Chapter 31

Cardin fell to the ground as Hallshott was ripped from his body, blood starting to pool around him. The tip of Dove's weapon dripped crimson as the blood falling to the ground reflected off the light from the campfire. Sky and Dove shared a look before nodding as Dove flipped the grip on his blade and prepared to stab down into the injured teen.

His senses screamed at him too late as Russel's body flew at him, crashing against his chest and knocking him away. Russel quickly spun around to keep Cardin's body behind him, and the two traitors in front. Dove brushed a bit of dust and dirt from him before he looked at Russel and prepared to stalk forward, but stopped when Sky spoke.

"Hold it, Dove."

The teen looked a bit annoyedly at his partner, who chuckled before speaking.

"Say, Russ."

The mohawked teen gave him his attention, being mindful to keep a hand on Cardin's chest behind him to monitor his breathing, and an eye on Dove.

"Why don't you join me and Dove? Leave Beacon behind and kick it with us for a while? Sans the dipshit, of course."

Russel looked at him incredulously.

"What. the. FUCK! Why'd you stab Cardin?!"

The silver haired teen's smirk stayed in place as he spoke.

"I mean, Russ, buddy. Let's be real…he had it coming."

He capped his response with a laugh shared by Dove, Russel staring at the two eyes wide with worry as they chuckled like this was some inside joke.

"What the fuck are you on abo-"

"Look man,"

Sky walked forwards and knelt down so that he was eye level with Russel.

"Here's what's gonna happen: Dove and I are gonna take the fancy new field marker, then we're gonna leave our dear old 'leader' laying in a pool of his own blood, and finally, we're gonna say hasta la vista to this shithole, Beacon, and huntsman life altogether."

Russel watched as Dove strode over to the field marker before ripping it from the concrete floor. He looked it over before sliding it in his pack and nodding at Sky. The silver haired teen nodded back before looking at Russel again.

"So, the only thing left is for you to make a decision. You running with us, or are you gonna be real stupid and end up like Cardin?"

The mohawked teen started to breathe faster as he could see the two traitors ready to jump him if he gave them an answer he didn't like. Right now, too many things needed to get done: He needed to keep pressure on Cardin's wound, he needed to protect Cardin from Sky and Dove, he needed to defend himself, he needed to get some signal to Professor Oobleck, he needed-

'The flares.'

He made it a point to not glance in the direction of the flares as his eyes kept darting between Dove and Sky. As he was about to attempt to stall, he felt Cardin's hand grip his own. He looked back to see Cardin glaring in the direction of the flares, before his eyes made contact with Russel's. He gave the faintest of nods, and made a shaky fist rap against the knuckles of Russel's hand keeping pressure on his wound.

"Well?"

Russel looked back to see Dove with his weapon at low ready, and Sky still smugly looking at him.

"...Well…you know me…"

The two looked at him, thinking he was going to save his own skin.

"I never was good at making smart decisions."

The teen said before shifting how he was crouched and using both feet to kick off Cardin's body, sending him back and away from the center of the space. As he launched forward, he grabbed Sky's shoulders before using his aura to do his signature cannonball move, before righting himself and throwing the silver haired teen towards Dove.

As the two collided, Russel dove towards the supplies before finding the flare gun and loading it. By the time Dove and Sky got to their feet ready for a fight, the mohawked teen was already aiming the barrel towards the sky before pulling the trigger.

Nothing.

A panicked look spread across Russel's face as he kept attempting to fire the flare, pulling back the hammer and squeezing the trigger only for nothing to burst out. As he started to frantically inspect the weapon as Dove and Sky smirked, he remembered something.

'Dove was messing with the equipment before Oobleck disappeared…'

"Oops. Having trouble getting it up?"

Russel dropped the flare gun to the ground before jumping back to Cardin, who was clutching his wound and attempting to gather the bare minimum aura necessary to start healing himself. He'd also managed to rearm himself with his hybrid weapon after Russel kicked him towards it, and was hunched over breathing heavily.

As Russel readied his knives and Cardin wielded the shotgun part of his weapon in one hand while holding the flail end in the other as blood seeped from his wound, Dove and Sky started to walk forwards slowly before a loud collective of roars and screeches caught their attention.

"The hell was that?"

