"So." Qrow said, leaning back against the windowsill by Ozpin's desk as he looked between the others in the room. It was yet another one of their normal morning meetings, all looking to discuss the grimm threat just outside of the city. The big difference was that this morning, Bartholomew Oobleck had been called up to join in on the meeting.

And really, that wasn't a big deal. Qrow was a little annoyed by it, but the guy was there for a reason. "What do we have that's new?"

"Not much, I'm afraid." Bart said quickly, between sips of coffee. "The grimm is indeed large, seemingly a member of the Minos family. Although, it is much larger than a King Minos-" He paused, reaching for a notebook that he kept stored away in his pocket before pulling it out and flipping it open to check his field notes for anything of interest. Qrow craned his neck slightly to try and see for himself, but wasn't able to make anything out in Bart's hurried scrawl.

Qrow paused and nodded along, thinking hard. "So how many do you think we'd need to send out to fight it-"

"Is moving forward in fighting it truly the best course of action that we could take?" Glynda spoke up. She was leaning against the edge of Ozpin's desk and checking something on her scroll. "Nothing that we've seen from this particular grimm has indicated that it is a serious threat aside from its size. Which is concerning enough on its own."

"It doesn't matter if there's anything unique about it." James said, his voice hard and his expression a little too distant for Qrow's liking. "Any grimm of that size is a threat and we must do something to deal with it."

Ozpin was sitting there at their desk, silent and focused on their coffee. Once in awhile they would take a moment to shift some of the paperwork that was on their desk around like they thought they would find something to help there. Qrow looked over at them and raised an eyebrow, but they didn't look up at him. Qrow wanted to be bothered by it, but he couldn't quite bring himself to be.

"What do you think, Oz?" Qrow asked, since it was probably for the best that they actually have Ozpin involved with the conversation. "We could probably use your input."

For the first time that morning, Ozpin finally seemed to be paying attention to everything that was going on around them. Qrow couldn't help but think that they seemed to be a thousand miles away in that moment. It was too awkward, and Qrow didn't know what he could do to drag Ozpin back to them.

Ozpin looked amongst all of them, their expression as cold as it always was as they looked between all of them. The headmaster let out a quiet sigh and leaned forward so that they could brace themself against their desk. "The best course of action is for us to keep our distance from the grimm until it becomes necessary to intervene."

They looked over at James, and the General picked his head up so that he wasn't wrapped up with whatever was on his scroll anymore. James stowed the black scroll away in his pocket as he remembered himself. "Yes, Ozpin?"

"James," Ozpin began, their voice terrifyingly even and calm. "Will you be able to acquire specialists to aid in removing the threat if necessary?"

Qrow paused, because that wasn't the sort of question that would normally get asked. Normally Ozpin would go ahead and do everything on their own rather than looking to someone else for help. Qrow sincerely wanted to believe that this was just Ozpin reaching out to James in hopes that they would be able to smooth some of the awkwardness over.

A show of trust, and they all knew that was something that James would respond well to if it was given to him.

He looked between James and Ozpin, and watched the way that James' expression shifted slightly. He hesitated a long moment and then began to answer. "Specialists Schnee, Patina, and Claret are either within or near the kingdom and would be able to be contacted if the need came." James' eyes glazed over with that look that he always got that made Qrow suspect that James had a computer in his brain of some sort. "I would hope that it wouldn't come to that, though." James said, his expression going blank all at once.

"I just wanted to know that you would be able to get some sort of backup should we require it." Ozpin explained, their expression blank. "Which would you recommend for our purposes?"

"Specialist Schnee has always been exceptional in her skill level." James said, his eyes flickering over to the window so that he could search for something outside. Qrow had a feeling that he knew exactly what the man was thinking about.

The fact that the Schnee airship hadn't yet left had to be one of those things that was constantly on James' mind. Qrow hadn't bothered to ask James much about how his work was going, but Qrow had to guess it was going poorly based on James' nervousness. "She's the most well suited for a high level threat of this sort."

Qrow didn't say anything, since it definitely wasn't his place to go ahead and do so. this was strictly between James and Ozpin, even if Qrow was fairly certain that he was going to have a hand in whatever needed to be done later on down the line. If they sent a squad of students out into the field to fight the grimm, then Qrow was either going to be assigned to them or he was going to be sure to follow along after them anyways.

