Eruption
“The augmented are evil.” It’s the earliest memory he has, his father telling him that the augmented are horrible. “They lie, cheat, and destroy. They kill hundreds every year and enjoy it. They aren’t human, they live to hurt us. Never trust the augmented.”
He believed him, why wouldn’t he? His father had never steered him wrong, never lied to him. If he said the augmented were evil then they must be, that’s just how it worked. For years he’d hear that from the man, the augmented are evil, all they do is kill and steal. Don’t trust the augmented.
Jaune stared down at his phone, Nora’s contact open. The more he thought about it the more he saw something was wrong. When he was first placed with the augmented they were concerned for him, they were scared, he just couldn’t see those kids as killers but they must’ve been. They had to have been.
“Sir! We might be able to track them!” Clover said, turning in his seat. “One of the tracking beacons of the Blackbird is still active if we can get a lock on it.”
“See what you can do Clover.” Ironwood turned to face the rest of the room. “Marrow have we come any further on tracking Harriet?”
“No sir. The energy is still here but the rate of decay is rising exponentially, we won't have it for much longer.” Marrow said. He turned in his chair to face Ironwood. “We may not find her sir.”
“Damn it. We have bigger worries-” Ironwood stopped as an alarm blared through the room. “What’s going on?”
“We picked up a surge of the energy Harriet outputs within the base!” Everyone whipped around to rush out of the room. Jaune watched them leave and glanced down at his phone. Taking a look up at the paused feed from his confrontation he made his choice. His hand swept over the screen and he rushed out after the others.
“Blackbird tracker.” Nora stared down at her phone with a scowl. Jaune, she knew she couldn’t trust him, not after what he admitted so why would she believe this? She looked up at the four who started it all. They were talking about something, it didn’t matter.
“Jaune says there’s a tracker in the Blackbird.” Everyone looked to her as she spoke. Nora shrugged and glanced at Pyrrha, the redhead had been quiet since Jaune left. “I don’t think we can trust a word he says.”
“But we can’t ignore this.” Ruby said, she ran a hand through her hair and turned back to her friends. “Weiss can you check the blackbird parts again?”
“Of course I need to.” Weiss sighed and walked away. Closing a door along her way. Ruby turned to look back at Pyrrha. She sighed and walked over to the other girl. Ruby crouched down.
“Hey Pyrrha.” Ruby said, she looked the older girl over for a moment. “What’s up?”
“Do you really think we can live in peace with humans?” Pyrrha didn’t look up as she spoke. Ruby looked back at Weiss before looking at Pyrrha again.
“I know it.”
“Ozpin doesn’t think so.” Ruby blinked, she’d never heard that name before. “And now that I know Ironwood’s using grimm…”
“Whoever Ozpin is, he’s wrong.” Ruby said, she gestured to Weiss and the half dozen other humans who’d joined them after their confrontation. “Not all humans are like Ironwood, and if I have to fight my own people to make sure everyone can live together I will.”
“You’ll lose.” Pyrrha said, she looked up at Ruby this time. “Against both of them you will lose.”
“Then I’ll take them with me.” Ruby said. Pyrrha watched as the other girl stood and walked over to a gathering of other natura who’d joined her.
“I hope you do.” Pyrrha starred after the younger girl, even as she disappeared into a backroom with several humans. “The world needs more people like you Ruby Rose.”
For several hours the small base that Ruby’s crew had carved out bustled with people. Weiss had located a tracker in the blackbird parts and so they had to gather everything they could to try and find a different base. Ruby had had an idea though, if they were being tracked why not take advantage. Ruby and Weiss were to one side repurposing what they could to turn the junkyard area into a death trap for anyone that followed them.
Pyrrha took a closer look at her surroundings. On one wall there was a TV playing clips from around the world of the natura using their powers to help people. On another there was a live feed of the local news. People standing around both, human and natura. Pyrrha thought it looked like a fantasy.
“Hey, you okay?” Pyrrha looked up to find a blonde monkey faunus before her. “You’ve just kinda sat there since this whole thing started, figured I’d say hi.”
“I’m fine, just unsure if this is really the right way.” Pyrrha said. She really couldn’t tell who was in the right anymore, if Ironwood and Ozpin both thought humans and natura couldn’t live together how could this ever end well.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s right really.” The faunus said, Pyrrha turned to face him bewildered by his words. “No really it doesn’t matter. Everyone has the right to live and we don’t get to say they can’t so there is no right way. This is the only way we can take.”
“Whether it’s right or not.” Pyrrha said. “We just have to believe it is. That's what Ozpin always said.”
“He was talking about killing all humans though wasn’t he? Doesn’t exactly sound comparable to us.” The faunus said and Pyrrha laughed. He was right of course, genocide or a war for peace, one would always be better than the other without question. With that in mind Pyrrha thought that she had truly come to the right side. “Besides, it sounds a little similar to what the faunus went through, can’t say anyone that wants either side dead is in the right.”
“You should go. Blake’s doing recordings of natura telling their life’s story, and humans sharing their views.” Pyrrha said. She smiled sadly. “My name is probably near the top of the list.”
“Hopen’ I’m up near the top too ya know?” The boy laughed. “Oh, name’s Sun by the way. Sun Wukong.”
