Here's Chapter 12 of RWBY: Necrophobia. Enjoy.
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The Cerca Mine Incident Part 1
"Wow, this place has changed quite a bit." Adala Schnee said aloud, her daughter never straying far from her.
"You've been here before?" Ari asked.
"Of course." Adala answered as they walked through the entrance hall. "I've overseen almost every major development here."
"Hmm, I didn't know that." Ari said. "Any reason for that? I'd assume you'd have other work to do."
"Well most of the company is run by my husband. Cerca Mine is the only facility that I overlook. It actually started out as a pet project of mine, but then grew to be one of our greatest sources of profit."
"Is that so?" Ari said. "Care to tell me how a personal project came to be the single biggest Dust mine on the planet?"
"Maybe later." Adala said. The story on how this place came to be…wasn't something to talk about in earshot of others. They might freak out or not give her a chance to explain.
They continued to walk through the entrance hall. The hall was filled with the echo of footsteps, moving across the tiles. Unlike other mines, the interior of Cerca Mine looked much more like the interior of an office building, rather than an underground mine.
"Mrs. Schnee-" Ari began.
"Please, call me Adala."
"Alright then. Adala, I was wondering why this place has these hallways? Don't get me wrong, these things are great, but it seems a bit eccentric for a Dust mine."
"Acutally, there's also a story to that." Adala said.
"I take it you want to wait on that one as well?"
"Actually this one I don't mind sharing now." At those words, Weiss's head perked up. Ari chuckled, noticing the little girl's reaction. It reminded him of his own daughter whenever he entered her room, carrying a book for a bedtime story.
"During one of the earlier days of Cerca Mine, before the perimeter wall was complete, several Grimm got close enough to the mine to trigger a lockdown. I was inside, talking to some of the engineers, trying to figure out what materials they needed purchased for construction. The blast doors were already in place, so no one was in danger. But…I just couldn't shake the feeling of being…buried. Only things around were the rock faces and steel beams, lit up by just a handful of lights. Then I realized, 'Wow, this is all our workers see all day'. So, I decided to order these halls for the mine. I figured it was better to feel like you were in a building, rather than in a hole."
"I'll agree with that." Ari said. "I think the Nomad groups don't mind the layout either."
"Do travelers come here often?" Adala asked.
"Sometimes." Ari answered. "This is one of the safest places outside of the kingdoms. It makes sense that it'd be a pit stop for any wandering groups. And with that temple up on top of the mountain, it was already a location that nomads visited."
"I'll be honest, those ruins up top always creeped me out." Adala said.
"Trust me, the feeling's universal." Ari said. "Every now and again, some groups will show up there for some sort of worship or rituals…I met some of those groups and, I'll be honest, they freaked me out. How anyone could feel comfortable in that temple is beyond me."
"Well, it was one of the only places that Nomads could stay for free." Adala replied. "And it might have something to do with their beliefs. Who knows? Maybe it used to be a bit more inviting in its prime."
"Maybe…" Ari said. He looked down and noticed that Weiss still seemed to be listening. Upon realizing that Ari had shifted his gaze to her, she shrank back behind her mother's leg again.
"Hmm, so, why did you bring your daughter here?" He asked, curiously. "I'm not judging. Heck, I'd bring my own daughter here. After all, this place can be a sight to see."
"Took the words right out of my mouth." Adala said. "I…I've felt like my family doesn't spend much time together anymore. So, I decided this might be a nice little mother-daughter trip. You know, spend some time together."
Adala stopped when she felt something on her leg. She looked down to see that Weiss had her legs gripped in a tight hug. Smiling, Adala bent down and gave her daughter a small kiss on her forehead. "Thank you sweetie."
Ari looked at the sight and smiled. He pulled his scroll out of his pocket and discreetly opened it. He flipped through a file and a small smile grew on his face.
"What are you looking at?" Adala asked.
"Nothing." Ari said, hastily putting his scroll back in his pocket. He stopped walking. "Uh, now that I think about it, there was some work being done up ahead, so we have to take a bit of a detour. Follow me."
Adala raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "You heard the man. Come along Weiss."
The little girl merely nodded and walked close to her mother. The two Schnees followed the faunus as he turned into another hallway. This hallway was much dimmer, with several lights flickering, dull, or off entirely. Adala looked at the lights in surprise.
"What's with this lighting?" She asked, surprised that anything in Cerca Mine was in poor maintenance.
"What do you- Ohhh…" Ari said, realizing what she meant. "Sorry about that. There are spots like that spread throughout the mine. After a while you get to the point where y1"ou don't notice." Ari started shifting his gaze around the wall. "There should be a-Ah! There it is!" He pointed to a piece of neon orange tape on the wall. There was a few words and numbers on it, but Adala couldn't make them out. "A while back some guy had a pretty good idea. In order to make sure that we don't flood the maintenance crew with fifty, sixty of the same report of broken lights, when they get a report, they just slap a piece of tape on it. That way they don't get swamped with repeat notifications and we know that they're on it."
