Will woke up to silence. Not a calm silence. A silence of a world holding its breath, of animals going quiet because there were predators afoot, of aura prickling like he was being watched. The forest around them was silent, the scent of salt carried on the breeze from the nearby coastline.

He reached for his weapon, Fürstenblume, taking the hilt in both hands as he extended the blade from a short sword into a Zweihänder. He had been travelling Mistral for a while, enjoying the culture and the freedom of being unaffiliated to any organisation in particular, when Headmaster Galazio had requested him for a personal mission.

So here he was, escorting what seemed to be an entirely ordinary child from a very racist village, all the way to Vacuo. Shame that Mistral's train network didn't run from Inari's village to the Argus docks.

Inari woke up, her white tail bright in the moonlight. "What's happening?"

"Someone's here. You see anything?" He peered through the darkness around them, suddenly regretting choosing to camp out in this clearing. The trees shadowed any incomers too well. He may have made an error.

"William?" A voice drifted through the woods, and Will placed himself between the source and his charge.

"Stick close, kid. Watch our backs." He muttered to her, ready to draw on his skills, his semblance, and the ice dust stored in his blade.

He spotted something bright reflecting the moonlight through the trees, a woman with hair as snow white as his own approaching them. His grip slackened a bit as he recognised her, a set of icy blue eyes that mirrored his looking back at him. "Willow? What are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit my little brother?" She smiled at him, looking as prim and proper as always.

He looked at her suspiciously. "You're meant to be in Atlas." This was bizarre. Was it an illusion? A hallucination? A trick?

"William, it's me." Willow walked out of the trees and towards him, freezing to a halt as Furstenblume's blade was extended to the full length and levelled at her chest.

Will smirked at her, no humour behind it. "My sister calls me Bill." A black glyph appeared on a tree behind her, the pull of his semblance slamming the doppelganger against the bark.

He settled into a swordsman's stance, both hands on the hilt. "Inari, anyone there?"

"there's more people coming I can see them-" he could hear her panicking and took his eyes from the false sister in front of him, looking back to pat her on the head and give her a reassuring smile. His grip tightened as he did, ready for the attack.

He predicted correctly. The instant his gaze shifted from the doppelganger, she was on him like a rabid grimm, a silvery dart catching the moonlight as it shot towards his face. Willow's face was twisted into an uncharacteristic snarl, making his skin crawl. He brought his sword up to bat it away, noting the way the light being it flickered and recognising the dart was attached to some sort of thin line.

He twirled his sword and slammed it into the ground, the air temperature dropping around them as the ice dust in his blade was activated, providing a thick wall of cold between him and that dart. He stowed Furstenblume for a moment and cracked the knuckles on his left hand with a ringing pop, before he crouched. "On you pop, kiddo."

There wasn't much use fighting a battle against an unknown opponent, especially one still wearing his sister's face. Best not to waste energy and just get out of there.

He waited until Inari's arms were around his neck, this kid clinging tight, before he drew his sword, the ice wall shattering open as Not-Willow charged him with a wicked grin. He blocked her kick on his forearm, slashing downwards to hit her thigh with his blade. Frost followed the motion as he left an arc of ice, trapping her there for a moment.

Pale glyphs spun in the air as he jumped up, using her head to gain some height purely to be petty, and he hopped from one to another like they were stepping stones over a river. "How many did you see?"

"Two? Maybe three? Is that bad?"

It was, but he wasn't going to let her know that. Stressing her out would only bring more trouble to them, even more then their enemy. It was imperative he stayed calm and didn't do anything stupid. Not every fight had to be fought.

He had an inkling of something coming at him and paused himself in mid-air, flipping backwards to avoid a green blade attached to a long chain, the jade metal polished to the point that Will saw his own reflection in it.

It snapped back towards him and he parried it with his blade, hearing Inari's warning a moment before another chain wrapped around his foot and pulled him off the glyph. He was left with no choice but to take the hit, one hand coming up to hold Inari in place and make sure he was slammed onto his stomach, protecting her from any harm.

He stabbed his blade through the chainlinks as he picked himself up, quickly freeing his leg as the chain blade slithered back into the woods.

