Here's chapter 14 of RWBY: Necrophobia. Enjoy.

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The Cerca Mine Incident Part 3

"Hey Ari," Adala said as the trio boarded the tram. The walk to it had not taken the group long and they were lucky enough to get a tram to themselves. Adala and Weiss had taken the side seats while Ari sat across from them. "Could I ask you a…personal question?"

"Sure." Ari said.

Adala was silent for a moment. "It's just that…Recently there's been a few attempted train robberies of Dust shipments. The suspects were all caught but…" Adala stopped for a moment. "They claimed that they were all members of the White Fang." At those words, Ari's eyes widened in surprise. "What I want to ask you…is if you think the White Fang might actually be involved. I want to believe they're not, but it's becoming harder and harder to convince myself."

Ari stared at Adala, almost looking amused. "I'm actually surprised to hear you want to be convinced otherwise. After all the Schnees have a reputation for-"

"I know." Adala interrupted, sounding both annoyed and…hurt? "I'm-We're trying to make things better, but these things take time."

"…You didn't even let me finish." Ari said. Weiss was looking back and forth at the two grown-ups, completely lost as to what they were saying.

"Did I need to?"

"…No, I guess you didn't." Ari slowly responded. "I guess the White Fang is the only universal symbol for faunus rights and, well, some people find it easier to piggyback off an existing movement to justify their actions, rather than just making their own organization."

"So…" Adala whispered. "Does that mean you think they aren't involved?"

"The Fang's been close to my family for a while now." Ari said, a small grin growing on his face. "So I can say with certainty that the day the White Fang approves of that sort of thing will be the day that I die."

Adala didn't answer for a moment. Then she smiled and chuckled. "Well then, long life to you, Ari Belladonna."

"Cheers." A little voice said. Adala and Ari looked to see Weiss smiling with her hand raised up, clenching an imaginary glass. The two looked at each other and then broke out into laughter. Weiss's smile faded into a confused frown as she lowered her hand. "Did I do the toast wrong? I thought I did it right…"

Adala put her hand on her daughter's head. "You did fine sweetie."

"Then why are you laughing?" Weiss pouted.

"Oh, we're just being silly." Ari said, getting his laughter under control. It was then the three heard the breaks squeak and they began to feel the tram slow down. When it came to a complete stop, the doors opened with a small *Ding*. "Looks like we're here."

"Yep," Adala said, taking Weiss's hand as the three began to walk off the tram. "Let's go see what the discovery is."


After they left the tram station they had to travel down a few corridors. As they went on, the hallways became less and less developed. The floor shifted from tiles to steel grates and the walls stopped entirely, revealing the stone faces of the tunnel. At last they came to an opening where the tunnel widened into a large cavern.

In the center of the cavern was some sort of monument. It looked like two tendrils coiled around each other, with the tips of each almost joining together at the top. Floodlights around the cavern revealed some sort of symbols seemingly etched into the red pillar.

"So that's it." Adala whispered to herself. "It's bigger than I thought it'd be." She looked around and saw several others in the cavern. There were two people working with computers hooked up to scanners pointed at the pillar. Towards the walls of the caverns were a few workers using pickaxes to remove chunks of stone. Another worker was using his semblance to lift the rocks onto a cart, before finally levitating that as well.

"Mrs. Schnee?" A voice called out. Adala looked over to see one of the workers call out from the computers. A blonde cat faunus walked over to them and extended her hand.

"Please, call me Adala." She said as she accepted the handshake.

"Well, pleased to meet you in person Adala." The faunus said with a smile. "My name is Pandora Gunju, I'm responsible for digging up this thing."

"Thing?" Adala questioned. "Don't you have a better word for it?"

"Uh, no, not really." Pandora said, looking a tad embarrassed. "We don't really know what this is."

"It looks to me like an archeological find." Adala said, taking a quick step towards the monument. "Every now and again, one of our mines comes across some ancient, buried ruins." Adala looked at the details in the pillar. While part of it was covered by the stone that made up the floor, the upper part seemed to have been excavated with tremendous care. There didn't appear to be a single scratch on it. "Though I have to say, I am amazed at how well you've managed to excavate this. Seriously, how did your team do this with the equipment you had?"

"Ummm, I can answer that." Ari said silently. "You see…Before we began to work for the SDC, well, some of the other mining companies were a bit more…indifferent when it came to worker safety."

"How indifferent?" Adala asked, a hint of anger in her voice.

"Mining Dust with a pickaxe indifferent." Ari said. "Which is how we learned to be so careful."

