Oh look, it's Monday again. That means it's time to torture the characters some more. Yay. Apparently, I love causing pain to characters, or so I've had people say. I especially like the ones who suggest it's an actual fetish or kink of mine, as if stories like Professor Arc, Beacon Civil War and the other comedies don't count for anything. No, you write one story in which the characters have to put up with a lot and you're a monster.

I see how it works. xD

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 27

There was something familiar and welcoming about coming back to Vale. It had never been her home, and yet as they were swept through the crowded streets and between high-rise buildings to be deposited at the base of their cheap and grimy apartment block, Blake couldn't help but feel that she'd come home. Vale wasn't safe, it wasn't well-run, and their apartment was a mess at the best of times, but there was a comforting familiarity about the whole thing that promised at a chance to walk into her apartment, order some take-a-way, collapse on the couch with a trashy movie and fall asleep halfway through in her underwear, all without anyone bothering her.

Also, there was no Coral Arc, which was a fun bonus.

Taking the steps alongside Jaune, she walked with him to their office, yawned into her hand and followed him as he entered. A last debrief, a quick chat and they'd be done for the night and she could-

"What does this one do?" asked a blonde girl with a very dangerous camera.

"YANG! NO!"

"Chill. I'm not going to use it. Just asking."

"Yang-"

Their office was not quite as they had left it. Ruby was bouncing on her flat black shoes in front of a taller girl, bouncing her head up against said girl's chest as she kept the camera high above her head. Ruby's grasping hands barely made it past the girl's head. The office floor was a mess of discarded packets of snacks and sweet, and occasionally dried crickets and spilled documents and, in one case, a discarded can of beer. Jaune stood, mouth open, until the blonde girl noticed them.

"Oh. Hey. Your boss is back, Rubes."

Ruby stiffened, turned and then stiffened again, yelping shrilly and dashing over with wide, panicky eyes and a pale face. "IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, JAUNE!"

"Skree?" came a sibilant hiss from the corridor. It was followed by the clicking of many legs, and then something from Blake's worst nightmares barrelling down the corridor because it had heard and placed the name of one of its favourite people. Timothy came like an eight-legged freight train, and the blonde shrieked and dove over Jaune's desk, hiding on the other side. "SKREEEEEEE!"

Blake casually side-stepped as Jaune was ripped off his feet and bowled back out into the hallway by the enthusiastic mega-spider. It hissed and shrieked happily, nuzzling his face with its own hideous and bulbous head, and grinding its abdomen lovingly over Jaune's chest. Rather than look at it, Blake found her head tilting as she took in the thing that had been dragged bumpily behind it. Timothy had a long and thick line of webbing coming outs its back, which had been wrapped around a cocoon. The cocoon shook and trembled violently, and red eyes stared out from within, above a nose, with the mouth webbed over, screaming angrily. "Mppphhh! Mnphhhh!"

"Oh, that's where Uncle Qrow went," said Ruby, slamming her fist into her hand. "Uncle Qrow, were you trying to look around in Jaune's bedroom? I told you not to! Timothy doesn't like that."

"Ruby," said Jaune, as he pushed himself up off the floor. He didn't sound happy. "What is… What is this?"

Ruby trembled nervously. "There's a murderous anomaly on the loose in Vale!"

Jaune's jaw dropped. Blake's too. "What?"

"I've compiled as much as I can on it." Ruby dashed to his desk, then back, practically hurling a thick wad of newspaper clippings and files at him. Some looked to be police files. "It's made three appearances so far, each time killing lots of innocent people and being killed itself, then disappearing later. Each time has recognised them as children, and we saw it as a young girl, maybe a little over ten, who took her own life and her body vanished. I've already put a cover up in place with the police that it's a cloning Semblance. You can see the story here." Ruby opened the file in his hands and pointed desperately. "You can also see all the other appearances that I managed to find, in subsection 4-"

It was rough listening to it all and hearing the desperation in Ruby's voice as she rode over Jaune's quiet attempts to stop her. It was like a small animal who knew it had done wrong trying to shower you with affection to cover up for its mistake; Ruby was practically shaking, and there were tears in her eyes. She knew she had done wrong.