"Look out!" Inari yelped, giving him just enough time to grab the short spear in his gloved hand, right before it hit him in the side of the head.

"What is it with these people and their weird weapons?" He crushed just behind the barbed head of the atlatl dart, snapping the pointy bit off so it was just a stick. He twirled his sword in his free hand, loosening his wrist as he looked around, ice blue eyes scanning the undergrowth.

He could hear the ocean nearby, waves pounding against cliffs with a churning roar, and ran towards it. At least that way the trees would clear up so he could use the moonlight to see. These sneak attacks were annoying.

As he ran, he took a deep breath, emptying his focus for a minute as he decided to call for back up. The tiny glyph swirled in his palm as toy-sized Sabyrs formed, William tossing them back behind him to give his pursuers something fun to focus on.

They grew to their natural size, and then William pushed them a little bigger, the four summoned Grimm snarling as they rushed into the trees. He grinned wickedly as he heard shouts of alarm and at least one person cursing, the Sabyrs making a nuisance of themselves on his behalf.

His breathing came a little heavier as he pushed through the last of the trees, hoping over gnarled roots and skidding to a stop atop the bluff. He took a second to breath deep, noting the drop off behind him that ended with seafoam churning up around the rocks.

He closed his eyes and focused, catching brief flashes of vision and awareness from his summons. He felt one get cleaved apart by two jade blades, catching a look at a set of ox horns on the wielder's head. A faunus? Two more were on the mockery of his sister, her rope dart twirling around her like a ribbon as she carved them up, easily destroying the white-hued grimm. The fourth? He didn't even try, feeling it disappear.

He opened his eyes and glanced at his weapon, mentally estimating how much ice dust he had left. Some small strikes, or one big thing. He could work with that. He extended Furstenblume to its full length, gripping the hilt in both hands as he heard someone coming towards him.

Willow's Doppelganger stepped out of the trees, her face twisted into an expression that didn't look at all like his sister. He glared back at her as her skin seemed to bubble and ripple, like melting plastic, before the disguise split apart and fell off her in scraps of energy that sounded like bones breaking.

"William Schnee, you are just determined to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong, aren't you?" She smiled at him with her real face, eyes outlined in white make-up as she looked at the child clinging to his back with the eyes of a starving dog staring at a bone.

Will smiled charmingly at her, turning on the smoulder. "What else is a nose as handsome as mine for?"

A man stepped out of the tree behind her, a wild mane of grey hair falling around his shoulders, two braids on either side of his face decorated with silver clasps. William tossed him a wink, scanning him for a weapon and spotting nothing but scarred knuckles.

The shapeshifter held up a fist, clearly halting any other companions she had and keeping them out of sight. Clever move, though he knew the ox faunus with the chain blade had to be there. She smiled at William, her expression almost sweet. "My name's Bai Hei Jing, and I just want the girl."

"Why? What makes a child so important to you?" Will raised a brow, taking one step back. By his estimate, he had four more steps before he was off the edge of the cliff.

"You don't know?" The grey-haired man scoffed. "That's useless."

"Be nice, Aster," Bai tutted at him, like she was chiding a misbehaving child. "If you don't know, there's no point in us telling you. Just give us the girl and we'll all part ways as peaceful allies."

Will felt Inari's hands grip tighter on his shoulders, hard enough that it nearly hurt. He got ready to summon a glyph at a moment's notice, keeping an easy smile on his face. "And what happens to Inari afterwards? Because I'm sure you're full of goodwill and charity."

"We're going to make sure she's safe," Bai clasped her hands over her chest, and Will didn't buy it for a second. For one thing, her henchman had no poker face to hide his smirk.

"Of course you are." He flicked his gaze between them, trying to judge the main threat. Probably Bai, she'd already shown she was fast and had a tricky weapon to deal with. "Well, I'd hate to rain on your parade, but I'm feeling pretty confident about this mission. So sorry, darling."

Bai's smile stayed, but he could see the crack in her pleasant mask, something dark and ugly and hungry scrabbling underneath to get out,. "Really? Well. That's such a shame."

"Has to be done, I'm afraid." He shrugged guilelessly, twirling his broadsword. "Now, are you going to leave?"

