I leaned against the side of our bike, taking in the sight of the forest we'd arrived at. None of the trees in Nevermelt had leaves, but somehow they were still alive. They had massive layers of far-reaching branches per tree that created a thick canopy despite the lack of foliage, and it was all coated in a layer of ice from freezing rain. Overall, it was shadowy and dense from this distance and fairly sprawling for a tundra forest.

A sigh left my lips, and I watched the fog drift from my breath as I attached the last of my straps from the bike. The latest of which was a belt of sticky grenades given to me by Jessie, saying she made them herself. I took them gratefully. I stepped my way towards my partner with snow crunching underfoot, and glanced at her prone figure laying still on the bank of the snowdrift we'd parked atop. Her rifle hung over the edge just slightly and looked out towards the forest.

"See anything?"

A bang rang out, powerful enough to collapse some of the edge of the snowdrift as Jessie's gun bucked.

"Beowolf, nothing anymore." She sung, not moving from her position as she continued to scope out the edge of forest.

I looked towards the bullhead we outpaced. It flew through the sky calmly and finally caught up to our position in front of Nevermelt. It passed us over, heading towards the center to drop a Specialist like an anvil.

"So what's your story, Huntsman?" The woman beside me asked, peeking at me from the side of her scope. I looked at her blankly before crouching down close to the ground.

"Why?" She subtly flinched from the gritty way I asked, but pursued.

"You're an interesting character, Jaune. There's something about you I just can't shake off." My eyes pierced hers rudely before moving away to stare at the depressingly beautiful forest. White snow and icy branches covered my field of vision. "If you're the same guy from all those stories out of Vale it should explain why, but there's something else. We've got some time until Elm reaches the insertion point…"

"What's your story?" I threw the question back at her, feeling uncooperative at someone so obviously trying to dig into me.

"Actually it's pretty standard. My team and I graduated from Atlas Academy and eventually we had a few disagreements with certain things. They had a habit of preferring missions that revolved around those elites in Atlas, and I prefer to do groundwork for the people of Mantle. I just feel more meaningful looking out for little guys like us. Those people up on the plate don't really know what it's like down here in the real world." She explained softly, coming out of her stance and leaning her rifle against her shoulder after sitting up.

I hummed, mulling over the information. It was much more altruistic than I'd expected from her. In a way, it reminded me of Ruby.

"I cut ties with them not too long ago, and I've been running missions with a couple friends. One of them had a mission go bad and lost an arm though, so while the other two are helping him recover I've been going solo."

"Strange. My friend lost an arm recently too." I mumbled, seemingly catching her attention as she leaned over to glance at me.

"Really? Which arm?" She prodded.

"Right."

"Hey, so you know Barret too?!" Jessie grinned with excitement, though it fell when I shook my head.

"Her name's Yang. She got caught up with a Fang leader during the Fall." I explained blandly, getting an attentive nod from the Huntress.

"Well, that's a weird coincidence then. How's your friend taking it? I know Barret's been a real sourpuss ever since." She pouted, flicking her attention back to the tree line. Introspectively, I considered the question. I hadn't been in contact with a large portion of my friends since the attack, only Blake and surprisingly Cardin. Knowing they were out there suffering like me, scattered so far apart… it hurt.

"I'm sure she's fine. She's a lot tougher than most." I answered genuinely, my confidence in my friend showing through. She's Yang, after all. What would she be if she weren't fine?

"That's funny. That's how I'd describe Barret, too." Jessie commented, tapping her chin thoughtfully. My attention was caught and I inclined my head towards the woman.

"Another strange coincidence, then." I commented back, nearly flinching when her eyes flicked to me sharply.

"You avoided my question, by the way!" Jessie informed in a sing song voice, rocking side to side with a smug look on her face. "You think you can just listen to a girl's story and change the subject? What kind of airhead do you think I am, huh?"

I clicked my tongue in disappointment after being confronted and looked away, an annoyed scowl popping onto my lips.

"Can't slip anything passed you." My words were low and nonplussed. "I was hoping you got distracted…"

"Hey, give me a little bit of credit. What sniper do you know that has a poor attention span?" She shot sarcastically, a pout on her lips as she smacked my pauldron lightly. "C'mon Huntsman, it's only fair after I played introductions with you. It's your turn, so stop being so stoic already!"

I glanced at her silently with a simply frown on my features before turning away to watch the swath of tundra between us and the forest. Her prodding reminded me distinctly of Winter's most recent attitude towards me.

'You've been handling yourself differently recently. Since our arrival in Atlas I've noticed you've nearly been shutting down, and in all honesty it's worrying. Even your banter has been lacking, and I've been under the impression it was a favorite of yours. The tests indicate nothing's changed in you from the procedure, so what's different? I'm worried.' Her words played in my mind like she was present, so vivid that I ignored everything else.

"Helloooo?" I felt Jessie poking at my scarred cheek, and sighed.

