Here we go.


Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 85


"I have good news!" Jaune announced to the various members of the tribe the following morning. "After having spoken with the various directors at ARC Corp, I have been granted permission to use a very particular anomaly to help find the killer among your ranks."

Jaune opened up a metal briefcase and revealed a glass orb standing within a clear, plastic case. The audience was split between leaning in to try and see more and reeling back in fear. Blake imagined it was split based on those who had and hadn't seen the anomaly the tribe had to fight. There were plenty of very big and hard-bitten men and women looking like they didn't want anything to do with it.

"This device is very unique," Jaune continued. "Literally one of a kind. The way it works is that it can analyse the anomalous makeup of a person from a strand of their hair, a single spoonful of spit or a drop of blood. It doesn't react to human matter at all. Allow me to demonstrate!"

Jaune set the anomaly down on a table and opened the case's lid. Raven stepped up with an irritated scowl. Without being asked, she drew a knife and ran it across her palm, then clenched her fist above the anomaly and let a sizable amount of blood flow down.

"You literally could have sacrificed a single hair," Jaune said. Several bandit members hooted with laughter and cheered their badass leader. "Well, whatever. That'll do." Jaune then picked up the anomaly and closed the lid. "As you can see, it is now testing Raven's blood."

He held it aloft.

But nothing happened.

"This is what happens when perfectly normal matter is used. However, if any anomalous matter is placed inside then it will glow bright blue, revealing the anomaly once and for all!"

"We'll then butcher the monster and be done with it!" Raven roared, raising her bloody fist high.

The crowd cheered and stomped their feet.

"You'll all be getting tested one at a time," Raven told them. "I expect everyone to take a knife to themselves, though the sick and the children can give hair or saliva. We'll be going group by group, and those found clean will be kept away from those who aren't."

"It'll take some time, though," Jaune said. "We'll need to clean organic matter out of it each time so there isn't any contamination. We'll have to ask you all to be patient while we do this, and to stay to your separate groups until we're done. The anomaly is going to be housed in its own tent. When you're being tested, you're to be taken inside and you'll stay inside until the test is over. No one is to enter the tent uninvited. The guards might get it in their heads you're the anomaly if you do."

That explained the newly erected tent to the crowd. Raven and her most trusted had built it that morning. It was an octagonal thing with a single table in the centre and four wooden chairs around it. There were two sentries posted on either side of the entranceway, where a thick rug served as a tent flap. Blake saw excitement in a few people, and mentally crossed them off the list. Many more were nervous, but that might have been at the thought of being near an anomaly – a very respectable fear for them to have. They may also have been worried that their groups wouldn't be tested first, and that they'd have to be at risk of the monster for longer.

"We ask you to be orderly and to follow instructions as you're told." Jaune said.

"Or else!" threatened Raven, drawing her sword halfway.

The tribe got the memo.

Once the anomaly was placed into the tent, Jaune left it there and came back out, trusting some of Raven's chosen men and women to watch and operate it while he and Blake took to another patrol around the camp. Blake waited until they were well and truly out of earshot before she spoke.

"That was all bullshit, right?"

"Which part?"

"All of it. I literally said yesterday how convenient it'd be to have an anomaly that detects others and you agreed, and now this. Plus, I can't imagine for one second ARC Corp would let someone so incredibly valuable be given to you, then taken to a place like this. It'd be kept under lock and key and used to vet ARC Corp personnel."

"Hmhmhm." Jaune chuckled. "You're getting more and more perceptive. It's bullshit, yes. It's a snow globe I ordered and emptied out, then had shoved in a plastic case. It doesn't do anything."

"That's why you tested it on Raven but not yourself." Blake rubbed her jaw. She could have asked, but she'd rather figure it out on her own. "You're hoping to bait the anomaly, aren't you? Put another clock on things and make it panic. You want it to go after the anomaly."

He nodded. "There's a little something special in the base of that plastic box. It looks normal, but if there's too much pressure – like if someone smashes it – then it'll explode with glitter and glue."

