Chapter 13

The heartbeat monitor continued its rhythmic beeping, each chime a reminder of his failure.

Lance sat at Morgan's bedside, his head down. He replayed every moment of the battle in the woods and his actions during it incessantly, looking for anything he might have done to spare his teammate and friend her injury. So far, he hadn't. He had fought to the best of his ability and did all he could to defend both his teammates.

That was what burned. If he had failed because of some error or mistake, he would berate himself, take responsibility for the consequences, and never make such a mistake again. But this, this had happened simply because he was not strong enough. There was no quick and easy fix, no way to tell himself this would never happen again If the situation were to repeat itself he would be just as helpless then as he was for this one. And so he maintained his vigil, cursing himself for his powerlessness.

"How is she?" Lance looked up into Guardian's concerned face. He must have arrived at their new base of operations fairly recently. The caverns were they had set up shop were buzzing with White Fang hurrying to complete the device. At this point, they ought to be done in a matter of hours, aside from the missing critical component. Lance sighed.

"That White Fang doctor says she'll live, maybe, if nothing causes her condition to deteriorate. All we can do now is wait and pray her Aura is up to the challenge." If they were in a proper hospital in a city, things would be different. But out here in the ad hoc base they had set up in the wilds, they had none of the resources to actually help Morgan beyond making it as easy as possible for her to heal herself. Thankfully, Morgan always had a decently sized Aura, but even so…

Guardian's face was lined with regret and tiredness. "I should have been there. If I had, this wouldn't have happened." Lance couldn't argue, it was probably true. "I could have been there, if I hadn't been so fixated on maintaining my cover."

"It is what it is." Lance turned back to watch Morgan's chest rise and fall. He had no interest in debating who was most to blame. He already knew it was himself.

"Well, no more." The quiet declaration dragged Lance's attention back to Guardian. "It's past time for me to take an active role." Guardian gave a mirthless laugh. "I'd never expected I'd let my comrades fight alone because I let my hand be tied by politics. Time to cast the die and let the chips fall where they may."

"You'll need some extra hands." Lance said, standing. He led Guardian out of the makeshift patient's room, wary of waking Morgan. Knowing her, if they did she'd insist on taking part, hole through her chest or no. Guardian shook his head.

"I can handle it. I need you here to begin the cleanup. Speaking of which…" Lance followed his gaze down the hall to the approaching Mordred.

"Where are they?" Guardian asked.

"Gone."

"What do you mean gone?"

Mordred's scowl deepened. "I mean I've been all over this miserable hole in the ground and haven't seen one trace of Cinder or her flunkies."

"They were here when I got here." Guardian replied, eyes narrowing.

"That's probably why." Lance muttered. At Guardian's look he continued. "One look at you and I bet they saw the writing on the wall. Not surprising they booked."

"Treachery is to be expected in these sorts of environments." Mordred folded his arms. "You overplayed our hand so they bailed."

Guardian sighed, looking bone tired. "Fine, fine. As long as they didn't take the White Fang with them we'll just have to track them down later." He smirked mirthlessly. "At least this gives us another reason to resolve this as soon as possible."

"Guardian!" The three of them turned at Adam's shout. Lance, despite himself, actually liked the young terrorist. He was, for a narrow minded bigot, surprisingly adept at seeing the bigger picture. He saw no reason to waste his time fighting every human he saw, like some of his contemporaries, when he could be using them to topple the real agencies of human power. What was the point of killing a few human Huntsmen when with their help you could make Faunus the dominant race on Vytal? "We have a big problem."

"Oh, now what?" Guardian asked wearily.

In Beacon's mess hall, the members of Team RWBY and Shadow squad were dining. They had arrived back from the mission the night before and all gotten some much needed sleep. Well, six of them had. Weiss had gotten up in the middle of the night and left the room for nearly two hours, while Ruby waited up for her to return. That morning they were summoned by Professor Goodwitch to talk to Professor Ozpin, only to find the headmaster was away for some reason. Argos had suggested breakfast and that was that.

The talk of the table had turned to their mission and the ongoing hunt for the remaining members of Phantom squad and Mortis Manus.

"I doubt they are still together." Argos was saying. "If nothing else, Lance working with the White Fang means Mortis needs to be keeping his distance."

"That may be true, but do you really think Lance would let Mortis Manus run around a free man?" Dom replied. The muscular Huntsman kept pausing in between bites of toast to flip up a knife and tinker with its mechanisms. The ones he finished with were tucked away and a new one replaced him. For her part, Ruby did want to get a closer look at the knives' intricate system of charges and detonators, but she other things on her mind at the moment.

