The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Search and Rescue

There was no time to waste, so I dashed into the town at full speed. Even in a situation like this, with everything that had happened and all I'd left behind, I was still able to think clearly—one of the many, many things to thank my power for, I suppose. As such, while I ran, I tried my best to get my priorities straight.

First things first, I suppose I had to find anyone who was unaffected and do something with them, because they weren't going to keep that status for long if I didn't. I decided pretty quickly that now was not the time to be conservative with Dust and so cost was not an issue here—as such, I might be able to protect a few areas with my barriers. It shouldn't be too difficult to keep an area clean that way, assuming it was clean to begin with. If I could check it over with my Clairvoyance, clear it all out with Levant, and set up just a Sanctum to keep the disease out…it should be possible.

Of course, if I missed anything, if even a single person inside was infected and I didn't notice, all it would do was guarantee everyone inside died horribly, unable to run away. There wasn't any room for error here; I had to be sure and I had to be sure the first time, or it wouldn't do anything. That was something I'd…that I'd handle that as I came to it.

Complicating matters further was the second problem—those who'd already been infected and the Grimm. It seemed pretty safe to assume that they were wreaking havoc as was normal for the creatures of Grimm, but if any of them found any of the barriers I created and gathered enough to destroy them…

Making sure that didn't happen needed to be my second priority. Although, thinking about it, even if I used Dust freely and stuck to using the relatively cheap Sanctums, there were limits to how many barriers I could maintain at one time, so there was also the matter of finding people, keeping them safe, and gathering them into decently large groups. Of course, assuming those people were terrified—because God, who the hell wouldn't be right now?—then any such group would stand out to the Grimm like a giant neon sign pointing straight at a buffet. Getting enough people together to protect them would necessitate needing to protect them, feeding back into itself to make the problem grow.

I needed help. I couldn't defend everyone everywhere at all times—I just couldn't. An entire town was being besieged by an army of monsters and ignoring everything else that was wrong with this situation, I couldn't be in more than one place at a time. If I tried to herd everyone I found into one place that I could defend on my own, most of them would probably die before they got there, assuming most of the town wasn't dead already. Practically speaking, I'd need to set up at least four or five places, possibly twice that number, if I wanted to actually save people. Getting people to the right place before I set up the barrier would require positioning them carefully around the town, but that also meant I'd be running all over the place, trying to deal with attacks on each of the different locations.

No, I couldn't do that alone, not without losing at least a few of them—and it'd keep me pinned down here besides, unable to help my mother and father. But for all I knew, my only help could be whatever reinforcements were coming and they could be hours off. And I still needed to tell them about what was going on, too! And that wasn't even getting into figuring out if I could actually cure the people Conquest had infected or what I'd have to do to them if I couldn't.

God this was a clusterfuck. Trying to prioritize everything had just left me even more lost, because what it boiled down to was that I needed to do everything, by myself, simultaneously. And I just—I couldn't do this alone. It simply wasn't possible.

Then I needed to find out if I truly was alone, I thought.

I stopped in place, closed my eyes, and knelt on the roof of a building. My mind expanded to see the world around, piercing through what simple matter got in the way. My Elementals reached out alongside me, lining the world in heat and air and light as I looked in every direction. I could feel people, running and panicking, and I ticked them off one by one according to who was nearest, who looked like they could actually be saved, and how long it would take to move from person to person. The math was ruthless and cold, but I didn't have any choice but to save as many as possible, even if it meant feeling the ones I couldn't save die. Right now, the only thing I could possibly do was everything I could.

But even though it meant wasting precious, precious time, even though my instincts screamed for action, I sent my perceptions down into the earth. It wouldn't do to act carelessly now and forget where this problem had originally come from and what could still be lurking beneath our feet; if there was more where all that had come from, I couldn't afford to be taken off-guard by it. I also had to keep in mind that Onyx had possessed an earth-related Semblance; whatever had happened, he might have drawn himself underground—

I sensed him, moving through the dirt. From this range, I couldn't tell if he'd been infected or not, but…either way, I suppose it was better to find out now.

Outlining two nearby targets mentally, I sent Suryasta and Vulturnus on ahead of me, outlining a path for them to travel. Then, even as I drew my scroll from my Inventory and began typing numbers, I reached out with Levant's power, great even despite her division, and spoke to him through perhaps thirty meters of dirt.

"Onyx, are you there?" I spoke aloud. There was a moment of startled silence but no reply. Understandable, considering, but frustrating—I didn't have any time to spare. "This is Jaune; I'm using my power to sense your location and contact you. I need to know if you're infected or not."

I could imagine what he must have been thinking, but I'd told him I could sense his location. Whatever he must have been wondering about me, that should be enough to get a response—it was just a matter of what I could learn from that response.