Cardin heaved as he made a motion over to Russel to check on it as he kept his weapons ready. The teen in question looked like he wanted to protest, but ultimately bounced on the balls of his foot before jumping over to the edge and peeking down.

"H…Holy shit…That's a lot of grimm."

The three others looked at him before Cardin grunted.

"Course…I'm bleeding all over the place and pissed, Russ is freaking the fuck out, and you two pissant-cowards have murder on the mind. Add all that to being in Mt. Glenn, and this shouldn't be a surprise."

Dove and Sky looked between themselves as Cardin quickly sent a subtle motion to Russel to get near.

"Now…"

Cardin's knees nearly buckled as he wheezed a bit as pain ran through him.

"I'm gonna make you bastards a counter offer…run while you have the chance, before you have to deal with us, the grimm, and Professor Oobleck when he comes running."

Sky narrowed his eyes as he stared at the ginger teen.

"Comes running? By the time he figures out anything happened-"

Cardin cut him off by raising the shotgun and firing towards Dove who had his weapon ready, but wasn't prepared for the sudden change. A majority of the projectiles missed, but enough hit that he dropped his stance and unintentionally moved closer to Sky. Cardin grit his teeth as he saw his chance before bending his legs and leaping up as high as he was able.

The dust crystal in his hybrid weapon started to glow as he began his descent. With a roar, he swung once in the appropriate distance and brought the crown of the weapon down in flail mode, and as it hit the floor that they'd made camp on, an large explosion lit up the night sky,

Followed by a sound and sight that was sure to have Oobleck not only worried to death, but come running.

After the explosion, there was a moment of silence aside from the grimm's cries, before a series of deafening cracks and rumbles began to resonate. The business building, a smaller highrise, began to shake before dust exploded outwards as it began to collapse from the top to the bottom, each floor crumbling and falling to shatter the one before it, while the walls were slowly pulled to the center of the structure, or fell outwards away from it.

Russel looked on, eyes wide in both amazement and horror as he watched the building start to collapse floor by floor from the top down, him semi-safely hanging on to one of his daggers which he managed to stab into the side of a neighboring building. The grimm that had gathered at the bottom of the building were crushed, and those that were lucky enough to not have been flattened by the rubble had retreated far enough that he had a window. He looked down at the unconscious teen he was holding under his arm before slinging him into the building he was holding onto through an open window. He swung in himself before getting one of Cardin's arms over his shoulder as he hurriedly made his way down the stairs and, upon seeing no one around, quickly ran to the other side of the street to make him and his leader scarce, disappearing into an alley.

As the dust settled, coughs were heard as Sky and Dove walked to where the building had just been moments ago.

"We need to go and make sure they're dead Sky, otherwise they'll spill too Oobleck and-"

"Are you stupid? No, we're getting out of here now."

"But-"

"Dove, buddy. Shut up and lemme break this down for ya. First, no telling if both of them survived the highrise coming down. Second, grimm are all over the place, so if we don't get moving soon, we're gonna be forced to deal with that. Third, if they did survive, they're probably attracting the grimm to them. Fourth, Oobleck is gonna show up trying to figure out what happened, so we don't wanna be around when he gets here. And finally, we have what the boss wanted, the field marker, so the job's done, and so are we."

The silver-haired teen started running in a direction as Dove followed.

"I'm not trying to fight a full blown huntsman, and doing this job meant that no matter what, we were gonna put on bounty boards and watchlists. Now that we have our payday, all that's left is to hand it off to the boss."

"No Cardin, you listen. I don't know what your problem is, but pull your head out of your ass."

The ginger teen grunted uncomfortably as his friend's words replayed in his unconscious mind.

"...You're a team leader Cardin. Don't be an asshole. You're supposed to be an example for your team…"

Cardin's hand drifted to where his wound was as he started to sweat profusely as he kept remembering things.

"...Velvet's your girlfriend? Remind me real quick: who's your Partner."

"You blew us off."

"YOU DON'T GET IT!"

"Don't call me that. Only my friends call me Russ."

"You…wouldn't let shit lie."

As Cardin's mind replayed getting stabbed by Hallshott, his eyes snapped open and he gasped as he sat up straight and immediately clutched his wound.

