After the Fall

by E. C. Myers

  Sun and Neptune glanced at each other. “Yeah, we saw her a little while ago, with Goodwitch.”

  “What?” Coco said. “Where were they going?”

  “They said they were on some business for Ozpin.”

  Yatsuhashi and Coco stood up. Fox slid Coco’s plate over and started shoveling food into his mouth.

  “Is something going on?” Jaune asked. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “I cannot imagine Velvet ever doing anything wrong,” Pyrrha said.

  “She didn’t,” Coco said. “We did.”

  “And we should all be there,” Yatsuhashi said.

  Fox finished eating and slapped his fork down. “So let’s go.”

  Coco led the way to Professor Ozpin’s office, having been called there once or twice in her time at Beacon.

  The elevator doors opened and Yatsuhashi stormed out, closely followed by Coco. Fox lingered in the doorway. He was bothered that Velvet had been singled out for their failure in the village, too, but he didn’t think storming the headmaster’s office was going to make the situation better for any of them.

  “What’s going on in here?” Yatsuhashi stomped toward Professor Ozpin’s desk. Velvet turned.

  “Yatsuhashi?” she said. Her eyes were red and her face was wet with tears.

  “Are you all right?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  Professor Goodwitch moved swiftly to stand in front of Ozpin, smoothly drawing her crop and pointing it at Yatsuhashi. He levitated off his feet.

  “Whoa.” He flailed his arms.

  Professor Goodwitch flicked her crop upward and Yatsuhashi zipped all the way up to the high ceiling.

  “It wasn’t Velvet’s fault,” Coco said.

  Fox slowly strode into the room and stood next to Coco. If this was happening, it was going to happen to the whole team.

  Professor Ozpin rose. “We were just having a conversation.” Then his voice lowered and became ominous. “To which you were not invited.”

  “You need to have some respect for this office,” Professor Goodwitch said.

  “Guys, just stop,” Velvet said.

  “They shouldn’t have brought you here by yourself,” Yatsuhashi called down from above.

  Coco folded her arms. “As team leader, I take full responsibility for everything that happened in Lower Cairn.”

  “We take full responsibility,” Fox said.

  “As you should.” Professor Ozpin rose. “Let him go, Glynda.”

  She glanced at Yatsuhashi and then pointed her crop at the floor.

  Yatsuhashi thudded to the floor. Professor Goodwitch stepped back.

  “I deserved that.” Yatsuhashi winced as he got back on his feet.

  “You okay, Velvet?” Coco asked.

  “I’m fine.” Velvet was a little shocked, and a little embarrassed at her team’s overreaction, but she was also happy that they had come to her defense.

  Professor Ozpin walked around his desk and down the line, looking at Coco, Yatsuhashi, and Fox. Velvet stood and joined her team.

  “The first thing I want to say to all of you is …” Professor Ozpin sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  Velvet sniffled.

  “I know it’s a hard thing to lose anyone, people who need you. But it happened. It, in all likelihood, will happen again. But that doesn’t make the loss any less painful. Take the time you need to grieve.” He looked at each of them. “Now is a time to come together and lean on each other like you never have before.”

  His voice regained its former steel. “From what Velvet told us, I know each of you played a role in how events turned out at Lower Cairn. The outcome was regrettable, but it also seems to me that you did everything you could.” He turned and crossed his arms, looking out the window. “Which is all we ask of you as students. I am proud of you for stepping up and taking responsibility for the lives lost yesterday, but I am also here to take responsibility myself. If you fail, as Huntsmen and Huntresses, or as good people out there in the world, it is in part because we have not prepared you well enough.”

  Coco started to say something, but Fox nudged her.

  “Let him talk,” Fox sent.

  “But I must also trust that you take your education seriously. Since you became a team, you have performed admirably. But until you truly learn to work together, trust each other, rely on each other—you will be Team CFVY in name only.” He faced them again and spread his hands. “For all of your successes, it is only now, in your worst moment of defeat—when you came to the defense of one of your own, with no regard for your well-being—that you have truly shown yourselves to be a team.”

