Excerpt from "The Age of Heroes", written by Weiss Schnee
After the docks battle went so horribly wrong, we were "benched" for a week. Yang and Ruby both had to take time to recover from their head injuries, but luckily, they never lost their Aura during the fight, so the damage was only short-term. For the rest of us, the only damage was to our egos. Blake easily took it the worst and blamed herself, saying that she thought she dragged us all into a losing battle.
That was Blake's biggest problem; when the team lost, she always blamed herself. She had led a harder life than most of us, but she took that to mean she was the only adult in the room and took all the blame with none of the credit. We spent so long trying to get her to remember that everyone is accountable for their own actions, and it never stuck.
Then it did stick, and now the problem is we can't get her to take accountability for anything.
I digress. That all came much later than the events I'm currently describing.
Meanwhile, as we were being evacuated to Beacon, the Arkham Knight and his forces needed to regroup with Salem for a mission update, while his allies were undergoing a mission of their own. Even if we had known about it, it wouldn't have mattered; the Knight was in the Grimmlands, further than any human had ever been allowed without Salem's explicit permission, while the others were in Mountain Glenn, clearing the area of Grimm.
We would later learn that this was the foundation for the event that would colloquially be known as "The Breach".
There was something vaguely disappointing about killing Grimm. Sure, they came in literally endless numbers, which actually made them a threat. They even still made sounds of pain, which could provide some satisfaction.
But the thing that Neo always missed was the fear. Grimm expressed pain, they tried to run, they tried to protect each other, but they were never scared. It took all the fun out of it.
As Hush slashed the throat of yet another Beowolf, Neo took a moment to pause. She had taken out her piece of the horde as easily as she ate breakfast, which was no surprise; spend all your time preparing to fight humans and it turns out that effectively a horde of wild animals is a piece of cake. The break gave her the chance to examine the "allies" she was working with.
"Allies" was used loosely because she was pretty sure at least one of them was trying to kill her when she wasn't looking, but she didn't technically have any proof, so instead she just watched out for any more "accidents" during the fight.
Adam Taurus was going absolutely berserk, just like he always did, slashing and stabbing at absolutely everything in sight with no finesse whatsoever. Every now and then he'd throw in a gunshot, seemingly just to spice things up. By contrast, his partner, Ilia Amitola, fought very similar to how Neo herself did, only if Hush were a whip instead of a parasol. She used her smaller size to her advantage, jumping and dashing around whenever it was appropriate and keeping the momentum she needed for her whip to cut through the Grimm like a sword. Even Neo thought it was rather elegant.
Of course, what made this whole outing a teensy bit annoying was the way giant blades of energy would slash toward her every once in a while, always coming from the bastard bull Adam. The first time, Neo had been willing to entertain the idea that it was just reckless or even an accident. Right around the third time, it was obvious he was trying to kill her for some reason.
The sixth time, it was frankly pathetic, but Neo found it funny how pissed off he got every time she just stepped out of the way of the beam.
Just like she did right now; as another beam sliced towards her from his sword, while he was in no way facing the Grimm surrounding him, Neo simply took a step to the left, letting it skate right past her and into the Beowolf coming up behind her. With that little issue taken care of, Neo had nothing else to do, so she simply extended her parasol and posed it over her shoulder, making her thoughts toward Adam clear without saying a word. Not that she could say it anyway.
Adam, the idiot he was, simply grunted and went back to his crowd. Neo just rolled her eyes, both expressing her annoyance at the childish prick she was with and stealthily confirming there were no more Grimm around her. Just out of her sight, Ilia couldn't help but release a small giggle, even if she immediately set her face back into a scowl at the human she had to work with.
It had been like this for the past hour, ever since they'd arrived. The Knight had tasked all three of them with clearing out as much of the Grimm horde from the city square as they could, and all three could at least get that much done relatively easily. It meant that Neo wouldn't be able to help Roman with his latest heist, which she definitely did not appreciate, but he could handle himself just fine, so she just had to trust him.
It had been a while since she'd had to do that, but you didn't question the Knight. They'd both learned that lesson very quickly. Of course, she didn't know why they were in Mountain Glenn specifically because, again, the Knight was playing the mission close to the chest. She knew it was a part of "phase one", whatever the hell that meant, but she didn't have any idea of the "why" or the "what" or even the "when". All the Knight had given her was the order to clear out the Grimm and an escape plan she wasn't supposed to tell Adam about for some reason.
That's how the world's greatest thief and assassin ended up paired with two of the White Fang's most violent members. If the bull were more sentimental, it might have been one hell of a statement on racial equality and how the Grimm were the human and Faunus races' true enemy, but Adam didn't tend to think anything more than "swish swish stab" anyway, so all of it went straight over his horns.
Unknown to her, Ilia Amitola was having similar thoughts in the middle of her own fight. It wasn't enough that Adam had demanded that she work with a human on the orders of another human. It wasn't enough that the mission was killing Grimm of all things, which was not even close to her specialty. No, the real kicker was that she had to be working with him.
Adam had made it clear from minute one how much he hated her guts. He liked to pretend it was because of her supposed poor track record in the field, but anyone with a functioning long-term memory knew it was because of her relationship with Blake. It wasn't like Blake had even known about her feelings, but Adam had sensed a threat on his territory and saw red, even long before Blake was ever considering leaving. If the Albain brothers hadn't taken a personal interest in her trajectory within the White Fang, he probably would've done something already.
Luckily, this time around they were barely even working together, it was more just slaughtering the enemy side by side. Throw in the fact that Adam seemed to deem Neo the bigger threat (not that he could do anything about that, which Ilia found hilarious), and the mission was at least bearable.
Beowolves, Ursa, and even the occasional Nevermore that came a little too close to the ground fell to their combined onslaught easily. Luckily, the older Grimm like the Goliaths had migrated away from the area about a week prior, so all that was left as immediate threats were the "lesser" Grimm that lacked such intelligence.
Every now and then she'd see Moonslice cut across the field towards Neo, who would dodge the beam so easily that Ilia genuinely wondered why Adam even continued trying it. On the other hand, Neo usually took advantage of it to somehow take care of the Grimm surrounding her, so maybe it was a good thing.
That and the acrobatics did wonderful things for Neo's form, and the silent reactions she had to all of his nonsense were pretty cute. If she weren't human, Ilia would've loved to get to know her better.
Purely to examine her capabilities as a Fang operative, obviously.
As Ilia was finally able to take the time to breathe with the horde finally beginning to dwindle, Neo sauntered over to her with her parasol over her shoulder. When she got close, she cocked her hip and offered her fist to bump, looking for all the world like she hadn't been fighting Grimm for the past hour straight. Ilia scowled at her and looked away, refusing to acknowledge her offer. Cool fighter or not, this was still a human, and Ilia would never forget what she was fighting for. Not after they killed her parents, and not after they helped drive Blake away.
