It was easier not to think about the fact that they'd left a city to die. It was easier in the sense that they could ignore any guilt they would have felt about it, but also that it was hard to picture the death of all of Mantle. At least, it was for Marrow, but maybe that was because he'd grown up there. He knew so many people down there, and it was hard to believe that they would all be gone. The others had all grown up in Atlas. Maybe that meant that they had a hard time grasping the fact that these were even people.

According to the officials monitoring the surrounding areas, Mantle was still standing, somehow. It wasn't a bad thing—obviously—but it was baffling all the professionals. Ignoring grimm all together, the whole city should have frozen over by now. It didn't, though. Good.

Marrow had a theory, but he tended to get shut down and reprimanded, so he kept it to himself. Ever the village idiot. "Dog brain." He always seems to be wrong. He thought they were doing the wrong thing, so they must be doing the right thing. Right? They were doing the right thing. They had to be. If they weren't that would mean…

He needed to see his mom. He needed to make sure she was ok. Plus, he needed her for his own comfort. He needed her to tell him he was doing the right thing, or at least his best.

Using an airship would get him caught pretty fast, but he would need to use one on the way back. Luckily Ironwood had been a little too hasty in his decision to raise Atlas, and so there were still some things they needed before they'd be completely self sustaining. Airships were often coming and leaving to make sure that self sustainability would be possible. He could fall from Atlas to Mantle. It would be higher than he was used to, but he'd have more openings to slow down than normal. He'd want to take off as soon as it wouldn't be suspicious for him to not be around. That shouldn't be hard. He's mostly been holing himself up in his room lately, so they wouldn't be looking for him as long as he left after dinner, and he would just need to come back before three AM at the earliest. Yeah, that's what he'd do.

The walk to the edge of Atlas was longer than he'd anticipated. The only time he'd ever gone to the edge of the city was in an airship. The wall was also taller than he'd estimated from the view he'd gotten from the airships he's flown in. He couldn't scale up the wall, but there was a building close enough to it that was almost as tall as it, and he was able to maneuver his way over, once he'd scaled the building, which was possible, as there were several ledges for windows and things.

Marrow hadn't predicted how thin the air would be once he breached the artificial atmosphere of Atlas. His head almost immediately felt almost tight, as a pressure started building up from the bottom of his skull. Luckily, falling was a fast way to travel, and it didn't take long to regain his breath.

The fall was incredible, and he felt his tail start to wag. Something he and Elm had in common was how they loved the way falling could feel like flying if you were doing it for long enough. If he had to be a faunus, why couldn't he have been a bird? Or a bat! Something with wings.

He was able to slow his fall with the buildings, but hitting the ground still caused his aura to flicker. He'd definitely beat his own record for farthest fall. He needed to pick up the pace. He had less time than he'd expected, since Atlas was bigger than he'd thought. If he didn't try to keep his mind off of it, he could hear his body telling him to stop. It still hurt from the fall. It was the kind of hurt that didn't have a center. His whole body had suddenly stopped moving, so the pain rang through his whole body. Just ignore it.

"Marrow? What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Oh, yes we're all doing fine. You don't need to worry."

"Ok." They stood in silence for a few seconds. "It's warmer than it should be," he said curiously.

"Marrow, I think you should go." He stared at her, shocked. 'What?' "Look, I don't know the larger picture like you probably do, so I can't say for sure what's going on, but everyone is pretty upset with Ironwood, so I think it would be best for you to go back-before anyone sees you." 'But I just got here. I haven't seen you in months.'

"Ok. I understand. I'll go back." She smiled at him, relieved.

"I knew you would. That's why I love you."

"I love you too, mom."

He was halfway over to where he knew airships would be landing and taking off when he realized. He still had plenty of time. He'd wanted to talk to his mom, and since that hadn't happened, he had extra time. He could find team RWBY and ask how Mantle was thriving. If they had something to do with that, he could thank them. If he did run into them, telling them Qrow was ok might be a good idea. Chances were when he got back he'd be able to tell Qrow they say hi or something. That all is, assuming they'd even let him get a word in. No. They had always been understanding. Even if they didn't immediately trust him, they'd let him speak, at least.

