Black Sun

Chapter 14

The four of them stopped in front of the large door. Jaune took a breath to steel himself, then turned towards Ruby.

"You still have your key?"

Ruby nodded, then reached and retrieved the key. She passed it to him, just as Cinder did the same with the second key. Jaune used both to unlock the door, then hesitated before pocketing them. He motioned for the others to follow after him, and together, the four of them entered the underground lab.

It was as decrepit and run-down as everything else in the Zone. Even worse, it was cramped – a number of small rooms lined the corridor, along with old wooden crates. Off to the side, there was a large door; Jaune drew closer to examine it, uttering a small curse when he realized it was tightly shut.

"Locked…" he summarized, glaring at the nearby keypad. "I bet that's the way we're going to have to go, too."

"What makes you say that?" Cinder questioned.

"Because that's just our luck." Jaune leaned in to examine the keypad. "This thing looks like it still has power running to it. If we can find the code somewhere in here, we should be able to get in without issue."

"You had to say without issue…" Ruby muttered. "Alright. Where do you suggest we start?"

"Search the rooms," Jaune said. "Go in pairs and don't get separated. Cinder, you're with me."

"Do we even know what we're looking for?" Pyrrha asked.

"Probably documents," Ruby offered. "Last time I went into one of these underground labs, that's what I came back with."

"What do you mean, last time?" Jaune questioned. "You've already been in one of these places?"

Ruby nodded. "Yup. That's how I got these, thanks to a Bloodsucker."

She motioned to the scars on her face. Jaune had to suppress a shudder at the sight of them. It was hard for him to imagine someone as innocent and kind-hearted as Ruby having her face peeled open by a monster like that.

"Well, we'll see to it that it doesn't happen again," Jaune offered. "Pyrrha, watch her, would you?"

Pyrrha went to nod, but Ruby cut her off with a slight glare. "No offense, but I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"Sorry; we're all a little overprotective of you, since you're the youngest," Pyrrha explained. "We won't get in your way. But at the same time, don't do anything crazy, yeah?"

Ruby nodded. Jaune unslung his new shotgun, checked to make sure there was a shell chambered, then looked back to the rest of them.

"Like I said, we should check these rooms," he mentioned. "Report back here in a few minutes. If you hear gunfire, come running."

Ruby and Pyrrha nodded, then they split off to go examine some of the nearby rooms. Jaune and Cinder went their own way, taking a set of rooms on the opposite side of the corridor. The first one they checked was almost empty, save for a tank full of glowing green liquid situated in one of the corners; something told Jaune the last thing he wanted to do was go near it. He gave it a wide berth, instead focusing on something in the center of the room – some kind of Artifact, it looked like. He went to approach it, but Cinder stopped him.

"Wait," she urged.

Jaune was about to ask what she was doing, and his confusion only grew when he watched her reach into her magazine dump pouch and retrieve a handful of old rusty bolts with some string tied around them. She tossed a few of them towards the Artifact, but nothing happened.

"It's safe," she reported.

Jaune looked around the rest of the room, but there was nothing there. "Next one, then."

Cinder hefted her Kalashnikov, then followed after him as he moved back into the corridor. As soon as they did, though, Jaune noticed something was different.

"Is it just me, or did that box move from where it was a few minutes ago?"

He gestured towards one of the wooden crates. It was now slightly off-center, whereas before it had been squared up with the nearby wall. Cinder leaned in to examine it, then shrugged.

"Ruby or Pyrrha must have moved it," she said. "Nobody else has been through here but them. If it was a mutant of some kind, we would have known about it by now."

"I suppose…" Jaune reluctantly agreed. He looked around. "Where are they, anyway?"

"Right here," Pyrrha said as she and Ruby rounded the corner. "We didn't find anything in those rooms."

"Okay, then let's move on," Jaune said. He gestured to a nearby path that led them around a corner. "Looks like that's the way forward. No sense in staying here if there's nothing there for us."

The others nodded, and they went to move down that corridor. No sooner had they turned their backs on the path behind them than did trouble find them, however – something roughly struck Jaune in the back, sending him sprawling as pieces of old wood rained down on him from above.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha called, rushing to his side. "Are you alright?!"

