Voices in Dust Chapter 1

Broken glass.

That's all it looked like as the illusion of a pink-and-brown haired girl shattered in the air. If someone that was not normally from this part of Vale were to come around the corner of the street and see this first thing, they would likely panic. Anyone familiar with this end of the city wouldn't bat an eye at the familiar sight, however. You see, as much as it may look like a normal person being broken as though a fragile sculpture, it was simply that. Or more accurately an illusion that when impacted would shatter LIKE a glass sculpture.

"Are you sure they have to break like that EVERY time, Neo?" A young man with wild, white hair and strikingly-blue eyes pondered aloud as he stretched his arms back-and-forth. He seemed undisturbed despite the remark about the image shattering, as shown by his relaxed stance.

"I've already told you before, Cobbie. Once they exist, I don't control how they react to external stimuli, only up to that point through various verbal and non-verbal means. I don't have them to the point where they can just hit back at things yet." The pink-and-brown haired girl replied, this being the Neo that the boy was referring to. Her relaxed posture while sitting atop an old set of cobble stairs in her white-and-pink jacket atop a blackish-brown corset, with pairs of brown leather gloves and dark jeans with a pair of white thigh-high boots to match spoke volumes about the ease of which the two held this conversation. "Besides, does it really matter that much to you?"

"Cobbie" shrugged slightly without even waiting to think on his own reply, "Meh. Not really. I've just always wondered and never really thought to ask until now." He reached across his black, waist length jacket and dark-blue shirt a few times as well as past the legs of his white jeans to his black shoes for one last stretch before switching to a boxer's stance. He then smirked as he turned to Neo for one last retort, "Also, I keep telling you about the Cobbie thing. It was cute when we were younger, but we're both practically adults at this point. Pretty soon we'll have to move out of the orphanage and find somewhere else to stay since we'll be too old for them to legally house us anymore, regardless of how accommodating the matron has been all these years. I've preferred Frost for at least 4 years now. Anyways, fire me up another round, Neopolitan."

Neo sighed as she got up and walked over to about 15 feet in front of Frost with a smile on her face. "You were doing so well right up to the end of that speech, Cobalt. Maybe I'll make the girls run circles around you and make you dizzy, again? You remember how that went last time, right?" Neo's smile switched to a smirk as she spoke, her hands-on-hip posture as a sign of victory as she spoke.

Frost sighed in defeat as he hung his head for a moment, "Fine, point taken. I'm no good at dishing out what I can't fight back against. Don't remind me. Can we just get back to my practicing here? It's not like you really need to worry about your abilities developing that much anymore." Frost hopped in place as he finished his request, eager to spar some more against Neo's illusions, however that may be.

Neo's smirk returned to that of a gentle smile as she began to walk in a slow circle around Frost. From Frost's perspective, each time Neo walked behind him into his blind spot, she would reappear a moment later on his other side continuing her walk…just as another of her repeated the motion on the side she just came from. When these two would pass behind him, they would be on each side of him again… followed shortly after by one more Neo on each side a second later. Frost simply smirked as his hands began to glow slightly, as though in anticipation. By the time that the Neo's had made a few rotations around him, there were 12 Neo's surrounding him as they all stood in preparation for the "training". In the next moment, Frost's body jerked quickly towards the nearest 2 as he punched out each hand in sequence as though boxing the air. Anyone with keen eyes, however, would see a strong ripple travel through the air into each doppelganger, shattering a few moments later as the energy wave impacted their form. As soon as this happened, the remaining 10 moved as one into a large circle around him along the side of the street, making room along the large sidewalk to space themselves relatively evenly.

Frost slowly began to turn on the spot with his arms raised, prepared to counter any sudden movement. As he turned, the Neo's began to speak, finishing each other's sentences like a hive mind, "Well that was definitely faster than usual for you to start swinging around your Semblance. I thought you liked to chat a bit before we got into the target practice?"

