After the Fall

by E. C. Myers

  She wondered how Team JNPR was holding up now without Pyrrha. What was Jaune doing after losing a member of his team, a friend … someone he clearly cared about.

  “It’s time to pack it up,” Slate said. “Get in the vans and drive as fast as we can. We have a storm to outrace.”

  “But how will Fox, Bertilak, and Grandpa find us if we start going north?” Gus asked.

  “Fox has his ways,” Coco said. She was more worried about him catching up to them on foot. Even in vehicles, she wasn’t sure if they’d make it to these canyons in time.

  She also hoped she was wrong, but she was worried about Fox out there with Bertilak and the old man. Something about all this just wasn’t adding up yet.

  The wind was rising, a hot wind, rustling Fox’s hair and rushing by his ears. It seemed to be speaking to him in a whisper, and it howled in the distance. At the same time, he was finding it harder to breathe. The air felt heavier, thicker. The breeze, for the moment, felt good against his skin, and the intensity of the midday sun weakened.

  He marched on, pebbles and sand rising from the desert floor and pelting his legs. He had been caught out in a storm only once before, with his uncle Copper, who had described these moments like the sand waking up. It rippled like muscles under the skin, rose in waves like an ocean tide. And like the tide, it could threaten to swallow you up, killing you and burying you all in one gesture. It would be a slow, painful, panicky death. A suffocation, nose and mouth filling with sand as you were buried alive.

  Somewhere in the distance, a bird squawked a warning before it flew off in search of shelter from the sandstorm. Fox was running out of time. Edward was running out of time.

  Fox couldn’t get a good fix on Edward; he was tired, spurred on by desperation and adrenaline. There was definitely a mental presence ahead of him, coming in and out of Fox’s awareness.

  He was fortunate that he could keep his eyes squeezed shut against the sand blasting into his face, rubbing the skin raw. Even being able to see wouldn’t have been much help right now, with the rising wind wiping out the trail Coco and Yatsu had spotted, as well as his own footsteps.

  With his team split up and far away, with no way for them to find him, Fox suddenly felt vulnerable. It wasn’t a good feeling; it reminded him too much of his childhood and the life he’d left. He hadn’t been alone—really alone—a single day since he had enrolled at Beacon Academy and gone through his initiation.

  At least Fox had his Scroll. He used it on a daily basis to get around whenever Coco and the others weren’t in close proximity, and to mask the fact that he could sense others and place them in his mind as well as in the space around him.

  He plugged Ada’s tiny earpieces into his ears and switched on the Scroll.

  “Tap to unlock,” the Accessibility Dialog Assistant said in her mechanical, vaguely feminine voice.

  Fox tapped. He slid his thumb along his most common apps on the home screen, and got it on the second try.

  “Compass activated,” Ada said.

  “Thanks, Ada,” Fox said.

  “You’re welcome, Fox.”

  Fox kept walking forward. The sand kicked up around his shins now, and the wind tugged at his clothing and hair. He raised his hands to protect his face and pressed his mouth tightly shut.

  Each time he picked up a blip of consciousness ahead, he adjusted his course and tapped the screen to lock in a trajectory. So when he went several minutes without another signal from the person he was following, he instructed Ada to beep softly if he strayed too far to the left or right as he pushed on.

  Beep. He heard a gentle tone in his right ear. Fox angled himself slightly left and continued.

  Beep, in his left ear. He turned two degrees to the right. He just hoped whomever he was following was sticking to the same course.

  And then he tripped over a pile of sand. Only when he reached down and dug, he realized it was a man huddled on the ground, his head buried in his knees. The sand had a way of quickly covering anything that wasn’t moving.

  “We have to keep moving,” Fox said, getting a mouthful of sand in the process. He realized the wind in his ears had gotten louder, so he tried his Semblance, but it failed him. He shouted instead. “Are you all right? Can you get up? We have to keep moving.”

