A few people guessed the anomaly correctly. Well done. Maybe I made it a little too obvious xD

Also, a bit of a warning for the end of this chapter where the foreshadowing gets a little… uh… graphic.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 16

The last thing Blake expected while they planned out how the retrieval of the Schnee anomaly would take place once Roman found them their Intel was for the door to their office to open and a huntsman to walk in. He had black hair with streaks of grey, stubble across his chin and red eyes that scanned the room and sent Ruby squawking in panic and ducking behind the sofa. They also had Jaune groaning and growling at the same time, creating an all new sound that combined anger and despair and complete exasperation.

"Of course he would send you to do his dirty work for him."

"Arc." The Huntsman nodded once at him. "And was that Ruby I saw?"

"No." Ruby replied from behind the couch.

"I saw you, Ruby."

"Who is this Woobie you speak of?" Her accent was awful, her words all but slurred. "I know not this Woobie character. I am Rueben Edgeworth the sixth. You are mistaken, good sir."

"Then maybe I should ask Taiyang why his daughter is getting involved with a gang war…"

Ruby shot up. "Uncle Qrow, no!"

"Uncle Qrow, yes," he replied with a shrewd glare for both Jaune and Blake. "But that's neither here nor there. Ozpin has raised some concerns about this little war you've let brew in the city. He asked me to come down and see what was going on and whether I could bring an end to it."

"You can't." Jaune said. "But don't worry, it's under control. Scurry along and let him know it won't be an issue after today."

"That so?" Qrow walked into the room and eyed the anomalies on the shelf. He knew. He definitely knew. Moving past them, he looked over Ruby and Blake, then came to a stop in front of Jaune's desk. Jaune glared up at him. "Then you won't mind if I stick around to make sure. Ozpin is concerned and asked me to make sure this is dealt with."

"I'm sure the anomaly has nothing to do with your presence here."

"So, there is an anomaly involved?"

"As if you didn't already know."

"We may have heard." Qrow admitted. "An item that gives the correct answer to any questioned asked of it." So much for playing dumb. Blake wondered which gang had fed them the information. He sat on the corner of Jaune's desk. "That's quite the interesting little trick, don't you think? Imagine the good that could be done with it. You could predict natural disasters, locate dangerous criminals, warn communities of Grimm attacks before they happen."

"Find a person's PIN codes." Jaune said. "Rob every bank on Remnant of all its money. Locate women travelling alone at night. Plot out the genocide of the faunus race. For every example of it being used for good, I can offer you ten ways it'd be used poorly."

"Not if it was in the right hands."

"And I suppose you think Ozpin's are the right hands."

"He wants what's best for people."

"Spoken like a true fanatic."

"Oh, like you're one to talk, Arc."

Blake watched the back and forth with Ruby, neither knowing what to say or if they should say anything at all. She didn't doubt that Jaune was a little biased when it came to ARC Corp and anomalies, but it already sounded like Qrow was trying to justify the idea of taking the new anomaly for use by Ozpin, and she didn't much like that idea. Almost all the anomalies they'd dealt with so far were incredibly dangerous. Even if this one wasn't, the consequences of someone having perfect knowledge might be.

Absolute power corrupted after all, and the safeguard on that was normally the idea that people would rise up to stop a tyrant. Could you rise up against someone who could predict and solve every attempt you made? With perfect knowledge, Ozpin might become as close to a god as Remnant had. That kind of power didn't belong in anyone's hands.

"Ozpin is offering direct help with the gang problem." Qrow said. "Your job is to stop anomalies being discovered by the general public. Public like Ruby," he added in a dangerous whisper, then turned back to Jaune. "You should be happy to have our help. We'll recover the anomaly and help you cover it up. No one's the wiser."

"The situation is under control and the anomaly shall be contained here."

"Left to rot? What a waste. Do you not even care how many lives it could save? Are you that heartless?"

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby argued.