Neo simply rolled her eyes and looked back towards Adam, which caused a lot more feeling inside herself than Ilia expected.
She turned back to Adam as well, continuing to show no emotion towards the human.
With one final Moonslice that he decided not to send toward Neo for once, Adam slashed down in front of him, creating a vertical beam of light that sliced through everything in front of him. In an instant, almost a dozen Beowolves were cleaved in half by the light, leaving only one last Beowolf that Adam finished off with a shot from Blush. Though the city itself was far from empty of Grimm, the city square had been cleared, giving them breathing room from the Grimm that still wandered aimlessly in the outskirts. In other words, they finally had a break.
Adam sheathed his sword and let out a deep breath, decompressing from all the combat he had just endured. Unlike his two female companions, Adam's combat ability revolved around constant action and offense. He had been constantly moving and striking while the others had often gotten small pauses and rest, so he had far more right than them to finally rest his body. The only unfortunate thing was that his efforts to take the human out of the picture had been bested, but that was only a small setback. If the Arkham Knight thought that he would ever willingly work with human trash like that, he had far more to learn about Adam Taurus than he pretended.
As it was, the plan they had been provided had ended there. They had been given one simple instruction: drop into the city square and clear out as much of the area as possible, giving the White Fang room to eventually move in and take over the tunnels. Unlike the open city square, trying to send three people into the tunnels right now was suicide, even if those three were as skilled as they were; it would require a full military offensive that only the Fang could provide for them.
There were just two problems with this supposed plan the Knight had provided them; there was no extraction plan, and the tunnel entrance they would be using later was in the outskirts of the city, far away from the city square. Adam knew from the beginning that there must have been a secret secondary objective they hadn't been informed about, but, loath as he was to admit it, causing the uproar he wanted to cause would have been suicide.
Adam may have been willing to die for the cause, but not just because he questioned the wrong human.
Besides, there was plenty of value in retaking the city beyond the eventual escapades into the tunnels. If they could take an area of the city and hold it, they could use it as a checkpoint where they could cycle men in and out, keeping the Grimm at bay while they stocked up on supplies. If they gained a strong enough foothold in the city, they could eventually take out the stronger Grimm on the outskirts that kept the horde present, which would drive the smaller and dumber ones away. Overall, the more they could consolidate their forces and start to build defensive barriers, the easier it would be to continue holding it until they could launch the attack.
They wouldn't be able to cause any major rebuilding, not without backup from Menagerie, but the city would effectively be theirs in every way that mattered. A symbolic victory more than anything else, but a victory nonetheless.
As Adam continued observing the perimeter of the square for any Grimm that might wander in, he felt Ilia coming up behind him. Before she could speak, he cut her off.
"Unless it's mission-critical, now's not the time, Ilia", he said in his typical boorish tone.
Ilia rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide her disdain for him. "Of course it is, Adam", she said. "We cleared the square, just like the Knight wanted. What are we supposed to do now?"
That was the question, wasn't it? Adam wanted nothing more than to give her an answer because the last thing he needed was Ilia thinking he wasn't in control, but he still hadn't figured out what the Knight's secondary objective was. He had to improvise, which he hated more than damn near anything.
"For now, we rest", he said. "The Grimm are eventually going to want to take this back, so we need to take the break while we still can and hold out until reinforcements arrive."
Ilia nodded and moved back to the center of the square, leaving Adam alone once more. Now, he finally had the chance to actually stop and think about the situation.
The Grimm were leaving him alone for now, so the main goal was to try to keep it that way until whatever happened next. That meant that while they couldn't outright hide, they had to keep as low a profile as possible. Unless Grimm were specifically coming toward them, they had to just let it live; even a single gunshot would summon a brand new horde. In the meantime, Adam had to think of what they were supposed to do next. Whatever the Arkham Knight wanted, he wasn't talking, so Adam would be happy to take the reins from here on in.
Should they try to advance to the tunnels? No, he stood by his previous thoughts there. The defensive position in the city square was one thing, but an offensive push into the tunnels was suicide. The Grimm had never been cleared out of there after they had been sealed all those years ago, so they'd be walking deep into a Grimm hive with no briefing, defensive positions, or opportunities to retreat. It was better to wait for some grunt support before making that push.
Perhaps it was time to just make camp? The longer he thought about it, probably not. There was still plenty of light out, and only three of them would make for a terrible guard rotation while they were trying to sleep. It would be better to find a more defendable location to sleep than in the middle of the empty city square.
Investigate some of the nearby buildings?
Now that held some promise. Not only could there potentially be some supplies if they hadn't expired in the intervening years, but setting up in one of the buildings would make camping a lot easier. It could even become the basis of the checkpoint Adam wanted to eventually set up so they could take the tunnels. A relatively safe place to sleep, potential supplies, and a defendable foothold in the city they could expand when reinforcements arrived?
Adam was convinced. Now it was just time to figure out which building would best serve their purposes.
Taking a quick glance around the city square, Adam could rule out a few of the buildings right off the bat. The City Hall would have been a great place to take between its location and symbolic power, but the roof of the building was severely damaged, which meant they could get rained out. The buildings directly to its sides were hardly any better in terms of structural integrity; they looked like they were a sneeze away from collapsing, so they weren't exactly defendable.
There were several upscale restaurants around the block as well, which Adam ruled out because of the lack of supplies. Almost everything in there would be perishables; it might be worth scavenging for cans if there was nothing else to look for, but that was unlikely. Adam dismissed a pharmacy for the same reason, though that would definitely be a place to raid later just to be safe. Even without needing the supplies here in Mountain Glenn, they could use any surviving medication for the Fang as a whole.
It was the last building on the east side of the courtyard that caught Adam's attention. It was several stories tall, but the structural integrity still looked solid, providing several floors of potential supplies and living spaces. Not only that, but it looked like it was an industrial building of some kind, meaning that with the right people involved, they could potentially convert it into a checkpoint and use its facilities for their own purposes. They'd have to create a supply chain from Menagerie (and that meant dealing with the damn Albain brothers again), but having a stable base this close to the Kingdom while still outside of their jurisdiction?
This was a damn near perfect plan.
Adam looked back to the duo in the city square, standing around and talking like they weren't in a Grimm infested wasteland. Typical of Ilia and a human. It was time for him to take control of the situation again.
"He has no idea what he's doing", Ilia said as she returned to Neo's side.
If Neo could laugh out loud, she would have, but as it was she had to settle for blowing some air out of her nose to show her mirth. Of course he doesn't, she thought. Adam couldn't think his way out of a cardboard box. Adam's skill with the sword combined with the raw power in his Semblance were unmatched, but both Neo and Ilia could see why Sienna Khan hadn't trusted him with any true power.
"Until he comes up with something", Ilia continued, "I guess we can just stay here. Might as well get a rest after all the fighting."