Ozpin nodded slowly, understanding and as calm as ever before finally responding. "If she is needed, then I'll be sure to alert you to that fact, James." They picked their head up and looked over at Oobleck and Glynda, hesitating for a moment before finally speaking again. "Can I trust that you two will be able to make sure that anyone we send into the field will be well-prepared?"

"Of course, Professor Ozpin." Glynda affirmed, standing there with her head held high and her expression as calm as ever. "I'll be doing combat classes for first and third years today, and second and fourth years tomorrow. I'll be sure to use them as a selection process for your team."

Ozpin nodded in understanding and looked over at Qrow. Based on everything that was going on so far, Qrow didn't actually know what he would be able to do other than keep an outside view. It wasn't as if students at Beacon weren't used to him dropping in whenever or wherever it suited him.

"What about me?" Qrow asked, picking the question up before Ozpin could get a chance to ask it. "I figure that whatever you want, it's going to be something complicated."

Ozpin smiled softly, and Qrow didn't mind it. He was in their good graces, and that was one of the things that he could always fall back on when things got hard. "Qrow-" Ozpin sighed, turning in their seat to face him. "I would like you to continue with your usual reconnaissance missions if you can. In addition, do your best to check in on Glynda's chosen students and see whether you think they are capable. I trust you."

It was just as expected. Qrow let a slow smile split his face and nodded. "Sounds good, Oz." He said calmly. "I'll be sure to get on that."

"Good." Ozpin got to their feet and looked between the others in the room. Their eyes lingered on James for a moment too long, and then they were all being sent off, with Ozpin quietly making the request that James stay behind so that they could speak further.

Qrow felt his stomach flip, but did his best to ignore the feeling for fear of what would happen if he tried to speak up on the topic. It wasn't a good idea, he knew that fully well.

So instead of leaving the normal way, Qrow found a window, muttered a goodbye over his shoulder, shifted into a crow, and flew off over the forests.

The morning came with all of the smoothness of rockfall. Hazel woke feeling like his entire body had been shattered over and over. His chest was aching, his head, hurt, and he felt like he had the worst hangover that he'd experienced in a very long time.

Whether or not certain things had even happened the night before were up for debate in his mind.

He forced himself and forced himself to take a look around the campsite. All of the others were still asleep, and Hazel didn't want to dwell on that too much. They had to be alive at the very least, if the gentle rising and falling of their chests was any indicator. Whether or not there would be further damage to their bodies was something that was up for debate.

Hazel stood up, almost shaky, and looked down at himself. There was no stain of black on his clothing, nor was there red.

Maybe it had been a dream then.

The man took a moment to grab his jacket and pull it around himself before wandering away from the campsite in the hopes that he would be able to distract himself away from some of the things that were on his mind. There had been a stream nearby when Hazel had gone out on his patrols, and so that became his destination.

He walked into the forest and checked his pockets to ensure that he was still armed as he went further and further in. The Dust crystals he'd gotten days before sat heavy in his pockets, and that was the best reassurance that Hazel could have hoped for.

Slowly, as Hazel continued his trek and allowed himself to think on what he'd seen, the feel of Her hands, the sound of Her voice in his ear, some of his stress began to ebb away.

If the story that he had was consistent with whatever the others were going to be reporting, then perhaps that meant that they'd found their goal.

The only question was then what came after.

Sunlight was just beginning to glint through the trees, and its glare made Hazel's eyes ache. Soon enough he would start feeling like a normal person again, Hazel hoped. All of his problems would surely start to fade in time.

Hazel let his hand run over the bark of one of the trees, feeling it over for the cut that he'd made into it the day before. The X was there, jagged and raw and standing out too brightly against the rest of the tree. A landmark of his own choosing.

With that information in mind, Hazel was able to push his way through the underbrush and the sound of running water filled his mind.

Except what Hazel found there wasn't water.

Instead, it was a black sludge, much like Hazel had been sure that he'd been covered in the night before. It set off alarms in his head and Hazel knew then that he had to follow up on what he'd found.

