Stolen Hearts: Chapter 14

The forest was pretty quiet for this time of day which was a bit odd, but it certainly helped me keep an ear out for Arun and Misa.

I adjusted my position on the tree branch Buck and I were perched on as we waited for the pair to return, dangling my legs over the thick piece of wood as I listened to my new friend chatter away.

“That's why it's sometimes detrimental to reinforce your entire weapon.” Buck finished his explanation, holding his rifle up for view, “It almost entirely prevents mecha shifting as the components are too weighty for even the heaviest duty rotors to move.”

“My girlfriend and I ran into that problem when making my weapons.” I said idly as I kept my eye on the forest “We had to reinforce the dust chamber on Hit but we overdid it the first few times. Not exactly a catastrophic failure but it was annoying considering that was like our third prototype.”

Buck laughed, “I felt the same way when building Justice. It seemed that every time I thought I got something correct she was determined to prove me wrong.” He patted his rifle fondly, “I figured it out though. Just took some time and a lot of effort. That, and someone with a degree in mechanical engineering.”

I chuckled lightly, “Well I didn't have that but Ruby's just as good as any actual engineer. Better probably. You should see her scythe; Crescent Rose is absolutely insane.”

Buck went to respond but was interrupted by the sounds of snarls and rushing feet. We both looked down to find Arun and Misa rushing through the forest towards us at incredible speeds.

They were being chased by what looked like two dozen Grimm of every shape and size. Beowolfs, boarbatusks, ursa and several types I didn't recognize all followed closely behind them, roaring and snarling as they tried to catch up to the two veteran fighters.

“Guess that's my cue.” I said, standing from my seated position and sliding my goggles on. The forest was immediately lit an electric blue as I oriented myself towards the cave where the base was located, “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” Buck responded, scoping in with his rifle as Arun and Misa stopped in the clearing up ahead, “Be careful in there. I won't have a visual on you so you're on your own. Do you have the case?”

“Got it right here.” I said, patting my satchel in which was stored a heat proof case to carry the dust in. That stuff was hot enough to scorch and melt stone so there was no way I was getting it out of there with just my bare hands.

Buck nodded, “Wonderful. Stay safe, Rei. We'll meet at the designated spot when everything is said and done.”

“Will do. Good luck, Buck.” I chuckled lightly at my unintentional rhyme before shooting a wire out to a nearby tree, “I'll try not to take too long.”

Buck gave me a thumbs up, keeping his eye on the fight that had begun down below and I stepped off of the branch. Only a moment later, the line pulled taut, metal wire snapping tightly and swinging me towards the forest floor.

I landed in a roll, the line I had shot retracting into my bracer as I kipped up to my feet and kept my momentum, running silently along the forest floor in the direction of the cave.

Behind me, the cracks of Buck's rifle were almost deafening, echoing throughout the forest as he took care of any stragglers that might have strayed towards me in my journey, keeping an eye on both me and the others at the same times.

Thanks to his efforts, I didn't have to slow down in my journey at all. In just a few minutes, I had reached my destination, the massive cave that was holding the research station.

I slid to a stop at the mouth of the cave, peering inside only to freeze in my tracks as I caught sight of something moving the darkness, and my hackles raised as glowing red eyes opened in the darkness.

It seemed that Misa and Arun missed one. It was an Ursa, a rather old one too given the amount of armor it was sporting on its body. I cursed, backing out of the cave as its crimson eyes locked onto me, full of the incredible malice and hate that was common in all Grimm.

I got to its feet, paws beating heavy on the forest floor as it lumbered out of the cave, following me as I backed away to get some space from it.

I stopped several yards from the mouth of the cave, keeping my gaze locked onto the massive Grimm as it rose up on its hind legs and roared loudly into the air, the noise beating against my ear like the rumble of a bullhead. It was trying to intimidate me and I had to admit,not was kind of working.

But I needed in that cave. And I wasn't going to let a single ursa stop me from my quarry.

