Here we go. What a lame weekend I just had – having to babysit my sister and my brother-in-law after his mother died on them and having to bite my tongue when he fucked off to the pub and left me and my sister to handle calls from his own grieving family. No matter what I say however, she refuses to believe he's being a dickhead about it. Insufferable.
Cover Art: Kirire
Chapter 19
Blake's lack of a driving license didn't stop her stealing Jaune's "ghost hunting" van and shoving Timothy into the back, nor driving, clumsily, to Waterson's Publishers. The blockades were still up, framed as roadworks, but she was able to push through as one of the men working there was clearly in the know and waved her on. The van bumped and bounced down the road as she gripped the steering wheel tight. Two hours left, roughly, and then the Fist Office would destroy the area. They'd kill her as well if she got caught by the anomaly, which was why her White Fang mask remained on the passenger seat. It wouldn't blind her by any means, but it cut off some of her peripheral vision and that would help.
The car park was empty but for Jaune's car, lonely and abandoned. Blake pulled by the wall, cranked the stick into reverse and, with annoying beeping, backed up to the entrance to the building, hitting the first step and bouncing the van before she slammed on the handbrake with such force it clicked and creaked ominously. She jumped out, grabbed her mask and moved over to Jaune's car, popping the boot open. All those weapons she'd dismissed before glistened up at her, and she helped herself to some pouches of dust, then took the explosives and piled them high in a shoulder-strap bag. When she was done, she came back to the van and around to the back of the vehicle, flipped the iron bars keeping the door locked and pulled it open.
"Skreeee!" Timothy wobbled to his feet, having struggled to stay standing in the bouncy metal cage. It looked at her, tilting its oily head with its blue flaming eyes a full one hundred and eighty degrees, and… well, it didn't click its mandibles, but it rotated its molars, the whirlpool of humanlike teeth grinding loudly. Blake shuddered.
"This is the place," she said, "Come on." The spider, likely understanding her movements rather than her words, followed her out the back and through the open door. It was only visible for a fraction of a second, and she hoped that would be enough to make sure no one saw it. "Timothy," said Blake, drawing its attention. Once she had it she slowly and purposefully placed her mask on, making sure the anomaly saw her do it and wouldn't get confused later. "I'm still me. The mask doesn't change that." Its molars swirled anti-clockwise, then clockwise, the grinding sound returning. "I'm going to assume that's your way of saying you understand."
No discernible response. Blake sighed, turning away and drawing Gambol Shroud. This was a mess and no mistake, but there wasn't time to second guess herself. No one would be coming to help them; no one would save them if they failed; no one would even know what happened here. Their deaths would be covered up just like everything else, and her parents… well, it wasn't something she wanted to think about. It would have been kinder for her to die before they'd made up rather than promise to visit and never show.
"It's just us, Timothy," said Blake. "Ozpin won't help us; ARC Corp won't help us; Ruby can't help us." It perked up at the familiar name and looked hopefully toward the door. "I'm sorry, but she's been taken out the city so she can't help. Fucking Ozpin. I can't believe I defended him to Jaune."
She started moving down the central corridor in the direction of the printing press room. There wasn't time to waste and not much point in being subtle since the anomaly would know she was coming now. Scraps of paper, pages, littered the corridor where they hadn't before, and they stirred as if blown by an unseen breeze, flicking against her suit pants and scrunching underfoot. Blake touched the shoulder bag hanging at her side and felt the reassuring weight of the explosives within.
The double doors ahead had been locked before but were now sealed shut by thousands of pieces of paper that had been almost stuck together to form a solid barrier. There were words on them; that was all Blake noted before she tore her eyes away. It was a trap if she'd ever seen one. Anyone getting close to try and pull the pages down ran the risk of reading the words and being ensnared by them. Blake urged Timothy back, took a grenade from her bag – military quality, from Atlas, ARC Corp had contacts there as well it seemed – and pushed the button to prime it. The device beeped and a red light flickered. She sent it at the door in an underhanded swing and ducked back; Timothy followed, not understanding, but echoing her movements.
The paper barrier, the door and parts of the wall erupted in fire as it went off, bathing the corridor and the room both in heat and flame. Timothy shrieked, but Blake was already moving, aura up and carrying her through the fire into the printing press once more. From the tiny eye slits of her White Fang mask, she took in the scene. The anomaly was still transformed into its book form, its head now an open book with pages constant flicking left and right, and its clothing looking to be made of paper. It had no hands, only large holes were its sleeves ended, and loose pages kept spilling from its pant legs and over its shoes, leaving behind a trail of literature. It turned to her, no eyes or facial features visible, but seeing her all the same.
