Castaway Island

Chapter 3: Exploration

Yang awoke to a few things, first was the light hitting her eyes from the windows. The next was shifting and muttering? Yang blinked her eyes as she looked around the unfamiliar room. It took her a moment to realize that yesterday wasn't a dream after all. Looking down at the breeze she saw her robe had come undone.

She blushed she quickly covered up remember who was sharing a bed with her. Speaking of Jaune she looked over her shoulder and started to look concerned for him. Jaune was moving slightly in his sleep with an obvious nightmare.

Yang was no stranger to them as she had been getting them ever since she lost her arm.

"Pyrrha…" Jaune groaned out softly.

The name sent a dagger into Yang's heart, she had lost her partner, but Blake ran away. Pyrrha had died, she knew that kind of loss, the day her real mother, Summer left and they were told she was missing presumed dead. She knew of the painful hole in his chest he had to be feeling because she felt it too.

It was a pain she wouldn't wish on anyone as she gently shook him. "Jaune, Jaune!"

Jaune's eyes snapped open as he sat up in bed sweating a little and looking around.

"Hey, hey it's just me, it's okay." She said gently.

Jaune looked at her as his mind caught up, he vaguely remembered a nightmare of Pyrrha. He couldn't remember exactly it was starting to fade but he remembered that he didn't like it. He sighed thinking he woke her up. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Yang told him gently. "We're all dealing with things…some more than others." She looked at her robotic limb. The cold steel was there but she couldn't feel anything from it. Oh, sure there were sensors that helped to 'tell' her when it was gripping something, but it was all 'numb' to her.

Jaune saw where she was looking and could only nod, he couldn't imagine what it was like to lose an arm like she had. He remembered how depressed and defeated she had been. She seemed better now but there was this spark she used to have that was gone. He could see that she might have lost more than just an arm that day but a piece of herself that mattered more than any body part.

Or maybe he was just projecting himself onto her?

Yang paused to notice that Jaune's robe had opened up too and she was surprised by what she saw. Sure, he was a lanky back in Beacon but apparently his training and all that traveling had done some good for him. Possibly wearing all that heavy armor too had helped to develop Jaune's body. She wasn't sure but from what she could see he had grown some muscles since they first met. Nothing much he was still kind of lean but in a good way.

She decided to try and break the gloomy atmosphere. "So, when did you get all muscly?"

"What?" Jaune looked at her and then noticed his open robe. He blushed as she closed it. "Yang!"

"What? Not like you got something to hide unlike me," She laughed. "Girls at least got a reason to keep their tops covered."

"It's the principle of the thing," Jaune told her still feeling a little embarrassed. It wasn't every day a girl like Yang checked him out, he was still a little unsure of himself. A lifetime of doubt wasn't easy to get rid of.

"Well now that we're up, we might as well get the day started." Yang sighed slipping out of bed.

"We're going to need a list of things to do." Jaune commented.

"Okay so after we change and breakfast, what's first?" Yang asked him.

Jaune had been thinking about it before going to sleep last night. "Well, we stop by that Accommodations building and see what it has, then we explore more of the main complex. I'm sure there has to be a dining area or something."

"Right, we secure more food and water and then what? Look for a way off?" Yang tilted her head.

"Or at least get a message out…wait…this is an island so wouldn't they have to be self-sufficient?" Jaune asked her.

Yang's eyes lit up. "Yeah, they do! I'm from Patch and that's an island, trust me I know that you can't just get everything from the mainland all the time. You need to be able to be stand on your own in case of disaster or Grimm cause trouble." Yang started to pace as she thought about it.

"Okay so this is an island so that means they need their own water and power, maybe we can get that jumpstarted again?"

"Worth a shot, it would be nice to have either," Jaune nodded his head thinking about it. This place needed to be able to have its own power and water to run the resort. Most likely there were buildings not listed in the map they found in the office because those employees didn't need to use them. Maybe there was a maintenance building or something with more information.

"Like the clinic," he thought about it more. "They would need to have onsite medical needs in case something bad happened to keep someone stable long enough for them to be flown out in an emergency, right?"

Yang nodded, while Patch had a decent hospital it was still a small one. They had to travel to a major city like Vale if you wanted more complicated or special health care services. So, this clinic on the island might have decent supplies they could get. "They got to have some kind of radio system set up to call to the mainland too."

"Like at the dock?" Jaune asked.

Yang frowned. "Maybe? Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if that was only for ships close by, but we can deal with that later. If we see any kind of radio tower, then we really need to figure out how to get the power back on."

"Even if we have to find the manuals and figure it out ourselves," Jaune told her.

