I'm back. Well, I got back Saturday but desperately needed rest. Man, my feet are killing me. My liver too. Wearing a tight suit and shoes for all those days, both at the expo and at the bars after, has left my feet feeling like they've malformed into a new shape. It's a dull, constant kind of pain.

Also on a night out a businessman pulled out his wallet to pay for drinks and drew out a debit card that was FOLDED IN HALF. I kid you not, it was just like bent down the middle, close to snapping, big white line where the plastic was tortured, and he had to scan it over the quick-pay scanner like eight times to get it to work. The whole time he's like "There's something wrong with your scanner" to the bartender and the bartender, and the rest of us, are all there silently thinking "No, there's something wrong with your brain…"

Then he folded it back in half to slide it back into his wallet. My brain was screaming at me to say something, but I didn't, and no one else did either, despite that we were shooting each other "wtf" expressions.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 10

Blake's ears flattened to her head as she looked up through the window at the tentacle rising high into the air. It coiled and twisted, revealing rust-like barnacles crusted up and down its sides like armour plating. It then came down, Roman yelling a warning and the two of them leaping aside as it crashed down on the bridge. Luckily, it didn't break through the metal casing and crush them, but the roof cracked, and the tentacle wrapped tight around the bridge, pulling in a way that caused metal to twist and groan.

"It's going to rip the whole tower up!" Blake yelled. "We need to-" Roman was already out the door and scurrying away, leaving her behind. "Son of a bitch…"

The lack of any chivalry aside, he had the right idea, and Blake sped out the door after him, taking the metal stairway three at a time and quickly catching up with him. Steel groaned and bolts were tearing out the decking with horrific popping sounds. Some fired up like bullets, spraying and pinging off their aura as the tower, and the causeway they were on, suddenly shifted and rose into the air. Roman threw himself from it and Blake followed suit, the two of them landing on the deck moments before the stairs they were on flew up, twisting under the tentacle that constricted, crushing the bridge with a pop of shattering glass, bursts of fire and the groaning of metal.

"Blake." Jaune came jogging up, his blue coat flapping behind him. "Are you okay? Good. I'm pretty sure we've found what we're looking for."

"You think!?" Blake snapped.

Jaune naturally missed the sarcasm. "Yeah, this fits the bill. Did you find the crew?"

"Missing." Blake said.

"Probably dead!" Roman interrupted with a hiss. "Like we'll be if we don't get off this thing."

"Getting off might be a problem. One of the Bullheads has been destroyed and the other has pulled away for its own safety. Can't get close with the tentacles and all. I'm not up for trying my chances in the water." He looked to Roman. "But I'm not the boss of you. You can have a go if you like."

Roman looked like he was about to he violently ill. "I…I think I'll pass. What the fuck is this thing?"

"A Grimm."

"Bullshit is it!" he snapped. "I know my Grimm."

"Clearly not, sir, if you cannot tell this is one. This – Deck!"

Instructions were unclear but the way Jaune threw himself flat was enough for Blake to do the same. Roman too. A good job since another tentacle, smaller, but no less encrusted with rust and pincers, pierced through a metal container above them and came out the side less than a foot above their heads. It slapped around, looking blindly for them, and its limb flapped down on the deck between Blake and Jaune's faces. Up close, she could see the tiny pincers like little beaks, snapping with a sound of metal. They were a reddish-brown, jagged and crusty, but she held no illusions as to what they would do to a person.

It drew back suddenly, less sliding back through the hole it had made and more wrenching with force enough to shatter metal and create a bigger hole coming back out. Dust poured down over them like fine sand, then slid off the edge of the deck into the ocean.

"Yeah." Jaune said, still flat on his chest. "That's a thing. We've counted eight tentacles so far but there might be more."

"What do we do!?"

"Saphron wants us to take the tentacles out one by one. The body is probably inside the ship's hull somewhere. Would be a nightmare finding it. We're assuming the crew are dead and the ano- the Grimm is in control of the ship."

Which was still moving, she noticed. There was no bridge now, but the thing was propelling them by its own power. A scream rose up over on the other side of the containers, followed quickly by gunfire as the men Roman had brought tried to fight back. Keyword – tried. They weren't huntsmen and they certainly weren't ARC Corp, so all they could do was fire blindly into the limbs and do their best to avoid them. As the three of them scurried to their feet and ran around the side of the containers to the main deck, Blake was greeted by the thick stench of blood, followed by a spray as a tentacle wrapped around a suited man. It didn't squeeze and pop him like a balloon even though it probably could have. Instead, it held him in place, leaving his body to vibrate horribly and his screams to peter out as hundreds of beaked pincers tore into his body.

"Yeah…" Jaune said weakly. "I'd try not to get caught if I were you."

"Try not, he says," Roman whimpered. "Fuck my life!"

"Cry later!" Blake snapped and drew Gambol Shroud. Honestly, she didn't blame Roman his fear – she felt it, too – but panic wasn't going to save their lives here. "Fight now! Cut its limbs off and we can get out of here alive!"

