Finished my first ever Legend of Zelda game last week. Poor Calamity Ganon never stood a chance. Must've been embarrassing to be beaten by some elf boy with no pants on (ditched all armor just to make it interesting). Actually working with an editor friend of mine to turn the whole playthrough into a series of YouTube videos. She just sent me the first edit, but I haven't gotten to watch the whole thing yet as work has called me in a little extra this week. The little I have seen makes me realize just how off the wall I get sometimes. Good for a laugh, at least.

I've also been binge reading another massive fanfic that I really enjoy. Only read through it once, so I'm excited for a second go-around. Gotta say, the extra reading really helped me get in the writing mood this week and is helping me work on accelerating things a little. After a whole chapter about mining, I think it's time to pick up the pace a little and get to the good stuff, so stay tuned. Also came up with some more ideas for this arc that I think will really improve the story, so a good week all around!

Anyways, busy week means I had to wrap this up early in the morning. Caught so many errors at the end from stupid mistakes. I swear I spelled Jakob's name a half-dozen different ways as a result. Those should all be fixed now, so strap in as we get a very Jakob-focused chapter.

No one leaves like that.

Jakob's words followed Adam around the camp after dinner as he searched for Jakob. The bar seemed like a safe bet, but the rowdy crowd gathered there lacked his target. The bunkhouse proved the same, minus the crowd, naturally. He circled back to the dining hall, but the place had been closed up for the night. He peered in one of the windows, just to be certain, but no one lurked in the shadows.

The problem with being new to camp was he didn't really know anywhere else to look. Jakob could be just about anywhere. Wandering around camp didn't help, though Adam did learn an important fact about Camp Orostachys along the way.

"What are you doing here?"

Adam jumped at the gruff voice, turning to see a pair of guards approaching. One of them - the one who'd spoken - had his hand to his hip, gripping the handle of a sleek, black baton. Adam instinctively held his hands up as he blurted out, "I'm looking for a friend."

"Get back to your sector," the guard demanded, pointing back the way Adam had come.

"But I-"

The guard pulled his baton out, making it clear he wasn't in the mood to talk. "Back to your sector. Now!"

"Go easy on him," the other guard tried. "He's just a kid."

The more aggressive guard didn't seem to care. "Turn around, or I'll throw you in the hole for the night." Judging by the way he gripped his weapon, Adam had a feeling his trip to the hole would be a bumpy ride. "No faunus are allowed outside their sector without an escort. Animals should stay in their pen."

Adam's fear quickly morphed into hatred. Sure, this guy had a weapon and didn't look like a pushover or anything, but Adam had aura. All he had to do was tank the first hit and go for his wrist. A quick twist would relieve him of his advantage. He doubted the blowhard could back up his words at that point.

Thankfully, the other guard stepped in to defuse the situation. "There's no need for any trouble." Adam wasn't sure which of them that was aimed at, but the next part was clearly for him. "Your friend isn't here. Workers have to stay in their assigned area. It's already getting dark. He might be back at his bunk by now."

As much as Adam wanted to wipe the smug grin off the idiot's face, his partner's words helped calm him down a little. Getting into a fight here wouldn't help anyone. Even if he won, what would be the point? They wouldn't just let something like that slide. As much as it pained him, he took a deep breath and answered, "Guess I got a little turned around. I just got here yesterday."

The more rational guard seemed to relax a little. "Still getting your bearings then. Makes sense. You should get back to your bunkhouse before it gets too late. And make sure to ask your bunkmates about camp boundaries. Don't want you wandering off and getting in any more trouble."

Adam hadn't heard anything about boundaries, even if it sort of made sense. He doubted he could just stroll into the armory and help himself to whatever he found. There were probably areas that would be dangerous, too. Still, the first guy could've explained it nicer instead of threatening him. It wasn't like he'd meant to break the rules or anything.

Rather than wait around to see how tolerant the first guard would be, Adam turned and marched back for the bunkhouse, but he didn't miss the mumbled, "That's right. Run back to your pen, ya whelp." Adam hesitated a moment, his fists tightening before he forced himself to keep walking. Knocking the guy's teeth out would feel satisfying, but nothing good could come of it in the long run.

Instead, Adam stomped his way back to the bunkhouse, fuming with every step. He mercilessly punished the ground with each footfall, taking out his anger against the hardened dirt beneath him. The ground didn't deserve it, but it helped to vent some of his frustration. By the time he made it back to the bunkhouse, he'd toned it down from murderous rampage to irritated grumbling.

