I became aware of a buzzing feeling inside of me as we grew closer and closer to the city. It was strange and gave me a crawling feeling under my skin. There was something wrong.

I halted the team and felt their awareness jumped. I felt a rush of pride for my team.

"Something's wrong." I said softly and the message was passed back.

I looked up and counted the stars slowly while I searched for the source of the wrongness. "Dahlia?" Altrich called. "What's wrong?"

I felt the evil and it was closer.

But where?

I centered myself on my feet. "Weapons to hand." I commanded quietly.

They had done it before I had even uttered a single syllable.

Pain coursed through me and Peyton quietly whispered to Altrich. "Whenever you see Dahlia standing evenly on both feet, that is her signal. She only does that when danger is close." Everyone has their own little physical signal. My team had worked together so long that we knew the smallest physical movement that alerted everyone to danger.

Mine, of course, was centering myself on both my feet.

Elise's stance widened and her muscles coiled tightly.

Peyton's fists balled up.

Elin balanced himself on the balls of his feet.

We had no idea what Simon's signal was but when I commanded, he drew his short swords and held them easily in both hands. Studying his grip I came to the conclusion that he was ambidextrous.

I began walking quickly and quietly, all my senses bent on the feelings that called to me.

I didn't even hear my team behind me. I only knew they followed by the alertness that flowed through them, mixed with nervousness and grim anticipation.

It was still dark but like most Faunus, I could see as well at night as in day.

As we grew closer and closer to the city, the terrible feeling I had been vaguely feeling all day grew.

This place was tainted and I felt it reaching up to me through the soles of my feet.

Suddenly I felt Ruby, Yang, Blake, Weiss and Doctor Oobleck. In the city, and four out of five were asleep.

I calmed down but the evil was so close. "Team RWBY is safe." I murmured and the message was passed back.

I halted, my senses swinging directly East of where we were standing. I motioned the team in the direction and began moving quickly through the forests' undergrowth.

I didn't feel anything around me. I didn't even have my eyes open.

I just focused on the energy currents surrounding me.

"Halt." Altrich said quietly and that brought me to a full stop.

Only then did I notice the change in the air.

I had just about strolled into a deep, dark cave without knowing it.

I looked at the team and made the sign for I'm sorry. A fist rubbed in a circle over your upper chest.

We moved to the side of the cave so nothing would echo.

"We don't know what's down there." Elin whispered.

We all nodded. We honestly didn't know anything. We had only been here a few hours. Soon the sun would be rising and we'd have to take cover.

"I'll check the city really fast. Team RWBY is safe right now but there is something really wrong here."

Altrich looked at me funny and a stressed Peyton explained it to him in a few short sentences.

I closed my eyes and swiftly sent out the strands of my Healing Semblance in ever widening rings around me into the forest and the city.

My heart thumped.

I zoomed through abandoned streets and buildings and found team RWBY exactly how I'd left them. Except Blake was now on watch instead of Ruby. And there were two unfamiliar presences in the city that I could not identify. I prepared to follow them.

I kneeled down and put my hand on the ground for balance.

Annoyance. Frustration. A tinge of panic. Fury. Resentment.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. One strand of my Semblance had traveled through my hand into the Earth beneath me. It found a single, young girl. A Faunus by the feel. What was she doing underground?

I gasped and Elise was next to me in an instant. "Dahlia, what is it?"

"They are beneath us..." I breathed. Peyton paled and his heartbeat grew loud. "Peyton, what is wrong?" Elin said worried.

I opened my eyes and looked into Peyton's green eyes. He was visibly shaking and I had to stand and lay a hand on his arm, to calm him. What was it about the place that set easy-going Peyton on edge so much that he shook thinking about it?

He typed something into the panels on his right arm. We all moved farther away from the cave opening.

"Mountain Glenn was Vale's first serious attempt at expansion. It worked for a short period of time using aggressive perimeter defense and unique transportation to and from the inner Kingdom of Vale. But due to the lack of the many natural barriers that protect the Kingdom of Vale, Mountain Glenn was doomed to fail from the very start. And as the Grimm invaded, the people took refuge beneath the city in the elaborate tunnels and caves they had cleared out for the subways and completely cut themselves off from the surface. It was a last resort for survival. It worked for a short period of time. Until... Until one d-day, there was an enormous explosion. No one knows who caused it but it blew open an entrance into another cavern... filled with subterranean Grimm... it was a massacre. Only a few made it out alive thanks to the quick work of the Huntsman and Huntress that were stationed there. The rest..." Peyton took a deep breath and let it out shakily. "The Kingdom sealed of the caves and fenced off Mountain Glenn permanently. And below the streets of the city above, is the real Mountain Glenn... the world's largest tomb."

A single tear dripped from his right eye and Elin brushed it away.

No one wanted to ask the questions that I could feel coming from everyone including me.

This was one scar on Peyton's soul that I could not Heal. It still bled every time Peyton brushed against it.

But now was not the time to be having mental breakdowns. Now was the time for action. I closed my eyes again and put both hands on the ground. Hundreds of Strands shot through the Earth and I found what I had been searching for since we had touched down.

There were so many of them.