The others were already working on that. Pyrrha was racing up the back of a tentacle that had slammed down and crushed a man, hacking away with her sword held in both hands. A sharp crack and a blossom of fire against one raging above them caused the limb to snap back, and another crack and another explosive round from Terra's sniper rifle tore into it. Little flakes of red rained down on them, not blood, but tiny flakes of metal. Blake looked at some on the sleeve of her black suit and furrowed her brow. "Rust…?"

Whether he'd found his courage or just was too afraid to sit back and die, Roman swung his cane in both hands at a tentacle wrapping around a nearby container. He struck it a solid blow, only to bounce off with a horrific clang and with his hands shaking so badly the cane almost fell from his fingers. "What the hell!? This thing ain't flesh!"

"It's metal." Blake realised. The rust that she'd assumed had grown over it like barnacles was not that. It was the natural result of the saltwater on its skin. "Jaune!" she shouted. "It's made of metal!"

"What!?" Saphron was the one to catch Blake's warning as she backhanded a thrown container, sending it flying out over the water despite that it should have either crushed her or broken apart if she was strong enough to do that. It was looking more and more like her Semblance was some odd capability to impart momentum through her blows, and not pure strength. "You said metal? That doesn't make sense. This thing clearly isn't mechanical in nature given its flexibility."

When a tentacle swept by and nearly tore Blake's feet off, she leapt over and tracked it as it hit another container. Taking the chance for herself, she rushed in and swung Gambol Shroud's cleaver down, not gripping the hilt too hard like Roman had. The blade hit with a horrific sound, vibrations racing up her arm. Unlike Roman, however, the edged weapon did bite deep just a little. Not enough to sever the limb entirely, but enough to leave a nasty gash in it when she yanked her weapon free. No blood was spilled, nor ichor or anything else. The cut left the tip of the tentacle all but dangling off, but it didn't look like she'd wounded it any. A quick inspection of the edge of Gambol Shroud showed the same couldn't be said for her. The cutting edge was dulled and pitted, in desperate need of sharpening after just a single cut.

"Metal." Saphron hissed. "Pyrrha, it's metal! Use your Semblance!"

"W-What?" Pyrrha landed near them, having leapt off the monster. Her own sword looked chipped. "Against that!?" she asked. "It's too big. I'd never be able to control it."

"We only need a limb. The injured one."

"I'll try."

Pyrrha sheathed her sword and pushed both hands out. The tentacle Blake had half cut twitched suddenly, shining faintly with purple light. Suddenly, it twisted and flopped down as if choke slammed to the deck. Blake was quick rush over to it, as was Roman, and between them they managed to hack at the already weakened point until, with a clang, the tentacle was severed in two.

Instantly, Pyrrha's control over it broke and the remnants of the limb flew up into the air. What remained on the deck, however, twitched only once before going still. It turned a dark, orange-red and fell apart, turning not to dust like a Grimm would have, but into a pile of reddish flakes.

"Rust…" Jaune said. "Blake was right."

"Celebrate later!" Saphron hissed. "That's one limb down-"

The downed limb stabbed into a cargo container high above them. Blake thought it would fling it at them as the others had been doing, but it instead held still, writhing and pulsing ominously. Before their eyes, rust began to build up and accumulate over the container, spreading like water across a sponge until the once clean container was decrepit and rusted as though it had spent an eon at the bottom of the ocean.

It buckled suddenly, twisting and scrunching up, the walls of the container sucking in. With a tearing sound, a tentacle speared out of it, smaller by far, at best as thick as Blake's own arm and twice as long. It curled up to brush against the much larger one almost lovingly, like a child touching its mother for the first time.

Just like that.

"IT CAN REPLICATE!" Saphron screamed. There was raw panic in her voice. "TERRA!"

A sharp crack echoed above them, and a bolt of fiery orange spiked into the now-living container. There was a moment of quiet, then a horrific sound as the creature bulged and ballooned outward. Its sides, the rusted hull of the container, split open and erupted with fire. The dust that had still been inside it had ignited from Terra's shot, and the creature, newborn as it was, had no defence against it.

"It's a contagion." Jaune said. "This isn't a creature at all – the rust is the anomaly. It's capable of infecting any metal object of sufficient mass and turning it into another version of itself." He looked back over his shoulder and groaned helplessly. "And we're headed straight towards the city!"

Blake looked back as well. They were a ways out, maybe three hours out at the speed they were going, but that didn't change much. If this thing could create more versions of itself through metal, then a cargo dock filled with containers would mean a small army. Worse, they'd spread and have plenty of metal from vehicles and even buildings. The city was as much metal as concrete in some areas. Shit. This wasn't just a simple anomaly – it was a potentially city-ending disaster.

"What are the Schnee thinking?" Blake had to ask. "This thing could destroy Vale."

"Never accuse a Schnee of being sensible!" Saphron snapped. "Jaune, Pyrrha, Blake – get back. Whatever your name is, call in your Bullhead to the back of the ship. We must get off this thing. I'll keep the thing busy while it comes in. Do not let it land on the decking or our last escape route might become one of them."