Jakob wasn't there. Of course he wasn't. Nothing was going his way tonight. Monti and Duncan were both there, but they easily sensed his mood and chose not to make themselves targets, leaving him to stew as they played cards in the corner. It wasn't until the bathroom door opened that someone finally chose to address him.

"What's the matter?" Maurice asked the moment they made eye contact.

"Nothing." They both knew that was a lie. Adam tried to rein his emotions in a bit more. "Just frustrated. Have you seen Jakob?"

Maurice instantly jumped to the wrong conclusion. "What's he done now?"

"Nothing." The truth this time. Closer to it, at least. Still, he needed to find Jakob and figure out what he meant earlier. "I tried to find him after dinner, but he pretty much vanished."

"Have you checked the hole?" Duncan asked with a laugh. Monti snorted softly before drawing another card.

Maurice ignored the two. "Probably out for a walk or something. Only shows his face here to sleep. Otherwise, he's off doing gods know what." Adam could understand that. After being cooped up in the mine all day, their room felt a little small for his taste. "You need something?"

To find Jakob. Then again, Adam did have something he needed to ask, and Maurice would probably know better than most. "Actually, yeah. Are there places we can't go?"

"Did I not tell you?" Maurice seemed genuinely confused as he thought for a moment. "Must be getting old. The main buildings are off-limits to us unless we're summoned by Overseer Ferric, like when I was called up to meet you yesterday. Otherwise, we have to stay on our side of the camp."

"Our side?"

"Faunus Alley," Duncan offered. "Humans have their side. We've got ours."

"Everything we need is here," Maurice hedged before any more cynical opinions could be shared. "The only off-limits areas are for admin and security. No reason for us to be there, anyways."

That sort of made sense, though the ruthless enforcement of it had been a bit much. "So where can we go?"

Maurice laid out the details of the camp, describing a host of areas they could use beyond the few he knew. The mines were off-limits outside their shifts - not that Adam wanted to spend any extra time there. On top of the dining hall and bar, they also had access to a small entertainment complex with a theater room, a workout space, and even a pool. Some of the open space had been converted into a sports field. Near the edge of their space sat the clinic he'd been told about. All in all, they had pretty much everything they needed, just like Maurice said.

So why did it feel so confining?

Maurice went over how to identify off-limit areas, including signs that Adam had completely ignored when he'd blindly walked through one of the gates leading to the administrative buildings. When Adam told him about the guards he'd encountered, Maurice tried to downplay it a bit. "They're worked as hard as we are." The scoff from behind hardly phased him. "They guard us from the Grimm and then have to patrol the camp itself. I can understand how it could get a little frustrating after a while."

"He called me an animal," Adam said, already bristling at the memory. What right did that guy have to look down on Adam just because he was born different?

"And I'm sure you called him worse afterwards." So? The guy totally deserved it. "Just because someone's rude to you doesn't mean you have to be rude back. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"You sound like my father," Adam said as he recalled Father Bernard saying something similar a few times. The thought brought a sad smile to his face, made all the worse by how distant the pain felt.

"Then he was a wise man." Maurice must've sensed his sudden shift and pieced the details together. Joining a mining camp might've helped there, too. Most kids his age would have only just moved out at best. If he'd already hit enough trouble to be homeless and this desperate for work, surely his parents would've taken him back in.

It sure must've been nice to have parents.

"Anyways," Maurice continued before they could dwell on such upsetting thoughts, "if you need to find Jakob, your best bet is to wait here. He'll be in soon enough."

His words proved prophetic, as Jakob sauntered in half an hour later, a light sheen of sweat on his face. Adam didn't get a chance to say anything to him before he claimed the shower. Adam waited impatiently for him to emerge, cornering him the moment he sat on his bed.

"Need somethin'?" Jakob asked as he stretched out topless on his bed, grunting at a loud pop in his back.

Adam looked around quickly, as pointless as that proved. Duncan and Monti were a few feet away playing cards while Maurice climbed into bed. They weren't exactly alone. Still, Adam couldn't wait any longer. "I wanted to talk to you about earlier."

"Earlier?"

"You know…" If he did, Jakob sure didn't act like it. "What you said at dinner."

"I say a lot of things." True, but Adam had something specific in mind. He had a feeling Jakob knew and was just yanking his chain at this point.

