Yo. Early chapter for this week since I'm just feeling like it. Literally no other reason.

Anyways, hears that!

Chapter 49

Emerald awoke to the sound of gunfire in the distance; to the braying and shouting of people and Grimm both; the horrid final screams of those dragged down and ended. She found herself sitting up, and retching horribly, the pain in her head so intense that she could not manage to keep down the ration that Penny had forced her to eat the moment they'd arrived.

Emerald had passed out maybe five minutes later, just after Penny had left her there, and gone to assist on the front. She hadn't had the time when they'd first arrived, so Emerald set about getting a quick lay of the land, so to speak. She was covered by a green-colored tarp, which seemed to serve as a make-shift tent for the time being. She'd seen some much more complete-looking objects further into the encampment, but then, those had seemed like they were reserved for serious surgeries, life-saving applications of medicine and semblances both. Not for bedrest, which was what Emerald was here for.

As she coughed out the last bits of bile from her mouth, she put a hand to her forehead and bit down on her bottom lip, trying to siphon some of that pain from her head into her skin. It didn't really succeed, but then, she'd never really utilized her semblance so completely, so totally, that it had left her brain almost fried before. She'd been a fool to bet her life on it, but then…

It had been important, she'd felt. And that was what had mattered, in the end.

She sat up after what felt like a century, but was more realistically ten or so minutes of laying down, trying to get the aching in her skull to fade away. It hadn't, not really, but it had dulled to the point that Emerald could at least function without feeling like her head might split down the middle.

She stood with some effort, and hobbled her way out of her 'tent'. It helped that she wasn't actually injured, just horribly exhausted and overworked. She needed rest, some part of her knew that, but then, she'd never been one to follow along with what she should've been doing.

It was chaos as far as the eye could see outside. There had to be at least a hundred of the same tents that had held Emerald all built up haphazardly in a vaguely circular shape around a hundred meters in diameter. It seemed to cover the entirety of what had once been Beacon's courtyard, with the fact that the whole thing had a cliffside overlooking the city to its back – which, in this case, made for an edge of the formation that didn't need to be defended – being seen as a positive.

She tried to ignore the stench of death and decay – alongside the scent of medical equipment – that pervaded the entire area, and set about… she wasn't even really certain what she was doing. Perhaps she was simply gathering her bearings. But then, Emerald had never really been all that good at staying still. On the streets, a still target was an easy target. If one kept moving, one at the very least made themselves harder to pin down. As a small, young girl? She'd made sure to make herself very hard to find.

She wasn't sure why she was thinking so much on something like that. It had been a while since she'd gotten lost in flashbacks of her childhood, of thinking what it was like to live on the streets of Vale. She'd gotten so used to life at Beacon, to living alongside Cinder and Glynda and Penny – even Mercury and Neo – that it was almost foreign to remember a time when it had been her against the world.

And yet… now it was all–

"Em!"

Her head swiveled towards the voice far faster than her already frazzled brain could really take, and she winced and gripped her head as Penny closed the small distance between them, assisting her somewhat by holding her up. It gave Emerald a chance to slump against Penny, and that gave her body a chance to remind her just how exhausted it was, which was a mistake on her part, for she quickly had to be lowered to the ground entirely, feeling like she might faint.

"You are not supposed to be walking yet!" Penny reminded her in a surprisingly firm tone. "If you do, you could aggravate any injuries you might have. Rest is most important to you right now!"

She knew that. Honestly, even if she was going directly against it, she knew it was the truth. She wasn't an idiot. But staying still in the middle of that tent with the sounds of combat and death all around her – even if it was beginning to die down – was perhaps the single most difficult thing she'd ever done. She just needed to… to move.

She tried to communicate as much with Penny, but she barely got a word in before she was being picked up in a bridal-style carry, and led back to her tent.

"I will sit with you this time." Penny said, smiling gently down at her. "So that you do not grow bored."

She was glad for that, even if some small part of her was a bit concerned. "What about… the people out–"

Penny's face grew the smallest bit darker. "My aura has been exhausted for the time being. It replenishes itself far faster than that of a normal human, but even still, it will be roughly thirty minutes or so before I am combat ready once again."

Emerald nodded her head, even as some small bit of wonder formed inside her heart. The fact that Penny had fought until her aura had quite literally shattered, and only returned once she had to… it had her reaching over and taking her compatriots hand once Penny had set her back down in the makeshift bedding that she'd managed to procure for her.

"You did all you could." Emerald tried to reassure her. "You need your rest, too."

Penny tried to smile for her sake, but it was clearly put upon. "I know that. It does not make leaving innocent people on their lonesome while I spend time recovering any easier."

