Chapter 35 – The Hour of Doom
How are you supposed to react when your entire world ends?
Yang, her golden locks full of brilliant flames that light up the world as evening set in following their long day of trekking and fighting, gripped the wheel-handle of the door and rotated it. Even with her bulging muscles and highly above average strength, prying it open seemed like a struggle.
"We can help," Ruby offered, though how much her limp little noodle arms could help, Blake didn't know.
"No, I gotta do this alone," Yang grunted, straining like she was about to take a shit. "It's part of the job, y'know?"
"No, we don't," Ren said, speaking for all of them.
"Theeeeeere we go," Yang said at last, as the wheel began to turn. It was attacked to a hatch that was built right into the ground, resembling the exterior door of a submarine or old-fashioned airship, back when they'd been kept afloat by lighter-than-air gases. The metal on it was old and rusted but still quite durable, though none of that meant a thing to Yang.
She rotated it a total of eight times and was sweating so profusely Blake half expected her to melt by the end of it, but Yang just snorted victoriously and let her own semblance evaporate off the sweat.
"Woooh, that was a heckuva workout!"
"I'm sure," Blake said sarcastically. "Alright, if we're breaching this thing, we've got no choice but to enter one at a time. Jaune, your aura is the largest. Would you go first? Velv…I can follow behind you for protection."
Velvet scoffed at the clear change in plans mid-way through Blake announcing them, but she was quitting the team and so was Blake, so fuck her.
"I…sure, I guess. Human shield it is."
Literally, this time.
"We have no idea what's down there," said the Beacon professor. "Be on your guard children. Whatever it is, our only clues are that it's artificial and that it drives the Grimm insane."
The hatch opened up into a vertical tunnel that led about fifty feet beneath the surface of Remnant, with a ladder that they had to climb down one by one. Ruby offered to go right after Blake, but Blake declined, pointing out that if they had too many of their fights stuck in the tight space as they climbed down the ladder, they could be vulnerable to a counterattack with no means to defend.
It's not the first time I've had to breach a potentially heavily defended location. Perhaps I should make some slip-ups so that my White Fang training isn't too obvious.
But then if something went wrong and Jaune died, Blake would be at fault.
I…this is gonna be the last time I see him. Oh my gods, I didn't even think quitting Team Job through. He and I are roommates, and he needs me on the team for my leadership and training. And I don't have another job lined up beyond this.
But the alternative was asking Velvet to leave and raise her kid on the street. Hate her though she may, Blake would never be that cruel. She could never be that cruel.
When Blake reached the bottom of the ladder space with just Jaune, shield out, at her side, she signaled for Ruby to start coming down.
Jaune whispered, "What happened?"
"I'll tell you later," Blake whispered right back.
Five minutes later (Neptune got his goggles tangled up in the ladder somehow and had to be cut free by the professor), all eight of them were down at the bottom of the structure, which was a small room lit only by the light coming from the open port above. As the professor had pointed out, it was clearly man-made, as another door was placed in front of them. This one, however, had a standard metal handle in place of some outdated hatch design.
"Is this some kind of military outpost?" Jaune asked Blake.
"I have no clue," she lied.
It wasn't, but Blake wasn't supposed to know what military outposts or bases looked like, being a non-White Fang militant. Jaune seemed to get the memo after a pointed glance and shut himself up right then and there.
"Through the next door?" suggested Ruby.
Jaune raised up his shield once more and nodded. "Blake, Ren, you guys have the best guns. One on each side of me. I'll push in first and soak any attack that come our way while you two counterattack. Get in as quickly as possible, so that the others can follow after us. Velvet, can you cover our flank?"
Blake did her best to ignore the weird looks everyone gave Jaune as he failed to realize he'd mistaken flank for referring to a unit's rear. Velvet just shrugged, which Jaune took as acceptance of his plan.
"Alright. On the count of three. One…"
"Wait!" Ruby shouted, louder than desirably. "On three or after three? I always mix it up."
