Chapter Twenty-Three

Oscar found himself floating in the back of his mind, his ability to override Ozpin exhausted for the moment. There was only so long he could stay in control of his body, and the duration got shorter by the day. Being loose in his own mind was an odd experience, but the scary part was how familiar it had gotten.

When Ozpin had the reigns, Oscar was free to sit back and observe. It was like sitting in a theatre populated by ghosts, watching through his eyes as Ozpin walked and talked and otherwise interacted with the world. If something happened in the real world, memories and thoughts would visit Oscar in his theatre seat. These could be disjointed sentences spoken by unfamiliar voices, images bright and clear or dull and hazy, scents, tastes, tactile memories of textures, and combinations of all of the above. Sometimes something akin to a lockbox would appear, floating in front of him. He had learned early on, after digging up the truth about Jinn and the lamp, that sometimes he didn't want to pry open the memories that Ozpin had locked away.

They had learned the truth about Jinn that day, learned that Ozpin had been hiding things from them, and Oscar resolved to expose the truth whenever he could. He dug into this task with a will, and he found that Ozpin still had some things he refused to give up. Oscar spent days chipping away at an ancient rusted metal container, sure it would be some revelation that would help their cause, ignoring Ozpins pleas to leave it be, and had recoiled in horror when the memories contained within were finally unleashed.

The memory was pleasant at first. In it, a quartet of young girls dressed in odd, old-fashioned garb played and ran and laughed in a large, cozy home, and then the scene abruptly changed. Oscar saw flashes of Salem as she had been as a much younger person, then a terrible fight, and then four small bodies pitifully strewn across a scarred wooden floor. Ozpin's daughters, killed in the crossfire when he and Salem had come to blows.

Oscar retreated then, disappearing into the recesses of his mind as he recoiled from the horror he had just seen. Ozpin stayed quiet for a long, long time after this, and after he and Oscar tentatively started talking again Oscar decided not to break open any more boxes. Sometimes they came open on their own, and that happened more and more frequently as the two men careened towards their fusing of souls, but Oscar never broke one on purpose after that.

Now, as Ozpin piloted their shared body through the ruins and helped Ruby and the others fight grimm, Oscar stubbornly ignored the box that had been jostling around for the last few days. It was newer in construction, all polished steel and gold detailing, and Oscar had caught glimpses of it in the past. Now it stayed, firmly in the forefront of their shared minds, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

As he watched Ruby cut down a Sabyr, working in tandem with Ozpin, and flash him a bright, sunny smile, he turned away. He couldn't face that right now. Not until he knew that he and Oz would finally be free of each other. As his gaze turned away from the screen, it fell upon the shining box. He averted his eyes from this as well, until one of his memories of Ruby settled next to him. He looked at it, saw her as she had been during one of their early sparring matches, eager, ready to learn, felt the memory of contact as they had gone through practice motions, smelled the scent of her hair as they mock-fought each other, and retreated hastily. He tripped over the shining box and sprawled across the floor of his mind.

It still shone steel and gold, solidly constructed, with an ornate lock on the front. Oscar frowned as he peered at the lock, steadfast in his disregard of the Ruby memory. It almost looked like a crown. He had never given this particular memory of Oz's much thought, he was still afraid of what the ancient being might have hidden away, but when the alternative was staring at the future he was almost sure to lose, it didn't seem bad at all. In fact, it felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man, and he seized upon it.

To his surprise the lock rattled as he reached out a hand to it. A quick glance confirmed that Oz was still battling grimm, and he grabbed the lock. It opened under his touch, unlatching and falling away as though it had been waiting for him. Again, he glanced out his shared eyes confirming that Ozpin was indeed busy, and then he flipped open the lid.

A young man was inside, golden haired and tanned, shame-facedly explaining something to Ozpin. Oscar listened, rapt and with an increasing sense of panic, as the man talked. He looked familiar, something about the shape of his face and the color of his hair. Oh crap, he finally realized. That's Ruby's dad.

Ruby swept Crescent Rose in an arc, lining the haft of the weapon up with her shoulder and firing off a shot as the last of the Sabyrs dove at her. Next to her, Oscar planted his cane in the ground and smiled. She beamed back, until Ozpin spoke.

"Well fought, Miss Rose. I think we're nearing the old command center, shouldn't be much longer now."

It was unmistakably Ozpin speaking through Oscar's mouth. Ruby felt her smile slipping but caught it before it could betray her. "Yeah, we're making good time despite the grimm."