He looked around and saw that there was no fallen rubble around, and that he was near a campfire. He kept studying his surroundings trying to get his bearings, trying to figure out just where the hell he was.

"You're up."

Cardin's head was on a swivel as he looked to see Russel covered in all sorts of scratches, bruises, and wounds. He looked tired. His huntsman attire was also in fairly bad repair, multiple strips of it missing, meaning that he'd really been through it for…

"...H-"

Cardin immediately erupted into a coughing fit trying to talk before Russel walked over and shoved his canteen into him, proceeding to walk to the other side of the fire to lean against a wall, slowly allowing himself to slide down it with his back until he was on his ass. Cardin wasted no time greedily sucking down the water in the container before looking at Russel and trying his sentence over, his breath raspy, but able to speak.

"How…long was I out?"

Russel kept fiddling with something in his hands, something that shined as he held it while looking at the fire.

"Almost two days."

Cardin blanched at that, but focused up. He looked around again before speaking.

"Where are we?"

"Sewers. We're in some kinda utility room."

Cardin nodded as he looked at the closed door that Russel had secured before looking back at his partner.

"So. How fucked are we?"

"Well, I was using the back alleys and little spaces to hide for a couple hours at a time before we'd have to move. Eventually, we were in an alley when I saw a manhole cover, and used my Shortwings to lift it up. Grimm showed up and I tossed you down and dove in behind you. The grimm were too big and ended up rampaging in the alley…and brought the buildings on either side of the alley down, so we aren't getting back up that way. The streets are swarmed, and we don't have any way to contact Oobleck."

"Our scrolls?"

"Mine was back at the highrise you brought down, and I ditched yours on the streets in case Dove and Sky were hunting us."

Cardin groaned before the pain from his wound flared up. He looked down as he gripped it and saw that he was wearing some form of green wrapping. He looked over and it took a few seconds before he realized that Russel had torn off strips of his shirt, as well as from the knees down of his pants to bandage him up. Curious, he peeled the bandages a bit to see some sort of dried green substance under the bandages.

"Where'd you find medicine?"

"Made it."

"But how?"

Russel rolled his eyes as answered.

"While you were out cold, I started exploring the sewers. Trying to see if there were any other ways out. After a while I found one, but it led to a cliff. I did some foraging and was able to find some things good for preventing infection, reducing inflammation, and relieving pain while your aura did the rest."

Cardin nodded, before the two fell into a silence, which as it prolonged, grew more and more uncomfortable for the knight as Russel kept fiddling with the thing in his hands.

"Alright, what's that thing you keep messing with?"

Russel held it up so that Cardin could see it.

"A burnt-out wind dust crystal?"

The teen nodded as he went back to fiddling with it.

"Yeah,"

Cardin thought about it for a minute as he sat there while Russel continued.

"My Shortwings are outta dust. I've been using dust to fight off the grimm, as well as to make it so we can have a fire and water to drink."

"Wait…don't your daggers use powder dust?"

"Yeah."

"So why do you have that crystal?"

"On my way back, I got caught up by some grimm. That was when I ran out of dust. I ended up trying to lose them in the sewers, and while I was hiding out for a little, trying not to lead them here…I ended up finding it."

"...How? That's not even a raw crystal either, it's refined."

"I don't know, but I ended up having to fight the grimm I was trying to lose, and…honestly, something pretty cool happened."

"Which is?"

"Learned more about my semblance."

"Wait. You found your semblance?"

"I think I've had it for a while. You know that thing I do whenever I'm in combat?"

Cardin knew exactly what he was talking about and failed to suppress his snort.

"That move you ripped from that one fighting game?"

Russel rolled his eyes before continuing.

"Yeah. I kept trying to replicate it back when we first started out at Beacon, and once I finally got it down, I thought it was just me using my aura to spin. Turns out, I think my semblance has something to do with rotation."

Cardin's eyes narrowed as he was trying to understand.

"I…don't think I follow."

"I fought off like, four creeps before I turned to see a boarbatusk mid-spin, and it was pretty fucking close too. All I thought about in the moment was how if I didn't protect myself somehow, I might be a goner. I tried to dive out of the way, and ended up having my foot slip, and I was sure it was over, but then…I don't know, I just followed in the direction I'd slipped towards, and felt my aura start to drain, and before I knew it, a shield of wind was between me and the grimm as it was still spinning."