Emerald wasn't entirely sure when hearing someone talk about saving people had become something that – it was embarrassing to say it, but she could not think of any other way to word it – made her swoon, but Penny's words had her heart filling somehow, had her pulling the girl closer and wrapping her arms around her.

"Em?" Penny sounded confused, above all else. "Are you okay?"

"I'm… no, not really." She said, giving a sad little laugh. "But for right now, yes, I'm okay."

"You… do not often initiate physical contact."

She supposed that was true. Penny was a rather touchy-feely person, and Emerald had always been very much not that. Even still, there was just… something hanging about her right now that made Emerald tighten her grip around Penny, and hold her a bit closer.

"I guess I don't."

Penny was silent for a while after that, and idly, Emerald felt she could hear some distant sounds of combat, what sounded like fire and metal coming from far, far away. It was an oddly familiar sound, but in that moment, Emerald couldn't find it in herself to pay too much attention to it.

"Emerald?"

"Hm?" She pulled away from hugging Penny so that she could look her in the eye. "What is it?"

Penny looked… Emerald did not know entirely how to describe it. Uncertain, perhaps. As if she was trying to hide away from her somehow.

"There was a message transmitted to all Atlesian forces from General Ironwood, shortly after they managed to deactivate the virus that had taken control of our Knights."

Emerald's eyes widened, "They deactivated the virus!?"

"Mm."

"That's great." She let loose a breath of relief. "I… I wasn't sure they'd be able to."

"Yes, but… there was something else." Penny stated, looking down and away from Emerald. "It was a message about those responsible for the attack. The identity of the perpetrator."

And Emerald… she felt a small chill run up her spine, then, as she watched Penny's gaze travel up her body slowly, until it met her own some five or so seconds later. There was no humor there, no bright and cheery atmosphere.

"General Ironwood said that it was Cinder Fall who orchestrated this attack."

It was a gut-punch unlike anything that Emerald had felt before, which seemed to have become somewhat of a theme over the last twenty-four hours. It was almost funny how much her life had changed in that small period of time, less than a day, really. Everything had seemed so simple the yesterday. So easy.

And yet here they were, now, and she was staring into Penny's eyes with a guilty look, something she couldn't manage to make herself hide even if she was trying to. And Penny… despite what Emerald felt she should've done, despite everything, she made no move to try and apprehend her, or threaten her.

No. She just stared at her so very sadly, as if her very world were falling out beneath her.

Emerald knew she had to say something. Anything. She just had to force words from her lips. Perhaps an excuse, perhaps an alibi, perhaps even a confession. She wasn't entirely sure. She just… she just needed to speak.

And so she did.

"Penny–"

"Emerald!"

The voice cut through the hollow silence like a knife, slicing the sentence that Emerald had been attempting to form in twain, leaving only that single word as evidence of its existence at all. Both herself and Penny turned to see who it was that had called out to her, and though she knew their identity due to the voice, she was not entirely sure what to think when she looked up…

And Emerald saw Cinder standing there.

/

"If you see Cinder Fall, or any of her teammates, either apprehend them, or, if you are not in the position to do so yourself, contact someone who can aid you in apprehending them!"

That had been what General Ironwood had announced to the entirety of Atlas' forces. It had been out of nowhere, in truth. Something that had no real rhyme or reason, and yet, the more she thought about it, the more things started lining up, the more the puzzle pieces she hadn't even realized were there started to connect…

The more torn Penny seemed to feel.

It had come to her when she had gone back to the rally point, and then further retreated back towards the medical area to see Emerald. She knew that she was Cinder Fall's teammate. She knew that what General Ironwood ordered her to do was more important than anything else.

And yet she hugged Emerald against her, and made sure that she laid back down, and only once the two of them had begun to truly get to talking… had she been faced with the indelible truth that she could not escape this. She needed to talk with her.

And so she'd asked her. And then the moment she had…

"Emerald!"

It had been enough to silence Emerald, enough to have Penny's chassis rotating so that she could see behind her; and there, her muscles clearly aching, her eyes lidded, with blood upon her clothes that was not her own – Penny attempted to analyze exactly whose it was, but failed to do so in any particularly short period of time, she would've needed a sample – but no less alive for it, was Cinder Fall.

And she was panting breathlessly; like she was running for her life, and she couldn't afford to stop. And yet stop she had, just in front of the both of them, standing right there and waiting.

And Emerald was staring at her. The sensors in the back of Penny's head told her that Emerald was, approximately, speechless. More than that, however, she was caught.

It confirmed something that Penny had not wanted to acknowledge, something she'd perhaps known about ever since that message had been sent out.

There was something.

