A/N: I'd really appreciate feedback on this chapter! It feels a bit different from anything I've done before, so anything that comes to mind would be helpful to improving my writing. Also, this is going at the top this time (for reasons that will probably be apparent at the end):
The door to the lab was wide open. The lights inside were...bright, where somehow Blake had expected them to be dim, or flickering. Instead, they shimmered off of the dark, reflective liquid that lined the floor, slowly disgorged into the snow outside. Like...like poison, drooled from the maw of some beast.
She shook her head slightly. The sight from earlier...had gotten to her, obviously. She needed to focus.
"That looks like...like Grimmsblood. From the attack on Vale." Yang's eyes were narrow, and she took a deep breath. "It...it's safe to touch, even if it feels disgusting."
"But it does mean that Grimm could spawn anywhere." Ironwood stepped forward. "Be careful."
Ruby nodded. "The hallways aren't that narrow...Yang, you're on vanguard. Blake and Winter can back you up - oh, crap, um...I'm sorry, Specialist, I shouldn't -"
"It's fine," Winter interrupted. "It's sound strategy. If the General has no objections, neither do I."
Ironwood thought for only a second. "Actually, that's a good idea. Miss Rose, you have tactical command. Use us well."
Silver eyes widened for a moment...and then she nodded gravely. "Right. Then...General, you're in the center. Weiss and I will back you up. Let Yang and Blake engage as first priority; Winter, you're priority two if we get flanked." They nodded, rearranging themselves for a moment before Yang and Blake led the way through the door. The ooze on the floor was unpleasantly sticky and oily, leaving her carefully aware of her footing at all times. "Okay. Our first objective is the computer room; Yang, you remember the way to get there?"
"More or less, yeah. Are we clearing as we go?"
"No. We want to blitz ourselves there before they have a chance to respond...if there is anyone still here."
The eerie silence of the lab made their squelching footsteps sound unbearably loud as they advanced through the tight hallways. Blake grimaced at the unpleasant sound – thump – and then her ears twitched as something made a noise around a corner. She held up a hand urgently, and they came to a stop. Several seconds passed, one by one by one, and she began to lower her hand.
Thump.
They each tensed, waiting. Second after second after...
Thump.
It hadn't moved. Neither closer nor farther away. She glanced at Yang, who glanced at Ruby, and their leader nodded. As one, they swung around the corner, Yang ducking through the door just a step in front of her as she raised Shroud and Veil in preparation. Her eyes swept the room – tables everywhere, countertop, cafeteria, her mind supplied. Food was strewn about, some of it sitting on plates and some sunk into the ever-present Grimmsblood on the floor. There was...another body, hunched over at one of the tables. Its back was bulbous and malformed, a large lump of black flesh with oddly symmetrical bone-like protrusions at the sides. Blake tensed, eyes narrow...and sure enough, a moment later it rose slightly, bending at the waist to lift its torso off of the stained surface it rested on.
Then it roughly dropped itself back onto the table with a thump. Yang watched it with her, both tensed and ready to move, as the others filed into the cafeteria behind them. After several more seconds, it raised itself up once again and deliberately dropped back onto the table.
It was Winter that spoke, her voice filled with icy venom. "Another one..."
At the sound of her voice, it rippled. The bulbous dark flesh shifted and unfolded, the symmetrical bones lifting and falling to the sides, trailing up arms that were jagged like branches. It rose up and up and up, easily five feet above the body it sprouted from. Blake's mind was still puzzling the entire shape together even as she reacted, darting to one side and reaching into the shadows...and then it turned around in a disgusting 180 degree arc, twisting itself around to stare at them with baleful red eyes.
Her mind caught up. The upper half of an Imp, a rare but not unknown Grimm...sprouting from the back of a human corpse. As the Grimm stretched upwards, the corpse rose from the table with jerky, shambling movements, turning to face them like a puppet being dragged from above. The corpse stared at them with blank eyes, and the Imp's skull-shaped mask reared back.
