Chapter 5: Rainbow in The Dark
At this point Nora had to wonder if her own aura was playing tricks on her. She looked back at Pyrrha's new friend and still felt the same feeling she did when there were Grimm nearby. That was as far as she was letting her train of thought go this time, repeating that mistake would be insanity.
Smile. Nora looked back to make sure Cinder was still there as she acted on the thought. Smiles were good, they kept the bad thoughts away. Thankfully, Cinder smiled back, even if it was a tired and gloomy smile.
Unacceptable! Nora thought. That was no good, what did she say to Pyrrha a while ago?
Far away from her family and her friends. Who needs friends, right?
Everyone needed friends, even the sinister, tall, black-haired girls who looked a little too much like the villains in Jaune's comic books.
Well, maybe they need friends more than anyone else, Nora considered.
Nora Pivoted on one foot and stopped moving. "So, are you a Mints Ahoy or a Lov's Grapes kind of girl?" Depending on how the soon-to-be honorary member of team Juniper answered, that would make Nora's mind for the rest of the year-no, the rest of the decade, at least.
"Isn't Mints Ahoy the one that tastes exactly like mouthwash?" Cinder answered, now looking more discombobulated than gloomy, and that was a positive in Nora's book.
Bingo. "Hah! You've got that right! That was a test, and you passed it with flying colors."
"Is it really that much of a test? I don't think anyone in their right mind would like Mints Ahoy."
"Hey! It could be a sanity test," Nora crossed her arms, and Cinder laughed at the joke. That was better, it was so much easier to talk about terrible candy, and sometimes people's tastes could say a lot about them.
Pyrrha, for instance, loved bonbons. She'd never let anyone know, but Nora had seen her sneaking some out in the dead of night when everyone else was asleep. When confronted on it, Pyrrha simply deflected or changed the subject. It was as annoying as it seemed, especially because Nora would have appreciated a bite of whatever the one and only champion of Mistral was having.
Jaune, on his part, didn't seem to have one single type of food he preferred. Nora once saw him ask Ren for pizza without any of the pepperoni, cheese, tomatoes, onion or green pepper. So really what he wanted was just the crust.
Ren… Well, Ren liked pancakes which in turn meant that Nora absolutely loved pancakes more than anything else in all of Remnant. Forever.
But Cinder, what did she like to eat? Nora put a hand to her chin, thinking. If she had to guess from how the student looked, she'd have to say 'the hopes and dreams of children with a side of fresh, still beating hearts' but thinking like that wasn't very productive, so she shoved that damned gut feeling away once more. Hopefully that was the last time she'd have to.
"Are you okay?" Cinder asked, confusion washing over her face as she lifted one eyebrow, "You look like you're a little… sick, maybe?"
It was better to ask later. They were approaching the camp, and as her luck would have it Ms Goodwitch was waiting for them. She brandished her crop as they came closer, and spoke up in a tone Nora was unfortunately too familiar with.
"Ms Valkyrie and Ms Fall, justify your absence from camp. Now," she commanded with a swing of her crop, as if to underline the statement.
Well, where should she start? Hey Ms Goodwitch, I tormented our temporary teammate until she left us in the dead of night! Isn't it awesome? Nora thought, as she struggled to think of a good answer, one that wouldn't make Goodwitch punish her with detention for the rest of her life. She wasn't sure if teachers could give students detention for life, but it damn well sounded like something Glynda would, and could do.
Cinder looked forward, raising her chin, "I take full responsibility, Ms Goodwitch. I couldn't sleep, and I needed to be alone. Nora simply went after me."
Glynda stared them both down for several long seconds, the cold eyes of a veteran Huntress scanning both girls. She lowered her crop while breathing a sigh of relief, "It's okay." She pinched the bridge of her nose, then continued, "Other students have the same problem. You're on the clear so protocol is not important here. And Ms Valkyrie, I know what you're thinking, you don't need to worry about added time to your detentions."
"Thank you so much Ms Goodwitch!" Nora cheered, already relieved that she wouldn't need to see Ms Goodwitch for the rest of the school year every saturday.
"I believe this shows you might not need it as much as I initially believed. What I must do-" she inched closer, and turned to face Cinder- "is make sure Ms Fall is aware of Beacon protocol. Quests can be dangerous and stressful, so If you need a breather that's fine, but for the safety of the team you need to warn us first. That way we know where to go looking if we need you, okay?"