Behind her, Yang was slotting new shells into Ember Celica as her team took a short breather. "Feels good to smash some grimm," she said.

"It would be faster if Ren was still with us, but I must admit the grimm haven't posed much of a challenge," Weiss said.

"Cuz we kick ass!" Nora said. "Girl power! Oscar, you can be a temporary member of Team Girl Power if you want, since we left your guy friends behind."

"I assure you that while I am quite flattered, I'm perfectly fine tagging along as a sidekick and not a full member, Miss Valkyrie," Ozpin said.

"Ah, Oscar taking a break?" Nora asked.

"Yes, unfortunately, he can't stay in control for extended periods of time anymore. In fact, he"- Ozpin stopped talking, eyes going wide.

"Oz? What's up?" Ruby asked, alarm coloring her voice.

Ozpin shook his head. "Sorry. Oscar stumbled into something I wasn't expecting."

"That sounds awfully suspicious, Oz," Yang said.

Oscar shook his head energetically. "Hey guys, sorry about that. Nothing to worry about here, everything is ok. Just trying to delay the merge."

Everyone looked at Oscar/Ozpin with varying degrees of doubt. "If you say so, then I believe it," Ruby said. She smiled at Oscar, and the unspoken order to her team was to drop it. "Good to have you back. Let's move on."

Ruby led as they made their way down the meandering, shattered streets. A large building, once sleek and modern, now broken and soot-stained, rose in the near distance. The Command Center of Atlas. Ruby stole a glance back at Oscar as they walked, worry in her eyes. The last exchange had been a bit odd; it really had felt like the pair were hiding something. She trusted Oscar even as she didn't trust Ozpin, but both had assured the group nothing was wrong. Focus, Ruby! she admonished. She could worry about that after they had finished the current mission.

"You saw what I saw, right?" Oscar asked Ozpin as they followed Ruby through the ruins.

"Yes, yes, I did."

"Tai, Ruby's dad, knows where the Crown is. YOU know where the Crown is. When were you planning on telling us?" Oscar said, anger palpable in his voice.

"Oscar, the only man who knows where the Crown is, is Tai. That conversation you unlocked is as far as my knowledge goes. Tai has a unique semblance that I took advantage of."

"Ok, so what is Tai's semblance, and how does the Crown figure into it?" Oscar asked.

"Dragon's Hoard. He can designate certain things he's the guardian of. He used it in Beacon to hide alcohol from the teachers on more than one occasion. I'm sure Raven and Qrow put him up to it, it was Summer that made him fess up in the end. I showed him the true value of what he had."

"How does it work?"

"He picks an object, anything inanimate works, and he becomes its guardian. It's his hoard, so to speak. Once I knew what I was working with, I made him promise to stop using it to hide cheap vodka and turned it towards a better use."

"And nobody else know this?"

"His old teammates know of his semblance, but they don't know he knows where the crown is, unless I'm mistaken. That conversation was between me and him, and he promised he wouldn't divulge the information."

Oscar lapsed into silence, still reeling from this revelation. Eventually, he said, "You really think Tai didn't tell anyone?"

"Summer didn't know. If she did, Salem would have the Crown already. And if Tai didn't tell her, he didn't tell anyone. He's also, maybe to his shame, a very good liar when he needs to be."

We have to tell them," Oscar said, referring to Ruby and the others.

"I agree, but I think it is in our best interest to wait until we're on our way back to Vacuo. I don't want to risk the current mission."

"But their dad knows where the lost relic is! Salem has the Lamp and the Staff, if she somehow figures out that he has the Crown she's going to go after him!"

"Yes, Oscar. But think! If we tell Ruby and Yang this information now, what will they do?"

Oscar paused. "Want to go to him right away." He sighed, and couldn't quite stop the sound escaping from the mental conversation and out his lips into the real world. Emerald, who was next to him, gave him a sidelong glance, but chose to ignore it and started walking slower to put distance between them.

"They'll want to go to him, which is a distraction that we do not need at this juncture. It waits."

"Fine. It waits. But I get to tell them, deal?"

"Deal. You can tell them."

Ruby caught Oscar conversing with himself on more than one occasion, whispered words escaping from him in a hiss, and her worry grew. Emerald, who had started the walk next to him, had circumspectly fallen further and further back in line, unwilling to acknowledge Oscar's mental state. Something had happened, and Ruby still wasn't sure it was solely the merge. Whatever it was, she hoped he'd come out of it soon.