"Ruby…"

"A-And it's really important it be stopped! I know it's our job so-"

Jaune's eye twitched. "Ruby!" he barked.

The girl trembled. "Y-Yes…?"

"What," repeated Jaune, slowly, and pointing at Yang. "Is this?"

"That… That's my sister…"

His teeth were grinding. "Why?"

"Hey, back off," said Yang, striding forward and making to push Jaune. Blake stepped in front and caught her hand by the wrist, raised an eyebrow and pushed it away to make their position clear. Yang scowled at her. "Don't go blaming my sister for your fuckups. This is your job, yeah? You're the ones who went running off while this was on the loose. How many people are dead because you-"

Blake shoved the blonde back. "Shut up. You don't know anything of our work."

"I know enough to know you've put my sister at risk!" snarled the blonde. "I saw a girl carve her fucking throat out! How is that-"

"You've seen one tragedy. Boo hoo." Blake would have laughed, if she could, but it came out a hiss. "Do you think you're the only one who's seen stuff they don't want to? Do you think she's the only one to have died? Don't be naïve. You get to live in your lovely little bubble of ignorance specifically because people like us let you. Because we bleed-"

"Blake." Jaune's voice was calmer with her. Still arctic, still angry, but calmer. She nodded, stepped back and let him take the lead. Poor Ruby still looked terrified. Jaune just looked tired. "I take it you understand the importance of staying quiet about what you may have seen and heard," he said to Yang. The blonde nodded. "Then get out. We're done here."

The girl squared her shoulders. "We're not done here, you creep. You think I'm going to let you put my little sister at risk? You've got another thing coming."

"Yang!" cried Ruby. "Stop."

"Is that all?" asked Jaune, eyes closed. "You needn't worry. Ruby is fired."

The sound of Ruby sucking in a breath and then choking on it was audible to everyone. It was followed by a hiccup, and then a garbled whimper. "J… Jaune…" whispered the girl, eyes hazy and body trembling. "Y.. You don't…"

Jaune kept his eyes shut. "I trusted you with responsibility and you let me down. You're fired, Ruby. Leave."

Ruby trembled, wailed, and sped out the door as fast as her Semblance could take her. Blake's coattails fluttered behind her in the disturbance she caused, and papers flew about the office. The girl's agonised cries echoed down the corridor for a second after she'd gone.

"You rotten, twisted sack of shit!" howled Yang, then sprinted after her sister. "Ruby! Ruby! Wait!"

"Was that necessary?" asked Blake. "Was that really necessary?"

"Actions have consequences." Jaune stepped forward, knelt and pulled the webbing away from Qrow. The man crawled out, silent, angry, but also unsure what to say. "Get the fuck out of my office, Qrow," said Jaune. "You wanted Ruby out of my world and she is. Be happy. Go make her a huntress like her mom, and then let Ozpin throw her life away like he did Summer Rose. It's what you want after all."

Qrow snarled, shook his head and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him. The glass rattled and his heavy stomps echoed down the corridor. In the awkward silence left behind Timothy's unhappy hiss tickled Blake's ears. The spider had taken to hiding behind her of all people, and she couldn't say she blamed it.

"Is it my turn to be yelled at?" asked Blake.

"Why would it be?" Jaune took his seat and righted it, then sat down with the documents Ruby had collated. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"Didn't seem to stop you breaking Ruby's heart."

"Better her heart than her body. She wasn't truly hired by us anyway; she was doing work-experience because she wheedled her way into it and wanted to push me to hire her after. I never planned to. It's easier this way."

"For her or for you?"

"For her. Ripping a bandage off, letting her deal with the hurt now. Her sister and uncle will look after her, and she'll go join Beacon as she was supposed to. This way, she won't feel tempted to keep coming back either. It's for the best."

Blake sighed and ran a hand over her face. She couldn't deny what he'd said, because Ruby really had been insistent and wouldn't have taken no for an answer. On the other hand, the method had been cruel. Effective for sure, but she'd grown a little fond of the girl. Ruby was innocent in ways she could never be. She suspected that Ruby had grown on him as well, which was why he'd felt the need to drive her away so harshly.