Taking a breath to calm my quickly beating heart, I pulled Hit and Run free from their magnetic strips, holding them to my sides as I lowered my stance. This thing was way too big to simply run past and it was blocking the only entrance to my quarry. To get inside, I was going to have to kill it.

“This is what you and Ruby trained for, Rei.” I muttered as the massive Grimm dropped back to all fours, charging towards me, “You got this.”

The monster was on me in mere seconds, swiping out with an armored arm with a feral snarl. As it reached me, I jumped, planting my feet on its massive forearm and leaping above it, flipping over its head and dragging my hooks to carve painful lines along its bone-white mask.

It roared in pain, turning and swiping at me blindly as I skipped backwards just out of its reach. I pointed Run towards it, unloading dozens of pellets of fire dust into its thick hide and armor as I dashed to the side, maneuvering around it to try to get behind again as an idea formed in my mind.

The dust scorched its armor slightly but didn't touch apart to make it angrier and its eyes followed me from behind the paw it used to protect itself. The moment that I stopped, preparing to run towards it again, it suddenly turned and swung at me once more.

I slid under the ursa’s outstretched arm as it took a swipe at me, dodging underneath its claws and getting behind it. I jumped onto its back before slamming the hooks of my weapons into its chest, crossing them over its thick neck.

“Boom.” I said simply, pressing the trigger on Hit and releasing its payload.

The ursa didn't even have time to make a sound as with a burst of fire, Hit slid along its neck and then through it as Run held its head in place, decapitating it cleanly and sending its head flying off in a random direction.

I jumped down off of its back and it tilted forward, smoke floating from its dissipating body as whatever semblance of life had been left in it disappeared completely.

I looked down at my blades, slightly perplexed, “Huh. That was… a lot easier than I expected it to be.”

Guess Ruby was right. My training was paying off.

“Now let's get in there.” I stored my weapons back in your usual places, making my way into the cave.

The cave was basically just one giant cavern, in the middle of which sat the base itself, massive steel walls shooting up to the ceiling imposingly, along with a rather large fence with a security gate set in it.

The gate was easily bypassed via my key card, and then it was just a matter of getting into the base itself l.

I couldn't go through the front entrance. If the researchers felt as threatened as I imagined they did, they would no doubt have barricaded the door or simply locked it to prevent entry. I would have to go around.

Scaling the wall of the base wasn't hard. There were a number of footholds that I could use and my claws could easily pierce relatively thin sheet metal besides that. Once I got up to the vent, it was just a matter of unscrewing the vent and slipping inside the chute.

My nose scrunched at the dusty metal interior, so I slipped my mask over my face, protecting my sensitive nose from any debris that might slip inside.

“If the blueprints were right,” I muttered to myself as I crawled along, “there should be a way into the main hall just a few meters in. Hope I don't get too much dust in my hair..”