"It's a glitter bomb!?"

"Ordered off the same website as the snow globe. It's crazy what you can buy online nowadays."

The glitter wouldn't do much to the anomaly unless it got in its eyes, but it'd definitely mark them. If they were using a human body as a disguise then it'd coat them from head to toe in sparkly glitter, and it wouldn't come off easily.

"They're going to be caught sparkly handed," Blake said.

"That's the hope. Course, there's a chance this panics them in the other direction and they make a break for it before they can be tested. That'll work just as well. I just didn't like the idea of waiting until their hunger struck. If they managed to feed without being caught, either from a mistake on our end or them isolating someone, then we'd have to wait another forty-eight hours."

"And who knows what Ruby will have gotten up to in that time..."

/-/

"Wheee! Whaaaa! Whoooooo!"

"Skreeeee!"

Ruby giggled and bounced again on the thick webbing that had been stretched across Jaune's office like a trampoline. Timothy bounced on it as well, at first being unsure and panicked by the loss of control but soon getting into it once it was clear from Ruby's laughter that it was meant to be fun.

"Higher, Timothy! Higher!"

"Skreeeeeeee!" the ginormous spider chittered and tightened its legs under itself, dropping like a bomb and then bouncing so high it touched the ceiling.

There was a knock on the door. "Um. Hello? I have a pizza delivery for... uh... Secret Agent Rose?"

"That's me!" she cheered, bouncing to the edge of the spiderweb trampoline and juking her way between various overturned bits of furniture and a set of Zwei's old toys that she'd brought for Timothy. He especially liked the squeaky ones, batting them about and hissing in delight. Ruby yanked the door open. "Yo. Pizza?"

The man on the other side looked frazzled. "Uh. Yeah, I have one cheese and tomato, two meat feast, one... one... beef and locusts." His throat bobbed but he swallowed his revulsion. "And I picked up the pack of sixty-four cookies you asked for. Are you doing truth or dare in there or something?"

"Skreee!"

"Or something!" Ruby fished out a thick wad of cash that Jaune had left for her and gave the man half. "Here you go. Keep the change."

"W—What? But there's like a thousand lien here!?"

Ruby slammed the door shut in the elated man's face and walked back inside. Timothy was instantly at her feet, able to smell the pizza. Ruby opened his and fished out a slice, grimacing at the offensive look of it. The locusts were dead, obviously, but they were still whole. Ruby had no idea where they'd got them, but it turned out when Papa Vale said they could do "any topping" they took it very seriously indeed.

"Okay. So, tomato and cheese for dinner, save the meat feast for breakfast – don't tell Yang or dad," she said to Timothy. He was too busy eating to listen. "And the other for lunch tomorrow." Plus, cookies for dessert, snacks, and any other excuse she could think of. "I don't know what Yang means about me being hopeless if I ever lived on my own. Cooking? Who needs it. I can eat just fine like this. Isn't that right, Timothy?"

"Skreeee!

"See. I knew you'd understand me. You know... I've seen videos online of dogs wearing a spider costume and scaring people." Ruby rubbed her chin. "I wonder if it could work the other way around and make people think you're just a dog in a really convincing outfit. Hmm..."

It was getting dark outside...

/-/

"I trust Ruby to be professional," said Jaune. "Besides, what harm can she really do?"

"One can only wonder. At least she can't get at all the anomalies now they're locked up."

That was a small relief. They still hadn't had any response from ARC Corp on all that. Saphron had demanded they break their ass to pull it off, then ghosted them when they did. And Blake knew she was back up from the attack on the airport. They'd been told that both she and Amber had made full recoveries.

And, fortunately, neither brought up anything about an anomalous terrorist. The bomb must have been planted to go off without any "bomber" being there to claim credit. Blake wasn't sure if that was lucky, or if the anomalies had just been smart not to tempt being seen by a director of ARC Corp. They might have been killed before they had a chance to detonate it.