"How do I know you're not infected?" He asked and I paid close attention to his tone, wondering if this was a trick. There was some strain in his voice, as if he were in pain, but…

"You probably saw me with my mother," I answered. "After I tried to get us out and…and failed. If I'd been taken, that means she'd have been taken, too—in which case, no offense, but we would not be having this conversation right now."

"Fair enough," He agreed before going silent for a moment. "Assuming for the moment that you are who you say you are and this is not a trick, why are we having this conversation instead of, say, running for our lives?"

"The situation's complicated," I replied. "Mom buried and froze us to keep us from getting infected and I managed to keep us safe when we first woke up, but my dad was there and he was…he'd been taken."

"I know," Onyx said quietly. "Your father, he tried to…to contain the blast somehow, but something went wrong; I don't know what. I think he managed to limit the initial spread, but after he was gone…"

I nodded as I watched my scroll ring. I could imagine.

"Yeah," I said. "My mom's fighting him now, but she sent me into town to try to…do something. It's a work-in-progress, at the moment, but assuming you're clean, I could use your help. And if you aren't…well, you're a problem that needs to be dealt with."

"I'm not infected," Onyx answered. "Went to ground the moment I saw what was happening. Some of the stuff got my leg, but I managed to tear it off before it spread too far."

He said it easily. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad sign.

"That might not have been enough," I answered. "And even if it was, I hope you realize I can't just take you on your word."

"You want me to surface, I take it?" Onyx asked.

"It'd be the fastest way to confirm your story," I nodded, even though he couldn't see it. "I can make sure an area's safe for you to rise in, too. But…"

"But I can't be sure you're not infected," He answered. "And I hope you realize I can't just take you on your word."

"Yeah," I nodded again. "That's why I'm calling Ozpin."

Onyx was silent for a moment before answering.

"Oh," He said at last. "The whole 'Something only he would know' plan, then?"

"Pretty much," I replied. "I call him up. He sees me and confirms I'm clean. I patch him through to you and he makes you believe it. You come up and we look at one another, just to make sure."

"And if I don't?" He asked.

"Then I'll have to assume the worst. Since you can travel underground, the risk of you escaping and getting past any border patrols is too high; you could poison water supplies or worse. If you don't come up, I have no choice but to make you a priority, come down there, and deal with you."

"Oh?" He wondered. "I didn't know you could do that."

The White Tiger of the West flexed his claws.

"I think you'll find I'm a pretty fast digger. Wouldn't be as clean a job as you might manage, but I'd get it done." I told him. "Don't have a lot of choice right now."

"Cool," Onyx said after a minute. "I like it. Let's give it a shot."

I nodded again, eyes still focused on the screen of my scroll. What was taking so long?

Finally, someone picked up.

"Hello, Jaune," Ozpin answered, looking concerned. "I'm sorry; I was speaking to another team. After your mother's message, I didn't expect you to call so soon. Has something—"

"Ozpin," I interrupted, getting straight to the point. "Everything's gone to hell. There was a Pandora Shell and Crom Cruach blew it open."

For a moment, Ozpin, who'd been a Huntsmen since God only knows when, looked stunned.

"Oh," He said, nearly breathless. "Oh no."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "That was pretty much our reaction, too."

Ozpin closed his eyes for a moment and took a breath.

"How bad?" He asked, opening them again and meeting my gaze.

"Bad," I answered, turning my head to look back the way I came. "My father has been taken."

"Jack…" Ozpin whispered, looking down. "Who else?"

"Not sure. We all saw the Shell about to open, but I don't know for sure who managed to react. My mom grabbed me, turned the ground beneath us into lava and froze the air around us solid; she nearly died in the process, but I managed to heal her after we got out."

"Where is she now?"

"Fighting my father," I went quiet for a moment after that, reaching back with my senses—but the image I got was distorted, probably a result of whatever my parents were doing to the air back there. I refocused, shaking my head, and looked back at my scroll. "Beyond the two of us, I don't know. I've managed to find Onyx, but he's underground right now and is understandably hesitant about surfacing. He says that my father tried to contain the blast, so it might not have scattered as much over the city but…"

I shook my head.

"I need you to confirm I'm clean," I said. "Then convince Onyx that you are who you say you are and not just me impersonating you. You tell him to rise; if he does and looks okay, that's at least two of us alive. If he doesn't…I'll deal with it. Can't let him leave if he's at risk, can I?"

"No," Ozpin said, taking another deep breath. "Show me, then."

I nodded and handed the scroll to Levant, backing up a few steps and unequipping my clothes quickly, dropping the White Tiger of the West as I did so as to keep it from getting in the way. He looked me over carefully before giving me a nod and I equipped my clothes again.

"Patch me through to Onyx," He said and I sent a mental command Levant's way.