She put her worries aside as the group stopped outside of the broken, burned-out ruins of the command center. The scale of destruction was staggering. The glass, and even some of the steel, had a melted, sagging look to it, patterned in a rippling mosaic of heat-induced stress. Yang whistled.

"This place burned before the crash. Like, burn burned. What runs that hot?"

"Cinder, maybe," Emerald said. "I don't know why she would have gone after this building though."

Ruby stood silent, sizing up the building as though it were an opponent to defeat. In a way, it was. "Right. We stick together and move slow. We know from FNKI that parts of the interior are still intact, but we should be careful. Don't want to cause any collapses once we're inside."

"Should we address the elephants in the room?" Blake asked. She nudged Yang, smiling, as she did so.

"Yang is kinda large, but I don't know that I'd call her an elephant…" Ruby said.

"What elephants?" Nora asked. "If there's a goliath, just point me at it!"

Weiss rolled her eyes and then closed them, tipping her head skyward and slowly letting out a prolonged and very exasperated sigh. "I'm surrounded by morons," she finally said. "Not you, or you," Weiss pointed at Blake and Emerald, "But you two are hopeless," she pointed at Ruby and Nora. "Blake's point was that Nora and Yang aren't really the subtle types."

"Why be subtle when you have a big hammer?" Nora asked as she smacked Manghild lovingly against her palm.

"Because we don't want to bring the roof down on our heads. Ruby literally just said that," Emerald said.

"Are you suggesting I stay outside, dear?" Yang asked Blake, arms crossed.

"I'm suggesting that you be careful not to overdo it once we're inside the building. We all know you're strong, this is time for the rest of us to shine," Blake said.

"Hmm. I can't promise anything," Yang said.

"You'd better, because if you bring the roof down on our heads you're sleeping in Ruby's room when we get back."

"Ouch, ok ok," Yang said, laughing. "No punching through the walls."

"That's no fun. All I'm good at is smashing stuff," Nora said.

"And you do it well. Just maybe not inside a half-collapsed building," Emerald said, patting her on the shoulder.

Ruby's scroll chimed, signaling a check-in from Ciel. She pulled the device out and started to type. Still good. About to enter the building. We'll call if we need you, Ruby sent back. She looked up. "Ok! No smashing things! Let's get in and find what we're here for. Ciel and the others are on emergency standby if we need them."

Ruby picked an opening in the broken wall, the doors having been crushed into non-use, and slipped inside. The rest of her team followed, and one by one they disappeared into the icy, dark interior.

Back at the building where Jaune and the others were recuperating, Ciel continued her work on her Paladin. The autocannon was going to need some time in a proper shop to get fixed up, but she thought she could reconfigure it for single shot mode. If she had the time. The stripped parts, broken and unbroken alike, were laid out around her. The pieces that had no hope of field salvage were relegated to a heap, and she surveyed the rest of her components with an appraising eye.

The loading mechanism in the arm of her mech was largely undamaged. The multi-barrel gatling cannon, however, was broken beyond her current ability to repair. She thought she would be able to tweak the loader, using a cut section of barrel as a stop-gap measure to turn the arm into a rifle instead. This would give her at least a little firepower back. She would need time to recalibrate her sights, and her rate of fire would be atrocious, but it was something.

Humming to herself, she selected the longest piece of barrel she could find and pulled out her cutting tool. She had insisted on a field repair kit for her machine, and Atlas command had granted her request. Ciel had a knack for machinery that few others could match, and of all the Paladin pilots she was the only one that doubled as a mechanic. She ignited the plasma blade and began to cut the barrel down, shearing off the end that had bent out of true. Her eyes shifted and glowed as she worked, her semblance, Clockwork, keeping her hands steady and her blade cutting straight. If she kept to her ceaseless internal rhythm and worked apace of it, she had little need for double checking her measurements and dimensions. Her semblance would instinctively do it for her. This was Ciel in her element, and she was rarely happier than when she got to work on a project like this.

Inside the building behind her, Jett watched her work. He was still sore from his earlier ordeal, but that man, Jaune, (the Rusted Knight!), had somehow healed the worst of his wounds. His physical wounds, at any rate. He still felt like a piece of shit for getting his team into this mess, and Ted was still missing. Em, at least, was no longer in danger of hypothermia, and her and Topaz sat with the other man, Ren, sipping from steaming mugs of soup. Jett didn't know where he had gotten the ingredients from and hadn't asked. He was grateful, however, that his team was being taken care of. And it did smell pretty damned good.

Em caught him looking and raised her mug. "Come get some, Jay. It'll warm you right up."