The more I know, the less comfortable I am. Thanks Coral.

"I want it on record that I disagree with the way this was handled."

He looked up, annoyed. "Then consider it recorded."

"You can't just push people away because-"

"Blake," interrupted Jaune. "Is this really the time? There is a murderous anomaly on the loose and it is killing people."

"If not now then when?" Blake wasn't going to be distracted. "I'm not an idiot, Jaune. You'll push this back and out of sight, then try not to ever talk about it. What you did back there was cruel. You might think it a kindness, and you might be right given how shit our work is, but it was done in the cruellest way possible."

"It was kinder than anything my family would have done."

That didn't change what she'd just said. It only reinforced it.

/-/

Blake had seen dead bodies before. Obviously, she had. The White Fang were terrorists, and sometimes that meant fighting people. Less than you'd think from the propaganda. For all that everyone imagined them as rampaging monsters that did nothing more than wage war on humanity, the average day in the White Fang was training, surviving and trying to change the minds of other faunus. Combat was something only the best fighters saw, and sporadically. The White Fang couldn't exactly afford a war against Atlas, and so never engaged in protracted battles.

That didn't mean they hadn't run afoul of Grimm or come across villages attacked by them or even lost their own people before. Blake had seen bloodshed; Blake had seen death; Blake had thought she would be prepared for when she and Jaune were allowed under the black and yellow tape, and down into the crime scene that was Vale's underground subway system, currently very, very closed to the public.

And for good reason.

Jaune sighed, hands shoved in his pockets as an officer forced the train door open. The windows were smeared red, so thickly that she couldn't see inside, but the moment it was open the stench hit them like hot air the second you stepped off an airplane. "Mph!" Blake clapped a hand over her mouth to stem the tide of vomit. The officer gagged as well, retching and stumbling away.

"We can take it from here," said Jaune. "There's no reason for you to have to deal with this."

"T-Thank you, sir," said the officer. He must have been wondering who they were and from what department. Given their black suits, unrecognisable badges but the way everyone in authority let them through, he must have thought they were some kind of secret service. It was funny how accurate he was, and how little that meant to their overall operations. As long as people didn't know exactly what they were dealing with, it didn't matter if they knew they were dealing with something.

He stumbled away and Jaune stepped onto the tram. To say the inside looked like a charnel house was giving far too little credit to the overall standards of hygiene and care present in a charnel house. This wasn't like an abattoir either, because even people who worked there didn't slap blood on the walls like paint. This was closer to a child's bedroom after said child had been handed a bucket of red paint, a brush and exactly no parental supervision. Red walls, red ceiling, red floor, red windows, red benches and very red bodies strewn out here and there, many set in what she imagined might be "interesting poses" to some macabre psychopath.

Some had been set back onto seats leaning onto one another with their faces cut off. There were a few on the floor, many, but they had been bent about and dragged, with limbs and fingers cut off, and, in one case, a man's wrist shoved into his open mouth, with his hand and fingers sticking out as if someone was trying to crawl out of him. There was a woman – or Blake really assumed it had been once – whose eyes had been cut out, and whose ears, nose and hands had been removed. Her handbag rested on her chest alongside an open hole to her heart, and the bag looked wet and sticky. Jaune peeked inside, though Blake had neither the courage nor the need to. He nodded silently, all but confirming her worst fears. Not that it mattered any. Everyone here was already dead, and they had definitely suffered.

"This is a mess and no mistake," said Jaune. His expensive shoes splashed through puddles of blood an inch thick. "They took their time."

"They? Ruby said it was one girl."

"One person couldn't have done all this in the short time it would take for a ride. Killed them all, maybe, but killed them all and played with the bodies after? I don't think so." He paused at the doorway to the driver's cabin. It was stuck open, the automatic door bumping against the head of a man whose scalp had been removed, and whose brain was missing. It was just a nasty, empty mess that remained. He was in a blue uniform. Jaune stepped over him and looked inside the cockpit, where shattered glass and blood was everywhere. "Something came in through the window."

She didn't want to, she really didn't, but Blake pinched her nose shut and looked at what he was saying. The glass shattered on the inside, she supposed. That shouldn't have been possible if he'd been driven into it. "Think they came in this way?"

