RWBY: Team CRML

Chapter 49

Land of Darkness: Shadow

"I hate being kept in the dark like this..." Emerald said. She was sitting on the floor while Mercury and Shadow trained behind her.

"Yeah, Cinder was a pain, but at least she kept us filled in." Mercury said before continuing his spar with Shadow.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You're gonna." Mercury said with a shrug.

"Why did you come with us, the night Cinder, Shadow, Mist and I found you?"

"Why are you asking-"

"Just answer the question." Emerald cut him off.

"Just made sense." Mercury replied.

"It made sense?"

"All my life, my father trained me to be a killer, an assassin like him." Mercury explained. "And then moments after I killed him, you two showed up looking for someone with my exact skills. Just felt like it was meant to be."

"That's it?"

"Hey, what's your problem?" Mercury asked her.

"I mean, there has to be something you want from this, right?" Emerald asked him.

"Salem's promised us everything. We win this thing for her, we'll be top dogs in her new world. What more do you want?" Mercury replied.

"I just..." Emerald sighed. "Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things... But without her here, I don't know if what we're doing-"

"Wake up, already..." Emerald looked at Mercury in shock upon hearing this. "Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!"

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Emerald growled.

"You're in denial. And if you're gonna start having a crisis of identity or some crap... keep me out of it." Mercury told her.

At this, Emerald angrily jumped forward and began to attack Mercury with punches and kicks, but he dodges them and catches her wrist. Seeing this, Shadow backed off. "I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me!"

Mercury shoved Emerald back a bit. She took a defensive stance as he slowly approached her.

"He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his!" Mercury threw a punch and a kick at Emerald, who dodged them, while he quotes his father's words. "'This is a crutch! This makes you weak!' He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am. You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!"

Suddenly, the two hear a certain laughter. Tyrian stepped out of the shadows with his new metallic scorpion tail. Beside him was Shadow who had his arms crossed. Looking to the clone he had made to help Mercury train, it sank into the floor before becoming part of the shadows.

"Oh yes, the world is mean, and I'm a big, bad man now just like the others." Tyrian said mockingly before laughing.

"How long have you been standing there?!" Mercury growled.

"Long enough." Shadow replied.

"All you ever learned was pain and violence, and now you're too afraid to leave it. Such a tragedy." Tyrian continued.

"You don't know me!" Mercury tried to kick at Tyrian, but he dodged and kicks Mercury back. Tyrian held him down to the ground by keeping his tail at a short distance away from Mercury's face.

"Hey!" Emerald yelled.

"Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. I want to tell you both a little secret. Your question is all wrong." Tyrian laughed again.

"What?"

"What do you want from this?" Tyrian repeated. "Children, please, if you're not loving what you're doing, then you're in the wrong field."

"So, what? Are you saying we should just leave?"

"You know what would happen if you did that." Shadow told her.

"Then what did you come here for?" Mercury asked.

"To say farewell." Tyrian replied.

"There's been a change in plans." Shadow told them. "My mother must act swiftly if we are to win. If General Ironwood comes to his senses and calls upon aid from Vacuo, it won't exactly be good for us. And so I suggested we send Tyrian, Arthur and my sister to Atlas."

"In preparation for what?" Emerald asked.

"Tyrian!" Watts appeared at the door. "It's time."

Tyrian stepped off of Mercury, who got back up on his feet. "Do what makes you happy children... please? I'm begging you..." Tyrian smiled before turning around and walking away, laughing. After a few seconds, Shadow followed him out.

Liam

"Oscar!" Liam shouted.

"Oscar!" Weiss cupped her hands around her mouth as she yelled his name.

"Where is that kid?"

The two searched for him in silence, calling out his name every few seconds. After what felt like forever, Liam sighed before spotting a bench and heading over to it. Sitting down, Weiss did the same.

"What do you think he's doing?" Weiss asked.

"No idea." Liam leaned forward, running a hand through his hair.

After a few minutes, Weiss placed a hand over his. "Can I ask you something?"

"What's up?" Liam asked as he sat back.

"What... What exactly happened to you back at Beacon?"