"Think about it, Ruby. If we had that thing then we could have prevented Summer's death."

Ruby flinched back, face paling and mouth opening. "But… But…"

"That's a hell of a low blow for your own niece!" Blake snapped. She stood up and stepped in front of Ruby with her eyes blazing. Sure, Ruby could be annoyingly over-excited about things but she was a good girl and the perfect Timothy shield. Blake wasn't going to give that up. "And it wouldn't work that way at all. A huntress could die on any mission they went out on. All the anomaly would do is say there's a chance she'd die each time. The future isn't set in stone."

The huntsman winced, and she wondered if he hadn't convinced himself of that theory as well. He looked to Ruby and then away shamefacedly. "Alright, maybe that one wouldn't work but we could use it to find survivors of Grimm attacks. We could use it to diagnose diseases in people faster than any doctor could."

"Except it wouldn't be used for that, would it?" Jaune asked. "Ozpin would be using it on important matters. And the average person suffering from cancer wouldn't count for that."

"He'd use it against the Grimm."

"He'd use it to gather more anomalies." Jaune laughed hoarsely at the silence his accusation created. "What? You think he'd stop at just the one? If you accept that one anomaly is useful then you accept that they all are. Why not collect them all and weaponize them? Why not have a hundred on hand, one for any situation imaginable. He can find the useful ones with this anomaly and get to them before the Schnee or ARC Corp can."

It made sense. Blake couldn't argue it didn't make a lot of sense.

"You don't even see the problem with that." Jaune continued. "Do you? You can't understand it because you have complete faith in him, just as the people had complete faith in the original directors of ARC Corp back when they were also using anomalies for their own ends. Playing the stock market, curing diseases, enforcing peace through threats of violent anomalies and even using others like glorified batteries to power their grand cities. Clean, renewable, endless energy. As long as you don't mind what it does to the anomalies."

"If they're not living, thinking creatures then it wouldn't matter." Qrow said.

"That's a nice line to draw in the sand. I wonder how easy it will be to stick to when you find an anomaly with an incredibly useful power that is living and thinking. Oh, it's just one, you'll say. This power is too good to give up. We'll treat it well. And then it's two, three, fifty and a hundred. And then you'll see the same result as what happened to the first ARC Corp, except it'll be Vale, Atlas, Mistral and Vacuo being wiped off the face of the planet, and maybe instead of the moon shattering, it'll be the planet itself!"

Blake's eyes widened. "The moon is-"

"It's a broken moon, Blake!" Jaune said angrily. He was glaring at Qrow but still managed to sound annoyed. "Moons don't break into pieces spontaneously. And believe me, convincing people that was normal would not have been a simple task. The point I'm making is that we've done the `use anomalies` plan before and it failed. Badly. Ozpin might think himself better, smarter and wiser than a company who had been doing it for hundreds of years and you might agree with him, but I happen to think that's arrogance. I wouldn't tell you how to do your job and you shouldn't tell me how to do mine."

Qrow crossed his arms. "I'm still shadowing you to make sure you do your job."

"And to steal the anomaly if you get the chance."

Qrow didn't deny it.

"Keep in mind I'm the one Ozpin likes to go after because he thinks I'm softer than the rest of my family. And he's right." Jaune admitted. "I am. But that just means you don't want to mess with the rest. If Saphron and Terra hear that you stole an anomaly from me, you can bet your ass they'll come to get it back. And dad has been looking for a chance to take a crack at Ozpin for twenty years."

"He's the headmaster of Beacon. You'd be dragged over hot coals if you tried. Terrorism charges."

"Haven't you heard, Qrow? We're too important to be charged with that. At worst we'll face questions and demands. That won't much matter if Saph loses her temper and destroys Beacon along the way." He leaned back with that clear threat. "It's not every day the entire Arc family comes together to conclude a mission. In fact, it barely ever happens."

He glared at Qrow.

"But barely ever does not mean never. Keep that in mind."