All was well so far. This was looking like yet another clean job. Sort of.

~~~

Arun's key card worked like a charm. While I made my way through the base, I came across several doors that I wouldn't have been able to get through without it. Checkpoints to make sure that some unfortunate janitor or something didn't accidentally wonder where they weren't supposed to be.

As I stalked through the sterile halls, I kept my eyes out for any possible guards. My goggles were already set to thermal in order to locate the dust, so if anyone did happen to come across me I would hopefully see them long before the saw me.

Fortunately (and unfortunately for the researchers) I had detected exactly nobody since I had entered several minutes ago. The hallways were completely empty, desolate and completely devoid of any and all life.

That wasn't to say everyone was dead though. My goggles were clearly around a dozen heat signatures holed up in a room together, likely for safety. That was probably whoever remained of the researchers.

I studiously avoided thinking about what might have happened to the rest of them. Twelve or so people was an extremely low number for a station this big and I knew for a fact that even the last one I had been in had more. There were clearly several missing and I hadn't seen any indication that they were still around.

I put it out of my thoughts, deciding not to dwell on it. What was done, was done. Thanks to everyone still outside, those people would be safe and no more of them would die. I needed to focus on why I was here.

I hadn't sense anything putting off enough heat to be what I was looking for and I had surveyed practically the whole base at this point.

As I thought on my predicament, I was suddenly struck by a revelation, “Wait… if it's always hot enough to melt stone, then wouldn't they want to keep it somewhere cold?”

I looked around again with my thermal vision, adjusting the settings on my goggles to focus on the colder signatures instead of the hot ones. I immediately deadpanned as I got a hit almost immediately after changing the settings.

“I'm an idiot.” I sighed as I began making my way in the opposite direction that I had been, straight towards the room that was at least seventy five degrees colder than literally every other room in the building.

It was locked with a security card scanner, level four exactly. I once again thanked Arun for having the foresight to swipe the id as this security wasn't something I could currently crack. One slide of the card, and I was given access.

The moment that I walked in, I could see why it was so much colder than the rest of the base. The room was completely filled with chilling mist and steam as cold air was pumped into the room and immediately heated by the blinding chunk of dust burning merrily on a metal platform in the center.

And yet, even with all of the moisture in the air, fire still flickered around the base of the dust. It was so hot that it hurt to look at it through thermal vision, searing my retina with just a glance and I looked away immediately, turning off my goggles so I didn't permanently damage my eyes.

At least there wasn't any doubt that this was what I aawas looking for, I guess.

Even through the mist and several feet away, I could still feel the heat of the dust as I strode forward. I grimaced slightly as I neared my quarry, bringing a hand in front of my face to shield from the sheer power of the dust.

It was like standing directly in front of a camp fire as I finally reached it. I stared at the crystal, bright magenta pulsing with power as the heat it gave off created distortions in the misty air. It was almost…hypnotizing.

Slowly, I lowered my arm from in front of my face, suddenly unbothered by the intense heat and more preoccupied with staring at the dust. Like last time, the dust sang out to me, calling to something deep within my soul, practically begging me to reach out and…

I froze as I realized I had moved forward unconsciously. I looked down at my hand in baffled confusion as I took in my fingertips, mere centimeters from touching the surface of the dust

I jerked my hand back with a pained hiss as my skin smoldered from the heat coming off of the dust as it suddenly reappeared the moment I came back to my senses from whatever had just happened.

“What the fuck was that?” I muttered, slightly perturbed as I sucked lightly on my singed fingertips. I shook my head to clear it, still not quite sure what that was, “Get it together, Rei. You can gawk at the dust later. Grab it and get the hell out of here.”

Reaching into my satchel, I retrieved the container that I had been given specifically for the task of containing the dust. After debating on how to go about getting the crystal in there without burning myself, I decided to throw caution to the wind and just clamped the case around it, slamming it shut before the heat managed to do anything more than singe the hairs on my arm.

Just as designed, the moment that the case was closed it sealed itself with a sharp hiss. The heat that had been so oppressive immediately disappeared, leaving nothing but the frigid cold as the room cooled itself in an attempt to contain something that was no longer there.

“Mission complete.” I grinned, sliding the case back into my satchel, treasure safely tucked inside, “Now to get out of here…”

I turned stalk back out of the room, only to stumble as massive tremors shook the base, like a miniature earthquake that sent vibrations throughout my entire body.

I looked around warily as it ceased only moments later. That must have been the seismic activity that Arun told us about.

It was more than a little disquieting to have something like that happen inside of a massive cave; I didn't really fancy getting buried under several hundred tons of rock and stone, and so as soon as the shaking stopped I made a beeline for the place I had come in from, hoping to get out as quickly as possible.

“Hey, you!”

I froze, my heart beating wildly in my chest as someone called out to me from behind. How the hell had I not heard them coming?

I turned slowly, my gaze alighting on the person who had caught me even as I prepared to fight if need be.

Luckily, it didn't look like I would have all thT much of a fight if it came to it. The man was clearly one of the researchers, with a sterile white lab coat and a name badge to match.

He was rather tall with bright blonde hair and a neat beard and looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him, looking at my weapons and my masked face in stark shock.

I tensed and my hand slowly reached towards my chemical pellets, only to freeze as his face suddenly turned relieved, as if he was happy to see me.

“Oh thank god!” He breathed, making his way over as I stared at him warily, “I didn't think there were any of you left!”

I blinked as he suddenly wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. His voice sounded slightly sad as he embraced me, “You’re so young… I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”

“It's… fine?” I said, wondering exactly what was going on here. Did he think I was part of their group? I cleared my throat, trying to think of an excuse for being here, “I uh, I was trying to find everyone but I got kind of lost. Sorry.”

“It's more than fine! I'm just glad that one of you survived!” The man said as he let go of me. His blue eyes were relieved as he looked me over, “I told them that we should have hired more than just a few fresh graduates, but they said we didn't have the budget for it. Now look at what happened. All that wasted life…”

He shook his head, “We managed to retrieve their bodies. They're in cold storage and out of sight so nobody gets too riled up at the sight of them. That much negative emotion would drive the Grimm into a frenzy. When we get back to Vale, we'll send a team to retrieve them and eradicate every last one of those damn monsters responsible. I promise.”

I nodded, not saying anything in response to his statement. I had known going in that any deaths wouldn't be preventable by us, but to hear that so many new Hunters and Huntresses had lost their lives in one fell swoop was… disheartening.

This was what Ruby wanted to do with her life? Dying to protect a few people who likely would have died anyway if they didn't possess something that my boss wanted? How horrifying.

I shook my head, clearing away the morbid thoughts as the manspoke once more. “Come on, I'll take you to where the rest of us are set up.” He said, leading me down the hall in the direction I had been going, “There aren't many of us left, but with you here we might be able to make it out of here without losing anyone else.”

I stared at his retreating back. He was moving in the direction I needed to go so there was no way I was going to sneak past him. I would have to stay with him until I found an opportunity to slip away.

It definitely didn't have anything to do with the fact that I wanted to see how the researchers were holding up. Not at all.

He gave me a small smile as I caught up with him, “I'm Henry, by the way.” He introduced himself.

I gave him a nod, “Rei. Nice to meet you.”

“You as well. Though I wish the circumstances were different.”

