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Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 31

The refuelling station was surprisingly quiet and that might have had something to do with the cannibals that had swept through recently. There were certainly signs of struggle and bloodstains, but thankfully no citizens for them to fight. That didn't stop Nicholas having them scour the entire building – a single-floor, flat storefront with a small storage area at the back that had long since been picked clean. There were eight dust pumps out the front, connected to four pillars holding up the roof. Blake carted one of the drums over and placed it in front of one, then tested the nozzle.

"It's not working."

"Pumps need to be turned on inside the store," said Coral's remaining employee. "But that's not going to happen without power, which won't happen without dust, which we need power to get out the pumps."

"It's a catch-22, then."

"Don't be daft," growled Nicholas, shooing them away. "The pumps were never going to be active, but that doesn't mean the dust isn't here. It'll be kept under the ground in tanks that the pumps draw from." He tapped his sword on the ground under their feet. "We just need to get down to it."

"Not with explosives, I hope," said Blake. "Not this close to dust."

The volatility of the payload they were looking for was why she assumed Jaune, Jade and Hazel had been left in the CCT. The Burn Office was presumably true to its name, and Jaune's hands and arms could similarly cause a dust explosion if he wasn't careful. The amount stored at a dust station like this, assuming it hadn't been drained, would be enough to shatter the road and probably be seen from outside the city. To say it would draw the Twilight Citizens was an understatement.

"We can't dig with power tools because we'd need dust to power them even if we had them," said Coral. "And we can't dig with our bare hands. I hope you have a plan, father, because we're not getting any dust without one."

"I have a plan." Nicholas reached a hand under his coat and came out with an object that had Blake hissing and backing up. She'd been in the White Fang long enough to recognise a bomb when she saw one. "But I admit, it probably won't be a popular one."

"Did you not hear what I just said?" asked Blake. "We'll be blown sky high!"

"If you check the pumps, there is refined and processed dust for different cars. That means there are two tanks underground – one for each." He pointed to the sets of pumps, which had refined signs on the left and processed on the right. "The tanks should be under each set of pumps. We blow one, let it excavate for us, and then we work our way to the other."

"And draw every Twilight Citizen in the city!" snapped Coral.

"That would have happened the moment we turned the CCT on anyway."

"Yes, but we'd be safe in the tower," said Blake. "I don't like this plan."

And she'd thought Jaune was a reckless idiot! Apparently, it came with being an Arc.

"Every single thing in this city has been picked clean already. The firebombing from Atlas will have already burned away every spec of dust on the surface. We don't have a choice." He pressed a few buttons on the device, making it start to beep. "It's this or wander aimlessly around Mountain Glenn until we're eventually killed and made to join it. Ready yourselves. We'll want to be quick."

Ready themselves? Blake swore and started running a moment after Coral already had. Her employee was with her, while several from the Burn Office had already scattered. Nicholas finished with the device and then tossed it in a lazy underarm swing toward the first set of pumps. At least he didn't attempt the stupid movie routine and dashed for cover instead of just turning away and letting it go off behind him. Blake skidded to a stop beside Coral, behind the wreckage of a burned out van. Coral had her hands on her head, and her head between her knees.

It was a tale of two explosions. The first was loud, as explosions tend to be, but the second, when the blast caught the lingering dust in the pump and raced down it and the pipe to the tank below ground, was so much worse. If the first was enough to have her ears ringing, the second deafened her.

It came not two seconds after the first with a deep cracking rumble felt beneath their feet. It split the concrete and threw the pumps up into the air, shattered the roof and tossed it away like an angry child with a toy. A great pillar of flame roared up and out, splashing against the concrete and the storefront, and over the top of their cover. The heat licked at Blake's ears and hair, and little bits of rubble and concrete and metal came raining down around them in a loud, metallic drizzle.

What came back with her hearing was the distant roaring of fire and the deep rumble of the ground underfoot. The top half of a pump clanged down several metres away and bounced once before staying on its side, crumpled and burned. A thick cloud of blackish smoke hung in the air and rose up like a signal to every person in and out of Mountain Glenn.

He was insane.

"Hurry!" roared Nicholas, already running into the still blazing inferno. The air was hazy from the incredible heat, but he just held an arm over his eyes and trusted his aura to defend him. "We need to get the rest of the dust out before we're found!"

And whose fault was that? Blake didn't waste time needling and instead hurried back with the rest. They really were on the clock now, with everyone sure to have seen this and come to investigate. Any wasted time was quite possibly their lives.

