Yesterday was a messy family encounter. I'll leave it at that.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 41

The boat Jaune chartered was a small tug with a glass panel bottom that had once been used for tours and displays around the coast, but was now mostly used for courier work. It had fallen into disrepair but still worked, and they took it out past the pier to where the video footage seemed to suggest the anomaly had. It wasn't an exact science given the lack of landmarks in the open water. Jaune turned the engine off and brought the anchor down on its motor-driven winch. The two of them were already tightly clad in black wetsuits. The water wasn't that cold but Blake appreciated the extra layer of protection from a coast filled with trash.

The scuba diving gear was at least a little better preserved than the boat. The bright yellow tanks and masks lay side by side, along with flippers, weight belts, and two whiteboards with pen on a rope attached. They'd been assured the pen would work underwater, and the whiteboards were going to be their only method of communication down there.

Down there in the water in a world where Blake knew monsters and cryptids were real.

Fun.

If this were the deep ocean then she might have told him to stuff it. Blake had never been one to fear the water, and she didn't know, but the things in the water? Yeah, those were probably best to fear. Sharks and Grimm were bad enough but now there might genuinely be subaquatic colonies of humanoid creatures, great krakens, bestial horrors, and more.

"Take it slow down there," said Jaune. "We've got plenty of time and we can try this again tomorrow if something goes wrong today. Don't take any risks. We have forty-five minutes of air. We'll go back up the moment we hit thirty."

"Got it." Blake's voice was gruff, though more because she wanted to get this over with than any disagreement. There was no telling what they'd find down there but it was probably an anomaly. Hopefully, it wasn't one that took control of them because if they lost their minds on the bottom of the ocean then they were going to drown.

"I'll go in first. Stick together."

Jaune sat on the back of the boat and put the mask over his mouth, then rolled backwards and off – showing at least some familiarity with scuba diving. He waited in the water, swimming away from the boat so she had room to roll back in like he had. He paused to hold his fingers up asking if she was okay, which she returned, and then he pointed down and they were both diving.

Gloomy as it was up top, there was still just about enough light to see with. For her, anyway. Jaune activated the large and clunky torch he'd rented and shone it down into the abyss. A few fish jetted away from them. He started swimming, his flippers moving up and down slowly and a trail of bubbles following his path. Blake followed those bubbles, heading further down into the gloom until the silty and unfortunately polluted seafloor became visible. There was coral there, in places, but also garbage and metal drums, and car wheels, and other heavy bits of trash that had sunk.

It moved with little bits of life: crabs, tiny fish, an eel withdrawing nervously into a car exhaust. Jaune and Blake swam three feet above it all, neither feeling any desire to touch down among such rubbish, and content to keep scanning for sight of Janice's boat. The water must only have been about eight to ten metres deep, nothing in the grand scheme of things, and yet it felt deep enough. Blake floated away from a jellyfish – an actual one instead of a plastic bag this time – and swam to catch up with Jaune. He'd come to a stop with his light shining down on something – a hard, right-angled edge. Unseen in nature. Or so Blake assumed. Who even knew anymore? He blew some bubbles out and pointed at it, to which she nodded.

It was a boat. It might even have been Janice's. It was upturned, capsized, and it had sunk to the bottom where it now lay half-buried in the sand. It had served as an umbrella of sorts to keep the surrounding area free from trash. There was a dull red stripe down the side of its white polymer finish. The motor at the back had become stuck among the sand and was rusted beyond repair.

Jaune brought out his whiteboard and wrote "LIFT IT?" in big black letters. Blake nodded.

They settled down and worked their hands under the lip, then heaved. The boat didn't budge. It didn't look all that heavy but they couldn't stand on the ground and put their backs into it, and without that kind of support they weren't going to be able to move it. Jaune tried to work his way under and then push up with his feet while pressing against the sand, but the ground gave way first in a cloud of silt. Blake was just about to suggest they work the anchor under and try to bring that up with the motor to shift it when she noticed something black and smooth in the sand. While Jaune strained with the boat to no avail, she swam down to brush the sand away from it.

It was a camera. Not a fancy one by any means, but one of those plastic-coated disposable ones that could be bought cheap, used underwater, and would then be thrown away once the pictures were all taken. Blake tugged on it but it was wedged into the sand tight, tighter than she expected. Her wet-suit hands came down to brush and dig sand away to free it, and she dug around it until she found what was keeping it trapped in place.