Either this was a very good thing, or it was a very bad thing.

Old instincts that he'd picked up ages before told him that this was going to be bad.

Hazel's current mission spoke exactly to the contrary to that thought.

He stopped at the edge of the ichor stream and lowered himself down to one knee before reaching down and letting the tips of his fingers brush over the liquid. It burned, and that was a good indicator that it was the real thing if there ever was one. Hazel stood up and quickly wiped any remnants away from his hand before beginning to follow the way upstream to see if he could find a source. Once he found that, Hazel was sure that he was going to be able to double back and see if there was a place where it was all collecting.

The good thing about it was that the walk wasn't a particularly hard one. If anything, it ended up feeling like a light walk where it if weren't for what he was doing, Hazel would have been able to relax. But with that bouncing around in the back of his mind and a whisper that made no sense to him echoing through his thoughts, that wasn't exactly possible.

Hazel might have hiked for half an hour before he finally found a starting point for the stream of black. It was pouring out of a crack in a rock cliff. Hazel didn't want to know what was on the other side of the wall, really, but it was good to have a place where they could go if the need arose.

A quick photo on his scroll was all that he needed before Hazel turned and began to follow the ichor back south.

When he reached the point where he'd started, Hazel decided to go back off towards their base camp in the hopes that he would be able to collect his teammates before moving on. Ideally they would all be there for whatever it was that they needed to do, and then after that they would see what happened.

The camp was at least awake when Hazel got there. Tyrian was up and balling his bedroll back up, looking a little bit more than just disheveled. Hazel supposed that it could have been much worse. Cinder was also up, but she was off to the side with Watts as the two of them did some sort of medical check.

"Up." Hazel announced his presence, and almost immediately Arthur had turned his eyes onto him with so much intensity that Hazel almost wanted to shrink back away from the other man.

Almost.

"Hazel-" Watts began, his tone sneering and almost angry. "For what reason would we have the pleasure of your presence?"

"Found something." Hazel said, deciding that it was for the best not to say too much, if only because he didn't want to have any part in starting a panic amongst their group. He crossed the camp and stopped at Arthur's side before offering his scroll and the photo on it.

Watts' eyes widened in understanding and he stared up at Hazel. The only response that Hazel was a nod before he turned his hand and offered a good look at his burnt fingers.

"We should go." Hazel said, as calm as he could. "As soon as you're ready."

"Understood." Arthur said calmly as he turned back to Cinder to mutter something.

Hazel slipped away to give the man some space before he began to pack his own things away. No matter what, Hazel was intending for them to be on the move that day instead of staying in one place that day. Surely if they had found what they were looking for, they weren't going to be staying long.

If this was in fact the thing that they were looking for, then Hazel didn't think it was a good idea for them to stick around and wait for something bad to happen.

Grimm were a pain to deal with even when they weren't the size of mountains. Granted, whatever pulled itself out of the Spawning Pool would be small and weak by comparison, but if they didn't have to risk things, then Hazel wasn't content to risk them.

Not when they had injured people in their group. Not when there were so many ways that things could go wrong for them.

It wasn't long at all before Cinder, Arthur, and Tyrian were all ready to go, and once their team had been collected Hazel began to lead their trek out into the forest.

"So." Arthur was the first member of their group to speak up, and Hazel only responded with a grunt to make it clear that he was actually listening along. "What made you find this anyways?"

"Wanted to stop by the stream and clean up." Hazel mumbled. "It was water last night."

"Was it, now?" Arthur hummed, interested and curious about what else there was that could come to the forefront. "So this is rather unusual."

"Yes." Hazel said, though he didn't actually think that he was managing to communicate anything that would be of much use in that moment. "Which is why it's for the best if we go ahead and do what we can to investigate it."

"I understood the point." Arthur retorted, already sounding bored. "How much of a walk was it upstream to find that?"

"Half hour." Hazel mumbled. "I haven't followed it upstream or downstream all the way yet." He reached out and pushed the bushes aside to finally give his teammates a view of what was on the other side of them.

There, just the same as it had been when Hazel had left it, was the black water.

The only difference was now it began to ripple slowly in the opposite direction of the flow of the liquid as they got closer. It was almost as though the black was somehow attracted to them.

