A/N: Small clarifying edit to previous chapter; addon to elevator scene
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I hit the floor with a loud "oomph," air being forced from my lungs as I crashed into the concrete. I struggled up to a kneeling position, gasping for air that wasn't coming nearly as fast as I wanted it to. Roman stood above me, twirling his cane lazily in one arm.
"Ugh," I grunted out, "why isn't it working? I've seen you guys tank bullets, why can't I take a fucking cane? Why is my aura so worthless?" I knew I was sounding like a child, but I had been getting my ass kicked by Roman for the past hour and a half, and was starting to get a little tired of it. I was more bruises than Jaune at this point, and my aura wasn't doing shit to stop it.
"Because you're not using it, kiddo," Roman said in the same laid back tone as always. "Aura isn't some magical force that protects us from all harm. Sure, it has passive benefits like regeneration alongside physical and mental boosts, but otherwise it needs to be actively harnessed to absorb damage." Roman paced lazily as he spoke, being both condescending and informative at the same time.
"And how do you suppose I do that?" I groused, my aura having already healed enough of my bruises that I could breathe properly. "You told me yourself, I have a lot of it, so how am I supposed to be any good if I can't even use it?" Roman gave me a look I couldn't quite place the meaning of.
"Well, most huntsmen and huntresses your age have years of training which allows them to not only be able to call upon the full strength of their aura in fractions of a second, but have a small amount of aura constantly and subconsciously running through their bodies. Helps to not die when caught off-guard or unconscious. You don't have that."
A deadpan look made its way onto my face. "Wow, really? What gave that away?"
"You really want to be a smartass about this, kid? I'm already taking the time out of my day to make you less worthless in time for Beacon, -shitty idea by the way,- and you're not making it any less annoying."
Roman took off his hat in order to run his fingers through his hair. "Dammit, kiddo, I was going to ease you into this, and you not only go and jump my timeline by a couple of years, but you go to Beacon of all places..." Roman's glare briefly held something that looked like worry in it, but switched back to frustration quickly.
Guess that made sense. Aura wasn't as easy to get the hold of, despite the ease with which I had seen some enhanced use it; and I was about to throw myself into a den of the best of them with no idea how to even protect myself with it. My mood simmered down as I realized how much trouble I was making for Roman, and dropped my head in apology.
Roman let out a heavy sigh. "Get up. We have more work to do. You're lucky I like you, kiddo. Oh, and as punishment, Neo's going to be the one training those reflexes." A chill ran down my spine, but I forced myself back to my feet once more, and my training resumed.
((()))
The dream faded. A creaking and groaning invaded what little hearing I had left, everything else being overpowered by the ringing in my ears and pulsing of my headache.
I slowly opened my eyes to a blurry mess of muted grays and browns. Blinking my eyes back into focus, I noticed that I was staring at various chunks of concrete and cave laying in a rubble field around me.
With a groan, I moved my body, a full ache overtaking my being as my body remembered it was injured. I flipped lifelessly onto my back, and saw the fate of the elevator I had been in previously.
Surrounding me was a mangled and torn mess of steel and concrete. The cage had bent sharply inward from multiple points of impact, with what had been the bottom of the cage being completely blown inward by its initial impact with the floor, forming a large, jagged hole in the side of the twisted mass.
The previously high ceiling of the cage had been bent down to just a few feet above me, presumably being flattened down by the cage rolling. I flipped back over onto my stomach and forced my arms, weak as they were, to shakily drag me from the wreckage.
If waking up hurt, moving was agonizing. Every twitch, every shuffle, and every scrape caused my beaten and battered muscles to cry out in pain. I grit my teeth and continued to drag myself until I was a safe distance from the wreckage.
I felt my aura working overtime to repair the many bruises and contusions on my body, and forced myself onto my back once more.
A shaky laugh escaped me as I marveled at the fact I was still alive. "Forget what I said about the dust, I love you, Roman!" I cheered out, lifting my arms in jubilation. Still giggling hysterically, I let my arms flop to the floor, and felt the reason for my continued existence as the dust-infused fibers of my suit hardened in response to the physical trauma.
Feeling my injuries mend to a point where I could breathe without discomfort, I slowly pulled myself into a standing position. Pain shot through my ankle and I swayed unsteadily on my feet for a second, but a flick of my tail corrected my center of balance and allowed me to stand a bit straighter.
"What is it with me and falling? Hope this doesn't become a pattern…" I groused, flexing my back and feeling my bones shift. "For now, where the hell am I?"
Surrounding me was a small cavern made of mostly natural stone, remnants of a destroyed concrete walkway littering the area. The intact portions of the walkway, however, lead to yet another steel door, though this one was in far better shape.
I looked up and had to squint to make out the ceiling of the darkened cave, even with my superior sight. I flexed my arms and felt another wave of soreness go through me. "Well, I'm not climbing out of here any time soon…" I monologued, before exclaiming with a false cheer. "Let's see what's behind door number two!"
The air in this portion of the cave system was far dryer than previous. Seems the big door helped keep out humidity. That also meant that this door opened far quieter when I stabbed the control panel again.
Hey, it worked, I was tired, and just finished falling I-don't-know-how-many feet in a steel cage. I can be forgiven for taking the sledgehammer instead of the scalpel just this once.
The inside of the door was a stark comparison to the outside, the walls being fully metal and feeling a lot more reminiscent of a proper facility, albeit run down and falling apart at the seams. I stumbled my way in, my ankle still flaring occasionally on contact with the ground, and motion-activated lights flickered on.