"On three. So, one, two, and then-we-push-when-I-say-three."
"C-Can we do it the other way?" Neptune asked nervously. "Where it's one, two, three, and then go? I'm more used to it from rock paper scissors tournaments with Sun, and I don't think I can unlearn that."
"Neptune, you aren't even going first," Yang pointed out.
"Neither was Ruby, though none protested her asking," pointed out Ren, playing the God of Darkness' advocate for some reason.
"Okay, how about we compromise and do it half a second after Jaune says three?" Ruby offered.
This was getting them nowhere. The enemy, if it existed, had almost certainly heard them from the other side of this flimsy door and was potentially planning a defense as they bickered.
"Three," Blake said, pushing the door open and shoving herself, Jaune, and Ren in.
"AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAH!"
"IT'S THE GRIMM! THEY'RE HERE TO KILL US!"
"GET TO THE CYANIDE PILLS, EVERYONE! HURRY!"
The large room into which the two teams entered was filled with people, which was roughly what Blake had been expecting (as opposed to something like more Grimm), but they all were scrambling around like rats on a sinking ship. Too many to count in the confusion, Blake kept her firearm raised and ready to gun down any threats as they came, but the humans and Faunus turned out to be rushing to escape from the huntsman and security consultants, not attack them.
"WAIT! WAIT, IT'S NOT GRIMM!"
"IT'S PEOPLE! OH, THANK THE GODS!"
"PUT DOWN THE – oh, my throat, I really shouldn't yell…"
The panic-induced frenzy of the zone's residents ceased rather rapidly, as did the yelling. Jaune, like the sweet summer child he was, dropped his shield, but Blake gently nudged him with her foot to tell him it was too early. They may not have been visibly aggressive, but that didn't mean these people were friendlies.
"Who are you?" Blake asked. "Why are you people down here in this…place?"
"We're fellow survivors," said one of the people, a human woman who looked about as old as Sienna Khan if Blake had to guess. She, like everyone in this place, was wearing dark blue coveralls and an equally dark blue baseball cap on top. "Are you from the above-above?"
"The…The ab…I suppose?" Blake said unsteadily. "We, uh, came from the hatch on the surface that led down here."
"The above-above! It's habitable! Oh, praise be to the gods."
"Habitable?" she asked. "What the hell do you mean?"
The woman stepped forward and offered a hand for Blake to shake. "I'm Marnie, the community leader of Bunker #8. Are…Are you a huntress?"
Blake was about to say no on instinct when Jaune spoke right over her. "Aye, we are. Huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon."
He was thinking faster than her, in this case. Team River knew clearly that they weren't hunters, and while it might have been important to clarify to these people, what mattered more was making a good first impression with this skittish and potentially hostile crowd. The word 'hunter' carried weight no matter where in the world you were, and they did have actual Beacon hunters with them.
As Blake looked around, she noticed that everyone in the room was fairly old – at least thirty, and mostly much further on in their years.
"Who are you people?"
"We're Bunker #8. We've been down here since the fall of Vale."
The fall of Vale? Had something happened in the past 24 hours that Blake hadn't heard about since she'd last seen her home city?
The woman cleared her throat. "P-Please, if you could clarify: are you roaming survivors from the above-above, or do you hail from one of the other bunkers?"
"To what bunkers do you refer?" asked Ren.
"Roamers it is, then," the woman decided somehow, nodding. "It makes sense based on your age; bunkers weren't meant to house babies."
"Ma'am, what are bunkers?" Blake looked down at the concrete beneath her feet and decided to rephrase that question. "Why are you people living in a bunker? What is going on here?"
"Well, huntress, we can't all survive in the above-above with Grimm roving about unchecked. Since the fall, we've survived by staying down here and living off of our supplies. The bunkers have water reclamation centers, oxygen distribution systems, and temperature controls. As for what's going on…well, we ran out of nonperishable foods eight years ago, and the harvest of crops didn't grow this month. I-I can show you our farming rooms, if it'd help."
