Chapter 5 – No B in Team

If you only look out for number one, you may find yourself neck deep in number two.

There had been no other way.

That was what Blake was telling herself as she leapt from treetop to treetop back to Lemuria to avoid any remaining Grimm that hadn't yet arrived at the party.

There had been no other way.

If she'd stuck around, they would have both been overrun and slaughtered. If she stayed behind, Arc wouldn't have had the means or training to get himself back to safety. Like, come on! Sneaking into Beacon without even having his own aura unlocked? That took guts, but it was also a fast way to start seeing those guts…strewn out on the floor.

Unlocking his aura…well, it was for the best for both of them once again. For Jaune, he got a fighting chance against the Grimm. Maybe he would somehow work a miracle and fight his way out. That said, Blake wasn't sure if a vengeance-fueled aura-user with a grudge against her would be a good thing

As for Blake, Jaune's aura being unlocked was necessary because…because…

Aura users tend to attract the Grimm, making it easier for me to flee.

It's more so he had a fighting chance, though! It's not the other thing! I had to do it so that at least one of us could survive! What would the point of us both being torn to shreds by waves of…

Torn to shreds.

Blake suppressed a shudder.

As much as she tried to bury it under cold, unfeeling logic, the fact of the matter was that Blake still felt guilt. She was guilty of a great many things, most of that guilt shared with her ex-boyfriend of many years, but this was probably one of the first things which she could truly claim on her own. No bull Faunus was around to have the blame thrown at his feet this time.

It's okay. He'd probably just jump from the tree or stab himself when he starts getting overwhelmed.

Blake paused.

Wow, isn't it so great that I can be comforted by a man's suicide? A man I didn't even try to save?

If she'd tried to bring him with her, it would have been no different. Those Grimm were clawing their way up the tree, and if Blake and Jaune had climbed out the pit together, the horde would chase after them. Jaune's noble sacrifice would buy Blake enough time for that sinkhole thing to cave in the rest of the way and bury the truth along with her Grimm enemies, her temporary partner, and her own shame.

Lemuria's walls came into view and Blake, entirely unscathed, nimbly hopped among the trees south by southeast back towards it. Even though she hadn't been able to save Jaune, she would make sure these villagers at least knew of his sacrifice so that he could be honored properly.

If there had been any way to save them both, Blake would have taken it. That was no lie. But there hadn't been. If she'd pushed Jaune up and stayed behind herself to hold off the Grimm, he wouldn't even be able to find his way out of the forest. Jaune died the second that Minor heard him yelling and came their way.

No. He died to second he decided to be a huntsman without any training, any knowledge, or any aura. I'm sorry, friend, but you made this choice.

N̶o̶.̶ ̶ ̶B̶l̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶h̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶h̶o̶i̶c̶e̶.̶

When she arrived at the walls, there was a new watchman on this shift, but he presumably had been given a description of her, for he recognized her on sight.

"Ma'am! You're back!"

Blake nodded. "Would you please let me back in?"

"Of course, ma'am! Were you able to clear the area of Grimm? We heard them roaring in the distance."

They were all trapped in a pit that was probably a few minutes away from being inescapable as it sank down further and further, so she nodded. The Grimm might still be alive down there, but there was no way they could pose any problems for the village and its tourist infestation.

More importantly, if they search the forests, they won't bump into any Grimm, which means they'll believe the mission was a success if they aren't sure.

The gate opened up once more, letting Blake in. This time, the mayor wasn't there to greet her.

Blake waited patiently as the gate closed behind her and the man shuffled down the ladder to the ground.

"I'll take you to the mayor, ma'am. Please, foll…uh…w-wasn't there…weren't there supposed to be…"

Blake didn't have to fake her regret on this one.

"Oh. O-Oh my gods, I am SO sorry, ma'am! Oh my gods, oh my…" The poor guy who looked like he was going to cry shuddered. Despite not ever having seen Jaune, he was probably more affected by his death than Blake at this point.

I've seen so much death in the White Fang that I may as well be desensitized to it.

And now she got to see even more. Blake had hoped she could leave that life behind when she abandoned Adam to his side of the train, but here she was, leaving an innocent man, one whose only sin was trusting her, to his death. She had protested so dearly to killing when she'd been a member of the Fang, but here she was, pretending there was some great difference when she killed by inaction.

I doubt the distinction would matter immensely to the people who died.

As she followed the morose watchman along the paved sidewalk of the settlement towards the largest house, Blake found herself on the receiving end of numerous stares from the citizen who were out and about. For almost all of them, their eyes shot to the top of her head, then to the weapon at her hip, then down to their feet as they powerwalked away nervously.