"That is a good idea." Adala said as she looked at the tape. "But how long have these lights been out? A good idea doesn't mean much if no one uses it to its fullest."
"…I suppose that's a fair statement." Ari said. He leaned closer to the tape. It was high on the wall, but he eventually could make it out. "Let's see…dated reported…Ah, these were reported two days ago with replaces supposed to come in…Oh," He turned towards Adala. "Replacement should be coming in tomorrow."
"Good." She said, silently impressed with how an estimated repair time was recorded. "I was thinking that it might have been like that for weeks or something."
"No-no-no." Ari said with a slight chuckle. "Anything breaks in Cerca Mine, it's normally fixed within a week of being noticed."
"Anyway," He said, clapping his hands together (unintentionally startling Weiss, causing the girl to reposition herself behind her mother). "Shall we move on?"
"Let's." Adala said, keeping Weiss close.
"-So I start walking up the steps, make the first few somehow, but then my heel slips through the treads on the next one, and I'm just shocked when my foot keeps going-" Adala said, her laughter mirroring Ari's own. They'd been walking for a couple minutes so they had each started to share stories. Even Weiss was giggling a little at hearing what happened during her mother's first few trips to the mines.
"I take it that's why you're wearing sneaker now?" Ari asked in between laughs.
"Yep," Adala responded, smiling. "You only make that mistake once, then never again."
"Yeah I guess so." Ari said. He noticed a sign on the far side of the wall we were approaching. "We're almost there."
"To this discovery I was told about?" Adala asked. The notification about the discovery had intrigued her. In fact, the message was one of, if not the, main reason she was here.
"Uh, no…" Ari said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly while his ears flattened. "This is a much longer detour…" He glanced at his watch. Almost time…
Adala sighed. "Well I hope it's not too much farther."
It isn't…Ari thought, hiding a sly smile. "No, not too much farther. We're about to enter the main shaft, we'll take a lift, and be at the site before you know it."
"That's good." Adala said. "At least we'll get to see the 'rainy-day' Dust supply." Weiss looked at her mother, confused. She smiled at her little girl. "Basically, when we first started mining here, there was so much Dust that we had a massive surplus. So I decided to have everyone leave out a portion of Dust, so if there was a time that the mine ran out, there'd still be some left. Does that make sense dear?"
Weiss nodded her head. She may have been young, but she was smarter than she looked.
They reached the corner and turned. As they kept moving, Adala took in the sight before her. Towards the end of the passage, the walls and tiled floor faded into cave walls and steel platforms. They walked onto it and the main shaft of Cerca Mine was visible to them. The cavern was massive, with multicolored crystals glistening on its walls. The platform they were on was one of several that extended onto one of many elevators towards the center of the chamber.
"Alright, let's get going!" Ari said, checking his wrist for the time. Almost time…gonna be cutting this close. He thought.
"Lead the way." Adala said, taking Weiss's hand. The nine year old was looking all around the mine, from the Dust covered ceiling to the crowds of workers several feet below. She seemed…blown away, by the sheer size of it all.
Ari smiled when he caught a glance of the girl. He checked his wrist again. Almost time. It would be okay up here, but it'd be best on the lift.
He walked over to the lift, speeding up slightly. By the time he reached the end of the catwalk Adala and Weiss were only halfway across. "Could you two please hurry?" He asked, sounding urgent.
"What's the rush?" Adala asked. Regardless, she took Weiss's hand and quickened her pace. When they reached the elevator they saw that Ari had already pushed the call button and the lift was on its way up. When the platform arrived, Adala ushered Weiss onto it. "It's okay sweetie, there's nothing to worry about."
Once Weiss got on (while clinging to her mother's side), Ari stepped onto the lift. He checked his watch again. With a little luck, this will be timed perfectly.
The lift started moving…but, to Adala's surprise, the lift started moving up not down. "I think you may have pressed the wrong button." She said, looking over to the faunus. She was surprised to see that he had a massive grin on his face. "Is there something I should know?" She asked, holding Weiss close.
"Oh nothing," Ari said. "It's just that-"
He was cut off by a loud noise that emanated from speakers around the cavern.
"Attention all occupants of Shaft 1A, we are about to begin the monthly equipment safety test. Please standby for simulated power failure. Repeat, Shaft 1A will begin its monthly power failure drill."
There was a commotion below them as workers got ready for the lights to go out. People moved to the sides of the walkways, allowing carts to hurry through the doors into other sections of the mine. Even though they were high up, Adala saw several workers with a rather unusual item: lawn chairs. Humans and faunus had bags with the folding chairs over their shoulders, taking them out and setting them down. Some had what looked like blankets set out in the larger and more open sections of the cavern.