Blake had no idea if it would or wouldn't but she nodded to signify her assent either way. Any clue these people willingly offered that might explain the mystery of their very existence was a welcome one.
The Beacon professor sifted through the dead soil and nodded. "You've been growing on this same land for all this time?"
Marnie, the leader apparent of these people, nodded. "We reused our waste as fertilizer, but it still failed."
"Soil only lasts so long. A limited supply of nutrients means every scrap of it that's lost doesn't come back, be it as dead skin, food waste, or any other avenue of waste."
Well, it was great that they'd solved the least important mystery of all, but Blake really wanted to know who or what these people were. The Beacon professor had temporarily taken charge, as she was the eldest in their group, but burning daylight like this on plant sciences seemed to be a misuse of time.
"Our plans were to send up a hunting party to the above-above," said Marnie. "It can't be a coincidence that our hatch opens up and you folks come down literal days and hours before we were planning to breach the vault door for the first time in one and a half decades."
"We're not divine intervention, if that's what you're suggesting," Jaune stated. "We noticed elevated Grimm activity above your hatch and came to investigate."
"Didn't think you were," she chuckled. "We may be a little stir crazy in 8, but we aren't kooks yet. I'd wager it was our growing fear that summoned the…wait, what…what is 'elevated' Grimm activity?"
Blake exchanged a glance with the professor. Even she seemed unsure here. It was just the four of them in the farming room, as much of the floor was covered in dirt, and there was only limited space on which to walk without standing in the soil. The professor, Blake, and Jaune were the only ones there, representing Beacon and Team Job respectively, while the rest waited outside.
"Uh…more than usual?" Jaune offered.
"Yes, but the Grimm have taken over the surface. How'd you know they were congregating above this very spot?"
"Okay, I'm just gonna ask," Blake said, losing any and all patience. "You keep referencing this 'fall of Vale' and now you're saying the Grimm are taking over. Is this some sort of emergency survival bunker? Some doomsday shelter?"
Marnie nodded. "It is, but we were all glad we signed on when doomsday came."
"Doomsday…"
"When Vale fell to the Grimm," said the lady.
"Vale…Vale hasn't fallen to the Grimm," Jaune uncomfortably explained. "It's still there."
"Did they rebuilt the city?" Marnie asked excitedly. "Oh, that's a grand relief. I'd no idea there were that many roamers above ground to retake the land."
"No…No, it never fell. The city…heck, the entire kingdom is in the same state it's been for the past few centuries. It's fine."
"No, that's simply not true," Marnie said. "We saw it happening on TV, fifteen years ago."
"It is, ma'am."
"Not, it's not. The above-above is a wasteland. The Grimm's playground."
Her voice didn't rise, nor did she show signs of anger, but Blake could tell this conversation was agitating her. It was minute things, like the tilt of her head or the stiffness of her fingers, that gave it away.
"What did you see on TV?" Blake asked, before it could turn from a conversation into a shouting match between Jaune and this woman.
"No need to answer," said their professor, lips twisting downwards. "It was the fall of Mountain Glenn, wasn't it?"
"The…T-The…Mo…." Marnie stuttered and stumbled in her words. "It was the fall of Vale."
"Mountain Glenn fell, but Vale endured thanks to the tunnels being sealed."
"Nah, that can't be right. The tunnels were chock-full of Grimm, and they were closing into the city, and –"
"And they sealed the tunnels," explained the professor, placing a hand over her heart. "Killing thousands but saving millions."
"W-Wait, you're telling me…V-Vale is…it didn't…n-no, it can't be. No, it's not true! It was doomsday, what we'd all prepared for!"
That might have been a bit of a stretch. Blake knew a little bit about the history of Mountain Glenn, enough to say with confidence that Vale had stemmed the flow of Grimm using extremely cold methods that proved effective at keeping itself safe.