Adala stared at Ari, her eyes filled with disbelief. "…Alright, before we leave, you are giving a list names to turn into the council."

"Can do." Ari said with a grin.

A few moments of tense silence passed before Pandora spoke up again. "Actually Mrs. Schn- I mean Adala, if this was just a basic artifact, I wouldn't have requested for you to visit in person." A small noise caused Pandora's ears to twitch and she shifted her gaze downward. To her surprise, she saw a small, white haired girl clutching onto Adala's leg. She bent down so that she was level with the girl. "And who might you be?"

"…Weiss Schnee…" The girl muttered shyly. Pandora stood back up and looked at the girl's mother.

"She nervous around faunus?" She whispered.

"Nervous around people in general." Adala stated. She glanced down at her daughter. "It's okay sweetie, everyone here is friendly. Why don't you look around and see how everybody does their job for a bit while mommy talks with these nice people?"

Weiss nodded and went over to look at the man moving rocks with his semblance.

"This a Mother-Daughter Day for you two?" Pandora asked.

"Pretty much." Adala answered. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Wha-Oh yeah. Well, when we first found this thing, everyone in the original dig team began to report feeling, as they put it, off. Eventually a lot of workers from other parts of the mine began to report feels of nausea, dizziness, confusion, and even a few cases of insomnia. We sent them home and they've reported a slight increase in their conditions. Initially, we suspected this thing might have been emitting radiation or something so we brought the scanners here to check and…well, I'd like you to see the results for yourself." Pandora led Adala and Ari over to the computers that were hooked up to the scanning equipment. The monitors were displaying all sorts of readings. Pandora pointed to one in particular. "Right there."

Adala looked at the screen and her eyes widened in surprise. "Am I reading this right?"

"Depends what you think you're reading." Ari stated sounding somewhat sarcastic.

"I think I'm reading a graph that tells me something's been generating a constant source of power for the past five days." Adala took another look at the monument. "…Are you telling me that this thing is some kind of generator?"

"Didn't you just question me when I called it a 'thing'?" Pandora smirked.

"Didn't you point out that we don't have a name for this?" Adala shot back.

"Touché." Pandora said. "But I think you're right. We think this is some sort of generator, but it doesn't seem to have any sort of input for generating power. If this thing truly isn't receiving some sort of external input-"

"Then you may have just discovered limitless energy." Adala finished.

"Well, limitless might be pushing it, but it might be close." Ari stated. "Besides we don't know if this is a machine or if it's made of some unknown element-"

"Either way, give yourselves some credit." Adala interrupted. "If this is a new energy source then you've may have just made history."

"And if it isn't?" Pandora questioned.

"Then you'll have made one museum owner very happy." Adala answered.

"Well, no matter what it is, it seems we've reached a consensus on one thing; we need to figure out how we're going to get this rock out of here." Ari stated.

"Just tell me what you need." Adala said, pulling out her scroll.


After a minute of watching the worker levitate the rocks, Weiss had become bored of watching the man. While he did have a very interesting semblance, it wasn't very entertaining to see him use it for something so trivial. She wished she could have asked him to do something else, like juggle with his mind or even lift her a few feet off the ground. But the man was working and Weiss knew better than to disrupt him.

Now she was just walking around the cavern, watching everybody work. She did give an occasional glance to the pillar in the center. Every time she did she felt…strange. She couldn't quite describe it, but something about that thing felt wrong to her.

She did her best to not get too close to anyone so she wouldn't disturb them, but one person kept drawing her interest. A single worker, digging alone towards the far edge of the cavern. He was using a pickaxe to remove stone from the wall, but that wasn't what caught Weiss's attention. What caught her attention was that the man seemed to be muttering to himself under his breath. She moved a little closer to the man, trying to listen to what he was saying.

"…always yelling….never listens…I'm sorry," She heard the man say. "…don't know what she means...us whole…just want her to stop…leave me alone." The man suddenly looked up at Weiss and stopped digging. Weiss froze as the man just stared at her. He looked at her with anger in his eyes. But he just slowly looked away and resumed his muttering as he slammed his pickaxe back into the cavern wall. Weiss shuttered, turned, and ran back over to her mother.


"-should be everything you need?" Adala asked.

Pandora nodded. "Yep, I think that about covers it." The cat faunus turned towards the pillar. "I'll be glad when this thing is gone."

"Because it'll be another accomplishment you can mark off your to-do list?"

"If I'm being completely honest, no." Pandora said, a frown forming on her face. "Something about this rock just sends shivers down my spine."

