Satisfaction Brought It Back


[Powering on. . .]

Penny didn't remember how she got like this. One moment, Grandpa Merlot and Torchwick were standing at the terminal in her cell and the next, she was lying down and powering back on. Had they found a way to force her into sleep mode? Her eyes slid open and she attempted to sit up, only for that horrid feeling of being trapped in her own body to take over. She could barely force her eyes to move at all, but it was enough to catch a glimpse of her arms. A pair of black, bulky cuffs locked them together at her wrists.

[Aura not detected. Warning: secondary power system below 10%.]

She must've been like this for a while if her secondaries were this low already. Penny would have had more time to assess her situation if she hadn't become all too aware of someone lingering over her. With her vision dark, blurred and constantly attempting to refocus from lack of power, she could barely recognize him, but the messy, orange hair and acrid smell of smoke gave it away.

Torchwick didn't say a word for a while, only smoking from his cigar. Looming. Had they managed to retrieve the information they'd wanted from her? Had RWAY finally shown up? Atlas? Was he going to move her, or was this just how it was going to end? After all, there was no way they could keep her here forever. Knowing fully how futile of an effort it would be, Penny reached her aura out with all her might for her weaponry. It took all of her effort, but she could just faintly feel the tendrils of her soul begin grasping her blades.

"A puppet," he murmured, and her concentration shattered.

She felt her head turn towards Torchwick. The light of his cigar grew brighter.

"It all makes sense, now: you're nothing but a puppet on strings." He let out a low chuckle at her expense, and Penny realized she'd managed a glare.

"Don't you worry, kid. You're no different from the rest of us." He paused. "Well, besides the obvious. Dragged along on some stupid war you don't know the half of, following blindly because of what'll happen if you don't. Another cog in the great machine." Torchwick took a long drag and stepped out of her view. "Pathetic. And the worst part is, you could do something about it."

Penny twitched, and her head swiveled to track Torchwick without her attempting to move it herself. The next thing she knew, she was sitting up, captive in her own body as it moved entirely on its own. At least, she thought it was...

"Well, look at you go!" Her darkening sight left the pristine, white walls of her cell as a dingy gray. Torchwick himself was little more than blurs of color and the pulsing, orange light of his cigar. "What would you even do if you could get free, anyway? Get yourself killed trying to apprehend us? I'm sure if you killed or captured enough high-ranking criminals, you'd be just fine with it. Wouldn't ya, tin can?"

Her mind lethargically searched through her files, calculating, predicting. Wasn't Grandpa Merlot a priority target for destroying—

[Error: Administrators cannot be priority targets. Deleting.]

Torchwick might've been the only priority target she knew of in the facility, but she was just a Huntress-in-training. She'd be worth the capture of one of Vale's most wanted. What was wrong with that?

"Merlot did some digging around in your objectives, y'know. Found something about wanting to 'be a real girl'. Want to know the truth, kid? As long as you can't even think of doing something for yourself, you'll never be real. Ah, but out of the goodness of my heart, I, Roman Torchwick, shall help you on your way!" he declared as he plopped down behind the terminal. The criminal didn't sound genuine. Already, Penny could feel him bumbling around through her code like someone let a spider loose inside her skull—


[Restarting. . .]

[Aura not detected. Warning: secondary power system at 6%.]

Penny twitched. Were it not for her system informing her of her former unconsciousness, she never would have even known that she'd blacked out. Nothing seemed to have changed. Torchwick was still modifying her: the first thing she'd even felt was him leaving a file.

"Get out," she managed to mumble. To her surprise, the rooting actually stopped.

Torchwick chuckled. "Oh, please. If you could remember any of this once we're done here, you'd thank me later." Inside, Penny could feel her protocols being accessed. Priority lists. Administrative privileges. Maide—


Torchwick dusted his hands off and forced himself from his chair. A job well done, and a job that Cinder and Merlot didn't need to know one bit about. After clearing out the evidence of his edits, he cast one last look over at the deactivated girl on the counter. He flicked the remnants of his cigar into a trash bin and wondered whether or not the only reason he cared at all about that machine was because he was in the exact same position. He snorted. Better than getting soft.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening behind him.

