After the Fall

by E. C. Myers

  Weiss took the list from Velvet and ran down the rest of the items. “Yatsuhashi has already taken care of the desserts. Coco is …” Weiss looked up. “You aren’t on the list.”

  “Yup,” Coco said. “Are we almost done here?”

  Weiss started to argue, but then she thought better of it. “Yang will greet guests, and Blake … Blake?”

  The bow disguising Blake’s cat ears was all that was visible of her behind the large book propped on the table in front of her, Hidden Remnant.

  “Blake?” Weiss asked again. Then she stalked over and yanked the book up, revealing a second book: My Sweet Samurai. And behind that book … Blake had fallen asleep. She had dark smudges under her closed eyes from too many nights awake patrolling the warehouses for Roman Torchwick and the White Fang.

  “She must have needed a catnap,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Shhh!” Velvet punched Yatsuhashi on his arm. “Bad, Yatsu! Bad!”

  “What?” he asked. “Oh, sorry. Was that inappropriate?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

  “You just have to choose your words more carefully. Blake trusted us with her secret. Don’t make her regret it with your insensitive jokes.”

  Yatsuhashi’s face fell.

  “So that’s everything, then. Let’s go.” Coco hoisted her bag.

  “Hold on,” Yang said.

  “What? Are we missing something?” Weiss asked.

  Yang looked around slowly. “We’re only missing an opportunity. What about … a fog machine?”

  “A fog machine,” Weiss said.

  “A fog machine?” Velvet asked.

  Coco picked up her bag. “It’s time to say good-bye.”

  Velvet and Yatsu looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Well, thanks, guys,” Velvet said. “We appreciate the help. We’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  “You can count on us!” Ruby said cheerfully.

  “You haven’t signed up to do anything!” Weiss said.

  “And you can count on me to follow through—on absolutely nothing.”

  Fox pointed at Ruby. “Comic relief.”

  “Ha!” Weiss folded her arms. “You totally are.”

  “Be safe, guys.” Ruby waved.

  “And think about the fog machine!” Yang called after Velvet, Yatsuhashi, Fox, and Coco as they left the ballroom.

  Blake sat up with a splutter and looked around. “What’d I miss?”

  Coco stuck her head back into the ballroom. “No fog machine.” Then she left again.

  A blanket of rolling white mist covered the desert sand as far as Coco could see.

  “Where’s this fog coming from?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse from shouting during the evacuation and Grimm fight, and from heat and dehydration. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  The air was still warm, but the tiny water droplets condensing from the fog felt refreshing against her skin. She breathed in and her parched throat started to feel better. She licked water from her cracking lips.

  “The west winds blow moisture in from the ocean,” Fox sent.

  Coco thought Fox was lucky that he didn’t have to open his mouth to talk. Their special teamspeak was a big asset that they had managed to keep from everyone else at Beacon, except Professor Goodwitch, who knew everything about her students, and Professor Ozpin, who seemed to know everything. But now that they were at Shade, no one—not even Headmaster Theodore—seemed to know.

  She took advantage of the open channel. “But that has to be dozens of miles away,” she sent back.

  “Life may be slow in Vacuo, but things can move fast,” Fox said. “The fog will burn off soon.”

  He was right. Not long after, as the afternoon stretched on and the day got hotter, the mist disappeared and they were once again at the mercy of the sun. They trudged onward, the landscape around them shimmering so much in the heat that it felt like they were walking through a dreamscape. But it was more like a nightmare.

  “Hold up.” Yatsuhashi raised a hand to stop them.

  “What is it?” Coco asked.

  He pointed north. “Tracks.”

  Coco examined the sand. They had been following the path Velvet and the rest of the evacuees had taken, which was easy to spot—even with the desert’s habitually shifting sands—because the sand had been disturbed so much by the feet of nearly a hundred people. Fortunately, they hadn’t encountered any bodies along the way, though they easily could have been claimed by the desert or its wildlife before they passed by.

  Yatsuhashi was right: Another set of tracks was heading off to the north, but they were obscured so it was hard to tell if it was one person or multiple travelers.