/-/

Roman had come good on finding the crime family that had the anomaly but after reaching the designation location, Blake felt much less impressed. There were police cordons and bodies strewn about with black coverings laid over them, and cars riddled with bullets. It was obvious a small war had occurred here recently, which was doubtless what clued Roman's contacts in. After all, you didn't have to figure out which family had the anomaly if you could just follow the fighting.

"How are the police not arresting them?" Ruby asked from her place further down the street. The three of them were suited and booted, with Qrow looking the odd one out by virtue of not wearing a suit in the hundreds of thousands of lien range. "That building obviously came under attack. We all know the bad guys are in there."

"Not so simple, squirt." Qrow said. "They're victims of crime. You don't arrest them. You'd need a warrant to search the place anyway and that takes time."

"Not for us it doesn't." Jaune said. Qrow shot him a dirty look. "But that won't matter anyway since we're not going to risk it. They'll shuttle the anomaly away if they think it's in any danger and we can't afford to start another gunfight."

That was her cue. Blake sighed heavily and hefted the metal briefcase in her left hand. It wasn't dissimilar to the one full of money from the night before, but this had something worth far more than that. Something far more dangerous as well. Jaune produced a key, unlocked and then entered the four-digit code on the dial-lock to open it. Inside, another, smaller, handheld case lay. Blake really didn't want to touch it.

"Is that-?"

Jaune swatted Qrow's hand away. "Don't touch it."

"Hey. I'm on your side here."

"You're on Ozpin's side and I don't trust you not to believe this could be useful in some way. The last thing we need is a huntsman of your skill going on a killing spree because this erased your morals and reasoning."

"But I'm fine?" Blake had to ask.

"I trust you not to get it in your head to keep using it." Jaune told her after he led her a small distance away from Qrow. "It'll take a lot more than ten or fifteen minutes to have an impact but at least you know there is a side-effect." He nodded his head to Qrow. "He'll convince himself we're making it up to control the narrative and that maybe he can beat it because he's got a stronger will or some such."

Blake eyed the huntsman. "You really think that'd happen?"

"It's a greater than zero chance. There isn't much Ozpin wouldn't consider if it gave him an edge, and how valuable are the lives of individual people when you're immortal? He isn't even human no matter how well he acts. Maybe he won't risk Qrow but that's not to say he wouldn't try it on someone else."

How much of that was true and how much were Jaune's paranoia and dislike of Ozpin, Blake couldn't say for certain. That was the problem, though. She couldn't say and given what she'd seen in ARC Corp so far, if you couldn't guarantee one way or the other, you were better served being cautious. It didn't hurt to be careful. Or it did, especially if she got herself erased, but it'd hurt a lot less than one of the best huntsmen in Vale.

"I hate this…" she said.

"That's exactly why I trust you. You know I'd go myself but…"

"No aura. I know." Blake sighed. "That's becoming my most hated of your excuses for sending me into dangerous situations."

"It's true though."

"I know. I said my most hated, not that I didn't accept it. How long do I have?"

"Honestly, I'd say you could use this for half a day and not lose yourself but that's complete guesswork based on the victim at Beacon. Go in, find the office and search for the anomaly and if you can't find it in fifteen minutes get out and we'll try another approach. Best we take no risks and I highly doubt a quarter of an hour will lose you anything."

"Are you sure we can't send Qrow in even without the Blank Slate? He's a huntsman. Get him a warrant and let him kick ass."

"He'll take it directly back to Ozpin. Both of them."

That much she did believe. Qrow had as good as told them this would be an amazing thing to have against the Grimm and looked after by Beacon, and she could well see him flying off with it without handing it over and then them never being able to get at it again. Or worse, her having to use the Blank Slate to try and sneak into Beacon. It would be easier to fool a bunch of gangsters than a school filled with huntsmen.

"Fifteen minutes…" she repeated, reaching for it.