Fine. He'd get right to the point. "About leaving. How nobody leaves on the airship."

"Did I say that?" Jakob's smile betrayed his feigned confusion. "Doesn't sound like me."

"You did," Adam insisted. "What did you mean? I thought we could leave whenever we want to. That's what they told me."

"Who told you that?"

"The intake guy." Adam had no idea what his name was. Heck, he didn't even know what his proper title would be. "The guy I had to sign all the paperwork for when I got here."

"You mean the suit?" Adam remembered him saying something like that last night. He meant the humans.

"Yeah. He told me I could quit anytime I wanted and get a ride back to Mistral."

"Exactly." That…didn't really clear anything up. "You still don't get it, do you?" Adam shook his head. He wouldn't be asking if he already knew the answer. "Tell you what. I like to go for a walk on Sunday evenings. Why don't you join me?"

Adam recognized the invitation for what it really was, especially when Jakob glanced toward Maurice's bunk. "Sunday?" It was only Wednesday now. Why so long?

"Sunday," Jakob confirmed. "I think it'll make more sense then."

Adam hoped so, because it sure didn't make sense now.

/- - - - - - - - - -/

Somewhere, Jean was laughing at him. He just knew it.

Being told to wait seemed awfully familiar. And just like with Jean's training, Adam wasn't the patient type. He did his best to pay attention in the mines, working alongside Maurice as he got used to his new role. Adam wished he could do more, if only to keep his mind off the persistent questions he had to hold until the weekend. It helped to know exactly when he'd get his answers, as opposed to the "ask me later" approach Jean favored, but that didn't make the days go by any faster.

Not that he waited in silence. Every chance he got, Adam would try to corner Jakob and pry for information. And every time, Jakob would purposefully avoid the topic and make a joke of everything, even when no one else was around to hear. It was infuriating, but Adam couldn't really force him to answer. Besides, despite all the teasing, Adam liked Jakob. Maurice may have led 3C, but most of the crew seemed to look up to Jakob as a sort of second-in-command. He joked around with them. Came up with dumb little games and entertainment in the evening. Wherever he went, you'd almost always find a few of their crewmates with him, Adam included.

Well, almost everywhere he went. Jakob vanished again after dinner on Friday and didn't come back to the bunkhouse that night. Word got around camp that he'd gotten in some sort of trouble with the guards and would be spending the night in the hole - a common occurrence by the sounds of it. Common for Jakob, at least. Most of their crew could count the number of times they'd been thrown in there on one hand. Combined. Adam wondered if Bane would even fit in there. It'd have to be a pretty big hole.

Adam looked forward to the weekend and some much needed time away from the mine. They didn't get time off, exactly. Not all of it. Saturday found them working above ground. Jakob rejoined them just in time for the morning shift, looking none the worse for his private accommodations. If anything, he looked pleased as two guards dragged him to their crew in the morning, shoving him in line as orders were given out.

"You okay?" Adam asked, grateful to have his friend back.

"Never better," Jakob promised. Wish they'd kept me a little longer, though. Could've used an extra day off."

"I thought we got the weekends off." Monday through Friday in the mines. They had to clear out for the weekend so crews could go in and reinforce some of the shafts as they expanded. Even now, he could see a few teams lugging equipment onto the trucks before taking a ride underground.

"From the mine," Jakob clarified. "Well, most weeks. They spray the walls with concrete to help stabilize everything and put up the beams."

"You said we had to do that."

"We do. Just not this week." Jakob pointed to the departing trucks. "Group A has it this week, then group B, then us, and finally group D. It's a rotation." Which meant they got an extra day in the mines every four weeks. Lovely.

"So what do we do when it's not our turn?"

"Whatever we tell you to do." Adam snapped to attention, standing ramrod straight as the guard answered for him. Adam recognized the voice even before he saw the familiar face. It was the same guy from the other night. The one who'd called him an animal. "3C. You've got cleaning duty this week. Clean up your filth. When you're done with that, you've got inventory." Jakob and a few others groaned in response. "Quit your bellyaching or I'll find more work for you tomorrow!" That shut everyone up. "We'll start with the dining hall. Let's make your trough shine, ladies."