The area remained dimly lit due to the lights either being dim or not turning on at all. It didn't impede me, though. Have I mentioned how handy faunus vision is, yet?
Regardless, I stumbled my way through an unmarked hallway which looked more at home in a horror movie than the Forever Falls, with its metal floor creaking and groaning under each step. The panels of the ceiling were falling off in places, with exposed wires here and there. While it wasn't as bad as it could have been, it had clearly been through decades of neglect, if not more.
The hallway curved slightly to the left and began a downward slope a ways down. Early on in the decline, I noticed a side door; unmarked, of course.
"Why is nothing ever easy? Who built this place?" I muttered, but tried the door anyway. Surprisingly, it opened, and upon closer inspection, the door didn't even have a lock in the first place. "...Huh… well would you look at that. It seems somebody's confident in their outdoor security."
Opening the side door, I beheld a short hallway leading to another set of doors on either side, one on the left and one on the right. Curiosity seized me in an iron grip, and I stalked forward to open the leftmost door.
I was met with a rather spacious room filled with dormant consoles and screens. The far side of the room had floor-to-ceiling windows covered with heavy-looking shutters. I noted with a small gulp that the shutters had been dented and warped in some places.
I walked over to what appeared to be a center console: a large table with built-in screens and keyboards, with multiple unresponsive dials, meters, and buttons in other places along the table. I pressed a few keys on the console experimentally, and flinched when the screen flared to life.
The same hexagonal symbol with the M in the center flashed on the screen for a few seconds, opening to a desktop before a host of warnings and notifications popped up. I looked down and noticed a trackball-style mouse built into the console, and began sifting through the first few notifications; curiosity guiding me as I let old habits kick in.
I sifted through a few files and reports filled with words I didn't understand and numbers that meant nothing to me before coming upon the first error report, which displayed a small map of the facility (score!).
I was in some sort of observation chamber overlooking a large central area that seemed to be one of several chambers at the end of the decline I had been traversing earlier. Behind me was a small cluster of rooms, likely a living area if the layout was any indication, and consisted of only five rooms. All in all, the facility was rather small, consisting of just a few rooms spread out across the inside of the cave system.
The report detail shifted, displaying several blaring warning labels.
WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN MAIN DOOR
WARNING: SECURITY BREACH IN MAIN DOOR; CAMERAS OFFLINE
WARNING: ELEVATOR SAFETY LOCK MALFUNCTION
WARNING: MAIN ELEVATOR OFFLINE
WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN LAB DOOR
WARNING: SECURITY BREACH IN MAIN DOOR; CAMERAS OFFLINE
WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN ROTOR 1
WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IN ROTOR 3
WARNING: FACILITY ON LOW POWER MODE; ALL NON-CRITICAL SYSTEMS DISENGAGED
I knew about the first few warnings, being the cause of them, but the last three intrigued me. Clicking on the rotors warning, I was shown a diagram of three water wheels. A marker on the facility map showed them to be high above the facility, presumably drawing power from the waterfall at the top of the cliff. I clicked on the warning and a dialogue prompt popped on the screen.
RESET ROTORS? [Y/N]
I looked down at the keyboard for a second before punching the Y key. The moment I did, the lights in the facility shut down in their entirety, the only functioning piece of technology being the terminal in front of me.
Several minutes passed before my enhanced hearing picked up a slight rumble before the facility came to life. The same M logo flashed across the room as every other console began booting up, power surging into their systems for the first time in years, their returning function a testament to their quality.
The console in front of me began running several diagnostic screens in front of me, showing a mixture of red, orange, and green squares next to symbols on a chart. I could recognize some of them as pictures representing things like water, electricity, and climate control systems, but some of the others were foreign to me.
I registered a slight click moments before a series of motors peeled back the shutters surrounding the observation deck, revealing to me the room beyond the glass.
I found myself looking down into a dimly lit, cavernous chamber made of rock and steel. Claw marks and dents lined the walls, and my stomach twisted as I recognized telltale signs of long-passed bloodshed.
I placed my hand against the console to steady myself against horror of what this facility might have been, and felt a button depress under my palm.
The console blared to life once more, and a speaker crackled out a garbled and nearly unintelligible message.
"OPENING PANEL 9"
Below, in the chamber, a steel gate began to slowly wind open. My eyes began to make out a sort of strange glow behind the gate, and I only had time to register a roar before my heart leapt to my throat.
A behemoth of a beowolf tore its way through the half open and aged gate. It stood easily a head and a half taller than an alpha, and had sickly green crystals on its back instead of the usual spines, giving it a haunting glow.
Green mucus dripped from its feral jaws as it swiveled its head from left to right, looking for a target, any target. It caught wind of a strong smell of revulsion and horror from the observation deck, and snapped its head to look at the imposing glass set too high out of its reach.
It let out an unnatural scream that pierced through even the thick glass of the observation deck, and I noticed that some of the other gates began bowing outwards as the grimm within were stirred from hibernation and given the prospect of fresh prey.
"Aw fuck."
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So… two, almost three months… yikes. I didn't think school would take as much out of me as it did, and my creative muse died for a little while. I have no excuse for how long this took, but in order to make sure that I can have not only enough time to write these but also the energy, I'm going to start posting smaller chapters. Don't expect anything over 2,500 words any time soon. That said, in those few months of absence, I've been thinking over how I want this story to go, and I'm considering either a full revamp or just running with what I have. What do you guys think? If you're okay with what I have so far I'll see how far I can run this, otherwise it's back to the think-tank with me. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed, and I will see you all in the next chapter!