"The front of the tram was dented. It hit something."

Blake noted the blood along it, quite a bit staining the inside as well. "It killed whatever it hit."

"These things move at speed, so I'd be surprised if it didn't. So, it hit something, but that would have activated the emergency braking system." He pointed, and sure enough the brake lever was in the pulled back position. "I'm guessing whatever they hit looked human, which caused the driver to panic. Then, they shattered the window, climbed inside and ran amok with the passengers."

"And no one stopped them?" asked Blake. "Even if they aren't huntsmen, Ruby said it was a child. If that means children then surely a couple of these people could have dragged them down."

"Maybe they did. There was only one that came out the subway, and she carved her throat out." Yang's words. Blake winced. "I'm guessing the others didn't make it, or maybe they killed one another after dealing with the passengers and she was the last survivor. Her body vanished." He let out an angry hiss. "Fuck me."

"What?"

"Nothing." It clearly wasn't if the paleness of his face was anything to go by. He was sweating, and his hand shook as he ran his fingers over his skin and left smears of blood over his face. Blake sighed and touched his arm. He flinched.

"Your face. You've got blood on it."

"Oh." He laughed, awkwardly, and pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped himself clean. "Thanks. This is… well, this is clearly anomalous. Can't jump to conclusions." He stuffed the cloth away in his pocket. "What do we have so far?"

"A small group of people, presumed to be children, on the tracks when this tram was running," recited Blake. He knew just as well as she, but if having it listed out in order helped then so be it. It might also give him a chance to pick out some connection that was otherwise harder to see in disconnect points. "The tram is suspected to have hit one or more, at which point the braking system was employed and it came to a halt. Presumably before the driver could get out to see what he'd hit, the window shattered inward and the anomalies were inside."

Jaune nodded. "Good catch. There was no hesitation. Might have been pre-meditated instead of opportunistic. Go on."

"The anomalies got inside, killed the driver and came into the main carriage where they proceeded to kill everyone, presumably with a lot of struggle and maybe with some of them perishing along the way. Once everyone was dead, they mutilated the bodies and likely set the tram going again, then got off at the stop and came up to look for more victims, where they ran into Ruby, her sister and her uncle. On failing to kill them, the last of the anomalies took its own life. All of their bodies disappeared, but the bodies here did not."

"Correct. Meaning that whatever anomaly involves them it cannot spread or, if it can, it's not localised here in Vale." He was shaking again, and a faint whine slipped past his lips. "I need to make some calls."

"You know what this is, don't you?"

"No. No, I… I know of another, but… It can't be this." He shook his head violently. "It can't be. There's no way. It could be a copy-cat, or an escape, or…" He trailed off. "It's more likely a containment breach."

"I thought you were the only one who contained anomalies."

"Not true. I'm the only one who seeks to contain them. Sometimes there are anomalies that can't be destroyed because they're too powerful, or because we can't find a way to stop them. Sometimes the only thing ARC Corp can do is do their best to keep them sealed away and stop anyone getting close. It's not always permanent. Sometimes it's just to buy time for us to gather ordinance or find a way to fix the problem. Usually, it's a temporary measure."

"But not always."

"Not always. Sometimes we can't find a way to destroy them. Sometimes they're just too strong. In those cases, it's easier to keep people away then it is to deal with the anomaly. If we can't destroy it then we can at least stop it harming others." He looked about the tram, and at all the mutilated bodies. "Most of the time."

He let out a heavy sigh.

"Things don't always go as planned…"

/-/

It was decided that Vale's underground systems would be closed down for the foreseeable future, and that armed officers given strict instructions to take any threat seriously were to be placed at every entrance and exist. The Council passed on ARC Corp's recommendation as orders, masking the exact details slightly to paint a picture of anarchists living in the sewers who had broken into the tunnels and wanted to kill. They had been hand-picked as men and women who would be prepared to pull the trigger if anyone, no matter their age, refused to follow orders and surrender to an arrest.