General Ironwood was right. Something was going on with Cinder and Emerald. Both of their expressions were those of one who was hiding something, someone holding something back. and Penny…

It ate at her. In a way that her programming could not describe. But her heart – her soul, whatever it was that Emerald had reached out to and practically begged to come back via her semblance – knew.

She loved Emerald. Perhaps not entirely in a romantic sense of the word, as she had done some research into, but in a platonic sense, at the very least, she knew that she loved Emerald. Perhaps, in time, she might even come to share that emotion on a romantic scale as well.

But to think that Emerald had done something… that maybe she and her team leader were connected to everything happening around them–

"We need to leave."

Those words, again, ceased all of Penny's redundant functions, and her pupils constricted to more purely focus on Cinder Fall, standing there with a look in her eye like a cornered animal. She appeared ready to lash out at the slightest provocation, and if Penny was right…

She'd been crying. Those things, emotions and their ilk, her father had not programmed her to recognize quite as adeptly as more physical stimuli. She could tell that Cinder hadn't been utilizing her full abilities during the tournament, for instance, quite easily. It hadn't even taken her much computational effort to calculate her chances of victory from that small showing. But recognizing the desolate expression upon her face, recognizing the tear tracks that had begun to dry, but were still slightly damp, the way that her eyes were puffy and red… that had taken her longer.

Cinder Fall had cried. Something had caused her to cry.

"W-What?" Emerald spoke up all of a sudden, sounding shocked. "I mean– I know we were supposed to be heading out tomor– soon, but, what do you–"

"Emerald," Cinder cut her off then and there, shaking her head as she bared her teeth, taking a rasping, shaky breath. "We're going. We're leaving here and we're not– We can never…"

Penny turned so that she could barely make out both Emerald and Cinder in her peripheral viewpoints, and noted the expressions on both of their faces. Cinder's, somehow, grew more depressed, more melancholic. She seemed at the end of her rope, having already accepted that everything that was happening to her was going to happen. On the contrary, however…

Emerald looked caught.

"I… where would we–"

"To her." Cinder stated with a voice like ash, and even Penny, mechanical as she was, felt a charge run through her circuitry. "We go the only place we can."

"What about… what about everything here, what about the– the power, and Ms. Goo–"

"WE'RE LEAVING!"

It was shouted so hoarsely, so powerfully, that many in and around their little area turned to look at just what had made such a sound. Penny was not alone in zeroing in entirely on Cinder's face, studying the tiny intricacies playing about there. She seemed as if she might burst into tears again at any minute, her eyes holding back droplets from falling already as she leant her head backwards, trying to allow gravity itself to aid her in that effort; of holding back her sobs.

"We…" Cinder visibly gathered herself. "It's over, Emerald. We have to go."

And Emerald…

She had a look on her face, then, as if she was being stretched too thin. As if she were a piece of aluminum being rolled and rolled and rolled, losing a tenth of an inch of thickness every time, but growing just the smallest bit wider, longer. Sooner or later, however, she would be too thin to comprehend; a waif easily destroyed by the slightest breeze.

"I… C-Cinder, we…"

Cinder didn't say anything. She couldn't seem to bring herself to. She just stared at Emerald with that dead expression, and waited.

And eventually, Emerald's gaze turned towards Penny.

They shared a glance, then, something that Penny, due to her being an automaton, did not fully comprehend. Even had she been human, however, she thought that just maybe, the complexities of that particular expression would've evaded her.

"Penny… I…"

"Em?" Her voice came out quieter than she'd meant it to, and that was odd, but her entire frame was… it was shaking. Why was she shaking? What was– "What is happening, Em?"

Emerald's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. She tried to smile, she tried to laugh, she tried to play it all off as some sort of joke.

"Are you… leaving, Em?"

She knew. Penny knew instantly by the look on Emerald's face that the answer to that question was yes. She was able to catalogue the exact moment that Emerald made the decision she did. The exact instant that her lip began to quiver, and her eyes welled up, and a few tears ran down her face as she leaned forward, and wrapped a hand around Penny's neck, and–

It was a warmth unlike Penny could've described, even with her complete knowledge of all four languages on remnant, even with her thesaurus-like grammatical abilities, she lacked the ability to truly add anything that could weigh the gravity of Emerald's lips pressing to her own.

She pulled away too soon –was too soon; it was all too s– and then she smiled at her as if trying to reassure her.

And then a feeling that Penny had felt but once before coursed across her form, and she found herself aware of quite a few stimuli that she had not been before. She found herself conscious of the weight on the ground in front of her shifting, her seismic sensors detecting movement in front of her, gradually going farther, and farther, and farther. She catalogued the vibrations of the air were somehow different to that which her mind comprehended in the coming moments, as Emerald leaned forwards, towards her, so that her head rested against Penny's own.