I should have thought about that because when I opened my eyes, I was laying on the ground.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"I've found them. It's true. They are in the underground city. It's the White Fang. And others. I got a feel of team RWBY before I fainted. They are still above... still safe...There are so many of them." I murmured as Elise propped me up.

Peyton stared into nothing, memories floating before his eyes and I reached out a few strands to brush away the nightmares that had immobilized him. "Later Peyton. We need you now." I whispered and he nodded, helping me up. "I'm sorry." He said ashamed. Elin wrapped an arm around his boyfriend's waist. It was what Peyton needed.

"We have to go down there." I said, leaning on Orchid.

"She's right. I'll go scout first. Hide yourselves till I get back. Dahlia keep tabs on me."

I nodded and we watched as Simon activated his Semblance and he disappeared before our eyes. "When you reached the bottom of the cave, go left." I murmured.

I stretched a strand out to him and 'tied' it around his Aura.

We didn't hear him enter the cave. He was good at what he did.

Elin held Peyton for a little while, soothing him with his love and beating heart.

Elise sat with me, making sure I didn't faint again from the press of emotions that had overloaded me earlier. I explained to her that the only reason that happened was because I had opened myself fully to all the people down there.

She shuddered when I described what it was like when you let everyone in.

"It's kind of like this. Usually, when I'm not using my gift, I'm blocked off to everyone except the few people I'm nearest. That's why I can pick up on everyone's mood if they are in close proximity to me, even when I'm blocked. When I activate my Semblance, it's like reaching out and touching one person and I almost become a part of that person. With multiple people, like when I soothed everyone that one time after the Forever Fall incident, I divide myself up between everyone, using the strands of my Semblance like attaching strings. Yet, no matter what, there is still a part of me that is me. When I open myself up to all of those people, I literally divide myself down into all of those people. I am a thousand different feelings and personalities and it literally has driven me insane before. No one person can take the weight of everyone's emotions and still remain themselves. It's literally losing all of you in a press of people. Like being in a tiny elevator by yourself one minute, then fifty people are suddenly with you the next. You can't breathe and everyone is touching each other and you feel like you are slowly suffocating. I literally could drown myself in the burdens of an entire population. The cost would be my sanity and my Self. That's why I'm very careful when opening myself up. I didn't worry too much about it here because this place is deserted, but there is an entire city beneath us and I accidentally drowned myself in them, so I fainted. My body's way of protecting me from the overload. When I'm Healing though, whether body, mind or soul, I wrap a strand or a few strands around you and as I become a part of you, I ask your body or mind or soul to do what I want it to do which is Heal the injury. I coerce it to do what I want and then it does it."

She just stared at me funny. "Luckily, we're all mad here." She said quietly.

Elin came over and needed to talk to Elise. He felt edgy and twitchy inside. Dread filled his stomach and I sighed. This place was messing with my team.

Maybe that is the brilliance of setting up base here.

I shivered thinking about it. What if someone knew we would be here and had chosen this place because they knew it would mess with the heads of my team. I shook off the idea violently. I only knew one man who could've known such private information.

I scooted over to Peyton, who now just felt very numb inside.

This place was a poison in his soul.

Luckily, I was the one of the cures to this poison. Elin and Elise were the others.

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. I already knew.

Now I had the answer to what happened to the Summer's family. Why Peyton had chosen to become a Huntsman of all things. A Huntress had saved his life, in the massacre. She just wasn't fast enough to save his parents or his siblings.

I just sat next to him and stared at the stars that had yet to fade for morning.

My slim calloused hand slipped into his enormous hand and he squeezed it tight. Not too tight but tight enough that he could feel the blood pumping through my fingers. He struggled to focus on the here and now, to see the living people he cared about that were right in front of them.

Because the phantoms he saw before his eyes were those that had him screaming awake sometimes in the middle of the night, when only I was awake.

The saddest part of all that, was each member of team DEEP had at one time or another had done the same thing. My team was full of traumatize teenagers doing our best to stay sane, while the nightmares that plagued us nibbled at the edges of our sanity.

There had been many screams from our room that we had never explained to outsiders.

And yet, blessing of all blessings there was my Semblance. My power to command a body, mind and soul to Heal itself.

The only one it didn't work on was me.

I brushed away the tangles of the phantoms and Peyton looked at me with undiluted gratitude. He didn't have to tell me what he saw. I didn't need to know. All I needed was to protect him from his own mind while he built up his own walls to keep them out.

My Semblance had never let me down.

"Do you think he's alright?" Peyton whispered. I nodded. Altrich was surprisingly calm as he swept through the dark tunnels. This was his element.

I delved deeper into his Self and got the answer I had been wondering since I met him.

He wasn't an assassin. Thank the Gods.

He was a scout. A really good one too. Who do you send in first? The Flag bearer or the Scouts?

"With a Semblance like his, he will be fine as long as he doesn't do something really dumb." I said, leaning my head back against the tree we sat against. Silence overtook us as we waited on the twins.

"Dahlia... why are you here?" He asked quietly.

I cracked an eye at him. "Hmm?"

