CH. 12

"What do you think the problem is?" Emma asked Jurano as they jogged through the forest. They were sitting against a tree trunk and having a small snack when they received Abaddon's message. The urgency in his voice made them quickly get up and head towards his location.

"I don't know, but he said things have gotten complicated so we have to be on our guard." Jurano checked his scroll again. The map on the screen indicated that the signal from Abaddon and Kathleen's communicators were a few meters ahead. "We should be close now."

They jogged for a few more minutes until they came into a small opening in the brush. They saw Abaddon sitting on the ground with his arms crossed while Kathleen sat next to him.

"Hey guys," Kathleen said.

Just then Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, and Neo entered the small clearing.

"Well, looks like we're all here," Mercury said.

"What did you call us for?" Emerald asked.

Kathleen stood up and dusted herself off. "Well, we found a couple of beowulves earlier, but they fighting amongst one another. We killed them and an Ursa came, but it was freaking out as if it was in great pain and just exploded."

"Beowulves fighting each other? Exploding Ursai? You've got to be kidding. Were you hallucinating or something?," Emerald scoffed.

"If we were kidding or hallucinating, then I wouldn't have called you all here," Abaddon said. "Emma, do you hear that?"

Not knowing what Abaddon was talking about, Emma listened carefully to the area around. Her cat ears twitched. It was faint but, she could hear what sounded like digging. "It sounds like digging machinery, like an excavation site."

"Right." Abaddon took out his scroll and widened it to tablet size so everyone could see the screen. It was an old map of Vale. He increased the magnification to focus on their location. "This map of Vale shows that when they tried to expand past the mountains years ago, one of the first buildings made was a dust factory. "

Everyone looked at the map and saw the factory's location, which was relatively close to their position.

"That factory is just a bit north of this clearing," Mercury said.

"That's also the direction where the Ursa came from," Kathleen surmised. "But it doesn't explain why those Grimm were acting strange."

Abaddon closed his scroll and pocketed it. "We should see what's going on at that factory. It might help enlighten us."

Abaddon led the way north into the forest, with his group following close behind. After a while, they reached a cliffside that gave them a view of a large factory, the problem was that it was also surrounded by swarms of Grimm. There were beowulves, ursai, creepers, even a death stalker and king taijitu, all crowded around a large metal wall surrounding the factory grounds.

"Holy shit," Mercury and Jurano said simultaneously.

"Don't tell me you expect us to go through that," Emerald exclaimed.

"It's alright, they shouldn't notice us at all," Cinder said plainly.

"How can you be so sure? Who's to say they won't turn towards us as soon as we get down there?" Emerald said.

"Because the ones that we killed didn't attack us until we attacked them. I know it's doubtful, but it wouldn't really hurt to try," Kathleen said, with a little uncertainty in her voice.

"Unless they turn towards us," Emerald exclaimed.

"Fine, if you don't wish to tag along you can stay Emerald, and that also applies to anyone else," Abaddon said.

No else said anything, clearly wanting in on the operation.

"Well that's settled," Kathleen turned towards Abaddon. "Do you have a plan for this?"

"I do." Jurano walked to the edge of the cliff and stopped. "It's called going in, balls deep!" Then, he jumped off the edge and started to skid down the steep incline.

"I like his enthusiasm," Mercury said.

"Hope your not scared to jump!" Abaddon yelled as he leaped off the cliff.

"Wait up!" Emma joined them as well.

Cinder sighed. "As usual, when it comes to Grimm he dives in headfirst."

"Tell me about it," Kathleen whined and Neo nodded in agreement.

"Shall we ladies?" Mercury asked as he walked towards the edge. The three girls nodded and all four jumped down the slope, leaving Emerald behind.

"Great, now they're all probably gonna get torn to pieces, mostly those two idiots in the front. I'll just sit here, maybe provide some information if anything changes out here." Emerald sighed, then sat down on a nearby log as she watched her teammates rushing toward the Grimm horde.

"Not cool Kat," Jurano whined as he tried to catch up with here.

"Hey, you expected to stay in up front for that long?" Kathleen said, chancing a look behind.

Kathleen was in the lead as they sprinted towards the Grimm infested wall. Even though Jurano had a huge head start, she sped past him just to see the look on his face, but now she would have to be the first to test their theory. Would the Grimm continue their attempts to breach the wall, or would they turn on her as soon as she was close? If they did, she would have to maneuver around them to get into that factory. Looking up, she saw that the wall was close in height to the third story windows, and one in particular was open.

"That should do."

With an entrance in sight, Kathleen continued sprinting then jumped onto a King Taijitu, running along and up its body until she reached one of the heads and jumped off. She used an air gust to briefly glide into the open window, landing with a quick dodge roll.

"The others shouldn't be too far behind," she thought.

Her assumption was correct as Jurano landed in the room, having used his large chain scythe, Gnadenlos, as a grappling hook to swing in. Emma simply teleported in. Abaddon jumped off the Taijitu's head at the same time as Neo, then grabbed her in midair and threw her straight into the window like a football. Neo landed gracefully in the room with little visible effort while Abaddon was going down, but then somehow air dashed at the last minute to make it.

No one noticed the air dash, except Kathleen of course. She didn't know how it was possible for him to do that, plus she could've sworn that she saw a small white protrusion coming from his back. It was faint and short in appearance, but she saw it nonetheless.