Even then, Jaune had decided to spend the night there to try and catch a glimpse of them in person. Blake hated to let him go alone, but he'd asked her to go alone the next night. They were going to take shifts for a few days, which meant they had to split the duty or face exhaustion. Jaune would have a cadre of officers protecting him, so he'd probably be fine. Blake instead walked to Beacon's pier, out past the industrial cargo containers and chain link fences to a quieter part of the city where water splashed up against the stone wave breakers, and where a small figure sat, her legs dangling over the edge and her red hood tugged by the stiff breeze.

Blake walked up beside her, sat and let her own legs hang over the edge, over-priced trousers and shoes dotted with salt spray. "Thanks for agreeing to meet up," said Blake. "How are you feeling?"

Ruby sucked in a shaky breath. "H-How should I be feeling?"

"Stupid question; I know." Comfort had never been her strongest suit, which was a damn shame because she was beginning to think she was doomed to be surrounded by people who so desperately needed it. "Jaune is…" Complicated, trying to protect you, conflicted, stressed, paranoid. The answers muddled in her head. "Jaune is a fucking mess, Ruby."

The girl giggled weakly, smiling faintly at the casual profanity and the very blunt analysis. Ruby's boots kicked helplessly against the concrete. She looked very small and childlike right then.

"He's a mess in more ways than you know," she continued. "His family, his work, his life, the things we do. I've not known him even a year and I feel like I need second-hand therapy just from working with him. If he ever did go for therapy, his therapist would throw themselves out a window after their first session."

"He hates me…"

"He doesn't hate you. I know that for sure. He cares about you. More than he feels he should or is safe to." Because his family had driven it into his head just what the consequences of losing someone you cared about could mean. "And his first instinct, driven by what he's been taught, is to push the people he cares about away. The reason he doesn't want you in ARC Corp isn't because you disappointed him or let him down. It's because he can't stand the thought of you ending up like so many others."

"I'm strong," whispered Ruby. "I have aura."

"I know. I think… It's not just the fact you could die. You're… You're so good and innocent and pure, and that…" Blake grimaced. "That kind of stuff doesn't survive long in ARC Corp. Even if you live, you'll become just as jaded as Jaune and his sisters." Or me, thought Blake. "And he doesn't want to see the Ruby Rose he – we – know and love become like that. He doesn't want to be responsible for that."

"Isn't that my choice?" asked Ruby. "How is it any different if I become a huntress?" She dragged her shoes up, and then her knees, leaning her chin between them. "I'm not stupid, Blake. I know what huntresses see and deal with. I was prepared to show up late to villages that needed me and feel the guilt and blame myself. Mom went away and never came back, and I know what that means. I'm not a child."

"You're not," said Blake, and she meant it. Ruby was mature for her years, even if she didn't always act it. "But if you're old for your age then Jaune is ancient for his age. He's like, you with ten times the trauma and a whole lot more dead family members."

"I thought he only lost his mom as well?"

"Dead on the inside," said Blake.

Ruby grimaced. "Ah."

"Yeah. Ah." Blake huffed, and then laughed. "It was good having you around. Felt like I finally had a sane person on my side and didn't have to deal with Jaune's stupid bullshit every day. Finally, someone who wasn't likely to explode into a little ball of trauma if I so much as dropped a lien." Ruby giggled as well. Blake knew she had own problems, and Blake did too, but neither of them held a candle to the level of fucked up that Jaune's life was. "He tried to push me away as well, back when this all started. He kept trying his hardest to stop me working for him, until I pretty much forced myself on him. Same as with you, really. I guess I…"

Got lucky? She sure as hell didn't feel it.

"I guess he doubled down on you because his usual approach didn't work on me. Sorry about that. You got the short end of the stick because I was stubborn."

Ruby's head bumped against Blake's shoulder, and she took the silent cue for what it was and wrapped her arm around the smaller girl. This really wasn't the kind of thing she was comfortable or used to, but she figured she could put up with it for Ruby's sake. They sat there, like that, for a few long minutes, as the moonlight played dappled patterns over the water's surface, and as Ruby slowly and quietly wept. Once she was done, and after she had scraped the tears from her eyes on her sleeve, Ruby spoke.

"I'm not giving up."

"I didn't think you would."