"R-Right." Roman nodded and made to run. He yanked his scroll out as he did and started shouting into it.

"What about-"

Blake was interrupted as Jaune grabbed her arm and shook his head. Pyrrha was already running after Roman, and if she wasn't second-guessing Saphron despite being in her Office, she shouldn't either. Blake bit her lip, looked at the back of the woman, her red coat with white feathers flapping angrily and her knuckles cracking together, and shook her head. She turned and chased after Roman and Pyrrha, Jaune with her. Above, Terra rained explosive ammunition down not on the creature, but on the harmless containers of dust. It was as much to prevent any more being turned into anomalies as it was to throw the tentacles about as explosions went off left and right.

"Will she be okay?" Blake gasped at Jaune. It was his sister being left behind and knowing what little she did of ARC Corp hadn't left her confident they wouldn't throw their lives away to stop anomalies, especially one threatening a whole kingdom.

As a huge rust-coated tentacle came down, Saphron slapped her hand up almost dismissively, sending it reeling back without any sound or real impact. Another swung in from her side that she punched away with much the same force. Furious, the anomaly slapped the limbs down across the deck, splitting metal and causing the cargo ship to list and tilt precariously.

"Saphron is Associate-Director of all of ARC Corp." Jaune answered, shouting over the screaming of people and metal and the crack of gunfire. His reassurance might have meant a lot more if he wasn't hanging onto a railing to keep upright. "There's no one other than dad with her experience. If anyone can do this, it's her." Even so, he looked back uncertainly, then paused in his run. "Hang on a minute. Blake, help Pyrrha get the Bullhead down. I'll be right back."

"You'll what!?" Blake's hand shot out to grab his collar, but Jaune only ducked his arms out the sleeves and left her holding his coat as he ran back. "Jaune, no!" she yelled. "You don't even have aura!"

She was about to chase after him when Pyrrha ran up. "Where is Jaune?"

"He ran back in!" Blake snapped. "I have to get him!"

"No. Our orders were to help the Bullhead land. We have to do that."

"But-"

"He's your Director." Pyrrha said. It wasn't said cruelly or harshly, but with a sense of… of obedience, trust and awe. A faith Blake did not share. "Associate-Director Saphron's orders at times seem difficult to follow as well, but she knows what is best. He's an Arc. I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

"And I'm sure he doesn't!" Blake said angrily, fighting back a groan. She watched as Jaune vanished around a set of containers and swore, gripping his coat so hard her nails nearly bit through the material. "Bastard."

"Blake." Pyrrha touched her shoulder. "We have to catch up with Roman. He'll probably leave without us if we're not there."

Roman looked like he was right about to do that when they eventually caught up with him. He was desperately waving the Bullhead to a hover off the back of the ship, and she swore she saw him wince when they arrived. "Y-You're here," he said nervously. "I was just telling the pilot how we have to wait for you all."

"That's good." Pyrrha said with a pleasant smile. "I'd have had to use my Semblance to drag the Bullhead back otherwise and there's no telling what that would do to the people on board."

Roman puffed on his cigar like it was an oxygen mask and turned away, growling under his breath and pacing with clear agitation. It wasn't lost on Blake that none of his men were with him, and she doubted it was solely because he'd failed to bring them. They were likely all dead, the first of which was probably the person Saphron sent into the water, and then the team sent out to fish him out.

The constant eruptions and explosions behind them on the main deck spoke of Terra still hard at work preventing any more children being born of this thing. If the rust that was the primary carrier had taken over the ship's hull, that must have made it the queen. Blake hoped so. If it could split and reproduce that way, they were in trouble, but it hadn't so far and only seemed capable of doing so by injecting its rust into metal objects like the cargo containers.

"Saphron knows what she is doing." Pyrrha repeated. "I'm sure Jaune does as well."

If you knew him like I did, you'd realise why that isn't half as comforting as you think, Blake thought. Jaune was… Well, he wasn't stupid. Mostly. He was competent enough when it came to anomalies, and this counted but she worried about his lack of aura. This thing wasn't messing around. He hadn't charged into the melee with his sister, so that was good. She couldn't tell where he'd gone or why, but it was a good sign that he wasn't where the tentacles were.

Changing up her own tactics, Saphron thrust a hand down and launched herself up into the air without jumping. Another punch diverted her backwards, landing with a clang of shoes on metal atop a container. Side-stepping a tentacle slamming down on top of her, she danced behind another and gave it a sharp two-handed push. The container, sitting sedentary atop its fellow, shot forward like it had been launched from a canon.

Where Roman's cane and her own Gambol Shroud had failed to really do much damage to the limbs made of metal, more metal, specifically metal weighing several tonnes and travelling at speed, did. The container crashed into the limb dragging itself out the ruined one below, and tore it back, pinning it to the decking and even severing the end of it. The ship rocked and splashed in the water and a low groaning sound rose.