"Is there another reason you're pushing to end this job so quickly?" asked Blake. "You're normally much more patient about these things."

"Hn. Yeah. I guess you'd notice that." Jaune sighed and ran a gloved hand through his hair. "I'm worried about being absent from Vale for too long. What with the anomalous community on edge and all. I'm also afraid something might happen with Menagerie and we'll not be in any place to run damage control."

Blake's heart froze. "When you say something happening—?"

"I don't mean dangerous for the inhabitants. Don't worry. I mean in terms of anomalies exposing themselves and ARC Corp finding out and somehow tracking it back to us. They shouldn't be able to. Even if it's found, they'll assume the White Fang found the anomalies and convinced them to be loyal to them."

"And it's not ARC Corp's business, right? We don't deal with terrorism and crime."

"Yeah. The others... They won't like it, but they'll leave it as long as it's not a problem. But it'll fast become one if the White Fang starts talking about using them on the front lines or revealing them. I've got a feeling that dad will want someone to have a talk with them. Set out some ground rules and expectations."

"Do as we say or we'll be forced to destroy you?"

He nodded. "Pretty much."

"It'd be us sent to do that. Wouldn't it? Leaving aside the fact I lived on Menagerie, it's a risky and thankless job negotiating with terrorists and having to put up with anomalies who think themselves free people." Blake mocked the kind of tone the other directors might use when they said that, the derision and sneer turned into a parody. "And given it'd be seen as a shit job no one wants, that means it'll be us who are sent."

"Now you're understanding how the company works. I'm at the bottom. I do the jobs no one else wants. I get dumped with Vale because not only does it have Ozma there, but the whole city was always at risk of being swallowed up by the Twilight City anyway. Between those two, Vale has always been the kingdom ARC Corp is most prepared to abandon."

"Seriously?"

"Not that they would. They won't do it out of hand. But if push came to shove, yes. Back when Mountain Glenn was a thing, there was a very real chance as you saw." He heaved a sigh. "But ARC Corp will always try first, like we did in sending everyone into Mountain Glenn to end it. For all their many, many flaws, you can't say they aren't willing to risk their lives to protect people."

Blake would grudgingly give them that, but she wouldn't admit it out loud. They'd been assholes to her and Jaune too much for her to be prepared to give them even the slightest credit. Amber had been "okay", she supposed, but she'd also been young and not yet moulded into what they wanted from her. She was sure that the girl would be properly bitchy and cold the next time they saw her.

They looped back around and took a look at the tent where people were still being tested. Jaune had given explicit instructions that the testing should be dragged out so it looked like it took fifteen minutes at least for each test. The better to give the anomaly time to panic.

By the time evening came, a third of the camp had been processed.

As the sun fell and the moon rose, people began to lose focus and drift off. Those proven safe had taken to drinking to celebrate and there was an air of merry in the camp once more. At least among that demographic. Those still yet to be tested were anxious, knowing they were now among an ever dwindling number, and that one of them might still be a monster.

With it being so dark, they'd taken a break in the testing and posted two guards to look over the tent. They were drunk themselves, whispering and giggling to one another while the larger woman ran her hands down the smaller one's hips. The smaller one giggled and half-heartedly pushed her away, giving her a shove with the kind of strength that wouldn't have toppled a piece of paper, let alone six and a half feet of hardened muscle. Soon, they were wrapped in one another's arms and making out, and the larger woman picked up the smaller one and walked her away, pushing her toward a tent.

It wasn't like anyone would be foolish enough to make a move on the anomaly, anyway.

Blake sat anxiously in Raven's tent, with her, Raven and Jaune sat tensely around a table, nursing drinks and listening. Listening as hard as they could. Raven had chosen her guards well and told them the plan, and she trusted they could pull it off without a hitch. By now, the tent would be unguarded, and it was just a matter of hoping the anomaly would take the bait.