Ruby's eyes widened and she brought her weapon up. "No! Don't let it -"
It screamed, and the sound rebounded off the walls and tables all around them, bouncing around in Blake's skull like peals of thunder. The sound alone rattled her, left her stumbling in the Grimmsblood and tilting dangerously to one side. A tendril of shadow snaked out, planting itself on a table and holding her upright as she reached up to cover her ears, to do something to end the pain. It ended as suddenly as it began, leaving her with deafened, ringing ears – but she watched the muzzle flash of Crescent Rose and the way the Grimm stumbled back as its arm jerked to one side.
In response, the Grimm's corpse-mount lunged forward, leaning so far forward that an ordinary man would have fallen on his face. The Imp's claws swung, its arm stretching like a rubber band and whipping the claw towards her leader. She grit her teeth and pushed, launching herself forward with the power of her shadow and driving the edge of her blade into the Grimm's palm. In the same instant, Yang collided with its body, her fist lashing out at the thinnest part of its torso...where it connected to the corpse.
The first sound she heard as her hearing returned was a wet tearing as the corpse continued falling forward and the Grimm's upper body fell into the Grimmsblood behind it with a splash. Then, she heard Yang's scream of disgust as her fist fell upon its mask like the hand of an angry god.
It exploded into fragments and began to dissolve into black mist. For a moment, they stood motionless. Then she started to hear the sounds. Thumping footsteps, growling, buzzing...She shook her head, clearing the last of the disorientation from her mind. "There's more coming. I can hear them."
Ruby chewed her lip. "...We can't afford to get bogged down yet. We'll rush for the server room, and mount a defense there. We're strong enough." Not one of them objected. "If we encounter more...remember that the - that the non-Grimm is a weakpoint."
Blake clenched her jaw and nodded once, sharply. Then she and Yang were gone, setting the pace down the next hallway.
A Beowolf's claw emerged from the ground, scrabbling for purchase and beginning to drag the rest of its body up from the muck. Then Shroud slid just under the bony mask, separating the head from the body, and it collapsed back into the ooze that birthed it.
An Ursa's arm swung from around a corner, dragging a girl in a torn and stained labcoat through a side door. Her hair had fallen out, and her teeth were fanged. There was a bark of noise as a shell from Ember Celica struck her chest, and she splashed into the Grimmsblood.
A man stumbled after them, drooling more dark ooze onto the floor around them. Blake barely had a moment to categorize his pieces before Ironwood's Due Process put a bullet through its skull, and the General spoke. "Three doors ahead and on the right! That's the target!"
They didn't speak to acknowledge it. Instead, they moved. Whether the Grimm knew their objective somehow or were simply lucky, there were several gathering in front of the door already. Fully-formed Beowolves, led by an Ursa that even now growled in challenge...Blake didn't think, she just launched herself into their midst. Shroud cut through one of the Beowolves as she parried the Ursa's paw with Veil, putting a bullet through its arm in the same motion. She leaned to one side and allowed a bullet from Crescent Rose to ventilate another Beowolf, one ear twitching to the percussive sound of Yang clearing the path to her. As the Grimm advanced again, she twisted herself with her shadow and turned her lean into a spin, launching over a claw and landing on the opposite side of the pack.
Yang stepped forward and, with a grunt of effort, discharged her Semblance into the Ursa's torso. One paw in the air from a missed strike, it took a forced step backwards – to find Blake waiting for it, shadows twisted around Shroud's blade as she dug it into the monster's spine. It roared, and Yang struck it once more in the chest before carrying her motion through, pushing one half of the Ursa to the ground as she came to stand beside her partner.
Blake took a breath and adjusted her footing in the slime. Then, they lashed out again.
She breathed with forced rhythm as they entered the server room. She gathered up all the images of the half-destroyed corpses they'd left in the hallway...and put them away. There would be time to deal with that later. For now...