A great hole had been cut into the forecourt and down to the jagged remains of a cylindrical dust tank. The bottom was whole, if black, but the sides were spiked upward and out like the dust had burst out of the top of it. Predictably, it had taken a lot of the ground around it out to make a deep and rough hole. And sure enough, she could just make out the curve of another green tank at the edge, beneath the other pumps. It must have been made to withstand heat – for obvious reasons – so it had managed to stay hole.

Toppling a drum down into the hole, Blake jumped after it and started stamping out the lingering flames here and there. Nicholas, meanwhile, worked on digging the last of the rock away with his sheathed sword, digging the tip of the hilt into loose stone and jimmying it open. It wasn't long before he managed to find the top of the tank, with a pipe connected to a nozzle with a simplistic valve. Naturally, the dust would have been delivered by lorries up top and then fed down into the tank. He drove his sword into it over and over until he managed to dislodge the original piping, then used a jagged chunk of rock to knock it away.

That didn't mean they were going to get at the dust, however. Not unless they could bore a hole through the side of the metal tanker – which wasn't likely. To her surprise, Nicholas took out his canteen, emptied it and stuck his arm all the way in, filled the container with dust and then tossed it to her.

"This is your plan!?" snapped Blake. "One bottle at a time?"

"No. Get the forecourt running on that and activate the pumps."

Right. Of course. He'd detached the feed-in pipe for deliveries, but the pump itself was still connected. Bake clambered out the hole and ran into the forecourt, found the power supply – off, naturally – and disconnected it. The back-up was still in one piece, and once she poured the dust in it flickered to unsteady and unhappy life. Lights blinked and cracked, alarms whirred and the computer screen didn't even work. The place had been firebombed time and time again, and it wasn't in any good state.

Despite that, a red light blinked on the control counter and even if she didn't have a screen to work with, she pushed it down and heard the loud whirring of the pump outside begin operation. Two employees were working with it to fill a drum, and they offered her a thumbs up to show it was filling. It's a damned miracle it works at all. This place should by all accounts be a ruin.

The miracle that gave them a working pump didn't go far enough to cover the noise they'd made, however. Blake heard the sounds of voices in the distance, rising in what sounded like ominous chanting, but which might just have been thousands of people shouting at once. Another pump lit up as Coral's employee got the second drum in position, and Blake activated that one as well. The first barrel was filled and they started rolling it away, back toward the CCT, while the second was still filling.

Another alarm blared and Blake looked out the destroyed window. Her eyes grew wide a moment later. The fire that had come from the first tank had finally spread and caught the second, and it was causing the pump being worked at to go up like a bonfire. The employee cursed and ran, but he wasn't fast enough. The fire raced down the pump and caught the tank.

Blake was thrown off her feet and back against the far wall as it went off. Coral's aide was killed instantly. The last half of the roof shattered and came down, striking the now larger hole in the forecourt. Something cracked ominously below them, and the world began to shift as the floor under Blake's feet suddenly became diagonal. The station was sliding down into the hole, falling below – into the depths of Mountain Glenn and into the subway systems.

Blake tried to move, only to slip and slide on the floor – and then be caught by a shelving unit that came off the wall behind, and now above, her. It was enough to knock her off her feet, and that was enough to rob her of the chance to get out before the station, and the forecourt, collapsed into the underground tunnels. As she struck the floor with a ragged gasp, she rolled over to try and get up, only to catch a chunk of rubble to her skull.

/-/

"Back!" shouted Nicholas. "We have one drum. That will have to be enough."

The remaining employees from the Burn Office looked back to the hole. "But-"

"They're dead. Leave them."

"Jaune isn't going to take this well," warned Coral. Her own employee had died, but she didn't sound overly affected by it. Nor by the loss of Jaune's, despite the words she uttered. In fact, she sounded more curious.

"He will have to get over it, Coral. We have a job to do."

"Hmmm. I suppose we do." Coral Arc looked at the hole, and then the horde forming in the distance, sighed, and turned away.

It was a shame, she supposed.

/-/

"Ngh…"

Blake felt the pain first. Her head hurt, as did her arms, her legs and her back. The last few were dull, aching soreness, but the first was a hot lance through her skull. Her right hand came up to touch her head, only to feel cloth wrapped around it, pinning her hair to her scalp.

"I would not touch it if I were you," said an unfamiliar voice. "Or you may yet find yourself holding residency among us."

Mountain Glenn. The Twilight City. The dust station. Blake's eyes snapped open, only to be bombarded with light from a nearby fire that had her groaning in agony. It burned her sensitive eyes and forced her to close them again. There was movement to her left that she heard as pebbles being dislodged, and then cloth folding as someone approached her. Blake's hand itched for a weapon, but she felt too weak to do anything but flail about helplessly. Gambol Shroud was not at her side as it should be.