  “Someone is trying to hide their trail,” Yatsuhashi said.

  Coco pulled out her Scroll to try to contact Velvet, hoping they were still between relay towers. NO SIGNAL flashed on her screen.

  “Can’t reach Velvet,” she said. “Fox?”

  “I’m trying,” he sent, “but I’m not getting through, either.”

  “I hope nothing happened to them,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Gus is probably blocking your Semblance again,” she said.

  “Or they’re too far away.” Fox turned his head toward the north. “I’m sensing someone out there, but it’s very faint.”

  “And what’s that ominous cloud on the horizon?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “It’s definitely not fog,” Coco said.

  “Describe it,” Fox said sharply.

  “It looks kind of like giant cauliflower lying on the ground.”

  “Cauliflower?” Coco squinted in the distance.

  “How would you describe it?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Steam blasting from an espresso machine,” Coco said.

  Yatsuhashi squinted. “Oh yeah, I can see that. So what is it really?”

  “Trouble,” Fox said. “It’s a sandstorm.”

  “At least it’s really far away,” Yatsuhashi said. “Probably fifteen miles.”

  “Like I mentioned, things move fast in the desert. The desert was formed over centuries, but that’s one of the things that does the shaping. It’s powerful, swift, and deadly.” Fox rarely looked worried, but his concern was plain on his face. “We’re all in danger. It will probably be here within the hour. We have to find shelter.”

  “Let’s hurry and catch up to the others. The storm’s going to erase all these tracks,” Coco said.

  “What about whoever is out there?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  Coco was torn. Whoever it was wanted to be out there if they had covered their tracks so carefully. But it seemed suspicious, and she didn’t like to leave anyone behind.

  “I’ll check it out,” she said. “Meet up with you guys later.”

  Fox swept his hand in front of him. “Nope. I’ll go after them. You need to see tracks to follow them, but I don’t.” He tapped his right temple. “As soon as I get close enough, I’ll be able to find you.”

  “Fox, if you get caught in that storm, you’ll be—”

  “Blind?” He crossed his arms. “Exactly. I also know the desert better than both of you. And I travel faster. And I have—”

  “Okay, okay, no need to give Yatsuhashi an inferiority complex,” Coco said.

  Yatsuhashi rolled his eyes.

  “I saw that,” Coco said.

  “Even I saw that,” Fox said.

  “You clearly know exactly what you’re getting into, so if you want to volunteer on a suicide mission, I guess I won’t stop you,” Coco said.

  “I didn’t say anything about suicide,” Fox said. “I’m coming back.”

  “Sure you will,” she said. “It’s been nice working with you. I hope we don’t get stuck with a weird acronym after you’re gone. Come on, Yatsuhashi.”

  Yatsuhashi paused, then reached down and grabbed Fox in a bear hug, lifting him up off the ground.

  “Ow!” Fox said. “I nee
d my ribs and spine to walk, you big dummy. And I’m coming back.”

  “Sure,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Guys,” Fox said.

  “Good luck.” Coco waved a hand behind her as she walked off with Yatsuhashi, on the path of the evacuees.

  Stupid, she thought. He can’t see you. Even after all this time, she could still slip up, but Fox had a way of putting people at ease, cracking jokes to defuse the tension while people were tripping over themselves to apologize. He had once joked that he should be the one with the sunglasses.

  But I look cooler in them, Coco had told him.

  I’ll have to take your word for it, Fox had responded. But I bet you’re wrong.

  She glanced to her right and saw Fox was running and had already gotten a good distance away; he really was built for the desert, but she couldn’t imagine running in this heat. Walking was hard enough.

  The desert was almost enough to make her regret her dark outfit, but her clothes were more comfortable and cool than they looked. The fabric breathed well, and she made a point of treating them with UV protection and lathering herself in sunscreen to preserve her fair complexion.

  Even so, after a year in Vacuo, she was more tan than she’d ever been in her life. Beaches and Coco went together like milk and lemon, and she had somehow ended up on the biggest beach in Remnant. It had been a tough decision to go there, and not always a popular one, but she was still convinced it had been the right choice. Vacuo was the only place outside of Vale where every member of Team CFVY would be welcome—at least, as welcoming as a place like Vacuo could be.