Adam felt his hand itching for his sword, but he kept his hands still, gritting his teeth through the instructions. The guard followed them all the way to the dining hall, watching them like a hawk every step of the way. Adam could feel himself tensing the longer he trailed behind them, only relaxing a little when their escort waited outside. Apparently, their dining hall wasn't fit for humans, which only made Adam like it even more.

"Is it always like this?" Adam questioned as he started scrubbing the kitchen floor. The frayed brush and pail of soapy water he and Jakob shared made it a slow, grueling process. The hard tile wasn't exactly kind on his knees.

"We get different jobs each week, but it's always the worst ones." Jakob's answer didn't cheer him up. "Gideon makes sure of that."

"Gideon?"

"Sergeant Celik Gideon." Jakob nodded back out the door they'd come through. Adam couldn't see him at the moment, but he had a feeling the vile creature lurking outside belonged to that name, especially with how Jakob spat it out. Literally. He scrubbed the tile clean afterwards. "Every crew has an assigned guard, and we got the worst of them."

Adam couldn't disagree. Of the few guards he'd even interacted with, only one of them stood out, and not in a good way. "He's a jerk."

Jakob perked up a little. "Already had a run-in with him, have you?" Adam nodded, drawing a smile to Jakob's face. "I knew I'd like you. Tell me all about it."

Adam did. It wasn't a particularly long story, but that didn't seem to bother Jakob. He laughed at the end, cheering on Adam's defiance before sharing some of his own stories. Most of them ended with him in the hole, but Adam appreciated hearing someone else push back a little. Most of them were pretty minor things. A little backtalk here. An insult there. Refusing to follow orders. But the best ones were more blatant acts of rebellion. They probably explained Sergeant Gideon's aggressive enforcement of the boundary rules, too.

"You snuck all the way to the other side of camp?"

"It's easier than you'd think," Jakob promised. Through all his stories, they'd moved on from the dining hall to the entertainment complex. The two of them were busy scrubbing toilets at the moment, but Adam hardly noticed. "Funny thing about humans. They don't see well in the dark. Anyways, I got to their little warehouse and made off with a pair of wine bottles and as much chocolate as I could cram in my pants."

"Then what?"

"Came back here and shared it out," Jakob proudly boasted. "By the time they realized what happened, it was too late. Gideon found me later that morning halfway through the second bottle."

"No way!"

"Get this. I offered him a drink when he walked in. You should've seen the look on his face." Adam wished he could've been there. "Guy damn near broke the thing over my head before he hauled me off to the hole." As always, his stories ended in the same spot.

"You sure get sent to the hole a lot." At this point, Adam wondered why they even let him out.

"It's worth it," Jakob insisted. Adam wasn't sure he agreed. What little he'd heard of the camp's favorite punishment didn't sound too fun. A narrow pit out in the middle of camp with a grate over the top and barely enough room to sit down.

"I'm not sure I want to visit."

"Not the hole," Jakob said. "It's worth it to fight back a little. They can beat us down all they want, but we haven't lost until we give up."

Not giving up. Now that was something Adam could get behind. He'd never been one to back down from a challenge, though he didn't plan to be raiding any storehouses in the near future. Jakob seemed to have them covered on that front. He'd just continue working and helping his crew until he could move on from Camp Orostachys.

Speaking of which. "So…about what you said the other day…"

"Tomorrow," Jakob promised, refusing to drop the information early. "Don't look at me like that! I said Sunday, and I meant it."

"Fine." It wasn't, but what could Adam do? At least he only had one more day to go, assuming he survived scrubbing the next toilet. Someone had clogged it, leaving it a wretched mess of feces and toilet paper. Maybe Adam could skip it and leave it for Jakob.

He turned to sneak into the next stall, only to hear Jakob call out "I'll get started on the ladies' room," right before the door slammed shut.

Son of a-

/- - - - - - - - - -/

Sunday brought the welcome relief of an actual day off. He hadn't been at Orostachys long, but he already felt exhausted. More so when Sunday rolled around and he had nothing to do. The moment his body realized he wouldn't have to worry about hours of grueling work, it pretty much collapsed, intent on taking advantage of the day of rest.

Jakob invited him to see a movie in the rather packed theater room. Some Spruce Willis film full of over-the-top action, ridiculously exaggerated violence, and ridiculously evil villains. Jakob had scored them some seats up front, ahead of the rowdy audience who added their own commentary and laughter along the way, not to mention some appreciative sounds at a few scantily-clad women along the way. Adam definitely didn't sit up a little straighter at those points. He was just…really invested in the plot. Yeah. The plot. The twisting, turning, curvy plot. He didn't begrudge his fellow workers' interest. Orostachys had an annoying lack of females, even among the human workers. This was probably the closest some of them had gotten to the fairer sex in years. Maybe even decades.