"Uwoooooorghhhhhh…"

If it didn't like that, it certainly didn't like Saphron doing the same again and again, running down the backs of the stacked containers slapping one after another and shooting them out like bullets. Some missed. Many, really. Enough didn't. The tentacles flailing around were struck, punched through, pinned and in some cases cut straight in half. In one case, Terra managed to hit the cargo container as it was flying, turning it into a roaring fireball that burst out at the base of where a tentacle had come out the deck.

"I don't get it." Blake hissed. The more she watched, the more confused she was. "Is that her Semblance? It can't be super strength, or she'd be denting the containers and that guy she hit earlier would have snapped in two. I thought it was reversal of momentum, but the containers didn't have any before. What is it?"

"It's the Associate Director's SA."

Blake shot her a look. "Her what?"

"Sorry, her Slaved Anomaly. I forget not every office believes in that." The way she said it made it clear she was shocked anyone would disagree with it. Blake didn't even know what it was. Other than the fact she'd said anomaly.

"She's using an anomalous item? I thought the Fist Office hated them."

"We don't hate anomalies. We just believe they should be destroyed for the good of all people." Blake doubted the distinction would be much comfort to sentient anomalies. "To aid us in our task, each Fist Operative is allowed to take a singular non-sapient anomaly into their service. This is a Slaved Anomaly. On our retirement or death, the anomaly must also be destroyed, but until then the operative is allowed to use it."

"It's her gloves, isn't it?"

Pyrrha nodded.

That made sense. In hindsight, she'd been looking for a logical explanation where one didn't exist. Semblances had rules for all that they were anomalous themselves, or maybe they didn't have rules at all, but society had created rules in their heads as a way to explain them away as normal and reasonable. The gloves were the opposite. Maybe they transferred force or created it from nowhere, changing the momentum of a touched object at the will of the user with no impact or care for physics, acceleration or friction. Blake was more annoyed with herself for not having thought it a possibility. ARC Corp dealt in anomalies, so it made perfect sense to use some. Except that she would have expected that more of Jaune and the Containments Office.

"I'm surprised. When Jaune told me about your office, he made it sound like you were closer to his father's."

"The Blade Office? I've met Director Nicholas once. He was – is – a very intense man." Hearing that from yet another person didn't make Blake any more confident for her eventual meeting with him. "I understand what you mean, though. Director Arc believes all anomalies should be destroyed no matter the specifics. Associate Director Saphron does as well, but she knows some anomalies are too deadly to deal with alone. The Fist Office has to respond to any of three other offices, and usually for terrible, monstrous anomalies. She decided we needed a little more to deal with those." Under her breath Pyrrha added, "And after the things I've seen, I don't disagree. There have been investigations we would have died on if not for their SA's."

So, they weren't really all that different from Jaune's old man; they just made anomalies fight against one another. Given what was going on here, she couldn't say Pyrrha was wrong. Blake spared a quick glance and a glare to Roman to prevent him taking off and then asked, "Do you have one?"

"I haven't been fortunate enough to find one that has inspired me yet." Pyrrha smiled sadly as she said it. "And I don't want to rush into anything. Better to have the perfect SA than choose something weak because I felt left out."

You're acting like it's a relationship. Blake shook her head. Jaune hadn't mentioned Slaved Anomalies, and she wasn't sure he would support the idea either. They were the Containments Office. They contained. They didn't use. Right now, Saphron was using her anomaly to pin the tentacles down, sheer them off where she could, and hold it back. Terra continued to rain explosive rounds down from on high, picking off the few extra containers that had begun to sprout their own tentacles and drag themselves along the bloody deck.

Saphron backed off suddenly, backhanding one more container toward the chasm in the centre of the deck before shouting, "Terra! Down!"

A voice came from above. "Pyrrha!"

"On it!" Pyrrha spun on her heel suddenly and pushed one hand upward. Blake looked, eyes widening briefly as she saw Terra in absolute free-fall toward them. Suddenly, her sniper rifle snapped taut in the air, the woman holding on with both hands and dangling from it. Pyrrha grunted and the rifle dipped wildly, but she soon regained control. The older woman in her red coat drifted down as if the rifle were a parachute, presumably under the influence of Pyrrha's Semblance.

Once she was low enough, Terra kicked her legs and dropped the rest of the way, then caught her sniper rifle when Pyrrha released it. "Good job," she said, slapping the redhead's shoulder. "And you, Blake," she added with a cheerful smile. "This is still one of your first few, isn't it? Good to have a simple one."

"This is simple!?"

"Sure is. No temporal nonsense, no memetic interference, no civilians. Alive, anyway," she added. "And a big monstrous anomaly making its intentions clear. It's almost relaxing." Terra took one look at Blake's haggard expression and laughed. "Sorry. You did sign up for this, though."

"Enough chatter!" Saphron raced up with her coattails flapping. "We leave- Where is Jaune!?"

"He ran off." Pyrrha said. "Back to the ship."