Harriet paused at another door. The main meeting room had been locked up tighter than she thought she’d ever see. Armed guards flanked it by the dozen. All of their guns were aimed at her, slowly she raised both hands into the air. She smirked as she caught sight of one of them shaking a little.
“Aw, never fought the natura?” A bullet whizzed past her head. “Sheesh, not all that talkative are ya? Not that it matters, let me through and we can all go home.”
“Harriet Bree, under Ironwood's orders you to be captured alive.” One of the guards said. “Stand down and don’t make this difficult.”
“The hard way it is.” Lightning flickered over her form and every gun fired. The bullets barely made it out of the guns before Harriet had already moved her arms down. There was a distorted sound as her exo-arms unfolded. “Oh come on, I may not be as fast as Rose but to think bullet’s are enough?”
Harriet walked forward, plucking bullets out of the air and placing them back into unfortunate places. Harriet walked past all the guards and let the lightning die as once she was behind them. All the guards dropped as their own bullets made it through gaps in their armor and into their necks. Harriet smirked and reached up to the door, easily ripping it straight off the wall.
“Anti-natura organization, still using standard blast doors.” She scoffed and walked into the room, quickly finding a laptop she plugged a drive in. “Alright what do you need me to do?”
“Nothing, let the drive do all the work.” Raven said over comms. “Summer’s there if things get dicey, don’t let them remove that drive.”
“Got it boss.” Harriet said. It took only moments before she sighed and turned to face the door. “It’s nice to see you Marrow.”
“Bree. So spying for the augmented?” He said, keeping his rifle pointed forward. “And I thought we were friends.”
“First, put the gun down, we both know it’s useless. And second, it’s natura.” Harriet stepped forward. “And I would have thought a faunus raised on the streets of Atlas would side with us on this.”
“Don’t bring that up.” Marrow said, keeping his gun high. “It has nothing to do with anything here.”
“Nothing to do with- Are you stupid?” Harriet growled. “You're standing on the side that rebranded my entire species and slapped an anti on the front and you think that it doesn’t matter. Whatever, just glad I brought the Beowulf with me.”
“The Beowulf?” Marrow paused. “Oh shi-”
A large black wolf with red tipped fur in places slammed into his side. Growling it stood between him and Harriet, it’s silver eyes darting along the hallway and focusing on him between every shift. Marrow stared up at the beast in mild horror. He’d heard stories about the creature before, one of their biggest targets.
“What, too scared to point your rifle at the top most wanted natura in the world?” Harriet said, a lazy grin spreading over her face. “You should be, it’s not like you're part of the group trying to kill her kids.”
The wolf growled and stepped forward. Marrow backpedaled, crawling over the ground until his back hit a wall. The wolf stalked forward more and more, it’s silver eyes gleaming in the light. Marrow reached for his rifle.
“Summer, we’re not here to kill anyone.” Harriet said. She crouched down in front of Marrow and shoved his gun aside. “We’re just after information today. Let’s just get what we want and go.”
Harriet pulled back her fist and knocked Marrow out. Leaving him she led Summer back into the main room and watched the download. Once it was done she pulled the drive free and connected it to a screen on her arm. Raven’s voice came over the comms confirming the link.
“Let’s see if this has what we’re after.” Raven said. Harriet watched messages flicker over her screen. “Oh Pietro, what have they made you do? Right, door on your left should take you to our second goal.”
“On it, let’s go.” Harriet felt lightning crawl over her form, the world slowing to a crawl and yet Summer Rose still looked slightly blurry to her as the wolf moved. Harriet and Summer rushed down a hallway and eventually reached a reinforced door. Summer’s form flickered and she stood up fully, her white cloak billowing.
“Have you ever seen behind this door?” She said. Harriet starred up at the door in silence.
“No. Other than Ironwood only six people have clearance down here.” Harriet said, she frowned. “And some silver haired guy in green.”
“Ozpin?” Summer said, she turned back to the door again. “What could he want here.”
“Doesn’t matter, let’s just rip it down.” Harriet let her gauntlets unfold and walked up to the door. Gripping it by two of the bars she pulled. With great difficulty she ripped it straight out of the frame. The two of them stepped through the doorway and paused. “No.”
“What is this?” Summer said, growling as she looked around the room. Her gaze lingering on each part of the small hall.
“My story?” Pyrrha said. She was sitting in a normal chair across from Ruby. She pulled her knees to her chest. “I don’t know, I was young when they found me. My natural abilities were all polarity based so they trained me. I was locked in a room with twenty other kids most of the time, sometimes they’d take us out one at a time for training.”
“Ironwood?”
“Sometimes, other times it was Ozpin. His training was less intense, and he didn’t do experiments.” Pyrrha said. She knew she wasn’t the first to talk about her life, Nora had talked about what happened to them as well. “It was horrible and I remember hearing about the mission to bring you in and desperately hoping I’d be on it just to get out of there even if for only a while.”
“Ren said the same, said he would have tried to sabotage it to stay out if he had to.”
“I wish I could have done that.” Pyrrha muttered. “The training wasn’t brutal, it was only the experiments. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about everything going on there.”
“That’s fine.” Ruby said. “What about Ozpin?”
“He was manipulative, he played into my anger. Every Time he met me he tried to gode me, talk about Ironwood.” Pyrrha stopped and stared at Ruby. “He wanted me to believe that what you're trying is impossible. Sometimes it was like he wanted a war with humanity.”
“We won't let him.”
“I hope you can.”