But there are the people who'd built a doomsday bunker to survive in for the end of the world. They were probably looking for it to come, and the first sign of trouble was all it took for them to scurry below ground and declare the 'above-above' a lost cause.
Jaune pulled out his scroll and unlocked it. "I have some pictures from my most recent vacation that I can show you, if you'd like to see."
He handed it to the woman, who seemed wholly unfamiliar with the technology. Blake leaned over and swiped to the right, which got a small gasp from her.
I don't know if she's surprised that we have digital devices that outclass the media of fifteen years ago so greatly or if it's the fact that she's seeing recorded proof of Vale's existence.
"I-It can't be…you're only a kid, and these pictures look fresh." She thrust the scroll in front of Blake. "T-Tap it. Show me more. I-I need to see!"
Blake took the scroll from her, held it out at an arm's length at angle they could both see, and started to swipe through the slideshow of photographs.
And as she did, her heart began to break.
It was Jaune and Velvet, enjoying themselves in front of some stupid looking fish and plants. The backgrounds were clearly of a civilized society, confirming this woman's worst fears, but they couldn't have mattered less to Blake. All she could see was how close Jaune and Velvet looked in the photos. How happy they seemed together…
It's going to tear him apart. A-And I'm also planning to leave…gods, this could be the end of the team that we all worked so hard to build.
Blake had to remind herself that it wasn't her fault. Velvet was the one who'd chosen to leave the sword hanging above all their heads by announcing her intention to quit and go back to the original team of hunters of hers, and all Blake had down was begin sawing the rope faster.
"I…I…"
"Vale still stands," said the professor. "As does Beacon."
"And the other four kingdoms," said Jaune. "Plus their schools."
"F-Four kingdoms?" asked Marnie, tears in her eyes. "Did they build another?"
Jaune looked baffled for a second, then gulped. "S-Sorry, I…th-there are four kingdoms total, and I'm so used to saying it – you know, 'four kingdoms' just sorta became the phrase, and I slipped up. The other three kingdoms is what I meant."
The woman seemed to have figured out how the swiping of a scroll's screen worked, so Blake let her take it from her hands and operate it herself. It had to be traumatic, to learn that the world you'd thought you'd lost was still out there, going on without you.
And not only that; she chose to miss out on it. Did she have family in Vale that she thought lost? Do the other people in the rest of the bunker? Are they all just missing people, presumed lost in the chaos that followed the fall of Mountain Glenn?
"We can take you to Vale," said the Beacon professor, placing a hand on Marnie's shoulder. "It's not uncommon for huntresses and huntsmen to have to relocate the survivors of villages that fell to Grimm. The channels for relocation and induction into the city exist."
"I…I…no. No, I don't think that's a good idea." Marnie sounded resolute, and the sudden change was jarring.
Blake's hand instinctively went for her gun, just in case, but the older woman just returned the scroll to her. She, in turn, handed it back to Jaune, for it had been his in the first place.
"To learn that we spent fifteen years down here for nothing…it'd break us. The community of eight is a close one. Most of us are already approaching the ends of our natural lives anyways, and the younger few don't know a world outside of these walls. Telling them would be too much."
Blake didn't like that. "We have to–"
"Young lady, I am the community leader of eight." Marnie's eyes flared. "I will decide what we have to do. And you lot are roaming hunters who tracked a large horde of Grimm to our bunker. You were hoping to find more survivors to barter with, and praise be to the Brothers, they led you to us. We're willing to trade clean water in exchange for protection for a mission to the above-above to gather more soil." She looked down at the failed patch of farmland. "And this time, we'll get more than enough to last."
"We don't need clean water," Blake said, but Marnie just shook her head.
"You do. You're roamers, and roamers'll need water to survive on the limits of Vacuo. It's logical, and the people of eight will believe it."
Blake could have argued it more, but Jaune nudged her with his foot this time, and the message was clear.