Every minute seemed to last an hour.

And then...

BANG!

It was a sudden popping sound, nothing like a gunshot but still audible. Chairs tumbled as the three of them raced out the tent weapons in hand. They only just caught sight of a figure fleeing into the treeline, glinting with glitter in the moonlight.

"After them!" hissed Raven, sprinting ahead. "This ends tonight!"

It would have to. The anomaly had been exposed, and people would be able to tell who was missing. Blake hit the grass after Raven and gave chase, and while she failed to keep up with the woman, she was able to pull ahead of Jaune. Blake would have worried the anomaly was stringing them out, but even Jaune was confident Raven could kill it if she caught it.

The thing hadn't chosen to hide and eat its prey in ambush attacks because it was strong.

Branches and bushes were trampled underfoot and Blake was able to follow the trail of glitter with ease. It hadn't all stuck to the anomaly, and a lot of it was sprinkling off whenever it moved, leaving a very clear and obvious trial with which to follow.

Raven had stopped ahead of her.

Blake came to a skidding halt as well.

There was a dead person on the floor.

Or, rather, the desiccated and flaccid skin of one. It was like the insides of a human had stepped out of the skin, shedding it onto the floor in a bloody mess.

"Her name was Agatha," Raven said, her voice a quiet snarl. "She had – has – a child. I saw her playing with him this morning. The child still lives, completely unaware that his mother has been eaten, and that this creature has been masquerading as her."

Blake's stomach did a flip. Unconsciously, she'd looked over the parents with children, or at least the mothers cuddling them. She'd told herself that the anomaly wouldn't care about other people, especially those that could be food, but it seemed it had chosen to use a child as cover here, all while eating other people.

Had it considered eating the child as well?

The thought was horrifying.

Jaune caught up with them and took in the scene. "Insides devoured," he panted. "Skin worn as a coat. Bloody hell, Blake's skin walker joke the other day was more accurate than we realised. It's discarded all the glitter but I can't see it making it back into camp alive. It'll need a new victim."

"It won't find one!" Raven hissed and drew her sword. Her eyes flickered gold, tongues of fire seeming to lick at the edges.

Jaune stared, then swore. "Raven, what the fuck!? When were you planning to tell me!?"

"Never, ideally." The very air seemed to chill, and Blake took a nervous step back. "It wasn't intentional. She came to me, demanded we stop what we do. We fought. I killed her. It doesn't matter. This beast dies here and now!" Raven sliced her sword toward the trees. "Rarghhh!"

Howling winds sliced out from her sword, carving through tree trunks and toppling them twenty at a time. Blake stared in shock, then glanced to Jaune – this was beyond a Semblance, and he looked worried. Worried for Raven's sake. Some new anomaly? An evolution of Light of the Soul? There was no time to ask, as Raven's deforestation forced a thing to break cover.

It was...

It was so pathetic.

Small, insignificant, ugly. Despite having lived inside a woman who was almost six feet tall, the thing itself was closer to three, with a chitinous insect-like abdomen and thorax, and small, stubby legs of black flesh that looked more human. Almost baby-like. There were four of them supporting its weight, and its back arched up to show two arms with finger-like claws. As Jaune had expected, the claws were long and sharp, almost as long as its arms.

It was an alien creature with over twenty tiny eyes dotted across a pimped head. Rather than have a mouth there, it seemed to have a fanged opening in its thorax, where its chest should have been. It landed hard on the ground and scuttled away from them.

"Not so fast!" roared Raven, jumping forward and seeming to fly across the ground. "You want food? Try and eat me, you sick bastard!"

The thing was rightly terrified of her. It jinked and juked side to side, trying to put trees between it and Raven, but it didn't pay attention to them. The crack of Blake's heralded a gushing hold of purple ichor appearing in its chest. The thing screeched.

It was a human sound.

"Eat!" it cried. "Need to eat! Can't help!"