  Fox’s fingers danced over the man’s head. Thinning hair, tied into a ponytail. The beginnings of a beard, dusted with sand. Deep lines in his face, filled with sand. Lips dried and cracked, coated in sand.

  “Edward,” Fox said. “Get up. Please. We have to find shelter.”

  And I don’t know where that is, he thought.

  They were screwed.

  Edward jolted awake and knocked Fox backward. Metal scraped against metal as the old Huntsman removed a weapon from his belt.

  “Hyaaah!” the man shouted, coming closer to Fox. Fox lifted his arm and just deflected Edward’s weapon with a spark and a ringing sound.

  “Hey!” Fox shouted. “Stop! I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He leaped lightly to his feet and backed away. It was difficult without a good bead on Edward’s mind, but he paid attention to the sound of his footsteps, the way the wind sounded as it moved around an object—in this case, a person, as Edward circled Fox.

  “You dragged me out here, but I’m not as weak as you thought, eh?” Edward coughed.

  Fox needed more assistance. “Ada, run Cyrano protocol,” he shouted. “Battle mode!”

  “Activating battle mode,” Ada said. It had to be his imagination, but the limited artificial intelligence sounded excited.

  “Describe,” Fox said.

  Ada used the Scroll tucked into his belt to analyze the environment, with the help of the Scroll’s camera and his earbud transceivers. “One opponent, about seventy years old. Weapon: Buckler, a small hand shield with a sharp metal edge. Update: Outer ring is removable. Update: Outer ring has been removed.”

  “Engage proximity alert,” Fox said.

  “Engaged.”

  Fox had to disarm Edward, preferably without injuring him. He dashed forward. Ada’s beeping let him know how close he was to his opponent, and used other audio cues to update him on the position of Edward’s weapon, head, fists, feet, all on a projected x- and y-axis that extended in a five-foot radius of Fox.

  Cyrano was a sophisticated program out of Atlas, experimental tech the kingdom granted older academy students access to for field testing. It had made Fox’s life tremendously easier to navigate, though he often got more useful information from his teammates’ running commentary when the situation allowed for it. It was designed to adapt to Fox just as he adapted to it, and they were a pretty effective team—as long as he remembered to charge his Scroll.

  Fox dashed forward. When he heard a steady tone in both ears, he knew Edward was directly in front of him, and a low thrumming pulse told him where his hand holding his disc-blade was. Fox jabbed his right elbow toward it and hooked Sharp Retribution on the weapon. He pulled and twisted, yanking the disc away, but Edward held on with surprising strength.

  Fox heard a gunshot and the emergency tone in his left ear made him jerk his head back. A bullet whizzed by his forehead.

  “Update,” Ada said. “Weapon has projectile capabilities.”

  “You mean it’s also a gun.”

  Imagine that.

  “Correct. Proceed with caution.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  Fox swept his leg forward and knocked Edward to the ground. The old man grunted. A fist connected with Fox’s chest, but he pulled back just in time so it only made a glancing blow. He reached with his left hand, grabbed Edward’s right, and pulled downward. Edward lurched forward as Fox lifted his left knee. Edward’s skull cracked against it, and Edward went down.

  But he didn’t stay down. His weapon came up, and Fox parried it. Once, twice. Fox then took a chance and fired a shot of his own. He heard a bullet strike metal and Edward cried out in surprise. The weapon fell a
few feet away and landed in the sand.

  Edward dove for it. “Where is it? Where is it?”

  “Sorry,” Fox said. “Are you all right?”

  Edward lifted his head and started to cough. “I know you, don’t I?” The wind whipped his feeble voice away.

  Fox breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes.” Finally.

  “Yatsuhashi, right?”

  Fox’s shoulders fell. “Close. I’m Fox Alistair. Can you stand?”

  “Yes.” Edward got to his feet, but only with Fox’s help.

  “I’m sorry about that. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “You’re a formidable opponent.”

  “Warning: Sandstorm imminent,” Ada said.