Neo nodded, already sheathing her weapon and moving to sit down. As she crossed her legs on the ground, she pulled out her scroll and began typing, with Ilia only barely holding back from looking over her shoulder by assuming she was texting that partner of hers. However, Neo eventually held the scroll out to her, showing a message to her: 'You don't like me very much, do you?'
Ilia scoffed and shook her head, ignoring the message. It was a stupid attempt at small talk, and she wasn't going to deal with that from a human like her. However, Neo was persistent and put the scroll back in front of her, this time asking a different question: 'Why? I haven't done anything to you.'
Clearly, Neo wasn't going to leave her alone, so Ilia felt the need to answer. "You didn't do anything to me", she began, "but it's not like you've helped me or my people before. A lot of humans haven't done things to me, but it doesn't mean they didn't sit back and watch."
Neo could suppose that was fair enough. After all, her mother may not have done anything truly terrible to her until she attacked her imagination copy, but she hated her just as much for all the things she let her father do to her, like all the locks he put on the door. She certainly was just as glad to let her burn to death in that "home" they loved to flaunt.
Neo tried to type another response, but before she could finish, Ilia interrupted her. "Why do you care anyway?", she asked. "It's not like we're going to work together after this."
Neo shrugged, making it clear what kind of answer Ilia would get even before Neo finished typing it out. 'I dunno, I've always wondered how you 'murder for a cause' types work.'
Ilia had so many things she wanted to say to that. How dare the assassin call what she does "murder". How dare the human use a term like that to describe their endless fight for equality. How dare she try to get into Ilia's head like that when they weren't partners in any sense.
But before she could, Adam loudly cleared his throat as he approached, as though he needed to cut through all the nonexistent noise to get her attention. Neo's attention turned back to him and, after she fumed for only a moment, so did Ilia's.
"We've had our rest", he began, "but now it's time to fortify the area. We're going to take that factory for shelter, scavenge it for supplies, and get ahold of our forces in Vale so we can get reinforcements here."
With the bare minimum of the orders given out, Adam turned towards the building and started walking, clearly expecting the two of them to follow.
Unfortunately for them, they had no choice but to do so, though as they began walking with him, Ilia couldn't help but whisper "so we're making it up as we go along. Great".
She did her best to ignore the exhale of breath to her left. Neo may not have been capable of making noise, but she was still capable of laughing.
Now was not the time to think about her or her laugh.
There were very few times that Roman could recall being genuinely scared out of his mind.
When he first got dragged in front of Lil' Miss Malachite, he had been nervous, but it was the type of situation he had gotten himself out of before, and he could tell from the beginning that she wasn't going to kill him.
Instigating a gang war in Vale was a piece of cake. Sure, it was a piece of cake that he barely escaped, but a piece of cake nonetheless.
Dealing with posers like Paul Parrot was nothing. He just had to kneecap whatever they used to take their "power" and the men themselves would fall at their knees begging for Roman's mercy.
Even the first time he met Cinder, when she made it clear that she would turn him to ash if he turned her down, he was scared, but not scared enough to make him regret his life choices.
Now, he was wishing someone would kill him just to get him away from this Gods forsaken place.
Cinder had been vague with the details, of course, but Roman knew they had flown northwest for about three hours. He'd even taken a nap at one point, only to wake up and find that his scroll no longer had service, leaving him alone in a bullhead somewhere unknown on the planet with the fire bitch.
And when he looked out the window, he saw Grimm everywhere.
Everywhere he looked outside, he saw Nevermores, Griffons, Beowolves, and Ursa covering the ground and sky. Roman couldn't tell if they were blocking out the sky or if the sky was somehow completely black, but either way, there were easily thousands of Grimm of all kinds covering all the land.
Even then, Roman could take it. An endless horde of Grimm like that was terrifying, of course, but at the end of the day, if he were in front of that horde, he would just lay down his weapon and die. If there's nothing to be done, then he felt that he might as well die quick. There was no reason to postpone the inevitable.
The problem was that they weren't attacking.
His entire life, Roman had known very few constants, but one of those constants was that Grimm were mindless killing machines who lived for nothing but slaughtering any living thing that crossed its path. Sure, there were idiots like Parrot who tried to weaponize the Grimm, but no matter what, Grimm took no sides. They couldn't be trained or controlled. They were death incarnate, little more.
So why the fuck are they letting us through?
It didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense. The Grimm weren't just not attacking, they were getting out of the way. His entire worldview was being completely upended in a single moment, all while Cinder kept staring straight ahead through the cockpit window like there was nothing wrong or out of the ordinary.
What kind of hell dimension was Cinder dragging him to?
All he knew for sure was that Neo would never believe a word of this when he told her the story later. The longer it went on, the more he was sure that he couldn't believe it either.
Roman had no idea how long he stood there, staring out the window at the endless horde of monsters letting them pass. For once in his life, he felt true, complete fear. Not just nerves from a particularly difficult heist, not the adrenaline rush of a police chase, not the dread he'd felt since working for Cinder. This was ice flowing through his veins, this was his body ready to fight an enemy that didn't exist, this was his heart beating so fast it was starting to hurt.
It wasn't until the bullhead suddenly started a rapid descent that Roman was shaken out of his terror. It was quick enough that Roman threw himself into the nearest seat and quickly buckled himself in, bracing himself as the vehicle shook on approach while he desperately tried to calm himself down.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't work.
Roman couldn't tell if it took five seconds or five minutes for the thing to finally land, but at some point while he was desperately trying not to hyperventilate, the bullhead made one final jolt as Cinder landed it with all the grace of a drunk driver fitting a car into a small garage. The second the aircraft was on the ground, Cinder was throwing off her headset and getting ready to leave, walking as fast as she could past Roman like he wasn't even there.
Not on his watch.
Either through his terror or because of it, Roman stood up as Cinder passed him and, without thinking about it (because if he thought about it for even a second, he'd have no nerve to do it), he fired his cane right past her head. He heard the explosion in the distance, but his focus remained on her as she stopped dead in her tracks.
Normally, he'd be far more concerned about the consequences, but right now, all he cared about were answers.
As she slowly turned to face him, Roman could hear the pure rage in her voice as she asked "What do you think you're doing?" Channeled by nothing but an existential crisis, Roman tried to appear fierce and not like his legs were shaking beyond his control.
"What I'm doing", he all but screamed, "is wondering just what the hell you expect me to do!"
Cinder blinked, caught off guard by his response. "What? What I expect you to do?"
"You expect me to just sit here like a lost child waiting for daddy? Why the fuck are the Grimm not attacking?!"
Roman saw as Cinder tried to keep her hand from bursting into flame out of pure rage, but worked to keep his cane steady. Now of all times, he couldn't betray his true fear.
As she tried to slow down her own breathing, she seethed out "I told you not to do anything without me telling you-"
Not good enough.