"He did WHAT!?" Spinning on her heel, the woman stared back at where the beast was hurling containers off itself, some splashing into the sea and others crashing down over the deck or into the other stacked containers. "That damn idiot!" she hissed. "I swore to mom I'd look-" A spec of blue came stumbling out of a doorway set at the side of the deck, racing up the staircase as rusty tentacles chased him. He dove and roll, narrowly missing six tendrils each as thick as a tree trunk. "That idiot!"

Saphron sprinted and this time Blake followed, arriving in time to haul her boss to his feet while his sister leapt in front and fended the limbs off. The crack of Terra's rifle echoed, and rounds punched through the limbs leaving small holes. Jaune looked okay. Well enough, anyway. He had a set of folders tucked under his arm.

"I found the shipping manifestos!" he panted. "A-And a whole lot more of the rust downstairs. There's a freaking colony of infected metal objects down there. This thing might as well be a hive."

"None of which is worth knowing if it costs your life, you bloody fool. The Schnee will pay for this." Saphron snapped, backing up and herding them toward the Bullhead. "Get on the Bullhead – all of you!"

Blake was quick to push Jaune into Pyrrha's hands, the girl already on the aircraft. She pulled him on and then Blake as well, with Terra backing up without putting her rifle down, sitting on the edge. Pyrrha drew a steel cable harness down and handed it to her, which she wrapped around her wrist, still firing. Blake strapped herself in next to Roman of all people, who was already strapped in and was of all things filming the goings-on on his scroll. Blake slapped her hand into his, knocking it free and sending it plopping into the ocean.

"None of that!" she hissed. "Do you have zero self-preservation?"

"We're on, Saph!" Terra called.

"Go!" The woman waved her hand behind her. "I'll jump."

Jump off a living ship filled with tentacles? Worse yet, with more new creatures pouring up the staircase Jaune had led them to. She could see more of them, smaller cabinets and metal filing units that had become like hermit crabs and were drawing themselves along on rusted tentacles. There was a table among them too, along with several now-living chairs. Blake slammed her fist on the partition between the pilot and them and shouted "Take off! Take off!"

He or she didn't need to be told twice. After seeing everyone die, they were only too eager to yank the Bullhead to the side, sending it veering away from the ship and out over the water. Out over water that Blake could see tentacles thrashing about under the surface. Her face blanched at imagining what might have happened if the creature had been awake when they'd arrived on their inflatable. Of all the ways to die, drowning felt like the worst. Drowning while being torn asunder by rusty beaks was probably worse.

"Steady!" Terra shouted. "Keep us steady. Turn us sideways. Don't you dare take us further out or I'll shove my rifle where the sun doesn't shine." Leaning out, Terra screamed to her wife, "NOW!"

Far below on the deck, Saphron turned and sprinted to the railings edge. At the last she brought both her gloved hands down in a hammer blow, striking the thin metal railing. It should have snapped. Even Blake could have snapped it, the rusted material was that thin and brittle, and yet when the anomaly hit it, the metal didn't buckle. Instead, Saphron was launched up and over like a pole-vaulter, suddenly airborne and flying toward them. The pilot cursed angrily and tried to make them dip to catch her, but Blake very much doubted pilot school had involved catching airborne allies out the sky.

Luckily, they had Pyrrha for that. Saphron flung her hand out with a gun in it and Pyrrha stabbed her hands out, almost gasping as she was dragged forward. The straps kept her on the aircraft, though. Saphron Arc dangled one-handed from her weapon, suspended in the air as Pyrrha used her Semblance with great difficulty to bring her toward the Bullhead. Terra reached out at the last to grab her wife's arm and drag her on board.

"Good work, Pyrrha." Saphron said.

"T-Thank you Associate Director… ugh…"

"Take it easy for now." Saphron crouched at the open doorway. "Terra. I want that thing gone. Any objections, Jaune? Do you want to contain this as well? A metal-based contagion that can spread across the entire city?"

Jaune sighed. "No. Destroy it."

Terra cracked her rifle open at the middle and ejected the dust round already inside. Opening a pouch strapped to her hip, she drew out what looked like an archaic bullet to Blake. Metal all over and no dust to be seen. Along with it came a small snow globe. Except… that wouldn't be the right word. There was no snow inside it, no idyllic wintry scene with little flakes to represent the cold. Instead, it was pitch black. Not dark like a lack of light however, but somehow darker. A black that seemed all too unnatural. Terra gave it a violent shake without looking. Blake, however, hadn't taken her eyes off it, nor had Roman she imagined, for he groaned with her as the blackness swam and shifted, tiny specs of white shimmering and spinning by so quickly they made her feel nauseous. One shone brighter, hotter, and Terra gave a gentler shake, somehow drawing the brightness closer. A pinprick at first, and then bigger, the size of a coin, and then bigger still, near filling the globe and burning so bright that Blake hissed and tore her eyes away. Black spots danced in her vision.

Once it was bright enough to fill the interior of the entire Bullhead, and hot enough to make Blake's skin feel sore, Terra angled it down into the channel of her gun and pressed a small black button on the bottom of the globe, on the base that would have sat comfortably on a mantlepiece or desk. The light dipped for want of a better word, slotting down and out the globe, sliding into the barrel with a consistency not unlike molten metal. It formed into the shape of a bullet, a bullet burning bright white and so hot that steam didn't so much rise off it as bubble and pulse. A tiny flare of light burst up, spraying out, and Blake lurched back, somehow sure it would burn right through her skin if it touched her.

