The closer they drew to the town, the harder it was to ignore the rustling whispers in his head. Sometimes Jaune could swear they were real, the dim shapes of words just beyond understanding. Other times, the voices dwindled to the rush of the wind.
Tell them now
But what was there to tell? It might be nothing. It might be an auditory hallucination, or something like that.
Or it might be the dead, egging him on, like always.
The town itself was located in the shadow of a low mountain range, beneath the hulking shape of what had once been a fort and then a munitions factory lodged into the Cliffside high above it.
It didn't take long to realize that the old factory had been recommissioned for something new-the traffic of men going in and out of the facility made that clear.
But for what?
There were no proper inns, only a public house with two guests rooms that were full. The owner told them that the convent up the hill sometimes boarded lodgers.
"Ladies at the convent there take in washings for the soldiers," he said. "They don't mind having a few extra hands around for chores."
"Must be busy these days with that factory running,". Yang replied. "Good for business."
The owner shook his head. "Soldiers came in about a year ago. Didn't hire any locals, poured their filth into the river."
"You don't know that," a heavyset woman interjected. "The river was full of runoff from the mines before the soldiers started up the smokestacks again." She cut a long glance at Blake and the others. "Don't pay to speak trouble to strangers."
They took the hint and headed out to the Main Street. It was a surprisingly pretty town, the buildings small and snug, their roofs peaked.
Ruby gazed up the mountain to where the old factory looked, it's big square buildings loaded with dark windows. "They could just be manufacturing rifles or ammunition."
Blake's expression was blanker than normal. "Or some of those Atlesian Paladins they're becoming so fond of."
"If that's the case, we'll have some intelligence to pass on to Sienna,". Jaune said. He hoped that wouldn't be all.
Team JRBY headed up the side of the mountain, setting a leisurely pace and making a show of chatting loudly. They paralleled the road that led to the factory, but they took the time to point out birds and stop at vistas overlooking the valley.
Four tourists out for a walk and nothing more.
Eventually they picked their way to a gap in the trees that overlooked the entrance to the factory. At the sight of it, the rustling of voices rose in his mind, louder than the wind shaking the pines. Two soldiers were posted at the huge double doors, and there were more stationed along the parapets.
"It was a fort before a factory," Jaune said, pointing to what looked like old niches carved into stone walls. A large reservoir sat behind the main building, and he wondered if the water was used for cooling whatever machinery was inside.
"It's a good vantage point,". Blake added. "High ground. A safe place to shelter in an attack,"
Two smokestacks belched gray smoke as they watched a covered wagon roll up to the gate. It was impossible to tell what passed between the guard and the driver.
"What do you think is in that wagon?"
"Could be anything," Yang said. "Dust from the mines. Fish. Ore from the mines."
Jaune ran his hands over his arms and glanced at the smokestacks. "I think I want a look inside that fort, but I'll settle for knowing what the hell they leaked into the water."
"It could be from the mines," Ruby guessed.
"If it were the mines, the fishermen would have rioted to have them shut down. Fear is keeping the townspeople quiet."
"Let's draw samples of the water,". Blake suggested.
"Can we even do anything with that?"
"Not exactly, but maybe Sienna has someone that can."
That was a good point. If it was something that they could bring back, then it was something that they would.
"How are we getting in?" Yang was the first to ask, after they found themselves meandering far closer to the factory entrance, before they could be called out for being too close.
Jaune mused to himself, before nodding slightly. "They're expecting us to cause trouble, so that's what we're going to do. Yang and I will cause a ruckus, while Ruby and Blake will sneak in and see what's going on. If possible, we'll catch up with you guys in the factory, and if not, we'll meet back at the village at noon."
Receiving nods at his instructions, he added a caveat, "Do not overestimate yourselves. We don't know what we're heading into, and we're also not going in as a team. Be careful and don't do anything that I wouldn't do."
"That leaves us a wide range of options you know?" Blake couldn't resist adding drily before her and Ruby split from Yang and Jaune, taking to the trees as they continued to walk to the fort's entrance.
Yang whistled at the height of the fort, impressed at the height of the building. Or doing a very good impersonation of being impressed at least. "Man Jay! Look at that there thing! Wander what they make in there eh?" She said, giving herself a heavy southern accent, hooking her arm through his as she spoke.