"That was before we were flying into hell itself through a horde of Grimm letting us pass like paparazzi on the red carpet! Tell me where the fuck we are or I shoot again!"
Of all the reactions he could have expected from that, the last one he expected was her laughter. "Oh Roman", she laughed, "you truly think you can do anything to me? Have you learned nothing from the last year?"
That... was a damn good point, and if he had been thinking he wouldn't have gotten to this point in the first place. But he couldn't back down now, not when he'd made his initial point as strongly as he had.
It was time to do what he did best: bullshit.
"I'm not stupid, I know I can't hurt you, but I know you wouldn't have brought me here if you weren't in a damn fast rush, and I also know I can at least make you late to whatever the hell is happening here."
Even as he continued to keep himself under control, he couldn't help but internally gloat at coming up with a pretty good excuse on the spot like that. As Neo would say (or type), "the speech check never fails".
Roman still had no idea what that meant and at this point he didn't want to ask.
Cinder was clearly realizing the merit of the argument as well, if her slowly widening eyes were any indication. It was clear that her rage and arrogance were warring against her desire to not piss off whoever she was supposed to be meeting here, and slowly but surely he could see as the fire in her palm dissipated on its own.
Cinder growled, more furious than he had ever seen her before. "Fine! You can come with me. But I swear to whatever Gods you believe in, you piece of slime, if you even speak, I will atomize you right then and there."
Still all but snarling like a Boarbatusk, Cinder turned around and walked out of the bullhead, as fast as she possibly could without outright running.
Still insisting on the "poised femme fatale" image above all else, apparently.
Roman was rooted to the spot for several more seconds, not comprehending that he had actually won an argument with her, until it finally clicked and he just as frantically followed behind her into the gates of hell.
Still, he wished she would've stayed for at least another second. Her having to hear him respond "I'm an atheist" would've just been the perfect capstone.
As Adam took point entering the rundown factory, he was immediately cut off guard when he saw that the lights inside were flickering.
After all this time, this place still has some electricity?
That could only mean one thing: for the building to have anything functioning all this time, even if it was intermittent, someone had to be managing the upkeep.
Someone's still here.
He immediately held up a fist to stop the other two, halting in their tracks. Turning around slightly so they could see his face (under the mask, of course), Adam gestured to the lights, trying to silently communicate his point.
Luckily, the two were smarter than he gave them credit for and caught on. Immediately, Adam followed up by pointing at Ilia and then down one hallway, and then to Neo and then at a nearby stairwell.
The message was clear that it was time to split up.
As Adam proceeded down the other hallway away from them, hand on the hilt of his sword so he could swing at any moment, the other two took one look at each other, unsheathed their weapons, and went in the directions Adam indicated for them, separating in the unknown laboratory in the Grimm infested city and someone somewhere inside.
Ilia couldn't help but chuckle when her first thought was "what could possibly go wrong?"
Adam, heedless of their thoughts, continued onward away from the other two, hand on his sword ready to slice. He doubted any Grimm would be in the building after all of the commotion they had caused outside, but he had learned the hard way a long time ago to always be safe instead of sorry. The mark on his face was a lifelong reminder of that lesson.
He immediately felt his face twitch, just like it always did whenever he thought of his mark, but he shook it off and moved on. No time to dwell.
There were plenty of rooms on both sides of the hallway he was in, but each one was empty. Well, they were at least empty of people or Grimm. None of the rooms had ever been cleaned out or fixed, so tables were flipped over with their materials spilled onto the floor, first aid kits were still fully stocked, some rooms even had unclean dishes left out on the counters or in sinks. Adam had been correct; when they had the time to go through this place, it would be a goldmine for supplies.
But in each and every room, the lights were still on. Not just working, still on. The lights were on and still working after being abandoned for all this time, but none of the supplies had ever been taken.
There were a lot of possibilities, but all of them kept him on his guard.
As he left what had once been a staff break room, Adam looked in the same direction he had been walking and finally saw a sign pointing somewhere - into the basement, down a flight of stairs.
Adam knew he should continue to check the first floor if only so he could be thorough, but after roughly twelve rooms of exactly the same things, Adam knew in his gut that the basement would actually hold some answers to why he was sent here and what he was supposed to do next. Then he'd be having words with the Arkham Knight.
Taking the stairs one at a time, hand still on his sword, Adam observed the flickering lights and the increasing noise of activity. He'd been right - someone was here, and whoever they were, they were in the basement.
As Adam continued stepping down the stairs, he braced himself for the kind of foe he would be facing. Though he didn't know who was there or what they were doing, the mere fact he'd managed to survive here at all, much less the possibility that he'd been here since the destruction, meant he'd be a very formidable opponent in any circumstance. A small army of Grimm had proved a problem for the three of them once they'd arrived, but this person was living directly under their noses and was still alive. That was very impressive in its own right.
As he approached the bottom of the staircase, he noticed that the lights were getting more and more consistent, flickering less and less until he approached a door at the bottom of the flight. There, behind the door, he could see a constant stream of light and hear
a distinct rumbling, no doubt the generators that were keeping the lights on. Beyond that, he thought he could hear the sounds of someone working, but he couldn't quite verify that.
There was nowhere to go but forward.
As Adam turned the door handle as slowly as he could to try to enter silently, the working noises on the other side immediately stopped, as if whoever was there had instantaneously disappeared. His attempt had failed and he had been heard.
Well, nothing to do but accept it.
Opening the door as he normally would, Adam immediately put his hand back to his sword the second it was off the handle, almost instinctively unsheathing it before he realized that no one was in front of him. With a quick glance to the left and right, he confirmed that there was no one immediately around him, so he relaxed his posture slightly and took in the room.
The first room was the exact kind of laboratory he had been expecting, though it was a lot larger than he thought it would be. Around the room, Adam saw countless beakers and vessels, some boiling over heat sources, some capped and lying on counters, and some undergoing some kind of automatic mixing process. It was like he had stepped into a mad scientist's perfect dream. That clued Adam in to the kind of person he was finding here. This wasn't a combatant like him; what made him dangerous and skilled enough to survive in a Grimm filled wasteland was his brain. He could outsmart anything Adam would try unless he could get the drop on him first.
As Adam slowly walked through the lab, he observed everything he could see happening, trying to see what this scientist was working on here. Unfortunately, if he was taking notes, he wasn't leaving them out in the open, so he couldn't figure out what anything was actually doing. He did notice that there was a large collection of some green substance in tubes separated from everything else, and that told Adam that this chemical was either the beginning or the end of the process, but beyond that, Adam was flying blind here.
However, as he reached the other end of the room, Adam noticed that there were several other doors going even further into the lab, one on each of the three walls of the lab. The scientist could be behind any one of them plotting an ambush, so Adam had to tread even more cautiously than he already was.