  In some ways, it had an advantage over Beacon. Coco hadn’t known the best way to help Velvet with the bullying members of their class—since the school’s rules expressly forbade fighting other students outside of school-sanctioned sparring matches. That was one of the reasons Coco had looked forward to the Vytal Tournament so much, and then they’d gone and lost their match against Mercury and Emerald. Just another one of the failures as a leader and a friend that Coco carried around, like an out-of-season accessory.

  “You okay?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Just thinking about our classmates,” Coco said. “At Beacon,” she clarified.

  “Yeah,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Sometimes I wish I could just forget what happened.” She grimaced. “Sorry, didn’t mean that.”

  She was in rare form today. In truth, she’d been off her game since that mission at Lower Cairn, and she kept waiting for the others to see it. Professor Ozpin may have had high expectations for her as a leader, but he couldn’t have predicted this. The world was testing all of them, and she wasn’t sure she would be ready to step up when the time came. All she could do was try to keep it together from one day to the next.

  “Believe me, I know what you mean,” Yatsuhashi said. “But we need to remember the bad along with the good. It’s what makes us who we are. Making mistakes, carrying their lessons with us, makes us stronger. It’s the only way we can become better than we were.”

  “That’s deep,” Coco said.

  “I got it from the back of a Pumpkin Pete’s cereal box,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “No, just kidding. That cereal isn’t very good for you. I always wondered why Pyrrha …” He trailed off. “Anyway, it goes back to something my grandfather told me once. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.”

  “Because of Edward,” Coco said.

  Yatsuhashi kicked some sand ahead of him. A tiny crab scuttled away and burrowed back into the cooler sand below. It was nowhere near the size of a mole crab, but Coco still shuddered involuntarily. They hadn’t been much of a threat, as it turned out, but she didn’t like the idea of countless enemies burrowing beneath her feet.

  “When I first unlocked my Semblance, I did some bad things with it. Some by accident, some on purpose. I was jealous of my little sister, and one day, I made my mother forget she even existed.” Yatsuhashi squinted and looked off into the distance. “That’s when I told them about my ability. They were … afraid of me.” He shook his head. “No, they were afraid of what I might become.”

  “That must have been hard for you,” Coco said. “Is that why you don’t like using your Semblance?”

  “Yeah. I’ve learned to control it, but it still doesn’t feel right, messing with other people’s memories like that. It’s too invasive. Even when I’m doing good with it, it feels … wrong.”

  Coco peered over the top of her shades at him. “So what was it your grandfather said to you?”

  “That our choices make us who we are. The good ones and the bad ones.” Yatsuhashi placed a hand on her shoulder. “No one is perfect, not even you.”

  “Thanks. I was already painfully aware of that.”

  “I mean, it’s okay that you aren’t. Because you’re always trying to be better. You’re always trying to do the right thing. I think our intentions matter just as much as the outcomes.”

  Coco hid her eyes behind her sunglasses again. “Thank you. I … I needed to hear that.”

  “That’s why I said it.”

  “But I’m really close to perfect, right?”

  Yatsuhashi put a hand behind his head and laughed. Then his eyes widened and he pointed behind her. “Do you see that?”

  “Trying to change the subject?” Coco turned, and on the wavy, hazy horizon, she saw a makeshift settlement of dune buggies, wagons, and tents.

  “I see it,” she said. “I wonder why they stopped.”

  She checked her Scroll again, but there was still no signal. She sighed and walked faster, Yatsuhashi huffing alongside her as they approached the group.

  They reached them half an hour later. The sun was directly overhead, leaving no shadows on the sand. It was hot enough that they weren’t even sweating because it evaporated instantly.

  Velvet bounded out of the settlement and launched herself at Yatsuhashi. He caught her, laughing, and spun her around.

  “I’m glad you’re all right, V,” he said.

  “You too, Yatsu. And Coco.” Then she looked worried. “Fox?” Her voice caught in her throat.

  “He’s okay,” Coco said. As far as I know, she thought. “Why did you guys stop here?”