He grinned at her, but the smile felt false on his face. "Thanks, Em, but I'm gonna go look upstairs, see if I can't find any clues."

Emerald nodded, but Topaz, her face stony, sipped at her soup and ignored him. Jett sighed. He had a lot of work to do if he was going to keep what remained of his team together. Ren looked at him with sympathy, his eyes soft, his smile gentle. "There's soup waiting for you when you're ready. I'll keep it warm."

Jett grunted, embarrassed. They were getting taken care of better than they had any right to be, and by strangers from another kingdom, nonetheless. Vacuans had a fierce independent streak, and while they looked after their own, outsiders were given much less consideration. At least they weren't from Atlas. He didn't know if could have stomached getting rescued by those pompous upstarts. There had been the one woman, the one who was with Jaune, who was dressed like an Atlesian, but she hadn't rubbed it in their faces, even if she was a bit aloof.

He tromped up the stairs and stopped short when he entered the room at the top. There was a gods-awful pool of blood in the middle of the room. Ted's last stand. What had gotten him, though, remained to be seen. The window was shattered, but there was no glass on the floor. It had broken from the inside, the glass falling to the ground outside. He peered out and down. There was no telltale glitter in the snow below, so the break hadn't happened recently. Ted hadn't broken the window. One avenue of attack down, a grimm would have had to have been pretty small to get in that way, and there hadn't been any small grimm in the swarm that they had fought off.

He looked up towards the ceiling. That was more promising, as there was a large, ragged hole punched through the boards, exposing the marble-white sky above. Being careful not to step in the pool of Ted's blood, he circled the hole and studied the edges. The boards were splintered and uneven, forming a rough ovoid, but he didn't see any blood marring their edges. Something had wounded his friend, and then taken him, weapons, gear, and all, without leaving a trace behind. Jett frowned, and then sighed. Through the hole it would have to be.

"Sorry man," he said as he walked through Ted's blood. It had frozen in the cold already, making the surface treacherously slick. Once below the center of the hole in the ceiling, he methodically stomped down on the frozen blood, breaking the ice and giving him more stable ground to stand on. He needed his footing secure for this next part.

He shook himself out, flexing his muscles, and grimaced when his back twitched in pain. The hole left by the manticore still smarted. He ignored this the best he could, then crouched and leapt, hands reaching for the sturdiest looking board he could see. His fingers caught, and with a heave he pulled himself up. His wounded back yelled at this, and the damaged muscles jumped and shuddered involuntarily, like small insects were dancing under his skin, but he ground his teeth and rolled over the lip of the hole. He was up.

He lay on the cold wood for a moment, catching his breath, and then sat up. He was on the 'roof' of the building, though in reality he was pretty sure the real roof had been ripped off. The wooden floor ran over to a baseboard, which lined the bottom of a now nonexistent wall. As he took in his surroundings, a splash of muted color caught his eye. Rust red droplets, frozen onto the wood in splatters that looked like they could have come from a painter's easel, made a trail leading away from him. Heart thumping in his chest, Jett followed them.

They ran all the way to the edge of the roof. Jett stopped and peered over. Bare street lay below. No dice there. He looked across the way. Another, taller building was across the street, but 'street' was being generous. The two buildings were separated by about ten feet, and there was a ragged hole in the wall that was level with him. Jett paused and looked back towards the hold he had climbed up. He really should get some backup. Then again, they might caution him to stay put, and if there was any chance in hell that Ted was alive, the less time he wasted the better.

He turned back to the other building, his expression tortured as he weighed his options, and swore. This sucked. With a grimace, he walked back to the hole and readied himself to drop back down and call for back up. He wasn't sure what alerted him, whether a soft, whispering noise had been made, or if the very air had caused a disturbance that he keyed in on, but his instincts screamed at him to duck. Duck he did, and something white and ropey flashed by over his head.

He turned as adrenaline dumped into his system, setting his nerves aflame and causing his muscles to tense. His shotgun was halfway out of its holster when a second burst of ropes hit him square in the chest and enveloped him like a scratchy blanket. They pinned his arms to his side, and he only had the briefest of moments to scream before his head was hit with a second mass that coated his tongue and choked off his voice. He was caught.

"There are way more bodies in here than I thought there would be," Yang said, wrinkling her nose.

"They were Atlas military. Given the choice between abandoning the city or staying to oversee the evacuation, you can guess what they picked," Weiss said. She was staring at a blackened corpse as she spoke, her eyes like dull coins.