"Fifteen minutes. Don't take any risks, Blake."

Her fingers hovered close to the Blank Slate but didn't touch it. Even a nervous poke would activate it and cost her valuable seconds. With a sharp breath, she took it by the handle and sprinted toward the building as fast as her legs could take her. There was no sensation of the anomaly taking over her, no discernible feeling, but she knew she was invisible because no one reacted when she vaulted the police tape, nor when she weaved between bodies and pushed open the double doors of the brewery they were hidden inside.

The corridor within was a ruin with bullets, blood and torn up flooring and walls. There were four men guarding it, no guns visible with the police out but doubtless hiding them. They didn't react to the door opening and closing, nor to Blake brushing by and ignoring the manufacturing floor of the brewery in favour of the staircase. Her expensive leather shoes clopped on every step and yet no one paid her any mind. Someone came down and she slid around them, so close she could hear the crispy sound of the man's cigarette burning as he took a drag. Then she was beyond, still moving up and onto the second floor where she came face to face with at least eight men, this time wielding guns trained on the staircase. Trained on her. Blake froze.

Tension spread as she fought her instinctive panic and even the rush of her aura. They hadn't opened fire and some looked bored, talking among themselves or checking their scrolls. At least two of them had minor injuries that had been bandaged up. The fighting had been going on all through the night by the looks of things and would probably continue this night as well unless the anomaly was removed from their hands.

Blake picked her way carefully through the barricade so as not to knock anything over, stepping right in front of their gun barrels and even having to inch her way past their bodies. There was a moment where she had to sidestep between one man and another, each so close she could have hit them with her hips if she walked normally. It was proof of just how much carnage the person wielding the Blank Slate before could have caused if they wanted to. Sexual assault was bad enough to think of, especially if it got violent, but they could just as easily have gone on a killing spree across the city. No one would have been able to stop them.

And the Schnee family sold that anomaly too, she thought. They're insane. Did it not even occur to them that the person might come for them in the future? Winter's own sister is a student in Beacon as well.

It wasn't worth thinking on – certainly not now where such idle thoughts might have her identity consumed by the anomaly in her hand. Blake pushed past the barricade and checked the first room on the left. It would have been convenient to have it house the anomaly but it didn't, nor did the first on the right or any of the ten rooms after. It was approaching the ten minute mark when she began to panic. There wasn't another floor and she was sure the boss would be on the upper one, but it was also possible they'd relocated it after the attack.

As she checked the last office right at the back of the corridor on the left however, she found a man slumped behind a desk with an open and nearly empty bottle of whiskey resting on it. Some of the liquid was resting across the desk too, spilled between the bottle and his mouth, but the man looked utterly wasted and was laid out with his cheek pressed flat against the desk. He was dressed better than any other and had greying hair and lines of cocaine laid out across the wood along with a lighter and a syringe. Beyond all that, however, was the purple orb resting by the used drugs.

Finally! The relief she felt was crushing and Blake wanted no time rushing over and picking it up. There wasn't time to waste with the Blank Slate eating away at her, and she turned away for the door, only to freeze as the man sat up and stared right at her.

"That's it, then?" he slurred in a voice halfway between drunkenness and a drug-fuelled high. "Y-You come here, ruin my life, c-cost me everything – everything!" he roared brokenly. "A-And then you're just gonna fuck off just like that?"

He could see her!? Blake's mouth dropped open before she realised he wasn't staring at her but the anomaly itself. Of course! The man using the Blank Slate before had held Jaune's sword without it disappearing. It couldn't erase the anomaly. To him, the ball looked like it was floating slowly away. Even so, he might open fire on it.

"Well!?" he spat a great ball of phlegm at her. "Nothing to say? No excuses?" He threw back his head and laughed insanely. His voice rose, peaked and cracked amidst it. "Go!" he wheezed. "Just go. You've ruined everything. Get out my life. I wish… I wish you'd never existed, you… you…" He collapsed, face slamming down among lines of cocaine and a loud snore blowing the white dust up into the air.