Luckily for him, the rooms all had windows he could look in before he entered.
Adam started with the door on the left wall, the door he was closest to. Immediately, Adam could see that it was an indoor farm. There were rows upon rows of various crops, and the room was even tall enough for trees to be growing inside as well (in a basement laboratory, no less; even Adam couldn't help but admire the engineering that must have gone into the underground construction). This must have been the scientist's food source for all this time, but with how many crops were there, this could easily feed half of the entire White Fang, much less his regiment. This place was looking more and more perfect by the moment. However, the room didn't provide any answers to the scientist's identity, so for now, Adam had to move on.
Returning his hand to his sword, Adam moved to the door on the middle wall, smack between two counters filled with beakers and substances he couldn't identify. This room, Adam could see, was some kind of mechanical production line. The room was littered with conveyor belts and machines clearly ready to build whatever they were asked to, and from the look of things they had been kept in good condition all this time. Was the scientist planning to mass produce some kind of weapon? Is that why the Arkham Knight had wanted them to meet?
That room still provided no clues to the scientist's location, however, because everything in the room was shut down. Adam imagined it would be able to work again with the flick of a switch, but that switch was clearly in the 'off' position.
That only left one door, and the door that Adam was beginning to hear some strange noises behind - the door on the right wall. Adam approached the door slowly, confident that the scientist must be behind it and preparing for anything he could think of. Unfortunately for him, there was only so much good that could be gained from such wild speculation.
Charging right in had gotten him this far, and ready to face whatever would happen on the other side of the door, Adam slowly turned the handle and pushed it open.
As he slowly cracked the door, he noticed that it seemed like a second laboratory, but what caught his attention wasn't any substances on the counter like the last room or any particular process happening anywhere.
As the door opened, he heard a cacophony of roars, leading Adam to realize what all the strange noises had truly been: dozens upon dozens of Grimm locked in cages.
Everywhere Adam looked in here, he saw rows and rows of various Grimm all locked in glass cages, screaming and roaring to be let out. Beowolves, Nevermores, Ursa, even a Goliath was somehow in a cage big enough for it. He could even tell that each cage was specifically designed for the Grimm that was holding it; as they always did, the Grimm were throwing themselves against the walls trying to kill themselves, but they were just small enough that they couldn't get the momentum they would need to do that. This was the scientist's true work, he could tell. No one would be skilled enough to keep this many Grimm in captivity without specializing in that work. No wonder the Grimm had left him alone all this time - he was a threat to them in his own right.
Adam walked down the rows, trying to hide his fear at being this close to this many Grimm even if they were locked in cages. His instincts were begging him to go to town, unsheathe his sword and kill everything inside. His higher thought, meanwhile, was begging him to show patience, not wanting to anger someone who had gone to all this effort to capture them. It was an internal war that kept him occupied until he had completely crossed the room and saw something he never could have expected, even in this ridiculous circumstance.
At the end of the row, the Grimm subject wasn't kept in a cage, it was on a laboratory stretcher with metal restraints on each limb. The Grimm was frantically trying to escape its bonds, tossing and turning but unable to gather the strength to rip the metal out. However, none of this was what caught Adam off guard.
Based on its body structure, this Grimm had to be a Beowolf, and yet the Grimm was easily 12 feet tall. Even the strongest Alpha Beowolf Adam had ever faced could have only been around 9 feet tall, and that was pretty consistent with the stories he had heard in his life. Even the creatures of darkness had limits in their biology, and if you were dealing with a 12 foot Grimm, you were usually talking about an Ursa.
And just underneath its fur, Adam could see a green glow running through its body, presumably in its veins (Adam didn't even know that Grimm had veins, but here was the proof in front of him).
That must have been the green chemical being mass produced in the main lab. This scientist wasn't just studying Grimm, he was studying how to augment them.
This was where Adam drew the line. Seeing something like this rendered any idea of patience or caution irrelevant, this was an abomination of nature that needed to be destroyed.
In one move, Adam unsheathed his sword and, using some of the energy stored in it from all of the fighting he'd done a few minutes ago, decapitated the beast in one fell swoop. Even as the head was already disintegrating, the body continued to thrash, doing so for several seconds until it too finally stopped and began disappearing.
Adam merely stared at the stretcher where the abomination used to be, until he was caught off guard by a voice behind him saying "Now was that truly necessary?"
Faster than he'd moved so far that day, Adam immediately turned around, pulled out his gun, and pulled the trigger three times, trying to catch the person off guard. However, all he ended up hitting was a glass pane on the other side of the room, behind which stood the man who could only be the scientist who had done all of this.
As the bullets harmlessly pinged off of the glass, the scientist continued glaring at him in rage, seeming more angry at Adam for destroying the abomination than anything else. Adam, momentarily forgetting that his gun had proven useless already, continued pointing it at him.
"Who are you?", he asked. "What is this place?"
The scientist merely scoffed, continuing to stand ominously still on the other side. "Did our mutual friend not tell you about me?" Unseen behind his mask, Adam's eyes narrowed. "What mutual friend?"
The scientist scoffed again, an action Adam was rapidly growing tired of. "The man in the mask, with the blue screen face and the stupid pointed ears on his head?"
The realization hit immediately. "The Arkham Knight. You know him?"
The scientist muttered something about a "stupid name" under his breath, then spoke up again. "Yes, the 'Arkham Knight' is an associate of mine. If I step out from behind the glass, will you rein in your temper and not attack me?"
Adam took only a moment to consider the possibilities before a simple fact hit him: the fact that a man who had clearly been in the ruins of Mountain Glenn for years couldn't have known about the Knight's existence unless he was telling the truth. As reluctant as he was, Adam put his gun down, though he did not sheathe his sword. The scientist seemed to take that as a yes and walked along his viewing panel until he reached a door Adam previously hadn't noticed.
As the door opened and the man stepped through, Adam finally got a good look at the man he was apparently supposed to be meeting with. The first thing he noticed was that he was missing his right arm and left eye, with both having been replaced by robotic enhancements. No doubt this was a side-effect of choosing a career in wrangling and studying Grimm, beasts that hunted mankind out of nothing but sadism and hatred. Above all, though, he was incredibly disheveled. His white hair and beard were unkempt, to the point that Adam had to wonder if the building had a shower (or if he even bothered to use it). His lab coat was covered in stains from various chemicals, and the man himself carried a musk unlike anything that had ever assaulted Adam's senses before. In short, he was a complete slob.
Yet, despite his slobbish exterior, Adam could see the fire of intelligence in his eyes, undulled despite the years of isolation, and above all, the rage the man was feeling towards Adam for killing one of his test subjects.
And yet again, despite the clear anger and frown on his face, the man still held out a hand to shake. "Dr. Vermilion Merlot, CEO of Merlot Industries, at your service", he said. "I'm the man who built this whole operation several years ago."