"That's pretty bleak," Emerald said. "They knew this place was doomed, and portals went out to everyone. Why stay?"

"Duty," Blake said.

"Oooh, here's a fun thought. What if they were killed before the evacuation even started?" Nora asked.

"Fun? That's a fun thought, Nora? That's wildly horrifying is what it is," Ruby said.

"You know, fun as in interesting. Not fun as in fun fun. Like when someone says fun fact and then mentions a fact that isn't fun at all, like how you're more likely to die on your birthday."

Everyone stared at her. "Nora, you've got an odd way of looking at the world," Blake said.

"Is that really true?" Emerald asked with genuine curiosity.

"Yup! Well, at least that's what I was always told. Think about it. You're more likely to be doing fun stuff on your birthday, like skydiving, or grimm wrestling, or eating contests. All of those come with inherent dangers."

"I think that's a list of things you like to do on your birthday. Don't lump the general population in you," Weiss said.

"What kind of danger is there in an eating contest?" Yang asked as the group began to move on.

"Choking," Nora replied promptly. "Or allergic reactions," she added as an afterthought.

As they moved deeper into the building, the effects of the fire grew more apparent as the halls got blacker and the air got heavier. Even with the intense cold, a lingering smell of scorched flesh clung to every surface. The blackened residue was people, Ruby realized. Her gorge rose in her throat, and she had to swallow repeatedly to make it go back down. Gods.

"This keeps getting more and more pleasant the further we explore," Yang said as she peered at the soot-stained walls.

"Really? I thought things were getting way worse," Nora said.

"I cannot tell if you're being serious," Emerald said, eyeing Nora askance.

"Very. This place is like a haunted tomb."

Blake caught Emerald's eye and just shook her head. Nora is Nora, that gesture said. Emerald just looked perplexed. She had spent plenty of time with Nora over the last couple of weeks, but the airy redhead's mannerisms were still an enigma to her.

"Shush!" Ruby called. She had drawn her scythe and was stalking towards a gap in one of the walls. She lunged, Crescent Rose slashing neatly into the opening, and there was a squeal as something died.

"The heck was that?" Nora asked.

"Centinel," Ruby said. "On your guard, when there's one there's more."

The chatter died as everyone readied their weapons. The walls scuttled to life as dozens of the centipedal grimm swarmed out of them. Nora began to swing Manghild with her usual abandon, and then remembered Ruby's earlier warning and shorted her swing, missing her attack in the process. "Ah biscuits," she said, more in disappointment than fear as her target sped towards her, mandibles clicking.

Weiss flashed in front of her, Myrtenaster shimmering in the gloom, and the centinal died with a hiss. Weiss tipped a wink at Nora and disappeared again in a flash. Nora grumbled, but steadied her maul and tried again. It felt wrong, not putting her full weight into a swing, and was surprised when the hammerhead still smashed the next centinel into black paste. Huh, she thought, pleased.

On the other side of them room Yang played backup to Blake, covering her as she danced through her foes. Gambol Shroud neatly severed limbs split chitin as Blake gracefully tumbled around the room, using her shadows to dart around the battlefield like a specter of death.

Emerald had backed herself into a corner, confident the others wouldn't let anything near her, and picked off centinels one by one with her revolvers. Ruby herself was a red blur, cutting down anything that Blake and Weiss missed. The fight was over in a little less than a minute, the women of the combined teams working together seamlessly to take down the grimm. Oscar had kept himself out of the way, and hadn't made any kills, Ruby noticed. She went over to him as she stowed Crescent Rose.

"You ok? You've been kinda off."

"Yeah, yeah. Having an, ah, 'discordance of souls' as Oz calls it," Oscar replied.

"A what now?" Ruby asked.

"He means that me and him aren't meshing well at the moment. Which is good! I think. We're still fighting the merge." He sounded confident as he spoke, but Ruby didn't fail to notice that he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Oscar, it's ok if something is wrong. We're here for you. I'm here for you." She patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't shut us out, ok?"

"Yeah. We won't." He still wouldn't meet her eyes.

Ruby studied him for another moment, her concern not abated in the least, but once again set it aside. She gave Oscar one last pat and then took point again. "One grimm nest down!" She proclaimed.

"Who knows how many more," Yang added, grinning.

"Good thing you gave us a warning about the building, Ruby," Nora said. "Those centinels made a mess of the walls with their tunnels. If I'd gone all out, hoo boy, that could have been bad." She hefted Manghild, laid it across her shoulders, took a single step, and disappeared with a crash as the floor gave out underneath her.