"The systems are still online. Let me see..." Ironwood stepped forward, holstering his weapon as he worked on a console. After a few seconds, he frowned.
"What is it?" Ruby stepped up beside him, peering at the screen.
"...Someone's left a message for us, it seems." Now curious, Blake stepped forward as well. On the screen, a folder was already opened labeled 'IMPORTANT.' The folder contained a number of files, mostly labeled with dates, as well as a number of subfolders. Yet...highlighted was a single video titled 'GREETINGS.'
Still frowning, Ironwood opened the video.
A grey-haired and grey-bearded man sat comfortable before the camera in a loose labcoat. He smiled slightly at the camera, although his eyes didn't change...neither his blue eye nor his red, mechanical replacement.
"Hello," he said in a soft voice. "I'm not certain who you are...but if you're watching this, then this video was almost certainly meant for you. I am Doctor Merlot. If you're unfamiliar with my name...well. Many years ago I launched Merlot Industries in an effort to design new tools to carry humanity into the future. Yet, no matter how much I worked at it...I never could unravel the tool with the most potential." He sighed. "No one has ever truly understood the Grimm...or so I believed, once. Now - Now I am not so certain. Still. I wish for you to understand, when I tell you my hopes." He leaned forward, a great intensity suddenly burning in his good eye. "I have burned away my fortune studying the Grimm. Captured samples, field research, historical inquiries...none of them bore fruit. Where did they come from? What were their weaknesses? How might they be altered, contained, controlled?" He shook his head. "Regardless of my efforts, there were never answers to these questions. Yet, in the spirit of true science, I never wavered or lost faith. Even as my resources dwindled, I searched."
His smile was small, yet so radiant it almost hurt. "And I was rewarded. Granted an opportunity that I could scarcely believe: an opportunity to study the Grimm at the moment of their birth, an opportunity to examine the way they interacted with an entirely new frontier of energy!" Just as quickly, his smile evaporated and his eyes narrowed in irritation. "And yet still the answers evaded me. I learned more about this new energy source than I did about the Grimm. I agonized over it. I lost sleep thinking of the possibilities...and finally, I believe I understand."
He spread his arms out wide, fingers splayed in a grand gesture. "The Grimm...cannot be understood by mundane methods. They resist the light of knowledge just as they reject the light of the soul. And in that moment, I had my moment of true epiphany. My moment of clarity!" He leaned forward conspiratorially, hands on the table and a glint in his eye. "To understand the Grimm...I must study how they interact with something I do understand. Something far closer to home. And by watching how they intersect, how they pull and push at each other...I can begin to understand the Grimm." He leaned back once again, clasping his hands together. "Fortunately, I had recently come into possession of quite a bit of...research material."
A deep breath. "Now. I expect that curiosity drove you to open this video, just as it pushed me to experiment. The purpose of this video is...remarkably simple, actually. It is a plea, of sorts." Slowly, deliberately, he leaned forward until his face filled the camera, his voice speeding up with every word. "Make no mistake. To understand the monstrous, I myself have become a monster. I have no illusions of myself any longer. But I beg you, whoever has come here to this place: Do not waste my sacrifices. I have filled this console with every note, every experimental log, every hypothesis and theory that I have crafted so painstakingly in my time here. I beg you, beseech you, do not throw them away out of some sense of ethics. What I have done can never, will never be undone...but its worth is yet to be written. I myself will do all I can to carry humanity to new heights...but if I fail, then it will fall to you. Stand upon my shoulders, stand upon my grave if you must, but stand!"
There was a noise, and the man glanced over his shoulder for a split second...and the video cut out.
For a time, none of them spoke. Each was consumed by their own thoughts. For Blake...the sentiment in the video burned close to her heart. Because, in the end, was that not what the White Fang had become? What I have done can never be undone, but its worth is yet to be written.
And yet, she'd seen the results of these experiments. Could she honestly say that anything was worth this?