"Don't worry, Penny." She said, and she looked so very, very sad to be saying something like that. "I'm not… I won't leave. I'll stay right here, okay?"

She was crying. Why was she crying? It hurt Penny to see her that way. It hurt in a way that her metallic frame couldn't comprehend. That the gears and the servos and sensors all told her was false, wasn't present. But her soul ached. It ached as if it had been ripped apart at a molecular level, protons and neutrons and electrons all being separated and scoured and split.

And Penny was holding her, then. She was reaching around Emerald's form, and holding her close to her. She just… she just wanted to hold her. It was the only thing that eased the pain in her chest, even if it also, somehow, made it ache all the worse. Pain. Pain the likes of which she did not think her father had ever designed her to feel.

And yet pain she felt regardless.

'As human as any of us.'

"I… we'll stick together, and we won't be separated. We'll…" Emerald choked out a sob, shaking her head against Penny's neck as she buried herself in further, as if trying to burrow into Penny's body, into the machinery within her. It was an odd thought to have, but if Emerald wanted to be within her, Penny thought she just might attempt to make it happen. "All of us… You, and me, and Ms. Goodwitch, and Cinder, and Mercury a-and Ruby and Coco and Yatsuhashi and Fox and Velvet. Everyone. W-We'll get to be like one big family."

It sounded like a dream. It sounded like something magical. Something wonderful. Something the likes of which Penny had always wanted, within the depths of her being.

She loved Emerald. Again, that thought came to her. She loved her. She wanted to stay with her. and right now, in front of her, Emerald was telling her she wanted to be with her too. It should've brought such joy to her heart, shouldn't it have?

But Penny was a machine. And machine's knew things that others did not. They could sense things that others did not. Feel things that others did not.

That others might've wished not to know.

She was a machine, after all, even if she had a soul.

So she knew that this was all an illusion.

Because whereas before, when Penny had been under that virus' influence, and Emerald had shown her a beautiful, wondrous dream, enough to rip her from its control… Emerald did not have the kinds of energy she had possessed then. So, Penny knew. She'd known even before Emerald had begun to speak to her, and tell her any of this.

She knew that, in reality, Emerald had stood up, and followed behind her team's leader, Cinder Fall. She knew, in reality, that somehow, Emerald, the woman she loved, was involved in this entire plan, in this entire scheme, that had killed so many, maimed so many, ruined so many. She knew, in reality, that more than anything, above anything, she should've stood, and tried to capture them; tried to stop them from escaping.

But she could not bring herself to break this illusion, this wondrous dream that she was held within. Instead, it was all she could do to pull away from the Emerald in front of her, ethereal and false as it was, as she knew it was, and smile at her.

"I want that, too."

She would be gone so soon, after all.

And Penny… she might not get to see her again.

…

So, this was a 'goodbye'. Her father had told her that goodbyes could be nice things, helpful things, things that allowed one to continue going, that gave one the strength to carry on. And yet, he had told her also that they could hurt more than anything else on this planet. She had not been entirely sure what to make of that, but…

She thought that, were she human, it would have been nice to cry, now. To bury her face in the crook of Emerald's neck, and allow herself to scream and to wail until the pain inside of her soul abated. But she could not cry. Her body had no ability to fathom such a thing. Only her mind, feigning humanity as it was, could even add a meaning to such things.

And soon… soon Emerald would be gone. Soon, this illusion would fade, too, like their days together, like their brief but fruitful shared time, and it felt like her soul might go with it. And if that was the case… then for now, she would pretend as if this was all real. As if she really had stayed. As if the Emerald in her arms was the actual one, and that they might share this moment forever.

It did not last forever. It felt like no time at all. But suddenly, there was no feeling in her hands. Even if the illusion in front of her was still present to her vision, could still speak, it no longer felt of anything. She could no longer tactilely sense it. And then after that, it stopped speaking as well. Soon after, it began to fade from view entirely.

The Emerald before her shed a single tear more as her torso was erased, and yet, somehow, she leaned forward, so that her forehead was flush with Penny's…

She kissed her one last time.

Finally, she faded away entirely, and Penny was left there, with her arms that had once held her slumping to her sides. With her sensors that had once heard her deaf to her voice, to her laughter. With her eyes that had once beheld her growing dim, and lifeless.

And Penny thought for the first time that she might have preferred to have been made not to feel anything at all.