Adam was so caught off guard by everything this man presented that he instinctually offered his own hand, the two men shaking hands. As Adam's flesh met Merlot's cold steel, the scientist continued talking. "Despite his penchant for pointless monikers, the Knight sent you here at just the right time. The production line is finally ready to resume operations as expected."
Adam nodded along, doing his best to act like he had any idea what that all meant. Unfortunately for him, Merlot caught on with another smirk. "I see he didn't tell you I was here, did I?"
With no other option, Adam shook his head. "No. He told us to clear the Grimm from the area so we can eventually begin reinforcing it for the push into the tunnels, not that there was a scientist studying those same Grimm living in an underground lab who somehow knew we'd be coming."
In a rare moment of honest feeling, Merlot outright laughed. For once, Adam didn't feel like it was directed at him, so he shelved his instinctual anger.
"Figures", the mad doctor said. "He does like to play his cards close to his chest. Let me show you why we're all really here." Before Adam could respond, Merlot immediately walked right past him, straight towards the door he had entered what felt like hours ago. For an old man, he walked fast and spry, so Adam had to quickly shake himself off and follow behind him.
As he caught up to the scientist in the next room, Merlot kept talking. "We have a mutually beneficial relationship", he began. "In exchange for helping him get my production line back in working order, he gives me any outside resources I need for my experiments. We've spent the past three months working to get this going again, but the last step was making sure all of the electrical wiring was still intact. I was finishing that up when I heard you all start shooting like maniacs on the surface."
As he finished, they reached the door Adam previously looked through, filled with conveyor belts and machinery ready to be put to work. Merlot opened it and walked through, pointedly not holding it open for Adam and forcing him to grab it before he was locked out.
As the door then closed behind him, Merlot, somewhere in the room, called out to him. "Fair warning, the lights are quite bright!"
And with no further warning, the power to the room was turned back on.
As promised, the lights were briefly blinding, forcing Adam to shut and cover his eyes. The flash stunned him for only a moment, and as his eyes adjusted to the new brightness, Adam slowly uncovered his eyes to finally see what he had came for.
All at once, the machinery in the room burst to life, with computer systems rebooting and conveyor belts running once more. Automated machines sat idle while they waited for new commands after being offline for years, but overtop the cacophony of noises, Adam could clearly hear Merlot's laughter at a job well done.
Overtop the noise, Adam shouted to the room, hoping he could be heard, "What is this supposed to do for us?!"
All of a sudden, Merlot was standing directly to his left, like he'd been there the whole time. His knowledge of this facility was incredible, but even then, Adam's shock at these events was the only reason he could have been missed. He really needed to calm down and regain control, but he didn't know how.
Merlot looked at him, still smiling wide. "To be honest with you, Mr. Taurus, I don't truly know. As I'm sure you know, the Arkham Knight doesn't like people knowing any more than they absolutely have to."
Adam shook his head in disbelief. "And you never thought to ask what he wanted from the facility he wanted so desperately?"
To his surprise, Merlot shook his head. "Actually, I did ask him what he was hoping to build. I couldn't calibrate the machines to his specifications unless he told me what he wanted them to do, it's basic engineering."
"And what did he say?", Adam asked.
Merlot scoffed again. "He looked at me and told me 'I want to build an army'". He turned to the bull Faunus, his honest confusion clear as day. "Do you have any idea what that's supposed to mean?"
Adam, wracking his brain for a possible answer, merely shook his head, for he didn't know either.
What army could he need that the White Fang couldn't provide?
Roman, in his naivety, had thought that the bullhead trip to whatever Gods-forsaken hell dimension he found himself in would be the scariest experience of his life.
Now, standing in front of what could actually be a fucking demon, he had been proven wrong in less than a minute.
In her haste, Cinder had basically sprinted through the building, with Roman barely able to keep up with her. If he had been able to do anything but stare straight ahead and run, he would've noticed things like several dungeons that they had passed, a training area where Grimm lined the walls (once more, not being hostile), and a very confused man in a suit that Cinder nearly barreled over (completely missing his bitter remark about her "bloody impatience"). As it was, he just didn't want to get separated and then lost in the building.
Which is how he found himself in his current predicament, trying his best to meld with the wall while his boss knelt in front of a demon even his worst nightmares couldn't have conjured up.
This "woman", if she could be called that, stared at Cinder with her blood red eyes contrasting her completely white skin, all while the fire bitch kneeled in complete subservience to her; for once, Roman was in complete agreement with her. If he was on the other end of that glare, he'd be kneeling for forgiveness too.
"I want to be certain that I understand", the demon said with a disturbingly calm tone. Her voice didn't match the pure evil in her eyes, and it made Roman shiver even more. "You suspected that one of your colleagues would attempt to, in your words, 'take credit' for your work, and your response was to race here as fast as you could, leaving your operation unguarded in Vale, and bringing a complete outsider into our inner circle?"
As she concluded, she shifted her gaze towards Roman, and Roman felt freezing cold spread throughout him as they locked eyes and she took in his presence. If today had gone even slightly his way, she wouldn't have noticed he was even there, and now she was staring him in the face like he was a bug she wanted to step on.
There was nothing else he could do but desperately try to acknowledge her in a way that would get her attention off him, so he did the only thing he could.
He gave a pathetic wave, capped off with the most plastered on little smile he had ever given another human being.
If she even counted as human.
She gave a scoff, no doubt at how small he probably looked in front of her, and turned back to Cinder again. Roman released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding as her attention was off of him.
"In your haste, did you forget that, thanks to Dr. Watts' efforts, I am able to be reached by scroll?"
Roman had spent around a year waiting for the day that he would see the fire bitch completely overwhelmed, uncertain of herself, ready to die, anything like what he was seeing right now as she knelt there unable to come up with a good answer all-but gaping her mouth like a fish. In spite of his terror, he couldn't help but feel just a shred of glorious satisfaction at the sight before him.
The demon woman continued. "No, you don't need to answer that question. I can see in your eyes exactly why you felt the need to take this step. Pure desperation. You were afraid that the Arkham Knight's success would reflect poorly on you, and you wanted to make it clear to me that you weren't nothing. Is that right?"
For all his fear, even Roman noticed Cinder's flinch when she said the word 'nothing'. That word was a trigger and the woman knew that, that was clear as day.
"Mr. Torchwick!"
The woman was addressing him now?! What the hell was he supposed to contribute to this?
He instinctively straightened his spine as the woman continued. "Please, step forward. I want to clarify something with you."
Call him a coward, he'd take that name happily right now, but Roman gulped and slowly stepped forward. Something told him that she'd get pissed at him if he took too long or ran too fast, so he tried to strike a balance. Luckily for him, the table was the longest table he'd ever seen (especially considering that he could only see like eight chairs around it, why was the table so huge?), and though the woman's gaze made him want to sprint away as fast as he could, he continued stepping forward until he was standing next to the kneeling fire bitch.