Blake relaxed slowly, took a nervous step back and then out the door, shifting her body so that the people manning the barricade might have a harder time seeing the anomaly. It floating past their bodies wasn't something they could up and ignore, and Semblances were a thing. They might assume it was someone trying to steal it via a Semblance and grab hold of it. She couldn't afford to wrestle with eight men.

Slipping back into the room, Blake cracked and slid open a window and then leaned out. It was a decent drop but nothing impossible for a huntress like her. Sliding one leg out and then the next, she sat on the windowsill for a second to catch her breath, then pushed herself out into the open air, dropping as gravity took hold of her. Normally, she might have used Gambol Shroud to try and lessen her landing but both her hands were busy so she struck the sidewalk in a crouch, aura flaring and keeping her legs from shattering but not doing much at all for the pain. Luckily, the Blank Slate swallowed her howl and meant no one heard it.

Limping back around the building, Blake found Jaune and tossed the eight ball to him, then threw the Blank Slate down on the floor to reveal herself in a blink. Qrow and Ruby jumped back at her sudden appearance.

"You got it!" Jaune looked more relieved than happy. "Good work, Blake. I was worried for a moment there. Do you still feel-?"

"How can I even tell? I know I'm Blake. I remember you, myself, my parents and my past but if something was missing then I'd not be able to tell, would I?" She didn't mean the question as angrily as it sounded, but she couldn't quite contain her worry. Kneeling, she used the briefcase to awkwardly scoop the Blank Slate up without touching it, then snapped the case shut again. "I never want to do that again."

"I don't see why not." Qrow said. "This was easy. Too easy. I didn't even have to do anything."

"Easy doesn't mean without risk." Jaune said, stashing the orb away inside a black bag and hiding that inside his jacket. "Just because she wasn't fighting for her life doesn't mean it wasn't on the line. We should get out of here. This is a police problem now the anomaly is out the picture."

/-/

Blake couldn't have been happier placing the Blank Slate back into its safe. There was no tangible difference or physical feeling and she knew the original owner must have been using it for a week or more before it took an effect, but she couldn't help but fear – and wonder – as to what had been lost. Could it be something small and unnoticeable? Would there be a facet of her life that was now gone which she would never even notice? What if something was different? The thoughts swirled as she left the safe and moved back to Jaune's office table as he pondered over the eight-ball.

Qrow hovered nearby with visible interest. She just knew anything said would find its way back to Ozpin. He wasn't even subtle about that. "We should use it," he said. "It can do a lot of good."

"That's what the mob family thought when they bought it." Jaune said. "Look how much good it did them."

"We're not criminals."

"It doesn't matter. Anomalies shouldn't be exploited. We've tried that once before and Ozpin can tell you how it went. Not that you'll listen. I don't know why I even try." He reached out and picked it up with his gloves and looked down into the clear glass display. "Knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"Ozpin-"

"Don't even bother finishing that. His hands are stained with blood."

Qrow threw his head back with a silent snarl and Blake was reminded of how strong he was. Jaune really shouldn't be making enemies so easily, and she spoke up to change the subject before a fight could occur. Maybe a compromise was best. "We need to know what it's capable of regardless, Jaune. We can do a little testing. Will that satisfy you, Qrow?"

The huntsmen looked her way, drew a breath and settled. "It will for now. We can decide how it should be utilised later."

There wouldn't be any if Jaune had his way. Blake was less certain, but no less cautious. She'd seen too many anomalies gone wrong to like the idea of relying on this one. Leaving aside the issues of accuracy, side-effects or dependence, the thing could be stolen from Beacon and that would spell disaster. If this thing became Reality Class, Kingdoms would go to war to try and claim it for themselves just like the gangs here had.

"A few tests." Jaune allowed. He cleared his throat. "Where is Winter Schnee now?"

