First things first, apologies for the slight delay even though I did say I was going for a maximum two week window between updates. Had a few plans over the Thanksgiving weekend (I live in Canada in case that left anyone confused), and I actually had less time to do writing between that, doing the newest raid on Destiny, and getting my car prepped for winter weather. Busy weekend I guess.

Anyways, we are closely approaching the end of the first arc of the story (yes I know it does feel a little short), but this is meant to be mostly exposition and setup for the rest of the story, at which point things will start to pick up quite a bit more. So I hope people are looking forward to that.

Finally, apologies if this chapter feels a little weird. I ended up doing it over two days compared to my usual one sitting before finishing it, so I hope it's still cohesive. Otherwise, enjoy and leave any reviews/critiques on your thoughts.

The air in the ruined cafeteria of Beacon was still. Shattered tables and chunks from the ceiling littered the floor of the building as Grimm meandered back and forth amongst the rubble that remained of the surrounding campus. Even the old statue of assorted Huntsman in the courtyard lay in ruins after all of the chaos of Cinder's grand plan had occurred. A small pack of Beowolves and a couple of Ursa happened nearby the building, their claws clicking and scraping against the ground as they moved.

After a few moments of silence once the Grimm had passed, Frost and Neo appeared within a sharp flash of light. Thankfully the Grimm were facing the away from the ruined building, and thus did not see the arrival of the campus' newest visitors. The two of them gave each other a silent nod as they began to carefully move debris around in the hopes they could find a lead as to where Blake might have headed off after fleeing the rest of the students and faculty.

Their eyes flickered back and forth in the hopes of finding any sort of clue- be it a unique scratch, a hidden note, anything they could go off of to potentially track the raven-haired Faunus down. For a while, it seemed as though they wouldn't find anything of note, and thus have to share the unfortunate news with Yang before heading off to Atlas to get in touch with Weiss.

At least until a scream of terror pierced the silence around them.

Frost's head whipped around with eyes filled with worry towards the direction he had heard the scream come from, only to see Neo on her rear as her eyes lay locked on something amidst the debris. He quickly moved to her side to see what the issue was whilst keeping his eyes peeled on the chance that the Grimm had been alerted to their presence in anyway. He carefully placed a hand on Neo's shoulder to alert her to his presence, to which she responded by whipping around with a look of fear on her face, before recognizing who it was and immediately diving into his chest while holding her arms to her chest as her body shook with fright.

"Neo?" Frost asked gently, his voice trying to convey a calm that inside he knew was anything but. "What did you see?"

Neo's head turned up to look at him while his arms circled her in a soothing embrace, her eyes filled with tears as she slowly lifted a hand to gesture into the pile she had shimmied away from. "I c-can't…just look for yourself…" Her sobs were the only sound to fill the air as Frost moved his arms away from Neo, but not without placing a hand on her shoulder as they shared a look that said he would right nearby if she needed him.

Frost's hands worked quickly as he sifted through the debris that had collapsed back onto the pile after Neo had jerked away from moving things, his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary amidst a crumbled cafeteria. His hands and arms flashed motes of white light every once in a while as he applied his Semblance at times to move away larger chunks of the pile that hadn't been on the pile before Neo's sudden movement had dislodged things. After a few moments he stopped moving debris to give Neo a confused look and a shrug of his shoulders due to not finding anything out of the ordinary.

Neo took a deep breath as she opened her mouth to reply to his unspoken request. "Keep digging, it's still in there…" Neo shuddered somewhat at the memory of what she had seen before continuing. "It probably moved when the pile shifted…but I know what I saw…"

Frost nodded his head once before returning to his work on the rubble, his arms continuing their mechanical pace of lifting and depositing any of the wreckage off to the side. As he reached the last bit of the pile, he noticed an odd reflection of light off of an object in the pile. A few moments later, he too reeled back from the pile with a hand to his mouth in shock at what he could now clearly see uncovered by the work he had done.

Yang's severed arm.

Frost's legs collapsed as he fell to his knees, his eyes wide as his head seared with pain, his hands clasped to both sides of his head as though to stop the thumping that was once again passing through his skull. This pain was the same, if not worse, to the pain he had felt after Yang had said that Pyrrha had been killed by Cinder atop Beacon Tower. His vision flashed to shades of black as his sight began to fail him due to the intense pain running through his head, one hand slowly reaching towards Neo as he looked towards her with a silent plead for help. He saw her body start to move from its position with her sitting atop the ground clutching her hands to her chest, her own terror forgotten in favour of the new fear at seeing Frost in this state. He wouldn't see her reach him however as his body slumped to the side, unconscious due to him fainting from the intense pain. Neo quickly reached his body and placed a hand on his chest, a quick breath of relief escaping her mouth as she felt an erratic, but strong heartbeat in his chest. The relief was short-lived however as the growls and screeches of Grimm began to get louder, likely due to the influx of negative emotions the two of them had felt at the sight of the severed limb. Her eyes gained a strong resolve as she propped Frost's upper body up to clutch him to her chest with an awkward embrace as she teleported the two of them into another part of Vale before the Grimm could attack them in their unprepared state.