Is ms Goodwicth a softie deep inside? Deep, deep inside? Nora thought, unable to mentally emphasize how deep such softness had to be buried within the combat instructor. Glynda would never say something like this to a student like Jaune, or… Mostly just Jaune, actually.
"Yes, I understand," Cinder answered, and to Nora the words felt empty and hollow. Maybe she hadn't done a good enough job of distracting the transfer student, or maybe there was something else to it, something she couldn't quite figure out.
"Good," Glynda said, relaxing and letting her shoulders fall just a little, "Then go back to camp. Everything's too quiet for a ruin zone, so we'll move camp soon. And be good to each other"
Quiet for a ruin zone. Kind of drastic, Nora thought. Ruin zones were things like Mountain Glenn or Kuroyuri. No way The Council was already naming the one and only Emerald Forest a ruin zone, she didn't believe it when Jaune called it, and she still didn't believe it now, even if it came from Ms Goodwitch.
They arrived at the camp in time to meet the others already putting away their sleeping bags. They had lit the campfire again, maybe to keep themselves warm? Pyrrha stopped as soon as she noticed their presence, smiling, "Hey, everything good? We were waiting for you two."
"What gives?"
"Jaune wants to talk to everyone," she gestured towards the teammate, who moved closer while attempting to stuff the assortment of sleeping bags inside his bag, despite Ren's protests.
"That's right," Jaune said through gritted teeth as the covers nearly sprung out of the limited space, " Gather 'round everyone, I've been thinking about this all day. I have this feeling, and I'm sure you've all been feeling it too."
Ren approached them, forming a semicircle around the campfire. Nora took the chance to hug his arm like she always would, and tilted her head at Jaune, "What feeling?"
"It's hard to put a pin on it. The feeling that we're being watched at all times, it's definitely coming from my aura, I've read it in some of the books Pyrrha gave me. Something's not right, we did a good job clearing the area of Grimm."
"And we didn't find any signs of Bandits," Ren said, "Or even the missing workers..."
Jaune snapped his fingers and pointed at Ren, "And that's where I start seeing a problem. Bandits steal whatever they want then leave people to the Grimm. If they attacked the tower we would have heard from a few of the victims already."
Cinder raised one eyebrow, "So you're saying the tower wasn't attacked by Bandits?"
"I'm saying this isn't their Modus Operandi"
Pyrrha continued from Jaune's train of thought, "We don't know what happened to the tower workers or the first responders, but either they're hostages or bait. Something, or somebody has to be disturbing our aura, these impulses don't happen by accident. I think the more we let time pass the worse the possibilities will be for the people working there."
Cinder shifted on her feet, "So what do you have in mind?"
Jaune wasted no time answering, "We already scouted the area and found nothing but a few Grimm. By protocol the next thing we should do is return to Beacon and make a report."
"But we can't do that!" Nora cut in, " They'll just call Ironwood's dumb robots to stand around and do nothing, this is our quest!"
"Nora, you hit the nail on the head!" Jaune said with a self-satisfied grin, despite the collective groans of annoyance at the thinly-veiled pun.
Pyrrha folded her arms, "You're right, we didn't come here to do nothing, find no one, then go home empty-handed. If there are no enemies then there's no reason five of us can't make this an emergency rescue."
Ren shook his head, "But this stinks of a trap, we can't just walk in without a plan."
"I think we should act now and raid the tower. We're already expecting an ambush so it's a matter of finding where they're hiding, they don't have the element of surprise anymore."
The group went silent, considering the possibility. Nora's mind was already set, she had already thought of ways to root out those pesky bandits and save everyone, most of them involving heavy use of Magnhild.
"Should we really do this?" Cinder cut through the silence, "We could leave this to the pros, and to Ironwood's bots. This could be way too dangerous for us."
Ren nodded his head, "We could just warn reinforcements that there might be a trap, there's no need for this. We are just students after all, and rushing things could end in disaster."
Nora stopped to consider the words for a moment. Ren had a point, as much as she'd hate to admit it. Nora knew it very well that sometimes things weren't as simple as get in, smash, get out, and she'd come to terms with the fact that she'd often have to wait if she wanted to make some bad guys, really bad guys like the Mistral bandits pay.
"But-" Pyrrha looked at them, a horrified expression across her face- "The longer we wait, the more lives could be lost, we have to do something, it's our job!"
"I think Pyrrha is right,"Jaune agreed, "You can't rescue the dead. An entire day passed already, who knows how many people we already lost because The Council thinks it's not worth the effort?"