Jaune looked at Ren with alarm, Crocea Mars already in his hands. They had all heard the scream, loud, frightened, and worryingly truncated from upstairs. Something had happened to Jett. As they rushed the stairs, a rhythmic pop pop pop came from the front of the building. Small arms fire.

"Holyshitbrothergodsdamnit!" Came a loud, breathy exclamation from the same direction, followed by a meaty thud. "That was Jett," Em said. "He must have fallen off the roof."

"Why the gunfire though?" Topaz growled as she stomped outside. Everyone else followed her.

They were greeted by the sight of a spread-eagled Jett sprawled across Ciel's carefully sorted parts. She was standing over him, reloading her sidearm, a fierce scowl on her face. "You could have tried to land a little more gracefully," she told the supine figure.

"I'll try to remember that the next time I fall two stories," Jett replied. He sounded like his breath had been knocked into a different time zone.

"What happened?" Jaune asked.

"Grimm," Jett gasped. "Had webs. Caught me. Died."

"I heard the scream and was fortunate enough to catch sight of the beast. Some sort of arachnid. Didn't know they made them that big in Solitas. I killed it, and Jett there was knocked off the building in the process. You're welcome," she added to the still gasping man.

"Thanks," Jett wheezed.

"Spider grimm live in the cold?" Topaz asked. "That's not something I would have expected." She seemed utterly unperturbed at her team leader's misfortune.

"They're rare, but they exist. They absorb ice dust," Ciel said. She was eyeing Jett, and the mess he had made of her work area.

Em knelt next to Jett and helped him to his feet. Together with Ren, she helped him hobble back inside. Ciel immediately went back to work, as though nothing exciting had happened. Jaune watched her for a moment, nonplussed, thought about saying something, thought better of it, and then followed the others. He extended his aura to Jett to facilitate a quicker recovery as Ren forced a cup of soup onto him.

"I think I know what happened to Ted," Jett said between sips of soup. He still sounded slightly winded.

"Were there more than one?" Jaune asked.

"I don't know. I followed the trail to the next building and turned back to tell you guys, then I got ambushed."

"We can check it out. If there's any chance he's alive, we'll take it," Jaune assured him.

"If they're anything like the sandspiders in Vacuo he's gone," Topaz said.

"We're not going to leave anyone behind if we can help it," Ren said.

"We'll help, right Topaz?" Em said, nudging the other woman, eyes pleading.

Topaz sighed, the sound like a rock being dragged over wet sandpaper through her injured throat. "Fine. Yeah. Wouldn't do for a Vacuan lad to be buried in Atlas, anyway."

Jaune stuck his head back out the door. "Hey, Ciel, we're gonna see if there are more of those things. You good here?" Ciel, without turning around, just waved impatiently. "Right. Lead on, Jett."

Jett took a deep breath, felt the leaden ache in his back subside by the smallest of margins, and went back upstairs. "We need to get on the roof, then across to the other building," he said, looking up at the hole in the ceiling.

Ren rubbed the side of his head, and when it was apparent no one else was going to say it, asked, "Would it be possible to just enter the building from the ground?"

There was a beat of silence. "Uh. Yeah, I 'spose so," Jett said.

They all stood there in an uncertain circle for another long, quiet moment, then trooped back downstairs and outside. They filed past Ciel who ignored them, engrossed in her work, and around the corner to the place Jett indicated. The building they stopped outside of used to be an apartment complex, and the front door hung warped in its twisted frame. Jett walked forward and tried to open it. It stuck fast, the wood frozen and jammed.

He turned to the group, sheepish, and shrugged. Topaz walked forward and put a heavy boot straight through the wood. She swore, having expected the door to simply fall open, and lost her balance. Em caught her before she twisted her knee, and helped extricate her foot.

Once Topaz was out of the way, they levered the splintered wood out of the frame and slipped into the building one after another. The inside was dim, lit only by the watery light that streamed in through the broken door. Jaune took point, sword and shield in hand as he ventured deeper into the building. The air inside was dry and smelled of something astringent and sharp. It made Jaune's sinuses burn, and he felt a sneeze building. He fought it, nose wrinkling in concentration, but it was a doomed enterprise. When he lost, the sneeze exploded out of him like a gunshot.

Jett jumped out of his skin and whipped his shotgun forward, missing Ren by a fraction as the barrel spun. "Easy, Jett," Ren cautioned, ducking around the gun barrel.

"Sorry," Jaune said, rubbing as his nose. "That smell got to me. I"- he sneezed again, eyes streaming. From upstairs, something shrieked.