"I... Why would you ask me that?" Liam glanced at her.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

Liam sighed. "It's fine. Just...a part of my life I wish I could forget." shaking his head, Liam began to recall what had happened. "Marek and I met up at the bottom of Beacon tower. We fought Grimm after Grimm before that Wyvern destroyed the top of the tower. Marek began climbing it, using his claws to rush to the top. As for me, I used my avian form. Pyrrha was already up there, fighting Cinder, Shadow and... Mist. Marek knocked Shadow and himself off the top of the tower leaving me, Pyrrha, Mist and Cinder alone to fight."

Weiss leaned in a bit closer as Liam continued to tell what had happened. "At one point, Pyrrha managed to pin Cinder under countless gears for a few seconds but...Cinder just shrugged it off, using her maiden powers to blast the gears off of her, launching them in every direction." Liam took a breath as he remembered what happened next. "The initial blast broke my aura as it knocked me into the wall of the broken tower. A broken pipe, sticking from the wall, impaled my shoulder as I was knocked into it. Before I could even yell out in pain, one of the gears..."

Seeing his discomfort, Weiss placed a hand on his knee. "You can stop if you want."

Liam didn't hear her, however, only being able to focus on the excruciating pain that he felt back them. "...one of the gears smashed into my arm." Weiss winced, imaging the pain herself. "I felt the bones in my arm shatter as if they were nothing. Every small movement I made sent wave after wave of unbearable pain through my body. I couldn't get myself free without screaming." he took another breath. "Then Cinder incapacitated Pyrrha, shooting her heel with a glass arrow before aiming another one point-blank at her chest. I had to do something. So, I fought through the pain, ripping myself away from my pinned arm."

Weiss was stunned when she heard that. "You..."

"Once I hit the ground, I didn't really feel much. I guess I didn't really process what I had done at the time." Liam continued. "I crawled towards my weapon and picked it up. I used it to help me stand but then Mist threw me off the top of the tower. And that's it. That's all I remember."

Liam clenced his eyes shut as he remembered the events. "I shouldn't have asked..." Weiss said softly. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Weiss." Liam said as he looked to her. "But... I know what happened to me hasn't gone away. Back at Haven, seeing Cinder and Mist, it took everything I had to keep myself from falling to the ground." tears began to fill his eyes. Liam wiped them away but he couldn't keep his voice from breaking. "I only put up a good fight because I didn't want what happened to me and Pyrrha to happen again. And seeing Cinder about to kill you, I couldn't let that happen. I've been trying so hard not to let what happened get to me, but I'm starting to fall apart. I don't show it because we have more important things to worry about, but the nightmares just won't fucking stop." he covered his eyes with his hands.

"Liam..."

"Every. Single. Night. I'm either on top of Beacon tower, reliving what happened, or I'm back at Haven, except I'm not fast enough to save you in time." tears began to flow down his cheeks. "I thought training with Raven and Vernal might have helped, and it did, but not much. I trained day and night." Liam wiped his eyes as he regained his composure. "And, if I was lucky, I would have a different dream other than the nightmares. I found myself dreaming about only one thing other than Beacon, though."

"What?" Weiss asked.

"You." Liam replied.

Before Weiss could reply, her scroll rang. Pulling it out, Weiss saw it was a call from Ruby. "It's Ruby." Weiss told Liam.

"Answer it."

Doing so, Weiss put her scroll on speaker. "Hello?"

"Weiss, we found Oscar." Ruby said. "Turned out he was just shopping for new clothes."

"Seriously?"

"That's not all, though." Ruby continued. "Jaune has an idea to get to Atlas."

"What would that be?" Liam asked.

"He..." Ruby stopped. "You might want to take me off speaker for this."

Weiss did so, having Liam lean closer as she tilted her scroll so the both of them could hear. "He wants to steal an airship from the Atlas compound here on Argus."

Weiss and Liam looked at one another before turning their gazes to the scroll. "He can't be serious."

"Think about it." Jaune's voice suddenly said through the scroll. "If Atlas airships are the only ones with clearance to leave Solitas, we could use one to slip right into Atlas!"

"That's insane!"

"We don't have any other ideas, and we're kinda on a time limit." Ruby said. "Get back here so we can discuss this."

"This is a dumb idea, Ruby." Liam told her.

"Yeah, I know, I know."

With that, she hung up.

End of chapter 49