explains the unexpected reality fluctuations we've been experiencing."

"Wait," Leon said, "are you saying that Ingrid and her sisters might have been drawn into a different Layer?"

"If it's true that this whole town sits on top of a rift, then it's possible. Neither of you need to worry about her, though. Ingrid can take care of herself. And her sisters are no pushovers either."

"That's not what worries me," Yuan said. "As far as we know, the only way for a person to intentionally leave the Labyrinth is with magical power, whether it's Lilly's rune magic, the magic Wraith-Knights possess, or the magical power of a Maiden. Otherwise, it's entirely up to chance whether Ingrid finds her way out or not."

"Not to mention she and her sisters could have been separated from each other," Leon said.

Penny pulled out her reality anchor and played with it between her fingers. "We need to trust that these things actually work. Let's head to the middle of town."

Blake opened her eyes to the sound of inhuman chatter. Her vision was still blurry, but she could see the movement of small creatures at her feet. When focus came back to her, she realized that she was surrounded by goblins. She tried to run away but her wrists were chained to the rocky wall behind her and all attempts to break free were fruitless.

The goblins turned their attention to her. A few in the front seemed to grin, though from what she could tell, every single one of them wore perpetual grins and hideous looking smiles to begin with. The sound of maniacal laughter began to rise in the crowd as one of the goblins approached her. She kicked at it but it dodged before grabbing her by the ankle, getting ever closer to her. It reached up for her thigh, but before it could touch her, it began floating in the air, suspended by some invisible force. It began to writhe and groan before screaming, exploding into a shower of blood in the next second.

Blake turned away to try and avoid the gore splatter, gasping and panting at her ordeal. She looked at the horde of goblins, which had split into two groups to create a path for a human-looking man dressed in black from head to toe.

"What do you all think you're doing?" his voice boomed in the cavernous room. "You're supposed to be guarding the vessel, not getting her filthy."

She watched in terror as the man grabbed another goblin, crushing its head until it popped like a grape. He casually walked to yet another before snapping his fingers and setting it ablaze. It ran throughout the throng of goblins, lighting some of them up as well. The rest of the small monsters killed the fiery ones before they could incinerate the entire horde.

The remaining goblins kept their distance, trembling as the man walked toward Blake, never taking his eyes off of her. She shrank away as he stopped in front of her, looking her right in the eye.

"What do you want?" she spat.

He sighed. "Truth be told, I wouldn't mind it if my kind would be a little more focused. This side-show nonsense is delaying our true mission."

"Your true mission?"

He waved his hand and the bonds on her wrists undid themselves and she fell to the ground. She rubbed her wrists for a moment before looking up at her captor. She couldn't be sure, but for a moment it seemed as though his eyes were glowing gold just now.

"Stand up," he commanded.

Blake's body moved on its own, obeying the man's command.

"I'm sure you would rather not be stuck in this cave with these disgusting creatures. Follow me."

Once more, her body heeded his command and not hers. Nevertheless, she had no intention of staying here with the goblins. With no other choice, she followed after the man. She looked around as the environment seemed to morph. The cave-like walls were replaced by neatly cut stone walls. They entered a large room reminiscent of a dungeon and her eyes widened.

"Sun!" she yelled.

"Blake!" he called back.

"What do you want from us?" she demanded of the man accompanying her.

"Wait here," he said before vanishing.

The iron barred door to the room shut itself before she could get to it. She shook the gate to no avail, attempting to break it with brute force, but all of her efforts failed. She ran to Sun, who was chained to a table.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"Yeah, what about you?" he said. "Is that your blood?"

She shook her head, repressing near-panic. Although he wore his usual carefree façade, she could tell that he had been through quite the ordeal. The wounds on his body told her that everything was most definitely not all right. Holding back tears, she touched her forehead to his before looking for something to pick the locks on his shackles. She found a small wire on the ground and went to work. Once all four of his limbs were free, he sat up on the table, rubbing his wrists and loosening up his neck.

"Thanks for that," he said. "My back was starting to get stiff."

She stood right in front of him, on the verge of tears.

"Hey, what's with that look?"

"You know what's with this look!" she said, her eyes clouding up.

"Psh," he said with a feigned chuckle. "That was nothing. We've been through worse crap back in the day."