"Done."

"Onyx, it's me." He said.

"I hope so, sir," Onyx answered and I recreated the air vibrations far above their original source. "But I'm gonna need you to prove it. Remember when I got brought to your office in third year? What I said to you, then?"

"I recall you being in my office somewhat frequently throughout your stay at Beacon, Onyx, and for a wide variety of reasons. I assume you're referring to this, however: 'I swear, sir,'" Ozpin said in a pitch-perfect imitation of Onyx's voice. "'I have no fucking idea how that godforsaken son-of-a-bitch's room collapsed. It probably just got sucked down the giant asshole he calls his face.' I can't say I remember every conversation we had that year, Onyx, but that one stuck with me."

I blinked at that imagery, raising an eyebrow as Ozpin smiled slightly.

"Okay," Onyx said. "Good to hear from you, sir. The kid's okay?"

"As far as I can tell," Ozpin confirmed.

"Got it," Onyx sounded relieved. "I'm coming up, then. Can you make sure the welcome mat's rolled out for me?"

Now that I'd had time to observe Conquest's bacterial form directly, I could use my Clairvoyance to search for his presence, noting dangerous areas with darker color—and as such, I was pretty sure I could clear the air with just Levant. For Onyx's sake, as well as for Ozpin who was watch, I made a point of visibly sterilizing the area.

It involved fire. Lots and lots of fire.

"It should be safe now, Onyx," Ozpin eventually said. "Jaune, I assume you can lock off this area to insure it remains clean?"

"Yes, sir," I said, doing so with Levant even as I cooled the area with her and Xihai's help. "Did you feel that down there, Onyx, or do you need directions?"

"Trust me, kid, I felt it. Coming up now."

After a few seconds, I felt the ground tremble slightly and a massive arm emerged from the dirt as if it had been water. Onyx pulled himself out a moment later, the earth around him seeming to just shape itself out of his way as he did, and looked at me.

I scanned him thoroughly with my Clairvoyance and Elementals before Observing him and then relaxed a touch. He was clean, though he was missing his leg as he'd said. He'd tied it off but it was still oozing blood—whether because he was far more active than anyone with a wound like that should be or because he'd tied it wrong, I wasn't sure. Even so…

"I'm glad you're okay," I said, pausing for a moment to let him look at me before moving to his side and healing him.

"Me too, kid," He said, wincing slightly as he settled down but otherwise relaxing a bit. "I don't suppose you can regrow a leg, huh?"

"Not sure," I said as I applied Regeneration to him. "Managed to reattach a limb once, but I've never grown one back. Should be possible, though, and if it is…well, if we get out of here, I'll make sure you can walk again, okay? One way or another."

"I'd appreciate it," He said, exhaling slowly. "So. What now?"

We were all silent for a moment at that. It was kind of a ruthless bitch of a question—what were we going to do with this mess? But…

"Ozpin, can you get word to our reinforcements?" I asked.

"I already have," He said before pausing for a moment and closing his eyes. "The team that had originally been sent…I'm sure it goes without saying that this situation is significantly different from the one they'd been prepared for. I had to call them back and arrange for a new team to be deployed. The good news is that there will only be a relatively short delay since they'd only just left; thanks to your quick call, we'll also be able to quickly assemble a team more equipped to deal with this matter."

I nodded.

"How long of a delay?"

"For something like this…" He was quiet for a minute. "Ten, twenty minutes to get everyone and everything needed. Twenty minutes to reach you, at least."

"At least half an hour, then," I mused. "Possibly longer, but they shouldn't take more than an hour, right?"

"Not unless something else goes wrong, no," Ozpin shook his head. "But Jaune, you must understand…the team that we'd be assembling for this…"

"They're going to burn it all," I exhaled slowly, looking around. "The whole town. Right?"

"There is little choice," Ozpin answered. "An outbreak like this…we'll need to keep it from spreading, whatever it takes. Infected plants, fungi…in the past, there's been the issue of infected birds causing trouble for long periods of time. The town isn't near a major river, thankfully, but if it gets out…we'll need to cleanse the area."

"I understand," I nodded, having expected as much.

"We run, then?" Onyx asked. "Pack up and get the hell out of town?"

"It's not that simple," I shook my head. "I stopped you because, if you were infected, I couldn't afford to let you leave. I mean, letting anything escape would be bad, of course, but you? Tracking you down before anything happened would be…well, hard, to say the least. But my father…his telekinesis allows him to control enormous amounts of very small things and do all sorts of shit with them. Worse, he's really, really good at making bombs; if he tries, he can spread that disease far and wide, to say nothing of the damage he could cause. If we let him act freely, by the time reinforcements arrive…I don't know what they'll find."