"It's all yours, Merlot." He waved him in without sparing a glance in his direction. It wasn't like anyone else besides Merlot and himself were allowed in here besides Cinder, and she was too busy off playing schoolgirl to do any work herself.

"Smoking in here yet again? I have a right mind to lock you out of the labs! Unbelievable..." Merlot stormed past him grumbling to himself as he sat down and immediately went to work, prosthetic arm glowing a faint green.

"Not like we'll be using this one for longer than, what? A week, tops?" Torchwick grabbed his cane and made his way out into the halls of the base, grunting occasionally from a particularly painful step. This new leg was getting on his nerves. He could barely walk, let alone have the old bounce in his step! Not to mention that his balance was just plain crap, now.

An open parasol threw him onto his rear with a light shove. Case in point, he thought to himself.

The air of the hallway ahead cracked and collapsed, leaving Neo standing in front of him with a hand on her hip and her parasol resting on her shoulder. She watched with a blank expression as Roman groaned and pushed himself back to his feet.

"Okay, are you going to explain," he grumbled, "or are you just going to keep standing there?"

Neo remained still and looked him over.

"You have got to be—look, if you're trying to wring some more 'danger pay' out of me, I swear..." Torchwick tried to march by, but a flick of Neo's wrist left her lace parasol blocking his path. He glared down over it, and Neo matched his stare. Finally, it was Neo who cracked: her blank expression fell away to a furrowed brow and frown.

Roman sighed and rubbed his temples. She was worried about him.

"I'm fine, kid. Trust me."

"... ?" Neo's brow rose and she smirked up at him.

"Yeah, really, I'm sure." Torchwick snorted.

Neo snapped her parasol shut and made a show of twirling it in her hand while she took a slow, leisurely walk around Torchwick and looked him over. She tapped it on his more sullen cheeks, and Roman scoffed. She brought the tip through his rugged, duller hair, and Roman looked away, sneering. She flipped his hair up to stare up into the eye he hadn't even bothered putting his usual mascara on and, finally, Roman groaned and reached into his pockets.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's your point! We've been busy, what of it?" He started pulling a cigar out when Neo snatched it from his hand in the blink of an eye. "Are you seriously so worried about me you're going to bust out the 'smoking's bad for you' card?"

Now it was Neo's turn to scoff, albeit silently, as she placed the cigar between her lips and produced Roman's own cigar case from her pocket, leaving the crime lord to pat himself down before turning a glare Neo's way. Her only response was to flip the lid open, revealing a case empty besides only one, lonely cigar. A case meant to hold twenty-five. That he'd gone through in two days. She raised her brow at him.

"Fine! You win, I'm a little stressed out—"

"..."

"Okay, that's taking it too far!" Roman cleared his throat while Neo silently giggled at his expense. "Look, kid, you're right. This whole thing's got me on edge, but it's not like we can do anything about it."

Neo looked behind her and plucked the cigar from her mouth.

"No, Neo, we aren't gonna be able to dash our way out of this one."

Her head snapped back around to face him, eyes wide in a mix of offense that he'd ever say that about them and worry about what would actually make him think it at all.

"We're in something way over our heads." Roman mulled it over. "Well, I am." He'd made the mistake of thinking Cinder was just some new crime boss on the block with a big vision. Worst case scenario: a conqueror. Not some... agent of literal darkness.

His loyal henchwoman glared at him.

"I am," Roman repeated more sternly.

Neo's eyes widened.

"This isn't something for you, kid."

Neo's wide-eyed stare remained full of shock for a moment longer before, in the literal blink of an eye, her stare twisted into a ice-white glare full of nothing but murderous intent aimed at the door behind him. She pressed the tip of her parasol to the ground and brought her other hand to it. If that glare was directed at him, Roman thought, he'd probably have died on the spot.

Not that he'd ever let Neo know that.