A hand.

Bubbles exploded out her mask as she shrieked underwater – releasing a low, bubbling sound of distress that Jaune heard none the less. He kicked out from under the capsized boat and came over, quickly spotting what she'd found. A few bubbles escaped him as well in surprise, but the buried hand didn't move and wasn't a threat. He looked to her and made a symbol to ask if she was okay. Blake clutched her chest and nodded back. It had just spooked her.

It shouldn't have. This had all led to the idea of a dead body and she'd been dreading it all along. They came down around the hand in the soil and began to dig around it revealing more. The more they dug, the more it became obvious something had happened. This was no normal body. What she had assumed to be a hand was actually skin fused to the camera itself, except the skin was made of a black plastic-like material. Maybe the same plastic as the camera, or maybe photo film reel. Either would make sense here.

The camera and arm were attached as if the camera had become a hand, and as they went deeper they found that the woman's head – Blake assumed it to be Janice – had been replaced with a camera as well. Her eye was presumably the flash on one side and the shutter on the other. There was hair, of all things, that clung raggedly to her rectangular plastic scalp. Her body was humanoid, but androgynous. Flat and overly smooth with no bumps of curves. It was sleek black, but it didn't look to be clothing in any normal way. Her skin had turned black and shiny like hard plastic.

Her body was heavy, too. Even once they managed to dig her out the sand she just lay there on the bottom, quite clearly dead. Had Janice turned into an anomaly but then died straight after? From what they knew this could happen in moments of extreme stress, and she'd been stressing about her life and San Valeo. Blake hadn't said it, even if she was sure Jaune had thought it, but she suspected suicide. The apartment and letters painted a woman who had given her everything to San Valeo, and who loved it more than she loved herself. The people, the atmosphere, the party spirit. A woman who had sold up and moved to work there so she could be a part of it, and who had watched that dream come crumbling down as the resort fell into obscurity. A woman who refused to sell up and leave despite many advising her to, and who might have gone out for one last ride on her boat to capture the magic.

Had she changed then and there? Or had she changed in the water, as she capsized her boat and let it take her down? Or had it all been an accident but she ended up trapped? There wasn't much in the way of telling, and she didn't want to cut her open to look for a film reel. If she even worked that way. Blake pulled out her whiteboard and scribbled on it.

"What now? Take her up?"

"Have to remove her," wrote Jaune. They couldn't well leave her body here to be discovered later by a diver. Plus, she was probably behind the hallucinations overtaking the resort.

"Where?" asked Blake, then scribbled again. "Vale might spread hallucinations."

Jaune nodded back. "Coral. Specimen. Do tests."

"Source of human - anomaly transformation?"

Jaune nodded and made the "okay" symbol with his fingers again to say she had the right of it. Where, exactly, they'd keep this she didn't know, but that wasn't her business. Maybe they'd bury her underground or take her out to store on an unmanned boat in the water far enough away from people that she wouldn't influence them. Or maybe Coral would just take some material and then destroy the body. He started writing again on his whiteboard, a longer message this time, and showed her once he was done.

"I'll get the body lifted onto boat. Can you check for any evidence and collect? Leave nothing behind."

Blake read it and then returned his "okay" symbol with her fingers, kicking away to investigate the boat. Janice had turned into a camera, perhaps as some reference to her job, and her job was photography. It was entirely possible there was another camera down here that they couldn't just leave be. Though Jaune hadn't managed to turn the boat over he had dug a small hole around it that she could worm under so that her head, shoulders, and arms were under the boat. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom.

Janice had not come out with nothing. There was another photo album down here, its pages wet but the photos surviving in their little plastic wallets. Blake leafed through them sadly, seeing more scenes of happy people enjoying their holidays. A last reminder for Janice as she went down, but also, perhaps, the cause of the dream-like hallucinations. Maybe Janice had died looking at these wistfully, and unintentionally become an anomaly that could force those dreams on other people in San Valeo. The album looked normal but she took it anyway, just in case, and then sifted through the sand for any more bits and pieces. There was a purse with ID – confirming it was Janice – that she shoved into a pouch on her belt, and a few other trinkets that she left behind: a necklace, a few coins, the keys for the house Blake had already broken into.