Maybe it had been doing the same thing when Hazel had come there earlier, he though. But now it was different, and Hazel didn't know how to read into it.

Hazel supposed that there had to be something to it. There had to be some sort of magnetic force about the four of them that was changing how the world worked.

It could just be one of us, a voice in the back of Hazel's mind whispered, and he wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to listen to it or not. There were too many strange implications about what was happening already. They were dabbling with things beyond the realm of understanding of a normal man.

And down in the pit of his heart, Hazel knew that thinking about it in the terms of a situation where the black was drawn to only /one/ of them was too much. Somehow it diminished what they were capable.

He'd already been there.

The ichor hadn't moved for him alone.

"Hazel?" Arthur asked, turning to face him properly with his face so unamused that Hazel didn't know what he wanted to think of it. There had to be something to it, something dwelling in the back of Arthur's mind.

Hazel wondered whether the waters would move for Arthur alone.

"That's new." Hazel muttered, shoving his hands down into his pockets and letting his thumb rub over the hard stone of the Dust crystals there. For some reason, it didn't bring him any comfort to know that he was only seconds away from arming himself at any moment.

But Arthur stared him down, looking like he didn't believe a word that Hazel said, and Hazel wished that he could feel offense over that. It only made sense that Arthur didn't trust him when the two of them so rarely even bothered to make anything mutual aside from work.

"I see." He said, looking down the stream. Hazel let his gaze after Arthur's. He saw that Tyrian had moved up to the edge of the waters, and that he was kneeling down, reaching out like he was about to shove his hand into it.

Remembering what had happened when he'd touched it, Hazel took a few steps forward and grabbed Tyrian by the torn collar of his shirt to tug him back. "Don't touch." He ordered as he began to lead the expedition downstream until the three of them finally found something.

As much as he hated it, it only made too much sense when the four of them walked together in relative silence. Hazel figured that Arthur was doing his best to remember everything that they saw that day. Already Hazel was sure that they were going to eventually stop somewhere and search old legends for anything that could suggest what they were dealing with.

Spawning pools were already one of those few poorly understood things. There were stories and there were theories, but they were so plentiful in numbers that figuring out which ones were worth remembering was incredibly difficult.

The trek was hard, and Hazel allowed himself to drop back slightly for the sake of walking alongside Cinder before the girl could find herself getting left behind. He had his suspicions that Cinder's injuries hadn't yet healed fully, and pushing her wouldn't bring any good to them.

Finally, the landscape seemed to break apart.

There, standing in the centre of a large clearing was a pool of blackness, so deep that Hazel found it almost disorienting to look at it. One step in, and he was sure that someone would drown before they charred to death. It was an endless black, a void that seemed to be just waiting for something either fill it or emerge from it.

The water stopped moving the second that all four of them had made their way into the clearing and all of them were looking down at it.

"This-" Tyrian began, taking a shaky half-step towards the waters. "-This is what I-"

"Yes, we know." Arthur cut Tyrian off without much thought put into the action. "Have you ever seen one before?" He was staring at Hazel, and Hazel had to think for a long moment to think of an answer.

Somewhere, swimming in the back of his mind, Hazel could think of something like this.

But there were details that were wrong about it. What he'd seen before had been in extraordinary circumstances. He'd watched Dust turn to ichor in his hands. He'd felt it burn and slip away from him.

This was not like that, Hazel was sure of it. All that he had to do was check his pocket to be sure of it.

Hazel swallowed hard, and removed his hands from his pockets.

"Not like this." He finally said, quietly, pushing that old memory back in his mind. "It's completely different."

Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"I can't explain it." Hazel finally clarified. "It's just different."

"Understood." Arthur muttered. "So do we stand by and wait?"

"I believe that it would please our Goddess-" Tyrian said, crouching down at the edge of the pool and reaching down for its waters again. Already Hazel could feel the urge to yell and force the man away from his quarry rising in his chest, but he decided against saying anything this time. Perhaps it was for the best to let the boy be burned for his own foolish mistakes.

Cinder stepped up to the side of the black sludge and looked down into it, and Hazel felt another nervous wave wash over him.