He didn't really know where he would start, so he just wondered around for a while. There were still grimm coming in constantly. Many of the huntsmen from the city were holding them off. Marrow just had to find one of them—of team RWBY or JNR. They were probably split up to cover more ground, and probably had certain watches seeing someone would need to be fighting late into the night. He had no doubt that they wouldn't be staying just to protect mantle from the oncoming grimm, who were always trying to find the relics. Now there were two together, right above Mantle's head.

A couple times he'd run into other huntsmen who were taking down some grimm. They didn't react well to seeing him, knowing who he is, and his position in the military. Mostly they just threw insults at him and/or ignored all of his questions. That was fine. He didn't need their help to find team RWBY and the rest. There were a lot of them, fighting grim puts you out in the open, Penny as the protector of mantle should be easy to spot, and given that they knew everything, they were probably heading the defense against the grimm. It just might take a while, since Mantle's so big.

It was getting late. He initially wanted to be back by three AM in order to definitely be there by the earliest time Harriet would start training, but he still hadn't found any of the people he was hoping to. So he decided to extend his visit. After all, he wanted to be in by the earliest he might be woken, but that morning had been an early day, so he was sure the next day wouldn't be. He just had to be back before five. It would be fine.

It had been getting late. He could still make it back. The issue laid more with the fact that it had been well over 24 hours since he'd slept. That had been the issue before. Before the issue turned into him waking up under a bridge hours later. Shit.

He couldn't go back now. He'd dug a hole he couldn't climb out of. The longer he thought about it the more he realized he didn't really want to find RWBY's group. Well, maybe a little, but mostly he was just stalling. He didn't want to go back to Atlas. As far as he was concerned, Ironwood had all but killed everyone he knew. He couldn't go back to that.

It was now pretty evident that the only thing he could do was find RWBY's group, whether he wanted to or not. He still wasn't sure whether he wanted to. He thought so, but he still found himself dreading that encounter. Weird. He wished he'd given a little more forethought on this decision. He could have told Qrow he was coming down here, and maybe he'd have something to tell the team. They were a family; two of them literally. Qrow would want to tell them something, and Marrow should have checked.

On the first day he found that his card was declining meal purchases, and his scroll had been deactivated. Great. Luckily he'd brought some lien with him. He'd only brought it on a whim, but he was so glad he had. Not that it would last very long. He hadn't brought very much, but he had at least enough to get him through that first day. It was really convenient that the cheaper places tended to be faunus inclusive. He needed to save as much money as possible.

As it turned out, his efforts to save his money didn't last very long, as by the second day he didn't have enough to buy anything. He didn't expect to need any money, so the fact that he'd brought even a little was a miracle. A short lived miracle.

"Hey, aren't you that new faunus Ace Operative." He turned his head to look at the man speaking to him, holding back his grown, but not his glare. "What are you doing down here?" Marrow sighed.

"I'm not an Ace Op anymore. I left."

"Oh yeah? You tuck your tail and run?" Marrow felt himself stiffen as the man laughed at his own joke.

"I'm not running from anything. There's nothing up there to run from. I came here to help everyone down here."

"We're doing fine. No thanks to you."

"Well, that's why I'm here." The man scoffed before pushing his way past Marrow. A literal push as he shoulder checked him. Marrow had to roll his eyes at the man's attempt at a confrontation.

It was pretty surprising how many—very similar—interactions he had throughout the rest of that first day. Most of the time they would take one look at fetch, remember that he was on the most elite squad in Atlas and back down, but sometimes he'd need to verbally remind them of his previous status.

Without money, he wasn't able to eat that day. The familiar pang of hunger entered much more slowly than during the intense training with the Ace Ops, even if he was met with a fair share of grimm. He was almost proud when he made it through the day, and to sleep without vomiting.

Only to wake up three hours into said sleep to empty his stomach.

Dammit.

He never got back to sleep.

Normally he would be able to get through it. It could be fine. He'd always been able to fill up later. Not this time. He needed to figure something out. Soon.