It was knickknacks at best and there wasn't a camera, so Janice had either not brought it or had somehow merged with it. Either or. Blake gave one last check and then started pushing with her hands, shimmying her way backwards out from under the boat. She'd heard the sound of the anchor rising a minute ago, so presumably Jaune was using it to hook the anomaly out and up. It was already gone by the time she worked her way out, leaving only a hole in the sand. Blake blew out a few bubbles and checked her oxygen – still plenty of time left – and gave one last look around to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

Which was when she came face-to-face with an insectoid head and a pair of huge, glowing eyes.

Bubbles exploded out in front of her face as she screamed, obscuring it for a moment, but then its long, spindly fingers closed in on either side of her head, and the world in front of her twisted and bent.

Blake saw the sky from beneath the water.

Blake saw a boat upon the surface as a dark shadow.

Blake saw the boat turn and sink, and then a figure drifting down.

Blake saw the world shift as she, herself, moved forward faster than she ought to have been able to, like a shark.

Blake saw her arms, long and stick-like, close around the sinking figure, and then she saw the surface approach and be broken.

Blake saw a woman, face streaked with grief, slap at her and weep.

Blake saw the docks approach, and then the world lurch.

Blake saw herself landing on wood with a wet slap and set the woman down almost gently.

Blake saw herself dive back into the water.

Blake saw the sky from beneath the water once more, but this time there was no boat.

Blake saw a woman swim out and then down.

Blake saw the woman trap her legs under rocks to hold herself to the seafloor.

Blake saw the bubbles burst from her mouth.

Blake saw her own stick-like hands try to move the rocks, and the woman bat them away.

Blake saw the woman die and her skin turn black as plastic.

Blake saw the sky, the grey clouds, and Jaune's face as he leaned over the side of the boat and said, "Blake? Are you okay?" He had removed his tank and mask and flippers though he was still in the wet suit. "Blake? Did you come up to fast? I don't know if San Valeo has a decompression tank but I can call an emergency lift to Vale."

Water bubbled past her lips and splattered upward as she coughed. "What…?" She felt dizzy, confused, but also upset. There were tears in her eyes and a horrible emptiness in her stomach. It reminded her of the first time she realised just how much harm she'd done in the White Fang. The pain, the regret, the grief.

Is that my grief, though? Or is this what the anomaly felt…?

"It tried to save her."

Jaune leaned over. "What did?"

Blake took a deep breath and rolled herself over, then swam to the boat. Jaune helped her up with her heavy tank, and then helped her unclip the straps and dump it on the slatted wooden deck. The anomaly was in the corner, bundled up with a tarp thrown over it. Blake accepted the fluffy towel he pushed into her hands and used it to dry her face and the tears away.

"I saw the other anomaly. Or it saw me."

"Did it hurt you?"

"No. I… I don't think it's dangerous. It showed me… I don't even know that it meant to show me. It thought I was drowning and brought me to the surface. I think it tried to do the same with her." Blake nodded to the camera-based anomaly. "Originally, she tried to go down with her boat but it saved her and carried her to the pier. She wouldn't have it, though. She dove back in, swam out, and used rocks to wedge herself to the ground where she died. It couldn't help her and watched her die." Blake scrunched her eyes shut. "It felt… grief. It felt like it had failed her."

Jaune had no answers for her.

"What are we doing with that one?" asked Blake.

"I've already called Coral and she's got a Bullhead coming out here to collect it. She sounded excited to get started, which is why we're getting such a fast response. We'll let them take it away from San Valeo and that'll hopefully lift its influence on the resort. We'll have to spend one more night to be sure."

"What about the one in the water?"

Jaune shook his head. "Don't mention it. Not to Coral."

/-/

If anyone from San Valeo saw the sleek aircraft come out to hover over the water and accept a wooden crate from a boat then they didn't mention it. Or maybe they had their own ideas and were throwing theories around. Blake wasn't sure. They sailed back in silence, handed the ship and gear back to where Jaune had got them from, and then retreated to the hotel for a shower and some food. Coral had come in person to see the anomaly and fuss over it, and for once Blake was too tired to muster up much dislike toward her. Coral Arc had left with the body of the anomaly and promised they'd be the first to know – even before Nicholas Arc – as to what she found.

"Call it a favour and a hint that you should keep funnelling these my way," she'd said, winking.