"Damn right, I mean we got nothing but time at the moment." Yang sighed. "Well let's get started then."

With that they started their day, Yang checked their clothing, and it was all dry. There were some salt stains still, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been. Besides she decided to stop wearing the leather jacket and just so with the orange top while stuck here. Yang took the bathroom to change while Jaune stayed outside. He was used to this living with a mixed gender team anyway.

Their 'breakfast' was a coconut each, with a can of nuts and water. Not much of one but it gave them something to eat. They took a bag of trail mix and two water bottles and put them into the bags they got earlier. They didn't bother locking up since who else but them would open the door? The sun was just now fully out by the time they made it to the Accommodations building.

Their master keys worked on the door as they entered, as they explored, they found out it was mainly where the linen for the small homes was stored before going to the laundry. There was most likely a building for laundry elsewhere. They did find a ton of cleaning supplies, apparently housekeeping was stationed out of this building as well. They found cleaned sheets, towels, and robes along with some dirty ones in a bin. The building had keys for the houses and another master set, but they left them alone since they didn't need them.

The small lobby wasn't too interesting, it did have a few vending machines. One for water, one for soda and another for snack foods. They decided on coming back later since it wasn't far from where they set up. There were various posters or flyers up for activities on the island, but they ignored those for the time being.

"Found anything interesting?" Jaune asked looking through the drawers.

"Naw, I was kind of hoping for something to explain what happened." Yang didn't like how everyone just abandoned the place.

"Same, makes me feel like we're in a horror movie or something."

"Don't say that!" Yang shouted at out him. "I hate horror movies."

"But you fight Grimm all the time." Jaune pointed out.

"Those I can handle, it's the fact I can't do anything that bothers me," she explained. "Ruby loves the stuff and watches them all the time. Guess it comes with having your birthday on Halloween of all things." It also didn't help that all the girls like herself, you know the hot blonde stacked characters always get killed in those films. Seriously? Why can't at least one of those types of girls survive for once?

"I always thought that having your birthday on a holiday kind of sucked, like you have to share your special day of the year every year." He commented.

"Not Ruby, she loves it," Yang smiled and rolled her eyes. "She likes to think of her birthday as a huge party everyone has on her day, and she loves dressing up. As a kid she thought everyone just went around in costumes on their birthday having fun and eating all the candy you want."

Jaune couldn't help but smile at the mental image, "That does sound like Ruby."

"That's my sis, always looking on the bright side of things." Yang paused as she found a note on one of the desks. "Oh, hey here we go. Found a note is says 'Emergency assembly in the main complex, evacuate all guests until storm clears' so there was a storm?"

"Had to be a pretty bad one," Jaune thought about the house with the missing roof. "You think this place got hit by a tropical storm of some kind? We have seen a lot of damage in this place, like that tree in the main building."

"Starting to look like it," Yang thought about it some more. "Even then, wouldn't they just come back to fix things? The damage didn't look too bad in some places but it's hard to tell given how long this place was left abandoned."

"Maybe we can find out more in the main complex, like in the managers offices if we can find them?" He offered.

"Yeah, well this place is a bust for now, might as well walk over there." Yang shrugged her shoulders.

They continued on after that as they made it to the main complex, they found some small critters walking around.

"I wonder what kind of animals are here?" Jaune asked.

"Hard to tell," Yang shrugged. "We hear the birds and saw some little creatures, maybe things like turtles, snakes, lizards, and small mammals. I'm more worried if there are predators on this island that might make things dangerous."

"Oh, yeah…we shouldn't go around unarmed then," Jaune nodded.

Yang popped off her mechanical arm. "Like this?" She grinned.

"Oh my god Yang," He face palmed.

"Oh, come on, I've been dying to do that joke for like a week now." She reattached it as she flexed it to make sure everything was good.

They arrived back at the same main building as they did yesterday, only this time they were here to explore deeper. They did make a quick stop for more water bottles and a couple more cans at the souvenir shop. The problem was that the deeper you went the harder it was to see with so little light getting in.

"Got to be some kind of emergency flashlights or something," Yang looked around seeing the gloom in front of them.

"I'm surprised we didn't see any in the main office," Jaune looked at the office door behind the check in counter.

"If there was a storm that knocked out the power then maybe they took them?" Yang sighed as she didn't like this, but it wasn't complete darkness at least. "Keep and eye out for some, maybe a maintenance closet would have some or something."

There were emergency lights, but they had run out of power long ago, so they had to deal with whatever light they had coming in through windows. The open lobby area was a large circle and looking up there was a dome that had cracked open at one point. They moved on, finding more suitcases just left behind in a few places. It looked like they had been either stacked on those little trollies and then knocked over or someone left them in a mad dash in the area.