Frost swung out a glowing fist towards the latest Neo to speak, replying as he went, "You're not the one who's still unsure exactly how his own power works. All I've been able to do is punch out bursts of energy and accidentally fry a television once or twice, remember? The reason why I'm not allowed to be around the TV anymore so that the younger kids actually have something to do on a quiet night like tonight?" Frost smiled casually as he turned to punch out 3 more illusions around him, leaving 6 that moved into a wider formation around him without closing the circle inwards.

"I know, I know. But does it really need to be more than that?" The Neo's asked as Frost continued to circle. "It's already obvious that it's not simply just bursts of air you throw around. It wouldn't fry a television if it was. I've already told you that being able to throw around forms of kinetic energy can be very useful."

"Not for fighting against Grimm it isn't." Frost replied as he removed one more illusion from the group. His expression became a more serious one as he began circling a little faster, his fists clenching tighter as he did so. "Grimm would just brush it off as a gust of wind, regardless, and just keep barreling on until they hurt someone. Whether it was you, or someone else, I couldn't forgive myself if someone were to get hurt because all I could do…" He punched out another illusion. "Was just…" Another. "Box with…" Two more. "ILLUSIONS!" As Frost swings around to throw one last punch, his fists glow more brightly for a moment before a very clear orb of rippling energy pulses out from his arm, shattering the illusions and carrying on down the street.

"Frost!" Neo exclaimed as a way to snap Frost out of his current mindset as she approached him from the steps, having never actually left them in the first place. Frost blinks his eyes a few times as he watches the orb travel down the street for a moment, then turns to Neo with a wide grin on his face, still staggering slightly from the punch. "What was that?! You could have hurt someone with that!"

"I know, and I'm sorry about that. But did you see what that was just now?!" Frost's face at the moment could be described as that of a child on Christmas, told that it was now time to open the finely-wrapped presents. "I finally managed to make it more tangible! I've been trying to do that for months, and I finally managed to form it into something visible and stronger! I could probably even hurt a Grimm with that, even a little bit!"

This remark does nothing to dissuade the stern look of disapproval on Neo's face as she reaches up from her shorter height to flick him on his nose. He reels back in surprise as his expression changes from one of excitement to one of confusion. "And what if someone were walking down the street behind the image? This part of Vale isn't THAT deserted that there aren't still people walking around at some point in the evening! Someone could have been hurt!" Neo turns away from Frost with her arms crossed against her chest with her chin up.

"Ok, ok. I messed up and went a bit overboard." Frost replied as he ran a hand through his hair sheepishly as he looked away slightly. He then smirked as he turned back to Neo, a slightly more confident look in his eyes. "But really, the cold shoulder? When have I ever NOT gone overboard in something?"

Neo's head hangs as she groans her disgust. "You KNOW I hate it when you start making jokes to try and change the subject, you know that?" Neo turns back to Frost, her arms still over her shoulders but her expression less stern and more exasperated at this point. She pinches the bridge of her nose with one hand as she takes a deep breath and sighs. "But 'cold shoulder'? That was the best you could come up with? It's already bad when one of us has a name that sounds like winter, but when it's being said to someone named like ice cream? You need new material."

Frost shrugged as he put his hands inside his jeans pockets, "Hey, I haven't had the chance to head into town much lately and catch up with anyone much. It's been kind of busy being turned away by most shopkeeps when you're trying to find work with no experience under you belt, chill."

Neo punched Frost lightly on the arm at his remark, "See, this is what I'm talking about." Neo turned to start walking back towards the nearby orphanage, with Frost following shortly behind. "You need to socialize with more people to at LEAST get better jokes than the same old ice o-"

BOOM

"What was that?!" Frost exclaimed as they both turned in the direction the loud sound came from. The two looked at each other for a moment before nodding and running in that same direction…the same direction that Frost's stray bolt of energy happened to fly in.

"Are we sure we're heading in the right direction, Neo?" Frost asked as the two continued to run down the street, the signs of smoke already visible in the air as they got closer and closer to the source.

"There were the sounds of an explosion in this direction, we both heard it, and we can both see the smoke." Neo retorted as the two started to slow down so as to catch their breath a bit before reaching their destination. "Why would you even ask that?"