'How could nothing have changed?' I thought to myself, focusing on the way the ice glittered in the distance. 'I've been keeping it all locked away, focusing everything on the present. Having downtime on my hands again… everything's hitting me now. Nothing will ever be the same as it was. Even so, I could be less prickly I guess.'

"Jessie…" I started, glancing at her.

"Yup! Feel like sharing finally?" She perked up, leaning in conspiratorially.

'Maybe she's right. It wouldn't hurt me to open up. Wouldn't hurt to stop closing off.' My thoughts were almost quiet.

"… maybe another day."

I doubled down instead. As is quickly becoming the new normal, my brain and heart are on different pages. People knowing how badly I failed is too much for now.

Her grin slipped off her face, and she very nearly lost balance to fall into the snow. Before her complaints could break the silence, it was killed off by my scroll chiming. It was in my hand and answered quickly, with Jessie tearing away from herself to glance at it.

"I am coming up on the jump! Get ready to infiltrate while the Grimm are distracted!"

Elm shouted at us over the sound of the wind, and I gazed up at the bullhead that sailed through the air over Nevermelt.

"In position!" Jessie chirped, cupping a hand around her mouth to aim the words at the scroll.

"Ready when you are." I added after, blinking when the call ended with a beep. Jessie and I shared a look, and as one we looked towards the ship in the sky.

A spec fell right above the forest, and soon enough a glint of green shined from it. The moment it began glowing it accelerated, and sped down to the forest more violently than before. It passed the tips of the trees and disappeared, but was silent for a mere second. In the next, a rumbling ripped from the forest and a tremor raced through the ground. A flare of green shot up from the epicenter of the explosive entrance, and I couldn't hold back the chuckle that came from me.

"Guess that's our cue." My words were amused as I stood from the snow. My hand extended towards Jessie, and she took it to hop up to her feet.

"Most definitely! She's always had a thing for landings." She said cheerily, hooking her rifle to a small rig on her back. "Ready?"

I simply nodded and took the first step towards Nevermelt. My second was interrupted before it could even start, as the ground tremored again. I blinked in surprise.

"Elm's going kinda crazy, isn't she?! She'll run out of bombs at this rate, I didn't give her that many!" Jessie shouted, wobbling and bumping into me as the shaking continued. I looked back at her, and something else caught my attention instead.

"I… don't think that's Elm." I muttered distractedly, eyes wide and focused.

"Well what else would it be, smarty pants?" The words of my partner chimed.

Sharp crackling answered, under-toning the series of jolts that ran through the ground beneath us. Sheets of crunchy packed ice cracked and breeched the snow on the ground. Jagged shards pushed themselves up in a furrow that ran right next to the bike, with a large sinkhole collapsing into existence further beyond. Loose snow plumed up from the gash, and I watched with bated breath as the shards of ice pushed up closer and closer.

Eventually it stopped extending. I backpedaled a step towards the forest behind me, blanching.

"Uhm, what's that look for?" Jessie muttered, poking at my cuirass. She obviously heard the noise, I could see it on her face. She just didn't want to look.

Pitch black appendages rose from the ending crater of shattered ice and unpacked snow far away from us, jerking and crunching slowly like frozen flesh. They crackled, then more emerged from the furrow leading to it. I fell another step back as I watched the icy frost-bitten blackness rise from the tundra, and slowly what I was seeing registered in my mind. Jessie followed my eyes, and a squeak left her lips. The mass at the end consisted of a palm… one with far too many fingers. Each appendage crowding the sides of the hand were tipped with jagged mishappen claws, and the fingers clicked and bent without coordination leaving the frozen black skin to crack open. The hand rose into the air with the flesh from the deep fault following, displaying the deformed arm it was attached to. The thing was spindly, and the taller it got the more swollen and misshapen joints it had.

"Time to go!" I shouted, grabbing Jessie by the wrist and then dashing towards the forest. I had no intention of watching the monstrosity rip out of the ground, and the crunching snow and ice beneath every footfall proved that.

"W-wait! But my bike!" The Huntress complained, stumbling as she tried to keep pace with my dead sprint towards Nevermelt. She whipped her head back towards the Grimm, worry cropping up on her face.

"Tch, we can get another one!" I growled out. I resisted as long as possible, but eventually my resolve crumbled and I peeked behind us same as Jessie. The arm of iced Grimm flesh jutted far out of the ground, the emaciated trunk hefting the lopsided palm high above. My teeth grit hard enough to squeak against my jaw when the arm crossed its apex and started falling.

Directly towards us.

'Why is it always like this?!' I screamed the words in my mind. Snowflakes pelted me as I picked up the pace and tilted into the sprint, and each step cleared considerable distance towards the tree line. I pushed my legs to the extreme, and the distance between each step increased further and further. Soon, we were closing in on the forest.

"AH!"