"Yeah, but will he?" Onyx asked. "I mean, he's infected, sure, but would that occur to him? He's still Jack, after all."

"No," I answered, looking back again. "He's not. I spoke to him."

"Yeah, but—"

"Let me rephrase that," I interrupted. "I spoke to the thing controlling him. Not just a mad or evil version of my father, but to the actual creature walking around in his skin—to a Grimm that calls himself Conquest."

There was a moment of stunned silence from both of the older men as they looked at me with widened eyes.

"Uh," Onyx sputtered. "What did you just say?"

"Jaune," Ozpin said seriously. "Are you sure it wasn't your father speaking?"

"I'm as sure as I can be," I nodded. "I asked him about Babel, Ozpin, and…I tried to save us with Naraka, when the Pandora Shell was about to open. He said was the one who broke it, that he broke it back then, too. He called Ziz and Crom Cruach his siblings and talked about destroying Babel and…I'm pretty sure, sir."

"Um," Onyx blinked, looking between us. "What?"

"I will explain later," Ozpin told him before frown at me. "That is…very, very bad. A controlling intelligence…it would explain a few things, perhaps, how attempts to control outbreaks so frequently went wrong, but…how intelligent is he?"

"I don't know," I shook my head again. "He…well, he seems like a huge asshole, but I don't think he's stupid. He wanted something from me—I don't know what, just something he couldn't take—and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm alive. Whatever else, though, he's got an unbelievable amount of experience when it comes to ruining lives, a huge amount of knowledge, and he's strong. And in my father's body…"

I took a breath before continuing.

"He said that there was a reason he and his siblings spent so much time asleep," I continued. "They're holding back or being held back, I'm not sure. So there's a chance he won't go all out or make this as bad as it could be; he might even just shut down after a while. But all the same, trusting him to play fair seems unwise. With my father's power, he could guide a few cells to the right place and turn our reinforcements against us. My father's Semblance…it's not the worst possible power for something like him, but it's still pretty bad. We have to do something."

"Your father and I, we've never been the closest of friends," Onyx said after a moment of silence. "But we've known each other for a long time, see? And in that time I have never once believed he wouldn't be able to hand me my own ass in a fight—which, in this case, might involve literally tearing off the left off my lower body and beating me to death with it. If it's us vs. him, that's gonna end pretty badly for us."

I grimaced and looked down, nodding.

"Can your mother stop him?" Onyx asked me when I didn't reply and it was a question I wasn't sure how to answer.

No, that was a lie. I just didn't like the answer.

"Maybe," I said. "But probably not. I think…I think she's just trying to buy time for me to run away and for reinforcements to arrive, but…I don't know if she can. And if Conquest takes her two, my mother and father working together would be…"

"Really, really bad," Onyx nodded. "Yeah, I've seen them work as a team. We really don't want that to happen. But…what exactly are we supposed to do, kid? We could team up with your mom, but any one of us might get taken. This isn't necessarily a fight where having greater numbers is an advantage; it just makes it more likely that something will go wrong."

"I can…" I hesitated and fell silent for a moment before continuing. "I don't know for sure, but I might be able to heal him. Save him."

Onyx looked at me sadly, shaking his head slightly.

"Kid," He said. "No one's ever managed to bring them back. We've tried—they managed to capture a few of them after the whole Mistwind thing, brought in all the experts they could…nothing. It's not…it's not just a disease, any more than the Grimm are just animals. And whatever it is…"

"Yeah," I whispered. "But I have to try, don't I?"

"But what if you get infected?" He tried again. "No offense, kid, but when those guys got taken, they took every precaution, did everything they could, had a bunch of Hunters suited up to deal with it, those reinforced armored hazard suit things, even a kill-switch on the whole thing—and there was a constant worry that something might still go wrong. Here, something's already gone wrong. Everything's gone wrong. And getting that close to your father…everything you said about what he might do to our reinforcements, he could do to us."

"Not me," I said with all the confidence I could muster. "My Semblance makes me immune. Ozpin knows why; Conquest did, too."

"You're—" Onyx cut himself off and closed his eyes. "Okay. Cool. Assuming that's true, then—it doesn't address the part where you die before you can get to him or the part where we have no idea if you could actually fix what's wrong with him or everything else that's wrong with the idea."

"Yeah," I nodded. "We better work on that, then. Because I can't leave without knowing I did everything I could—for him and the rest of this town. Can you?"

Onyx exhaled, looking around.

"No," He muttered, even as a hand went to his stump of a leg. The bleeding had stopped, at least. "I guess not. You have a plan then, kid?"

"I have…something vaguely resembling a plan," I hedged.

He looked at me for a moment at then shook his head.

"Well, that's encouraging," He sighed. "But I guess I'll what I can get. Let's give it a shot, then."