"I'm just curious. I know you don't like it when people ask you about your life, but... why do you want to be a Huntress? Why are you here, in this godforsaken place in the middle of the night with a bunch of young idiots to take care of, risking your life for nothing? With a Semblance like yours, you could do anything, you could be anything you want to be. So why this?"

I thought about his question for a long time. It wasn't one I thought about often.

"You really want to know?" I asked softly.

He nodded and turned his head so he could look down into my dark blue eyes.

"Peyton... I've done some truly terrible things in my life. Things that nothing I do will ever fix. Everything I do, I do to balance the odds. To, if not fix the mistakes I've made, to make up for them. When I die and I kneel before the Gods to be judged, they will see the horrible things that I have done... but I also want them to see the good I've done to balance it. I was given the gift to Heal. But I was also raised up to kill. It's one of the things I'm best at. With such a combination of skills, there are two sides of the line I can stand on. I stood on one side for my entire life up until a year and a half ago. Now I want to stand on the other side. I want to stand in the light. And Huntsmen and Huntresses are the ultimate light. The noblest of warriors. They were the complete opposite of what I was. They were what I fought against. So I figured, if I truly want to leave behind that life, I should become the exact opposite of what I was. When I decided that, it took me a long time to get up the courage to come here. The man who saved me from that life I lived was a Huntsman and he told me that I had the makings of a great Huntress. I always thought that I'd never be able to be anything but what I was." I smiled at him. "And then I met all of you. You changed my entire world. Now I have something to fight for besides my own pitiful self. I have love and friends that I never dreamed I'd have. And I'll do anything and everything to protect that now that I have it. I now have honor, which is something I never had. I want to be a Huntress because there is nothing else I'd rather be."

I was a little embarrassed by my passionate response but it was something Peyton understood.

"That's truly incredible, Dahlia. Truly. I can't imagine the bravery it would take to literally turn your whole life around. But I'm glad you did." I grinned.

"This misfit band of traumatized idiots needs you to lead it. We've all become things we never thought we could be. We have become as you say, shadows in the night. The hidden blade against the enemies of our world. We are not the shining light of hope but we are the Beacon that is not seen but everyone feels."

I had never heard a truer statement of what team DEEP was.

It was my training, my influence that made us so much different than all of our other sister teams.

We would never be like team RWBY or team JNPR or team CFVY.

We would always be different.

A rustle and the twins joined us, Elin feeling strained and Elise feeling frustrated.

I smiled gently and went to work easing my friend's harsh feelings. Then we talked a little while longer. I felt good inside though. I had come to a simple truth and something inside me that had been broken for a long time settled back into its rightful place.

I am a Huntress.

We waited a long time before I felt Simon sprinting back to us. I was on my feet instantly, Orchid in my hand. I made the sign for 'He's back' and the rest of them team joined me.

Simon ran out breathing heavily. "We haven't much time. You were right, oh Gods, you were right. There are so many down there. We can't possibly fight all of them. We are not prepared for that kind of force. And one other thing..." He said gulping down air.

I siphoned off some of my own energy to him to help him recover faster.

"The... little red-headed girl... Ruby Rose... she's been captured."

We all turned pale.

"H-How?"

He shook his head, regaining strength. "All I heard was there was a street cave in and she fell through, unarmed into an upper level of the base and was caught by two sentries. What I saw was the two sentries dragging the semiconscious girl through to the base to meet up with the 'boss', whom I identified as Roman Torchwick." I nodded. Nothing surprising except that Ruby had gotten captured.

That would be bad.

I gently sent a thought towards the city. Three of four were asleep. Yang was awake on guard. I just couldn't nudge her enough to panic about Ruby. I was frustrated with myself for that.

"Well, what's the plan?" Elin asked. Everyone, including Altrich looked at me. I mentally smacked myself in the forehead. I had forgotten my pseudo leadership on our shadowing assignment.

"We need to get inside. We need to get Ruby out of their without directly interfering in her mission. Remember we aren't here technically. We need to do as much damage to their operation as possible without getting caught." I said, laying it all out there.

When I put it that way, it didn't seem like such a daunting task.

"I've found the center of their encampment. If Roman is anywhere, he'll be there." Simon whispered quietly. I nodded. "Good work. Show us."

Team DEEP quickly changed from our everyday battle gear into our other gear. The one that changed us from students at Beacon to a team of highly trained assa-

I pulled myself to a halt at this thought.

We are not assassins.

I pulled on the molded matte leather body suit, the gloves, the boots and then I wrapped my hair and face up so only my eyes could be seen. The same with my whole team.

Simon pulled a hood up over his head and wrapped a scarf around his mouth and nose. "Follow me." He said and he went invisible. I went behind him then Peyton, Elin and Elise brought up the rear.

And we entered the darkness, yet we felt no fear.

Quieter than shadows, we slipped through the caves like oil through the darkness. I had a firm hold on Simon's Aura and I guided my team deeper and deeper into the snake pit.

What we found at the bottom caused even my heart to stop.

It was literally an underground city. Deserted except for its new inhabitants. I saw hundreds of Atlesian Paladins, and felt the press of hundreds of souls against my own.

I felt like I needed to laugh. An underground crime network…