Right now, I'm the sweet summer child who's too being naïve.
No one in the bunker really seemed to notice when Jaune, Blake, and the teacher all discussed the situation with their hunters. To them, it was presumed to be a discussion on how negotiations for water had gone, not an explanation of the ruse and cover up.
"We're lying to them?" Ruby had painfully asked. "We're leaving them here?"
"What we're doing is not disrupting their lives when we don't need to," Jaune explained. "It's not our call to make."
"But we're hunters! We're supposed to save people!"
"Save them from who? Themselves? Their own elected commander?" The professor shook her head. "Hunters are servants of the people, not leaders above them. Too many of us forget that nowadays, falling victim to the craze of their own power. If there is one lesson that your learn from this first mission, let it be this: we must never consider ourselves above anyone."
It was obvious that Team River, a young and idealistic lot, didn't relish the idea of leaving these elderly folks down here to rot, but they seemed to defer to their professor much more than Jaune.
If only this professor had taught that same lesson to Ozpin before he paid us an unannounced visit. He certainly looked down on us at the time.
I think Velvet was right, from before. There are good huntresses and huntsmen; I just hadn't met them.
"Okay," Ruby choked out. "But I…I don't think I can be a convincing liar."
Jaune just shook his head. "Then don't speak. Leave the talking to us."
He didn't explicitly say it, not in front of the kids, but Jaune clearly meant for everyone to leave the talking to him. Blake knew that he was probably the best liar among them, given that he'd taken on that roll on so many of Team Job's missions, and she knew that he could fall into the role of a roaming barterer if he tried.
Marnie and a handful of the sprier bunker-goers came up with them out the hatch to gather more soil. Team River stood guard at a distance while Jaune deftly bullshitted his way through any questions they had about the 'above-above.'
It was a touching sight, Blake thought, to witness some of these folks see natural sunlight for the first time in fifteen years, even if it was nearly dusk already. Several of them performed little personal rituals like running their hands through the plants or basking in the fresh air. Under better circumstances, Blake might have been moved to tears.
These were not better circumstances.
This sucks but telling the people that their lives were wasted would probably only be crueler, especially if we also have to reveal to them that their leader tried to cover it up. There's no right answer here; only the least wrong one.
After hauling several crates full of dirt down to the bunker, the people inhabiting it said their goodbyes, shook hands and whatnot, and went back down to live the rest of their lives in the darkness.
"They're going to die down there," Ruby had said. "Not immediately, but they don't plan on coming back out."
"It was spacious enough, and they seemed happy," said the professor. "Had it been some sort of torment or squalor, we might have fought harder to extricate them, but not when they all had peace and simple comfort. Make no mistake, this is a tragedy, but not one we can fix."
"Unless we had a time machine," said Yang, grimacing as she sealed the hatch from the outside, ensuring it was tightly wound to keep them safe in there.
"Unless that," said the professor. "As hunters, you're going to have to learn how to witness the horrors of the world without being able to fix them all, children. Thick skin is an essential, but not so thick that you lose the compassion you have for the world…"
The professor began some sort of teaching moment for her charges, and Blake took the moment to pull Team Job aside so they could have their own little intra-team meeting.
"We need to have a talk."
Velvet's scowl implied that she wasn't in a particularly talkative mood, but Jaune needed to be told, and there was no way that Blake was taking the fall for this when the blame wasn't on her.
"Okay, something's wrong between you two," Jaune said. "I'm not blind. I won't force you to tell me, but I need to –"
"Blake's quitting the team," Velvet said without hesitation.
Blake could have killed that little bitch. It was only the fact that she was pregnant and Beacon was watching that stopped her from taking any retaliatory action.
"Don't act like this is my fault," she hissed, ears flat against her head. "You're the one talking about going back to your old team. I can't be blamed for your actions."
"It wouldn't even be for a while, and I can't see why you'd care." Velvet folded her arms in front of her chest. "It's my life to live, not yours."