A copse of weapons pointed upward. Topaz snorted. "We a bunch of sissies or what?" the brusque woman growled.

Jaune ignored this and made his way for the stairs. They loomed drunkenly in the gloom, rising like a broken ladder into the deeper darkness above. The entire building felt shifted, like it had hit the ground and slid an inch or so on its foundation before coming to a rest. It made Jaune uneasy. He wanted to find what they were here for and get out.

As he climbed, he started to focus his aura. It began to give off a soft golden glow, illuminating the black hall. It was going to make him one hell of a target, but he was confident he could handle whatever was lurking in dark. Besides, it already knew they were there after his explosive outburst of sneezing.

The upper landing was covered in thick webbing, and the staircase ended in rubble. They wouldn't be climbing any further here. The webs that coated every surface sucked in the light from Jaune's aura and glowed a dim yellow, giving a jaundiced appearance to the environment. The smell was much stronger up here. It's the webs, Jaune thought. The webs are making me sneeze. He stepped forward carefully, shield up and Crocea Mars at the ready. The others came behind him. He could hear Topaz quietly cursing as her boots caught in the sticky webs.

The passed a hallway perpendicular to them, and a draft of the strange air washed over the group. Jaune peered down it, saw nothing, and moved on. Jett, two people back, paused in the intersection, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, his gut twisting in fear. He felt a loop of something thick drop over him and begin to pull him upwards. He cried out, and behind him, he heard Em's whip crack as she lashed out at a multi-legged monstrosity that loomed from the darkness like a nightmare. The trap had been sprung.

Jett, acting on instinct, pointed his shotgun straight up and fire both barrels with a single trigger pull. He dropped back to the floor, showered with wood debris and black ichor. Ren sprinted past him towards Em, pistols raised and spitting a hail of bullets. Topaz, who had been next to Jett, had her rifle shoulder and was firing off searing yellow dust rounds down the hallway. Jett could see multi-faceted eyes glittering with menace in the stuttering light. How many of these things are there? he thought, racking the slide of his weapon.

All of this was happening behind Jaune, who started to turn, ready to engage, when something struck him. He looked down to find his arms welded to his sides with a sticky white mass. Before he could do anything else, he was yanked backwards and disappeared into the gloom. His shocked yell was lost in the cacophony of gunfire, and his team, embroiled in the fighting, didn't see him disappear.

Ren and Em fought side by side with Jett and Topaz at their back. The swarm of arachnids had thinned as the combined firepower of the Hunters battered them, and the survivors broke off and scurried away. Ren frowned at this as he tracked the retreating figures with Stormflower. Grimm very rarely retreated, fighting to the last was more their style, and Ren was uneasy about their apparent fortune. Topaz continued to pop off shots, determined to kill as many grimm as she could. When the dust settled, and only then, did they miss Jaune.

Ren felt ice in his stomach, and he inwardly cursed his inattentiveness. "Which way did he go? Did anyone see?"

A chorus of muttered negatives came back to him. Ren was spared deciding when the ceiling rattled suddenly, and more shot-riddled boards fell to the ground. He looked up into the space Jett had blasted with his shotgun, then fired his grappling hooks into the hole. He rocketed from view, leaving JET to scramble after him, and landed running in another hallway. He could hear the sounds of a struggle in front of him, and Jaune's voice raised in anger. From behind him, Em came into view, her whip lashed around an exposed board. She dropped the whip back into the hole and pulled her friends up, but Ren was already moving again. He would not lose Jaune this time.

Ren burst out the end of the hallway into a large space exposed to the elements. A chunk of wall was missing, letting in pale white light from outside. And there, struggling against a cocoon of webbing, was Jaune. Above him, a behemoth of an arachnid hung, spinning more and more web to encase the Huntsman. It was twice again the size of the grimm they had fought on the lower level, encased in bone white chitin daubed with scarlet markings. It chittered as Ren came into its view, and the hairy bristles on its abdomen stood on end and then launched with a whickering noise. Ren cartwheeled in the air, the bristles flashing by beneath him, glowing pale blue. They impacted the wall with a flash, ice clusters growing where they hit. Ren charged forward, Stormflower chattering.

The beast dropped from its perch and met Ren in a charge of its own. Ren went down and slid under the grimm, unloading the clips from both of his pistols into the arachnid's underside. He came to his feet on the other side, sprinting towards Jaune with his blades extended. In one smooth movement the daggers flashed and the webbing fell apart. Golden light washed through the room as Jaune was freed. His armor glowed, Crocea Mars grew whole once more, and his eyes flared. As the spider turned to face him, Jaune roared a challenge.