  “Thank you, Ada. Disengage battle mode,” Fox said.

  “Who’s Ada?” Edward said.

  “She’s the voice in my head,” Fox said. “We need to find shelter.”

  “There were some big rocks up ahead. They were weird shapes. The big one looked like a rubber ducky Gus used to have.” He paused. “Gus! Is he all right?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. Do you think you can find those rocks?”

  “Hold on. You can’t see,” Edward said.

  Fox usually feigned surprise whenever someone mentioned that, as though they were telling him something he didn’t know. But they didn’t have time for that now.

  “How did you even find me?” Edward asked.

  “Just my lucky day.” Fox grimaced. They were really being buffeted by the wind now. He held on tight to the old man’s arm, as much to keep him close as to help steady him. “Lead on,” he said.

  Fox gently nudged Edward forward; he kept his hand there as pressure to keep moving, and they gradually made their way across the desert.

  The wind abruptly died down and Fox felt the temperature drop.

  “The sun’s gone,” Edward muttered.

  Then, a short while later, Edward said, “Here they are,” just as Ada’s proximity alarm dinged softly to let Fox know he was about to walk into something solid. He moved forward slowly, hands outstretched. His fingers grazed a hard surface in front of him. He pressed his hand against the cool stone. Limestone. Patches of it were rough, others worn smooth, and it seemed to curve inward into a natural sort of lean-to. Sandstorms like this one had likely eroded it over hundreds of years; fortunately the wind was blowing from its opposing side this time. But that wouldn’t matter much when the storm descended on them in earnest.

  “Where are we?” Edward asked. “How did I get out here?”

  “You wandered off again from the group. After evacuating Feldspar, remember?”

  “That doesn’t sound right. Where’s Gus?” Edward asked.

  “He’s back with Velvet and the others. I’ll get you to him as soon as this storm dies down.” Fox just hoped it was one of the brief sandstorms. Some of them were known to last for days.

  “No. We can’t wait a moment longer.” Edward stood and started to venture out. Fox grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on! You have to stop doing that.”

  “I have to get back to them. They’re all in danger.”

  “Everyone is in danger all the time here,” Fox said.

  “No,” Edward said. “He can’t control his ability. He’ll bring them again. I can’t stop it.”

  “His ability?” Fox frowned. Then he realized what the man was saying.

  Oh no, he thought.

  “You mean, Gus is the one who’s amplifying people’s emotions?” Fox said.

  “Yes.” Edward slumped back into Fox’s arms, as though he was exhausted and all his strength had suddenly left him.

  Don’t lose it now, Edward, Fox thought.

  “That means your Semblance is to block other Semblances,” Fox said. Which was why he’d had a hard time tracking Edward’s consciousness in the desert, and couldn’t sense his mind even now.

  “I’ve been blocking his ability since he was a small boy. But after his parents died, it became more powerful, more difficult to control. More … negative. And my own Semblance has been weakening. I can’t keep him in check anymore. Especially when he’s stressed.”

  “Which is all the time out here,” Fox said. “Why did you two lie about this?”

  “It was my idea, to protect Gus,” Edward said. “If anyone figured out we were the ones causing the mood bombs and drawing the Grimm, I made him agree to tell them it was my fault.”

  Fox understood. If someone decided to try to stop the bombs in the most expedient way, Gus likely would have been killed. Besides, it wasn’t always a good idea to reveal your Semblance to strangers. Lots of Huntsmen, like Velvet, tended to keep that information secret, to give them an edge in combat. Others, such as Yatsu, weren’t proud of their ability, or didn’t want others to judge them for it. And with a Semblance as dangerous as Gus’s, it made sense for Edward to paint a target on his own back instead of the kid’s, until they got someplace far enough away from people that it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  But what kind of a life could they live out there in voluntary exile? It was a waste of potential. A waste of life.

  Edward was right, though. They had to get back to the evacuees. They were under a tremendous amount of stress, and with his grandfather missing, Gus was bound to lose it and set the Grimm back on their trail.