She shook her head. He was always the last to admit defeat or any sort of hardship. Typical of the Faunus guy who grew up on the streets of Vacuo, one of the most difficult places to survive on the planet.

"You never change, do you?" she said, looking down at the ground.

Sun's demeanor began to alter. "Blake. What did they do to you?"

"What did they do to you? Your body's all torn up!"

"Just a flesh wound."

Neither wanted to admit the horrors they had been through, but both had an idea of what kinds of torture the other was forced to endure.

"Blake...I..."

"No, Sun," she mumbled. "You don't have to...I don't...I don't want you to have to relive it..."

He felt the same way about her own torture. They decided nonverbally to keep silent about the matter. She began to tend to his wounds, though that was mostly useless given that they were no longer bleeding.

"These wounds—" she began as she was interrupted.

"Are so not in vogue anymore, are they?"

They both turned to the door, which had opened itself to let more of the people in black through. Blake was between them and her husband, ready to fight to the death if need be.

"Blake," Sun said, weakly standing beside her.

"No, Sun, you're not in any condition—"

"Neither are you. You know what these people are capable of."

"Right you are, young man," said the man at the front.

"Huh?" Sun said, turning to his wife. "Didja hear that? He called me 'young man'. I'm not an old man yet!"

Blake slowly turned to him with a wry look. "Are you actually doing this right now?"

He nodded quickly. "Uh-huh!"

"Well, it's not wrong," the man in black said. "The both of you have only been alive for a blink of an eye compared to myself and my kind."

"What do you want with us?" Blake demanded.

"How remiss of me. My name is Azazel. The one to my left is Samael, and the beautiful one standing to my right is Tamiel."

"Is that really necessary?" Samael's voice boomed.

"Of course it is. Tamiel is beautiful. Or, wait, did you want to be called beautiful as well?"

He sighed heavily and Tamiel began laughing.

"If you keep this up, he'll Death himself," she chuckled.

"Seriously, though," Sun said. "You guys seem to be super powerful. I mean, you built this castle in the other world, right? Like, completely with nothing more than your magical power. So what the heck could you even need from us?"

"Well," Azazel began. "It's not necessarily what we need. However, no person or thing is ever entirely useless. There are things you could do for us to make our lives much easier."

"Like what?" Blake said.

"Before that, as I mentioned earlier, your body covered in scars and open wounds is no longer in vogue." He held up his hand and a blue rune appeared on the ground beneath Sun's feet, bathing his body in a blue glow as his wounds began to close up until no scars remained.

Blake stared at him in shock.

"Much better," Azazel said. "Your husband is so much more handsome this way."

"I mean," Sun began, "I don't wanna sound unappreciative or anything, but why did you heal me?"

"Isn't it obvious? We need you alive, not dead or dying."

Blake didn't like the sound of that. She and her husband had been put through torture unlike anything they had ever experienced, rivaled only by their ordeal in the Labyrinth almost twenty years ago during the last war.

"Okay, enough delay," Azazel said turning to the door.

Another of their kind walked in, a female, accompanied by a face which was all too familiar, one that made Blake's fists ball up automatically. Sun turned to his wife, noticing the rage in her face. He turned back to their captors.

"I can't believe this," Blake mumbled angrily. "Do you have no pride left?"

Sun stepped between them and his wife. "Adam," he said. "Are you working with them now?"

"I guess you could say that," he said with a grin. "Although, it's not what you're thinking."

"His eyes have been opened," the new woman said. "He and I have formed a pact and he now sees what I see."

"And it's beautiful, Eisheth," he said. "Thank you."

"Of course, my dear."

"A pact?" Blake said. "You sold your soul to these, these devils?"

"Excuse me," Azazel cleared his throat, "we are Greater Daemons. And no, Adam Taurus did not sell his soul. He has bound it to Eisheth's. They are now as one."

"I wish you could see this, Blake," Adam said, nearing the duo. "It's magnificent. It's peace unlike you've ever known."

"That sounds like delusion to me," Sun said.

"You're both jumping to conclusions. Has anyone even bothered to ask them what their goals are? You all assume that they are here in our world to do evil or something heinous. I must admit, I, too, refused to see the truth. But they are not here to damn us. They are our salvation!"