Blake ignored it. Instead, her eyes found Jaune, on his knees, pages slapped over his face, speaking loudly and firmly as he solved question after question at breakneck speed. He was alive, well and, by the looks of it, actively trying to free himself. That was impossible with the anomaly adding more questions every time he got close, but if she could distract it then he might be able to break free.
"Ignorance," said the anomaly. "-is a plague that must be stamped-"
"You won't be the one to do it!" shouted Blake, digging into her pack and drawing out yet more grenades. She didn't wait for it to attack her, but launched them left and right, not really aiming anywhere but trusting they would do their job. The old-fashioned printing press was still moving, still active, and churning out textbook at a ferocious rate. Every single one of those was anomalous, dangerous, and had to go.
The explosions tore out across the factory floor, ripping through conveyor belts, upending stacks of book and setting them alight; the large hydraulic press was knocked aside, teetered and fell with a horrible crash, crushing an ink machine under its weight and causing wild sparks that caught the reems of paper and set them alight. Flames spread, thankfully only to the flammable pages and not much further, but the smoke and heat soon filled the printing press as the anomaly looked about in horror.
"Why?" it cried. "Book burning – the realm of petty tyrants and cruel regimes hiding away from the truth, living in a fantasy. Is that what you want?" asked the anomaly, loudly. "To pretend all is as it should be; that we are not sleepwalking into the end of our time?"
Gambol Shroud barked and a hole was punched through the centre of the thing's chest. It didn't dodge, just as it hadn't before, but this time the hole began to sizzle and glow orange as the fire dust loaded into her weapon took hold. The thing hissed and fell back, patting its smouldering chest with its arms. If the thing hadn't been book through and through, the shot might have done more damage, but it had pierced through and penetrated out its back, so most of the dust charge splashed on the wall behind it.
"I don't care for your excuses," said Blake. "I'm ARC Corp. You're a dangerous anomaly. Nothing else matters."
"Anomaly, she says. I am as human as you!"
"The literal pages spilling out your pants say otherwise. Is there even a body under there?"
The anomaly looked down, as if shocked itself by what she'd just said. It even raised one foot to look, then put it back down with a laugh that sounded just a little brittle. "So what? It's just a Semblance. You saw my body. I know who I am, what I am, and what my Semblance has granted me the duty of doing."
It thought it was human; it thought this was a Semblance? Blake had seen many over her time that did weird and wonderful things, back before she knew of Light of the Soul, but none had been like this. There were, to her knowledge, no Semblances that transformed your body into something else. This thing didn't have organs anymore, it didn't have eyes, it didn't have blood or anything. Just paper, ink and leather binding.
"I will usher in an age of wisdom and understanding. No more uneducated, no more time wasting. The world will be better; the Grimm will be dealt with; it shall be a utopia for the wise, the hard-working and the intelligent. A true meritocracy." It raised its arms and pages began to fly out toward her. Blake gritted her eyes, not quite closing them but holding them so she could see everything fuzzy. "You won't stop me – you can't stop me."
"-faunus civil rights act. Vacuo-Atlas Fair Trade Agreement. Councilwoman Margaret-"
The anomaly glanced at Jaune, snarled and whipped its hand across, throwing more pages into his face right as he reached up to pull the last down. Jaune groaned and began talking again, answering at breakneck speed. "What are you?" asked the anomaly. "Some kind of super-computer? I'd normally celebrate such a dedicated student."
Blake took aim and shot again, this time aiming for the middle of its stomach where the pages were thickest. The round pierced through the same as the first had, tearing through pages like they were nothing and coming out its back. The hole burned orange as embers took hold before it was patted out by the hissing anomaly. Then, the pages were rushing around her, blocking off all sight as they fought to catch her eye.
This time, she was ready. Blake closed her eyes, reached behind her back and drew forth the weapon she'd taken from Jaune's car. It was difficult to operate without looking, but she found the trigger and pulled, and heard the fierce roar of gas and fire before one ignited the other and a horrible burning sound filled the air. The gout of flame took the encroaching wall of paper head on, igniting it and causing the fire to spread quickly. Soon, she was trapped in a flaming cyclone – no less dangerous, yet she had aura to protect her, and the pages soon burned to ash entirely, leaving her stood among charcoal.