"We're here, ma'am," said the watchman. "I'll wait outside to escort you back to the gate after you've finalized your business."

Blake thanked the guy and knocked on the door.

"What do you mean he's dead?!"

Blake opened her mouth to speak, but the mayor was beside himself and didn't even give her the chance.

"A dead huntsman? In my village? This is going to be horrendous! And I rubberstamped the whole Huntsman Youth program thing…this could ruin us. A barely licensed child of a huntsman…they'll be looking into this. This could ruin me." The man keeled over and clutched his knees like he was about to vomit.

"He…He fell in the line of duty," Blake stuttered out, only to immediately regret drawing attention to herself.

"You…! Do you have any idea how bad this is?" He rose up and prodded a finger into her neckline, completely ignoring any concerns of personal space. "A dead huntsman…and not just any huntsman. Some accelerated program huntsman with half the experience of a normal one has died here! Beacon's going to be sticking their nose into this!"

Blake recognized this kind of behavior before – it was the same type that Adam displayed before he was about to do something reckless, stupid, violent, or all three. This man was moments away from erupting.

I…I can fix this. Remember what Jaune said. It's just people skills and basic logic. This guy wants to believe me, and if I can throw around enough big words to trick him into thinking it's normal, he's not going to risk making a fool of himself by doubting me.

"Sir, I assure you that Beacon won't be getting involved. You see, in addition to the T-77 forms, we also both signed our names on the Release of Liability waver, as per Beacon regulation 3.4-12. According to the Hunter Corp Code Chapter 9, our deaths are the responsibilities of the local coroner, as pertaining to –

The man just stared at her, squinting his eyes. "What the fuck are you talking about? Hunter Corp Code? What the hell is that?"

"It's quite commonly known in –"

"I don't care!" raged the mayor, throwing his hands into the air like he just didn't care. Blake could tell that he did care, however.

"As my partner assured you, our circumstances are unusual but not illegal. And in terms of liability, there's no need to –"

"You honestly think I trust a word out of your mouth right now?" the human asked her angrily, glaring at her face and head.

It was in that moment that Blake realized that she'd been right the first time. All of the tricks he'd explained to her about how to convince people to believe your bullshit were just nonsense. Jaune hadn't been some suave mastermind whose artful manipulations worked like a charm against the hardest nosed buyers.

It really had just been because he was a pretty-faced human that could shield her against racism.

She'd thrown her human shield away, and she needed him back

"I'm calling Beacon," the mayor said, turning away from her. "And a lawyer. Maybe if I can get ahead of this shitstorm and –"

"Dust."

The man glared at her. "What?"

"Dust. I need a Dust cartridge for my gun. Standard build, SDC, any bullet type."

"And why would I –"

"There's a chance I can get him back. But I need ammo."

"A…"

The mayor's eyes widened when he realized what Blake was saying, but she didn't give him time to say anything.

"It'll be a shitstorm for everyone, not just you, if we have to call this in to Beacon. But if I get him back, there's no problem for anyone. No dead huntsmen, no unlicensed youth programs, no need to report anything to Vale."

"You left your own –"

"No," Blake said, pointedly looking at the human. "I came back for more ammo. And I got it, and now I'm going to go back and rescue my teammate, and it'll be business as usual. A normal huntsman mission completed for your village where nothing went wrong."

Blake raised her eyebrows, waiting for the man to challenge her. As much as he might have stared down at her like she was dirt (and in this case, it wasn't because of the Faunus angle), he could probably also reason out that this would go better for him if Blake could retrieve Jaune. At worst, all he was guilty of then was dealing with potentially unlicensed hunters, not sending a teenager to their death.

"And what's to assure me that you won't just run off with a free magazine once you're beyond the gates?" the man asked.

Blake shrugged. "How about the reward money for the mission? In cash, of course."

"The –! You expect to still be paid after all the trouble you've put me through?!"

Folding her arms, Blake shrugged once more. "The way I see it, this was just business, albeit slightly under-the-table. We killed your Grimm, and you paid us. We'll both sign off on this on the hunter mission boards, and all problems go away. No trouble there. But if you don't mark the work as complete and I don't sign off on having completed it, it'll stand out. That's the kind of thing that might get flagged for an audit."

The man bit down on his teeth. "I'll be subtracting the Dust from your pay."

Blake nodded. "Business expense."