"Who says he can keep Mortis in check? That would be a shaky prospect even with Morgan, and without her there's almost no way."

Weiss twitched for the fourth time in as many minutes. Ruby was starting to get worried. The perfectly poised Schnee heiress didn't get jumpy, at least not very often. And while she tried to tell herself otherwise, Ruby couldn't help but notice all of them had happened after Morgan had been mentioned. Weiss had also taken to staring off into space at random. She got this haunted, thousand yard stare on her face when she did.

"Weiss?" There was no reaction. "Weiss?"

This time the heiress jumped and whirled around to face Ruby. "What?" Weiss asked sharply.

Ruby cowered before the intensity of her partner's stare. "I was just, um, wondering if everything's okay?"

"Yes, I'm- everything is fine. Why wouldn't it be?"

"It's just…" Ruby cast around for a reason, fully aware that the entire table was watching them now. "You haven't touched your food."

Weiss looked down surprised at the completely full bowl of oatmeal as if she had no idea it had been there. When she looked up, Ruby got the feeling Weiss was intentionally avoiding meeting her eyes. "I'm just not hungry." The heiress stood suddenly, her face pensive. "I should go; I need to assemble a replacement Myrtenaster." She turned and left without another word.

Ruby watched her go, a dozen different sentences dying on her lips. What could she say, that it was okay, that she was grateful for Weiss' actions? The latter she had already said at least three times on the flight back to Beacon, the former wasn't true.

Back at the table, Will was pointedly staring at Sanguin, who shrugged and shook his head. Will folded his arms and continued to glare. Sanguin met his gaze for a long moment before caving, sighing deeply and getting up from his seat. He reached over into Argos' pocket, pulling out something metallic that Ruby didn't identify before it was put away in his own pocket. Argos protested weakly but was instantly cowed by a sharp glare. Ruby followed the wordless exchange confused.

As Sanguin walked away, Will faced Ruby. "Don't worry, San will get her sorted out. He has his own experience with what she's going through."

"Really?" Ruby wanted Weiss to snap out of it, obviously, but there was a small, unpleasant part of her that dismissed the bloodthirsty warrior of being capable of empathy for someone regretting killing someone. Will just smiled, as if he could see her thoughts printed on her face and nodded.

"Yep." Argos chirped, helping himself to Weiss' oatmeal.

Weiss laid out the last of the parts in front of her. She had retrieved her spare set of sword parts from her room and come to Beacon's weapon maintenance workshop to assemble them. The workshop was completely empty, with a jolt Weiss remembered that classes were in session. She knew the team had permission to be skipping, since they were supposed to be meeting Professor Ozpin right now, but she still worried they might get behind and their grades would suffer. She made a mental note to ask Pyrrha for the notes of the classes they shared, the Spartan being the most diligent at her schoolwork out of her team.

With that worry resolved, Weiss set to work creating a new weapon. It was a fairly simple process, one that she had first done when she twelve. Her tutors had insisted, citing soldiers who could disassemble and reassemble their weapon blindfolded in mere seconds. And those were men and women with the massive support structures of the kingdom behind them, the kind of support a Huntress operating largely alone in the wilds could only dream of having. There weren't all that many steps, you just had to assemble the revolver mechanism, add it to the structure of the hilt, then ensure the Dust flowed properly from its compartments into the blade. She'd need to order some more esoteric varieties of Dust she used, but otherwise she could have a brand new rapier in just under a half hour's work.

As she worked, her familiarity with the process worked against her. Weiss had come here to occupy her mind with the work, but the ingrained actions left her hands operating without much input from her brain.

"Huh."

Weiss' nonexistent breakfast threatened to come up again. She clamped down hard on the memory. It did no good to keep reliving that moment, seeing the look on Morgan's face, the resistance as Myrtenaster pierced flesh. She had already spent last night walking the school's ground until she was too tired to dream, hoping that would prevent a second nightmare.

The door opening broke through her fugue. Sanguin, with his sword slung over his back, entered and headed straight for the supply closet. He pulled out a whetstone and a drying cloth and sat down at the work station next to hers.

Weiss already knew where this was going. He was going to give her some talk about how what she did was necessary and how she had saved Ruby so there was no reason to feel guilty. Well, she already knew all that. It hadn't stopped the nightmare she had last night, or the way her stomach hadn't stopped churning since then. Did he really think some cheap platitudes would make her feel better?