Bai's smile sharpened, her hand flicking out, and he batted the rope dart away once again, scoffing as he did.

Aster charged him, throwing a left hook that William flicked the flat of his blade against, knocking it aside before he slashed Furstenblume over the man's face, scraping against his aura. He stepped to the side, a white glyph forming under Aster and sending him shooting off over the cliff's edge.

Chainlinks rattled and William dodged again, another sidestep and a twirl, trying to keep the four steps between him and the cliff's edge. He hummed a waltz under his breath, timing his steps to it as he formed another glyph between himself and the attackers, using it as a shield against the atlatl and Bai's next attack before he switched it to a summoning glyph, his sphinx pulling itself from the runic circle.

He heard the chainlinks go taut from where they'd been thrown past him, spotted Bai's grin turn victorious. He spun, slashing Furstenblume parallel to the quickly retracting chain, bonking Aster in the head with it as he was pulled back up to safety by his teammates.

Aster swore before he kicked Will in the stomach, knocking him a few steps back towards the edge. He felt his heel go over and barely caught himself, wobbling for balance for a moment before he dug his blade into the ground to anchor himself.

His glyph was gone. As was his sphinx. His concentration must have broken. He reached for his semblance again, the tug of energy normally easy to tap into, but now it felt like he was struggling with a locked door.

He didn't have his semblance.

Aster grinned and formed a white circle over his hand, the glyph spinning lazily. "So this is the famed Schnee semblance. Not bad. Mind if I borrow it?"

Will gritted his teeth, mind racing through options. Only one good action came to mind, for a given measure of 'good'. "Inari?"

"Yeah?" She had been staying remarkably silent, which was nice, it let him focus on the fight.

"Hold on tight." And he stepped backwards, into open air.

"At that point I used the last of my ice dust on the waves to make a ramp for us to slide safely into the water, and then we swam along the cliffs until we reached somewhere to get out of the water." William finished, sitting against what was left of a stone pedestal. "They've chased us ever since, we've barely managed to stay a step ahead."

"He took your semblance?" Summer stared in horror.

"Borrowed it. I couldn't access mine for a day afterwards, but the effect wore off." He nodded to himself. "Good thing too."

"So- the reason you asked me about my semblance is because Bai can't copy them?" Summer tilted her head.

"Exactly. She wouldn't need a power mimic on her staff if she could do it herself, so that became shorthand for me and Inari to know who I was."

Summer nodded to herself, using the light of Will's glyph to see. "Okay. So… how can I help? What now?"

"Unfortunately, these ruins are a maze, I've been stuck down here for hours now and I have no idea where I am or where I'm going. And there's now three extra faces in here for Bai to copy."

"My team." She wished they hadn't been separated.

"To top it off, Inari's gotten separated from me. She's Bai's real target. We have to find her above all else."

"Also, scrolls aren't working, do you know why that is? Because otherwise I'd just call my team."

"Vacuo's never had the best coverage," Will shrugged. "Shame, really. It would probably be the most useful out here."

"Yeah. So… What do you know about them so far?" She wrapped her arms around her knees, the stone floor cold in the cavern's gloom.

"Bai shapeshifts and has a ropedart, though she can only copy physical appearances. No weapons, no semblances, no personality or memories. Just the looks." William rolled his shoulders. "Aster can copy a semblance if he touches you, and it also shuts off access to a semblance for a day. I timed it. Most uncomfortable."

"And… You said there was others?"

"An ox faunus using a pair of chain blades. And possibly someone with an atlatl, unless they're the same person. They have access to earth dust, though. Or an earth-moving semblance. That's how I ended up down here, and I daresay the same for you."

"Earth dust. They'd need to be skilled with it to have such fine control over sand, wouldn't they?"

"Yes, especially if they don't have a semblance to cheat with. While my glyphs are able to channel dust with ease, not everyone is so lucky." Will shrugged. "Ah well. Let's get going then?"

"Are you sure?" Summer blinked at him.

"Of course. We need to find my charge and your teammates, and we'll be better off working together. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah- but I've never worked with anyone other than my team before." Summer brushed her hair out of her eyes, feeling kind of honoured that he was willing to work with her.