Jaune startled at the unexpected contact, but quickly smoothed his features and responded just as merrily. Or as merrily as Jaune could manage anyway. "Who can say Yin? Maybe one of these gentle folk can answer a couple of questions for us?"
"Halt! This is a restricted area! Leave now!" The first guard demanded holding up a rifle threatening at the two, who untangled their arms to hold them up as a gesture of peace and surrender.
"It is? We had no idea! Them town folk didn't tell us anything about it being restricted! Are you sure?"
Jaune felt the urge to bang his head against his head. Yang's southern drawl was truly terrible and Jaune made a mental note to force her to take acting lessons as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
That was for later, they had to deal with the now though. "While we're here, would you mind answering some questions for us?" Jaune could try to be polite before things went pear shaped. Try the carrot before the stick.
"I said...HALT" The first guard said, now having backup in the form of several more soldiers coming out, armed with rifles of their own.
Yang let out a chuckle while assuming a boxing position while Jaune pulled out his sword, not drawing his shield for the moment.
Stick it was then.
The first thing that Ruby noticed was the factory was a lot bigger on the inside than the outside.
Like A LOT bigger. She could see the building was made of reinforced concrete, or steel encased in concrete or something similar to that. Ruby wasn't an architect, she didn't know buildings. She did know that it was very well built. It was originally a fort and she knew that changing the building like this would have been costly and difficult to make.
Especially without being noticed. What were they doing here?
"I smell blood. And a lot of it. Be on your guard Ruby." Blake warned, all traces of amusement having left her as soon as they entered the factory, drawing gambol shroud for good measure. Ruby nodded, then realized that Blake probably couldn't see her doing that, so she made a grunt of acknowledgment.
It was a long drop, a drop that neither Ruby nor Blake was confident they could make without being sure what was on the bottom, so they took the series of walkways and ladders to reach the bottom. Whatever Yang and Jaune were doing was apparently working wonders, because the factory was practically deserted.
What few guards remained inside it was child's play to avoid. Blake even used the opportunity to give Ruby some pointers on how to deaden her footsteps without losing speed or how to minimize wasted movements to ensure maximum action.
And Ruby absorbed all of it like a sponge. Every little thing that Blake showed Ruby could just as easily be worked into her normal fighting style with minimal fuss.
Hopefully. She'd have to practice with Blake and see how it worked. She was sure that she would be much harder to predict if she had less wasted movement and you couldn't hear her coming!
Wait. Focus Ruby.
"There aren't any weapons here, so they aren't building weapons…" Blake whispered as they continued to make their way down the factory. The walkways were finally widening up, enough they could walk side by side. There was a distinct lack of guards at this point, so they no longer bothered to creep down the factory.
"Yeah, I don't even see...anything being built here. Like at all." Ruby added, frowning thoughtfully. It was really weird, now that Blake mentioned the lack of...well anything here. All this place had so far were walkways and ladders.
There was no way that they would have so many guards in this place for that. They hadn't even found the source of the blood that Blake was smelling. They had to be getting close to something though. Ruby's senses weren't as good as Blake's but...she could feel something here.
Something dark.
These soldiers were strange.
That was the first thought that Jaune had as a soldier used his rifle as a club and met Jaune's blade in a deadlock. The first surprise that Jaune had was that the man's rifle hadn't been sliced by Jaune's blade, and he immediately decided that he was going to take it for his own.
The next thought that hit him was that he couldn't overpower the man. As in, Jaune couldn't overpower an auraless soldier.
Jaune twisted his grip, releasing his two hand grip on his sword in favor of a one handed grip and at the same time using his newly freed hand to grab the man's rifle and ripped the rifle from the man's grip.
He flung the man's rifle far away from him, rationalizing that it appeared to be standard grade for these soldiers and he could always take one from one of the many soldiers pouring out of the fort. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like the factory was pretty small for the amount of soldiers coming out of it.
Was it bigger on the inside?
Jaune pulled his head back and flung it full force onto the man's own forehead, knocking him out from the impact. Due to Jaune's aura, and the fact that Jaune's head was pretty hard by itself, Jaune himself didn't even have a bruise.
A bullet whizzed past his face and Jaune swung his blade in response without even looking in the direction that it had come from. So he was unexpectedly surprised when his sword met resistance in the form of...what had he hit as a matter of fact?