"Fine…" Jaune wheezed. "Just… had the wind driven from me… what just hit me?"

"A wooden crate, it seems," Cinder said, examining the pieces surrounding him. She looked behind her, a frown crossing her face. "The one we just left behind us, apparently."

"Okay…" Jaune struggled to his feet, shaking himself out of his surprised stupor as he did so. "Alright, so someone's out here throwing crates. I suppose that's not the worst thing that could happen to us right now, but still. You see a crate, break it, just in case. Last thing we need is for someone to take one of those to the head and pass out or something."

The girls all nodded in agreement, and Jaune took a breath to regain his composure before once again motioning for them to follow him down the hall. They all fell in behind him, and he led the way, his shotgun at the ready.

They passed by another room full of crates, along with several Anomalies. Jaune was tempted to shoot the crates then and there, but held back – there was no point if they weren't going to enter that room in the first place, after all. Just as they passed by it, however, there was a loud roar from down a nearby hallway. Jaune immediately whipped around to face it, and they all opened up with their weapons. A mutant came barreling out of the darkness, but it was quickly cut down by the hail of bullets headed downrange.

"Stop!" Ruby called. "Cease fire, cease fire! We got it!"

Everyone lowered their weapons, pausing only to reload. Once they were all fully loaded, they cautiously approached the mutant to get a better look at it.

"That's a new one," Cinder surmised.

Jaune was inclined to agree. This mutant, whatever it was, had once been a person, but was now twisted to the point of almost being completely unrecognizable. It was hunched over, and seemed to run on four limbs in a way similar to an ape. There was an old, worn gas mask affixed to its face, but it had been pulled up just above its mouth, showing off yellowed, razor-sharp teeth. Its arms were tipped with equally sharp claws that were stained with dried blood. A tattered, ruined ballistic vest covered its torso, but it was broken enough in the rear that Jaune could see the mutant's back. When he looked, he saw that its spine was partially exposed through its skin.

"Gods…" Pyrrha said. "I'm gonna be sick… I didn't think these things would be so nasty-looking in person…"

"You know what this is?" Jaune asked.

Pyrrha nodded. "Some of the guys in Freedom were talking about them at one point. These things are called Snorks, apparently. They're very dangerous, especially since they generally hunt in groups."

"We will have to be careful, then," Cinder added. "Shall we move on? I would prefer to get out of this place as fast as possible."

Jaune nodded, then took the lead again as they continued on through the facility. They traversed through the hall and eventually found themselves in another room. It was full of more of those wooden crates, and also lined with green steel lockers. Jaune went to take a step forward, but Cinder stopped him.

"Wait," she urged. "You feel that?"

Jaune stared at her for a moment before his eyes widened. "Yeah, I do. Anomalies?"

Cinder nodded. She reached for her bolts, then began to toss them throughout the room. Jaune just about leaped back when a giant spout of flame erupted up from the ground just a few yards away, the light and the heat suddenly washing over him without warning. A panicked yell escaped him, and his heart began to beat a mile a minute.

"A little warning would be nice," he said to Cinder.

She shrugged. "At least I stopped you before you could step in it." She looked back to Pyrrha and Ruby. "Do you two have bolts you can use?"

"Plenty of them," Ruby answered. "I'll share with Pyrrha if she needs any."

Pyrrha went to respond, but sudden scrabbling against the old cracked tile floor caught their attention. Another Snork came leaping out towards them from the darkness of a nearby room; Jaune hurriedly raised his shotgun and blasted it twice while it was still in the air. The mutant fell to the ground, but quickly rolled over onto its front to leap at them once more, though it never got the chance before Ruby put a bullet between its eyes.

They all stood there and stared at it for a moment before lowering their weapons. Jaune let out a slow exhale, then turned towards Pyrrha.

"You okay?" he asked as he thumbed shells into his weapon.

"Fine," she said. "Let's check these rooms."

Jaune nodded, and they split up again. Cinder and him entered a room that was barren save for something bright orange in one of the corners; as they approached, Jaune realized it was the body of a man wearing some kind of protective suit. The Snork had been eating him, if the bite marks and strips of flesh torn away from his corpse were any indication. Jaune grimaced and looked away, but Cinder didn't hesitate. She approached the corpse and immediately began to rifle through its pockets.