  “We thought we should get organized and make sure we know everyone who escaped Feldspar with us.”

  “Smart,” Coco said.

  “We already lost two people along the way. Bertilak and Edward,” Velvet said.

  “Lost as in—”

  “They aren’t dead. We don’t think, anyway. We just don’t know where they are.”

  “Edward I could understand wandering off, but Bertilak?” Coco said.

  “Maybe Bertilak noticed Edward was gone and went after him?” Velvet asked.

  “Without telling anyone? What does Carmine say?” Coco asked.

  “She’s as concerned as we are.”

  “We only found one set of tracks out there,” Yatsuhashi said. “It looked like whoever it was tried to cover them up so we wouldn’t be able to find them. If that was Edward …”

  “He might be trying to sacrifice himself to save the tribe,” Velvet finished.

  “Don’t worry. Fox is following the tracks; he’ll find him.”

  Velvet looked relieved. “He’ll be back soon,” she said. “But Slate says we have another problem. There’s a sandstorm coming from the north, and we need to find shelter. She says there are some slot canyons just north of here, if we can get to them in time. The high walls should reduce our exposure to the windblasted sand.”

  “Oh good,” Coco said. She hated closed spaces.

  “It’s the best option. Otherwise, we’re liable to lose our vehicles and equipment, not to mention a lot of lives,” Velvet said.

  “Do you ever get the feeling that the desert is trying to kill us?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Every second,” Velvet said. “I would much rather fight an Atlesian Paladin again or a regular villain like Torchwick.”

&n
bsp; “That sounds heavenly,” Coco agreed. “I’ll take a human opponent over this nature nonsense any day.”

  Velvet led them into the camp, which was surrounded by a circle of wagons and covered with stitched-together tarps, tents, robes, and what seemed to be the shirts off people’s backs. Vacuo wasn’t a shirt-and-tie kind of place, but a number of men were walking around bare-chested and even the women were down to halter tops.

  Focus, Coco, she thought.

  The makeshift roof may have lowered the temperature by only a few degrees, but at the hottest time of day in the desert, it made a huge difference.

  “How has it been here? They all seem pretty calm now.”

  “We’ve had a few rough moments, but the mood bombs have been relatively mild,” Velvet said. “Maybe because Edward is getting farther away from camp.”

  Slate emerged from a small tent behind Velvet. “Welcome back. I knew you’d be along soon enough, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.” She smiled at Coco and Yatsuhashi. Then her smile faded. “What happened to Red?” she asked.

  “Fox is going after Bertilak and Edward; at least we assume that’s whose trail he went to follow.”

  The flap of the tent flew open and Carmine stepped out, ducking through the low entrance and rising to her full height. Gus stepped out gingerly after her.

  “You found them?” Carmine asked. Her skin glistened and she smelled like aloe, a common sunscreen cream in Vacuo. Very nice. Coco blushed.

  “We think so. Fox will bring them back,” Coco said. “Any idea why they went off on their own?”

  “Grandpa probably just got confused again. I’m sorry.” He looked pale, sweat dotting his brow. He was shaky on his feet, like he needed to go lie down for a while. Understandable with his grandfather missing.

  Carmine patted the boy on the head awkwardly. “Not your fault, kid. Bertilak must have noticed and hurried after him. Bertilak kind of does his own thing a lot of the time, if you hadn’t noticed. Too often, if you ask me,” Carmine said. “That’s one of the drawbacks when it’s just the two of you hunting Grimm, instead of a team with a strong leader to keep everyone in check. You’ll see one day.”

  Coco looked at Velvet and Yatsuhashi. She hadn’t given much thought to what would happen after they graduated. Funny how quickly she had gone from being a loner—albeit a popular one—to a leader, and now she couldn’t imagine not being part of a team with her three friends. Even Shade Academy hadn’t weakened their bond, despite the focus on survival and results rather than teamwork and studies. Once upon a time, she was the type of person who would flourish at Shade, but she depended on the rest of Team CFVY too much now—and she cared too much about their well-being, even over her own. They didn’t teach you that sort of thing at Shade.