That was all the warning I got before all of Jessie's weight seemed to catch, and her arm slipped right from my grasp. Panic flooded me, mixing with the adrenaline flowing in my blood the moment everything registered in my brain. I skidded to a dead stop maybe only 20 feet from the trees, kicking up small shards of ice and a shower of snow that spat forward. I whirled around immediately, and my stomach dropped. Jessie was face down in the snow, a ledge of thicker ice that jutted slightly from the ground the culprit that tripped her. She yanked her foot free of the annoyance and pushed herself off her stomach, flopping to her back before sitting up. Though she was quick about it, she wasn't fast enough to avoid freezing once she looked up. The room-sized hand was swinging too fast.

'No time to run!' Familiarly, I was moving before I could think about it.

My feet threw me away from the relative safety of tree cover, and in what felt like only a few steps I was back with my mission partner. The snow flew wildly from where I stopped myself in front of the prone Huntress. I planted my feet wide and sturdy, slamming them into the tundra. In the precious second I had I barred my teeth at the approaching horror with a scowl, and let any nervousness I had in my heart burn away and replace with resolve.

With mere feet between us and the rocketing Grimm appendage, I ripped the tower shield from my back and locked it firmly above.

"JAUNE!" Jessie's voice was all I heard before the impact.

A force beyond hellish crushed down on me, slamming into my shield with as much force as I've ever felt. The impact traveled through me and into the ground, creating a tremor with me as the middleman. My knees buckled, my bones creaked, and my muscles screamed out from the force that pressed down on me. Still, I managed to stay strong. The sudden stop of the Grimm arm blasted the area with wind with such force that the cover of snow disappeared. This left nothing but a rough bed of ice remaining in a pseudo-crater beneath us. My other arm jerked up, coming to help brace the shield.

"Kkhcreh!" The noise crunched out from between grit teeth.

Somehow, my muscles managed to hold their own. Veins beat against my skin and my body felt hot from sheer exertion, but I lived and breathed. Soon, I realized it wasn't enough. Foul jagged fingers were closing around the edges of my tower shield with sounds of sifting gravel, the flesh cracking open with each movement. I recognized the sound of Jessie's shouts, but none of the words registered over the ringing in my ears. I felt hands scrambling around the belt around my waist, but other things drowned out the experience. The repulsive claws slicing across the side of my shield to scrape at my cuirass and my buckling limbs cast my field of vision in tones of pitch black and steel. The metal of my borrowed shield screeched, and the dam broke. I was flooded with a feeling familiar to me, and light flared to brighten the shadowy cocoon of fingers.

My semblance came to life and glowed, and I regained my sturdiness against the force of Grimm.

I dug my feet deep into the ground with the thick ice shattering from the pressure. The light intensified for a brief second as my exertion heightened, bleaching everything around.

"HKRAAH!"

The shout escaped as I poured every ounce of strength I had into a decisive push. I bucked my shield back with as much force as I could muster, and the effects were immediate. The ice in the bare crater beneath us shattered fully and the shield impacting the flesh of the palm sounded off like a gunshot. The giant hand jerked back forcefully from the hit and reeled back, and I lowered my now warped shield. My semblance flickered away peacefully back into my soul as I watched the arm go, when blurs rocketed passed my head from behind.

I blinked and refocused, now noticing three small masses stuck to the palm. A glare lingered on them for a second before the shape knocked some recognition into me.

'Grenades!'

Sticky grenades taken from my belt stuck firmly to the frosty Grimm flesh, and with wide-eyed surprise I acted. My legs leapt me back to post in front of Jessie and I threw up my shield just as the explosives went off. Sharp bangs tore through the air with a series of booms that sent black flesh flying passed us and pelting against the metal in my grasp. When everything stopped flying, I peeked at the shuddering and reeling arm as it finally fell to the snowy tundra with weight that shook the ground.

Just as odd as everything about it so far, it made no noises, and no smoke wafted from the flesh.

With a deep breath, I looked back to check on my partner.

"M- my hero…" Jessie muttered out, visibly breathless as she heaved for air on the ground and let her outstretched arm fall back to her side.

"No time for that!" I admonished roughly, snatching her up with my free arm and throwing her over my shoulder as I dashed across the snow. "Tease me later. Let's get some cover first before it recovers!"

My legs rushed us the rest of the way to Nevermelt, with Jessie bouncing along with each step. We breeched the tree line, running from the odd Grimm, and rushed deep into the safer canopy of frozen trees.

[AN- IMPORTANT NOTE! Make sure to read! Sup everyone. I've got finals coming up in my classes that I need to focus on above everything else, so unfortunately I'll have to put the story on pause for a little bit. I'm definitely coming back, so don't worry. I'll probably take the time to build up a catalogue of chapters too, so I might be gone for a month or so. Thanks for understanding, and all the comments and follows and favs. Hope you enjoy the chap!]