Terra snapped her rifle shut, put the now black globe back into her pouch and brought the weapon up to her shoulder. Given what she'd just seen, Blake sincerely doubted this would be quiet or subtle. The way Jaune was gripping his harness and gritting his teeth reinforced the idea. Blake held grimly to her own.

The trigger was pulled with a click.

There was no sound. Or rather, light moved faster than sound. A hot white streak shot out the end of the sniper rifle and practically teleported into the base of the ship. There was a moment, a nanosecond in which the world stood still, and then the sun rose. The sun rose over Vale at two in the morning, and Blake couldn't hear her screams for the sound of hot fire and celestial burning crackling in her ears.

To say the Bullhead struggled would be an understatement. The Bullhead did cartwheels, flips and somersaults. Up, down, left and right lost meaning, and if it weren't for the harness, she knew she'd have been lost. Every now and then, when the flipping aircraft faced the cargo ship, hot light would burn her retinas and bathe her skin as if she were sunbathing on Kuo Kuana's beaches in the middle of July.

The first shockwave had sent them tumbling but the second, third, fourth and fifth only made it worse. Glass shattered, controls shorted and sparked out, and the world tumbled. All the while, a roaring behind them echoed as the ocean was super-heated to boiling, and as the ship – and all the dust on it – went off one after another. Hands gripped her shoulders. There was no knowing who's. Blake held them back, grasping their wrists and shouting pointlessly.

She could not have said how long it lasted. Seconds? Minutes? It couldn't have been that long because they were still airborne when her hearing returned, but that was a close call. The pilot was screaming, and the controls only came back online at the last second. The turbines whirred and spat water out as they pushed up a mere foot from crashing into the ocean. Blake realised, with no small distaste, that it was Roman Torchwick she was holding onto and vice versa. His face was pink, sunburned, and he looked utterly lost. Blake pried his hands off and looked first to Jaune – alive, if annoyed – and then out over the water to the cargo container.

Not alive.

Not anything.

There was a hole where the ship had been. A hole in the ocean. The water was only just beginning to fill it back up, but that was so hot it was turning to steam or maybe even vaporising entirely, and what was left behind was a whirlpool that wasn't whirling. Of the ship, there was no sign. She doubted any metal had survived that impact, let alone the anomaly itself.

"-the fuck was that!?" Roman screamed. "Did you fire a fucking star at that? Tell me I didn't just see that!"

"You didn't just see that." Terra said politely. To be fair, she looked dazed as well, pawing at her eyes and massaging her face. "And no, it was just a dust round hitting more dust and causing a chain reaction."

Just a… yeah, right. Dust explosions were big, true, but you didn't have to be an SDC miner to know that was anything but dust. Roman appeared to know that as well.

"Like hell it was! I know my dust and I know bullshit when I smell it!" he snarled. "What the hell was that… that thing taking over the ship? And what the hell did you shoot? A-And who the hell are you people?"

Prim and proper, Saphron Arc gently removed her gloves and slid them into her inside pocket. She brushed some dust off her shoulder as if it were nothing. "We are health and safety inspectors. I said this before."

"I wasn't born yesterday, woman."

"I wouldn't know."

"That was a textbook case of poor shipping safety with volatile materials causing a dust explosion." Jaune spoke up, setting the story. Or the excuse. They needed one now since the Fist Office had gone and lit it up so bright even the blind would have seen it. "The SDC are known for their mining accidents, and it was inevitable one would happen on a freighter sooner or later. Sadly, the crew died in the explosion."

Roman looked between Jaune and Saphron in shock. "You… You can't be fucking serious. I saw that – that thing! I heard words like contagion, rust and Vale falling!"

"It has been known for people to hallucinate in stressful situations." Terra said.

The thief looked like he was about to pull his hair out.

Blake snorted, amused despite herself.

"Ultimately." Jaune interrupted. "It is what it is. You can tell people what you think you saw if you want, Roman. What do you think people will really believe, though? That there was some monster on board that took over metal and that shadowy government agents fired a miniature sun at it? Or that a lapse in safe haulage of dust caused an explosion?

"If you tell people you were on board, they might even start suggesting you caused this and are trying to make up excuses." Blake said, drawing a groan from Torchwick. "I'd say it's in everyone's best interests for this to stay a simple dust explosion. Wouldn't you?"

"I… I…" He looked to her, to Jaune, to Saphron and then to Terra and her rifle. In shock he might have been, angry as he may have been, he could read the room and probably figure out that if he kept arguing, they might take a more permanent approach to keeping him silent. "Y-Yeah, I guess it was. E-Excuse me for a moment. I need something to calm my nerves."