  Professor Ozpin walked back to his desk, as if every step weighed him down, and sat heavily. “I have made many mistakes in my life, and I am still learning from them and growing. I’m still trying to make up for some of my larger failures. But I can’t do it alone.”

  He glanced at Professor Goodwitch.

  “Life will test each of you, but if you face your challenges together, you can overcome almost anything.”

  Thoughts, unbidden, came flooding back to Coco, to the moments before they’d found the Gray family in the underground cavern. Standing alone, pointing fingers, assigning blame. If she’d been a better leader, if she’d been able to refocus and rally her team, would that have made a difference? Could that have saved lives? The numbness she’d felt from the battlefield up to now suddenly shattered, and she felt untold anger at herself for letting this happen, for making her team go through this.

  Professor Ozpin leaned forward. “Though it might be hard to tell around here lately, we do have rules. And rules are crucial to keeping everything moving like …” He looked around. “Well, like clockwork.”

  Professor Goodwitch stepped forward. “Each of you is to turn in a written statement of everything that happened in Lower Cairn to Professor Port by the end of the week. You will also have faculty supervision on all escort and rescue missions from now until we deem you ready to operate on your own again. Understood?”

  Coco let out a breath. She had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and there it was. She nodded. “Understood.” A moment later she added, “Thank you.”

  “One more thing,” Professor Goodwitch said. “I believe you all are behind on your classes. If you don’t make up any exams and assignments you’ve missed by Monday, I’m afraid you’ll have to sit out the Vytal Tournament. You are dismissed.”

  CFVY piled into the elevator. Without consulting one another, they waited until they were outside and walking back to the dorms before they spoke.

  “Thanks for coming for me, guys,” Velvet said. “I was so nervous, worried I would say the wrong thing.”

  “If you told them the truth, you can’t say the wrong thing,” Yatsuhashi said. “I’m sorry we let them bring you in alone.”

  “All of our heads have been somewhere else,” Fox said. “I’m sorry I got us lost back there. It was all my fault.”

  “No, I should have fought better,” Velvet said.

  “I kind of overdid it a bit, when I caused that cave-in,” Yatsuhashi said.

  Coco was quiet for a long time. “I let this happen. I have to be a better leader.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry I failed you.”

  “You didn’t fail us,” Velvet said. “Like Professor Ozpin said. We all succeed together, and we all fail together. In the forest … we were exhausted and in over our heads … we fell apart.”

  Coco tried to smile from behind her sunglasses, but fooled no one.

  “I have to say, as scary as it was to be interrogated like that, it felt kind of good to talk about it.” Velvet looked at her teammates as they walked toward the dorms. “I needed to talk to someone.”

  “You can always talk to me, V,” Coco said. “It’s something I need to work on. I have to listen to all of you more.”

  “We should be able to talk to each other about anything,” Yatsuhashi said. “If we can’t trust each other, we’re not going to survive out ther
e.”

  “Group hug?” Fox sent.

  The team huddled up—it was a bit awkward with Yatsu’s height, but everyone felt better for it.

  “Before, I couldn’t wait to graduate from Beacon and get out there in the real world,” Coco said. “But it’s a lot different than I thought.”

  “I’m glad we have another couple of years to go,” Fox said.

  “And I’m glad we’re doing it together,” Velvet said.

  People’s emotions were frayed and arguments were breaking out. They didn’t have time for this—they needed to get everyone up on top of the turtle. Yatsuhashi walked around helping Slate restore order.

  Of course, they had slightly different approaches. Slate gently insinuated herself between people and talked them down to defuse the situation and get them thinking clearly again. Yatsuhashi got a little more physical.

  “Stop that,” he said to two men at the start of a pushing contest. He put his hands between them and knocked them apart from each other.

  “Hey!” one of the men shouted. “Who asked you?”

  Yatsuhashi didn’t mind diverting their anger away from each other toward himself. Once he had their attention, he pointed them—or picked them up and faced them—in the direction of Coco, who was near the base of the turtle, directing nomads up the dangling ropes.