"What was that?" She wanted to look more into it, but they were on a mission at the moment.

Last to make it was Cinder, who had help from Mercury. He grabbed hold of Cinder's hands after they jumped of the Taijitu's head and swung her through the air and into the window. Mercury used his shotgun boots to propel himself forward right before he fell out of reach.

"Damn that close," he said as he skidded a bit along the floor.

"I'm surprised that Taijitu didn't try to snap at us. We all used it like stairs," Neo said.

"Beats me, but let's continue with the mission shall we," Abaddon said.

The room they were in was large and a bit dusty. The light bulb on the ceiling was broken, and the only light came from the window. The room had no discernible paint, as it would've probably been chipping off the walls by now. There were wooden chairs placed in four by four rows in front of a projector screen. The projector itself was nowhere to be found.

Abaddon gazed towards the door on the other side of the room. He walked towards the door, then put his ear against it to listen into the hallway.

"Abby, what're you doing that for? I doubt that anyone would be-," Emma's words were interrupted by the sound of voices and multiple footsteps. She immediately kept her mouth shut.

"Why do we have to patrol the upper levels?" one of the voices whined.

"Because Lieutenant Corvus said so. Quit yer bitching and lets go!" the other one barked.

Everyone stayed quiet and still as the two voices passed by. After a full minute, the voices were gone.

"Who do you think that was?" Emma asked, turning towards the others.

"Beats me, but maybe we should keep a low profile." Mercury turned on his communicator. "Hey Em, there are people in this building. We're going to go check it out. Notify us if anything new happens out there."

"Too late," said Emerald as she stepped from behind Mercury.

Mercury and the others stepped back surprised. "Whoa! Came to join the party?"

Emerald shrugged. "Eh, felt boring being the lookout, so I followed and came in just as those voices passed by."

"Welcome aboard," Jurano chimed in.

"Ya'know, the name of that Lieutenant sounds familiar, don't you think Cinder? Cin, you there?" Mercury noticed that Cinder had been quiet, staring in Abaddon's direction the whole time.

Mercury and the rest of the team followed her gaze. Abaddon stood near the door stretching his limbs like he was getting ready for a fight. He then proceeded to get into a pouncing position and growled.

"Abaddon?" Kathleen knew something was up.

Cinder's eyes went wide, realizing what he was about to do. "Abaddon, wait!"

Although, she was too late to stop him from charging through the wooden door, breaking it into pieces. He then ran down the left hallway where they heard the voices go. Kathleen was the first to sprint out the room after him.

"Abaddon!"

"Wait up Kathleen!" Emma and Jurano both ran after her.

Cinder and her team joined the chase as well. While they ventured down the long hallway, they heard the sounds of screaming. It was loud but cut short, like someone had just abruptly cut off the power to a loud speaker. Everyone turned a right corner to come face to face with two White Fang soldiers. Their bodies lay on the floor, blood pooling out of the gaping slash wounds on their bodies. Kathleen put both her hands to her mouth at the sight, backing away in horror.

"Whoa," Jurano said in surprise. He didn't really know what to think of it.

Emerald and Mercury stared in shock as well. Cinder had informed them that Abaddon had no qualms against killing White Fang, but they never thought that they would get to see it up close. Both Cinder and Neo were unaffected, having seen something like this before, but shared worried glances for their friends.

Emma was the most affected. She stood silent and wide eyed at the corpses, backing away from the carnage before her. She couldn't believe this was happening, not again. She had seen this once before and hoped to not see it again. Neo noticed Emma's reaction and grabbed her left arm. As if coming out of a trance, Emma abruptly turned towards the shorter girl.

"Emma, calm down. I know it's a horrible sight, but we have to keep moving. We have to follow Abaddon," Neo said.

Emma took a while to register what Neo said, but soon shook herself out of her trance. Cinder stepped over the bodies, avoiding any kind of contact with them.

"Come on everyone. There's no stopping Abaddon now, so we might as well catch up with him. It was a bad coincidence that the White Fang would be here. But we have to keep moving," Cinder said with a confident tone, beckoning the others to follow, which they did.

As they ran through the factory, Kathleen positioned herself next Cinder. "Did Abaddon really kill them?"

Cinder was hesitant to answer but nodded anyway. She andd Abaddon had agreed to keep their friends out of this, but with his disregard to control himself it was too late. "He has little to no mercy for them, except for those who are unfortunate like those two he rescued a while ago."

"You know about that?" Kathleen asked.

"Mhmm," Cinder said. "He told me about it. There were other White Fang in that squad with them. He killed those soldiers as well."

Kathleen wore a face of deep concern. To think her partner would commit such a thing was indeed troubling, but at least he had some sense. If he killed some of the White Fang rescuing Remora and Klyde, how was he able to come to school acting like nothing happened? Like taking another's life was normal?

"This guy's a maniac," Emerald blurted out.

"Shut up! No he's not!" Emma yelled at Emerald. "He's just..."

"Bickering won't help right now," Cinder said as they passed more bodies littering the pathways.

Cinder wouldn't mind any of this, and knew Neo would neither. The only complication was that their teammates were here and they weren't used to seeing this. To seeing death with their own eyes. Cinder and Neo had seen about three years' worth of it. "He'll probably be heading straight for Corvus. I know damn well those two will want to duel again."