"Merlot..." Weiss spoke quietly. "That name is...familiar."
"Doctor Merlot ran his research company out of the settlement of Mountain Glenn," Ironwood answered in a dull tone. "He studied many different subjects, including the Grimm. When he began running out of subjects...he smuggled more Grimm into the city. Eventually, this led to a cascade failure that drew a swarm of them down on the settlement." He glanced at them and nodded at their expressions. "Yes. Ozpin thought he had died in the incident...but I suppose that was too much to hope for."
Yang's fists clenched. "And now he's..." She stared at the computer with hatred burning in her eyes. "All his data is on this computer, huh?"
"We should keep it." Penny's words whipped through the group, all the more after her silence thus far. As they turned to look at her, continued. "He was...the doctor was correct. What he has done is already done. But if whatever he did could be used to save even a single life, then we should keep it."
Yang grimaced. "Would you want to be saved if it meant this?"
Penny shook her head. "This has already happened. It isn't...so simple as cause and effect."
"She's correct...no matter how much I despise that fact." Weiss' jaw was trembling slightly.
Ironwood pulled something from his jacket. "We'd have to go over the data regardless. It's possible this was made without Salem's knowledge, in which case there might be useful intel...somewhere in the recordings. Anything we can learn would be worth it." He plugged something into the console and began typing. "I'll make a single copy of this data on an isolated system, then wipe this console. We'll need someone to stand guard while it completes, unless you plan to wait while it does its work."
Ruby pursed her lips in thought, but before she could speak Winter saluted once. "I'll volunteer. I'm well-suited to defending a stationary objective."
Before anyone could answer, Penny nodded. "I will assist! The two of us should be capable of handling any threat."
After a moment, Ruby nodded. "...All right. Stay here and focus on defense. If you need backup, call for us on the short-wave band, or...Penny, have Obsidian tell us you need help."
They nodded.
Ironwood frowned, and Blake could sympathize. The door to the inner laboratory was the first closed door they'd encountered thus far. That...made her more than a bit uneasy. Still, he unlocked the door, and when they didn't see anything unusual they advanced.
The moment she crossed the threshold, though...it took her breath away for a moment. Her skin tingled, her shadow sang, and her heart was warm like the Flame was embedded in her chest. The air was swimming in Obsidian's energy, in a way that she had never felt before...no, that wasn't true. She'd felt this exactly once, pouring forth from the Flame moments before Obsidian had merged with her.
Each of the others stumbled as well. Ruby brought a hand up to her chest and bit her lip. Yang held a hand up like she was holding something, a thoughtful frown on her face. Weiss let out a shaky breath, her face a strange combination of awe and exhilaration.
"Girls?" Ironwood's hand was on his revolver as his eyes swept back and forth.
"Ah, uh, sorry, General. It's just...none of us have ever felt Obsidian's energy this concentrated before."
"I see." His expression said otherwise. "Will it be an issue?"
There was a smile on her face as she answered. "No. Not at all."
They proceeded to the next room...and her eyes narrowed. The Grimsblood was thicker here, deeper on the ground and with much more consistency to it...and she could see why. In the center of the chamber, a black and red tree sprouted, large root-like trunks plunging into the floor and a bulbous core from which a steady flow of the dark liquid poured.
Gathered around the tree were five dark shapes, and as they entered the room they turned as one. Roughly humanoid, with bony protrusions along their upper bodies. Their heads were shaped like...oxen's, maybe? With thin masks covering the upper half of their 'faces,' thin red slits for eyes and odd markings grown into the bone. Their proportions were slightly mismatched between them – where one's right arm was thicker, another had a wider torso or a narrower neck – but each of them shared a long, sharp-looking blade bursting forth from their right arm, and two curved horns jutting sideways from their heads.
"I don't recognize those." Ruby's face was drawn, silver eyes darting back and forth between each unknown enemy.
"Neither do I." The General's declaration made Blake intensely uneasy, and she raised Shroud, preparing to move.