"And we wouldn't be breaking protocol per se," Pyrrha retorted, "We do have the duty to help, rescue and protect anyone at any time so long as we're present, and we are very much present at the moment."
Ren turned to face Pyrrha, "You're forgetting the part where we need to be hired to do that."
"But it's the spirit of our work, isn't it?" Pyrrha argued.
Cinder spoke up again, this time with some amount of concern in her voice, to Nora's surprise "It's more complicated than that, if we fail people could die… We could all die," she looked at Pyrrha and Nora had to wonder
"Then we can't fail," Pyrrha asserted in the way she usually would when she got competitive, "I don't think we should just stand aside and do nothing."
"What about Ms Goodwitch?" Cinder asked, "She wouldn't be in favor of us breaking protocol, this could have repercussions far worse than just detentions. We could be expelled or even arrested."
Was she trying to protect them? Maybe that's why she's trying so hard, Nora thought.
"That's why I'll ask her to help us," Pyrrha's words cut through the argument, "Ms Goodwitch is a registered Huntress already, she can make judgement calls like this all the time. We'll be able to make a better plan with her experience…" Pyrrha slowly allowed a grin to spread across her face, "And it'll be another positive mark on her record."
"If anything goes wrong," Cinder warned, not impressed by the proposal, "Then she would have to take the blame too."
Ren sighed, perhaps considering the point, "And sure, let's say Ms Goodwitch agrees. We'll have the city of Vale's best Huntress on our side. Even then, isn't there someone you're forgetting to ask?" he lightly nodded towards Nora.
Jaune, perhaps only then coming to the realization that he'd been too absorbed into the discussion, fidgeted on the spot as he addressed his teammate, "So, Nora, what do you think we should do?"
It was hard for the short redheaded warrior to consider everything at once, with everyone staring at her she could barely think. Would Goodwitch reconsider her earlier thoughts on detention if they gave her a bad plan? Somehow that didn't matter to Nora at the moment, and try as she might, she couldn't get the image of CCT workers begging for help out of her head. She had to go there, and had to fight for them now. Not tomorrow, not the day after and she definitely couldn't leave it for someone else to clean up.
"I think we should do it. And come on, Ren, you know very well that we'll go ahead anyways, better all five of us and Ms Goodwitch, than just me, Jaune and Pyrrha, right?
"Perhaps, you're not thinking about all the dangers behind this," someone said.
"Maybe you're not thinking about all the people we need to help."
"We can't just break rules whenever we feel like it, this could be way out of our league."
Their argument blended into cacophony, despite the quiet tone, until one voice cut through it.
"Children, please."
It was Ms Goodwitch, how long had she stood there, watching them? It took a beat for the teacher to continue, "What did I say about being good to each other?"
They didn't really have a response to that.
"So let me see if I understand this correctly," she continued in no rush, moving from one side to the other, "You want to attempt a high risk tactic against an unknown enemy who could be arming an ambush?"
Jaune grimaced at the words, well aware after Glynda put it in plain words that it wasn't exactly the best plan in the world, "Yeah, that sums it up to be honest."
"Well then," Glynda smirked, and Nora couldn't believe she was seeing the one and only Glynda Goodwictch smirk, "Why aren't you all discussing semblance synergy?"
Sending distress signal number 1596.
Sending… Failed
Routine security check... Complete
Power currently at… 12%
Estimated time to shutdown… 42m:21s
Fifty eight workers-that included security, tech support, maintenance and first responders- and there was no way the AI could help them. Her metaphorical hands were tied, access points were locked down, power was cut, and she was now running on very limited generators. In thirty seconds she would be authorized by the constraints of her creators to try again.
Creators who were kind enough to give her personhood, choice, judgement, even an appearance of her liking all because it enhanced her ability to properly maintain hundreds of towers functioning. In their eyes, her ability to love life, to protect the lives working at those towers was a bonus, unintended. They were kind enough to grant her access to sensors that could spot Grimm within a four mile radius, and yet for the past day it hardly mattered.
Grimm don't leave dust burns.
Neither did they hack remotely into communication towers and shut down all forms of communication as they took workers hostage.
No, this was the work of humans, there were only thirty of them spread across the tower, all dressed like Mistralian bandits. Too well armed for security, they were now on the lookout, spread across the tower, threatening whoever didn't comply.
It was strange, they didn't make demands, didn't take anything, and none of their faces matched with mugshots and mission pictures provided by the Council.