The fact she was alive was no surety right now. They'd already theorised that the citizens might enjoy taking people alive so that they could make their deaths more memorable. They'd want her alive and conscious for whatever they had planned. Lacking Gambol Shroud, her hand found a rock and clasped onto it tight. Feigning unconsciousness, for what little good it would do, Blake felt about for her aura and slowly let it swim about her body.

"I know you're awake," said the woman. "You can open your eyes when you feel ready. We have time. For now. These tunnels are far away enough from the entertaining parts of the city that the Twilight Citizens ignore them."

Twilight Citizens. No one should know that phrase other than someone with, or familiar with, ARC Corp. The fact she referred to them as another party, not including herself, had Blake breathing a little easier. She kept hold of the rock just in case, but slowly opened her eyes and let them get used to the dark. She could tell they were underground, with rocky but intentionally cut circular walls and a ceiling, cut like a tunnel. Rounded. Firelight flickered off the walls and ceiling and cast long shadows along them, and wood crackled and snapped nearby as it burned.

Desperate to see for herself who had found her, Blake rolled her head to the side. It was a woman as expected. She wore an odd black dress, knee-length, frayed at the bottoms, with a feathery collar that puffed up behind her long blonde hair, pale skin and green eyes. Despite the dress, she wore black trousers beneath, turning the dress into something akin to a coat. The front was popped open just enough for Blake to see a black shirt beneath.

"Who…" croaked Blake. "Who are you…?"

"I feel as though that is something I should be asking you," said the woman, smiling faintly. "After all, I thought I knew everyone who worked for the company, but you are a stranger to me. You are ARC Corp, correct? I suppose you could be some overly well-dressed tourist with a terrible destination."

"A-ARC Corp," said Blake, weakly. "C-Containments Office."

"I've never heard of it. Who is your director?"

"Jau…" Blake winced. "Jaune."

"Jaune!?" asked the woman, surprised. She sat back on her heels, smiled faintly and said, "Of course. Why didn't I think that?" She giggled. "It's hard to keep track of time here, I'm afraid. My scroll died when I did, and finding a replacement… well, that's not possible. I've guessed it had been years, but I wasn't sure."

"Who-?"

"My apologies. I haven't introduced myself." The woman stood, swept some dust from her black dress-coat, and bowed. "Assistant-Director Juniper Arc at your service. Or former director, I suppose. My position has likely been handed off to another by now."

Juniper Arc. Former director. Blake stared at the woman with wide eyes. "Jaune's mom…?"

"I'd really rather you call me Juniper, but yes, I suppose that I am." Chuckling, the woman sat down once more. "So, you work for my son, do you? And the Containments Office. I really thought Nicholas would have worked that odd fancy out of him. Containing anomalies, really. He always was so very idealistic."

Blake's head was spinning and she let the words wash over her. Jaune's mom was alive. No, she wasn't alive. Jaune's mom was dead, trapped by the anomaly, and here in front of her. Here as a Twilight Citizen, though hopefully not one that had gone mad yet. I'm still alive, thought Blake, all too aware that could change if the woman decided it should. I shouldn't do anything to make her angry. There's no telling how far along the madness she's gone.

"Saphron is Assistant-Director now," said Blake. "Fist Office. With Terra."

"Saphron? That does make sense. Tell me, are my children all alive?"

"I… I don't know. I counted eight."

"That's all of them. I suppose you haven't had a chance to meet them all. Are you new to the company?"

"Not even three months."

"And you're already here of all places? Has my son lost his mind?"

"We didn't have a choice. Nicholas called everyone."

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's Armageddon Protocols. End of the world, or something." Blake said it flippantly, but all of a sudden there was a hand on her chin, a thumb on one cheek and fingers on the other, and her face was being turned to meet the woman's.

Juniper Arc stared down into her eyes. "Explain."

Blake did. There was nothing else she could do, and Juniper released her once she started. She told the woman about the tunnels, the White Fang and the children slipping into Vale to kill and cause chaos, and the risk of Mountain Glenn spilling into the city for a bloody night of absolute carnage. Juniper listened, and waited, and eventually closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

"Goodness me. The fall of Vale. To think… No, let's not think about it. So, everyone is here. Everyone but Amber by the sounds of it. I wish…" She bit her lip. "But no, it's not wise for me to see them. Or them to see me."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not the woman I was," said Juniper. "I love them, I do, but… well, Mountain Glenn changes you. I have died over and over. Time has blended. There are days I feel myself and days I feel… not myself. You needn't worry," she said, seeing Blake grasp the rock tighter. "Even when I am not myself, I am not an animal like them. I'm not a beast given in to my darkest desires. Still, I'm not quite their mother anymore either. I wouldn't want to ruin their fond memories of me."