The movie wasn't great, at least not in Adam's opinion, but it provided a nice distraction. Sitting in the darkened room watching a story unfold, it was easy to forget their surroundings for a couple hours. When someone said they'd be playing the sequel afterwards, Adam made no move to leave. He had a feeling he'd be acquiring a taste for cinema moving forward. It beat boredom and misery, hands down.

Adam hovered around Jakob after lunch, but he quickly pointed out the promise was for Sunday evening. A few hours shouldn't have mattered so much, but they felt like forever. Adam tried going back to the bunk and taking a nap, but that just meant tossing and turning. He couldn't get to sleep with all the questions going through his head.

What did Jakob mean no one left the island? They had to be able to. He'd been told he just had to give them three weeks' notice and make sure his account wasn't in the red. Why would the camp lie about that? What could they possibly gain from keeping them all there? How could they keep them all there? Okay, maybe the how was obvious. None of them had wings. In fact, none of them were aquatic faunus, either, not that it would be a short swim or anything. Anima's shores were hundreds of miles away. Even in a boat, it'd take days to get there. The only real option was by airship - the one Orostachys controlled.

Thoughts continued to swirl around until dinner, with Adam trying and failing to guess what Jakob meant. On the bright side, it helped pass the time with dinner sneaking up on him suddenly. He made sure to claim a seat next to Jakob, refusing to let him out of his sight as he laughed along to Jakob's jokes and enjoyed his latest round of shenanigans and stories. Through it all, he kept waiting for a chance to finally ask him until Jakob suddenly stood up and said the words he'd been waiting for.

"Well, I'm full. Guess I should go walk this one off." Walk? Adam ignored the titter in his mind at reacting like a dog. Was it finally time? Jakob answered almost immediately. "Hey, Adam. Wanna join me?"

"Absolutely." Adam didn't care how overly enthusiastic he sounded. He'd been waiting for days - almost as long as he'd known Jakob. A little excitement was warranted here.

Adam assumed they'd hit the track around the sports field, but Jakob led them past it without a word, hands in his pockets as they headed further and further from the dining hall. Adam had no idea where they were going, but he didn't care right now. All that mattered was that he got his answers. When they could walk no more - as in they nearly ran straight into the camp's wall - Jakob turned to the left and began talking as he went.

"Still wondering about what I said the other day?"

Duh! He wouldn't've followed Jakob out to the back end of nowhere otherwise. Adam knew better than to ruin the moment, though. "What did you mean 'no one leaves like that'? The airship, I mean."

Jakob shrugged. "Just like I said. No one leaves that way."

That didn't make any sense. "Then how do they leave?"

Another shrug, this time accompanied with a bitter laugh. "They don't." Adam tried to ask more, but Jakob pushed on. "No one leaves. At least, no one has since I've been here. In fact, I haven't found a single person who remembers someone catching that ride back to freedom."

"But they said-"

"They said," Jakob interrupted. "You can't trust anything they say."

"Who?" The office workers? The guards? The SDC?

"Humans." Adam stumbled but caught himself a moment later. What? "They don't care about us. You can't trust anything they say." Adam didn't know what to say. Thankfully, Jakob didn't wait for him, though his spiteful tone softened a bit. "Do you know how I got here?" Adam had a feeling he didn't mean the airship. "My dad was a violent drunk and my mom was a good shot. Guess which one won?"

Honestly, no one by the sounds of it.

"Mom went to prison, Dad went six feet under, and I wound up in a foster home. One that had no idea what to do with me."

"What happened?" It had to be better than the orphanage, right?

"Humans happened," Jakob answered, not even trying to hide his snarl. "Did you know moles have a second thumb?" Adam shook his head. He looked down at Jakob's hand, but everything looked normal aside from some scarring on the side. Jakob held a palm up and stared at it. "Helps with digging, ironically. Well, my new parents didn't know they'd gotten a faunus. 'It's just a deformed hand. We can fix that. He'll be normal in no time.' Normal? They didn't want normal. They wanted human.