Reviewing that information made something force her to skip through it, reset her memory to the few milliseconds before. So much of her was wrong now, scrambled and modified
How had this happened to her systems? Why? She couldn't tell, even after reviewing her own logs and video feed, this time forced to censor the bandits to avoid this intruding force, this virus from resetting her memory again.
She was forced to operate this way during the past thirty one hours. Always delayed, working in the past.
As if working near the Emerald Forest wasn't hard enough, she thought. We absolutely must have that Vale wide coverage, they said. Our security is top notch, the best in Remnant! We can definitely last more than a month near that death trap of a forest! She mocked her superiors with no small amount of disgust.
She hated this. What should she do with no eyes to see, no way to understand the current situation, no mouth to scream for help? She would try it again, but thirty seconds to an AI were eternity.
Firing routine scan… Complete.
One hundred and twenty eight workers remained in the tower. Their readings were still the same as the past hour, alive-thankfully, if a little cold, hungry and deathly scared. The AI would have felt her blood boil at the sight of it, if she had any blood.
Erin, who would never miss a chance to tell the AI about her girlfriend Jade. Gray, who was always a little too absorbed in his work. She found them trapped in the upper sections B and C, along with so many others. Bandits were roaming there as well, at least five of them-she guessed.
She had to guess. Another attempt at a scan made her reset and skip the information again, so she worked with what she had, it was still possible to find where they weren't.
Worse still, she detected two more entering the top of the tower. They had melted through the hull, but seeing them did not force another reset.
Curious.
They were a long haired boy in green, and a girl dressed in a red dress. They weren't moving to meet with other bandits but rather avoiding them entirely, moving carefully.
She was forced to shift her focus to the main entrance, where there were at least ten assistants and a dozen bandits. Five point thirty-two seconds after her initial scan one assistant panicked and tried to attack a bandit, only to be clubbed in the head for their efforts. The assistant laid on the floor, alive but badly hurt. The bandits now stood over the passed-out worker, debating what to do.
The one saving grace was that It automatically authorized access to well-being scans. it would be blocked again, but she could use the brief window of time in the programming, the one time where she wasn't herself but rather lines of code running through a board. It was a matter of precision to predict those milliseconds, and she wouldn't be able to think or feel, but she didn't have to in order to brute force her signal through.
She tried it anyway, prayed for the microscopic chance that a Huntsman or a Huntress would catch it, and come to their aid.
Listen to me! Please!
"Hello? Anybody home?" said a voice from the main entrance. A quick check confirmed it was a tall boy in a black hoodie forcing the heavy steel door open, just enough so he could slip in.
"Can anybody help me? I think I'm a little lost, the map said to turn right at the Emerald Forest, but now I've got no signal at all! I demand to see a manager now!"
Had he heard her signal? Negative. It was blocked like all others.
One of the bandits said something and the others rushed towards the boy, brandishing weapons that bandits shouldn't have access to, weapons the AI only ever saw in blueprints from Atlas. No, not again!
The boy smiled, and the AI heard a warcry approaching at an unreasonable speed. Too fast to be a person, but not fast enough to make her think the Council was scrapping the location and going scorched earth again.
"Smash!" she heard a girl shout at the top of her lungs as she breached the wall with the force of a wrecking ball, swinging a giant hammer and launching at least two bandits with the same force.
She was followed by a redheaded girl in brass armor who moved from bandit to bandit like a knife, disarming every bandit in the area before viollet tendrils flowed from outside, restraining them. The last power was something the AI could recognize, Glynda Goodwitch's semblance.
Within seconds the tendrils moved to the floors above, where the two intruders detected earlier used the distraction to ambush another group of bandits. The boy in green stunned them with aura boosted strikes, martial arts faster than the eye could see. The girl in the red dress melted their weapons as she touched them, just in time for Glynda's semblance to bind them.
More violet tendrils split and cut through the air at sharp angles. With surprising speed, they searched every nook and cranny of the tower, one floor at a time. Flying up the stairs they struck unsuspecting bandits, dragging them down to the main entrance.
Glynda Goodwitch walked into the tower, brandishing her crop. Behind her the debris moved back into their place, reverting the damage as if it never happened.
"I suggest for your own good that you surrender, now," Glynda demanded. Just like that, it was over.
"Do you think you can fix it?" Pyrrha asked Cinder.