"It's pretty common once you graduate. Huntsmen team up for missions a fair bit. Lucky for you, I'm also great at teamwork. It's a curse to be both brilliant and good-lucking, but I'll take my dues," he winked, offering her a hand up.

She took it, smiling awkwardly as he pulled her to her feet. "Well- I won't let you down."

"Forward we go!" He bowed once, giving her a grin as he started down the next tunnel.

"Get up, get up, you have get up!"

Qrow groaned as something shook his shoulder, his leg kindly informing him that he was in a shitload of pain. "Bug off, Summer, 'm ditchin' today."

Hang on. That wasn't Summer's voice.

He blinked and was met with a pair of very large violet eyes, jerking back out of reflex and cracking the back of his head against the stone floor. He cussed and rubbed the back of his head, feeling it throb under his hair. "What the hell?"

The little fox faunus beside him- Inari, her name was Inari- looked at him nervously, her hands on his shoulder. He blinked at her, noticing that the light around them was flickering and dancing like it was from a fire.

He looked past Inari, getting greeted with the sight of an actual fire, burning from a small dust round. Huh. Was that Inari's slingshot ammo?

"Okay. What's going on?" He looked around, realising they were in some sort of cave with half-crumbled columns and trickles of sand falling from the roof.

"We fell through- they're after us, they'll find us, we need to go." Her dark hands clenched on his sleeve.

"Whoa, hang on, kid." He raised a hand. "Take it from the top. Who's after you?"

"Bai. She's a shapeshifter, she's been trying to kill Will since Argus. She's been chasing us. She and her people always find us, but Will says she can't copy semblances, so that's how I can know it's not her," the kid babbled, mouth going a mile a minute.

"A shapeshifter? Like, she looks like people?" He quirked a brow.

"I think she was Will. He was fighting them last night while I ran and-" The kid looked about to cry and oh shit nope no he did not do crying children.

"Uh- hey, don't worry, I'm sure he's fine, it's gonna be okay, come on, we can find him, right? And my team." He tried to smile comfortingly at her, copying what Tai did.

She squinted at him. "You're bad at being nice."

His smile dropped. "Okay, how about this, I'll teach you good swear words if you behave, deal?" Kids liked that shit, right? "Now we need to go, have you seen my scythe?"

She pointed at Harbinger and he picked it up, extending it into the scythe form. He could use the pole as a makeshift walking staff, he could use the support. He took a few deep breaths, psyching himself up before he hefted himself onto his feet.

He let his forehead rest against Harbinger's handle for a moment before glancing at Inari. "Okay. Stick close and tell me if we're coming up on any obstacles until I'm used to the dark. You can hold my cape or something, I don't care."

He felt a faint tug on the shoulders of his shirt and started to limp forward, Harbinger's base hitting the ground as he started moving. "We'll leave that fire as a decoy, sound good?"

"What are you going to do if we have to fight someone? You can't walk."

"Don't worry kid, I've got it covered," he grinned, knowing he totally did not have it covered. He was so fucked. He couldn't see shit, he was injured, and he had a fucking kid to worry about now. Not to mention his semblance would go haywire the second he boosted his aura even slightly. No chance of tapping into the faster healing and physical abilities if it meant more bad luck. He'd probably cause a cave in. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Actually…

His dark red aura flickered over him as he deliberately deactivated it, feeling the pain catch him as he nearly fell. Okay. Stand straight. One step at a time. Harbinger made a pretty decent walking stick, all things considered.

He looked around as they walked forward, trying not to lean too much of his weight on Harbinger. He was starting to make out shapes from the dark, everything painted black and dark grey. "Kid, you seeing anything?"

"Nope, just rocks. And paintings."

"Let me know if that changes." What was he going to do if there was a fight? Good question.

At least he still had his gun, that was still something.

Raven tumbled through the stand and twisted like a falling cat, landing on her feet in a crouch. Her hand gripped the hilt of her blade as she glared into the darkness, red eyes flicking around the nothingness.

She scowled and rose, her grip loosening as she shook sand out of her ebony mane, the band she'd used for her ponytail having snapped from the stress. She'd been going through them like they were made of paper.