Blake leaned over his shoulder and he made room for her. Ruby was already there, peering down over his other shoulder and leaving Qrow to grumble and walk around to lean over Ruby's head. The clouds in the little ball played and shifted. In a normal eight-ball they were water and dyes to make a mist, she believed, but these looked like real clouds with little thunderstorms in them. The plaque – a die normally with words printed on it – came to the surface, and it looked like a marble slate with words burned into it as if by the lightning itself.

NOT HERE

Ruby choked on a giggle. Qrow didn't even try and hide his guffaw. "It's got attitude."

"It technically answered the question." Blake was less amused and more in analytical mode, something she suspected she'd picked up from Jaune. "Do you think it's sapient and covering for her?"

"No." Jaune shook it again. "What is my father's name?"

NICHOLAS ARC

"Alright. It got that one. What is Blake's father's name?"

GHIRA BELLADONNA

"It's right," she said.

Jaune hummed. "What is Qrow's father's name?"

The clouds rolled.

BRANWEN

"That's wrong." Qrow interrupted with narrowed eyes. "Give it here." He leaned down and took it before Jaune could argue, gave it a shake and repeated the question. "What is my father's name?" He looked, growled angrily and shook it again. "It got it right," he said, slamming it down. "My father's name wasn't Branwen. Raven and I took that from a woman in the tribe who raised us after our bastard of a father abandoned us."

"The anomaly got it wrong?" Ruby asked.

"Very wrong."

"But it got it right once Qrow asked it." Jaune said. "I assumed your family name was…" Jaune stilled. "Wait. It can't be." He picked it up. "When is Ruby's birthday?"

THE DAY SHE WAS BORN

Jaune handed it to Blake. "Ask it the same thing."

Blake took it. "When is Ruby's birthday?" She waited. "It says the same thing."

"Give it to Qrow."

The huntsman took it and figured what was about to be asked of him. He beat them to it. "When is Ruby's birthday?" He waited. "It gave the correct date this time."

"Don't say it yet. Hand it back." He took it and asked the question again. Same non-answer. "It still doesn't give me specifics, so it's not absorbing your knowledge. Ruby, when is your birthday?"

"October 31st."

Jaune nodded, looked back to the anomaly and gave it a shake. "When is Ruby's birthday?"

OCTOBER 31st the anomaly said.

"Ha." Jaune set it down. "Ha ha." He leaned back, pushing Blake and Ruby away. Slowly, outside his control, he burst into laughter." Ha ha ha ha ha!" Suddenly, he brought his fist down to strike the table and sent his laptop jumping and the anomaly rolling off the table entirely. Ruby dove to catch it. "That fucking Schnee bitch!" he roared. "All this loss, all this bloodshed and the risk of being discovered, and for nothing more than a joke!"

"What do you mean?" Qrow asked.

"It doesn't give you the answer to everything like Winter claimed." Blake said. The answer had struck her just as Jaune gave her the eight-ball and asked her to enquire on Ruby's birthday. It was so obvious. "It only tells you things you already know."

Jaune had his elbow on his desk and his face in one hand. He was pinching his eyebrows and rubbing them together. It wasn't so much the anomaly that was the problem to him, more the amount of trouble caused by it and the SDC, and the ironic twist of how worthless it actually was. It could have been a computer taking knowledge from everyone who touched it and then holding it, but then it should have known Ruby's birthday from after Qrow used it. It hadn't, which meant it could only know what its current wielder knew.

"It's useless then." Qrow said.

"Yes." Blake answered. "It's useless as anything other than a way to jog your memory."

It could be an interrogation tool but she wasn't about to say that lest Qrow and Ozpin get ideas. You could hand this to a prisoner who was refusing to talk and tell them to ask a question, but that would only work once. They'd refuse to talk after, and it even required the person hold it. The ball hadn't been able to draw the date of Ruby's birthday until Qrow touched it.