"Took me to the doctor a few days later. Just a routine check-up, they said. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with my hands wrapped in bandages. Guy hacked up my hands, just so I'd look like one of them." They…but that…that was just wrong! No, more than that. It was sick. "They kept telling me how they'd done it to help me. How being normal was better. How I'd be just like them now. If that was normal, then I wanted nothing of it."

Adam couldn't help but agree. What sort of twisted freaks would chop off their kid's fingers and think that was a good thing? And all to fit in their idea of normal. What the heck was normal anyway? Were faunus normal? Maybe not, but someday they could be. Maybe humanity was evolving into something better. Humans might become the minority someday.

If they were evolving, they certainly weren't doing it fast enough. "I hated them for that. They acted like they'd done me some huge favor, but all I saw was their pathetic attempt to change me - make me who they wanted me to be. When I told them I was a faunus, they grounded me. When I told their friends, they beat me. And when I dared to fight back one day, they called the cops.

"Next thing I know, I'm in handcuffs and she's over there crying about how I attacked them. Me! The kid with bruises up and down his arms." It sounded eerily familiar. No one's going to believe you over me. They'll drag you away in a heartbeat. "Cops gave them the chance to drop charges, but they insisted. Said I was out of control. When the judge offered to let me avoid prison and work off my punishment, I thought he was showing mercy. Instead, I wound up here, condemned for a crime I never committed."

"Jakob…I'm sorry." What else could he say?

"Don't be," Jakob insisted, the faintest hint of a smile trying to break through before his eyes narrowed. "You didn't do anything. Humans did. It was a human judge that took my mom away from me. A human doctor butchered my hands. Human cops dragged me away. And now," Jakob held his hands wide, "I'm stuck in a human camp. At least until I can find my way out of here."

"How long is your sentence?"

Jakob laughed, the impregnable wall before him throwing the harsh sound back in their faces. Even that part of him was stuck here. "You still don't get it. My sentence ended years ago. This has nothing to do with any crime. This is all about control."

"But you-"

"There's no escaping, Adam," Jakob continued, ignoring his interjection. Or maybe he didn't even hear it, so lost in his sudden fervor. "No one ever leaves. They work us until we die. Or until they kill us."

"They what?!" Adam nearly choked on the word.

"Oh, don't worry. It's nothing direct. An accident here. A Grimm attack there. I've seen people go to the clinic for a broken leg, only to die from some mysterious infection the next day." That…no. It wasn't possible. Was it? Surely they wouldn't. Jakob had to be mistaken. "If you try to leave, they hit you with hidden fees to keep your debt up. If you somehow manage to pay that off, they've got a whole three weeks to get rid of you." The three weeks' notice. Then they'd terminate his employment. Or just terminate him. "Last guy that tried died in a cave-in. One before that had a sudden heart attack after visiting the Overseer. Some chalk it up to bad luck, but most of us know the truth. You work for nothing until they can't work you any longer, then they put us down like an animal."

Adam felt a little lightheaded as he steadied himself against the wall, forcing himself to take slower, deeper breaths as the darkness threatened to creep in. Jakob was wrong. He had to be! Or maybe this was his idea of a joke. Some cruel initiation to freak him out so he could tell everyone about it later. They'd laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing was and move on.

Or would they? Would any of them move on, or were they trapped within the walls of Orostachys, having volunteered for slavery under the guise of salvation. No. He couldn't accept that. Jakob had to be wrong. He just had to be.

But what if he wasn't?

"My advice," Jakob leaned over, looking Adam right in the eye as he spoke. Adam saw no mirth there. No spark of laughter hinting at this all being some big prank. It sent a chill down his spine. "Keep your head down and watch for a chance to escape. Let them lower your guard around you, then get out the moment they turn their back."

"Won't they stop me?"

"They'll try," Jakob agreed, "but what more can they do? We're all dead men as it is. If you see even the tiniest chance at life, grab it with both hands and don't let go."

If they were already doomed, then why bother working at all? Wouldn't it be better to just make a run for it? They could storm the airship when it landed. Or force their way out a gate at night. If they were lucky, some of them might make it through. The guards wouldn't let them go so easily, and they had nothing to go up against so much firepower. It would be a slaughter.

No. It made more sense to wait and plan. Look for little openings and figure out a way to get out. The guards wouldn't miss an entire camp making a break for it, but one or two? Anything more than that would be too many, but could Adam really leave his crew behind? He'd only known them a few days, but a few days of constant exposure made fast friends.