As one, all five Grimm turned to stare at her. Then they roared in challenge, and something clicked in Blake's mind.
The blades. The markings on the mask. The bull's roars.
For a moment, she felt like the floor was dropping out from under her as five monstrous effigies of Adam Taurus took a coordinated step towards her.
Then the fury set in, and she had to forcibly divert her blind charge to one side as Yang took the other.
I'm not fighting in anger. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not!
The Grimm split up to match them, displaying an unusual cunning as both her and her partner were met mid-charge by a single beastly swordsman. The claw-blade deflected and diverted Shroud in a way that was almost familiar, but...lacking something. The strength was there, and it didn't feel like fighting a Grimm – but it didn't feel like him, either.
She swept out with Veil's blade – only to hit nothing as the Grimm faded back a step and another darted in to strike at her overextended side. A bullet bounced off its mask and it fell back with a growl as Blake reevaluated their threat level.
Ruby sighted, firing another round and pushing one of the Grimm away from her sister's flank. Ironwood was doing fairly well covering Blake, and she wasn't worried about Yang's ability to deal with two of them, but at the same time she wasn't making any gains either. In her peripheral vision she watched Weiss dance, blade weaving in and out in a never-ending motion while she pressured the final monster. It stepped back, again and again as her partner opened small cuts in its flesh. For humans, that many small wounds would add up over time, but she wasn't certain how effective it would be against these unknown Grimm. She began to move her focus, preparing to take the pressure off her sister again.
If she hadn't been watching she would have missed it. Weiss' blade pressed forward again...and the Grimm reached up and grabbed it in its empty hand. Then, an instant later, and the horned skull came down in a crushing headbutt that struck Weiss so hard Ruby thought she could feel the shockwave. As her partner stumbled, blade still held in place, an unfinished glyph spinning up in front of her, the Grimm raised its claw-blade.
Ruby put a bullet between its eyes and it stumbled backward. Weiss took the moment to skip backwards on a glyph, flicking her weapon and sending a thin spike of ice screeching through the air to embed itself in the creature's shoulder. It glanced at it, before raising its fist and shattering it with a punch.
Still, Ruby could see the damage done. Maybe...she glanced towards her sister and nodded at what she saw, focusing back on the single Grimm.
They just needed to break through here. As Weiss charged forward, Ruby switched to scythe mode and dashed after her.
Yang ducked, and Yang weaved.
Her fists darted out, knocking attacks out of the way and keeping her opponents unstable. She heard another of Crescent Rose's shots, but it wasn't aimed at either of her enemies or it would have hit them. Well, in that case, guess these guys are up to me. She smiled as one of them darted at her.
They'd been careful. One always attacked and one always defended, ready to step in the moment she extended to engage fully. Of course...she hadn't really engaged fully. She'd been feeling them out more than anything. And now...I've got your measure. Let's see what you've got! She ducked low under a swing and jabbed at the thing's legs. It wobbled, just a bit, and the other one darted in from the side, blade raised high.
She smirked, grabbing her target in two places and lurching. Her feet left the ground and she spun around its body, leaving it between her and the other one. It aborted its attack, starting immediately to move around to the side again, while the one she climbed on stared at her for a split second.
Then it reared back and slammed its head into hers. Her head snapped backwards as her feet planted back on the ground, and she blinked.
You little... She reared back, her Semblance singing in her soul. Motherfucker! Her head crashed forward and the thing slid four feet backwards, shaking its head slightly.
A crack ran up the entire length of its mask, and Yang bared her teeth in a grin.
Blake's shadow lashed out from her left arm, an unshaped tendril batting the incoming blade aside as Shroud sunk deep into a Grimm's thigh. She flicked the switch and drew the blade from within the sheath, leaving the sheath embedded in the leg as she spun. Dark fog trailed in the wake of the blade, for a moment connecting it to its sheath in a great black arc – and then it surged after the blade, sharpening itself to an infinitely small edge.