Deeper they went past the lights there looked to be elevators, but they decided if they were going to the higher floors, they would take the emergency stairs. Jaune noticed an overturned sign and got it standing again.

"Oh, hey look at this," He called Yang over. "Main dining room it to the right and to the left is a …I think it says stores?"

Yang could see it was a little faded but if this place was isolated then I made some sense to have some stores where the guests could buy certain things they might need or lost so they didn't have to go back to the mainland. Plus, it meant more money the resort could earn as well. She didn't have her hopes up for a grocery store although the thought of all that rotting food wasn't appealing. They could at least come something to salvage.

"Well, it's still early for the dining room, I say we see what we can find down there." She looked into the dark hallway. It was hard to see but it wasn't impossible to walk down.

"Sure thing," Jaune said as the two travelled on.

It was eerie how their footsteps echoed off the walls, the hallway was about what you would expect to see in a small mall size wise. They found a few stores only before they saw the ending with an employee door. Most likely to get into the backrooms or somewhere else guests weren't allowed.

Jaune counted four small stores as they looked through the grates. One looked to be for clothing, there was a drug store as well, next was a beauty salon, that they ignored for now. The last was a small convenience store. Yang of course broke every lock, she would be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying it a little bit.

They went into the convenience store first, even though they could smell the foul odor of rotting food from outside they still went in.

"Gross," Yang covered her mouth seeing rotted fruit in a section.

Jean felt queasy seeing the packaged meat that was green and moldy inside. They at first found only the same types of foods everywhere else until they found a canned food section. It wasn't much but they found some cans of peaches, beans and pickles. They even found some cans of meals like spaghetti or ravioli and the like in cans.

"This stuff hasn't expired right?" Yang took one of the cans and tried to read the expiration date.

"Hold on," Jaune though the saw something and grinned. He found a few of those zippo lighters and tried one out. It lit up as he came over and so they could read the cans.

"You just light up my life Jaune," she grinned checking the cans. Thankfully they were still good, if only barely in some cases. "Cool, let's load up."

"Oh, Pumpkin Pete," Jaune found some of his favorite cereal and grabbed a box.

"You realize we got no milk for that right?"

Jaune paused and shrugged still putting it into one of his bags. "I'll eat it raw if I have to, maybe if we can get enough coconuts, we can milk them and put them in a container."

"Not unless we can get something to keep the fridge cold back at the house." Yang told him.

"We'll think of something. I mean all it might need is some lightning dust for power, right?" Jaune had no idea, but it was just a guess.

"Might also need some ice dust to help keep things cool, not sure I want to take it apart to find out what it needs and how to get it running again."

"We can always take apart the ones in the other homes, maybe we can cannibalize them for what we need." Jaune shrugged. Yang thought it over and shrugged, it couldn't hurt them to try and it's not like either of them knew what they were doing so they had plenty of changes to learn how the place worked. They also would need to find tools first before they attempted that.

With some decent food they grabbed some of the lighters as well. While looking behind the counter Yang found an actual flashlight, it had to belong to the store employee, but she was thankful for the find and it worked as well. Yang made sure to grab some batteries for sale, she wasn't sure which kind, so she just grabbed a few of every and put them in the bag.

They tried the drug store, but it was just a typical one with the usual over the counter meds and other products people might need for everyday stuff.

"Not sure what we need here," Jaune stated looking around.

"As long as they got some feminine products, I'll be happy," Yang didn't want to think about what happens when her time of the month shows up and she had nothing for it. Jaune blushed as he knew exactly what she was talking about. Living in a home with so many women, how could he not?

Yang went searching as she also grabbed a bottle of soap, shampoo, and conditioner. She had no idea if she could use them, but she at least wanted them to make herself feel civilized. She finally found the section she was looking for and grabbed a few things. She also grabbed some razors, she might be stuck here for awhile with Jaune but she wasn't going to let herself start to look like crap. Besides daily rituals might help with the boredom.

They did find some toothbrushes and toothpaste. Neither of them wanted their teeth to fall out or start to have problems without access to a dentist.

They passed the salon since they didn't really care about it and looked at the clothing store next. It was a decent size most likely for guests to shop around in case they lost their luggage or something.

"Man, it's a good thing this place doesn't have windows," Jaune looked around the stores were inside the building so while there wasn't much light the contents were much more protected.

Yang nodded as she looked around, she was looking for anything that might be good to wear for the environment. She was also looking for some new underwear, hers was starting to feel nasty with all the sweat and salt saturating it.

