Summer had taken some time to familiarize herself with Team BASS' dorm as Velvet took a scroll call. With Ghira and Sage out getting food to bring back for the group, Summer had done her best not to eavesdrop and instead take in the scant décor and furniture of the small living space… but things had quickly become too interesting to ignore. What had started out friendly soon turned standoffish, leaving Summer confused and a little worried. As time went on, she could tell that the disagreement had turned somewhat serious, and that Velvet had to be talking to Adam. By the end of the call, Summer had become so filled with uncertainty and tension that she didn't even bother pretending to occupy herself with the dorm anymore. Instead, she just stared at Velvet expectantly as the faunus set her scroll down on a bedside table... and Velvet seemed just as surprised as Summer.
"…what's up?" the faunus asked. "You don't look so hot. Still feeling it from using your magic?"
Summer raised a brow and folded her arms across her chest, looking distinctly unimpressed by the suggestion.
"…that woozy feeling wears off after a couple minutes. No, I just… what was that? You were talking to Adam, weren't you?"
"I was," Velvet confirmed as she sat down upon her mattress and took a brush from the nightstand to begin running it through her long, dark brown hair. "What of it?"
"What of it?" Summer asked incredulously as she let out a little snort. "That sounded… unfriendly. Almost like you didn't want to talk to him at all, and… I thought you wanted to go back underground with him. Why the sudden change of heart? Did something happen between you two?"
"No, nothing happened," Velvet answered, her tone entirely neutral as she continued brushing. "And I do want to see what else is down there. It's just all part of the game."
"The… game?" Summer asked, already fearing that she would greatly dislike the answer. "What game is that?"
"Oh, come on, don't make me spell it out for you," Velvet teased with a smirk. "The game of love, Summer. You can't just be agreeable and complacent all the time in a relationship. Every now and again, you need to make yourself unavailable. Frustrate your partner a little bit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that. When he's out there alone, he'll be annoyed without me, and when we link back up, he'll appreciate my presence all the more. It's tactical, and the two of us aren't exactly serious right now anyway. He needs to sweat a little while he wonders whether or not I'd be committed for something more."
"That sounds…" Summer paused, trying to decide on what word she wanted to use. Choosing the wrong one could quickly change the tone of the conversation to something rather unfriendly… and yet, she couldn't think of an alternative that still honestly portrayed the way she felt about what she had just heard. "…manipulative…"
Much to Summer's surprise, Velvet didn't deny it. If anything, she seemed almost pleased.
"Oh, it is," the faunus confirmed, working through a particularly bothersome tangle. "But you don't get what you want in life without rigging the game a little, Summer. You've got to know when to give and take, push and pull, and nudge the odds in your favor. It's doubly so with relationships- take it from me. This isn't my first. Do you even have any experience with this sort of thing?"
It was Summer's turn to suddenly seem offended, her shoulders rising a bit and tightening as she looked away.
"…no. But I… I don't believe in any of what you're saying. That just… it's not right, especially with a romantic partner. They're supposed to trust you, and you're supposed to trust them. Don't tell me that's naïve, either. I've seen it work!"
"Have you?" Velvet questioned. "Let me guess- Raven and Tai? Do you really think that's going to last?"
"You don't?" Summer asked defensively as she turned her attention back to Velvet. "They're two of my closest friends, and they clearly love each other. They make each other happy, and they're very honest about everything. They have the kind of relationship I wish I could find."
"Don't misunderstand, Summer- no two relationships are the same," Velvet explained as she set down her brush and began shaking out her hair to let it spread fully across her back. "Not all of them require the same level of manipulation, but it's always there. Do you really think Raven isn't leading Tai along from time to time, nudging him where she wants him to go in various things? You don't get to see what it's like behind closed doors."
"I get to hear about it," Summer defended. "I hear about a lot of it, actually, and… sometimes give a little advice. Raven's not like that. She doesn't play games with people, she's very straightforward with all of us, a-"
"Did she or did she not spend an entire year pretending to be a legitimate teammate of yours while secretly plotting to murder you?" Velvet interrupted. "How can you say you know what she's thinking, or that she's being completely honest with Taiyang?"
Summer found that she had no good argument against the fact and simply looked down at the floor as Velvet stood up from the bed and continued.
"…look, I'm sorry if I'm shattering your outlook on relationships right now- that wasn't my intent. You asked me what I was doing, and I answered. Adam is… complex. Conflicted. He has absolutely no idea what he wants, his priorities are all over the place, and he's being pulled in too many directions at once. I'm just doing what I think I need to do to make sure he's more likely to move in my direction, and get his head in the game when it comes to what's really important."
"…what is really important?" Summer asked, her voice suddenly very small. "I mean, according to you…"
"Our people," Velvet answered simply. "The faunus, our history, our place in Remnant… that is what truly matters, and he's one of few I've met that seems to actually care about it on a level beyond just being generally upset. I want to make sure that by running with me, he doesn't lose focus on those things."