Frost's head slowly rolled around an hour later as he slowly regained consciousness, Neo's hand quickly moving to his chest to stop him from moving too much after what she had seen. His vision swam slightly as he shook his head to clear the sight of two people from his blurred sight; his first thought that he was still dizzy from collapsing. As his vision stabilized however, he attempted to shuffle away quickly at the surprise of the second person that was clearly present with Neo and himself.

Shortly after Neo and Frost had teleported out of the old cafeteria.

Neo panted for breath after the long-range teleport she had performed to get Frost and herself as far away from Beacon as was possible. Her vision blurred for a moment with dizziness as she looked around for the closest alleyway she could hide the two of them in until Frost could wake up from his unconscious state. As her eyes scanned about she heard a voice come from nearby, her head turning to see a flicker of coloured cloth come from a nearby building that was still in relatively good shape despite the damage the city had sustained.

Neo took a deep breath as she focused her mind on the building itself, herself and Frost disappearing in a dull flash a moment later as she transported them to the first floor of the building. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw another person in the room with them, their body leaned against an old desk as they regarded the two people in front of them.

Emerald's red eyes held a look of confusion as she looked at the collapsed body of Frost and the trails from tears still lingering on her face. Her mouth opened as though to speak, but shut again a moment later before she silently walked off to an adjoining room while Neo carefully shifted Frost's body so that he was laying on an old couch in the room they currently presided. A few moments later, Emerald returned with a couple glasses of water before setting them on an end table nearby before walking over to the wall across the room to lean against it as she gave Neo and Frost a confused look.

"I thought I was imagining things when I saw the two of you just appear out of nowhere in the streets like that." Emerald started as she crossed her arms across her chest. "Figured that the two of you would be hot on Cinder's trail by now after everything she put you through."

Neo gave Emerald a cautious look for a moment before her mask fell, her worry and anxiety from recent events bleeding through. "We would have, except Frost wanted to try and check in on anyone before heading off to find any leads. You know as well as I do that Cinder never told me anything about her plans, except whenever my illusions and teleporting were useful to her plans. Though that does raise the question of why you're still here, as well."

Emerald scoffed as she gave a look of disgust out a random window off to the side. "I may have managed to trick Mercury and help you two escape, but that doesn't mean I have the same capability of escaping as you do. My hallucinations only go so far, and trying to trick crowds of White Fang loyal to Cinder while also fleeing Grimm isn't exactly doable. So I decided to hide out in the one place Cinder would never think I stayed in- the place she just destroyed."

Neo nodded her head with understanding before a look of confusion crossed her face. "But wait…that reminds me of something Frost and I had been asking each other when we were going off to see..." Neo paused as she tried to explain what they were doing without saying names- Emerald had helped them, but that didn't mean she had her entire trust, "…a classmate of his. Why DID you help us up on that rooftop? You could have just as easily helped Mercury off us like Cinder wanted and then continued on your way. What changed?"

"Cinder did." Emerald stated plainly. "Ever since we recruited Mercury she was a lot harsher and stricter than I saw her be when she had come to me for help. When she asked for my assistance, she promised that I would finally be able to have others around me to help, and that I wouldn't have to live hungry or alone anymore." Emerald snarled with disgust before finishing. "She was partly right, I'll give her that."

"What do you mean?" Neo asked as she tore a patch of cloth off of a discarded bedsheet before pouring a small amount of water on it to apply to Frost's forehead, his breath still slowly rising and falling as his senses ad yet to return.

"I wasn't alone anymore, but things were even more violent and dangerous than when I had been on the streets peddling food and money off of anyone looking to help a "poor, innocent little girl", at least as far as they saw." Emerald's eyes turned down somewhat with a look of regret before she turned to look at Neo with a sidelong glance. "I never thought that we would have to kill anyone or hurt people as much as we did, especially not as much as things got when the city here was attacked. By the time I figured it out, I was too far in. Going against Cinder alone would have been risky, but with everyone else on her task force there was no way I could make it out alive. Then I came across you two, strung up in Torchwick's own schemes and also looking for a way out."

