The library of Beacon Academy was a vast, impressive hall, befitting of a place of learning and culture. Hundreds of shelves lined the cavernous room, filled with countless volumes of information on a wide variety of subjects, including the anatomy and physiology of different species of Grimm, practical tips and illustrated guides for wilderness survival, and numerous different combat and non-combat applications of Dust.
However, the library was far more than just a simple repository for textbooks. Beacon's library also acted as a useful location for planning and strategizing, with computers for finding more up-to-date data and articles online, whiteboards for creating detailed plans and sketches, and dedicated librarians and assistants to help students find information on any topics not covered by the books they had in stock.
Unfortunately, much to the growing dismay of team JNPR, even the most well-equipped library cannot provide accurate information on every subject.
Websites about the town often only had information from up to two decades ago, and tended to be pitifully scarce on details even then. Textbooks about the region were seemingly all out of stock, despite the fact that Wellington Wells was both practically unheard of and located in one of the least-traversed regions in all of Sanus. Even the librarians had been unable to help, with most having never heard of the town before.
Still, despite this, they had found some luck in their hunt for information. While there were no recent maps of the town, they had managed to find several dated versions that displayed the general outline of the town and the islands it stood upon.
Overall, the town appeared to be made up of ten separate islands, each with varying degrees of inhabitation, infrastructure, and available land. As most of their coastlines were made up of steep, massive cliffs, the only means of travel between them were a series of massive bridges connecting each of these separate areas to each other, although certain islands had a greater number of connections than others. The final result was an odd, interconnected jumble of several different clusters of landmasses divided into a handful of vague 'Districts'.
"Huh. I've never heard of a town that's been formed like this before." Pyrrha said, trying to make sense of the most up-to-date map they had found. "I wonder why they decided to set this place up on islands like these?"
"Well…those bridges look like they would make good chokepoints against any Grimm attacks from the mainland. If the attacks got too bad, they'd also be able to collapse them as a last resort." Jaune replied, pointing at several spots on the online chart. The bridges shown on the map were each fairly long, with the smallest one running for nearly four hundred yards between two of the islands.
"I guess that's fair. But why make the layout of the town the way it is? I mean, it looks like they've got most of their important buildings and infrastructure set up right next to the Brie…Bretonnia…the Bridge." Pyrrha mumbled, rubbing her shoulder awkwardly. "That could be risky if the Grimm ever made it past their defenses."
"It's called the Britannia Bridge…I think. And…I'm not really sure why they built the town up that way." Jaune shrugged. "It could just be that they wanted to build up from the closest point to the mainland. The map does say that this bridge was mostly meant for trains to cross over."
"But that still doesn't make any sense. Look here," Pyrrha said, pointing towards one of the islands on the edge of the map. "According to this, they've put the town's train station all the way out here, on whatever this island is supposed to be. Why put it so far back if this is their main way out to the mainland?"
The train station for Wellington Wells, rather than being located in the heavily built-up 'Parade District' on Apple Holm, was instead located on Eel's Pie Holm, one of the furthest islands from mainland Sanus and the Britannia Bridge. It was a seemingly nonsensical choice, seeing as how the rest of the island was mostly made up of scattered suburbs and parks instead of the industrial zones and residential areas closer to the Parade District or Hamlyn Village.
"I suppose it could just have to do with the amount of space they had to build on. We can just ask someone about it when we get there…although that does still leave the question of where to land." Pyrrha mused, looking back down at the map.
Jaune grimaced, glancing at a separate map showing the best air route to the town. Even at full speed, flying by Bullhead would still take hours to finally arrive at the town, and that was assuming the weather stayed nice and the Nevermores stayed away. All that, along with the turbulence from regular flight…
'Maybe it won't be too bad. I mean, it's not like I can be airsick the entire time.' Jaune lied to himself, already dreading the trip ahead of them. Maybe he could ask one of the janitors for an extra bucket or two. Or three.
"Why not just go to the main island? Apple Holm, or whatever it's called?" Jaune asked.
"It doesn't look like they have any airdocks there, and with all these buildings, I'm not sure there's enough space for us to land safely." Pyrrha replied, pointing at the Parade District. Indeed, almost the entire island seemed to be covered in thick clusters of buildings, with only a handful of narrow, twisting streets allowing for passage between them.
"…Huh. Well, I guess we can fly around and just…look for landing spots when we get there. Maybe over by the train station." Jaune said, glancing around the room. "Where did Ren and Nora go, anyways? Shouldn't they be here for this?"
"They told me they were making 'emergency rations', and they wouldn't be around until they made enough for the whole trip." Pyrrha deadpanned.
"…How many pancakes do you think that adds up to?" Jaune wondered, thinking about Nora's typical eating habits. Her pancake binges were both fascinating and horrifying to behold, like seeing a train plowing through a pack of Beowolves or Ruby reading about the latest weapons designs.