There was something down in the marrow of his bones that told him that they should have been running. It was an instinctual thing that he couldn't ignore, and yet he forced himself to ignore the thought. They needed to be there, regardless of what his years of training had told him. For now, they had to both embrace and ignore every old wive's tale and every legend they'd ever heard.

It was never going to be easy.

Tyrian reached into the water and let out a loud yelp, jumping back from it.

/Good/ a voice in the back of Hazel's mind whispered.

Cinder looked at him and Watts and she opened her mouth to say something.

"Yes?" Arthur asked, focusing all of his attention on the girl already and readying himself to listen to whatever she managed to gasp out. "What do you want?"

"We should stay." She said, and her eyes widened at the realization that the words had come out strong and clear.

"When did you recover, girl?" Arthur sneered, already with something dangerous and angry glinting in his eyes. "You haven't spoken properly in days."

Cinder looked just as confused and Hazel felt, and so Hazel couldn't help but think that he had an idea.

He faced the girl properly and forced eye contact with her. "Did you see Her last night?"

Cinder blinked and hesitated before nodding slowly. "Yes."

Hazel looked at Arthur, waiting for him to say something. "And you?"

"Yes, of course." Arthur clicked his tongue along with the statement. "Of course I saw Her."

"That explains it." Hazel muttered. "This isn't logic that we're working with. She changes the rules, you know that Arthur."

"Our Goddess changes rules?" Tyrian asked, finally forcing himself into the conversation. "What do you-"

Arthur snapped his attention to Tyrian and there was such great intensity written across his face that Hazel didn't want to intervene. A quick glance down at Tyrian's hand told him that the man was indeed burned from touching the blackness.

"She's a goddess, Beast." Arthur sneered. "It would do you some good to pay attention." His eyes snapped back over to Hazel. "And they say the Faunus have better hearing."

Hazel grimaced and balled his hands into fists out of pure annoyance, but said nothing. It wasn't worth it to engage with Arthur when they were on unfamiliar ground with unknown factors at play.

Tyrian was staring between the two of them with a look of hurt written clearly across his face. "But-"

"Tyrian." Hazel spoke up. "Gods work through the divine. She does not follow our rules."

That was enough. The thin man clamped his mouth shut and his eyes barely managed to focus on the ground in front of him. It was about the best that he could have hoped for, Hazel thought to himself.

"So we stay then." Cinder spoke up, seeming a little bit more confident than she had been earlier on. Whatever had given the girl her voice back, it was powerful.

Hazel had his suspicions, but didn't say anything on the matter because there was still so much that would need to be assessed before anything could be said with regard to the matter for sure.

"We don't know what's here." Hazel spoke up, swallowing. "Or what will be here."

"Hazel is correct." Arthur added. "Spawning pools bring grimm, and grimm bring trouble." The man's face split into a too devilish smile before he brought himself to continue. "I'm guessing that you've never faced the genuine thing in battle, have you girl?"

Cinder paused and her eyes narrowed. Hazel watcher her expression contort into anger, even if it seemed to be fairly painful to allow for that to happen. Clearly Arthur had managed to strike some sort of nerve, regardless of whether Cinder would openly acknowledge that or not.

"I thought as much." The thin man finished, deciding that he didn't want to give Cinder the chance to answer. "I propose that we maintain our camp, but make the trek to this location come nightfall. That way we won't be sleeping and can't be caught off guard."

"Agreed." Hazel growled. "In which case, we should return to camp and rest."

Arthur gave a look that managed to show nothing more than pure annoyance, and Hazel wished that there was something that was able to keep him from feeling annoyed by it himself. The fact was that they needed to go ahead and try to do something and fulfill their destiny.

Whatever that may be.

"If we're going to do this," Hazel continued, because it meant that he was going to be able to lead the way and he would be able to get them out to the camp. "Then we need to be sure to return to camp, but we also need to be sure that we have food for tonight."

Arthur sighed heavily and raised a hand to show that he was in fact relenting with regard to what they were doing. It could have been much worst, Hazel thought.

It was enough.

The four of them ended up staying there for another hour to investigate. Only then did they finally return to camp to rest.

When Hazel slept, he dreamed only of a scene somewhere in his back, when the world had begun to rot.