By now, they'd been in San Valeo long enough that Blake had to re-use an old suit. It was creased, dusty, and not at all up to the standards ARC Corp held. Jaune looked no better. They'd watched from the windows as it drew late and waited with bated breath. The hour came, the streets grew quiet, and they watched from the windows and the two cameras they'd set up outside.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

It was over. Jaune wanted to test further, so the two of them risked going out into it one last time and found that, indeed, there was no busy pier, no ghostly people, and no excitement. They did a full circuit of San Valeo before coming back to the hotel, content that the anomaly responsible for keeping people locked here was in fact the one they'd removed. The two of them collapsed at a table in the hotel's foyer, exhausted, and ordered some drinks.

"Is it really okay to leave the other one free?" asked Blake. "I'm fine with it; I'm just surprised you would."

"ARC Corp policy would mandate it be hunted down and destroyed."

"I know. And I know you're not like that, but this… letting it go? It feels more like something Ozpin would have asked for, and that you'd have thrown in his face as irresponsible."

"It does, doesn't it?" Jaune snorted faintly and nursed his drink. Non-alcoholic. Neither of them was in the mood. "Don't mention this to him. The man – if you can call him that – is wrong about a lot of things. His goals are for the complete co-existence of anomalies and humans in an open world where everything is known. It's a great dream to have, but it's completely unreasonable."

They paused as Sprucewood walked by, looking oddly confused and approaching a payphone. He made a call, leaning heavily on it. Hopefully, that would sort itself out.

"There are too many dangerous anomalies in the world for peaceful coexistence," said Jaune. "And too many people who would want to take advantage of the benefits of anomalies on our end. Both sides are guilty. That's not even counting the people who would want to destroy them all out of principle or hatred, and how the sentient anomalies might react to that. It'd be all-out war."

"How is that any different to what ARC Corp does now?"

"Because ARC Corp doesn't hate what it destroys. Or it's not supposed to. Our job is to keep the balance. Keep the secrecy. It probably looks like we go after every anomaly that exists and kill them, but that's not the case. There are too many that exist for us to even consider doing that. We prioritise the ones at risk of becoming Reality Class."

"Because they post the biggest risk to people discovering these things."

"Yeah. We can't afford people to become like the SDC and try to profit off them. But we also can't afford for people to become like the White Fang and try to terrorise them. We can't afford for people to do a lot of things – because there are a lot of ways this could all go wrong." He took another drink, and leaned his face on one hand, elbow on the table. "Our job is as much about protecting anomalies as it is protecting people. You'd just… not know that, looking at how we operate. Because we focus on dangerous ones."

"Where dangerous doesn't always mean a threat to human safety, but a threat to the truth being revealed?"

"Exactly. And in those cases we destroy them. Brutally. It's as much about sending a message as it is about removing the danger. Tell all the sentient or aware anomalies that they should keep what they're doing secret and stay away from people. That won't necessarily save them from being visited by us, but it lowers the odds. And if they want to stay under the radar forever? Well, my father and my sisters won't like it, but they also won't go looking. They've got bigger threats to focus on."

"I get it. But where do you come into that? If you accept that this is just to get rid of the ones at risk of revealing the world of anomalies, then what's your focus on wanting to contain them?"

"It's what it looks like. I don't like the idea of needlessly killing things that don't need to be. Especially those that are sentient. Take the Guardian Weaver for instance. It's harmless. It wants to protect those it chooses as its wards. If the Scarlatina house had ever been attacked by bad people and their lives were threatened, he would have come out and risked his own to save them. And yet ARC Corp would destroy it just because it puts human protection above its own secrecy. That's not right. Not when hiding him is as easy as relocating him to our office and feeding him crickets. The same goes for the other anomalies in the office. They might be dangerous in the wrong hands but that's not their fault. A kitchen knife is dangerous in the hands of a psychopath, but it can do a lot of good in the hands of a chef. I don't see things as so black and white."

"And Ozpin does, I take it? He's the opposite of your father. One sees the black and one sees the white."

"Ozpin wants all anomalies to have the same rights and live alongside humans. Nicholas wants them all dead so this matter can be put to rest. Two extremes. Opposed views. Neither is wrong on everything they say – Ozpin is right that there are some benign and even friendly anomalies. Nicholas is right that there are some extremely dangerous ones that need to be killed. Like the Welcoming House or the Twilight City. You can't have it both ways. For every good anomaly there's a bad one. Peace won't work. Genocide will, but that doesn't mean it's the right answer."