  “Get up there, quick,” Yatsuhashi said. “If you don’t want to die.”

  Sometimes just the sight of Yatsuhashi coming toward a fighting group was enough distraction to snap them out of it. Telling them a giant Grimm worm was approaching usually was enough to get them moving, no matter how reluctant they were.

  They just didn’t have the luxury of talking out their feelings right now. If they were lucky, there would be plenty of time for all that later. Yatsuhashi couldn’t understand how Edward’s mood bomb Semblance could still be affecting them so strongly with him out in the desert somewhere, but maybe that meant Fox was on his way back with the old man.

  Yatsuhashi himself also wasn’t immune to the effects, and the nonstop adrenaline rush of preparing for a big battle wasn’t helping. He was impatient and irritable. He needed to sit somewhere quiet to clear his mind, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He looked forward to taking out his anger on the approaching Grimm.

  “That’s nearly everyone,” Yatsuhashi said after dropping off a brother and sister he had caught pulling each other’s hair.

  Slate joined him and Coco. “Thank you for helping to get everyone to safety.”

  “Don’t thank us yet,” Coco said. “We may just have moved them from one mess into a different sort of trouble.”

  The three of them jogged alongside the turtle, easily keeping pace with it. Was the creature aware of them down there, or the dozens of people now hitching a ride on her back? If she suddenly noticed them, what would she do?

  “I still appreciate the effort. We all do, even if everyone is too preoccupied to realize it right now,” Slate said.

  “Slate, why doesn’t Edward’s Semblance affect you?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Who says it doesn’t?” she said.

  “You’ve been completely relaxed this whole time. And you seem to be able to make other people relax, too,” Yatsuhashi said.

  Slate smiled. “Most people try to hide their feelings. They’re ashamed of them, or they worry about how they will make other people feel. That’s never been me. I always say what I’m thinking, and I don’t lie to myself about what I’m feeling.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s the answer, but I guess I’m just more aware of my emotions than most people. I can tell when they aren’t coming from inside me.”

  “You also genuinely care about people,” Coco said. “Edward’s Semblance doesn’t only boost negative emotions, it seems to enhance all emotions—even the positive ones. When it’s affecting us, maybe you’re just caring even more than you already do—and that outweighs everything else you’re feeling.”

  Slate raised her eyebrows. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  “So the solution is to be more positive,” Yatsu said.

  “I don’t think that’s much of a solution, since it’s easier said than done,” Slate said.

  “But wouldn’t that be nice, if we all just could turn our bad feelings into something more compassionate?” Coco looked off into the distance.

  Slate patted her on the arm. “It’s the hardest thing for any leader to accomplish.” She glanced up the rope. “Looks like it’s my turn.”

  “See you up there,” Yatsuhashi said.

  Coco and Yatsuhashi waited until the last of the nomads were on their way up before they took to the ropes themselves. Velvet met them at the top. She looked concerned.

  “Is Gus with you?” Velvet asked.

  “No,” Yatsuhashi said. “There’s no one else down there. I assumed he was already up there.”

  “I haven’t seen him, either,” Coco said. “I should have realized, since I was sending everyone up …”

  A call came in on their Scrolls. “It’s Fox!” Velvet said.

  Coco patched him into their call. Edward’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Edward?” Coco said.

  “Is Fox okay?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “He’s fine,” the old Huntsman said. “He’s got his hands full.”

  The image tilted as Edward turned the camera to show Fox trudging through the sand with Bertilak slung over his shoulders. The Huntsman’s face was covered in blood.

  “Oh,” Velvet said.

  Fox smiled weakly and waved, then panicked as Bertilak started to slide off his shoulders. He caught him in time and sighed.

  “What happened?” Coco asked.

  “It’s a long story, but you need to get Gus away from Carmine right now.”

  Coco looked around. “Has anyone seen Carmine?”

  Yatsuhashi and Velvet shook their heads.