Part of him still wanted to look over at her just so he could see the fear in her eyes, but he knew that he'd be even more afraid than she was, and he refused to give her that satisfaction.
As he stopped moving, the woman continued like there had been no pause. "Mr. Torchwick, can you describe what your role was while Cinder was managing your operations?"
Was this a trick question? He sure as hell hoped not, cause if it was, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Doing his best to not look at Cinder next to him, he answered honestly.
"I was in charge of collecting as much Dust as possible", he said. "I just had to recruit anyone I could find and rob basically every Dust store in Vale. Once we started working with the White Fang, I was in charge of preparing them for the heists."
It was the most formal answer he'd ever given, but it felt appropriate for the situation. Man, if only Malachite could see him now.
"And if you had to measure your success rate", she continued, "what would you measure it as?"
Oh... Oh. Now he could see where she was getting at. Roman did everything in his power to avoid smirking as he felt Cinder's rage from her place kneeling on the floor, cause she knew exactly how he was about to sell that bitch out.
"It was mixed, for sure", he said. "Most of the time it went off without a hitch, but once we started working with the Faunus, we started getting attention from Huntresses." An image of Little Red's cape flashed through his head, forcing him to stamp down his instinctual anger. "A specific team from Beacon started looking into the Fang, and whenever they got involved, our profits were minimal. I've come close to arrest several times since we started working with them."
Roman was so focused on his answer that he didn't catch the rage flashing across her face when he said Beacon, but overall, that was an accurate summary of the situation. Things had been going fine, and then she brought in the White Fang and thought that he could whip them into shape for some reason, and then the Beacon brats started gunning for the Fang and he got caught in the crossfire. Dealing with the animals had made his life a hell of a lot harder than it had been before.
The woman cooled herself before this rat could notice her emotion at her husband's involvement, then moved straight back into questions. "How would you say your role has changed since the Arkham Knight became involved?"
Roman had figured that would be the next question, so he had his answer ready.
"It's gone back to just being in charge of the heists", he said. "He took over training the animals and left me just in charge of locations, plans, and escapes."
The woman smiled, cruelty in every single twitch of the muscle. "Let me make an assumption here: did the most recent heist go successfully?"
That... well that was far more of a loaded question. Roman was more than happy to keep throwing Cinder under the bus, but even he had to admit that this one hadn't necessarily gone any better than the previous heists did. Don't get him wrong, they'd finally met their quota, and they had gotten more out than they usually did, but it had still featured such wonderful events as one of their men being executed by their glorious leader, an entire container getting catapulted into the air, something like an eight-way shootout with those damn students, an actual Gods-forsaken Huntress showing up, and Roman fleeing for his life with two suitcases of Dust as a consolation prize compared to the literal boat's worth of Dust they were going for.
That still wasn't exactly normal for Roman's heists.
Ultimately, he figured that continuing to be honest would be the best solution, even if it meant giving Cinder some benefit of the doubt. Much as it hurt to lose such a golden opportunity.
"It was a mixed bag", he began. "We finally met our quota, but it was just as insanely chaotic as the rest. We still lost a lot more product than I ever would have accepted in my solo organization. Plus we had an actual Huntress show up this time, and he killed one of-"
"A Huntress?", the woman interrupted him. "A Huntress arrived this time, not just the students?"
Roman gulped, praying to any Gods that may or may not exist at this point that she didn't blame him. "Yeah, Glynda Goodwitch showed up. I think she works at Beacon?"
The woman's eyes narrowed. Roman did his best not to quake in terror, but his prayers were answered when she finally spoke. "You didn't mention this in your status report, Knight."
And to his right, Roman heard the telltale sign of his partner's Semblance. For just a moment, Roman was ready to scream in joy at finally having Neo by his side again, hoping that they might even be able to sneak out and get away from this place.
But when he actually looked, his hopes were dashed when he saw the Arkham Knight standing there.
To his left, Cinder had frozen even more than she already was, feeling her eyes widen as she knew she'd been beaten here. The entire reason she had taken this risk was to be the first person to report back to her, and it had all been for nothing.
The mechanical voice both had come to dread finally spoke, its tone giving away that he had enjoyed watching both of them squirm. "I was just about to get there before she arrived", he said. "It was an expected outcome that we were well-prepared for, and as soon as she arrived, the operation ceased as expected and everyone retreated. She was so focused on protecting her students that she didn't follow any of us."
Cinder, clearly no longer thinking straight after learning the Knight had been watching her, stood up to glare at the Knight. "Thanks to your 'plan'", she started yelling, "any attempts we could make at infiltration have been completely destroyed! All of our plans have gone up in flames."
The Knight chuckled again, all while Roman helplessly watched the woman in front of him get angrier by the moment. "You mean your plans have gone up in flames. My plans are continuing without any issue whatsoever, and you remain unidentifiable even if the students are able to describe you."
"That's just like you, assuming that you know every scrap of my plans just because you understood one small part of them."
"Oh yes, the 'small part' of infiltrating Beacon itself and having to maintain a cover identity as a team of students. You four homicidal maniacs would have been great at handling that responsibility."
"Homicidal maniacs?! You kill your own men left and right and I'm the maniac?!"
So this is how it feels to get caught in a divorce, Roman thought.
"Those men were useless, and I cannot have useless soldiers in my army. You may be willing to throw endless mooks at a problem but I understand quality over quantity."
"How dare-"
"ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU!"
The woman yelled with the force of a thousand men. The argument instantly forgotten, Cinder and the Arkham Knight both immediately stood up straight at attention, all while Roman was left shaking like a leaf in-between them. The silence felt like a choke hold he couldn't escape from as he desperately wondered whether the woman would mind if he just started walking away from all of this. It felt pretty above his pay grade anyway.
Before he could, she continued anyway. "I am beyond tired of your petty squabbling. Knight!" The man in question somehow straightened up even further. "I placed you in charge because of your strategic mind, but Cinder has been with me for seven years, and you have been with me for less than one. That entitles her to respect and a lack of arrogance from you. Am I understood?"
After a moment of him standing ramrod still, the Knight finally nodded his head. The woman didn't look pleased at his nonverbal answer, but she accepted it for now and turned to Cinder, who did her best not to wilt at her stare. "Cinder, your attempts to rise above your station have been admirable, but I did not recruit you because of your mind, I recruited you because you are a skilled fighter and a good host for the power we seek. Remember your place in my organization. Do you understand?"
Cinder just knew that the Knight would be smirking under his helmet at seeing her utter humiliation, but in this room, she had no choice but to slowly nod at her mistress's words.
She again looked displeased at the nonverbal answer, yet accepted it with a nod. "Good. Now that we all understand each other, both of you return to Vale. Your organization needs its leaders, after all."