It would be an understatement to say he struggled the third day. Grimm were in a constant influx, and he was growing increasingly more exhausted by the minute. His strikes were slow, sloppy, and unbalanced. At some point during the third day he was getting overpowered by the grimm. Barely able to hold his own, he eventually started getting taken down by a manticore. The last one of that pack. He'd managed to take down every other one, but he couldn't keep it up forever.

The manticore knocked him to the ground and fetch was knocked across the ground, away from him. Then the manticore caught fire. Marrow found himself panting, trying to catch his breath, as the manticore dissolved into thin air.

"Stand up." It was Weiss. "Slowly." She spoke slowly. Suspicion flowing through her voice, and her weapon raised, pointed directly at him. He was shocked to see her. Two days he actively searched for any of them, and the next day he just set out to survive, and one of them found him. "Now," she emphasized. He complied with a sigh, putting his hands up in a gesture of peace.

She called Nora out—who was apparently just around the building—and gestured over to fetch with a nod of her head. Nora took fetch and rested it on her shoulder like a baseball bat. It made him uncomfortable to see how casually she was handling his weapon.

"Are all of you down here," Nora asked him, as she walked back to Weiss, who was still holding her defensive pose.

"Just me," he answered. Weiss let out a hum of acknowledgement—or maybe suspicion—before leaning over slightly to speak to Nora.

"Call for backup," she told her.

Qrow had only been out of his cell, and down in Mantle for a day or so. He was quick to find the group, as his bird form made the search easy. Ruby was particularly ecstatic at his arrival. Her and everyone else was glad to see he was ok, given not knowing what happened to him after the call for their arrest. Apparently they'd all convened at a friend of Pietro's for a few days, before Robyn was released; which had been a few weeks ago by now. Now they were living with her, and had all the Happy Huntresses on their team and willing to help. Unfortunately—with how things were going—the only goal they had then and there was to keep Mantle alive. They didn't have time to do anything about the general and Atlas then.

"We might have a problem," Nora said through his scroll. "If anyone's nearby, we could use some backup." Nora and Weiss had been patrolling together, and—after checking the map on his scroll—he saw their two blips nearby.

"Looks like I'm the closest," he responded. "I'll be there in a minute." They weren't exactly right around the corner, and saying they were 'nearby' was really a relative term, so he transformed into his bird form for the travel. Once he got to the general area, he had to transform back to get the exact location. Pulling out his scroll he checked for their blips. The scrolls were all connected so that it would capture everyone's location on the map. The map was zoomed out in order to capture everyone, so Qrow's blip was practically on top of the other two. Unless he wanted to delete the other's from the roster, he'd just need to wonder around and try to find them.

He pocketed the scroll with a sigh, before jogging around the area, keeping his eyes peeled. It didn't take long to find them. As he rounded the corner, he didn't know what to expect. When he saw Marrow his immediate first thought was 'You're right, this could be a problem. Just not in the way you might expect.' He also had to acknowledge to himself how weird it was to see Marrow out of uniform and with his hair down; which was longer than he expected, just reaching the edge of his shoulder blades. At the same time he was flooded with relief at the sight of him. All he knew was that Marrow suddenly wasn't in Atlas anymore, and when he found his nieces, he didn't find Marrow with them. He'd honestly expected to.

When Marrow saw Qrow his reaction seemed more like shock, which quickly morphed into something more somber. It was hard to place exactly what emotion it was just by looking, but he looked at the ground and his whole body slumped.

It was clear that Weiss and Nora's concern was that Marrow would try to stop everything they'd all worked for. Qrow, on the other hand, didn't feel that he needed to worry about it. He knew where his mind had been as of late. It was enough. He let out a light chuckle, and gestured to Weiss to lower her weapon as he walked over to Marrow. She did, but only as an involuntary side effect of her confusion. Once Qrow was only a few feet from him, he—Marrow—spoke up, in a way that suggested he felt the need to explain himself.

"I-I didn't-" He started, before being cut off as Qrow embraced him in a hug. In raising Ruby and Yang he'd acquired sort of a comfort urge, and had had the impulse to do that for a while.

Marrow buried his face in Qrow's shoulder and returned the embrace.