"You're way too casual about that…" Jaune said softly.

"You get used to it," Cinder replied without looking back. "And it tends to pay off, too."

"Does it?"

She suddenly held up a small pad of paper from one of the man's pockets. Jaune could see that the dead man had scribbled a series of numbers on it. He looked to Cinder, who gave him a smirk.

"You tell me," she said.

Jaune shook his head. "Well, we've got the code, at least. With any luck, the next room will be quick and easy to get through." He cleared his throat. "Ruby, Pyrrha! We found the code to the door!"

"We're coming!" Pyrrha called back.

A few moments later, the two of them entered the room. They approached Jaune, who showed them the pad of paper.

"Looks like what we're looking for," he summarized. "Let's head back and get this thing entered in, then hopefully we can leave."

The others nodded, and they all followed after Jaune as he led the way back to the combination-locked door.

"Let's see… 1, 2, 4, 3…"

Sure enough, the door unlocked as soon as Jaune finished inputting the combination. Ruby and Cinder watched it, their guns trained on the opening as Pyrrha and him pulled opened it the rest of the way. Inside was a stone staircase leading down further into the facility.

"Damn it…" Jaune muttered. "Was really hoping this would take us straight there… guess that was too much to ask."

"Unfortunately," Cinder replied, pushing past him. "Still, nowhere to go but down, right?"

This time, Cinder took the lead, shouldering her Kalashnikov as she moved down the staircase. They all followed after her, stepping carefully as they went, wary of alerting any enemies that may have been lurking down below. It was pitch black at the bottom of the staircase, with the only light coming from their weapon-mounted flashlights.

"I always hate using this thing…" Pyrrha said. "Feels like someone is going to see the light from a mile away and shoot me."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about being spotted from a mile away," Ruby offered. "Now, a hallway away? That's more likely."

"Focus," Cinder urged. "We need to keep moving."

Pyrrha glared at her. "Who died and made you leader?"

"Hey," Jaune chastised. "Let's not fight. We still need to find whatever it is we're looking for down here. Let's focus on that first, and then argue among ourselves later. Sound good?"

Pyrrha and Cinder both reluctantly nodded. Jaune let out a quiet sigh of relief, then kept moving,

They emerged into a small room, similar to the first one they'd entered earlier. The layout was practically the same, and the broken elevator from earlier was right in the middle of the room. As they stepped inside, however, more of those boxes began to rise up from their spots on the ground. Jaune hurriedly put shells into them, breaking them before they could become a problem.

"What is that?!"

At Ruby's sudden yell, they all turned towards her, and found her weapon light trained on a set of blue sparks that were circling towards her. Without even thinking, they all opened up on the sparks, and to Jaune's surprise, there was a sudden eruption of blood, followed by some kind of mutant materializing out from them. The moment the mutant's body appeared on the ground, all the objects that had been rising up towards them fell back to the ground, where they sat motionlessly.

Jaune cautiously approached the mutant as he reloaded, checking it over. It looked humanoid in appearance, but was missing its legs; its torso instead ended in a stump. It was tan-colored, with an almost alien visage. Its face lacked eyes and a nose, and it had a mouth full of fangs.

"These things just keep getting weirder…" Ruby said softly.

"Still, now we know what to do if objects start getting thrown at us," Cinder pointed out. "We just need to find the floating ball of sparks and kill the mutant inside."

Pyrrha turned to Jaune. "Where to next?"

Jaune looked around, his weapon light illuminating the way. Off in the distance, there was a small hallway that was lit by a single light; he motioned for them to follow him, and they all moved towards it. As they drew closer, Jaune could see that it was another large combination-locked door. He took a step forward, and just about jumped out of his skin when something from the other side began to bang on the door, shaking it.

"Shit…!" he gasped out involuntarily.

"You alright?" Pyrrha asked, rushing to his side while Ruby and Cinder kept their rifles trained on the door.

"Fine," Jaune reported. Pyrrha helped him up, and the two of them joined Ruby and Cinder in aiming their weapons at the door. Whatever was on the other side pounded on it a few more times, but the door held, and after a few more attempts, the banging stopped. Something walked away from the door, the ground shaking with every step. With shaking hands, Jaune lowered his weapon.

"I really hope we don't have to go that way…" Ruby said softly.

Jaune said nothing. Instead, he looked around once more, his gaze landing on yet another hallway. The others followed after him as he led the way down into it. Another one of those invisible mutants barred their path forward, but a quick round of gunfire took care of it. Aside from that, there didn't appear to be any other resistance.

"I really don't like this…" Pyrrha said quietly. "The anticipation is killing me…"

"Believe me, as bad as this is, Agroprom was way worse," Ruby told her. "The only thing worse than the anticipation was having it actually give way to stuff trying to kill you."

They continued down the twisting labyrinth of hallways, before finally finding another set of stairs that led down. At the bottom of these stairs, Jaune paused.

There were two more of those large combination-locked doors, but these were different – one had been ripped from its hinges entirely, and the other was hanging on by just a few bolts.

"Jaune," Cinder said, getting his attention. She was staring at the door lying on the ground, her eyes wide. "Are you sure we should be going this way?"

"Not at all," Jaune answered. "But what choice do we have? We need the combination for that one door, and this is the only path that leads anywhere."

Cinder pursed her lips, but didn't argue further. Jaune shouldered his shotgun, then pushed into the room in front of them, moving past the ruined doors.

This room was big, almost like an arena of some kind. It was lined with large steel shipping containers in the center, along with old pieces of machinery he couldn't make heads or tails out of. Stone pillars jutted up from the ground, connecting with the ceiling and providing the room with support; even from this distance away, Jaune could see that much of the material had been removed from them, exposing the rebar underneath.

The four of them stepped inside the room, their flashlights dancing across the walls and floors as they swept through it, keeping their eyes peeled for any threats. Ruby let out a sudden gasp, and Jaune turned towards her. He found her standing there frozen, her weapon light illuminating a pile of fresh gore in a nearby corner. Ruby turned green, then looked away and began to loudly retch.

"Gods…" she managed to gasp out between breaths. "What happened down here…?"

Jaune put a hand on her shoulder in solidarity, and she gave him a grateful look in return.

"Come on," Jaune urged. "Let's-"

A sudden scream from Pyrrha interrupted him, followed by a loud roar. Gunfire erupted throughout the room a split second later, causing Jaune and Ruby to nearly jump out of their skin. They both turned and ran towards where they'd heard Pyrrha screaming, and were stunned to see her backpedaling away from an enormous mutant.

Whatever it had once been, it was almost unrecognizable as anything more than a blob of flesh with legs and teeth. It had four limbs, but two of them appeared to be mostly vestigial and useless – its over-sized legs apparently also doubled as arms. It was huge, standing several meters tall, and the ground shook whenever it walked. It was covered in scars and still-open wounds, several of which were weeping blood, but the mutant didn't seem to care, focused on pursuing Pyrrha as it was.

Jaune and Ruby didn't hesitate – the moment they saw the mutant, they opened up on it. Rounds impacted against its body, riddling it with fresh gunshot wounds, but to Jaune's amazement, the creature didn't seem to care at all – rather, it simply turned towards them, then raised one of its legs and brought it crashing down to the ground below. The entire room shook, causing them both to stumble; they had only just started to recover when the mutant began to lurch towards them, letting out a loud, hungry growl as it did so, its mouth open in a snarl that exposed yellowed, bloodstained, razor-sharp teeth.

Jaune hurriedly shouldered his weapon, only to get a dead trigger; he needed to reload. Desperate, he grabbed Ruby by her collar and began to pull her back, all while she continued to put more rounds into the creature. It didn't stop for a moment, however – the bullets simply seemed to have no effect on it at all.

"What is this thing?!" Jaune shouted over the sound of Ruby's Kalashnikov fire.

"I don't know, but we'd better figure something out fast!" Ruby called back as her rifle ran dry. She dumped the empty magazine and rocked in a fresh one, for all the good it would do her.

Jaune looked around, desperate for something that could help. "Cinder! Cinder, where are-"

Before he could finish his sentence, there was a sudden burst of heat and light that lit up the entire room. Jaune recoiled from the sudden brightness, and was unprepared for a wave of fire to wash over the mutant. The flames stuck to the monster's skin, and for the first time, it let out a series of pained grunts as its flesh was seared. The room was filled with the stench of burning, rotting meat; Jaune gagged from the overpowering smell, but didn't let it stop him, instead continuing to run somewhere safe so he could reload.

The mutant had stopped chasing them once it had been set alight, so he was able to duck behind one of the pillars and begin pushing shells into his weapon. Ruby sidled up alongside him, poking her head out from behind cover to keep an eye on the mutant as it stomped around the area, looking for the source of the flames. It was still burning, but to Jaune's amazement, it didn't seem to care much about that, either.

Footsteps caught his attention, and to his relief, he found Pyrrha when he turned towards them. She fell into cover alongside them, her eyes wide and her breath coming out in ragged gasps.

"Pyrrha," Jaune said, getting her attention. "Are you hurt?"

He began to fuss over her, checking her for injuries, but she was quick to push him away.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Just… shaken. I turned a corner and ran right into that thing as it slept… almost took a chunk out of me…"

Ruby looked around. "Where is Cinder?! Did anyone see her?"

As if on cue, another burst of flames lit up the room. Jaune finished loading his final shell into his weapon, then looked back out from behind cover, trying to find Cinder.

He found her standing in the middle of the room, her eyes and hands blazing with fire. As he watched, she pointed towards the mutant, and yet more flames burst forward, engulfing the creature. Still, it didn't seem to have much of an effect – Cinder grit her teeth in frustration as she was forced to sprint away, the monster drawing ever closer to her.

That was enough for him. Jaune charged out from cover, letting his shotgun dangle as he reached for a grenade in one of his ammo pouches. He yanked the pin, then tossed the frag before dropping into prone.

"Grenade!" he warned.

A moment later, the explosive went off. The room shook once more, dust falling from the ceiling, and the mutant gave a pained roar as it was peppered with shrapnel. But to Jaune's amazement, it still wasn't dead yet – not even close. Despite the fact that most of its flesh was now blackened and burned and it had been hit directly with a grenade, it was still moving, and still lumbering towards them.

"How the hell do we kill this thing?!" Jaune shouted.

Right as the words left Jaune's mouth, there was an ear-piercing crack as a thunderclap split through the room. The three of them winced, the noise leaving their ears ringing even through their protective gear. The mutant gave a pained roar, and Jaune hurriedly stepped out from cover, knowing Cinder was going to need their help.

She was across the room, standing directly in front of the mutant, electricity rippling across her body. The mutant had sparks dancing all across it, and was moving very lethargically – a fresh, jagged scar crisscrossed its body, and it was smoking. But more important, for the first time, there was a crack in its armor – more specifically, the skin and muscle on its face had split open, revealing the white of its skull finally barely visible through the blood that poured onto the ground below it.

That was all Jaune needed to see. He turned back to Ruby and Pyrrha, beckoning them out.

"Come on, it's weak!" he called. "Shoot that thing to pieces!"

Neither of them needed any more of a signal than that. The both stepped up along side him, then began to pour rounds into the mutant. The monster reeled, the shots finally penetrating through its thick hide thanks to whatever Cinder had done to it. After a few bursts, it stumbled and fell, then laid on the ground, completely motionless as crimson seeped from its myriad wounds.

They all reloaded, then cautiously approached the creature, taking care to keep their weapons trained on it. It didn't move, thankfully, and Jaune breathed a sigh of relief as he turned to Cinder.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine…" Cinder said between gasps of breath. "Just… a little winded…"

"I'll bet. What did you do to that thing, anyway? That can't have been your Semblance – none of us have the Aura for that, unless you've been holding out on us."

Cinder shook her head. "It's… complicated. I'll explain it all later, when we're out of X-18."

"I'll hold you to it." Jaune put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a brief look over, taking care to make sure she truly wasn't injured. She didn't appear to be, and so he turned back towards Pyrrha and Ruby, who were crowded around the mutant. "And you two? Everyone alright?"