She felt the back of her neck prickle like someone was watching her and began to turn, too late to avoid the punch to the back of her head. She felt the impact rattle through her skull, her head snapping forward. The force of the blow sent her stumbling to her knees as she pulled out her sword, her thoughts swirling for a second as she forgot what dust blade it had been set to.

She poured some aura into it, fire igniting up the length of it. She spotted the figure of a compactly built guy turning the corner and chased after him, something humming in her ears before her aura's passive healing fixed the mild concussion she might have been developing.

The firelight cast flickering shadows over the walls as she ran through them, her blood pumping in her veins as she hunted the coward down. She turned corner after corner, not keeping track of where she was running until she realised he'd long since gotten away.

"Damnit," she cursed, swinging her sword around to look around, casting the erratic light over the corridor she'd found herself in. "Sucker punching coward," she muttered, backing up so she had her back to a wall.

Didn't look like there was anything around here. No people. No enemies. Not even any grimm. Just a lot of dust and sand, and she was starting to get negative opinions on the latter.

She scowled and cut the air, thinking of her brother. He would be in the worst state here, with his injury. He'd need his twin.

Nothing happened.

No portal.

Raven swung her sword again, feeling a strange pins and needles through her aura for a moment as she tried to activate Kindred Link. She gritted her teeth and switched to slashing her hand through the air, getting absolutely no feedback.

"What the hell?" She scowled and glared at her hand, her other hand holding her blade. Why wasn't her semblance working? It couldn't have been lowered aura, she was certain she still had a fair amount in the tank, so to speak.

But without her semblance, she was reduced to walking around caves until she found her team, which could be near impossible. Qrow was injured, Summer was quiet, and Tai… would actually be the easiest to find, considering he was about as stealthy as a train crash, and about as incendiary.

She nodded to herself and started down the corridor she'd already been running through, holding her sword high as a torch. She could bulldoze through anything at attacked her if she saw it coming, so she wasn't worried about drawing attention.

She rounded the corner and saw a fireball coming her way, her instincts kicking into overdrive as she stood her ground and cut it in half with her blade, the two flames clashing and bathing the room in blinding light for a moment. She blinked away the afterimages and pointed Midnight Drear at the enemy, only it wasn't an enemy.

"Tai." She grinned at him. "Good to see you."

"Raven!" He lit up, retracting his gauntlets into their inactive form. "Aw man, I've been looking for you guys for ages. Have you seen anyone else?"

She clenched her jaw, her smile sliding off her face near-instantly. "No. No I have not."

"But- your portals?" He tilted his head, the flames on her blade throwing shadows over his marine eyes.

"Not working. My semblance hasn't worked since we fell in here. I don't know why." She gritted her teeth. "Any ideas?"

"Sorry. I've never heard of that." He shrugged at her. "So… what's the plan?"

"We find Summer and Qrow, and we take down the people who dragged us down here. Any questions?"

"Nope, solid plan." He shrugged, cracking his knuckles. "I've already been that way, so wanna take that path?" He pointed at a different exit that she hadn't gone down, Raven holding her sword to it to check the passage first.

"It looks clear." She started down it, Taiyang falling into step beside her. "Have you seen any grimm in here?"

"Nope. This ruin's been empty for a long time though, and the walls seem pretty put together. They probably don't have any reason to get in."

"Until we fell in here." She scowled. "This place could end up swarming with freaky burrowing grimm if we don't hurry up and find everyone before negative feelings draw them in."

"You've been feeling negative?" Tai teased.

"I was chasing someone who attacked me from behind. Violence and anger can be good draws." And Qrow was hurting and could be scared, and she'd once heard fear was the most potent of all negative emotions. "We're finding our team and we're leaving."

Tai nodded. "What about the little girl? We need to find her too. She's part of the mission."

"Screw the mission."

"Raven, I'm not leaving a kid to die." He glared at her. "That's wrong and you know it."

She looked away, scoffing to herself. "Ugh. Fine. We'll find Summer and Qrow, and the kid. Happy now?"

"Little more," he grinned. "So… you sure your lack of a semblance isn't just from broken aura?"

"No, my aura's fine." She made it flicker just to show him. "See?"

"So… what is it that's blocking it?"