"Monster!" roared the anomaly. "You're a monster!"
"I'm no monster," said Blake as the pages buffeted her body. One of her eyes cracked open, her smirk beneath her mask showing in full. "But that is."
"SKREEEEE!"
Timothy launched itself from the ruined printing press and landed atop the anomaly's back, shoved its face down into it and began to grind it up. Those molars, which had always seemed so impractical even if creepy, did an incredible job on the book. They churned up pages, dug deep into its papery flesh and tore them out by the handful. The Guardian Weaver lived up to its name, protecting her and Jaune from the thing that it could tell was not a human like them, Ruby, Velvet or Meg, and therefore something dangerous that needed to be halted to protect those it cherished. "Skree! Skreeee! Skreeeeee!"
"Ahhh! Arghhh! What is this thing!?" The book anomaly shrieked and tried to push it away – then tried to launch pages over Timothy's eyes. The spider couldn't read however, and the pages caught fire on its flaming eyes, smouldering bright blue as it dug its long, spindly legs into the book, piercing through its soft, papery skin as it did.
"Good boy Timothy!" yelled Blake, rushing past it and the book anomaly to Jaune. He was on his knees still, and she started ripping pages off him. The ones across his arms and legs and body went quickly, but when she tried to peel the one across his face off, Jaune's hands came up and gripped it tight, refusing to let go.
"-1876," said Jaune, urgently. "General Alessandro Sebastian Violet. The battle of Vacuo Pass."
Blake tugged and tugged, but he wouldn't let go and the paper wouldn't rip. Damn it, she thought, this must be what he found when he tried to take the math puzzle off me. He can't let go of it until he's completed it.
At least he was working on that, and fast by the sounds of it. He rattled off three more answers just as she tried to fight him for it. All those cases of ARC Corp rewriting history had evidently left him with a strong grasp for it.
"Enough!" roared the book anomaly, throwing Timothy off by discarding a full quarter its body mass in loose pages. It slipped away while Timothy spat paper out its maw. The thing was haggard and torn up, but it cast off its tweed coat to reveal stacked books for its torso. Every single one of those opened at once, filling the floor, the walls and the very air itself with paper. "Enough!" repeated the anomaly. "Welcome to my world! It's not just facts, not just texts, but fiction as well." Pages flickered all about her, growing in volume until it was deafening. "Enjoy the narrative."
/-/
Blake Belladonna was not a brave girl.
A brave girl would have fought the good fight, struggled and won against all odds and persevered through the darkest of times. Blake was not brave, because she ran. Whenever things got too tough, whenever they got too awkward, whenever she got too involved with something and felt even the slightest fear. Each and every time, she would run away from it all. The knowledge – the fact – had always been there, and she'd always known it, but now she accepted it fully and wholly.
"No," said Blake, her face wrought with guilt and self-loathing. "No, I…"
Try as she might to deny it, she knew deep inside that it was true. The gnawing guilt that had been eating away at her for years would never go away, and a part of her knew it never should. It was something she deserved. The ghosts of the past haunted every person, or so they said, but hers were more literal, more vivid, and there were times when she felt their gazes all the more keenly.
"Hello Blake." The voice was familiar, recognisable, and Blake was not as surprised as she thought she should be to see her former lover, Adam Taurus, standing beside her. "It's been a while," said Adam, his handsome lips and firm jaw a reminder of better times.
"Adam? What are you-? No, you can't be here. I'm in Vale." Blake shook her head, refusing to accept the truth of what stood right in front of her. It was another failing of hers, a defence mechanism, a way to pretend things were okay when they clearly were not. "You can't be here."
"Can't I?" asked Adam. "It's literally impossible that I might come to Vale looking for you?" His smile grew harder. "You abandoned me, Blake, after you promised we would right the wrongs of the humans together. You ran away. Abandoned me."
"No, I…" Blake tried to argue, but she knew the truth in his words. "No! No, it's not." Blake shook her head, and desperately clung to her false ideals. "They're not false!" she lied. "I'm not lying!" she lied again.
"You lie all the time, Blake," said Adam. "You lied when you told me we'd be together; you lied when you told me you'd always be at my side; you lied when you said we'd change the world together. You always lie, Blake, just as you always run away."