"As leaving Team Job is my choice," Blake said.
Jaune looked shell-shocked from Blake's confirmation of the accusation Velvet had levied, and it was almost enough to change her mind. He'd done nothing wrong, and she was punishing him because she couldn't be mature enough to deal with Velvet declaring an eventual end date on her time with Team Job Security, even if it wasn't yet set.
Maybe…Maybe when Velvet goes back to Team Coffee, he could join me? I…I don't really know if that's going to work, though. Who knows how long she'll vacillate like this? What really irks me is that she chose to join us in the first place when she probably had her mind made up about this.
"You're…You're quitting?" Jaune asked incredulously. "After everything? Blake, you practically made the company, and you're most of our management."
"I'm sure you can do fine without me." Blake addressed Jaune directly, not even acknowledging Velvet's existence. "You can have the airship and the office. And you'll have your other Faunus, for however long she decides to play around with us dropout losers."
"Stop it, Blake," Velvet choked out, hurt in her voice. "Don't act like I'm some…some…some outsider. I'm no different than you."
"Different enough that you're running back into Beacon's arms," Blake matched, unwilling to show her own fear or pain. All that remained was the anger, and that was something she was more than willing to let loose. "Not all of us have that choice. Some of us were kicked out of Beacon with no way back in. So yes, Velvet, you are different."
"Fuck you, Blake. They're my best friends; you can't tell me avoid their existence for the rest of my life because you're an obtuse alley cat who hates hunters."
The Beacon squad were finished with their life lesson and were passively observing the argument from Team Job at a distance. None of them were looking their way, with most of them fixated on their shoes or some nearby grass, but it was clear they were listening in as best they could from the distance.
"If you'd like, I could stay on the team," Blake said. "Of course, you'd have to be fired effective immediately, because I'm not working with someone who isn't committed."
That one got through Velvet's shields. Blake knew how to hit her where it hurt, and rubbing her own self-sacrifice in Velvet's face was a cathartic moment. For all that the rabbit bitch claimed to be some good person, she wasn't good enough to turn down being gainfully employed.
"Guys, you…I…c-can't we…"
"No," Blake said to Jaune. "We can't."
It was hard to hurt him like that, but none of them were kids anymore. Blake wasn't in the care of parents, teachers, mentors, or boyfriends anymore; the only person who would look out for her own interests was herself. She was going to have to make tough choices in her life for herself if she wanted to be a functioning adult.
"You're making a big deal out of nothing," Velvet complained. "If you could just curtail that pride of yours and admit that Beacon isn't the scourge of the common Faunus, you'd see that –"
"I told you before, Velvet. I don't hate Beacon. I don't even hate your team. How could I, without even knowing them? No, what I hate is that they matter more to you than me. You could choose to stay with us instead of them, but you won't. That's why I can't work with you for a day longer, not because I hate hunters or something absurd."
"Hold on a second," Jaune said, holding out a hand to them both. He closed both eyes and blinked a few times. "I…I'm confused. Is Blake quitting, or is Velvet?"
"I'm quitting," Blake said. "But only because she's insisting on going back to her old team."
"Okay, again, I'm still confused. Going back…does that mean she's leaving Team Job to rejoin Team Coffee as a huntress, or is she just meeting up with them for, like, lunch or something?"
"She's leaving us for them," Blake said, raw spite in her voice.
"Just meeting up with them every once in a while, that's all," Velvet said at the exact same time, equally embittered.
Both Faunus just stared at the other in complete and utter silence for a moment. Blake's brain was desperately trying to compute the new information it had been given, especially in the context of everything else she'd heard earlier today and in this very conversation, but there was too much.
She…but she clearly said…going back to them means…she heard me say…
Velvet seemed equally spellbound by what was apparently the realization that Blake had thought she was traipsing back to her old team with the goal of taking back her post, not whatever she'd actually been planning.