"Would you believe it was an attempt to try and lighten the mood in the air rather than it being all smokey like this?" Frost attempted a smile as Neo just glared at him, the frustration in her eyes practically sharp enough to slice butter.

"Really? You choose now of all times to crack a new joke?" Neo shook her head in dismay as the two picked up their pace again, rapidly approaching what looked like a mixture between a large bonfire and an industrial warehouse. The two slow as they approach the last leg of distance between them and the building, both shell-shocked by the sheer magnitude at which the building is damaged. Neo gets over her shock first before grabbing Frost and dragging him closer to the building. "What could have even caused this much damage? And why to such an old building?"

"I dunno. Last I heard this place had been abandoned some time ago and hadn't been used since." Frost scratched his chin in thought as the two examined the wreckage from a safe distance. "Why would someone target this place rather than practically any other part of the city? And where could all of this fire have come from?"

"Something tells me it's Dust that's causing the fire." Neo replied as she looked over the building. "Look over there."

The direction that Neo gestures in shows the remains of a burnt crate lying outside the buildings debris. The labelling can clearly be seen as that of the Schnee Dust Company, as well as on a few more boxes within sight. As the two continue to ponder the reasons why such a large corporation's product was in such a remote part of town, a shout comes from amidst the burning building.

"Did you hear that?" Frost exclaimed as he started running for the wreckage with a look of realization on his face. "Someone's in trouble!"

Neo reaches for Frost as he runs ahead, yelling to him as the two start running again. "Frost, wait! We don't know what state the building is even in! It could collapse at any moment!"

Frost turns to Neo for a moment with a look of steel determination in his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Don't you get it?" Neo's confused expression tells him that she hasn't figured it out just yet. "The direction we ran to reach this place…the trajectory my shot went after it punched through the illusion…it all points here. I checked as we were running up." Frost turns back to the burning wreckage as he starts to climb over a couple of charred boxes to get inside. "This is my fault."

"You can't honestly believe that!" Neo exclaimed as she somersaulted over the box with ease and landed in front of Frost. "That little bit of energy couldn't have caused all of this! There's no way!" Neo's look of disbelief turns to one of fear as Frost's expression darkens.

"Are you sure of that?" Frost asked with an emotionless tone. "I didn't even throw a bolt of energy and I managed to destroy a TV on 2 separate occasions just by touching them and accidentally releasing my Semblance just by getting a bit overexcited." He turns and starts walking carefully towards the sound of the nearby shouting as he begins to lift away some rubble in his path. "Is it so hard to believe that I could cause this if I accidentally focused too much energy into an attack instead?"

Neo simply follows after him and begins to help move aside rubble in their efforts to reach the single trapped person in the building. "Even if you did…" Neo begins as Frost takes a moment to loom over the debris for a moment before looking to his side at her face. His cold expression is shattered by the sight of a few tears in her eyes. "…You can't hold yourself responsible for this, okay? It was an ACCIDENT. You couldn't have known this stuff was even here." Frost simply looks on in shock as Neo removes the last pieces of debris between them and the trapped voice carefully. She then turns towards him with a sad expression as a single tear falls from her eye and slides down her face to the rubble below. "So don't let it haunt you, okay? For me?"

Frost can only nod his head with a look of frozen shock on his face. The two then approach the pieces of rubble pinning down the source of the voice- a man with what looked like orange hair in the light of the fires, and a charred suit with a nearby cane sitting on the ground under a few shards of broken crates. The man looks at them as they begin to lift the debris away from his leg that was until then pinned amongst the wreckage.

"To be honest, kids. I don't care who blames who for any of this." The orange-haired man snaps as Frost helps him to his feet and Neo passes him his cane. He attempts to straighten out his suit before giving up on the state it's in before pushing past Neo towards the nearest opening in the wreckage to leave the building. "Doesn't matter if it's because of someone's talent, and accident, or just really bad luck. Because I now have to go and tell the others back where I work that we just lost a whole warehouse of Dust! Do you two have any idea how expensive this stuff is?!"

"A lot?" Frost asks as he shrugs his shoulders.