His hand shook as he brought out a cigar, struggled to light it and then growled, biting and chewing on the thing like gum. His eyes clenched shut as he tried to calm down. He banged his head against the rest and refused to acknowledge them, perhaps hoping the world would make more sense that way. It would. There was times Blake wished she still lived in ignorance as well. It wasn't a great life, but it had sure been easier.

/-/

The news headlines were all about Vale's `second sunrise`. They hadn't even had to do anything to convince the media what it was. An SDC cargo container of dust had gone up just out past the bay. The facts wrote themselves. The decision on whether it was an accident or Grimm involvement was still up in the air, but both were reasonable explanations, and one would be chosen in the end.

Neither was accurate and that was what mattered.

The reasons for the sudden power outage across Vale that had sent the city's electronics and databases into meltdown was less certain – it was being blamed on a widescale computer malfunction or ransomware. Those that talked of EMPs, and solar flares were quickly ridiculed for their tinfoil theories, and soon things were turning to normal. If one considered the outrage and questions being levied at the SDC to be such. Jacques Schnee was already giving a televised press conference about the issue, and he was pushing the Grimm angle. It made it seem less like it was their fault.

They know and we know the truth but both sides are pushing a false theory for the public's sake. Blake thought. It was so different to before in the White Fang, where they would say one thing and Atlas would say another to try and detract from their victories. ARC Corp and the SDC might hate one another, even enough to stage this near-assassination, but they both had the same goals in keeping the general public unawares, so despite all that had gone on, nothing would change. For now, anyway.

"All's well that ends well." Saphron said.

"Are you joking?" Jaune groaned. "This is exactly what I was worried about. You come in with your usual brand of madness and blow something up. Why are you not called the Explosives Office?"

"What, you think you could have handled that without destroying it?"

"I think we could have sailed it out to sea and dealt with it there. Less witnesses."

"No one will believe that petty thief."

"I'm talking about the entirety of Vale!" Jaune shouted. "You lit up the city!"

Blake watched from the couch, snacking on a muffin with Pyrrha, the both of them feeling comfortably left out of the argument that had been going on all morning. It had been more worrying at first, back when it started and it looked like they'd attack one another, but after an hour of this and with Terra having the look of a woman all too used to it and all too unbothered, Blake had realised this was par for the course. A strange little sibling rivalry that she didn't need to get involved in.

"Is it always like this with the Fist Office?" Blake asked Pyrrha.

"As long as I've been here, yes," the redhead said with a little sigh. "We're an office that reinforces others to deal with big, dangerous anomalies, so whenever we're called in, we're pretty much stepping on someone's toes."

There was a lot of pride among the Arc children, it felt like. They were autonomous enough to dictate their own office policies even if they clashed with ARC Corp as a whole, and Jaune's ran counter to the Fist Office. If there was some rule on jurisdiction, she didn't know it yet, and they'd ignored it in favour of arguing like… well, like brother and sister. Blake could see both sides of the argument. The Fist Office had ended up just as explosive and attention-demanding as Jaune feared, and the less she thought about what Terra shot at the ship the better, but at the same time she couldn't argue that destroying the Rusted Queen, as it was being named, hadn't been necessary.

"-astrologists won't even find evidence anything is different for at least a week and a half, Jaune, and there are plenty of stars in the sky."

"Do you even hear yourself, Saphron? The point of ARC Corp is to control anomalies, not use them regardless of the consequences!"

"Says the man who has a bunch of them stored in his office!"

"Stored. Contained. Safe."

"Soooo…" Terra interrupted with a long drawn-out statement and a quick step between the arguing siblings. "Now that we've intercepted the SDC's shipment here and destroyed it, I suppose we'll need to look further into their actions. This is a little extreme even for them."

The distraction worked wonders. However angry Saphron and Jaune might have been with one another, they hated the SDC more. Blake couldn't say she disapproved, and she flicked her ears in the direction of the conversation once more. Pyrrha was similarly interested.

"Yes." Saphron sighed and let Jaune go. "This was a clear attack on us. They knew we'd be coming. The only problem is figuring out whether this was an attempt to kill us or distract us."

"Me." Jaune said. "It was an attack on me. They couldn't have known you'd be here when they set this cargo ship going."

He was right. The ship likely set sail from Atlas a couple of days ago and spent more time out at sea. Then, the rust contagion likely hadn't taken over and was just storied inside something. Had it broken out on its own or been released intentionally? Did the SDC even have plans in place to deal with anomalies that broke out their control, or did they just run the risk and assume ARC Corp would deal with it? They were right that ARC Corp would, but if it was intentional then this was clearly an attack on the Containments Office specifically.

Could it be that they want our anomalies? I'm not sure who would buy them and for what, but I bet someone would buy the camera if nothing else. And they might want the Blank Slate back under their control.

"This is an issue." Saphron said. "We shall make contact with the Secrets Office in Atlas and work with them toward investigating the SDC. You should stay here and keep an eye on your city, Jaune. There's a chance this was a distraction, and they have something else planned here."

Jaune nodded. "I wasn't planning on leaving anyway. I – or we," he added with a look sent Blake's way, "-will keep an eye out for any Schnee auctions. And we'll deal with them as and when they appear. That said, I think you owe us something."