"We might as well grab some spares for now." Yang told him as they both went looking. Mainly they just grabbed a few pairs of tops and bottoms. New underwear and that was it, although Yang did notice the swimsuits here in this store there had much better designs than the few from the souvenir shop. She found a nice yellow bikini with black trim.

"Eh, why not, I might want to go swimming," She shrugged and put in the bag. They couldn't fill everything up with clothing so they could come back later for anything else they might want.

"So, dining area next?" Jaune asked her.

"Dining area next," She agreed.

They went back into the hallway and traveled back the way they came with the flashlight they could see a lot better now. They based the central location and now were traveling into the other path. They were halfway there when they noticed the smell.

"Oh, that smells nasty and we're not even there yet," Yang wrinkled her nose. This was already starting to smell worse than the convenience store.

"Good thing we got some cloth now," Jaune grabbed a shirt and make a makeshift mask out of it over his nose and mouth. Yang saw what he was doing and followed suit. They started up again when Yang froze and pointed a light at something she saw.

"Oh of course it has to get worse," she said irritated.

"What?" Jaune asked and looked at what the light was pointing at. There were marks on the wall but not just any marks. Claw marks, large ones, too large for a regular animal. "Are those…."

"Grimm," Yang growled out. "Of course, there had to be Grimm here."

"Why would Grimm be here?" He took a step and his foot hit something that was metallic as it made sounds as it moved across the floor. Yang found it with the flashlight, it was a shell casing. She looked around and they could now see more of the shell casings as well as claw marks and what looked like bullet holes in the walls.

"Did they have Huntsmen here?" Jaune bent down to pick up the casing.

"Looks like it, might have been either guests or security," Yang looked at it, it was a round a bit smaller than what Ruby used.

"Either way this is starting to paint a bad picture." Jaune looked around as he thought about it. "So…there was a storm."

"People start to panic and negative emotions build up." Yang continued.

"Which attracted the Grimm," Jaune continued on. "They came in here and there was a battle and then…"

Both paused as they slowly moved forward a lot more cautious now as Yang readied her weapons as Jaune pulled out his sword. They thought the worst thing they might run into was the local wildlife, but they had come across a flock of Griffin on the way here. If they had this island as their home, then things just got more complicated.

Jaune hated the fact that when Grimm died there was nothing left so they couldn't tell how many Grimm might have attacked or at least how many might have been killed off. "Would the Grimm stick around even though there's no one here?"

Yang suddenly remembered her team's assignment to Mountain Glenn and the Goliaths that were just wondering around in a circle around the ruined city. "Not really, Doctor Oobleck explained how some Grimm will stay in an area like that. While at Mountain Glenn there were the usual Grimm all over the place but also a group of Goliaths that were just walking around, like they were guarding against people coming back in…which now that I think about it makes sense knowing about Salem."

"I still don't get why this Salem person is doing any of this," Jaune sighed. "I mean she and Ozpin have been fighting for who knows how long and she can just control Grimm?"

When Ozpin explained about Salem and being the master of all Grimm it was a shock, as well as learning that the old Headmaster was now in the body of a young boy and that he had been doing this for a while now.

"You get the feeling we're not being told everything?" Jaune questioned.

Yang thought about it. "Does seem like we're missing some pieces, but I figured we'll be told everything eventually. I mean we all just got back together and caught up, with the training Ozpin was putting us through we didn't exactly have much free time except for now and then."

That's when the smell really hit them.

"Oh god I thought it couldn't get any worse," Yang could smell the horrible smell coming out of the doorway to the dining room. The doors she noticed that had claw marks and looked ripped open.

Both of them braved inside as they saw a large room with natural light flooding in from very large windows that took up two stories. Somewhere broken as there were broken and overturned tables and chairs all over the place. More spent ammo was scene as they could smell food that had been left to rot all over the place, but the worst was coming from the back.

Jaune took a step and felt something crunch under his foot, he looked down to see something white and it took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. It was bones from a limb, a human limb.

"Ahhh!" Jaune jumped back off it.

"What?!" Yang turned around to see that hidden under a tablecloth were the remains of a human, picked clean by scavengers from the looks of it. "Oh."

"I guess not everyone made it off the island," Jaune stated calming down and looking at the poor remains of someone that had been left behind.

"Guess they couldn't afford to take any of the bodies," Yang looked around and tried not to think of how many more might be hidden under more tablecloths or in areas they couldn't see. She saw a few more of what might be covered bodies, but she didn't want to focus on that. "Let's just raid the kitchen and then get the hell out of here."

Jaune silently agreed as they made their way to the kitchen. The smell was worst as they could see meat that had been left to rot in what looked like they were in the middle of cooking when things went bad here. Some had stuff growing on it that neither of them wanted to look directly at. They could only imagine what this place smelt like at its worst.