Apparently he didn't. Sanguin didn't say a word to her; he just examined his sword, tsking at the nicks and dents along its length. He placed the whetstone in front of him and began to sharpen his blade, the metal rasping as it slid along the stone. He settled into a rhythm, the sounds of sharpening making a curious music.

Satisfied that he wasn't going to be bothering her with any speeches, Weiss resumed her own work. The two of them worked in silence. The melody of the stone and sword pervaded her brain; she found her hands moving to the same rhythm as Sanguin. Weiss finished the revolver mechanism and had just started to carefully fill the compartments with the appropriate kinds of Dust when Sanguin finally spoke.

"So, did you like your first kill?"

Weiss' hand jerked and ice Dust spilled onto the table. It took some quick movements on her part to keep the half-finished rapier from being trapped in the block of ice that formed. She rounded on him angrily. "Did I like it?"

"Yes." Sanguin was unperturbed at her reaction. He didn't as much as look up from his sharpening as he waited for an answer.

"No. No I did not like it." Weiss said bluntly.

"I did." Sanguin replied. He must have seen her expression out of the corner of his eye because he elaborated. "My first kill, that is. I got a big rush from it, made me feel alive. I liked it so much I went right out and killed someone else. Of course, they were trying to kill me at the same time, so it's not like I had a ton of options at the time."

He stared past her, and for a man remembering allegedly happy memories he looked rather melancholy. He shook his head slightly and returned his attention to his sword. He eyed the edge and, apparently satisfied, put the whetstone away and began to rub down the sword with a cloth and slow methodical movements.

"I'm rambling, aren't I? Anyway, that's how I reacted to my first kill." He raised the blade to eye level again, eyeing it critically. "I wouldn't say that's particularly normal, or anything. The first time Argos killed someone, well, first he finished the mission because despite how he acts he's a professional. But after, he locked himself in a room and got shitfaced on this." San reached into a pocket and pulled out a silver flask. Weiss just stared at it until he thrust it closer and she reluctantly took it.

"Noxian Fire." Sanguin explained as she uncapped the flask and took a tentative sniff. "They call it that because it burns. That's not hyperbole; keep it away from an open flame."

Weiss couldn't say for sure what compelled her to take a sip, but she did. And then immediately spat it back out, hacking and wheezing. That might have been the worst thing she had ever put inside her mouth. Sanguin reached over with his rag and mopped up the salvia and liquor on the table.

"Nasty, right?" He asked. "Argos drank the whole thing, somehow, and came out the next day fine other than a massive hangover. Since then, whenever he's needed to kill someone he pulls that out and drinks to forget. Not the best way to get over guilt, but if it works who am I to judge?"

Weiss just stared at him. Where was he going with this?

"The point is, you have options. You can quit being a Huntress and never have to kill again, learn to like it like I do," Sanguin gestured with the flask. "drink your way through like Argos does, or find a healthy way to deal with it. Sanguin stood. "You're not the type to like it and drinking clearly isn't your thing. So you can quit, no shame in that, this lifestyle isn't for everyone, or try talking to someone about it. Maybe those teammates of yours you're trying to avoid."

He turned and left, waving over his shoulder as he went. As he exited, as if waiting for him to leave, Ruby slipped into the room. She sat down in Sanguin's spot, ignoring the mess he had left behind. She looked pensive and before Weiss could ask what she wanted Ruby grabbed hold of her and pulled her into a hug. Weiss pushed back, but Ruby just tightened her grip and hung on. She didn't say anything, because there wasn't anything she could say. She just held Weiss with all her strength.

Weiss didn't cry, but it was a close run thing. She lost track of time while they sat there embracing. When Ruby finally pulled away, she smiled despite her own watery eyes. Then she spotted the in progress Myrtenaster and her expression lit up. "Oooh, is that your sword? Let me see, I've always wanted to check out the revolver hilt."

Weiss watched her teammate fawn over the weapon and for the first time since yesterday the beginnings of a smile touched her lips.

Team Milk was enjoying a rare bit of leisure time in the manner they usually did, arguing. Or rather, Kevin and Ian were arguing while Michael watched and Luke ignored them.

"It totally was a waste of time." Ian was saying. "We wandered around the woods for a few hours then came back home. What was the point of that?"

"Well for starters," Kevin started ticking off his fingers. "we killed some Grimm. That right there is a good usage of our time as far as I am concerned. Secondly, we got to watch Theron Samia in action. The man's practically a living legend. Thirdly, if we weren't in the field then the other part of our group wouldn't have completed the objective."