That was all well and good, but Blake didn't want to be trapped down in the middle of Mountain Glenn either. "What about me? Am I…?"

"You're alive. It was a close call. I heard the explosion, as I expect everyone in this city did. I chose to investigate and found you in the wreckage of a new hole blown into the city above. They were discussing what to do with you."

"Who…?"

"The cartel."

The name meant nothing to her.

"I'm sorry," said Juniper, "I forget you wouldn't know. The city is not as disorganised as we thought. Almost everyone belongs to one group or another, be they gangs, cartels, cults or what have you."

"I think we saw one," said Blake. "Cannibals."

"You'll have to narrow that one down, darling. Almost everyone in Mountain Glenn has been a cannibal at least once." She tapped her jaw. "I doubt it was the ravenous. They like to head straight for the hospital every repeat. There are plenty of sick and infirm patients there, not to mention the maternity wards."

Blake's face had gone pale. "W… What…?"

"Hm?" Juniper looked at her askance. "What? Oh, my lack of reaction? I've seen everything now, I'm afraid. Too much to have any little thing bother me. You know that people come back in the same state they died, yes? Well, there are some who come back hungry. That's what you probably saw above – the Travelling Kitchen, or something else. They died hungry and have found purpose in cooking human flesh."

"Purpose?"

"It's just my word for it. Don't take it as my supporting them. It's just… well, when you live and die and live and die, you tend to want something to hold onto. Something to aim for. An ambition, a goal or – as I put it – a purpose. It gives you something to do. Keeps you focused and busy, and lets you have something to work toward. Those that don't find a purpose are the first ones to go truly mad. The Ravenous are what we call the wretched creatures who didn't just die hungry, but who died starving. Maybe they were fasting or dieting, or maybe they were poor and didn't have any food, or maybe they just missed breakfast and died before they could have lunch. Whatever the case, they wake up ravenously hungry every time, and have lost their minds to it. Every repeat, they do the same thing. Rush to the hospitals. Devour everything and everyone. The elderly, the sick, the babies. Well, likely not the latter. Those are usually killed by the nurses long before they get there."

"W-What!?"

"The nurses," said Juniper. "Those that were in the hospitals when the anomaly struck. I'm not sure what their reasoning is – it might be a mercy. Better to grant them and the other patients a quick death than let them be eaten alive."

"I'm… I'm more horrified by your lack of a reaction to be honest."

Juniper paused, then laughed again. "Oh, right. I suppose that makes sense. As I said, I've seen too much. Experienced too much. You can see now why I don't think it wise to rush back to my children, no? A part of me worries what I might do. It's lonely here, you see. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone I could love?" She froze suddenly, then cringed and clenched her eyes shut. "You see? No one can fully escape it. Better to rid myself of the temptation. I'm not their mother anymore. No matter… No matter how much I might look like her."

The fire crackled on in the silence left behind by such heavy words. It was hard to find fault in them after what she'd heard; time and torture had twisted this woman, as it had everyone in Mountain Glenn. And I'm stuck down here with her all vulnerable and injured, thought Blake. Great.

"You mentioned the cartel…"

"Ah yes, the carnal cartel. As I said, some have found purpose in causing pain, some in devouring human flesh, some in art and music and some even in seeking the thrill of stranger and stranger deaths. Suicides. Then there are those who seek to wash away the pain with more… bodily delights. I'm sure I don't need to explain what they might have in mind for a pretty young woman like yourself."

"You don't," said Blake. It wasn't just that she could guess, but that she didn't want to know how wrong she was. Simply using her probably wouldn't be enough for the twisted and macabre people the citizens had become. They would likely do much, much worse, and mutilate her body for their own sick pleasures once they were through with her,

Ignorance was bliss.

"Did you kill them?"

"I had planned to stay out of it and let it happen." Juniper shrugged apologetically when Blake stared at her. "I would be no less an attraction to them, and they take and use people all the time. I can't be everywhere. Still, when I saw your clothing I suspected you might be one of ours, and I would never let such horrors befall someone my children might hold dear. A good job I did. And yes, I dealt with them – and we are a way from where you fell now. I thought it best we not stick around."

"How long has it been?"

"A few hours."

"Jaune," said Blake. "The others. They'll still be up top."