Torchwick smirked. "Now look here, cupcake: unless you plan on making Cindy keel over from cuteness, I don't see too many ways you're going to kill her or stop her from coming after us if you go through that door." He kept that smirk on his face even as Neo stomped her foot down and jabbed at him with the end of her umbrella, pouting.

Slowly but surely, his smirk began to slip.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know it's serious." He stretched himself out and yawned. "It's pretty damn bad, actually. Listen to me, Neo." By the time he'd turned his sight back down to her, his expression had become stoic. "If something ever happens to me, you need to get out of this, alright? Pack it up, get a new name or something and scram. I can't tell you what's going on—no, not even if you pout at me like that—but it's nothing I want you in."

"..." Neo narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.

"Yeesh, kid: 'I sound like your dad'? That one kinda hurt!"

She turned away from him and turned her nose up with a huff.

"Hope I'm not interrupting some touching moment," Mercury called from around the bend of the hall, "but I brought you two a little present!" He grunted and finally came into view as muffled shouting grew louder. Dragged behind him bound with rope and with tape over her mouth was Ruby Rose.

As if his conversation with Neo never happened, Torchwick erupted into cruel laughter. "Mercury, if you were smarter, you'd be like the son I never had!"


The dying flames of RWAY's campsite had turned to embers. The light was so minuscule that the three remaining members were not even silhouettes, instead being hints of forms laying in the darkness.

One of the forms shifted in their sleeping bags. "Ruby has been out there for a while..." Yang murmured. Silence reigned in the small space, not even broken up by the howl of Beowolves or crumbling of buildings.

A second form shifted. "She's probably just patrolling," Weiss offered. "Really, do you think that ball of sugar want to just sit around in the same spot for four hours?" she tried to joke, but her words were empty.

A shadow curled inwards on itself. "... She knows, doesn't she?"

The other turned itself. "Of course she does, Yang!" Weiss exclaimed in a hushed whisper. "You've been making it so obvious since this morning I'm surprised she didn't bring it to our attention, herself!"

"Like you've been blameless! I'm not the one who's been dong a one-eighty on her 'spoiled grump' shtick whenever Ruby's within earshot!"

"Well, I'm not the one who let her murder someone or made it obvious we knew, so as far as I'm concerned, I am blameless, here!" The two suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that there was a third shadow in their midst, one that hadn't so much as twitched during their whispered argument even though they knew, of all of them, he'd be the first one to have heard them. Yet, there was no rebuttal, no snorting or glowing colors.

Weiss leaned over. "Is... is he actually asleep in a situation like this!?"

"No." Adam made no attempt to whisper or mask his voice. "And be silent. Something's wrong." Though Adam could feel a pair of glares boring into the back of his head, the camp maintained a short period of quiet. Neither the crumbling of buildings or howl of Beowolves broke it. The only thing they could hear was the beating of their own hearts.

"Are you going somewhere with this?" asked Weiss.

The third shadow rose. "I don't hear anything. I don't hear Ruby at all." There was a shuffling of a sleeping bag and scuff of foot on stone, and the third shadow stood tall.

"Yeah, and?" Yang said. "If she's patrolling, obviously she'd be too far out for you to hear."

"I've been enhancing my ears further with my aura. I've been keeping an 'eye' on her as long as she's been patrolling the area by listening to her footsteps... she hasn't just not been at the camp for a while, she's been nowhere near it for some time."

"How long?" Weiss asked, and Adam's lack of answer was plenty of information. A glyph marked with the Schnee crest lit the room in ghostly blue.

"Well?" She found Adam with his eyes locked on his Scroll. Before she could ask another question, Adam tossed it to her and snatched Wilt up without a word.

Yang crawled out of her bag to peer over Weiss' shoulder. The window was switched over to a static view of the team's conditions.

Not only was Ruby's portrait darkened, meaning she was disconnected from even the local connections of their Scrolls, but her aura was in the orange. It was pixels away from falling into the red, where it would have no doubt alerted them to her critical condition. It was a sign of a calculated attack. Adam was already gathering ammunition and supplies by the time they'd grasped that.