It was sapient. Capable of speech, even, but this was not an anomaly they could afford to let live despite that. Jaune shook his head, answering the silent question. This thing was much too dangerous, and its appetites would cost not only human lives, but risk exposing anomalies to the world as a whole.

"DIE!"

Raven's sword bit into its lower body and pinned it to the ground. Reflexively, its claws lashed out and struck at her aura. They were so fast that Blake could easily imagine them cutting through flesh, muscle and bone in one go. Raven, meanwhile, simply snarled and smashed them aside, even going so far as to grab one and sweep her sword down, cutting off the limb at the elbow.

"Rangel! Macker! Sana!" Raven hacked and hacked, shouting out the names of the dead as she did. The names of her tribespeople that this thing had eaten. "Boris! Abigail! Lara!"

Her red sword swung up and down. The anomaly screeched and howled, then, without warning, it lunged. Its entire body seemed to elongate, stretching its spine upwards so that the mouth on its chest became a cavernous maw large enough to bite down on the top half of a human's body and snap it off whole.

Raven smirked. "About time."

Her free hand stabbed up into its mouth and her eyes flared. The thing choked on howling winds that powered into its mouth, causing its back to balloon outward. It inflated like a balloon, but its skin – while flexible – wasn't capable of stretching indefinitely. It popped, but it wasn't like a rubber balloon letting out air. No. It was a bag of flesh exploding outward like slurry, purple blood and red organs spraying behind it as Raven unleashed a hurricane inside its body.

The remains of the beast splatted helplessly onto the grass.

It was done.

After so much effort, it almost felt anticlimactic, but Raven had always been capable of killing it. She just hadn't been able to catch it what with its ability to wait until she was asleep or occupied. Heaving, panting, she sheathed her weapon and spat on its corpse.

Jaune cleared his throat. "Do we have confirmation that the child is a human child?"

"We'll get it," Raven growled. "But he doesn't leave the camp. You can do whatever tests you want to, but the child stays. Agatha had a sister. The child will go to her. I... I will send someone to collect her body."

Raven grimaced. The sad sack of discarded flesh was where they had left it, hollowed out until it was little more than a human raincoat. No different, in a sense, from what they did to animals. The thing had been a predator and a carnivore, but weren't people? What made them morally superior? Ultimately, Blake realised it was nothing.

And that it didn't matter. Moral superiority didn't factor into it. There was no right or wrong, either. Their species simply didn't want to die like cattle, and that was it. Humanity, and she included faunus in that, were the dominant organisms on the planet, and they would fight to maintain that. This anomaly might have only been following its instincts, but that didn't change anything. It had t be put down.

"We can at least burn what remains of her body," said Raven. "It's what she would have wanted. The bigger question is how this thing got into my camp in the first place."

"It probably just took over her when she was outside the camp," said Blake.

But Raven shook her head.

"I'd believe that if she had been outside, but I know for a fact she hasn't. We're cautious of our young here. Those with babies don't go on raids, they don't go on hunts for food, and they don't leave the camp if it can be helped. Anyone else, I could believe. Our people stray from camp all the time, whether it be to look for food, take a leak, or just to make love. It'd make sense if it was one of them who had been taken, but not her. Not a single mother who's been confined to camp looking after her baby."

Jaune frowned. "Did you visit any towns or villages recently?"

"Only in raiding, and she wasn't on those. And if it was one of our captives that had it, they'd have vanished or left their body behind." Raven had a point. "We haven't had any captives die on us this year, and the attacks only began recently. Unless this thing laid dormant inside her without eating for months or years, it must have gotten her recently. And that just isn't possible."

Blake and Jaune exchanged long looks. Raven knew her tribe better than they, so if she thought something was up then it might just be. A creature disguising itself to infiltrate the camp absolutely should have gone for someone on the outskirts, but then, by that same logic, it should have sought to leave Raven's camp ages ago.

"It knew Raven was a threat," said Blake. "Why didn't it leave, then? Why not just up and run, find a village nearby, and infiltrate there instead. It would have had a much easier time with villagers who couldn't fight back."