"No." Blake's denial came weakly, and she knew it was just words. "No, I don't. You were going to kill-" The excuses felt like ash on her lips. "They're not excuses," lied Blake, surrounding herself with a comforting web of deceit.
"I didn't raise my daughter to lie," said another voice. Ghira, her father, was stood at her other side, tall, imposing and frowning. He didn't look angry at her, only disappointed, and that struck all the harder. No matter how she tried, Blake knew she'd not only fail to live up to his legacy, but that she had poisoned it forevermore. The world would always see Ghira Belladonna as the precursor to the violent White Fang, even when he had so little input in it. "I didn't raise my daughter to be a coward who runs away from her responsibilities either," he said. "Kali would be… no, she is so very disappointed in you. As am I."
Blake's eyes stung. Her voice croaked. "Daddy…?"
"You were such a brave child," said Ghira. "What happened? Did you go wrong, or did I? Was it our failure?" Ghira sagged, taking the blame fully on his and Kali's shoulders, as any parent should. "Did we let you down and fail to teach you right from wrong?"
"No!" cried Blake. "No, it's not your… I mean, it's my fault. I chose to believe Sienna. I chose… No." Blake clenched her eyes shut, shook her head and bit her lip. "No, what am I doing? This… This isn't real. It can't be."
It was ever the recourse of the broken to hide away in fantasy, Blake knew, just as she would hide away in her books when she was in the White Fang, reading dirty romance to pretend she hadn't spent the day furthering the goals of violent terrorism.
"You can't run away forever," said Adam.
"You can't lie forever," said Ghira.
"It all comes to a head eventually," they said as one. "The truth comes out," said Ghira. "And the lies catch up with you," said Adam. "And you have to pay for them," said both of them together. Except that Kali's voice was mixed into it as well, and Sienna's, and Ilia's, and everyone she had ever known. She even heard Jaune, Ruby, Ozpin, Roman and Saphron, Terra and Pyrrha. "You've let us all down, Blake," said the mass of voices. "You've failed us. You've failed yourself. Isn't it time you made amends?"
The tears ran freely down her face now. Blake knew, and accepted, that everything they said was true.
"It's not…"
She accepted, even if she would not admit it, that she had contributed little to this world, and that her life had not only been wasted, but that it had impacted and harmed others.
"I didn't…
Yes, she had. The victims of her crimes in the White Fang; the men, women and children who had suffered. The faunus, too, who paid the price for her and the White Fang's violence – those who were unjustly blamed, mistreated and punished for her actions.
"No…"
There was no way to make amends for all of that, Blake knew. Instead, she pondered if the world might not be better off without her presence entirely. She looked down, surprised to see the knife clasped in her hands, wondering when it was she'd picked it up. Her eyes widened, alarm and fear rushing through her, but it was tempered by a calmness that told her this was the right decision.
Adam's and Ghira's hands joined hers around the blade's handle, their smiles peaceful, their eyes supportive, and their hands slowly inching it up toward her neck. It would not solve anything, Blake knew, but it would be justice for all those she had harmed, and it would put a stop to all the mistakes she might make in the future. It would be the one time she saw her decision through to the end, without running away like a coward. One moment of pain, one brief flash, and then she'd have made the world a better place.
"Hah…" breathed out Blake, drawing her last breath in before driving the knife up toward her jugular.
Squelch
The sound of metal piercing flesh reached her ears, the wet and gruesome noise, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing. Blake's eyes opened, looking down to see a gloved hand over her knife, the blade sticking out the back, slick with blood that ran down over the black velvet fabric and down through large fingers. Those same fingers closed over hers, ignoring the knife ripping through flesh and tendon, and gently pried it from her hands.
"Fiction is just that," said Jaune, his voice soft by her ear. "It can be a pleasant fiction, or a tragic one, but in the end it's nothing more than a lie."
Jaune's fingers snapped loudly, and the world shattered like glass.
/-/
Blake's knees hit the floor and she gasped for air. The haze that had settled over her mind like thick tar lifted, and she realised just how badly she was shaking, how badly she was shaken as tears ran down her face and her pulse raced. Her eyes, red all the way through, looked up to see Jaune stood before her, his coat covering most of his body from view, but his right hand held at his side with Gambol Shroud impaled all the way through the palm of his hand and out the back. Blood dripped down his fingers and splashed to the ground.
"J-Jaune…?" croaked Blake, voice raw.