Even as she rushed to gather her Dust under the light of her glyph and, furious enough to replace its light with a fiery orange, Yang all but slammed her gauntlets on and loaded them, Weiss found one question standing out to her.

"Where, exactly are we going?"

"The last reported position of Ruby's Scroll. After that? Penny's location." Adam replied as he gave Wilt a test swing and, eyes momentarily flashing with his aura, walked towards one of the empty windows.

"That's clearly a trap, now!" Weiss complained.

"Well what choice do we have, Weiss!" Yang growled. "They kidnapped my sister! Besides, if they attacked her, that means they have to be close, right? That means Penny really is probably over there!"

"I'm ready," Adam informed them, already jumping out into the streets. Yang sprung out without a second thought and, with Yang's light fading by the second and her mind full of the horrid things the White Fang could do in even this short period of time, Weiss hopped through the window after them.


Yang was the one who found Crescent Rose. As Adam and Weiss watched her scoop up the sniper rifle and the shattered Scroll with enough hatred in her eyes to leave them glowing brighter than her flaming hair, briefly, they wondered if the resulting explosion would be enough to alert whatever White Fang scouts would inevitably be around. To their surprise, however, she may have trembled with rage, her hair may have lit the halls like a campfire, and her breath came out as steam, but Yang managed to restrain her temper.

"If they touch a hair on her head, I swear I'll kill them." She shoved Crescent Rose into Adam's arms hard enough to force him a step back—another reminder of just whose organization had done this.

Weiss looked to Adam with wide eyes and, when he made no effort to stop or reprimand Yang, she jogged off after the fading light and tried to get her attention. Adam remained there, staring at Ruby's weapon even as the light from Yang's wrath faded away and left only his aura-enhanced night vision giving him sight in the darkness.

He knew that he should have said something to her, should have tried to help Weiss calm Yang down, should have gotten Yang to realize the gravity of her words, but she knew what she was saying. Just as Adam knew that, were Blake in a the same situation—and her current situation was already far too similar to this—he'd have killed for her all the same. He already had. It was his first kill, after all.

Adam only hoped that it wouldn't be Yang's first as well.


The silence was almost thick enough to stifle one's breath. It was the first and only thing they'd noticed about Mountain Glenn, this night: no Grimm, no patrols, nothing but the occasional scuff of their footsteps or crack of something breaking beneath their feet. However, that did not mean Mountain Glenn was empty: for the first time since their arrival, they'd found signs of other people. Obvious signs of conflict in the building Ruby was kidnapped in. Footprints of multiple people in the dusty streets. Scorched remnants of campfires. As Yang now took the lead, and the remaining members of Team RWAY rushed through the darkness as fast as they could with only their limited sight and Weiss' glyph to light the way, they knew that they were getting close.

Tracking Penny's Scroll brought them to the city hall of Mountain Glenn. Here, at the center of the city, one of its last stands took place: a willful sacrifice of the remaining Huntsmen and Huntresses in a desperate attempt to hold off the waves of Grimm long enough for a civilian evacuation. Ravaged defensive placements stood in the center of absolute ruination. As the trio moved through the streets, a point came where nothing resembling a building remained on either side, and entire streets were blocked by walls of rubble.

The city hall was the only building to remain standing at all. Its entire front, little more than a broken silhouette, was reduced to gnarled steel bars, but, the rest of its walls still stood strong. Across a vast, open courtyard, the trio watched it carefully from a pile of rubble. Adam waved for Weiss to destroy her glyph.

"We need as much aura as possible," he said. "Lessen your sight, let me lead the way." Adam let the aura drain from his own eyes and raised Crescent Rose up.

Clad in the greens and blacks of night vision, the city hall was even more of a pitiful sight: its front, once a tower standing multiple stories, was nothing more than a twisted skeleton. The walls, once appearing strong, were now clearly hollow and scorched. The black fog that clung to the world in Mountain Glenn, however, kept him from seeing much more.