  “We can make it,” Fox said. “The storm’s just beginning. We’ll have to hurry.” Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

  Edward pulled himself up again and groaned.

  “Won’t we get lost in the storm?” Edward asked.

  Fox stepped out from the rock into the driving winds. “I never get lost,” he said.

  Then someone large and heavy dropped down on him from above. The proximity alarm whined in Fox’s ears as he stumbled to his knees in the sand, ham-sized fists beating the side of his head.

  “Well, I’m lost,” Fox sent.

  Coco tossed her hands up in the air. “Fantastic.” She put her gun down and sat on a rock. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, hands clasped, and tried to think of a plan.

  They’d already had a plan. The village of Lower Cairn had sent a distress call saying they were being attacked by Grimm. They were escaping, but they needed protection. CFVY was supposed to go in, find the survivors, and bring them back to Vale. It should have been straightforward, nothing they hadn’t handled before, but there had been too many Grimm. More Grimm than any of them had ever seen in a single place before. And Lower Cairn … it was just gone.

  Usually when a village was attacked, even destroyed and abandoned, most of its buildings remained: houses, shops, restaurants. Ruins of temples and cities persisted all over Remnant, enduring signs that people had lived there. But Lower Cairn had been flattened. All but a couple of stone buildings on the outskirts had been reduced to rubble and splinters, like a great hand had come down and swept it aside as easily as a child knocking down a block tower. It was shocking in its implied malice and brutality, and they couldn’t imagine what could cause such devastation.

  That had shaken the team, of course, but it was the sight of the dozens of Ursai and Beowolves roaming the trampled streets, in broad daylight—dark parodies of the townspeople who had lived there only days before—that had really unnerved Coco, Fox, Velvet, and Yatsuhashi. Fox didn’t even have any jokes that could lighten the situation.

  Coco had ordered them to avoid engaging the Grimm, which felt like a defeat in itself. They were Huntsmen in training, they were supposed to fight these things. But if they began fighting, they could quickly be overwhelmed. Even so, their low spirits and anxiety had drawn the attention of some of the demons. So as they hiked toward the mountains and searched for survivors, they were harassed by an increasing number of Grimm; it was just a matter of time before there would be too many of them and they would have to abandon their mission.

  So far they had only picked up fragments of a trail toward the mountains—broken branches, footprints in the mud, threads snagged on brambles
in the underbrush. Then the trail ran cold and it looked like they would have to give up, but Fox had insisted that he could find the villagers with his Semblance.

  “I don’t get it. They should be right here.” Fox sat down next to Coco.

  “I guess you slightly oversold your ability to track the survivors,” Coco said.

  He shrugged. “I know someone’s out there, but the signal’s weak. I think the mountain passes are causing interference, like the buildings back in Vale. Either that, or …”

  “What?” Velvet asked.

  “There aren’t enough survivors to get a good fix on them,” Fox sent.

  “The longer it takes to locate them, the fewer there’ll be,” Coco said.

  “Maybe we should call it in,” Fox said.

  “Not yet,” Coco said.

  “We’ve been out here for ten days. We should have been back by now.”

  Professor Port had finally contacted them and chewed Coco out for not reporting in. She had snapped that they were in a precarious position, with Grimm all around them—it wasn’t exactly convenient to talk. And as if to punctuate her point, CFVY had been attacked by a pair of Beringels, incredibly strong and vicious ape-like Grimm. They had to cut off the call with Port, with barely enough time for Velvet to ask him to tell Yang and Weiss that they were going to be too late to set up for the Beacon Dance. He had spluttered and told them to keep their minds on the job, that there were more important things than a dance. If they couldn’t handle it, he would be sending an extraction team.

  Velvet and Yatsuhashi looked around. They looked up into the sparse trees and the rocky terrain rising on either side of the narrow passage they were in. There was no place even a single person could hide, let alone a large group of people.