What she's actually planning…what even is that? I can't…I don't know anymore.
Blake opened her mouth to speak, but to her great surprise, Jaune actually covered it up with his own hand. "No. Don't speak."
In spite of his command to the contrary, Blake immediately tried to speak. Specifically, she was trying to ask, "Why the fuck not?" but it only came out as a garbled, "Whmmfffnnnaaau?" due to the hand of the human against her lips.
"I've had enough misunderstandings and mix-ups with my own sisters to know that arguments like this don't just go away when you clarify it. Anger takes time to dissipate, and you two are probably so pissed at one another that you'd say things you'd regret if given the chance. Even if you're both on the same page about the team thing, I'm guessing you'd find something else to argue about just 'cause you're stuck in an 'angry at one another' mindset."
"I don't –" Velvet tried to say, but another hand clamped over her mouth just the same.
"Take some time apart," Jaune suggested. "Calm down. We can all walk back to the airship and talk about things there, when our tempers are refreshed and we're not so worked up. It should be about an hour, and then we can acknowledge that this was all a big misunderstanding."
Blake pulled her head back and pushed his hand off of her. "What is this, time-out?"
"Yes," Jaune said.
"You can't –"
"I can. I'm the leader of this team, and what I say goes."
Slimy son of a bitch…he knew Beacon was watching. Maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world if they saw Blake ignore an order from Jaune, but it might fuck things up later on if they saw Team Job openly arguing even more than they already had.
"Just back to the airship?" Blake confirmed.
Jaune nodded. "Just back to the airship."
She turned to look at Velvet to see if she would agree to his terms, and a sudden swell of hatred overtook her.
Maybe Jaune's not wrong about this.
She logically knew that…that she might have been operating without a complete understanding of the picture, because Blake wasn't wrong here, but the lingering rage that she was feeling didn't just go away. She'd been spending the better half of the afternoon picking apart Velvet in her head, watching her and finding fault in every little thing she did. Learning what she now knew didn't settle her boiling blood instantly.
Without another word, Blake turned and walked away from the group. She could see Jaune and Velvet joining Team River and their professor, probably giving some bullshit explanation about why they were splitting up that the hunters weren't going to buy but would pretend to believe for propriety's sake, but Blake didn't care.
The second she was obscured from them by the grasses, she immediately took out Gambol Shroud and began to hack apart as much of the shrubbery as she could manage in as short a time as possible.
It was tempting to scream, so Blake did, as loud as she could. Who cared if the Beacon brats heard? If Velvet heard? Blake needed to scream her lungs out.
A stupid, mindless, idiotic, three-word misunderstanding had nearly taken apart Blake's entire life in Vale, all because she'd jumped to conclusions and hadn't bothered to clarify what Velvet actually meant.
She was still royally pissed at that stupid whorish rabbit Faunus slut who'd…who'd…she was at fault here too, just as much if not more. She deserved the anger that was being directed her way.
But Blake was probably just as angry with herself.
Mission Complete: Jkonna Village, Vale-Vacuo Border
Client Review: Grimm activity ceased over the following days after a newly formed Sulfur Fish hive was located and destroyed by the security consultants and hunters. Team Job and Team River both did excellent work. I would highly recommend both. [5/5 Stars]
Current Holdings (lien): Ⱡ 91,830
Current Holdings (assets): Job Hunter airship
Current Holdings (realty): Team Job office (Vale branch)
Employees: 3
Coming Soon: Toxic
Jaune struggles to patch up the wounds that infighting has left on the team without overstepping his own boundaries.
Author's Notes
The drama reaches its end, as does the mission. NGL, I wrote this story after listening to a YouTube fan song about Fallout. I've never played the game, and I still haven't watched the show.
I'm legitimately surprised no one asked if Blake had misinterpreted or jumped to conclusions. I was worried it would be so obvious that all the comments guessed it before it happened. Somehow, you guys can figure out the end of Origin Story but not this. RIP.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!