"No movement." Adam sighed. "Let's go."

The three bolted across the courtyard as one, expecting gunfire and grenades to rain down at any time. Yet, though they felt watched throughout their dash, not a single bullet struck the ground near them. No flashes of light, not even a murmur of surprise. They'd reached the long-destroyed front door unmolested. Adam tapped his fingers on Crescent Rose and scanned the inside through its scope. Here, at last, there was plenty of signs of the White Fang: discarded ration packages, furniture moved into not defensive positions but living ones, dust laying uneven.

"... Where are they?" Weiss murmured, rapier drawn and ready.

"They must've taken her and run when they knew we were coming," Yang hissed under her breath.

Adam gave both of them a light tap to their shoulders. Something wasn't right. He took a few steps into the building and lowered Crescent Rose before crouching down and placing a hand on the ground. Just as he had while searching for Ruby, he gathered as much of his aura into himself as he could, then spread it out in a pulse, extending his senses far and wide. A technique his mentor had once taught him.

"This place is empty," Adam breathed out. There was no one. No one in the entire building. No one near the building. Not even the faintest signs of their auras remained.

"What?" Yang exclaimed through gritted teeth and only a cordial attempt at being quiet.

"There's no one here," Adam said and stood up. "No one's been here in some time... This is just a worthless outpost."

"That... that doesn't make any sense!" Weiss patted herself down for her Scroll and soon, the room was lit a faint blue by the strangled light of her device. "They couldn't have just thrown Penny's Scroll, I saw it moving tonight!" She all but sprinted off into the building, the lack of people leaving her caring nothing at all about a little noise. Yang rushed after her, in fear that something still could be waiting for them to make a mistake. Adam, on the other hand, followed behind at a languid pace, his eyes turned to Crescent Rose and his thoughts on just where they could have hidden her.

By the time Adam had caught up to the two girls, they were staring into what looked like any other room: barren, dusty and without a single sign of Penny or her Scroll. Weiss waved her Scroll through the inner room, but the only thing the extra light did was underline the emptiness. Yang seethed behind her, eyes burning-red; if they were far from Penny, they were far from her sister, too. Weiss was left gazing at her Scroll, as if doing so for long enough would suddenly have all the world's secrets jumping out at her from its florescent screen.

They were right on top of Penny's position, but nothing was there.

"It's still moving..." Weiss murmured. "They can't be below us, right? You said no one was near here..."

"That doesn't matter. This building is defensible, but, I doubt they could keep enough people to guard Penny and Ruby without leaving more signs of their presence than week-old wrappers. The White Fang is good, but even the home branch in Mistral couldn't stay hidden right under everyone's noses for this long."

"Then where the hell are they, Adam!" Yang snapped. "They were your people, weren't they? How can you be so crap at your job that you wouldn't be able to find your own army!"

"My people under that witch Cinder's influence," Adam growled back. "There are leagues of differences between the White Fang and whatever she has created."

Yang snorted. "Oh, yeah, so many differences between two insane terrorist groups."

As Weiss could only look between them, Adam tried to remind himself that Yang, no doubt, wasn't in a great state of mind. None of them were. He tried to bite his tongue.

"Getting angry at me isn't going to get us any closer to them," he hissed. "The only thing you're going to do is drag Grimm here."

"Don't lecture me! It's your fault we're in this mess, Adam!" She shouted back loud enough to echo through the halls and, no doubt, beyond. "So just... just shut up and tell me where they are!" Her breath hitched. "Tell me where my sister is!"

"Actually, students," Doctor Oobleck interjected as he stepped out into the room, "Miss Schnee was closer to the truth than you may think!"


The cries of her brethren haunted Blake, no matter how far or how fast she ran through the darkness of the night. The cherry-red leaves of the Forever Fall whipped past her as she tried her hardest to ignore the cages hanging from them. To ignore the faunus within, crying and reaching out towards her with mindless eyes and the bleating of creatures without speech. Some of them, she was sure she could recognize, could place names to faces, histories and relationships to names, but it only drove Blake to sprint faster and let the shame sink deeper.