"I expect so, though you shouldn't seek to go out and find them. If they activated the CCT as you said, then it would have drawn many citizens. Nicholas will not have waited for that. He will have sent out his signal, made his calls, and then evacuated the building to somewhere safer. You won't find them by wandering the city aimlessly."

"My scroll-"

"Do you not think I tried that when you fell?" With a rueful smile, she held up Blake's scroll, not only cracked, but dented and with bits hanging out. "You're lucky your aura kicked in to protect you. This poor thing never stood a chance."

Shit. There went calling Jaune to tell him she was okay – and finding out where they were so she could meet up with them. She really didn't want to stick around with a woman who may or may not be crazy, no matter how nice she'd been so far. All it would take was one moment of curiosity, or one second of impatience, and Juniper might kill her. Blake took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"I'm Blake, by the way. Blake Belladonna. I'm Jaune's only employee." For now, anyway, and with Ruby as she was. Not that Ruby had ever officially been a part of the office. Either way, she wanted Juniper to know she was important to Jaune. "We're also friends. I guess… I guess we're best friends. Mostly on account of him not having any others."

"Are you dating?"

Would I be less or more likely to face sudden aggression from you if I agreed to that?

It was dark, she supposed, that she considered faking romantic feelings to Jaune just to keep herself safe from this woman, but in the end she decided on honesty. If only not to make her angrier if the truth slipped out.

"We're not like that. Jaune is my friend. I care about him, and I'm worried about him right now, but we're not together. I don't think I could handle having children that would be expected to risk their lives in a place like this. No offence."

"I was in love," said Juniper, shrugging easily. "I was young, foolish, and I loved Nicholas more than I did myself. More than I did the thought of my future children. When I confessed, he rejected me. Love was not something he was interested in. ARC Corp was everything to him." She smiled lopsidedly. "So, I went to him and proposed that we could marry and have children by me, and that this would benefit ARC Corp in the long run. I made my love into a business proposition, and he accepted. He never loved me but I, for a while, was happy. Looking back, I suppose it's all a bit pathetic."

Just a little, Blake thought, but didn't say. That had to be the most fucked up relationship she'd ever heard of, and she had heard a few. "So," she said, changing the subject quickly. "I want to meet back up with Jaune and the others. I don't suppose there's any way you can help with that?"

"Not directly, but I think our goals could align."

Blake was cautious. "Yeah?"

"The purpose which I have kept myself sane – or as sane as I can be – all this time should be obvious," said Juniper. "I aim to kill the Twilight City, end this tortured existence for me and everyone here, and experience true death. Nicholas has brought the family here for the same purpose. It stands to reason that if we find the anomaly at the source of all this, we have the greatest chance of finding them. Plus, all the citizens should die when it is killed, meaning you could roam the city safely and find them that way."

Not the worst idea, and not the worst offer Blake could have received. It wasn't a big surprise Juniper had kept trying to destroy the anomaly; that was basically what Nicholas suggested everyone who died here should do. Free yourself before you went insane. Die as yourself, rather than live as some twisted caricature of your worst nightmares. If anything, the worst part of this was knowing Juniper had been trying for years and still hadn't succeeded. That didn't bode well for ARC Corp's odds.

"I agree." Blake offered her hand, and the woman snorted and shook it. The gesture was a little frail seeing as Blake was flat on her back and still sore all over. "Do you have any idea where the anomaly might be?"

"I know where it is not. I believe. There is a chance it isn't a physical thing, but I must hold hope otherwise. Or we're all of us dead. I haven't been able to fully search the city, but I've had dealings with several groups and have pooled information."

"Groups?" asked Blake. "Not those psychopaths?"

"Those and the same." Juniper smiled wryly. "Even madmen have eyes, Blake, and they see and know things. I've let the cannibals eat me for the chance to pluck their minds. I've allowed my body to be used in exchange for questions. I have sat and spoken with musicians as they pluck on the tendons and ligaments of still alive and screaming victims."

Blake felt sick. "Why?"

"Because no sacrifice is too great if it means protecting the world from this. Can you imagine Remnant living under this anomaly? Can you? I cannot, and I consider that a blessing."

Mom, dad, Ruby, and all the innocent children of the world.

Blake grimaced.

"Give me an hour to recover and I'll be good to go."

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people saw Juniper coming. She did die in Mountain Glenn after all, and thus would have been resurrected there. At the very location where Jaune lost his arms.

Sorry for some nasty depictions of what the psychopaths in Mountain Glenn get up to, but this is a horrible place and I want to show that fully. And yeah, there are a lot of people who would be resurrected in a pretty helpless state. Like people in hospitals, etc.

Next Chapter: 28th November

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