"…oh," Summer replied, unsure how to feel. "Right. Uh… maybe we should just drop it. I'm sorry for making things awkward…"
"Only awkward if you let it be," Velvet reassured. "No harm done. Just trust me- I know what I'm doing, and I do care about Adam. He's in good hands with me, Summer. Trust me."
"Of course I do," Summer said a little too quickly. "I just… want to believe that relationships don't need to be like that, and I still trust Raven and Tai to be honest with each other all the time. Kali and Roman, too… though saying that out loud…"
"Oh, come on," Velvet said with a roll of her eyes. "Look at it this way- are you 100% honest with all of your friends all the time? How can you expect a relationship to be any different?"
Summer did her best to keep a poker face as she answered Velvet's question.
"…I am. Always…"
Fox kept his arms tightly around Adam and his eyes squeezed firmly shut as their dunecrawler thundered across the moonlit desert. He knew that the faunus wasn't thrilled with the constant contact, and Fox himself felt a little embarrassed to be clinging to the younger boy… but the speed at which everything was flying by made him feel incredibly nauseous. Watching the desert move so rapidly around them made Fox feel quite sick, and so, he had opted to just close his eyes and stay in the darkness for the ride. It felt familiar.
It felt good, in a way that somewhat worried him.
After a torturously long duration, the vehicle began to slow, and Fox dared to open his eyes into a squint. Though the landscape was still moving, it was at a speed that he could handle, and so he blinked several times and began to take it all in. Upon looking over his shoulder, he found the steppe pyramid of Shade Academy far behind them. Looking around Adam and craning his neck, he found a far smaller set of temporary structures just ahead… and a small group of people milling about between them.
"…they're topside," Adam said, sounding almost suspicious. "Something might have gone wrong underground…"
"Then it's a good thing we're here," Fox encouraged as he finally loosened his grip on Adam. "Are those… tents? That's what they look like?"
"Yes," Adam confirmed. "And the rest is all research equipment, most of which I don't know the name of. Let's find the Oaks and see what's going on."
Fox hopped off the bike as it came to a slow stop just before the small assembly of tents and equipment, and Adam soon followed. The second bike with Kali and Roman parked right next to theirs, and the four teens took a moment to simply survey their surroundings and look for any sign of the museum owners. Adam didn't see either of them… but he did see a familiar face hunched over a laptop on a stand and began to make his way over.
"…Alice," the faunus called. "What's going on?"
The Ace Operative was wearing her uniform pants and a simple, sleeveless black tee that showed off quite a bit of her collarbone and chest. Her lilac hair had been pulled up into an upwards bun and she wore a pair of reading glasses, suggesting that she had been up and out of the tunnels for quite some time. She looked rather surprised to see Adam and quirked a bow as she looked over the other newcomers.
"…Adam? We didn't expect you back so soon. I hope the trek out here wasn't too much of a pain in the ass, because we've hit a snag. Entire op is on hold, now, until we can get things worked out."
"A snag?" Adam repeated, sounding less than amused. "What kind of snag?"
"The kind that could kill this entire ordeal," Alice answered cryptically. "Who are your friends… and where's Velvet?"
Adam let out a growl before he could stop himself and rolled his eye.
"Forget about her. This is Fox, Kali, and Roman. They're capable, and can help with whatever's going on down there."
"I somehow doubt that," Alice said warily as she took in the details of each of the newcomers. "We've found a nest of grimm underground. Perhaps 'hive' would be a more appropriate term, actually. It's bad. Really bad. I'm calling in to Atlas to get some more powerful scanning equipment that will actually function that deep below the surface and pick up on grimm before we walk into them face first. We've gotten jumped down in the tunnels more than once, now, and we can only get lucky so many times."
"…have you already made the call?" Fox asked, taking a step forward. "I think… I could do pretty much the same thing, actually. My Semblance allows me to use aura almost like echolocation, and I can bounce it pretty far, especially in enclosed spaces. I could help map out the tunnels and warn us of any grimm ahead without the need for lugging equipment around."
Alice stared at Fox for a moment and slowly removed her glasses before narrowing her eyes.
"…Fox, was it? You could be a walking radar for us? You're sure?"
Fox nodded, avoiding eye contact with the woman. Somehow, he felt like she was looking through him, and he had never been particularly good at keeping secrets. Even if his newfound sight was going to be impossible to hide from those that knew him before, Adam had told them about the mysterious woman and her affiliations. She seemed like the last person he would want to know about Professor Ozpin's magic and his involvement with it.
"Been doing it my entire life," Fox answered somewhat honestly. Trust me. I'll keep us safe."
"…well then. Maybe I've got a different call to make…"
Author's Note:
Time to head back underground…
-RD