/

Mercury hadn't really clued into just how tired he was until he'd sat Blake down inside one of the hastily erected medical tents in what had once been Beacon's courtyard. His body tried to slump every moment he wasn't giving it something to do, and his eyes kept drooping, his mind wandering. He knew he couldn't have long before he crashed entirely, but he had to make sure that Blake was taken care of, first and foremost.

It was himself, and Yang sat alongside Blake as she was examined by a field medic. The woman's face looked grim as she peeled away at the bandages that were covering the stump of her leg, and eventually, she hit them with the truth, full stop.

"A good deal of the leg itself has been eroded away by something I know not the identity of." The older woman spoke, shaking her head. "I don't believe there is any way we can reattach the limb, unfortunately."

Blake took that surprisingly well, all things considered. Mercury couldn't help but feel like that might've been aided slightly by her being high on pain-killers at the time, but she'd simply nodded her head stoically, and allowed Yang to reach across and bury her head in her shoulder, whispering soothing words into her ear as her partner cried for her.

"I'm sorry," Yang had sobbed out. "I'm so–"

"I'm not." Blake had interrupted her with a wan smile. "I did what I set out to do – I protected you. So, I'm going to need a prosthetic leg. I'm sure I'll adapt to it."

She was handling this reaaaally well. It took Mercury an embarrassingly long period of time to realize a likely reason why.

"…You're trying not to make a big deal of this for my sake, aren't you?" He asked, leaning forward in the lawn chair he was sat upon. "Because I've lost my legs, too, right?"

Blake feigned an awkward cough, smiling over at him. "I've no idea what you mean."

He rolled his eyes, but it was a fond motion, and Yang's laughter at their antics helped him to focus not on how Blake's leg couldn't be reattached – courtesy of Adam's semblance disintegrating some of the intermediate tissues connecting the severed limb – and instead on the fact that he'd managed to save her in the first place.

Because he had. Blake was here. She was sitting right there, on the concrete, atop a medical tarp and with her leg now professionally disinfected and treated. She was alive, and that was at least partially thanks to him.

It felt… It felt good.

Time didn't pass particularly quickly. Mercury himself was hanging around half in terms of aura. Blake wouldn't be active anytime soon, and Yang was staying with her. He couldn't blame them for wanting to be together now, especially since he was pretty sure they were sucking each other's faces off when no one was looking. Good for them, frankly.

It was as he was ruminating on nothing at all that Blake spoke up.

"Mercury?"

"Wassup?"

"I feel as if… I've waited long enough at this point." She said with a weak smile, even as she had Yang sit her up ever so slightly, and pile a few pillows beneath her, so that she could look at him. "A long time ago, I gave you a break from a tough conversation, with the promise that we'd still be having it at some point. I think it's about that time, Mercury."

It was such an out-of-left-field thing for Blake to say that Mercury took at least four or five seconds to just process her words. Yang looked between them in confusion, and Mercury couldn't quite blame her, given he felt much the same way.

Only then, all of a sudden, a memory so faint it had almost gone forgotten flashed through his head.

"Alright, I won't interrogate you right now," Blake had said, what felt like forever ago now. "But I'm not giving up here. You're getting a break from this conversation. But you're not escaping it."

…When had that… It had to have been at least a few months, if not longer. His eyes widened when he finally did piece together exactly when it was that he'd warded off Blake's prying eye, and managed to buy himself some semblance of freedom for a time.

It had been… just after he'd gotten back from Domremy.

…By everything, that had been nearly five months ago now.

It felt both longer and shorter a time than it should've, paradoxically. It felt a lifetime ago, and like it had been yesterday. It was odd, truly, to think back on those times and have those memories come flooding back. He forced himself not to ponder them terribly much as he shook his head, and barked out a laugh.

"I can't believe you still remember that." He murmured, barely loud enough to make out. "You have to realize I was just saying that to get you off my back, right?"

"Well, now I feel like you owe me the answer." Blake stated, her eyes hardening ever so slightly, even as her smile didn't falter. "After all, I believe it could be argued that from a certain point of view, it's your fault I lost my leg."

He narrowed his eyes at her, even as her smirk became teasing.

"You know I'm right."

"Uh-huh. Sure." He rolled his eyes. "I'm guessing it's my fault that the entirety of Vale is on fire, too?"

Blake eyed him a bit suspiciously.

"…Isn't it?"

"Alright, admittedly, bad example."

Yang laughed under her breath, even as she shot him a semi-disbelieving look.

"C'mon, Merc." Blake said, her expression relaxing somewhat. "Talk to me."

…It was an odd sort of emotion that was filtering through his body at that point. He couldn't quite deny what it was that Blake was saying; after all, he felt as if he did owe her at this point, and he had, in a way, promised to answer her questions once this was all over, hadn't he?