"Look, if a team of freshmen were able to get the job done, then they really didn't need us after all now did they." Ian fired back. Luke looked up from where he was laying in the grass. The four of them were in their usual spot, the part of Beacon's lawn that some would say was dangerously close to the massive cliffs. Kevin had been the one to suggest they first hang out here and like most things he ended up getting his way. For all he was the team leader, Michael mused, Kevin was the one who ended up calling the shots. If only because when he wanted something he was willing to argue the point until no one else cared anymore and he claimed victory by forfeiture.

"They had help from that team of foreign students." Luke said. "They certainly couldn't have copped it on their own."

"I don't know," Kevin said. "I've heard things about Team RWBY. They get into a lot of trouble and get back out of it too. I bet they could handle themselves just fine."

"Which means they didn't need us to join them out in the field." Ian pounced on the point.

Michael bemusedly watched him and Kevin continue their debate while Luke tuned out again. For his part, Michael thought the hunting mission had been poorly arranged. Deploying that many teams only for none of them to make contact and two teams that weren't supposed to be in the area did. It didn't fill him with confidence regarding Professor Goodwitch's planning skills. Still, what's done was done, the mission was a success anyway, and it all worked out okay.

"Excuse me." Michael turned towards the smooth, pleasant voice and froze. His teammates were equally stunned. Mortis Manus smiled lightly. "I was wondering if you could do me a quick favor. I've come to speak with the heads of this establishment, but I didn't arrange an appointment. But I suspect they'll come running at the sounds of your screams."

That was all the cue MILK needed. Ian sprang off the grass, sliding his shock batons free as he lunged. Mortis fended off the flurry of attacks by nimbly slapping away Ian's hands and wrists before he could make contact. Despite being completely out matched, Ian kept the mass murderer at bay long enough for Kevin to step in with his sword and Luke with his hammer. Instead of withdrawing from the three on one bout, Mortis charged in himself.

Michael observed from a distance, struggling with his panic. Rushing in now would be a mistake, his teammates were already getting in each other's way somewhat and adding another body would only make that worse. Besides, Michael's whip-sword was hardly a precision tool at the best of times. Instead, he watched closely, getting a feel for their enemy's style and technique. Mortis fought with flowing movements and an emphasis on using his hands over his feet. Instead of outright dodging he would deflect the attack by pressing against a non-dangerous part of the weapon, such as the flat of Kevin's sword.

After one such deflection, Mortis grasped Ian's baton and with a jab into the wrist from his other hand stole the weapon from the loosened grip. He hooked a leg around Ian's ankle and sent him sprawling. Mortis twirled the shock baton and jabbed it into Luke's side, pumping Luke full of electric current. Kevin tried to intervene but Mortis caught him under the chin with a kick. From the ground, Ian had changed his other baton into a pistol and took aim. Mortis threw his pilfered weapon into his head and the shot went wild.

Now. Michael stepped in and sent a scything slash with his bladed whip. Mortis couldn't deflect that like he did the others and was forced to evade. Michael kept him at bay with a flurry of attacks, but he was fully aware that was just a stalling tactic. Thankfully, stalling was working out for him. Kevin was back on his feet and glancing to the left Michael spotted members of Team PNTR approaching quickly. If they could overwhelm Mortis with numbers and start attacking from range, they could take him.

Strange, there was a warm wetness flowing down his legs. He better not have pissed himself, the guys would never let him live it down.

"MICHAEL!" Kevin screamed.

Michael looked down to see a hand touching his stomach. No, not touching, embedded within it. Michael stupidly looked up to see Mortis smiling serenely. "If you're going to look away from your enemy, they'll make you regret it." He explained as if talking about the rules to some sport. He wrenched free the hand that was covered in a pulsing red that wasn't blood.

Michael heard screaming as he fell. It wasn't until he was on the ground that he realized it was him.

"See, that wasn't so hard." The last thing Michael saw before the world went black was Mortis Manus smiling down at him.

AN: So this is the chapter where I learned I can't write PTSD worth half a damn. Oh well, it's only the main focus of the chapter, nothing important. Mortis finally takes to the stage and starts to have some fun. I've been waiting to get him more involved, but it's hard to drop him in because he'd just kill everyone. That and I had a hard time getting his personality down into a coherent shape. Speaking of, I was never really satisfied with his speech to Mordred back in chapter 8, so I went back and redid it. You can check out the new version, I feel it hits closer to the idea I was going for.

Special shout out to Lord Jaric for his consistent reviews and feedback. I can't overstate how much of a motivation boost those have been. Let me know if you find any typos or other errors, I still don't really have a proofreader or anything.