She had to be careful now, if only because broadcasting her semblance to the workers at the tower could be a grave mistake. Thankfully, Cinder was understanding of it, she didn't like showing hers either.
"Yes, I think I can, let me just find it, this is such a mess."
The metal panel on the floor was only wide enough to let one person through at a time, but trying to restore power while squeezed together inside a wall wasn't actually a problem, surprisingly.
Rather, the fact that the walls of the tower seemed to be lined with disorganized cables, that seemed to be stressful enough to make Pyrrha wonder how they managed to build the tower in the first place, let alone maintain it.
"Right there, hold it still," Cinder said, and Pyrrha knew which cable she meant. It was a thick blue cable that was cut through cleanly. Cinder pulled both ends together with no small amount of effort and welded them with a flash of her power. A moment later, they heard the hum of air conditioning units, lights and generators working again.
"Well, I think that's the last one," Pyrrha sighed a breath of relief. They slipped out of the maintenance opening, closing the hatch and hoping to never, ever see it again.
Walking to the commlinks and workstations where she assumed most of the hard work happened in the tower, Pyrrha couldn't help but notice how different the place felt now. Brighter, less depressing. She turned to Cinder, hands on her hips, "So, I think it looks a lot better now, don't you?"
Cinder chuckled once, staring at a commlink screen. "Yes, I think so too."
"Something on your mind?" Pyrrha asked.
"Nothing much, really." Cinder didn't elaborate on it, preferring to stay silent as they'd wait for Glynda's next orders.
"What is it?"
"I'm just wondering about what happened here," Cinder clarified, "It doesn't make any sense, they didn't take anything, didn't make any demands… Ignore me, maybe i'm just tired."
Pyrrha wasn't willing to let it go, "Is that true?"
"It is true," Cinder answered, deadpan.
It was not true, Pyrrha could see it all over her face. Ever since she left the camp Cinder was like this, distant, only giving short answers. Was it just because she had the same problem as Nora?
Pyrrha sighed, she didn't know if talking about it was the best thing she could do at the moment. She never knew when it was a good time to bring those things up. Instead she preferred to focus on the positive. "You know, what you did there earlier was really impressive."
"Hm?" Cinder looked at her, confused, "How so?"
Pyrrha took Cinders hands, surprising the girl, "There aren't a lot of Huntsmen that take the role of infiltration, without you and Ren today I don't think we'd be able to catch all bandits," she smiled at Cinder, letting the fact speak for itself.
Cinder's expression changed, from neutral to a cocky smile, "You're just saying that because you got to be at the spotlight today."
"And you know what else i think was impressive?" Pyrrha continued, "I don't think many Huntsmen would have the courage to face bandits with just one person to cover their backs." She inched closer and Cinder opened her mouth to argue, but the notification sound of their scrolls interrupted them, communications returning in what was probably the worst of times.
[Group Message 01:44 AM] Glynda Goodwitch
Ms Fall and Ms nikos, please return to the main hall. Your current duty is to check for wounded and deliver necessary aid.
The interruption annoyed Pyrrha, "Well, orders are orders," she said, before closing her scroll and putting it in her pocket.
In the main hall, Not many were injured. Jaune had already given some first aid. Most people only had small bruises or cuts, a fact that gave them all no small amount of relief. Cinder occupied herself with bandaging an employee, leaving Pyrrha with the exciting job of standing around and looking for things to do. At least it was satisfying to Pyrrha seeing how many were happy that they arrived, even the one Cinder aided was awestruck.
Despite that fact, she couldn't ignore the feeling that Cinder had a point earlier. something was wrong, they were still missing a piece of the puzzle.
As Nora approached Pyrrha, she pivoted on one foot, "So, a little less worried about her now?" Pyrrha asked, pulling her best 'I'm smug and I know it' face.
Nora was speechless for a moment, "Yeah… yeah."
Pyrrha smiled at Nora, "Relax, I'm just messing with you. I hope you're still open to letting her come to our party."
"I am, and I was wrong okay?" Nora admitted, "Is that what you wanna hear?"
Pyrrha brought a hand to her chin, wondering, "Well, it does help…"
Nora groaned, annoyed, "That's not the only thing I need to tell you though. After we're done here, there's someone else who wants to talk to us."
"Really?" Pyrrha asked, surprised, "And who'd that be?"
Nora pulled her scroll out of one pocket and opened it in one move, allowing the hologram of the CCTS AI assistant to unfold, polygons taking the shape of a young woman in a uniform.
"Her."