Neo sighed as she grabbed the other glass of water before taking a sip. "…Did Cinder ever tell you about the weird drug Torchwick had gotten his hands on? The one that he dosed Frost and I with?"

"Only in passing." Emerald admitted with a shrug. "She mentioned that it would make you two more willing to go along with our plans, and when she said it I pretty much gave up any hope of getting out of things."

"Wait, you were going to ask for our help to escape at first?" Neo said with a look of genuine shock before getting up to sit at the end of the couch next to Frost's feet.

"Not right away, obviously. But once I saw the two of you in a fight and saw what you were capable of, I honestly thought the three of us would stand a good chance at getting out using our skills like a weird sort of team," Emerald admitted with a sheepish grin. "But like I said, that dropped the moment she mentioned that the drug would make you willing. How true was that, anyways?"

Neo gave Frost's face a brief look before turning again to face Emerald. "For Frost, not at all as it turned out. Apparently his Semblance was able to fend it off since he rarely ever got sick or injured for long even as a kid once he unlocked it. It…wasn't so nice for me." Neo's voice trailed off, her hands reaching around to cling to her arms in a protective self-embrace as the images of the disturbed version of herself stabbed her, the sight of her own blade hanging over Yang's chest, her slow walk towards Ruby atop the cruise ship before being jostled away into the wind where Frost and her reunited after so long. After a few deep breaths she looked back up to see that Emerald had moved closer and was kneeling in front of her with a hand cautiously held out as though to reassure Neo in some way, though the nervous look on her face stated on its own that Emerald was also still nervous in regards to previous encounters they had.

"…But it's okay now. We managed to get it out of my system and as far as we know there haven't been any negative effects." Neo said with a small, albeit fake smile plastered on her face.

Emerald's nervous expression changed to that of skepticism as she stood up and crossed her arms once again. "Yeah, and I'm the wizard from the Tale of the Maidens. I saw that look on your face. You did things you aren't proud of and are even scared by, and you know what? So did I. Except I don't go around trying to bottle it up and forget it like you are. I admit that I've done terrible things, but now that I'm finally free from Cinder's grip, I'm going to do the most I can to make sure it doesn't happen again to anyone else that falls for her lies and scripts."

"By hiding out in an abandoned building in the ruins of Vale?" Neo was now the one to wear the look of skepticism as she crossed her arms and legs on the couch, a smug smile on her face at the rapid deflation of Emerald's bravado that was apparent only moments earlier. "Yeah, very convincing."

"Well, whatever. Now that you two are here, the three of us can join up and head off to Haven to track Cinder. She didn't think I was going to turn traitor at any point, so she trusted me with her plans thankfully." Emerald walked over to grab one of the glasses before moving as though to dump it on Frost's head in an effort to wake him up.

"STOP!" Neo yelled before jumping up to stop Emerald's arm from tipping too far. "Don't do that!"

"And why is that?" Emerald asked with a look of surprise and confusion. "He's asleep, and I was going to wake him up so we can get on our way. What's the problem with that?"

"Because he's not asleep, he's unconscious!"

"Pretty sure those are the same thing there, pint-size."

Neo's eyes narrowed into a glare. "…Ignoring that jab for the moment, there is a very large difference in this case. Remember how I said that Frost never really got sick or injured for long even when we were young?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well in the past few days alone he has vomited outside of a window mid conversation when he looked completely healthy moments earlier, gotten sudden headaches and winces of pain numerous times, and now fainted from some unknown cause." Neo's eyes turned concerned once more as she kneeled beside his form, her hand moving to his forehead as she shifted the cloth somewhat as it had shifted from her sudden shifting of the couch. "Something is wrong with him, and we won't know what it is until he's awake. But waking him up by force is not going to help anything. We just need to wait."

Emerald gave Neo a look of curiosity for a moment before turning to look at Frost's body. A moment later a smirk appeared on her face as his body shifted, a light groan leaving his throat as his eyes flickered open slowly. "Looks like we won't be waiting long then. Can't be quite as bad as you thought in that case."

"We'll see." Neo stated plainly as she watched Frost slowly awaken.

A few moments later, Frost's eyes opened fully, before widening in shock as he attempted to quickly shuffle away in surprise at the sight of Emerald before a reassuring hand from Neo rested itself on his arm to calm him down. "Frost…I think you might want one of those glasses of water. We've got a lot to go over."

Frost gave the two of them confused looks before looking around and realizing they were no longer in the ruins of the cafeteria back at Beacon. His eyes flew about as they tried to make sense of what they were seeing, his head throbbing somewhat as he tried to process what was going on. In the end, he came up with only one question he could get out amongst his confusion.

"What happened?"