A brace of icy bristles flew his way, and he batted them aside with his shield. They burst well past their target, peppering the wall with ice shards. A long, hairy leg ending in a sharp claw stabbed towards him and Crocea Mars sang, severing the limb. The grimm chittered, mandibles clicking, as it lunged. Jaune's aura intensified, focused down the length of his arm and into his sword, and there was a brilliant flash of light as he smote the arachnid.

JET came into the room just in time to see this hard-light slash bifurcate the grimm, the creature falling apart into two distinct pieces before dissolving into smoke. Jaune and Ren stood on the other side, the former shining in his armor, the latter reloading his pistols. Em whistled.

"You boys alright?" the cobra faunus asked.

Jaune stepped forward, his aura fading, Crocea Mars riven once more, his armor taking back its rusted form. "Yeah. All good here."

Jett came into the room, his eyes locked onto the corner where a massive cocoon was slowly dissolving. Made by the grimm, it was fading, succumbing to the same law that turned all dead grimm into smoky ether. Bodies were beginning to show as the webbing disappeared. Jett walked towards it on numb legs and caught the first person that dropped out of the webs, lowering it gently to the floor. It was a slim, bespectacled man, pale as death. A bloodless hole in his stomach and a pair of holes through his ribcage told the tale. Killed and drained by the grimm, he had then been stored for reasons only known to the dead beasts.

Topaz grunted and averted her gaze, staring at the floor. Em knelt next to Jett and leaned her head into his shoulder. There were tears in all their eyes. Jaune and Ren stood a silent vigil, giving the Vacuan team as much time as they needed. Slowly, reverently, they gathered their fallen friend and carried him outside.

"Nora! You alive?" Ruby called into the void that had swallowed her friend.

"This is bullcrap," came the distant response. "All I was doing was walking, minding my own business. I didn't even hit anything with my hammer."

"We'll be down in a moment," Ruby called back. "We doing this the hard way or the easy way?" she asked the rest.

"What do you mean?" Emerald asked as Blake groaned.

"Ruby can use her semblance, or we can climb down. Petal Burst can make you a bit motion sick if you aren't used to it," Yang said as she patted Blake consolingly on the back.

"How about Ruby takes whoever wants to go, and I'll just climb down?" Blake suggested.

"Deal! Who's in?" Ruby asked.

Emerald shrugged. "May as well see what this is about."

In a scarlet whirl, Ruby swept everyone away but Blake. Emerald came out the other end shaken, her sense of equilibrium shot. That had been wild. Her body had turned into what she imagined being a liquid would feel like, and the world had flowed by so fast. When her feet returned to her, her brain hadn't caught up yet and she had a vivid impression that she was going smash into the wall.

Yang, who had taken to Petal Burst quite well and very much enjoyed the sensation, came out grinning. Oscar came out with a look of intense concentration, but he didn't fall, and Weiss came out alert and ready, rapier held in a guard position.

Blake dropped down a minute later, landing cat-like in the gloom. "Where's Nora?" she asked.

"Good question. NORAAAA!" Yang called.

"You, uh, trying to bring every grimm in this place down on our heads?" Emerald asked, rubbing her ear. Yang was standing right next to her.

Yang shrugged. "Nora is already down here. If she hasn't attracted anything then there probably isn't anything to attract." Emerald considered this. That sounded about right, actually. Nora wouldn't go out of her way to avoid grimm, like ever.

"Over here! I found something!" came the faint reply.

"You think she found what we're after?" Ruby asked as they made their way towards the voice.

"Knowing Nora, it's probably a vending machine or something," Yang said.

They walked into a large room that was full of machinery. Nora was in the middle, beaming, standing next to sleek pod. "This looks like those pictures Dr. Polendina showed us, yeah?"

"Nora! You did it!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Huh. She really did it," Yang said, bemused. "That wasn't so bad."

Oscar inspected the machine in question. "Oz says this is it, alright." He sounded excited for the first time in ages, and the others grinned.

Ruby pulled out her scroll and dialed Ciel. "Hey, we found it! Get the others over here so we can extract." She listened for a moment, then hung up. "They'll be here soon. Sounds like Jaune and the others had a scuffle, but everyone is ok."

Oscar looked at everyone, relief and gratitude shining through his eyes. "Thank you all so much."

"Aw, Oscar," Nora said, before crushing him into a hug. "Anything for a friend."