"Is this test supposed to be long?" Adala asked. Ari looked like he was about to answer when the lift suddenly came to a halt.
"Oh, what a surprise." Ari said, feigning shock. "Looks like we'll be up here when the lights go out."
Adala rolled her eyes, slightly annoyed. The man in front of her was making it very obvious that he'd been planning this. "Care to explain?" She said, holding her daughter close. Weiss seemed shaken up about the sudden stop of the lift.
Ari opened his mouth, but the intercom came on again.
"All personal, please prepare yourselves for blackout."
"You two might want to close your eyes." Ari said. "I'm no expert, but I think being exposed to sudden darkness is bad for your vision."
Adala stood quite for a moment, wondering what was going through the faunus's head. She sighed. "Weiss, close your eyes."
The little girl in white did what she was told, closing her eyes as tight as she could while leaning into her mother's leg. Her mother did the same.
The speaker came on again, counting down for the blackout. Ari closed his eyes as well as the countdown neared its end. When it did, he could see the lights vanish from behind his eyelids. He heard Weiss make a scared little noise. He felt bad for scaring the little girl, but he knew it would be worth it to see the look on her face.
Ari opened his eyes and looked around the cavern. He smiled. Perfect. I couldn't have asked for us to stop at a better spot.
The cat faunus walked over to the Schnees, both of whom still had their eyes closed. He leaned in and whispered into Adala's ear. He leaned back as she opened her eyes. She looked around, her eyes widening, a smile growing on her face. Now she understood what he'd been doing.
She looked down at her daughter, who still seemed to be a bit scared. She knelt down to her and told her, "Open your eyes sweetie."
Slowly, Weiss opened her ice-berg blue eyes. She blinked a few times and then her eyes became wide and her mouth fell open in awe.
The cavern seemed to glow. The Dust crystals in the wall shined brightly, making it seem like the wall was filled with bright, multicolored stars. Weiss looked up and saw that the ceiling was the same way, with crystals providing just enough light to see around. She looked down and saw that the ground also contained the star-like lights as well. It wasn't as if Weiss was outside, looking up at the sky at night. No, instead it was like she was in outer space, surrounded by thousands and thousands of stars.
It was beautiful.
Weiss looked around the lift platform. There was just enough light for her to tell her mother and the man apart. Slowly she made her way over to the faunus and tugged on his sleeve. When he didn't notice the motion, Weiss repeated it. This time Ari's ears twitched as he looked down into the eyes of the young Schnee child. "Thank you Mr. Belladonna." Weiss said softly, as though she didn't want to ruin the moment around her.
Smiling Ari knelt down. He gave the girl's mother a questioning glance and, after she nodded her approval, placed his hand on her shoulder. "You're welcome Miss Schnee."
"Noo," Weiss said, putting emphasis on the 'O' sound. "My name is 'Weiss', not 'Miss'."
Ari chuckled. "My bad. You're welcome, Weiss."
Weiss smiled, nodded excitedly, and went back to the railing to admire the breathtaking beauty of the cavern's glowing crystals.
Adala walked up to Ari. "Thanks."
"For what?" The faunus asked.
"…For this view."
"If anything, I should be thanking you for that." Ari said, smiling. "After all, normally we'd mined this all right up."
"Yeah well, don't tell anyone, but moments like this are the reason I had these crystals left alone." Adala said, leaning against the railing. "It's one of those special moments, isn't it? So again thank you," She looked at Ari. "For giving my daughter this opportunity to see it."
"No problem." Ari said, joining Adala on the railing. "Honestly, I'm planning to bring my own daughter here to see it in a month or two."
"I'm sure she'll love it."
"Me too."
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Well, I hope you liked the first chapter of the Cerca Mine Incident. Originally, I was going to keep going, but I figured for this would be a rare ending where it's just something to feel nice…You know, as compared to knowing that *BEEP*'s gonna hit the fan the moment the next chapter starts.
I've already started work on the next chapter since it was meant to be part of this one. However, the pacing after this point is a bit different, so I thought this might do well as its own chapter.
Also, I think I should mention that school's starting up again soon, so if updates take longer, now you know why. That being said, I will do my best to keep updating this story. However, I'm thinking about doing things a bit differently. Rather than just post a chapter the minute I have one done, I think I might hold off on updates so I can stockpile a few of them as the school year goes on. That way, when I have a couple ready, I can provide a regular update every two weeks or so, for a couple of weeks. Let me know how that idea sounds.
Well, please fav, follow, or leave a review to let me know what you think of this chapter. (This is the first chapter of the flashback outbreak, the next one will end with a more…suspenseful mood. More than likely. So let me know what you think of Cerca Mine, Adala, Ari, as well as young Weiss.) If you already have: Thanks! I appreciate it.