"Ditto." Ari stated. His ears flicked and he moved his head to the side. "Oh, look whose back."

The two women turned to see the little nine year old rushing towards her mother.

"Hey sweetie." Adala said comfortingly as Weiss ran behind her mother. "Is something wrong?" Weiss said nothing but peeked her head out from behind Adala. Following the little girl's gaze, Adala saw a lone worker on the far side of the cavern. "Did that man scare you?" She said soothingly, trying to comfort the white-haired girl.

Weiss nodded and Pandora sighed. "Yeah, lately Brent's been as creepy and distant as you can get. I think he's been having personal problems at home."

"Like what?" Adala asked.

"Based on what I heard, he's been having trouble with his wife."

"Where'd you hear that?" Ari asked, surprise and a hint of confusion on his face.

Pandora flicked her ears and gestured towards Brent. "From his mouth, what did you think he was muttering about for the past few days?"

"When did he remarry?" Ari inquired.

"What do you mean re-married?" Pandora questioned, now looking just as confused as the other cat faunus.

Weiss was looking up at the adults, just as lost as it seemed they were. "…Weiiissss…" Weiss turned her head in surprise. No one seemed to be looking at her or trying to get her attention. She was sure that someone had just said her name. It hadn't been her mother's voice or the two cat faunus next to her. She began to turn her head back towards the group when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pillar briefly give off a red glow. "Weiiissss." No one noticed the measuring equipment give off a small *Blip*.

"Did he get divorced?" Pandora asked.

"No." Ari stated, looking at Pandora as though the girl had no idea what she was talking about.

"Then why are we still talking about this?" Pandora growled, clearly annoyed.

The pillar gave off another small, red pulse. "Weiisss Schneeee." Weiss knew she heard something that time. She took a few steps away from her mother and walked towards the pillar. She wasn't sure why, but she was certain the voice was coming from around the monument. She walked passed the computer, unaware of the increasing frequency of sounds coming from it.

"I thought you were saying that Brent had been arguing with Thana." Ari stated.

"I am." Pandora said. "She's been yelling at him over something he doesn't understand."

"That's not possible."

"Look, not every marriage is as good as yours is. I thought they were a good couple, but maybe I was wrong."

Another pulse. Weiss could definitely hear whispering voices coming from the pillar. She was only a few steps away from it now. Without even fully realizing it, she raised her hand outwards.

"No, I mean that that's not physically possible." Ari stated, his confused expression now replaced with concern.

"Why?"

"Thana passed away four months ago." Ari said. Pandora's eyes widened in shock, as did Adala's. Before either of them could say anything, a series of high pitched *Bleep*'s caught their attention and they turned their heads.

Weiss touched the monument's red surface. At once the voices grew louder, yet more indistinguishable. Weiss felt like she couldn't move.

"Weiss!" Adala exclaimed, running over and grabbing her hand. "You shouldn't touch that."

"I'm sorry." Weiss said. "I-I didn't-" Weiss looked over to the pillar again. Adala did as well and was surprised to see a red glow quickly emanate from the monument.

"What the-" Adala started. The pillar gave off another pulse. Then another. Then another. Each pulse came quicker than the last, like an accelerated heart-beat.

Pandora rushed over to the scanning equipment. She quickly glanced at the graph. The once steady line had been spiking, each time sooner and stronger than the one before it. Now each spike was less than a moment apart, perfectly in sync with the pillar's pulsing. Every spike being emitted began to max out the chart, with the intervals still shrinking. Having only seen such a reading with unstable Dust, Pandora shouting the only thing she could think of. "EVERYBODY DOWN!"

Weiss had her eyes glued to the monument as Adala grabbed the girl and rushed towards the computers for cover. She crouched down, holding Weiss tight, as Ari slid down next to them.


Outside of Cerca Mine, flocks of birds flew away from the mountain, and woodland creatures fled to their burrows and dens. All was still, not a sound to be heard for miles. Then the ground shook as a thundering sound, ripped through the silence.

*BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH*

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I feel that I've had to say this more times than I care to admit, but I am sorry for how long it has taken for me to update. Thank you all for being so patient, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Also, OVER 100 FOLLOWERS! THANK YOU EVERYBODY, YOU ALL ROCK!

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. Well, if you haven't already please fav, follow, and/or leave a review to let me know what you thought about this chapter (and whether or not you want me to continue the Cerca Mine Incident, or save the rest for a flashback so we can return for some modern day chapters. I could go with either one). If you already have: Thanks, I appreciate it.