It didn't feel like it to her, either. This all hit far too close to home on how the conflict between faunus and humans had been, with the same factions and rifts existing within the White Fang. Her mother and father had been like Ozpin, and Adam and Sienna had been like Nicholas. In the end, she wasn't sure either would ever really win out. Her parents had tried the wholly peaceful approach for years and it never worked. Neither had pure violence. Maybe the answer, as Jaune implied, lay somewhere in the middle. Maybe someone would figure it out some day.

"I heard the two of you will be leaving tomorrow morning." It was the boy from the counter, collecting their drinks and bringing more. "It'll be a shame to see you go. Though Mr Sprucewood tells me things might get busier soon once he finishes his sketches."

"Has he booked out as well?" asked Blake.

"Yes. Says he's stayed too long and needs to get back to Vale. Seemed really confused about it all if you ask me. I told him he's been here weeks. Must be all that alcohol." He tapped his head. "Mom always told me not to drink too much."

"Wise words," said Jaune. "Say, we were out on the water today and thought we saw something moving in the coast. Any big fish around here?"

"You sure it wasn't some trash, sir?" The boy smiled. "Could be the San Valeo Saviour."

"The Saviour…?"

"Old folk legend." He shrugged as if to say he didn't believe it himself and shouldn't be judged for it. "Been around longer than I have at this point. They used to say that a spirit looked over the water and protected people from drowning. You'd always get drunks falling off the pier and into the water. Most would swim back, but a few were so drunk they were swept out. Some of them said they saw a creature in the water before they blacked out and washed up safe and sound on the shore." He snorted. "Of course, they were all drunk out their minds when they saw it, so take that as you will."

Blake smiled down into her drink. Maybe it was better Coral and ARC Corp remain ignorant this time. There was a risk of discovery if San Valeo became busy again, and more people were saved. Cameras and footage had advanced in recent years. If that happened however, they could always swing back to capture and relocate it. It didn't deserve to be cut open and experimented on after saving so many people.

"No one ever come hunting for it?" asked Jaune.

"A few enthusiasts here and there. No one ever found it, though. Course, they took loads of photos of odd shapes in the water that turned out to be old scooters or arrangements of garbage. If something is out there, it's shy." He shrugged and said, "I don't believe it myself. I personally think it was a desperate attempt to create a new tourist attraction. You know, capture a new audience since when the place started to run out of visitors."

"That sounds plausible. Here, a tip for all your help." Jaune pushed a generous amount of lien on the boy. His eyes lit up. "Don't worry, you've earned it. Good luck here. Hopefully, San Valeo can become a big resort again. We'll be sure to visit if it ever does."

Jaune could speak for himself there. Blake was swearing off alcohol for life.

/-/

Vale looked the same as it always did. Busy, loud, obnoxious. Jaune and Blake trudged into their apartment building looking like they'd come from a three-day bender, which they sort of had. Blake was clutching a packet of muffins in one hand and a styrofoam container of coffee in the other. Jaune had a coffee in one and a bag of takeout in the other. They'd earned it. Dragging their sorry bodies up the staircase, they approached the Containments Office and let themselves in.

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" screamed Ruby. Instantly.

Blake could feel her hopes for an early night's rest slipping away.

Ruby was stood before them awkwardly wringing her hands together. Timothy was in Jaune's bedroom – Blake could tell because she could hear him excitedly scratching on the door to come out, having heard there were visitors. He'd be even more affectionate when he realised it was them.

No, Ruby wasn't the problem. Nor was Timothy. The problem was the girl sat on the corner of Jaune's desk, and whom clicked her lips impatiently and kicked off when she saw them. "It is about time," snapped the girl. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting? I was under the impression ARC Corp had a duty to uphold, but perhaps your family's standards have dropped in recent years."

Jaune growled. Though, in all honesty, if anyone should have had such a feral reaction to the girl in question then it ought to have been her. Blake just sighed instead, pinched the bridge of her nose, and said, "Weiss Schnee. Damn it. There goes my evening."

Subterranean anomaly just wants people to stop drowning in its backyard.

Next Chapter: 20th February

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