"Maybe that person who attacked me? Because after that I couldn't use it. Trust me, I tried." Multiple times.

"No one's attacked me so far. Why'd they go for you?"

She huffed out a sigh. "I don't know. Maybe it was an attack of opportunity. I landed nearby, they hit me and ran."

"Like a smash and grab?"

"Yes, only they didn't take anything. They just tried to punch me." She rubbed her nape.

Taiyang's eyes flicked to where her hand was and his brows furrowed into a scowl. "Coward."

"That's what I thought. I'll hit someone from behind during a fight, but if someone's going to sneak attack me, they better have the guts to stay around and deal with the consequences."

"See, that's why people run when they sneak attack you," he smiled faintly, still holding some anger in his eyes. "At least with two of us they can't get us from behind." He looked over his shoulder.

"Good for us." Raven stopped as they hit a crossroads. "Right or left?"

Tai rubbed his jaw. "Hm. Toss a coin?"

"Left it is." She strode forward, carrying her sword into the dark.

Aster made a chopping motion with Schnee's looted sword, grinning to himself as the semblance activated. The red portal swirled in space, exactly as he hoped. He stepped through the rift and met Kyland in the largest room of the ruins, a massive statue stretching around the room's edge of some long-forgotten serpentine god. Or maybe a dragon? It was difficult to tell.

"I see you got the portals." Kyland rumbled, spinning his chain blades around as he clanked them on the floor, the rhythmic sound echoing through the room.

Aster's grin widened as he made another one, watching as Nubia stepped through with her usual blind trust. "Bai's ready to make her move. All we need to do is keep them all here. Nubia, locations?"

She spun her Atlatl, hitting the ground a few times as the earth dust it contained activated, an accurate diorama of the ruins forming on the floor in front of her. "William is here." She pointed at a large entrance hall, before her weapon moved to a winding corridor a fair distance away, the weapon moving slowly along it as she tracked someone's movements. "Our target is here."

"And we are here." He tapped the very centre of the labyrinthian system. "Good to know. Are you able to track any of the Shade kids?"

Nubia pursed her lips. "No. I can't track more than two at a time."

"So you have no clue where Bai is either." Aster nodded. "Well. I suppose she'll just have to surprise us all."

Nubia nodded as she pulled out a cylinder of earth dust from her backpack, over a dozen more packed away and all her darts in a quiver on her hip. "So, Aster, shall we start moving things around?"

He held up a hand, getting her to pause for a second. He liked being second-in-command. He'd proven he was worth it too, when he'd floored both Kyland and Nubia the first time they'd ever decided to get mouthy about things. "No. We can leave Schnee down here to rot forever. Wait until our target's here," he tapped an antechamber with the edge of Schnee's weapon, "and open a path from two rooms down to our current position. Close off all the other exits."

"We'll get what Bai wants and then we'll leave. As long as we do it soon, you'll be able to pull her out with that semblance." Nubia nodded, finishing his train of thought.

"Exactly.' He spun the sword, fumbling it as it fell to the ground with a clatter. He was much better without weapons, but Bai had asked him to hold onto it. He'd do anything she asked. "Kyland, grabbing the kid is your priority. She's got an unlocked aura, so once you get your chains on her don't hold back. Pin her with everything you've got."

Kyland looked up at the ceiling. "Gravity's not gonna work that way. It's gonna pull down the ceiling she's under too."

"So she'll get hit with some rocks," he shrugged. "If it breaks her aura then it's no big deal. Makes her easier to handle. We'll snap her collarbone and while she's in too much pain to move we'll drug her and retreat. She's seven, she'll go down easy."

"I thought she was ten." Nubia raised a brow.

"She's whatever, it doesn't matter. Point is, our job is to get the kid and get her out alive. And if you two can't do that," he flexed his hands. "I'll take what I need from you and do it myself."

Nubia leaned back slightly, and even Kyland's jade eyes dropped for a moment to Aster's hands, the knuckles ragged and rough from years of breaking them open on other people. Aster smirked. Respect was best got through fear. On that note, he and Bai shared remarkably similar ideals.

"Let's get ready. And if any of those other kids get in the way, wipe them out. William can starve to death down here, and he can do it alone."