"Go outside. Mr. Parientes, the watchman on duty, can take you to a storeroom where you can get your Dust. Now get out of my sight, you disgusting…"

Disgusting animal. He didn't finish, but she knew what word would have come next if he had. It was something that had been said about Blake by so many other humans before, but this use of the term hurt particularly badly, because she'd given him all the proof he needed to justify calling her that.

I just hope Jaune's okay. If he isn't, I don't think I'll be coming back to Lemuria anytime soon. Hell, I don't think I'll even stay in Vale in that case.

Blake followed her own tracks from before back in the direction of the sinkhole, for she hadn't committed its location to memory (she'd had no reason to, at the time). There was no time to stick to the safety of the trees, not when her continued freedom could hinge on getting to Jaune as quickly as possible. In theory, a single moment could make the entire difference if that was the moment where a Beowolf's jaws gnawed off an arma or an Ursa Major's paws snapped his spine.

She had belatedly realized that it might have been a good call for her to bring some medical supplies with her in case Arc was injured, but it was too late to go back, and begging the mayor for more when she'd already pissed him off this bad was pushing her luck.

He has aura – freshly unlocked, full to the brim, in fact. I was only gone for a short time, and he had the high ground against the Grimm. Plus, the more I carry, the slower I get, and the lower our paycheck is

Blake was getting pretty good at retroactively justifying her sins with pragmatism. If only she'd unlocked this skill earlier; she might never have needed to leave the White Fang. Maybe Blake –

No. Not now. Not when I'm about to have to fight off a horde of eighty Grimm on my own. I can't lose my focus.

Hold on tight, Jaune. I'm coming.

In total, Arc was probably only left defenseless for about fifteen minutes – five to flee, eight to speak to the mayor, and two to return.

Blake saw the carnage that the first wave of Grimm had wrought long before she saw any sign of the sinkhole. When they stampeded, Grimm tended to cause major damage to the vegetation of a forest, leaving behind very clear tracks. Unfortunately, they were too chaotic to determine a direction of, and they'd come from nearly every angles, meaning that when they'd congregated on that tree, most of the human and Faunus tracks that would have led to it were covered.

How do I find him?

"JAUNE!" Blake screamed.

Blake waited two seconds.

"HELP!" he screamed.

Blake sprinted off in the direction his voice had come from.

As she got closer and closer, the snarls of the Grimm gradually increased in volume. Blake came upon the sinkhole a short distance away from where she'd lost the trail.

Diving right in without hesitation would have been heroic, but Blake paused at the edge to assess the situation first.

Arc was still alive, and he wasn't bleeding profusely from any essential body part, so that was a plus. However, he was a lot further down, probably a good twenty meters below the forest floor at this point, and he'd climbed to the near top of the tree. Beneath him, the redwood had been stripped of all branches by the Grimm, which were still actively clawing their way towards him.

Had these Grimm been more intelligent elders, they might have realized that they could just break the tree and send Arc tumbling down into their open jaws, but they weren't intelligent, nor did they have concepts like teamwork or strategy. Their only prerogative was ascending as quickly as possible. To that end, it wasn't a graceful process by which they climbed. The Grimm, moving in single file out of necessity with the biggest at the front, hugged their entire body to the tree and dug their claws in on the other side. Inching up just a little bit at a time, their bark was great, but their bite was their only weapon due to their hands being preoccupied with holding themselves up.

Arc was surviving by keeping his shield raised on one side and swinging his sword in frenzied, desperate movements at the paws of the Grimm on the other. He seemed to have figured out that their faces weren't actually their weakest points; limbs were far thinner and less armored, making them severable.

He's bleeding from his leg. Aura must have boosted his strength, but he's not yet talented enough to seal up a wound.

Popping the reloaded ammunition into Gambol Shroud, Blake fired upon the closest one to Jaune first, then worked her way down. With their stomachs to the tree and their arms in use, the Grimm had no means to shield their defenseless necks or move out of the way of danger, making gunning them down easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

BANGBANGBANGBANG!

She'd brought two backup reloads with her, having decided to play it safe this time, so when the first one was emptied, she just switched it out and tossed the spent magazine aside.

The tree was now fully cleared of Grimm, so Blake sprayed machine-gun fire into the base of the pit. These Grimm weren't busy holding climbing, so they could dive for cover (their sense of self-preservation was at least that good), but it sent them scrambling out of the way.

"JAUNE!" Blake loudly screamed. Gambol Shroud converted into its throwable sickle form, and she hurled it towards him.

He didn't even see it before it had bounds off the rocks near his head, let alone catch it.