Maybe he could get out and let everyone know what was really going on at Orostachys. Yeah! He'd tell everyone about how they were trapping their workers and not actually paying them. How they could never leave and the suspicious deaths of some of the workers. He'd get the place investigated and all the workers freed.

Only, why would anyone believe him? This was so much worse than trying to fight Alyssa's claims. The SDC had an army of lawyers at their disposal. Faunus had been making claims against them for years. What could a random teenage runaway hope to accomplish? They'd promise an investigation, then sweep it - and him - under the rug. The world would move on, ignoring yet another false claim by a disgruntled worker, content to maintain the status quo. After all, what was one random faunus compared to the biggest company and main dust supplier on Remnant? If he caused them any trouble, they'd see him buried.

Oh gods. Trouble. No one caused more trouble in camp than Jakob. "What about you? Won't they do something if you keep causing trouble?"

"Eventually," Jakob said, somehow okay with the idea, "but I never go far enough to give them reason to. Better to throw me in the hole and use me as an example for everyone else. But that's why I do it." Adam tilted his head in confusion. "I want them focused on me. If they're always watching for my next antic, they might not notice someone like you. The more spotlight I grab, the more shadows there are for the rest to hide in. Plus, at this point, if I suddenly started behaving, they'd think something was up."

More of the status quo, just not the one they might want. Bane was strong. Maurice led. Jakob caused trouble. Business as usual, as far as the guards were concerned. As long as he never crossed the line too far, the worst they'd do is throw him in the hole again. And in doing so, he kept the heat off everyone else. He bore the punishment so others didn't have to. It sounded an awful lot like what Jean had said so long ago.

"Well, that's enough doom and gloom for one night." It was like a switch flipped all of the sudden. Jakob began walking once more, all the seriousness left behind as he morphed back into the carefree look he always wore. "You still up for that walk?"

"I-I guess." Adam hurried to catch up, his mind running a million miles ahead of his feet. They chatted about anything, everything, and nothing all at once. Jokes were thrown around. Jakob pointed out spots around camp and told stories. They discussed mining assignments and extra duties. They bounced from one thing to the next with reckless abandon.

Adam even shared some of his life, though only bits and pieces. Jakob had shared enough pain for the night, meaning most of Adam's life would have to wait for another time. He spoke of the waterfall back in Shizukana. His time on the trail. Erik and Nila - only the parts before Alyssa got involved, naturally. In fact, their walk as the sun dipped below the horizon brought up memories of another night. Another walk with a friend late in the evening all the way back in Katai. He just hoped this one ended differently. He liked Jakob and all, but not like that.

Eventually, Jakob ignored a turn on their meandering circuit and headed back for the bunkhouses. Adam kept pace, trying not to focus too much on everything Jakob had said, but that was easier said than done. A cold shower when they got back helped calm him back down, but that night, his mind was haunted with the nightmares of being trapped here forever. He couldn't let Orostachys be the last chapter in his story. There was so much more for him out there. He'd been condemned to greatness, and he intended to see that through. He'd find a way out…for all of them. No one in 3C would be left behind.

He promised.

Add another tragic backstory to the list. Just to be clear, in case someone wants to really stretch and somehow accuse me of stupidity, Jakob's story is not an attack on fostering or anything. I've known quite a few people who have been foster parents and provided great homes for kids. I've also seen stories of some pretty terrible ones, but those are the exception from what I can tell, not the rule. Just figured I'd head that one off at the pass.

Anyways, lots of Jakob stuff this chapter. He'll be a pretty prominent feature, especially during the mining camp arc. He's also our first truly anti-human character. I'm sure that won't have any impact on Adam in the future. Wasn't expecting to dive into the whole entrapment part of the camp this early, but like I said at the start, I'm looking to speed things up a little.

We also have a new named character in Sergeant Celik Gideon. As per tradition, it's time for me to explain the name. Not sure if anyone cares, but I always found it interesting to see how other writers came up with character names, so I'll keep doing it and everyone can ignore the extra note each time. Celik is Turkish for steel, while Gideon can be "great destroyer/warrior" or more commonly "hewer, feller, or one who cuts down." Basically, while Ferric may be the iron fist, Gideon is the steel axe. He won't be a major character, but we'll definitely see a lot more of this new antagonist.

Next chapter: Adam tries to come to terms with Jakob's revelations.