  “Like I said, she isn’t up here,” Velvet said.

  “She must be with Gus. You have to find them,” Edward said.

  “Turns out Carmine and Bertilak were bringing Edward to someone who’s collecting people with powerful Semblances,” Fox said.

  “Only … it’s really Gus they’re after,” Edward said. “We lied to you—my Semblance is to block other Semblances. Gus—”

  “Creates the mood bombs,” Yatsuhashi finished.

  “That explains a lot.” Coco sighed.

  “When the Grimm kept coming after Bertilak took Edward away, Carmine must have figured it out and made off with Gus,” Edward said.

  “We should have, too,” Coco said.

  “We’ll watch out for Gus,” Velvet said. “Don’t worry.”

  Edward’s breath hitched, and Yatsuhashi didn’t think it had anything to do with the exertion of hiking across the desert.

  “As soon as we find him. We need to get eyes on Carmine and Gus.” Coco headed toward the edge of the turtle shell.

  “Edward, where are you and Fox?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Maybe an hour away. Fox is tracking your location, but we’ll have to hurry up if we’re going to catch up to you. He says you’re moving pretty fast.”

  “Look for the large flatback slider, and/or a Blind Worm,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Look, over there.” Velvet pointed.

  “Yatsuhashi, I think we have a bead on Carmine and Gus. What do you make of this?” Coco said. She pointed to a funnel-shaped cloud of whirling sand moving ahead of the turtle, toward the Vacuo capital city on the horizon.

  “Another storm?” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Look closer,” Coco said, pointing to the heart of the cloud. Two dark spots were at the bottom of the dust devil.

  “Is that them?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Somehow Carmine can control the sand or create localized weather patterns,” Coco said.

  “Bertilak can affect the temperature of the environment around him,” Fox said. “Maybe it’s something similar.”

  “I’m goi
ng after her and the kid,” Yatsuhashi said.

  “Took the words out of my mouth,” Coco said. “Do it. Bring Gus back.”

  “I’ll help,” Fox said. “Think we can pick up the pace, old man?”

  “No way, Fox. You don’t even have enough energy to use your Semblance right now, let alone fight. You get here as quickly as you can, but you’re sitting this fight out. You’ve already done plenty,” Coco said.

  Fox scowled. “You’re right, and it’s annoying.”

  “Coco, Velvet, you’ll be okay here?” Yatsuhashi asked.

  “Of course,” Velvet said. “You know I can handle myself.”

  Yatsuhashi nodded.

  “It’s an even bet which way the Blind Worm will go, now that Gus is out there with Carmine,” Coco said. “He’s got to be feeling pretty stressed right now. Hopefully, it will come for us, but it might head for them instead. Either way, we’ll be ready.”

  “Don’t worry, Yatsu,” Velvet said. “Go save Gus. We’ve got this!”

  Yatsuhashi grabbed on to a rope and slid back down the side of the turtle.

  Yatsuhashi got angrier and angrier as he gained on Carmine and Gus—what kind of a Huntress would kidnap a kid?

  He had the woman in his sights. The dust storm was swirling around her and Gus; however she was doing that, it was preventing Gus from getting away, and also giving them cover in the desert and hiding their tracks, unless you looked closely at the sand funnel and realized it wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

  “Hey, Yatsuhashi,” Fox sent.

  “Fox! You must be close. I can see Carmine just ahead of me.” Yatsuhashi was glad he didn’t have to speak aloud. He was already breathing hard from running.

  “I can see you, too. Turn around,” Fox sent.

  Yatsu skidded to a halt and turned. Fox was approaching, moving much faster than Yatsuhashi could, and it was even more impressive because he had a heavy Huntsman on his shoulders. Edward wasn’t far behind him. His mind might be going, but he was still in peak physical form, even at his age.

  When Fox reached Yatsuhashi, he tossed Bertilak at his feet. “I hate to ask, but this guy was a bastard to fight. Think you can take care of him?”

  Edward stumbled over, panting. “What? After all this, you’re going to let him kill Bertilak?”