After all, if they couldn't stop whatever was happening to them, what chance did she have? As she darted across the red grass, steps feeling feathery light without the feeling of fatigue so much as touching her, Blake realized she didn't know exactly how this happened. She only knew one thing: this was man's doing. Human work. The thought brought a chill through her, just as the thought of what would happen if she couldn't escape did.

Blake thought she could hear her name being called and she squeezed her eyes shut. If she let guilt and imagined thoughts drag her down, she'd never be able to leave—

"Blake!"

She froze. It was no figment of her imagination.

"Blake, please!"

Blake forced herself to turn to face that familiar voice. Ilia. She was caged, just like the others, but while they had their minds and souls stripped from them, Ilia had remained herself. Clad in her White Fang uniform and covered in scratches, it looked like she'd put up a fight when she was captured. As if watching her actions from over her own shoulder, Blake couldn't stop her from taking steps back.

"Don't leave me here, Blake. We can both escape! Please!" Ilia tore the mask of the White Fang from her face, staring down at her with pleading, gray eyes.

Blake stopped and looked at her hands. She held Gambol Shroud, yet couldn't recall when she had drawn it. There was a chain that held the cages to the branches. If she could strike that...

The blade of Gambol Shroud soared above the cage, its aim true. It ground against the chains and sparks flew, but when Gambol Shroud returned to her hand, the cage still hung. She tried again. And again. Even the branches above were unyielding, more like steel than wood. Blake didn't know how many times she tried, nor did she know when the tears started to flow, but she did know when, slowly and with shaky hands, she let Gambol Shroud fall. Ilia's protests and pleads for her to keep trying melted together and grew muffled as she started to backpedal once more. She couldn't. She had to run. She had to save herself, because she couldn't save anyone else. Just like her team in Haven.

She bumped into someone.

"Maybe it's because you're too busy trying to do it all by yourself?" Cinder's smooth tones came from behind her.

Blake turned to see her smiling down to her with all the confidence in the world in her eyes. She placed a reassuring hand on Blake's shoulder and motioned towards the chain the cage hung from. Blake saw her eye not just glow, but burn with a flame of their own as fires coiled around the chain, rapidly leaving it white-hot and weakened. Yet, she did not break it. Why?

"Relying so much on another is folly... besides, I'm not the one who could truly free the faunus." Cinder stepped to her side and squeezed her shoulder. "You are."

Gambol Shroud was back in Blake's hands, feeling lighter than ever. She wiped the tears from her eyes, took a step back, then sent the blade careening towards the white-hot chain.

It did not break.

Blake tried to ignore the sharp breath of surprise from the woman beside her, and swung again.

It did not break.

She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back her frustrated tears and swung for the branches.

They did not break.

"What? That can't be right..." She heard Cinder murmur beside her in shock, yet her voice didn't sound right. It was more like Emerald's than her own. Blake, however, made nothing of it—couldn't make anything of it—for her focus only on her own weakness as each strike, weaker than the last, clattered noisily against the chains that did not even scratch. Once more, she knew not how long she lashed out at the only thing keeping her friend from a fate worse than death.

"She's gone, child." Blake did hear that, however. A voice that held no source, yet seeped through her very being. She opened her eyes to find herself kneeling on the ground and, above, Ilia stared blankly on in her emerald cage, breathing and alive, but with eyes empty and lacking thought of any kind. She'd failed. Cinder's gaze was locked on the tree as well, however, but, for different reasons: the branches, once empty beyond the cherry-red leaves, were now adorned with countless, small Nevermores. Their eyes were all focused on Blake, unblinking.

One small, yet with with feathers of purest white stood atop the cage.

"And so many others will suffer the same fate. But you can still fix this," the voice whispered to her.

"I can't!" Blake shouted. "I... I-I'm too weak." She shook her head.

"Ah, this is true, young one. But, in you, there is great potential. I can grant you it."