"It's fine," said Jaune. He looked back over his shoulder, smiling faintly. His eyes were gritted as hers had been, tightly and covered by his lashes so as not to read anything. "You did well, Blake. You distracted him long enough for me to break out." He reached to his hand and wrenched her weapon out with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood. "Thank you for coming back for me."
"F-Fist Office. G-Going to kill us…"
"I can guess. Standard procedure." He turned away from her to look ahead, and Blake saw the book anomaly clutching a stump of its left arm, more pages spilling out, but charred and burning. Jaune's anomaly, Crocea Mors, was sheathed at his side, but she could guess he'd used it. "You can leave the rest to me," he said, bringing up his ruined right hand and inspecting the injury. He clicked his tongue, gripped the fingertip of his glove in his teeth and pulled it off.
When his hand fell to his side, Blake's eyes grew wide. It was bloody and there was a hole through the centre as might be expected from him stopping her suicide attempt, but that wasn't what shocked her. Jaune's hand, his wrist and the visible section up his arm was blackened and charred, badly burned to the point that his hands looked more like a burnt corpse's than a living person's. His veins, visible through cracks in his skin, pulsed a dull orange, and flared just a little brighter, making her think of molten lava running down a rocky, black mountain. His other glove came off, falling to the floor and revealing a left hand that was no better, and in some ways worse for not being covered with blood.
He walked away from her, his shoes clicking on the floor as he approached the book anomaly. Timothy was struggling in a web made of pages, screeching angrily the whole time, and Blake's legs refused to work. "I wish I could contain you," said Jaune. "But you're too dangerous. You're wilfully violent."
"I am a visionary!" said the anomaly. "I am a teacher, an educator, and all I want is the best for the next generation. It is my purpose! I've been granted this form to teach-"
"A book's purpose is to inform. Not to dictate."
"What would you know!?" shrieked the anomaly, sending out a wave of pages. Jaune made no effort to dodge and instead held his ruined hands out, catching and grasping thick bundles of paper that ignited with a whoosh and burned violently between his fingers. "You don't see their faces, their reactions!" shouted the man. "You don't see them ignoring your lessons, refusing to learn, sitting there flirting, watching videos and throwing their lives away. There's no respect anymore! There's no passion to learn."
Jaune pushed his way through the pages, refusing to read any of them and with his eyes scrunched tight. The fires spread as they buffeted against his hands, but the book anomaly seemed to have no answer for it. No strategy. He continued ranting, throwing pages and pages at Jaune as he came inexorably closer until, suddenly, he was too close and reached out to grasp the anomaly by the shoulders. The fire took to him all too quickly, igniting his body of paper and ink like the dry kindling it was.
His scream echoed violently. "Arghhhhhh!"
It was a fierce and hot fire that burned brightly and ate away at the pages, spreading until the man himself was a bonfire struggling weakly in Jaune's grip. He tugged, pulled, but only succeeded in tearing his frail body in half, his head and chest falling as his arms burned off in Jaune's hands. The upper body was still on fire and continued to burn on the ground. "Help me!" screamed the anomaly. "It burns, I'm dying, I'm on fire! Help me! Help me, please, I beg you!"
No one made a move to. It was a mercifully quick end as the last of the pages that made up his body crinkled and turned black, then burned to ash. His voice went with it, ending as though cut off when the last millimetre of paper burned. All that remained was an ominous silence, and the low crackle of fires spreading across the rest of the printing press. The fire alarm had already begun to sound, a loud, ringing noise that would tell everyone to leave. The papers strapping Timothy in place fell, lifeless, but that didn't stop the spider leaping on them and tearing them to shreds to make sure, screeching victoriously as he did. "Skreeeeeee!"
Blake sagged, relief and exhaustion taking hold, and watched as Jaune walked back her way, his arms held before him, still smouldering but no longer dripping with blood. He knelt, picking up his gloves awkwardly, as though his fingers weren't quite flexible enough to manage it. He had to use his teeth to help pull them down over his hands, sealing them away. When Blake reached out to help with the second he tugged it away. "Don't."
"But-"
"I touched something I shouldn't have and paid the price. I'm still paying it. Touch my hands and you'll pay it as well." He managed to drag the glove down and cover his second hand, then pulled his sleeves down to hide his burned arms. "There's a reason I tell you to be careful about anomalies. You never know what will happen if you touch one, let alone reach into it to try and pull someone out. Learn from my mistakes."