Saphron look at him askance. "Do I?"

"You did promise to approve Blake if she did this mission with us."

"She hardly did anything. Terra, Pyrrha and I did most of the work. If it wasn't for us-"

"Blake identified the anomaly as rust-based. That makes her the primary investigative asset on the mission. All you did was fight and cause property damage." Jaune leaned his elbows on the table. "I happen to think she did enough. And you did promise."

The elder Arc sibling looked back her way and Blake tried hard not to smirk. The woman's eyes narrowed but she tore them away with a frustrated grunt. "Fine. She has my tentative approval, assuming no later fuck-ups on her part. That doesn't let you off hiring her without pre-emptively securing our approval, but I'll let it go for now. Terra, Pyrrha. It's time for us to go."

The other two stood. Pyrrha smiled brightly at Blake and said, "It was a pleasure meeting and fighting alongside you."

"Yeah. You too." The famous redhead was a little fanatical and into ARC Corp, but she supposed that made sense after what she'd been through, and she was neither rude nor unpleasant to talk to. "Good luck in Atlas."

"Thank you. Good luck to you here as well."

Jaune all but sagged with relief once they were gone, the door shut and their footsteps echoing down the corridor. He melted in his seat like an ice-cream left out in the sun, sinking down until only his shoulders and head could be seen over the table. It was all too dramatic for Blake. They hadn't been that bad and it certainly hadn't hurt to have that level of firepower available on the ship.

On the other hand, the fact she and Jaune had dealt with three anomalies without anyone noticing, albeit one was framed as a pervert with a Semblance, while the one the Fist Office came to take part in had been lit up so bright every single person in Vale had seen it said a lot. Effective they may have been but subtle they were not.

"Do you really think the Schnee were trying to kill us with this?" Blake asked.

"Kill or distract. They know we're here from our interaction with Beacon, so this might just be a tacit warning to stay away from the heiress there."

"Do we do anything about her?"

"Under Ozpin's nose? No." He sighed and dragged himself back up the table to a seated position. "Honestly, I'm just relieved he didn't show up while Saphron was here. Or Ruby. I don't want to have to explain that one. Bad enough we have a living witness out there and a whole city on alert, but now the SDC are likely to try something bigger."

"At least we dealt with the Rusted Queen."

"Did we? Or was that just an offshoot of it? They could have let the anomaly infect the ship and sent that off alone. For all we know, they still have the core anomaly sealed up and ready to use."

That was terrifying. An anomaly that could spread and take over a city was a nuclear option if ever she'd heard one. It was as clear a warning not to directly attack them as any she'd seen. "What's with them?" she asked. "Why are the SDC this reckless? When did they find out about anomalies and start selling them too?"

"What went wrong with us that we let them find out?" Jaune asked.

"Yeah."

"That's the problem. We didn't slip up on keeping things secret from the public or some greedy private company. The failure came from within." Jaune sighed heavily. "One hundred years ago, when one of our Offices went rogue. The Snow Office, under its Director, my great-aunt, Serenity Arc and her husband Nicolas Schnee."

Blake let out a hiss. The rest was obvious. "They turned traitor."

"Abandoned the Arc family duty, took a powerful anomaly and fled with it, instantly turned it Reality Class and sold it on the open market."

"Dust."

"All Becomes Dust," he corrected. "The dust you see and use is a by-product of the real anomaly."

"And the real one?"

"Something far worse." Jaune shook his head. "And something we can no longer strike at. Dust is used by everyone now – a perfect, clean energy source that the SDC monopolises. If we remove that now we throw Remnant back a hundred years or more. The Grimm might well attack and destroy humanity before we can find another fuel source or retrofit an entire civilisation's worth of equipment and infrastructure."

"That's it, then? The Schnee escape and win?"

"No. If we can deal with them quietly, we can take over the SDC and keep it running as a subsidiary of ARC Corp, or even hand it over to trusted people in Atlas to run. The SDC has to remain, but the Schnee can be challenged." His eyes hardened. "They can be brought to justice for what they did back then and here today. You can rest assured of that."

This marks the end of the tutorial arc of ARC Corp in a way.

Chapters 1-2 were introducing ARC Corp and a violent monster anomaly and the concept of killing them. Chapters 3-4 were meeting a sapient but non-dangerous anomaly to show that side of things. Chapters 5-7 were introducing anomalous items, the abuse of them and introducing the factions of Ozpin and the SDC. Chapters 8-10 were then introducing the concept of other offices of ARC Corp, their methodology and how they operate independently, and expanding on the history with the Schnee and the major conflict there.

Basically now you've learned about living, non-living, violent and non-violent anomalies, along with the major factions. If this were a game, this would mark the end of the introductory arc, and the player would know enough of the world lore and stakes to continue the rest of the game. That's the structure I've been using for the first ten chapters of this.

Next Chapter: 27th June

Like my work? Please consider supporting me, even if it's only a little a month or even for a whole year, so I can keep writing so many stories as often as I do. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur