"You know, you don't have to be a massive cunt about all this. You could just be a bit of one."

Adam looked up from his scroll and gave Velvet an annoyed glare as he continued to lean against the side of her dunecrawler. The boy had been reading through the messages from his friends- all of which had been supportive, and several of which referenced big events going on at Shade and the beach house. As badly as Adam wanted to know what was going on and as much as he should have appreciated the concern everyone had for him, he couldn't help but feel frustrated by the texts. He had no idea why he couldn't just forgive and move on, or why a single transgression irked him so much outside of just how important it was to him.

After all- didn't all of the good about his friends far outweigh the bad?

"…I'm not being a cunt," Adam said coolly, trying to maintain his composure.

"You haven't replied once, have you?" Velvet asked with full confidence in her voice as she wandered over. "Stop just hate-reading their texts and let them know you're alive, at least. That way, Ghira will stop asking me so he can tell them and we end this whole jerk-off chain. Put on your big boy pants and suck it up."

Adam sucked in a breath and looked past Velvet, both to avoid having to meet her eyes and out of sheer curiosity. Had the Oaks not gotten some kind of tip of the seemingly random hole that had appeared amid the dunes, Adam suspected that they never would have found it. A set of flares and poles with canvas linking them had been set up around the entrance to the tomb, temple, or whatever it was that had been found. The opening was plenty big enough for one person to descend into at a time… but also small enough that an errant wind blowing sand for only a few minutes could hide it once again or potentially close it up entirely. Porella and Basil were discussing something near the hole alongside a few armed guards, and they were well out of earshot of Adam and Velvet.

"…what should I say?" the boy asked, well aware of how pathetic he sounded.

"Do you seriously need me to answer that for you?" Velvet questioned as she put her hands on her hips. "Gods above and below, just trust your gut. Go with your feelings. Tell 'em to fuck off if you want to, but tell them something. Friends fight. It happens. Doesn't make you stop being friends. Get over yourself, already, it's been hours, now."

Adam grumbled as he composed a text, not bothering to reread what he had written.

"…what happened to just doing what I think is right and seizing this opportunity?"

I'm fine. Arrived at the location. Probably back tomorrow or the next day, depending on how this goes. Keep me informed about whatever happened today.

"Now your stubbornness is affecting me, so it's a problem," Velvet explained. "I don't want to hear it all night while we're… tomb raiding or whatever this is. One call from Ghira was fine. Three is pushing my limit."

"Try dealing with 25 texts," Adam suggested as he looked on past the dunes. Shade Academy was standing tall over the desert, blocking out the setting sun. By Adam's estimation, it was at least five miles away- maybe more. "Kali in particular is losing her shit."

"Over what?" Velvet asked as she nodded toward the waiting crew of adventurers and began to walk. "This whole thing?"

"No, something… happened back at Shade," Adam explained as he began to follow. The messages he'd received were frustratingly light on detail, but he could tell by their tone that whatever was going on was quite serious. "Apparently she can't tell me through text."

"Maybe she and Roman split," Velvet said with a shrug. "They do seem like the type to be on-again-off-again."

"Yeah… maybe…" Adam agreed, though he suspected that no such thing had happened… at least, not yet. "Am I being too hard on her?"

"You should already know what I think based on what I told you back at the garage," Velvet chided as she looked over her shoulder at him. "But if that wasn't clear- yes. It's a little embarrassing, honestly. You need to work out some of your latent anger. It's obvious you've got some deep down."

Adam didn't reply, instead looking to Porella as the pair arrived at the hole in the sands. The woman had barely altered her outfit for the expedition, save for removing the sarong. She was still clad in tactical gear and carrying an inordinate amount of pistols along with a sword strapped to her back. The only real changes were that her hair had been folded back into a high bun and she wore black goggles, likely to keep the sand out of her eyes. She offered Adam a smile as he approached and then began busying herself with checking each of her pistols.

"All good?"

"Relatively speaking," Adam acknowledged. "Ready to go, at least. The rest, I can deal with later."

For a moment, Porella looked concerned as she slammed a magazine into the base of one of her pistols.

"…do you need help with something?"

"Yes," Velvet answered for Adam as she walked past the pair and crouched down near the hole to peer inside.

"No," Adam corrected with a sneer. "It's… don't worry about it. Stupid friend shit. Leave it alone."

"Ah yes, stupid friend shit," Porella mused as she interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms up over her head. "A burden and a bore. Things will resolve themselves in time… or they won't, and you'll find that as you get older, friends become both fewer and more important. Don't stress about it too much now. You're young."

"She's right," came a deep, masculine voice from within one of the small canvas enclosures that had been set up around the hole. Basil Oaks stood in the middle of a small semicircle of monitors, keyboards, and other objects that Adam didn't quite recognize. The man was tapping away at something or other, his brows furrowed. "Things are likely to blow over, especially if you're all on vacation. Tensions can get surprisingly high when people try to relax together. Not everyone has the same idea of what that means."

"Which is why you get yourself a stable partner in crime, and you're set for life," Porella added as she walked past and grabbed a handful of Basil's ass in a quick squeeze. Basil chuckled in response, and the huntress made her way to the entrance to the underground to stand next to Velvet and peer down into the darkness. Slowly, she lifted her goggles and let them rest on her forehead before letting out a whistle. "Looks like a long way down. You see anything, Velvet?"

"I… really don't," the faunus answered as Adam got closer, though he remained farther from the hole than the two women. "It's deep enough that I can only make out some vague shapes down in the distance. It may be a hundred feet or more to the ground… if there is a ground…"

"Babe? You getting anything?" Porella asked as she looked over at her husband.

"Nothing concrete," Basil answered, sounding a bit worried. "No signs of life, or… unlife down there, either. Not near the hole, anyway. There's definitely a high ceiling of rock and a massive cave beneath it, but that's about all I can tell from here. I wish we had some of that Atlesian tech with us…"

Porella let out a small laugh and did a few small hops in place as though she was preparing for some acrobatic maneuver.

"In a perfect world, sure. That new drone technology is a long way from being commercially available, and there's no way they'd give it to us to ruin out here in Vacuo. Besides- what's out here of value from their perspective? They already stole most of our dust in the war…"

"…what was that like?" Adam asked as he hesitantly got closer to the huntress. "Did you see it firsthand?"

"Not right now," Porella said dismissively. "Maybe once we're down below, depending on what we find down there. Basil, keep the mercs up here with you. Kids, with me. Try to keep up."

Without another word, Porella leapt straight into the hole and began to fall. Adam nearly fell backward himself as he watched the woman disappear into the abyss… and then a faint blue glow occupied part of the space underground.

"Alright, come on down! It's about fifteen feet, so be careful!"

"That is… not a fifteen foot drop…" Adam said quietly, already feeling his heart pounding in his throat.

"She means to the platform, dumbass," Velvet chided as she stood up and mimicked Porella's movements by doing a few small hops in place. "That's a useful Semblance to have. See you down below."

"Vel-" Adam began, only to watch Velvet gleefully leap into the hole and disappear. "…seriously? Maybe I'll just… stay up here…"

Basil let out a low, rumbling chuckle from his enclosure of equipment and turned to face the faunus, arms folded across his chest.

"You'll be fine. She always makes it big enough to catch people that are slightly off-target, and the surface has a bit of give. You could fall right on your ass and be totally fine. Trust the process."

"I… don't even know what I'm jumping to," Adam whined.

"Doesn't matter. You'll overthink it if you do know," Basil offered. "Leap of faith, kid. You can do it. Sometimes, you've just gotta take the risk. Besides… girls are watching. One of them seems pretty into you, from what I can tell."

"Adam?" came Velvet's voice from somewhere down below. "What the hell are you doing? Get down here!"

Adam heaved a nervous sigh and dared to take a peek down the hole, only to see endless darkness and what appeared to be a glowing circle of blue a good distance below. With a sigh, he looked back over to Basil and spoke in a low voice.

"…you two seem happy together. Are they… worth it, in the end?"

Basil raised a brow and tilted his head slightly as he looked at Adam.

"Are they worth it? What do you mean?"

"You know… girls," Adam said, breaking eye contact and looking down at the sand. "Relationships. Maybe… just people in general."

Basil slowly dropped his arms down to his sides and gave the faunus a look of concern, not unlike the one Porella had given him earlier.

"…kid, what the hell are you asking? Of course people are worth it, and… you know what, after this, let's talk a bit. I want to know what's going on in that head of yours."

"…yeah. Okay," Adam agreed. "I guess I'll just…"

"Adam!" came Velvet's voice once again. "Get down here or we're leaving without you!"

"Go," Basil advised. "Porella's got a good amount of patience, but it sounds like she doesn't. You'll be fine."

"I don't know anymore," Adam replied as he turned toward the hole. "This seems stupid. Very stupid."

Before Basil could reply or Adam could convince himself to stall any further, he sucked in a breath and took a running leap into the opening amid the sands. For a few seconds, Adam was completely convinced that he was about to die, and he closed his eye as he fell. Only a moment later, his knees buckled as he unexpectedly touched down onto some sort of surface, and he promptly fell onto his butt. Velvet let out a huff, and Adam slowly opened his eye to see her standing above him with her hands on her hips.

"…I really hope you lift the toilet seat when you piss, because your aim sucks."

Adam slowly got to his feet and began to slowly examine his surroundings. All around was what seemed to be infinite darkness, with the exception of the light of the sun shining through a small hole up above. Beneath his feet was a large, shimmering platform seemingly made of blue hard light in the shape of a nautilus shell. His feet seemed to sink about halfway through the construct, as though they were trapped inside of the midair glyph… and yet he could freely move.

"Sorry. Basil wanted to go over some… stuff," Adam lied. "How exactly do we get deeper? Where are we?"

"Well, I don't know the second one," Porella answered. "But to go deeper, we do this."

The woman cast her hand down and pointed at an angle, and suddenly, the platform began to make a slow descent. Adam windmilled his arms to stay upright, though he quickly got used to the sensation of movement.

"That's… useful. Do you have any idea what we might find down here?" the faunus asked.

"None at all," Porella answered. "But if we're lucky… it'll fit with the others. Wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened."

"The other whats?" Velvet probed as the platform continued to descend.

"Fragments," Porella answered. "We've been slowly collecting fragments of some sort of ancient weapon over the years. They tend to be buried in caves like this, all over Remnant…"


Author's Note:

Next time- a check-in at the beach house before more tomb raiding.

-RD