"What a waste." Qrow pushed off the chair and moved past them for the door. "I'll inform Ozpin but I don't think he'll be interested in this anymore. And Ruby, we will have a talk about you being here. Summer trusted Ozpin."

"Did it work out for her?" Ruby asked quietly. "Mom is dead."

Qrow grimaced and opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind him. Ruby was left holding the eight-ball, staring down at it as if she wanted to ask it a question, then sighing and placing it on the desk instead. Anything she might have asked it was pointless anyway, as it would only confirm what she already knew.

"Is it even worth locking up?"

"Put it on the side by the globe." Jaune said. "At least it's an anomaly we can contain instead of having to destroy. We'll call it the Benefit of Hindsight," he added. "It'll teach future generations of ARC Corp an important lesson about not assuming something is powerful out of hand."

If nothing else, it would make for an interesting paperweight.

/-/

The button clicked as it was pressed down and the two figures huddled behind a rock in the dark, covering their ears as a faint hissing sound continued down the tunnel followed by a dull whump, a crack and then a splintering sound of rock being launched back their way, ricocheting off the walls and floor and ceiling. It always amazed him how the explosion wasn't as loud as the movies made it sound, but then they were burying it in rock and soil to direct and conceal it.

"Is it clear?"

"I see light." One of the masked figures stood and walked around their cover, picking his way across the little bits of rubble. "We've definitely struck through to something."

Sure enough, a narrow hole had been opened up in the rockface and showed a faint shaft of sunlight piercing through. It was the first light they'd seen in weeks of hard work and marked a welcome change from slumming it out in an abandoned tunnel shaft. The whole wasn't large enough to walk through, but it was enough to wriggle through on their stomachs. He had a feeling that wouldn't satisfy their superiors.

"Finally. Ugh. We got any more bombs?"

"None. We'll have to widen this with picks."

"That'll take forever."

"Yeah, well, you're free to complain to the union if you want to. Do we have a union?"

"White Fang Terrorist's Union?" he quipped. "I'd support it if only to see the look on Adam's face. Then he'd run me through."

"That's a no then." The first stretched his arms and walked over, kneeling to peek through the hole. The view beyond was not what he expected. What he anticipated was a ruined city with broken buildings, shells of homes and a wasted land. Instead, he looked out onto a city that looked for all intents and purposes to be whole. There was grass growing, tall buildings and even figures moving about. "What the fuck!?" he hissed. "Did we pick the wrong tunnel?"

"What's wrong?" his colleague asked.

"We've come a circle and mined our way back to Vale."

"Impossible. We followed the tracks. This tunnel was sealed off."

"Yeah, well, I'm seeing a fully occupied and whole city out here." He stepped back and gestured to the hole. "Do you want to take a look?" The second faunus knelt and peered through, then recoiled with just as much shock as he had. "See what I mean? We must have made a mistake. Multiple tunnels coming in and out of Vale. We've gone back on ourselves."

"We can't have! I used a compass!" The one at the hole pulled on the rubble suddenly and began to worm his way through. The other two panicked.

"Hey! Hey! What are you doing?"

"I'm going to check it out."

What the hell? He watched as his friend crawled through the hole, half convinced he should be dragging the idiot back before he got into trouble. It was too late for that however and he was soon through and standing up on the other side.

"It's not Vale," he said. "The buildings are different and I don't see the news tower. We've got the right place, guys."

"We can't have. Mountain Glenn is meant to be abandoned."

"Then I'll ask." His friend shrugged and removed his mask, stashing it behind him and approaching a pack of what looked to be young children nearby. They weren't so far that the two in the tunnel couldn't see or hear what was happening. "Hey there. You lot mind telling me where I am? I'm looking for Mountain Glenn-"

The children looked up. There was something wrong about them. Their clothing was normal and didn't look to be in a bad state, but their faces were stretched by manic smiles. They were huddled over something as well, something he couldn't make out by looking through the tunnel. Something that his friend on the other side apparently could.