"Pull someone-?" Blake shook her head. "The Fist Office," she said. "They're coming. We need to – there are still the victims on the second floor!"
Jaune nodded and offered his gloved hand, the one that didn't have a hole through it. Blake hesitated to take it, but trusted he knew what would and wouldn't infect her. His hand felt normal through his gloves, completely normal, and she hated herself for thinking it should feel otherwise. If he noticed her expression he chose not to comment and instead turned away, shouting out for Timothy, who dropped the shreds of paper in his maw and bundled over exuberantly.
They rushed outside together, sprinting down the corridor as the fire alarm rang. The people upstairs weren't coming down, which went to show the anomaly's effects weren't going to be broken now it was dead. The infected textbooks would still need to be hunted down and might remain a problem for years if the wrong people got hold of them. They burst outside, Timothy obediently leaping into the van but Jaune running past. There was a Bullhead in the air. Its door was open and someone in a red coat sat there, rifle aiming out. Blake's stomach dropped.
Jaune didn't stop. He ran out into the car park, ripped off his long blue coat and started flapping it wildly, gripped in two hands and swinging left and right like a flag. He went wild, swinging like his life depended on it. All their lives did. The Bullhead flew above, circled and then peeled off, rising up. The door was closed and Jaune let the coat, and his arms, fall. They'd done it.
And by the skin of their teeth.
/-/
"You're lucky to be alive," said Saphron, inside the Containments Office with Terra and Pyrrha stood nearby, and Blake glaring at each and every one of them. "If you had been even a minute later, Terra would have destroyed the building."
"And killed us and all the victims inside!" accused Blake.
"And prevented all those books making it out to infect many more people," replied Saphron. "Such actions are necessary, Belladonna. I'd have thought you would understand that by now. The needs of the many outweigh the few, even – and especially – if it's ours. I would expect Terra to do no less than kill me if I had been lost to an anomaly."
"I would do it," said Terra, "If I felt you couldn't be saved."
Blake bit her lip but, at a look from Jaune, remained silent. I won't do it, she thought. I never will. If there's ever a chance, I'll keep trying to take it to not let someone die. Nor would she run away anymore, even if the Adam that had encouraged her to take own life was fake – that didn't make what it said incorrect.
"We have bigger problems than ideological differences," said Saphron. "On a recent hunt, Pyrrha ran into an anomaly in Argus that took over computers and used them to destroy several research organisations. We managed to write it off as industrial sabotage once it was dealt with, but that's not what's important." She placed a set of pictures on the table. "This is Arthur Watts. Or it was. He worked as a scientist before being dismissed for questionable practices. This is the anomaly we've dubbed Living Virus."
It was a man in a suit that, on second look, was the same as the one in the picture of Arthur Watts. His head, however, had been replaced by a computer screen, upon which lines of code in green ran down. His coat was open to reveal that his chest was a keyboard, and his hands were computer mice. Wires came out his trousers, not unlike the pages from theirs, and spooled out around his shoes.
"Pyrrha felt something was off and asked us to investigate, and we found out that the anomaly mainly targeted an Atlas researcher called Pietro Polendina, who was Arthur Watts' most hated rival."
Jaune swore quietly. "You can't be serious."
"We can be," said Saphron, setting down another set of pictures. "We took operational control when we came here and the Council provided us this. It's a picture of one Lucas Merriweather, a former teacher in a prestigious private high school that was fired one month ago for losing his cool at a teacher-parent conference and accusing the parents of enabling their children's lack of effort. Since his firing, he's been vitriolic and loud in calling for changes in the education system to give more control to teachers and take away rights from students, all, in his words, to help prevent the slow death of society that we are sleepwalking into."
It was familiar. Too familiar. Blake and Jaune both leaned over to look at the picture, Blake hissing at the tweed coat, the round spectacles and the greying hair. The face was stretched in an angry shout in the picture, but it wasn't hard to see they were one and the same.
"Lucas Merriweather was, of two months ago, human," said Saphron. "We've been able to confirm that with a raft of medical records dating back from his birth. Medical, dental, education – it's all there. He was not an anomaly, but a living human who studied and trained and held a job in Vale."
"That wasn't a Semblance," said Blake, remembering the man's words. "I refuse to believe that was a normal person. It was an anomaly."
"The same as Arthur Watts," said Pyrrha. "He was an anomaly as well, but he was convinced what was happening to him was normal."