"Is that why you have us locked up here like this? Why you've been torturing us for the past few weeks?"

"He has a normal perception of the passage of time," Tamiel said. "This is interesting. You were right, Azazel. The Faunus may indeed serve as the optimal vessels for us."

"It wasn't my idea," Azazel said. "Ashtaroth is the expert on all the technical stuff. I'm just here to look pretty."

She giggled. "And pretty you are, Azazel."

"That's enough," Samael said.

"Oh, loosen yourself up, old friend!" Azazel said, throwing an arm around his companion, who sighed in submission. "Anyway, Adam, please, continue to praise us."

"If it appeared as torture," Adam continued, "I apologize. That wasn't the goal. As difficult as it might be to believe, Blake, I've gotten over you. I've gotten past your betrayal and choosing this monkey over me. I hold no grudges over how you and Ilia painted me as a villain and turned the entire White Fang and all of Faunuskind against me. You see, having the truth revealed to you as it has been to me, it changes you. Old transgressions no longer seem to matter. All I can think of now is the future."

"And what future do we have with these people?" Blake said.

He smiled. "You'll see soon enough. But we still have preparations to make."

"Adam," Azazel began, "I can trust in you and Eisheth, right?"

"Of course, Lord Azazel."

"I knew I could. Okay, Eisheth, he's all yours. Tammy, Sammy, let's go."

"What the hell did you just call me?" Samael said.

"I like it!" Tamiel said.

"No."

"Oh, don't be so sour all the time!"

"I refuse to respond to that name."

"Sam, then?" Azazel said, holding his hands out to either side.

Samael said nothing.

"Samster the Hamster?"

"Keep pushing me, boy."

"Okay, okay, let's go, you bitter old man."

The trio vanished into thin air, leaving only Eisheth and Adam.

"I'm hearing from my underlings that the others have just entered their domain," Eisheth said to Adam. "Oh, and it seems we have a guest."

Blake and Sun stared in shock as the face of an old friend walked into the holding cell, joining Eisheth and Adam.

"Velvet!" Blake yelled, just barely holding herself back. "You've joined them, too?"

"Hmm?" the new arrival said. "Oh, you must be mistaking me with your friend, Senator Scarlatina."

"Huh?" Sun said as confusion masked his face. "Wait, you're not her?"

"Malphas has...a problem," Eisheth said. "He...or she, currently, I suppose, does not possess any solid identity."

"I believe you young folk call this gender fluidity," Malphas said.

"That's not fluid," Sun said. "That's more like vapor."

"Oddly enough, you're precisely correct, young man. My actual form is more akin to a gaseous cloud, in fact."

"Why her?" Blake said. "What have you done with my friend?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean this girl. Don't be so alarmed. She's completely unharmed and just fine in the real world. I simply took a sample of her DNA and had Dr. Watts create a perfect facsimile for me to inhabit. It doesn't quite hold up in the real world, however. They're still working out the bugs."

"You mean Moloch is still working out the bugs," Eisheth said.

"He is part of the 'they', is he not?"

"Ladies, we have work to do," Adam said.

"Oh, you," Malphas said, gently laying her hand on his chest. "We were having such a nice chat."

"Yeah, but Samael scares me."

The two Greater Daemons giggled.

"You don't have to worry about him," Eisheth said. "We are bonded, you know. That means you're under my protection."

"You mean he's your territory," Sun said.

"No," Blake said. "It's not like that at all. Adam entered into this contract completely willingly. He sold his soul by his own free will."

Adam sighed. "Think what you will," he said. "There's no way I can force you to see what I've seen. You'll just have to learn it little by little. Guards, please escort Queen Blake Belladonna and her consort to the great hall."

Black suits of armor grisly in appearance manifested around Blake and Sun. There was no point in resisting these powerful magical beings and the duo resigned themselves, allowing the guards to escort them out of the dungeons while Adam and Eisheth led the way.

"You have any plans?" Sun whispered to Blake.

She had no answer for him. After all, what could they do now? This was another world with rules they were completely unaccustomed to and monsters they had no chance against. But beyond that, she would be a fool to believe that Adam had no intent to continue tormenting them. He was not one to be relieved of a grudge so easily.