"We're good, I think," Ruby said. She stared down at the dead mutant, poking it with a boot. "Gods… what is this thing? It's nasty… Even worse than the other mutants we've seen."

"Whatever it was, it's dead now," Pyrrha replied. "Let's hope it's the only one of its kind; I really don't think any of us want to have to fight another one of these any time soon."

"You're right about that…" Jaune exhaled. "Alright, let's look around. See if there's anything we can use to get through that locked door."

It took them a bit of searching, but eventually they found a code to the keypad on one of the half-eaten corpses scattered around the dead mutant's lair. With the code in their possession, they headed back to the door, the three girls all stacking up in front of it with their weapons readied as Jaune prepared to start typing on the keypad.

"You all ready?" Jaune asked. They nodded, and he took a breath to steel himself before punching in the code.

The door came swinging open, and they all stared inside the room before them, their weapon lights flooding into it. Surprisingly, however, the room was well-lit – enough that their weapon lights weren't completely necessary, though none of them were willing to turn them off.

Jaune motioned for the others to follow him, and they did, filing into the room and looking around. The room appeared to be empty of any living things, though it was stashed with all sorts of large, locked military supply crates.

"Man…" Ruby said as she approached one of them and stared at the lock keeping it tightly shut. "Wish we had a way of getting these things open. Bet there's some good stuff in there."

"We can worry about that later," Cinder insisted. "Let's-"

A loud ringing suddenly filled the room, causing them all to stumble out of surprise. Jaune winced, clutching his head. Across from him, Ruby let out a small whimper of fear.

"No…" she said quietly. "Not again, please…"

"Ruby?" Jaune asked. "What's going on?"

"It's some kind of mutant, I think it's a-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the air around them began to ripple, filling with embers. Jaune's eyes widened, and he barely had time to throw himself to the ground before a large jet of flame spontaneously appeared in the air right where he'd been standing upright just a moment ago.

Pyrrha helped him to his feet, but it wasn't long before the embers returned. Again, they were forced to scatter as fire erupted all around them.

"Split up!" Jaune shouted. "Find whatever's doing this and take care of it! Pyrrha, you're with me!"

Pyrrha blinked, seemingly surprised at being addressed so suddenly, but nodded. Ruby and Cinder didn't argue, instead taking off further into the room while he and Pyrrha ran for the opposite side. Jaune's plan was to try and split the mutant's attention, forcing it to pick its targets, and from where he was standing it appeared to have worked – the occasional spout of flame still appeared in front of them, but it was much less frequent than at the start.

Still, he and Pyrrha didn't really know where they were going. They raced up a flight of stairs and found themselves in a control room of sorts. There was a set of important-looking documents on a nearby table – Jaune scanned over them for just a moment before shoving them into his pack.

Just as he'd done that, a long burst of gunfire split through the room, followed shortly thereafter by a mutant's death cries. He took a breath and turned towards Pyrrha, only to watch in surprise as she suddenly stumbled and then fell, unconscious.

"Pyrrha!" he called. "What's-"

Whatever had just affected Pyrrha soon settled over him, however, and Jaune felt himself suddenly grow lightheaded. His legs gave out from under him a moment later, and he leaned against the table to try and brace himself, to no avail.

Jaune fell to the ground and blacked out right next to Pyrrha.

Hey, guys. Sorry for the sudden absence - I had some friends show up for the past week or so, so had no time to write or even post anything. Had a great time with them, obviously, but now they're gone, so it's time to get back to work.

If you're familiar with my other stories, then you know that I'm currently going through some doubts regarding my future writing fan fiction. I won't repeat myself here, but suffice to say, if you're not familiar, drop a review or a PM and I'll give you all the details. TL;DR - not sure how much longer I'm going to be writing fan fiction. I might call it for good in favor of originals at this point. Jury's still out on that - I've got updates stockpiled for pretty much everything, so I'm gonna try and post whatever chapters I've currently got stockpiled, and once that's done, re-evaluate and see how I feel.

Besides that, I've got nothing else for you all. Hope you have a great day, and I hope to catch you next time!