"Oh, my fucking lord!" he cried. "What is-? Why-?" He staggered back.

"Play with us, mister!" one of the girls begged. She couldn't have been older than eleven. "Play with us! Mommy doesn't want to play anymore!"

As the children fanned out toward the lone faunus, he finally saw what they had left behind and choked. It was a body. A woman's body. And it was mutilated far beyond recognition, only the long hair and clothing indicating a gender at all. Now that he saw the children's fronts he could see the blood coating their clothes, and the sharp little pieces of glass gripped in their bleeding hands.

The girl lunged with a giggle. "Play!"

"What? No!" The White Fang member caught the girl by her shoulders and dodged the shard of glass, but he couldn't handle six children all rushing him. He slapped another away violently, sending the child flying, but a third ducked under his arm and stabbed a piece of glass into his thigh. "Arghhh!"

"Play! Play! Play!"

"He's new! He's new!"

"W-What the fuck!?"

The White Fang member flailed and punched and kicked, but it was no use. He knocked two more back, even drove his knee into a boy's face, but glass shards found their way into his leg, the sides of his knees, his shins and cut at his tendons. He fell with a scream, quickly swarmed by the little children and by a boy that sat on his chest. He was so young, ten at best, with a mop of yellow hair, bright green eyes and a huge smile. His nose was broken and blood ran freely down over his white teeth.

"Cry for us. Mister!" he chirped. "Can we hear you cry, mister? No one cries anymore. Everyone's too used to it."

"Pierce!" the one behind the barricade shouted out and tried to crawl his way through to help his friend. He hated that he'd been still this long, but the shock had frozen him in place. "I'm coming, Pierce!" he called. "Hold on!"

"Look! Look!" the girl giggled. "More – and a hole. I want to explore!"

"You'll explore your own teeth when I get to you," he threated, falling through the hole and scrambling to his feet. Pierce was laid out flat, his legs kicking as two of the children were stabbing down on his stomach. Blood flowed and splashed in the air and the children delighted in his mangled screams. "Pierce! I'll fucking kill you little monsters!"

Suddenly, a heavy siren droned out over the city, deafening in its volume and undulating up and down in pitch. It reminded him of the flood warnings he'd heard once back home, a home that seemed so very far away right now. The children paused to look up, several groaning unhappily as if they'd been told by their parents that playtime is over.

"It's the fireworks." the girl said, looking upward. "Time for fireworks."

The faunus looked up, eyes growing wide as he caught sight of the trails of smoke behind missiles rising up over the walls, up and into the air from all around, a full three-sixty spread that arched up and down. They exploded in the air, bursting open to reveal cluster munitions that further burst into a veritable sea of liquid fire raining down over the city.

Sat atop Pierce's wheezing and mutilated body, the little boy threw his hands in the air. "Tee hee! Time to burn! Time to burn!"

The napalm washed over them a moment later, burning everything to ash.

As the fires continued to burn, and as the bodies were reduced first to charred skeletons and then burned down further, buildings collapsed and smoke rose up over the charnel house the city had become. At the edge of it, by long since sealed tunnels, the fire washed over the hole freshly mined through the wall.

A rock wobbled loose and fell with a crash.

Yeah, a few people figured this anomaly out. It's an ironic anomaly that basically just caused a lot of chaos because people got it in their heads it was worth more than it was. Of course, that was because Winter intentionally misconstrued it as such.

Also, I love the idea that once upon a time an officer of ARC Corp was trying to do their job and an anomaly broke the freaking moon. Then they just look up at it, realises they're going to have to come up with a cover story for this and weep. Probably the hardest cover-up of ARC Corp's career.

As for the ending. Well… shit. Can't write a Lobotomy Corp / Library of Ruina / SCP inspired story without at least one absolute nightmare, can you? Obligatory "they dug too deep" comment before anyone else steals it.

Next Chapter: 8th August

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