Shroud and its shadow came down as the Grimm raised its blade to block.
Shroud and its shadow sunk deep into the Grimm's shoulder as what remained of its blade spun off and landed in the ooze with a squelch. She grabbed Veil and kicked the beast away, tearing the sheath free in the same movement. As she spun to face the intact Grimm, she felt Ironwood pass behind her, Due Process peppering the injured beast with bullets moments before his cybernetic fist collided with its injured side.
She smiled at the Grimm that suddenly found itself without support, and her shadow pushed her forward.
Myrtenaster's blade touched the Grimm from one side, then the other. Again and again, each small touch adjusting its position slightly. One step. Two. Three...now! As its hand came forward again, Weiss pushed forward, forming a glyph beneath her feet and launching herself into the air. As she did, she pushed the Grimm's blade into the sky and out of position.
And Ruby was there, Crescent Rose sweeping towards the beast. Its hand reached out, seeking to block the blow.
And a lance of ice fell from the sky, pinning its hand to the ground half a second before Ruby's cobalt blade tore through its spine. As Weiss landed, she spun to look towards Yang, who'd been without support –
– to see Yang spinning, bodily throwing one of the Grimm into the other, rearing back as they stumbled. Then, with the telltale crash of her charged Semblance, she smashed both fists into the two Grimm...and the one caught in the center exploded. Even the other stumbled backwards, visibly injured.
Weiss froze it in place, and Yang's second hit shattered it instantly. She turned then to the other side, but Blake and Ironwood were turning in her direction at the same time. Slowly, carefully, the five of them converged on each other. She scanned across her teammates and the General, and when she found no sign of injury she turned towards the thing in the center of the room. There was something...
"Oh, god." Blake's voice shook, and Weiss looked at her.
The pure anguish on her face was painful to look at. She turned, following her gaze to the Grimm tree...and felt her stomach turn.
There, embedded in the dark roots, was another corpse. Or so she'd thought at first. But...the IV stand that stood there, wrapped in the tendrils, bearing a mostly-empty bag of some solution? That had given her pause.
The dark clothes were torn and filthy. The mask was missing, as were his arms (because of her). But the scar on his face was still there. Without it, she might not have recognized him...he was so thin, and pale, and...she didn't want to think about what the discoloration of his shoulders might mean. She didn't want to think about what it meant that the roots of the tree were growing into where his arms should be.
His good eye was open, and staring at her. His chest rose and fell, slowly. So slowly. "Adam...?"
The broken thing didn't respond in any way she could tell. As she stepped forward, the eye followed her, but there was no other response. Yet, as she got closer and the angle became clearer, she saw something else. The bulbous growth at the crown of the tree was...reflective. And in its distorted mirror, she saw the back of Adam's neck.
Where another root buried itself in his flesh. She looked back down at his face, at the empty look in his eye.
He's gone already, isn't he. It wasn't a question.
His Aura is not regenerating.
"Blake...?" Yang stepped closer, her hand raising –
– Shroud flew forth from its sheath, cleanly slicing through the exposed neck and biting deep into the roots around it –
– Adam's blood mixed with the dark liquid from the 'tree' as it made a keening noise, and she realized it was a Grimm there had been a Grimm growing into Adam –
– and her shadow surged upward in a twisting lance that shattered the mirror orb above her. It let out a strangled scream as the pieces rained down into the ooze. Then there was silence except for the sound of her ragged breathing and the whispery rasp of the Grimm beginning to dissolve.
Her hand shook, and it took her a few seconds to sheath Shroud again. She looked down at the fallen body, not moving even when Yang laid a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Hey. Hey, Blake. It's...it's gonna be okay."
She breathed in. She breathed out.
"...Adam Taurus died in the Battle of Beacon."
A long moment passed. Then Yang spoke.
"...Yeah. You're right, Blake."
Her eyes were wet.