The world was deathly still, now. Blake realized that not only had the moans stopped, but so had the wind and, she realized as she looked at leaves frozen in their breeze, so had time. The white Nevermore suddenly took to the skies and soared overhead. When Blake followed its path, she saw not just Cinder, but three others. Women she couldn't focus upon, whose features melted and changed, whose only uniting features were the glow in their eyes.

"There can be no victory in strength, but that does not make it a useless tool."

And the world shifted. Cherry grass and cloudy night skies became pristine, marble ground in a world stained bloody-red. Blake became acutely aware of her own heartbeat as she looked around. She was in a great hall now, fit for a Schnee, lined with windows revealing only a barren wasteland beyond. Jagged outcrops of obsidian and glowing crystal reached towards the sky like claws. Pools of black ichor stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Blake felt a scratching at the back of her mind—the knowledge that none of this was real trying its hardest to break through her fear and worry. Her bow twitched, and her instincts told her that she needed to be anywhere but here.

"You could save them." And all of it was brushed aside by the voice. "Every faunus. Every friend. Is that what you desire?"

Blake numbly nodded, and she was drawn to walk. She could see a door in the distance, tall and grand. Her instinct tried to claw at her again: this wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

"This is more real than you could imagine."

Nothing would be offered without a trade. A demand. As a faunus, she knew this well.

The voice chuckled. "There is no catch, child. Only a request: save them."

The colors drained from the world with each step she took towards the door. Blake became aware of a presence beside her, someone else drawn to this door, but cared not enough to see what it was. She also became aware of the watchful eyes: countless Nevermores turning the arches above her black, known only by their endless, red eyes.

The world was nothing but grays and blacks by the time she stood before the door, and Blake could feel it: a prickling cold across her, yet with it came a feeling of unimaginable power. Like, for that moment, she could do anything. She could break the chain that kept Ilia from her. She could break the ones holding all of faunus. She could keep her team safe. She could fix everything.

She wouldn't need to run anymore.

"Take it."

Blake reached out. The presence beside her shied away. The door, standing far greater than they, swung open without a word. Thousands of wings fluttered. Her eyes burned yet felt cold as ice. Someone stood on the other side. Eyes glowing like coal. Porcelain skin. Black veins. Comfort. Power. Fear. Run.

Run.


"Blake!"

A shout and crash sent Blake rocketing up from her bed, eyes wide, ears flat against her head beneath her bow, and with every breath coming to her heavy and harsh. Her gaze leaped across the room, searching for anything out of the ordinary. The room was frigid, yet sweat still beaded on her face. Her eyes felt as if she'd pressed ice to them. Memories of her dream flooded to her mind yet faded and became muddled just as quickly.

Blake remembered she wasn't alone tonight. Cinder had errands to run. Mercury was off with family. There was only her and...

Emerald was curled up beside Blake's bed, trembling, gasping for air just as she was and staring down at her hands with open confusion and fear in her eyes. She tensed, as if realizing that Blake could see her, and looked up.

Ruby-red met amber.

Emerald's lips parted, and words tried to form, yet became nothing but ash by the time they reached her tongue. The two stared at each other in cold silence, questions rising in their minds, and dying just as quickly.

"Y-you had a dream!" Emerald blurted out. "I... I mean, you were having a dream. A nightmare. I-I went to wake you up, but..."

She was lying about something, and poorly, at that. As their breaths finally grew more steady, Blake shifted to face her. Emerald flinched.

"Did you see Her?" Blake whispered.

Her teammate's eyes widened in surprise, fear, and what Blake briefly thought was relief. Finally, Emerald dragged herself to her feet.

"I, uh... I'm gonna go call Cinder. M-maybe she'll come back a little sooner." Without waiting for a response, Emerald went through the door with the same, slow, plodding steps Blake could recall herself taking in her dream. Confused and lost, Blake looked around the now empty room and her eyes soon fell to their open window.

A feather white as snow sat on the windowsill, fluttering in the wind before fading to mist.