They found a storeroom and looked around inside. Yang found a bag of potatoes but noticed they were all rotten. "Well, that's just great."

"What?" Jaune called out as he was finding some preserved foods.

"Found some potatoes but they're all spoiled," Yang sighed.

"Those can still be planted we just can't eat them." Jaune explained to her as he came over to see them. He looked at them and nodded. "Yeah, these should still work, my mom has a garden and she explained to me how you can just plant them and then you can eat what grows from them."

"You thinking of starting a farm?" Yang asked him.

"Honestly? We have no idea how long we'll be here, I really hope not but we'll need different food and potatoes are great for a diet."

"How long do they need to grow?"

"Three to four months, give or take." He shrugged.

"I really don't want to think about being stuck here for that long," Yang dreaded the thought but as much as she hated it. He was right, they needed to start thinking about long term if they wanted to survive.

"We can come back later," Jaune commented. "We don't even have a place picked out to even grow things first."

As they continued to look around, they actually felt a cold breeze, they followed it to two swinging double doors. As they entered, they shivered as they found the walk-in freezer but somehow it was still cold.

"How is this place still so cold?" Jaune looked around.

Yang spotted it by her flashlight. "There's the culprit, ice dust AC unit."

The light was on a unit by the wall that was a large box with a grate on it. The grate could be opened or closed to allow the coldness of ice dust to wash over the room. It looked like it had been left open and over time the cold just kind of expanded. Walking towards the device she found the latch and opened it. Inside were several ice dust crystals about as large as her hand sitting in little stands for them.

"So, it works like my parents ice box?" Jaune commented as his family had an icebox for keep a lot of preserved food. His parents always warned their kids not to play around with it. He figured it was because of the ice dust like the one he was seeing now.

"Yeah, normally you have some of these in fridges and stuff to keep things cold," Yang took a closer look at them. "Looks like these babies were left active a little too long." Looking them over she could see some of them had been drained except for a couple before the power being went through them stopped working. Ice dust being naturally cold it just slowly over time build up the cold in the room since it was built to contain cold air.

"Can we use them for the fridge back at the home?" Jaune asked.

Yang frowned, she wasn't the dust expert on the team, and she wished Weiss was here to help confirm her theory. "Maybe? I can't carry this bare handed, maybe we can get a glass jar and carry it in that."

There was nothing really needed for the rest of the fridge as everything was either spoiled or had so much freezer burn it wasn't something they could eat. They found a jar and placed the ice dust crystal in it for later use. Jaune picked up a few blades as he wrapped them in towels to carry.

"What's with that?" Yang asked him.

"Well, I can't keep using my sword for things like coconuts," he told her getting the sturdier cooking knifes and a cleaver. "That's going to ruin the blade."

"Oh, good idea," She hadn't thought about that since she never used anything bladed for weapons before. With that they were finally ready to get out, they got some extra supplies and were more than ready to leave the building. Making their way out they couldn't help but keep an eye out for anything that might attack them from the shadows.

When they were finally out of the building and back into the sun, they unwrapped their faces and took deep cleansing breaths.

"Okay, let's try and go back in there as little as possible, please," Yang took a big breath of fresh air.

"I don't blame you; I really hope that smell doesn't linger on our clothing." Jaune tried not to think about that.

Yang made a face not wanting to smell for the rest of the day. "Should we look around or dump what we have?"

Jaune covered his hand and looked at the sky trying to judge the time. "I think if we head back and dump stuff and set things up, we'll be ready for lunch."

"Think we can make something decent with all this?" Yang nodded towards their bags which were now starting to overflow with items.

"I think I can make something," Jaune figured all those cooking lessons his mom made them all do was going to work out. "At least we got something to cook with the gas stove for however long the tank lasts."

"Please, I need a hot meal and nothing that's just nuts and trail mix." Yang would take anything over that since their last two meals were only just that.

"I think I can make a decent meal with what we got for a nice hot bowl of soup with some of the can peaches on the side." Jaune offered.

"I'll take it, what about those noodles we grabbed?"

"I'm thinking of saving that for dinner," he told her.

Yang shrugged, "fine by me, after lunch we got to get a few more things if we can and then if we got time more exploration." She looked up and shielded her eyes. "I think I'll grab one of those sunhats I saw being sold, with all this sun it might be good to have some protection."

Jaune feeling the heat on him could only nod in agreement.

TBC…

I know these are coming out quickly I just got really inspired. Also please remember to leave a review behind, preferably in English, I don't know why I have to say this but I do with some people.