Then… in that case–

"Mercury!"

It was an odd thing to hear his name shouted out with such energy, in what had been so quiet a moment. It had been enough to startle everyone inside their little tarp, and as he whipped around to see who he knew would be standing there, it was with an accepting air hanging about his frame, almost dogging his movements.

And Mercury saw them.

Cinder and Emerald were standing a way's away, the two of them staring right at him and looking haggard themselves. Cinder looked like she'd just got out a fight against an entire forest fire and somehow won, and Emerald… well, she'd clearly been crying, that was for certain. He expected them to approach, but instead, the two of them just… stood there, at the edge of the formation. They both had a skittish look about them, as if they could run at any moment, and there was something about that gaze that had Mercury's chest aching, his stomach falling.

He realized what this was.

They were telling him to go with them. To run with them.

"Mercury?"

He turned on a dime again, facing Blake and Yang, the latter of whom had risen to stand in front of Blake, almost as if to protect her. It seemed that either Yang was a smart-enough cookie to figure the rest of the truth out on her own with what Adam had given her. She was looking between him and Cinder and Emerald with wary eyes, mistrusting eyes.

He could not entirely blame her. Not really.

Cinder called his name a second time in a far more demanding tone, as if she expected him to answer every summons immediately, to never hesitate, to always be there whenever she called. It was fair for her to think that, in all actuality. He'd lived that life for quite some time. Nothing more than an attack dog on Cinder's leash. And yet, it had always been an assumed upon thing, that binding around his neck. And the more he'd pulled, the further away from Cinder he'd gotten, the more he'd started to realize something almost astounding to him.

That leash was illusionary.

Cinder Fall had held his life in her hands, certainly. Could've killed him at any time. And yet, the person staring at him across the courtyard turned medical pavilion was not Cinder Fall. She was a woman who wore her face, and mimicked her cruelty and demanding atmosphere, but she could not truly pretend to be as such any longer.

No. That person he'd been chained to so very long ago had long since gone away. In her place was left Cinder, someone he did not think he truly had time to understand. He'd distanced himself from her, in truth. It hadn't been a conscious thing he'd decided to go about doing one day, but an absent, idle happening. He'd found friends; real, genuine friends, who treated him not as a commodity or a tool but as a person, someone with thoughts and emotions and baggage and scars that they somehow always looked past regardless.

And now, as he stared over at her, as he met her gaze and looked into her eyes, he realized something else.

He was no one's dog.

He was not Mercury Black, either. He was not what his father had made him out to be. He was not a killer, an assassin, a murderer. He was just a man. No, that wasn't even right. He was just a boy, someone who barely even knew himself, let alone the world around him.

And at Cinder's side, he would not get to see it. This world that had fascinated him so these last eight or nine months. At Cinder's side, there would be no time for him to spend with his friends, nothing he could do to somehow alleviate this feeling in his chest, this horrid warmth that felt like it might set him aflame; damn him, and yet, all the same…

If he somehow survived that pyre he'd been placed upon… just what would rise from the ashes?

Mercury felt he owed it to himself to find out.

So, with a firm, determined energy in his chest, he rooted himself to the spot. He looked over at Cinder and Emerald, made sure they were gazing at him, too.

And he shook his head.

Cinder's eyes widened in that moment. It was perhaps the most vulnerable, the most uncomfortable he'd ever seen Cinder allow herself to be, and he supposed that lent somewhat to the overall atmosphere of the day, the way that the entire world seemed to be crumbling around them.

It was an odd thing, watching Cinder of all people freeze up like that. It felt entirely unlike her, the emotion that played about her face, then. If he'd been a more naïve person, he might've even thought that Cinder was saddened by his refusal to come with them. But no, he knew that of all people, Cinder would not show such emotion for him.

And he felt he was proven correct when, in the next few moments, even as Emerald continued to look his way, Cinder simply nodded her head at him.

It was far more respect than he'd expected.

Then, without any ceremony, or pomp, or circumstance, she turned herself around, and ran in the opposite direction. Emerald, for a single moment, hesitated, looked back between himself and Cinder.

She seemed uncertain, undetermined.

It was all Mercury could bring himself to smile at her, to offer her one last sign that maybe, just maybe, they'd been friends in the end.

Maybe it was a goodbye. He wasn't really sure.

And that appeared to be enough for Emerald to make her decision. She nodded back to him, and then she, too, was gone, chasing after that flaming revenant of a woman that had pulled him from the wreckage of his father's home, and given him purpose and drive. Even if he'd never wanted any of that. Even if he'd discovered in his time here that all he really wanted…

Was to be Mercury.