"Dammit, Jaune! Catch it!"

She threw it again, this time with more force. The longer she waited with her weapon out of gun form, the more time the Grimm had to realize they weren't actively being fired upon and start climbing up again.

This time, Jaune at least had the wherewithal to try and reach for it, but his timing was so shit that the sickle sailed right by him, and he ended up grabbing thin air.

Blake cursed and converted her weapon back into a firearm the second her ribbon had pulled it back fully. The Grimm were already at the base of the tree and had started to resume their attempts to go after the blond boy at the top.

This time, as Blake fired and took out the odd Grimm here and there, she jogged around the edge of the crater and came over to the side that Jaune was on. If he wasn't going to be able to catch Gambol, there was zero point in throwing it.

"Jaune!" Blake yelled over the shrill patter of the gunfire. "I'm going to lower it down to you, so grab it and hold on! Just hold on!"

He nodded. Blake waited until the Grimm were all reset back to the bottom of the sinkhole, then hastily mechshifted her weapon and dropped down the sickle. This time, Jaune didn't waste a second snatching it and tugging twice on the ribbon for some reason, so Blake hoisted him up to safety.

The young man scrambled onto solid ground and immediately put a safe distance between himself and the crater, crawling on all fours. As Blake converted her weapon back into a gun once more, she glanced over her shoulder and saw him trembling like a newborn gerbil.

As much as she wanted to go over and reassure him that he was okay now, the Grimm took precedence. With nothing to distract them, they were now free to start focusing their efforts on making their way out of the pit and up top to the tasty humans.

Blake reloaded Gambol with the final magazine: Fire Dust. It only took a single shot to hit the bark of the tree and…

Wait, why isn't it catching fire?

The Grimm were now barreling up the tree, and Blake started to get panicked. Another shot of Fire Dust took down the closest monster, but the flames didn't even seem to affect the tree.

I don't have enough rounds of all of them, not after I spent my bullets so recklessly trying to push them away from Jaune. My big plan was to ignite the tree and let them all burn in the pit, but it isn't working!

There weren't any branches or leaves left – the Grimm had methodically shredded those apart – leaving Blake with nothing to aim for.

"Just fucking die!" she screamed, shooting down two more Grimm. It was getting harder now that she needed to converse her ammo, and the Grimm were starting to get higher and higher.

I've only got about ten seconds before the closest one reaches the top of the tree, and I don't have enough rounds left to slow them down for long!

"Why isn't it burning?!"

"Burning?" asked Arc. "W-What?"

"I'm shooting the fucking tree, but it's not catching fire!" Blake screamed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Fear was making her sloppy, and the first and second shots pinged harmlessly off the Minor's bone plating. Blake wasn't going to have any Fire Dust left shortly, and then it was back to Arc's method – stabbing the Grimm one by one as they clamored up top.

I don't like those odds, not when there are still so many Grimm.

"It's redwood!" Jaune screamed.

"I don't fucking care what color the tree is!" Blake screeched back.

"No! Aim for the scratches! The bark, Blake, the bark!"

Blake had no idea what that idiot was going on about, and she really didn't want to waste another bullet on some theory of his, but there were no other options. After popping the nearest Beowolf through the eye, Blake shot the clawmarks that he'd left behind.

To her great surprise, the Fire Dust actually caused a small flame to catch, but it didn't last long when the next Beowolf's paw smothered it in its quest to climb higher and higher.

"Jaune!" Blake switched Gambol Shroud into a sword. "I'll hold them off, but explain!"

"T-T-The bark of the redwood tree, it's e-extremely thick and fire re-re-resistant," Jaune said shakily.

That would explain why it wasn't burning. Blake held her breath, desperately hoping that her own fear wasn't going to make these ravenous beasts any more dangerous as they finished the climb.

"AND?" she screamed.

It was too wasteful to keep using Dust-bullets, so she now had to wait for the Grimm to climb up before she could cut them down one at a time. It wasn't a working strategy for the long term, but if she could just get the missing pieces of the puzzle from Arc, it would last until she made one.

"The tr-tree itself, the lumber, the wood i-inside, that's flammable, but just barely," Jaune said. Blake could hear the terror in his voice, and she could see it correlating to the Grimm's increasing speed. "You won't be able to light it on fire, not enough to burn down the entire tree. Too much bark coverage, and the air can't get in."

"So how do I burn them out?!" Blake asked, swiping the head off of an Ursa Minor but sustaining a rather painful scratch against the aura on her leg. "Because I don't think I'm going to be able to keep cutting them up at this rate!"