Jaune let out an explosive breath of air and sagged back in his seat. "Someone – or something – is turning normal people into anomalies. Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes." Saphron set the pictures and files down for them to read through later. "And worse yet, they've targeted Argus and Vale, and I've been asked to attend an emergency online meeting with Hazel and Jade. The Burn Office has apparently run into something unusual in Mistral and wants to talk."
More of the same. Blake swallowed.
"Keep me informed," said Jaune.
Saphron nodded. "Of course. We don't yet know what's causing this."
"Has father been informed?"
"He's still investigating the Twilight City and I haven't heard from him. He might be dead." The casual and unemotional way Saphron said it was only mirrored by the calm way Jaune nodded, as if he'd assumed that a possibility as well. "I'm Acting Director," said Saphron, "so it's my call here."
"I'm sure your response will be measured and even."
"Cut the sarcasm, little brother. This is serious. I have Coral reaching out to the Schnee to see if they are involved. I don't think they are," she said, in answer to their silent questions. "But I'd rather be sure. The Schnee are reckless, but they're not stupid, and I very much doubt they'd need to keep hunting anomalies if they could create their own."
"They might hunt this one," said Blake.
"And risk being turned into an anomaly themselves?" scoffed Terra. "No. The Schnee deal in anomalies, but they don't take any risks by them if they can help it. Something like this is too hot for them to handle."
"Consider yourselves informed," said Saphron. "Something, or someone, is causing normal people to turn into anomalies. This is unheard of, and quite possibly a Reality Class scenario. Keep your eyes open in Vale. The only thing we've been able to find so far is that both the people in question were recently fired from their jobs."
"It might be stress-related," explained Terra. "But it could also be anger, or maybe they were just desperate and so more easily convinced to make a bad choice. We don't know for sure. This could be a devil's deal kind of scenario, with an anomaly running it and giving out gifts that transform people."
"Exercise maximum security," said Saphron. "And maximum prejudice."
Jaune nodded. "Will do. Thanks for coming, and sorry you wasted your time."
"You shouldn't apologise for surviving." said Saphron, not sounding too thrilled, nor displeased, and more than anything just professional. Blake hated her for it. "And good work to you as well I suppose," she said to Blake. "You went against my orders, but you at least followed through on the Council and made sure the cover-up was in effect first."
"You're not going to thank me for saving your brother's life, are you?"
"He lives to fight another day. It is a good thing, even if it was reckless." Saphron shrugged, her feathered coat and the red fabric shifting faintly. "I have no control over how the Containments Office operates. That sentimentality will get you both killed sooner or later, but as long as you do good work in the meantime I won't step in."
"You cold hearted-" Jaune's gloved hand came to rest over hers. He shook his head. "G-Guh."
"You may think of me as you wish," said Saphron. "I've heard worse. Good day to you both. Terra, Pyrrha, it's time for us to return to Argus."
"Ma'am."
"Yes Saphron."
Blake watched them go and let her head sink into her hands. Jaune breathed out, leaning back behind his desk. "An anomaly that makes other anomalies," he said. Blake's head shot up.
"Is that seriously what you're more interested in right now?" she snapped. "Your own sister just said she'd abandon you. She tried to kill you. Ozpin did as well. Told me no to my face and implied he'd be happier if you were dead."
"You expected different from Ozpin?" asked Jaune, lips quirking up. "And I know ARC Corp policy as well as the next person. Any of my family would have killed me in that situation. I'd be expected to do the same to them. Some would enjoy it more than others. Saphron…" He closed his eyes. "She wouldn't enjoy it. Not at all. That makes me happy." It made Blake feel sick hearing him talk like that. "And I'm glad you came back, Blake," he said. "Thank you. I'm not ready to die just yet."
"Would anyone in your twisted family thank me for saving you?"
"My mother would have," said Jaune. "And I'm sure the families of all those victims who were locked on the second floor, and who have been evacuated now, are grateful to you as well. You saved them all."
"I… Yes. I did." Blake closed her eyes and said, "I didn't run away. I didn't let them down."
"Blake?"
"Nothing," she lied, as she so often did. "It's nothing."
Okay, I hope the weird middle bit made sense in terms of what was written. It was weird, and kind of a meta decision, to have the book anomaly take over the story itself and write it. I considered putting the whole section in italics but felt that would make it too obvious. I mean, it got obvious quickly anyway, but at least this way it might have seemed normal for a little bit before the sinking feeling crept in.
Next Chapter: 29th August
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