Jaune turned to his right and saw a spiked riot shield heading towards him. Jaune tried to hop back but found himself bumping against the body of another soldier that was taking a swing at him with what looked like a stun baton, if the sparking ends of the tip heading towards him said anything. He had a large wind up motion that gave Jaune plenty of notice of what and how he was going to swing at him, so Jaune had plenty of time to weave around the man. As Jaune weaved around the man, he expanded his shield and used it to bash the man in the back, and he dropped like a rock.
These guys are strong, but they drop fairly easily… Jaune thought to himself as he raised his shield in response to the spiked riot shield being thrust towards him once again. Jaune didn't have enough leverage to avoid it at this distance, nor could he engage in a battle of strength without dropping his sword...wait yes he could.
Jaune used his semblance, enhancing his strength five fold and thrust his shield forward to meet the riot shield. Jaune's shield crumpled the man's shield, and the force of the impact forced the man backwards, where he crumpled in a heap with several other men that had the misfortune to be behind him.
They drop ridiculously easy...
It made Jaune even more suspicious. These soldiers were far too powerful for not having aura...and yet oddly fragile. And there were so many of them! He quickly risked a glance to Yang to see how she was faring, and felt a chuckle bubble up despite himself.
Yang appeared to be having the time of her life. Any one dumb enough to come at her with a baton would find themselves weaponless, as she would either grab the baton and stab them with it, shocking them, or she would simply grab the baton and fling the man into the crowd. And since it appeared that these soldiers couldn't take hits for the life of them, she was knocking them out faster than Jaune himself was!
Knocking these guys out was fairly easy work, if not a bit tedious.
Worst comes to worst if they found nothing at all, at least Sienna would be glad that they gathered intel on how her enemies fought, and their numbers right?
Ruby and Blake found themselves in a room that had...they weren't sure what they were looking at. The bottom of the factory led to a room that had rows of pods that were filled with...people?
Test subjects? There was a broken valve that was releasing steam that made the room uncomfortably hot and lowered the visibility. Something in the room had an eerie green glow, bathing the room in a sinister green light.
"What...is this?" Ruby found herself asking no one in particular.
Blake didn't respond, having wiped the glass on one of the pods and looked inside. A person was suspended inside the pod, with various tubes attached to his body. Blake could see...something being infused into person but she couldn't tell what it was.
"We have to find out where these tubes lead." She said.
"Tubes?" Ruby asked, coming forward to see what Blake was talking about. She gasped and covered her mouth to suppress any possible noise that she could have made, but she quickly became determined and nodded. Ruby took the left side of the room and Blake took the right and they quickly noted that not every pod had tubes connected to them, and not only that, but every tube seemed to be connected to different things!
Eventually they had managed to track down what the main tubes were connected to, and it led them to a series of chambers. Each one held a water wheel that appeared to be grinding materials and feeding the crushed materials into tubes, that would then go on and be infused into the people into the pods.
"Is that...dust?" Blake asked, confused.
Ruby stepped forward and examined the chamber. Yes, on closer inspection it was in fact dust. Red Dust, Blue Dust, Green Dust, and Yellow Dust. "Are they...infusing dust into people? Is that safe?"
"If it was safe, would they be doing it on the bottom floor of a factory, with who knows how many guards?"
Well when Blake put it like that...
"The blood must be from people that don't survive this process...or people that refuse." Ruby thought aloud.
"And the stuff poured into the river could either be blood, or the ground up dust mixed with whatever else is in the chambers." Blake finished. They traded looks before taking out their scrolls and taking pictures of every conceivable inch of the facility they were in. This had to be what Sienna was looking for.
"Should we...should we break these?" Ruby asked tentatively, once they had finished recording everything that they could.
After a moment of indecision, Blake shook her head. "No. We should meet up with Jaune and Yang at the meeting point and make sure that we leave no trace that we're here. If they did their jobs right, they'll just assume that they've been attacked, and not that they've been attacked AND infiltrated. If we do anything, it'll let them know that we've been here."
Thinking about what Blake had told her, Ruby eventually nodded. They came here to get information, and they got it. No more, no less. Leaving the people here did gall Ruby a fair amount, but there was no way of knowing if even freeing these people would do anything.
So with a heavy heart, Ruby followed Blake out of the factory. Now that they knew where they were going, and didn't really have to tiptoe their way forward, they made much better time, slipping out the factory as easily as they had entered.
Once outside, they quickly saw the pile of bodies and found themselves questioning things as they waded through the bodies. They could see the slight rising and falling of the majority of the soldiers, but that was the least of their concerns.