"Oh, hey, they're over there!" Ruby's voice suddenly called out, bringing Jaune out of his thoughts. Turning around, he was surprised to see both Ruby and Blake approaching their table, seemingly oblivious to the furious glare the nearby librarian was sending their way.
"Uh, hi! What are you guys doing here?" Jaune asked, waving awkwardly.
"We thought we'd see what you guys are up to! Well, at least me and Blake. Yang went off to tune up Ember Celica, and Weiss is still looking stuff up on that town we're all going to. She seems nervous about this place for some reason." Ruby shrugged, grabbing a seat next to Jaune and sitting down. "What about you guys? Find anything cool?"
"Just looking over some old maps. We were debating about where we should land once we get there." Pyrrha said, turning her scroll around so they could see the chart.
"Wait, you said that Weiss was nervous about this place? Why?" Jaune asked, slightly worried. Considering how well she handled everything that happened during initiation, and her usual highly annoyed attitude towards problems and him, having her be nervous about a mission was not a good sign.
'Then again, it could provide the opportunity to finally impress Weiss…' Jaune mused, debating internally whether he preferred surviving the mission or finally getting his crush to be willing to talk to him.
"Apparently her dad mentioned this place before, and he got really angry whenever he talked about it." Ruby grinned. "We're pretty sure that there's a huge stockpile of Dust there, and someone's trying to get their hands on it."
"We're pretty sure there's something he wants there, anyways." Blake shrugged, frowning as she took a closer look at the map. "They haven't been buying Dust from the SDC, so that's what we're assuming it is. We're really just guessing at this point."
"With how vague the instructions are, it's a good enough guess. We thought we were just going to the town to help out with the local Grimm population. Well, most of us, at least." Pyrrha sighed, shaking her head.
"Nora guessed that we'd be protecting the town from alien robots." Jaune elaborated, noticing the confused looks on the faces of Ruby and Blake. He wasn't surprised to see that their expressions did not change with the explanation.
"…So besides that, we're just looking for possible landing spots and hoping that we'll get some more information later." Pyrrha continued, turning back towards the map. "I just hope that the layout of this town won't have changed much in the past two decades."
"If they've been cut off from the rest of the world for that long, I doubt they would have changed much. I mean, it's not like they've got to worry about tourists, or trade, or anything like that…does the CCT network even reach out that far?" Blake asked.
"Hopefully it does. I mean, it's not like Ozpin would send us on a mission like this when we can't even call for help once we get there, right?" Jaune nervously chuckled.
The telling silence of his friends and teammate did little to bolster his confidence.
The Wellington Underground, despite what one might believe, was far more than simply a series of maintenance tunnels.
The Underground composed the subterranean heart of Wellington Wells, made up of abandoned subway lines, countless miles of pipework and wiring, innumerable storage bunkers, and a handful of hidden lairs. Used by Wellies and wastrels alike, it had a reputation for being a winding, never-ending mess of dimly lit, damp corridors, where all but the most prepared would get lost.
As Arthur slowly regained consciousness, nursing a horrifically painful lump on his forehead, he started to realize that the Underground's reputation was more than pure hyperbole.
"Urgh…where…am I?" Arthur asked himself, slowly trying to sit back up. The area was difficult to make out, with only a handful of emergency lights and the glow of a nearby motilene pipe to help him see. Thick, rusting metal plates completely covered what sections of the walls he could see, and the floor was made of featureless concrete. Even the air seemed to be gloomy, with a light haze filling the area.
A haze in the air?
"Do you smell gas?"
"Flamin' Nora!"
"Forget him, there's no time!"
And like a switch had been flicked, Arthur remembered how he got there. The Bobbies, far from intimidated at the Underground's labyrinthine nature, had followed him! Those bastards had chased him practically to the other side of Wellington Wells!
Then they'd finally gotten to a locked maintenance door, and what did the Bobbies do when Arthur simply tried to defend himself? They'd clobbered him with their batons and kicked him in the face until he blacked out!
All of that, and they'd left him there to rot because of a bloody gas leak?
"Terribly thoughtful of them." Arthur moaned, getting to his feet. As much as he wanted to remain where he was until the pain went away, he couldn't afford to stay still. The Bobbies might come back with gas masks! Well…if they even remembered him after they'd left.
Besides, if that really was gas that they had smelled, he'd need to get out of the tunnel and to the surface as quickly as possible. It would hardly be fair if he suffocated to death before even getting to try and escape.
Thankfully, for once that day, his luck held out. Just down the tunnel, he could make out a side path leading off to another maintenance room. Even better, there was a motilene distributor right there, with a convenient location sign on it!
It was a shame the location listed was anything but convenient.
"Barrow Holm?" Arthur said, feeling despair creep into him once more. "They chased me all the way to the Garden District? But…oh dear."
The Garden District was the area of Wellington Wells that no upstanding Wellie ever talked about, if at all possible. Far off on the islands of Barrow Holm, Eel's Pie Holm, Ravensholm, and Lud's Holm, the entire district was seen as a dumping ground for wastrels, Downers, and all other manner of nasty problems that most Wellies simply wanted to ignore. No one ever left, and the only ones that entered were those that no one would miss.