The man slams his unoccupied hand into his face as he groans. "Yes, kid. A lot. Now leave me alone so I can go to the doghouse in peace." As he turns to leave, he is suddenly chest-to-face with Neo, who though only comes up so high on his frame, has a look of a disapproving mother on her face.

"You do NOT get to talk to the people who just saved you like that, pal!" Neo said as she poked a finger into the man's chest. "I don't care who you think you are, you do not talk to my friend that way!" Her look of now-anger surprises the man for a moment before he collects himself and walks around Neo and exits the last remnants of the wreckage.

"Frankly, I don't care, little girl." The man sneered as he started walking away. "I'm not the one still standing inside a burning building anymore, now am I?"

Just as he finishes his statement, he man points his cane towards a remaining piece of the roof as a scope pops out from the hooked end near his hand. Before either can react, he fires a shot from the end of the cane that dislodges the portion of the roof he was aiming at as it begins a fall straight towards Neo.

"NO!" Frost exclaims as his legs glow a bright hue for a moment just before he leaps forward in an abnormally strong jump to try and get Neo safely out of harm's way. The man, in the meantime, has already walked off into a shadowy alley and disappeared from sight. Moments before the roofing impacts the two, Frost cradles Neo with his body as the debris falls around them.

"…cough, cough…Ugh…my head…" Frost groans as he blinks consciousness back into his eyes. At first all he can see is hazy figures all around him, but as his vision clears, he makes out the shapes of flames of debris surrounding him and…some sort of object he's holding on to. As Frost looks down towards the object in question, his eyes widen in shock as he sees Neo, bruised and dirty but otherwise not looking too worse for wear. Unsure as to how long they were unconscious for, Frost starts to lean backwards to push away the rubble atop them, only to find the weight in question does not budge due to the way it is piled up. He tries a few more times before giving up in the efforts of saving his energy to instead attempt waking up Neo. "Neo…come on. You gotta…wake up." His attempts to shake her awake are filled with him coughing occasionally due to all of the smoke in the air and that they likely inhaled while buried.

Neo's eyelids start to shift for a moment before fluttering open a few times. She coughs a few times to clear her throat before gasping out a question. "What…happened?...Where are…we?" Neo attempts to sit up, but Frost politely puts a hand on her shoulder to keep her down for a moment.

"That guy shot at the roofing above you, remember?" Frost had a sad smile on his face as he regaled what happened in the last few moments they were conscious. "I would have gone after him, but the roof was going to fall right on top of you. I wasn't going to let that happen, so I just focused on how much I needed the strength to reach you before I jumped in the way of the rubble." Frost groaned a bit as the rubble above him shifted a bit on his bruised back. He then smirked as he took a shuddering breath. "Guess you were right about my power. I just needed the right reason to use it."

Neo gained a confused expression on her tired face, ruined slightly by the dust and her strong coughing. "What do you mean? What about your power?" Her last question came out at barely more than a whisper as she wheezed for breath.

"Saving someone important to me." Frost said solemnly as the rubble shifted again. "You and I have known each other for as long as we can both remember our days at the orphanage. You've been the closest thing to a family and a sister that I've had all of these years." Frost hugged her tight as a few tears escaped his eyes as the rubble continued to shift uncomfortably on his back. "I'm not letting you get hurt while I can help it. I just funneled the energy burst back on my own leg muscles to give me a temporary adrenaline boost to save you."

"Well then…thank you…Frost…" Neo sighed as she fell unconscious again in Frost's arms.

Frost looks at her face in shock as the rubble seems to lighten on top of him. "Neo?" Frost asks quietly as some light begins to shine through a few new gaps in the debris. "Neo?! Neo! Wake up!" Frost starts exclaiming as the rubble lifts away from Frost entirely. The next thing he knows, he's being hoisted up and pulled away from Neo before being placed in a stretcher. "Neo! NEO!" The last thing he sees before being hoisted into an ambulance as its doors close is the sight of a couple EMTs slowly lifting Neo onto another stretcher and moving her towards another ambulance nearby. Then all he sees is darkness as he too succumbs to his injuries and exhaustion and blacks out once again.