It was as the two figures disappeared from his sight, as Cinder and Emerald both left his life, presumably, forever, that a voice addressed him from behind.

"You're not going with them?"

He turned to see Blake staring up at him with a complicated expression upon her face. It was equal parts curiosity, and doubt, and hope all the same. He was not entirely sure how she'd managed such a thing, and he couldn't help smiling as he made his way back towards the two of them, pulled up his lawn chair, and sat back down in it.

"Nah." Mercury said, and it had an odd finality to it. "I'm not."

"But…" Yang seemed to find some difficulty in that. "If you're staying here, then that means they're going to know you were involved in the attack, right? Or at least that you were involved with Cinder Fall. There's no way you escape questioning for this, you know that, right? You're– They'll arrest you, and–"

"Maybe." He cut her off with a shrug. "But… I'm done pretending. I'm done being something I'm not. I can't go with them. Not to a place where I'll be stuck being… whatever it is I'd be there."

Yang studied his expression for a while after that, but it was eventually Blake who cut into the conversation once more.

"I think that's wonderful, Mercury."

It… it was an odd sort of thing that fluctuated throughout his body, then. He did not think he'd felt such a thing before, or– no, wait, scratch that. A single time. A single time in all his life before that moment he'd felt this emotion swimming inside his breast.

"Jaune's lucky to have a friend like you." Nicholas Arc had once said, what felt like a lifetime ago. "You're a good kid, Mercury."

He'd been averse to that feeling at the time; he could remember that now. But now, as he sat there, sitting across from Blake and Yang, and freed of his burdens and the chain around his neck, he found himself smiling, letting out a quiet little laugh beneath his breath as he turned his head, a mock attempt to hide his face.

"…Thanks."

Blake didn't say anything. She was good at that when she wanted to be; giving him the space to operate how he needed to. She could be a pushy bitch when she wanted to be in equal measure, however, so that wasn't really saying much.

And right there and then some part of his resolve hardened, became as if the same as the steel of his legs. He sat up in his chair, faced the two of them, and went for a far cockier, more Mercury-esque smirk.

It was probably still a lot softer than anything that would've found its way onto his face before.

"So… I believe I owed you a conversation, no?"

Blake's eyes widened slightly, before she smiled an honest, bright smile. Something that had his grin becoming just that smallest bit fuller. She nodded her head, and that seemed like all the confirmation he'd need.

"Well then…" He murmured just quietly enough to be heard.

"What do you want to know first?"

/

Cinder ran.

There was no thinking. That, Cinder could at least be glad for. The aching of her muscles, the horrid burning of her lungs, the accursed bruises and marks and scratches that lined her entire form, they ate away at her far too deeply for any petulant thinking to assault her.

It was all she had, at the moment, and so she would cling to it with the reverence it deserved.

She could not really process how long they ran. They just ran until they could not run. They ran until Emerald quite literally toppled over, nearly breaking her head open upon a stray tree root that lined the floor of the Emerald Forest. Cinder took that as a sign for her to stop as well, and halted her movement, turning back towards her now lone follower and trying to speak.

And yet the moment she was still, it assaulted her again; the sound of Glynda's cry out towards her – the horrid, jagged, piercing wail that she had screamed out at her as she plummeted from Ozpin's office.

"I need–" Emerald wretched, throwing up some meagre portion of some equally meagre meal unto the ground. "I need to stop, Cinder, I can't–"

"I know." She responded, already sitting down, and beginning to rip some of the camping gear out of the cut-and-run bags they'd had prepared in case of emergency.

They'd swung back towards their rooms in order to gather such things, slamming as many outfits and otherwise incriminating pieces of evidence as they could from their closets and dressers in the brief minute or so they'd spent before hauling themselves back out, and onto the road. The quicker they were gone, the more distance they could put between themselves and Vale before anyone came looking for them.

They needed rest, though; the both of them did. Cinder wasn't stupid. No matter how much she wanted to simply burn away her concerns, her fears, the sounds of screams inside of her head, she knew above all else her body needed a break. She'd fought a veritable war–

"I trusted you!"

–and then ran at least two or three miles out of Vale straight into Grimm infested territory. Her parasite would keep the Grimm generally uninterested, but that wouldn't matter if they were giving off nothing but weakness and exhaustion. The beasts would pounce first and ask questions later.

So she resigned herself to taking first watch, and told Emerald to sleep.

The girl followed her command, laying her head down and collapsing into unconsciousness within a few seconds. Cinder could not even blame her. She'd not truly known what it was that she and Penny had shared together; nor had she seen whatever illusion that girl had apparently been put under, but she had seen the brief kiss the two of them had shared before Emerald had stood with tearful eyes and followed behind her.