"Huh…"

"Yeah. I just…kinda went with the motions after that. Killed the boarbatusk and anything else lurking down here nearby before going to check out that cliff outlet from earlier. One of the grimm must have done something because that exit collapsed, so I decided to just head back here to check on you."

"...Hey, Russel."

"Hm."

Cardin waited until the mohawked teen met eyes with him.

"Thanks. For not just saving yourself. For helping me out of that situation with Dove and Skye."

Cardin watched as the rogue-like teen stared back at him. Cardin wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the honesty paired with Russel's tired expression as he responded wasn't it.

"I almost didn't."

Cardin swallowed a lump in his throat as Russel looked at him and continued.

"Do you know-no, you don't. Look, I already said everything I needed to back at Beacon. But you don't understand how things were for Me, Dove, and…and actually? Fuck, Dove and Skye were probably just pretending to be worse then they were. Look. After you started spending time with Team CFVY, your grades went from low B's to mid A's. You started to perform at the same level as the best in our class. Hell, in combat class you're constantly top ten, and sometimes even push them all from teams RWBY and PRVN to take eight while you go up. And that's great. But what about me, your partner? How many times did I ask you to help me study, or to help me with sparring, or help me with literally anything else? And each time, your answer was that you were busy. I make high C's Cardin, and I'm at the top…of the lower half of our grade in combat class. No one wants to help me Cardin, and you weren't willing to. And before you repeat what you said before we left Beacon, I tried asking you. I actually asked you first, and then after exhausting every other idea I could think of, I asked you last. You were both my first option and then my last resort, and it didn't change a damn thing, so don't give me any of that."

There was silence again after that, as Cardin sat there, his mouth opening a few times to speak but then closing as he looked into the fire. After a short bit, the Winchester heir finally found the words he thought he needed to say.

"I'm sorry. I…should have been a better partner, a better leader. A better friend."

The two sat in silence before Russel seemed even more agitated if possible before reaching into a pouch on his belt and pulling out his pipe, quickly ripping a pack of dried leaves and such before thumbing it into the pipe firmly and setting it alight. He took a pull from it as he looked up at the ceiling silently, exhaling smoke.

"..."

"..."

"...Back where I'm from, these pipes are a pretty big deal."

Cardin looked over to his partner who was talking as he stared up at the ceiling, watching the smoke dance up to the concrete.

"See, the nomad tribe I come from had been pushed all around through Vacuo. At one point way back in the past, we weren't even nomads. We had this sacred ground that belonged to us, and my people stayed there, and others like us from other tribes did the same on their land as well. When Vacuo, as well as all the gangs and criminals started to take over the dry plains, then the canyons, and finally the mesa, my people were pushed into the desert. The four rings on the bowl of the pipe represent the four directions of the wind. When someone from my tribe becomes grown, there's a ceremony followed by a celebration. The pipe as a whole is a symbol in and of itself. That no matter where on Remnant you are, no matter where you go, you are still part of the tribe. And that when it's time, the wind will guide you back home to the flock, where you are meant to be. So…that's what's with the pipe."

Cardin looked at the expectant look of Russel who was now sitting closer to the fire holding the pipe out to him and waiting for something. Cardin took a gulp before taking an experimental puff from the pipe before coughing and passing it back, thinking and remembering before he spoke.

"I uh…didn't always have such a problem with the faunus. My family did, but it was complicated. See…"

As the two teens sat there just talking as they waited for Cardin to be in a suitable enough shape to get moving, somehow, they both had a sense they had already begun taking steps in the right direction.


(A/N)

Hey, Short Author's Note here.

To the people, (or maybe they are bots, I don't know), that keep leaving reviews or messaging me saying they are interested in making art for me.

No. And I do not mean "No, thank you." I mean No. I have not needed any artist beside the one I have, I don't want a new one, and I won't be changing that any time soon if ever. I got around twenty to forty different PM's that gladhand me before asking if I will commission something from them. I've turned off PM's until this dies down, (if it ever does), and I'd like for the comments on the story to be people leaving a critique or praise, not someone trying to sell their talents. Do that in your own space.