The only positive thing about the entire District was that it was supposedly still safe from the Grimm, thanks to the city's automated defense systems and the Home Guard running regular patrols around the islands. Given everything that Arthur had witnessed since he'd went off his Joy, he wasn't so sure about how accurate those claims were anymore.
And now he was on the wrong side of the security checkpoints, with no way to sneak back inside.
"Brilliant. Just…brilliant." Arthur sighed. "I've been found out, I'm trapped on the furthest island from the mainland, and my skull feels like it's about to fall apart."
He shook his head, trying to sweep those uncheerful thoughts away. After all, he was stuck in this situation no matter what he did. All he could do was keep moving forwards. If not for himself, then for Percy.
"I suppose it's not like things could get much worse." He said to himself, stepping into the maintenance room. "And they were wrong about the piñata. Maybe they were wrong about how bad the Garden…District…"
Arthur trailed off, pausing as yet another horrible sight came into his vision. Just a few feet ahead of him, battered and crumpled in the middle of the floor, was the dead body of what appeared to be a maintenance worker. His dark blue uniform was covered in large patches of brownish-red, with a sizeable trail of blood stretching across the linoleum tiles and back towards an imposing metal door on the other side of the room.
'Not even five minutes in, and my hopes have already been dashed.' Arthur cynically thought, resisting the urge to scream in panic and frustration.
Silently, Arthur considered his choices. On the one hand, if he tried to go back down the maintenance tunnel, there was a considerable chance he would run into the Bobbies again, or other maintenance workers. That was even assuming that they'd left the rest of the tunnels back to the Parade open, instead of just locking them up behind them.
On the other hand, there was a rather too high chance that the person who murdered the worker was still around. It was quite likely that, should he follow the blood trail, the murderer would be waiting at the end of it.
To make matters worse, as Arthur glanced around the room, he noticed another sign near the other door in the room, proclaiming that the maintenance hatch to the surface was directly behind the entryway the blood trail led towards.
"…My life has come to this. This is actually a choice I'm being forced to take. Lovely." Arthur murmured bitterly, walking towards what he hoped wouldn't be certain death and doom. Slowly and cautiously, he reached out, gingerly pulled on the handle-
"WE'VE COME TO THE END OF OUR TIME!"
And leaped back in panic as the door slammed open, revealing a disheveled, filthy man in a boiler suit and a cracked white mask. Snarling ferally, the man leveled an animalistic glare at Arthur as he rapidly closed the distance between them.
This wasn't good. The last time Arthur had been in a fight had been back when he was in school, and that had been decades ago. There hadn't been any need to get into scraps or tussles since then, with the Bobbies patrolling everywhere and Joy keeping people from being confrontational!
"Uh, h-hello there! A-are you alright?" Arthur stuttered out, hoping desperately that the man would be willing to calm down. The only response he received was a vicious right hook, which Arthur only barely managed to keep from impacting his forehead.
Beginning to panic, Arthur's eyes quickly swept the room for anything he could use to defend himself. Surely there must be a brick, or a loose pipe, or-
His eyes fell onto the sole object within grabbing distance, leaning against a nearby table. It seemed that someone had left an umbrella down here the last time they had visited, and never came back to retrieve it.
Desperately, Arthur reached out, grabbing the umbrella and bringing it in front of him just as the stranger came about with another punch. The man's fist connected with the steel handle of the tool with a solid crunch, causing him to howl in unrestrained agony as he clutched his hand. This moment of distraction was quickly interrupted by the umbrella's handle swinging into the murderer's skull, sending him falling limply to the floor.
Arthur took the moment to catch his breath, staring at the new body on the ground and contemplating what he had just done. Had he just killed that person? Was he a murderer now too? Or was it alright to murder a murderer? Would anyone care about it, or would someone find out and judge him for it? Would he have to do it again-
A strange noise brought him out of his rapidly-spiraling thoughts. Taking a closer look, he noticed that the stranger was simply moaning in pain as he slowly curled up on the floor. He…wasn't well, per se, but he was alive.
That remained to be seen if that was a good thing.
Arthur shook his head, trying to banish those dark ideas from his head. He wasn't a murderer, no matter how desperate his situation currently was. If he did resort to that, and Percy ever found out…
"…Wait. Percy…the trains…the Train Station is near here, isn't it?" Arthur wondered, a new plan rapidly forming in his mind. "If I could just make it to there, then I could just follow the old rail tunnels all the way to the Bridge! I wouldn't even have to face any more wastrels, or Bobbies, or whatever else they haven't told us about over here!"
Sporting a small smile for the first time since he left the Parade, Arthur walked past the pair of bodies, making his way towards the ladder to the surface. Having a fresh plan certainly did wonders for his attitude.
After all, any plan was better than trying to fight through the entirety of Wellington Wells with only an umbrella and two decades worth of guilt.
Big thanks to Maldevinine for beta-ing this chapter!