She forced herself to shake those… these horrible, aching thoughts from her head. She raised her hand up, and shot flaming spikes out of it. She pointed it at a nearby tree, and practiced her aim. Utilizing the Maiden's powers, she could keep this up for what felt like ages. It never seemed to dim within her breast, despite how much she'd already utilized it, despite–

"Was it all just a game to you!?"

–the way that her hands shook, and her vision grew blurrier both from tiredness and other, less acceptable things still hanging about her.

She must've nodded off herself, because before she'd fired three stakes into that same tree, Emerald was shaking her by the shoulder. She turned to see the woman staring down at her with puffy, but far less baggy eyes.

"You… alright?"

Cinder didn't entirely know how to respond to that, and so she wouldn't at all. Before Emerald could inquire any further, she stood up, and began packing their things back into their bags.

It was a task that kept her mind off of everything else, and that was precisely what she needed.

They were moving again barely fifteen minutes later, and Cinder found her mind, unfortunately, wandering. No matter how much she ran, no matter how much speed she added to the pumping of her legs.

She wondered what the official death toll in Vale would be, in the end. If it was any small consolation; she could at least remember that the Wyvern hadn't arrived as she'd expected it to. That likely had something to do with Ironwoods' mechs coming back under his control, but then, it wouldn't have happened at all had Neo not betrayed her, and hurt so many people. It had to at least be a few thousand; if not many more.

That somehow sickened Cinder.

That thought was almost staggering to her; that she cared about those who had lost their lives. As if she was some good person, as if she was someone who worried for the well-being of others. It would've been laughable had she not been so horribly downtrodden, had she not still been wiping tears away from the corners of her eyes every time she thought back on that look upon Glynda's face, the way she'd cried out her name as she fled.

Gods, her eyes burned. Why? Why!? Why had she looked at her like that, why was it that Cinder herself had been forced to see that look and then still be made to leave? Why couldn't she have just– just stayed!? Or accepted what happened!? Or tried to talk to Ozpin and Glynda when she'd heard Ironwood's voice, worked with them through it, tried to–

"Cinder…?"

She was ripped with an almost brutal quickness from whatever reparatory scenario her mind had been trying to conjure up, and she forced herself to swallow down the bile in her throat, and to ignore the tears tracking down her face. It was so much easier for her to cry, now; as if some imaginary dam had broken, some foreign seal had been undone, the moment the first tears had flowed from her eyes.

She tried her best to not sniffle, or show any further weakness to Emerald that she not already shown, but in the end it was all she could do to bite down on her bottom lip and stifle a sob.

"…Mercury really isn't coming." Emerald whispered beneath her breath, as if the fact was something she couldn't quite come to terms with.

It was a blow. It perhaps should not have been; after all, Mercury wasn't supposed to matter, he was supposed to be her tool, an extension of her power, and if that tool were made useless, then she should've thrown it away.

But…

He'd looked right at her, and he'd taken a challenging stance in her direction. Almost as if he'd been daring her to try and force him away. And she had been shocked; well and truly so. To see him, of all people, with such a protective look in his eye…

Cinder would not admit the way that her heart ached that he was gone. She was not sure why, or when whatever it was she felt now had come to pass, and yet, there she was, genuinely broken up about his absence. Hah, it was morosely humorous, the thought of the current Cinder meeting the her who'd arrived at Beacon all those months ago.

She'd likely have killed her outright; called her a fake or a fraud. Perhaps a weakling.

But then, that version of her wasn't a full Maiden, was she? She wasn't a full incarnation of the season's power. It was funny that that power was why all of this had happened, and now that she had it, she didn't think she could possibly care less about it. Somehow, it didn't matter at all to her.

Nothing seemed to now.

She could only think of Glynda, and the warmth of her embrace. The touch of her lips on her own, the way her hands had felt running up her stomach, higher, lower, deeper. All of her felt cold, now, despite the blazing flame within her.

She was running away. Running back towards the castle at the end of the world, away from the woman who meant it all to her, who she l… who she cared about…

And she felt cold.

So terribly, terribly cold.

End Chapter 49

Ouchie. Yeesh. An oofer, if you will.

Our heroes – or, well, our protagonists! – have all made their choices, and now they have to live with them. Next time, the final chapter of what I'm sort of kind of dubbing part 1 or this story – even if it's like 70-80% of the runtime – and then probably a bit of a break, since I'm going to be focusing on writing my own book – and playing the hell out of Final Fantasy 16 and Trails into Reverie, which come out in June and July, respectively.

So, I'll see you all next week, and I hope you've enjoyed this chapter (and all the others, really)!