Jaune looked troubled. "It was intelligent," he mumbled. "You're right. If it knew Raven was a threat, it shouldn't have stayed. Was there opportunity for it to have fled?"

"Definitely." Raven's arms were crossed. Her eyes were no longer glowing. "Early on, I still thought this was animal attacks or members up and sneaking away in the night. Agatha could have crept out with her baby saying she was taking a walk and then vanished. We wouldn't have known to stop her. And we did travel past villages and towns," she added. "Close enough that she would have had plenty of chances to jump ship."

And yet she – it – hadn't.

Had it wanted to stay? Had it preferred the meat of the tribe? It was obviously an ambush predator that was deathly afraid of confrontation, so she couldn't help but think it had been acting unusual. Predators, all animals in general really, tended to take the path of least resistance. Humans ate cattle because it was easier to rear them than it was to hunt. Bandit couldn't taste so much better that this thing would risk its life for it.

"Show us to Agatha's tent," said Jaune. "We should investigate."

Raven brought them back to the camp and pulled Vernal and Roland aside. Hushed discussions were had and the two were sent jogging back into the woods to find Agatha's discarded skin. A few more of her most trusted were sent into the camp itself, no doubt to find Agatha's child and take him aside, and to find her sister and explain what had happened.

Jaune and Blake were brought to a small tent. It was simplistic but packed full of little bits and pieces that the woman had collected over her life. Small paintings, tiny bits of furniture, furs, clothing, and the odd piece of jewellery. Baby supplies, too. Blake noticed that the instructions on them had been pulled out and spread over the floor.

"It looks like it had to learn how to care for a baby fast," she said, turning them over. "There's also discarded nappies just buried in the corner here. I think it dug up the ground and buried them as deep as it could."

"That'd explain the stench," grumbled Jaune. "And it also suggests the thing didn't steal or inherit her memories, or it would have known to do better. It wasn't a human-turned-anomaly, either."

"It also means it didn't originate from within her, I suppose." Or that it wasn't Agatha herself. The woman had birthed and raised a human child. "There's more buried here," she said. Jaune came over, and Blake used the blade of Gambol Shroud to dig apart the soil. "It looks like food. I guess it couldn't eat normal food but didn't want to look suspicious, so it took meals inside and buried them."

"Clever little thing," Jaune remarked. "It makes me wonder how it knew to do all that. Anomalies are created ignorant for the most part, as you know. That's what makes them so problematic. If they were born knowing how to conceal themselves, ARC Corp wouldn't have so many problems."

Most creatures, human and animal alike, were taught by parental figures. Animals had instincts, but even the smartest creature needed to watch its parents eat before it would try and eat for itself. They learned by example.

Anomalies didn't have that, so this thing should by all accounts have exposed itself quickly.

"Unless something told it how to act," Blake said. Jaune grunted, nodding. "Is that what you're thinking? That someone or something assisted it?"

"More than that, I think that someone planted it within the Branwen tribe. There's no other reason for it to put itself so at risk. Plus, it knew in advance which members of the tribe were dangerous. Did it see Raven fight to know she was strong? It can't have tested her because then it'd be dead. And yet it knew it couldn't beat her. How?"

Good question. The only answer she could come up with was the one Jaune had already hinted at.

"Because someone warned it in advance that Raven would be dangerous, and they prepped the anomaly with the information it needed before it was inserted into the tribe." Blake bit her lip. "And they were able to get to a single mother despite her being surrounded by people. A traitor in the tribe, perhaps? But that doesn't make sense. They'd be putting themselves at risk."

"I think we have our answer," said Jaune, digging through the soil with his gloved fingers. A tiny white card had been buried along with the food. He fished it out and dusted the soil off it. Somehow, the card remained whole and clean. The black ink on it was also clear.

"Anomalous & Sons LLP."


Next Chapter: 22nd January

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