As she began to walk away with no elaboration, both Cinder and the Knight immediately kneeled on the ground again, their supplication clear as day. Roman was left standing between them, wondering if he should kneel with them or if that would somehow look worse since he didn't do it immediately, but by the time he decided that it would be a good idea to kneel, the demon was already halfway out of the room, gliding across it without her feet touching.
However, before she left the room, she abruptly stopped and turned back around. "Oh, and by the way, both of you?"
And before anyone could even blink, she was shooting electricity straight from her fingertips, wrapping its energy around Cinder and the Knight's throats while electrocuting them. Roman screamed in shock as he jumped from the suddenness of it all, while both of the kneeling soldiers only let out a small grunt, holding back their screams of pain.
The woman smiled as she continued. "If either of you ever brings back an outsider without my permission again, I will put you through so much hell that you'll be begging me to finally end your suffering with death's sweet release." Her smile slowly turned into a scowl of pure rage. "Am. I. UNDERSTOOD?!"
Both of them knew that she would demand a verbal answer, and as one, they both said "Yes mistress" through their gritted teeth, still shaking from the electricity coursing through them.
That finally seemed to ease her temper as she let the two of them go, turning around and continuing her floating exit; before either of them could fully recover, she had finally left the room.
For a few moments that felt like hours to a still-shaking Roman, the three of them remained there in silence, as though all of them were still too scared to move. Cinder was shaking with both pain and rage, while the Knight was trying to control his breathing. However, Roman eventually saw a light green shade rush over the Knight's body, and then as though he hadn't just been electrocuted, he stood up and turned towards the door.
"Roman", he said, his modified voice not betraying any emotions, "you're with me. Let's get back to Vale so we can all pretend this didn't happen."
Now that was a plan that Roman could get behind if it meant finally getting out of this place, so he turned around and, giving one last look to Cinder as she knelt on the ground trying not to convulse in pain, walked as fast as he could without outright running to the door.
Call him vain, but damnit he had a reputation to try to maintain, even if he'd spent the past five minutes trying not to piss himself. As they both reached the door, however, they heard Cinder's voice behind them ask only a single word: "Why?"
The Knight's hand paused mere inches from the door handle as he let out an uncharacteristic sigh. It wasn't like him to show emotion like that, so Roman figured that this encounter had freaked him out just as much as it freaked him out. He didn't know if that was comforting or even more scary.
Without moving another muscle, the Knight said "Roman, go back out the way you came and get back on my bullhead. The Grimm will ignore you. I'll be out shortly."
And just like that, he was turning back to go talk to the fire bitch again.
Roman didn't need to be told twice. The second he was through the door and it shut behind him, Roman finally dropped all pretense of calm and sprinted through the building, doing his best to backtrack the way he had came and desperately hoping that he didn't run into that dreadful woman again. As the Knight said, the Grimm all throughout growled at him, but none of them made a move against him, so he continued sprinting until he had finally reached the helipad. There straight ahead was the bullhead he had arrived in, but there was a second one directly to his right; figuring that that was the Knight's, he ran straight there and went into the cockpit, hoping beyond hope they would finally be getting out of here soon.
It felt like hours he was left sitting there, but in truth it was only three minutes before he heard the heavy footfalls that signified the Knight was coming up behind him. Not even having the energy to react to his presence, Roman merely relaxed back into his chair as the Knight, without a word, started the bullhead, got it in the air, and began the return trip back to Vale.
Roman could tell that the Knight was punching it as fast as he could, as the trip back was going much faster than the trip there did. It again felt like hours but only was a few minutes when the Knight let out a sigh, turned on the autopilot, and reached to take off his helmet.
The gear around his neck automatically disconnected as the Knight took off his identifying helmet, unceremoniously dropping it to the floor as he let out another sigh.
This wasn't the first time Roman had seen the Knight's face, but Roman was always caught off guard by it.
About two years prior, Roman had been called into Junior's bar with a request for a forgery. While Junior was an information broker par excellence, what really made him useful was his connections around the underworld, and someone had requested the best forger he had on standby; Roman happily answered the call. In exchange for a set of Beacon transcripts, he'd gotten the easiest 10,000 lien he'd ever made.
One look at the kid told him why he needed forgeries. The kid was the most naive person he'd ever met and had no idea what he was getting himself into, but his money was good, so if he wanted to go off and die with forged transcripts, that was his prerogative.
Around a year later, the same boy walked into Roman's hideout, having changed so much that Roman almost didn't recognize him. His eyes and face had aged a decade, his once-youthful features were marred by a "T" branded into his cheek, and he not only looked like he was ready to kill everyone in his way, he had the skills to back it up. Overall, the kid had gone through hell but had somehow come out on the other side, and now he was ready to change things in Vale forever.
Every now and then, Roman could still see the face of that boy he met up with in a dark alley, nervous beyond belief at breaking the law and stammering through reasonings and promises Roman didn't care about, but the boy had become a man, and a very dangerous one at that.
He had asked one time what the fuck had happened to him, and Jaune Arc only replied that he died and was reborn. He got the hint to not ask again.
Now, as they flew through the Grimm-infested skies, Jaune turned to him, a surprisingly genuine look of concern on his face. "So", he began, "Cinder dragged you along on her little power play, and now you've seen way more than I ever wanted you to. I bet you have a lot of questions."
Roman slowly nodded, focusing on getting the words out. "Just one, for now. Who the fuck was that?"
Jaune sighed again. "I figured that'd be it. That was Salem. She's my boss..." and after a brief hesitation, he finished "and the queen of the Grimm."
"Oh", Roman replied. "Yeah, that makes sense."
For a moment there was silence between them, as though they had only discussed the weather.
Then, without warning, Roman leaned between his knees and vomited all over the floor of the cockpit.
Jaune winced from the noises and the smell, but only muttered to himself "Yeah, that's fair."
I wish I could tell you more about the Mountain Glenn operations; unfortunately, the only source we ever had was Jaune, and he was just the one who gave the orders, not the one with his boots on the ground. Adam, Neo, and Ilia were never exactly willing to talk about it, and the less said about Dr. Merlot, the better.
However, he had much to say about Salem's operations, and he told us all about his power struggle with Cinder Fall. She saw him as a threat because of his mind, so she did her best to discredit him in front of Salem whenever she could, even if it finally backfired on her and got her officially demoted.
After she attempted to leverage the docks heist in her favor and was rebuked by Salem, Cinder appeared to acquiesce to her demands, but as Jaune (and history) tells us, her discontent still boiled under the surface, ready to undermine her own operation if it meant Salem would reinstall her into what she believed to be her rightful place at the head of the table. This was expected, and she didn't surprise anyone with her power hunger.
What Jaune and Salem didn't realize was that her discontent was shared by everyone else in Salem's group as well, and this confrontation in her throne room began the slow disintegration of her entire alliance.