Were these soldiers dust infused? Was it done willingly? Unwillingly? Was this an Atlas sponsored experiment?
And the most pressing question of all.
Did infusing your body with dust actually do anything?
Jaune was leaning against a tree, arms crossed with his eyes closed when he heard Yang greet Blake and Ruby as they entered the clearing.
"You guys were quiet." Jaune told them in lieu of greeting. Ruby quickly ran to Jaune, showing off the lack of noise she made as she reached him.
"Yep." She said, popping the p as she grinned up at him. Jaune couldn't help it. He felt the corners of his mouth lift up despite his best efforts. Her self assigned mission complete, she quickly headed over to Yang, knowing that Jaune would want to talk to Blake, knowing that reporting things like this was her specialty in their team. She had some things to ask Yang anyway.
"What did you find?" Jaune asked as soon as Blake got close enough. She simply handed over her scroll, showing Jaune the pictures. Jaune swiped through the pictures, silently pouring over each one, before he got to the chambers with the dust. "What were in these?"
"Dust."
"Dust?" Jaune repeated to himself. Would infusing dust into humans do anything? People used dust all the time! It was perfectly harmless!
Unless you didn't have aura… His mind whispered. And the thought made sense, the more that he thought about it. The soldiers that they had fought were strong enough to fight even with Jaune sans his semblance enhanced strength, yet fragile enough they fell to simple slashes, or even by being shot.
Strong yet fragile. The body was not made to have dust inside of it.
The man with dust in his arms.
Jaune's eyes widened and his pulse quickened at the thought. Was this related to that man?! Was he here! Had he been here!
No. Calm down.
Jaune forced himself to calm down as he could feel his team looking at him worriedly. He closed his eyes, handing Blake her scroll back, and counted to ten. And then to thirty when that didn't work.
"I think…this might have something to do with the man with the dust in his arms." Jaune said quietly when he had gotten his temper under control.
Blake's eyes widened, but she didn't dispute or give any input. She waited for Jaune to continue, to explain his reasoning, which he eventually did.
"I'm not sure of this, it could just be a coincidence. But maybe whoever mans that factory came into contact with him, or worked with him and was trying to create something similar…I'm not sure...it has to be..."
A stabbing pain started to build in Jaune's left eye, like a migraine only worse. He tried to blink it away, but the ache kept getting stronger. The sun faded, but the shadows remained, grew, became bloated as the world darked all around him, the way it does when dreams drift into nightmares. Only Jaune was awake.
Wasn't he?
"Jaune?" Blake tried. They'd seen Jaune like this before, but her warning had come too late, because her voice now sounded like it was coming from far away, as if she were a memory of someone he had known.
All Jaune could see was the man, his voice getting louder and louder in his ears. A grin grew on his face, becoming bigger and bigger, distorting his appearance. A fiery bolt of rage and fury shot through Jaune, enough that he stopped feeling the pain in his eye and didn't even notice that he'd clenched his hands so hard that they were bleeding-
Two hands grabbed his own and uncurled them gently, wrapping their hands around his own. The pain in his eye disappeared all at once and the dark visions assailing him faded, leaving behind the clearing they were in and the dismayed faces of his teammates.
Blake looked at Jaune with an expression that Jaune couldn't read before she asked him, "How...," Blake started to say, but then paused and said something else, which Jaune was grateful for. He knew what she was about to ask. "Were the soldiers? Did...infusing dust like that make a difference?"
Jaune didn't answer, but Yang did, eager to move the conversation forward. "They were stronger than expected. They didn't have aura, but yet their strength was still boosted by a pretty decent margin. They were also surprisingly fragile, like they had sacrificed their health and defense for strength." And then she turned to look at Jaune.
"I don't think this has anything to do with that man." Jaune opened his mouth to argue, but Yang put her hand up to stop whatever he was going to say. "I don't think that he has anything to do with this, but I still think this is something we need to get to the bottom of."
"And if it is related?" Jaune couldn't help but ask.
"Then we take care of it." Ruby said, still rubbing his hands soothingly with hers. "And if it isn't...we still take care of it."
Jaune felt the last of the tension leave his body, and squeezed Ruby's hands in thanks. She smiled at him, and released her hands. Despite himself, Jaune felt himself missing her hand in his.
Jaune quickly shook that thought out of his head. Or rather he tried to. He wasn't as successful as he would have liked.