"I-I'm going to prove Jaune wrong."

"Don't do it by going after any anomalies. That would make him double down. Especially if you get hurt. He'll take that as proof he needs to push you away, and in whatever method he has to."

"I won't." Ruby smiled gingerly. "But I'm not giving up. I'm a Rose. We don't do give up. It took mom nearly ten years to get dad, but she didn't give up and neither will I."

"Wait, are you trying to get your job back or get into Jaune's bed?"

Ruby squawked and pushed Blake away, a horrified look on her face. Blake couldn't help but laugh. "My job!" cried Ruby. "My job! Ew. I'm going to marry my work, not Jaune. Ugh. B-Besides, I'm not going to take him away from you."

Suddenly, it wasn't so funny, and Blake's laughter died. "Whoah. What now? Jaune and I are not a thing. No way. Not a chance."

Ruby looked surprised, and then a little said. "Not even a little?"

"Not even a little."

"Not even in the future?"

"Ruby," said Blake, voice dangerous. "This is Jaune Arc we're talking about."

"He's not that bad."

"It's not the Jaune part I'm worried about. It's the Arc part."

"Ah."

"Yeah. Ah." Blake sighed. "You'd have to be either madly in love or deeply disturbed to want to bring a child into the world under that name. I've seen what they do to their children, Ruby, and I'll die before one of my own is put through that. Besides, Jaune has issues, like I said. I have them as well. If I was looking to date, I think I'd look for someone a little more stable."

So that if she broke down, they could pick up the pieces. Honestly, if she and Jaune got together and something happened, she'd run away like a coward and he'd set the world on fire. Neither of them was what you would call parent material. It was bad enough they had Timothy to look after, and a miracle the anomaly had survived this long. Most of that was Ruby's work.

"There's not a condom big enough to catch the amount of issues he has," said Blake. "Even if I was gagging for it, there's not a-" She noticed Ruby's bright red face. "TMI?"

"TMI."

Blake shrugged. It probably was a little much. "It's a no-go is what I'm saying. Jaune is a friend, one I care about, and one I want to beat around the head sometimes because he's more self-destructive than a stick of dynamite. I've seen Grimm with better survival instincts than him. At least they roam in packs for safety."

Then again, they weren't deeply afraid of losing someone, and didn't have a family who had likely gone and reinforced that notion in his head. Jaune didn't even know the risks at hand, so they'd probably manipulated him secretly to believe connections were dangerous, and maybe even used the death of his mother to do it. Blake had seen some members of the White Fang who were like that; they had been tricked and moulded like weapons, and they were always the most dangerous and broken of people. Even Adam had despised the practice and gone out his way to find and deal with those responsible. For all his crimes, and there were many, Adam had believed that the best people among the White Fang were those who passionately, and personally, believed in their ethos. Conscripted troops were unreliable troops, and likely to falter at the first opportunity.

But, of course, ARC Corp knew best, and the worst part was that Blake didn't even have the full story on how bad it would be if Jaune lost control. Maybe it was best. Maybe they were right. Maybe the best thing for Remnant was for Jaune to be kept alone and isolated, and to never know what it was like to love someone because of what might happen if they should ever falter. Maybe they had been right all along, and she was the naïve and silly child thinking she knew better than the professionals. At this point, she didn't much care if they were.

I couldn't save Adam but I'm sure as hell not letting Jaune go the same way, no matter what his family wants. In that sense, she supposed she was on Coral's side, and doing exactly what the emotionless woman wanted.

Damn it.

/-/

The sharp burst of gunfire lit up the tunnels, and the bodies of the children who were torn asunder in a shower of blood and gore. Jaune watched without reaction and held his hand up after a few seconds. Vale's finest ceased fire and spread silently left and right to form a perimeter. They were good, he had to admit. Well-trained, experienced and without hesitation. He knew they must have been bothered at what they had been told to do, and deeply curious of who this teenager was leading them, but they followed their orders to the letter, and really, there was no reason – and no way – for a bunch of children to have gotten down into the tunnels.

"Check with the others," said Jaune. "Have there been any lapses?"