"I don't know! It's evolved exterior defenses to survive forest fires, Blake!"

"Exterior?" Blake asked. Grimm were starting to come out faster than she could keep up with. They were all fresh for the fight, and Blake was starting to tire.

Jaune was keeping a sizeable distance away from the pit, no doubt traumatized by the time he'd been trapped in there, but he was close enough to see Blake fending off the Grimm as they scaled the tree and rock face.

"I-If…If…"

They didn't have time for Arc to get tongue-tied, not when they were moment away from being overrun. "Spit it out!"

"I don't know!" Arc said, wrapping his arms around his head. "I don't know what hunters are capable of! But if you can somehow chop the tree in half, you might be able to get it burning."

"How do I chop it in half?

"I just said I don't know!"

Blake was tempted to order Jaune to start on that, given how idle his hands were and how shiny his brand new sword was, but he was her golden goose, and she couldn't risk losing him if she wanted to get back to Lemuria.

My semblance…if I put all my Fire Dust into it and left a duplicate there to explode, I might be able to snap it into splinters and expose the burnable wood. The only problem is that I'd have to jump down there and get back up to leave the shadow clone.

"Oi, Jaune! It's time to make yourself useful!"

"W-What?"

"I'm going to jump down, but –"

"WHAT?!"

"Listen! Stop talking and listen to me, okay?"

Arc wisely clapped his trap closed.

"Okay," Blake said, kicking the face in of a small Beowolf so that it would slam into the one behind it and send them both falling back. "You're going to have to take over here. Just flare up your aura and slash your sword. You don't need to kill them, just keep yourself alive until I'm back up. I'm going to hand you my – argh, get back!"

Jaune took a few steps back, but Blake had actually been talking to the two Beowolves that were advancing closer to her.

I'm going to have to clear out as many as I can before I hand it off to him.

"I'll hand you my sickle, you'll hold it in your offhand, and you'll stay put. Don't let go, don't move an inch, don't do anything but what I tell you, and we'll survive!"

"But how will –"

"I can take care of getting myself back up," Blake said. "Alright, get closer!"

"Blake, I don't know if I –"

"Jaune, please!"

They didn't have time for his underconfident self right now. Blake swore to the Gods, if he did that whole 'blue screen of death' thing like he had at Beacon and let her fall to her death, she was going to come back as a ghost and haunt him to insanity.

"Okay…switch!"

Jaune stumbled forward as Blake fell back, thrusting her sickle into the hand that wasn't flailing the sword about like a madman. Only when she saw his fingers wrap securely around the end did she make the leap.

Her aura was probably at around the red at this point, but the color system that the coddled kiddies of the academies used were just arbitrary points and percentages. Blake still had aura, which meant she was still okay to fight.

Twirling through the air, she tucked in her arms and spun several times on all axes before landing in between two Beowolves around the middle of the tree. There was no time to fight them, and Blake didn't even have a weapon to use; no sooner had her feet touched the tree than Blake immediately kicked right off, putting a Fire Dust shadow clone in her place. It emptied her sword of all remaining Dust, but she was pretty much out of options here beyond going all in.

Gravity had aided her in getting down, but it wouldn't be helping her up, so Blake leapt to the side instead of trying to go back up. Her heart skipped a beat when Arc, surprised by the explosion of the shadow clone coupled with the ribbon pulling from a different angle, lost his footing and slid to the edge of the sinkhole, but he managed to do his part and hold on tight, so Blake wasn't dropped to her doom.

The force of the explosive blast was enough to split the tree into a good five pieces, and they all tumbled down into the cavern. Numerous Grimm were crushed in the process, and the survivors found themselves trapped in a pit full of flaming wood.

For her part, Blake grabbed hold of a rocky outcropping and just stayed put into the tree was gone, her ribbon held an angle. Then, when she was certain that none of the Grimm were out and about, she let go of her rock, swung down until she was directly beneath Jaune, and began to rappel her way back up.

"W-We did it!" Jaune cried out.

Blake was about to correct his misstatement, but when she thought about it for a second, it really had been both of them. Jaune had fended off the Grimm twice despite having zero training, he'd given her the tips about the tree that she'd needed to best utilize her own strength, and he'd held Gambol's ribbon. Hiccups or not, he'd done his part.

"Yeah," Blake managed to say, pulling herself to her feet. "We did do it."

Coming Soon: Their Emerald Forest

Team Job becomes a far realer thing than either of its founding members had initially planned.