One officer cupped their ear and spoke quietly. In a burst of static, she nodded, then said, "No, sir. All entrances and exits are covered and I have full guarantee these did not come from Vale."

The news brought a few sighs of relief and unclenching of muscles. Jaune's was among them. He didn't think for even a second that innocent children could have snuck down with every subway entrance plugged, but there was always a chance.

"I want two left here to watch the bodies," said Jaune. Volunteers were quickly selected, and the two stood on either side of the mess. "Keep on comms and contact us if, as expected, the bodies disappear." Jaune knelt as he said it and collected some blood in a little tube. The officers didn't question it, taking the action as a very natural and obvious method of identifying a culprit. "I'm not sure this blood will last," he admitted, and they nodded, understanding. "It might disappear as well."

"Worth a shot, sir," said an officer.

"Yes. We're going to scan this tunnel." Torches were quickly activated on the tips of automatic rifles and submachine guns. "We have confirmation they came from this tunnel now. We're going to follow it as best we can. Someone ask where we are. I want a location if possible."

"On it," said another.

They marched down the tunnel together, following the tracks laid by the city until, to his surprise, another tunnel branched off. The officers stopped, as surprised as he, and torches were angled at it to give him a better look. "This is new," said someone. "We did a scan down here… what, a year ago? It was for Torchwick. This did not exist."

It was small, narrow. Perfect for children to use, but also not so large that he couldn't crawl through. On the other side, it widened. Jaune looked ahead for danger and then back when it was clear. His foot bumped against something and he knelt to pick it up and push it back through. Torches shone over it. A pickaxe. Not a big, hefty thing, but a smaller hand-held pick that might be able to chip through a thin concrete wall given enough time. Someone had been digging down here. They'd unearthed something.

"Sir," said the woman from before. "I have confirmation on where we are. These tunnels are adjacent to the old ones to Mountain Glenn." Jaune sucked in a breath. Terror gripped him. "I bet this tunnel reaches out to it, sir. I'd bet my badge on it."

"Explosives," hissed Jaune. "Fast. We close this. We close the whole tunnel." He looked back, and even if he saw nothing, he felt his heart race, and squashed himself back through the hole onto the side of safety. He was covered in sweat. "Now!" he barked, as the officers had hesitated. "I don't care who you have to talk to, but this wall goes down. The tunnel as well. All of it. I want it buried now!"

"B-But sir, if these people are coming from here then does that mean-"

"It means you do as you're damn well told!" snarled Jaune.

He pushed past them, wanting to break into a sprint. His hand fumbled his scroll, nearly dropping it in the dark. His fingers flew across the scree to send a priority, urgent message. Code Blue. Priority 1. Immediate access. An immediate emergency message would be sent to the Director, regardless of location, time or even if they had turned their scrolls off. The device asked him a second time if he was sure, and Jaune clicked through, and typed out his message.

"The Twilight City is moving. Vale is the target."

He hit send, waited with bated breath, and was not even remotely surprised when his screen flashed red, the same protocols being activated from the other end. It blared angrily, and gold writing appeared across the crimson screen. The announcement had come from Director N. Arc himself. His father. It was being transmitted to every Regional Director.

"Twilight City has breached containment. Prepare for immediate meeting. Destination: Vale. Priority: 1. Armageddon protocols are in effect. Class-B End-Of-World Scenario is implemented. This is not a drill. Failure to attend Vale will result in termination. Director Jaune Arc will alert local authorities and prepare for contingency project. Signal understanding."

Jaune clicked the button to signal his acceptance and was unsurprised to see many other golden dots light up beside it as his siblings did the same. Not ten seconds, and all eight dots had lit up.

"Not like this," whispered Jaune, deeply afraid. "Not like this…"

Hm. Okay. That's a chapter. xD

What do we have, folks? Train full of mutilated bodies? Meh. End-of-World scenario? To be expected. Ruby sent running away in tears because Jaune is an asshole? Why do I have the feeling that is going to be the line too far? Lol. Poor Rubaby is trying to be her usual self around a Jaune that is a complete and utter mess. Blake has the right of it, sadly. He really isn't the kind of person you want to make friends with.

Next Chapter: 31st October

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