~~~

The place that Henry led to was once the base cafeteria. The researchers had barricaded themselves inside, fortifying the massive room against any incursion via long tables pressed up against the swinging doors.

Henry got us inside via a side room that led into the main hall. Frazzled and harried faces turned towards us as we entered and eyes widened as they caught sight of me trailing behind Henry. A plus-one that they hadn't expected the man to return with.

One of them broke off from the group to approach us, “Henry! Did you find a way out?” She asked, almost desperately.

“You know I didn't, Jessica. The only place not blocked by Grimm is deeper into the cave and we both know that leads nowhere.” He sighed, causing her face to fall, “But I did manage to find this girl. She's part of the group that we hired to protect us.”

“Great! Just another mouth to feed.” One of them said snidely, staring daggers at me.

“Put your bigotry aside for one goddamn second, Cavel! This is a good thing!” Henry immediately shot back towards the man, who just spat on the floor in response.

“A good thing? She isn't going to do anything but-”

“Enough!” Henry was incensed, “Just because you're a fool who can't see past your own hatred doesn't mean that this girl is any less capable than the rest of them.”

“And look where that capability got them, Henry! Dead and shoved into a corner of the freezer! One more snot-nosed brat isn't going to make a difference! Much less one of them.”

Ah, he was a racist. Odd to see one in a position that required such intellect but I suppose it takes all types.

Cavel’s words set off the rest of the researchers and soon enough the cafeteria was a cacophony of shouting and angry remarks as the apparently frayed tensions snapped.

As they argued, I surreptitiously looked for an opportunity to slip away unnoticed. These researchers were completely safe, although they didn't know it. I had checked up on them and now it was time to leave. The longer I stayed here the more likely it was that they would find out that I wasn't actually one of the guards they had hired.

My searching was interrupted as one of the researchers suddenly ceased shouting at Henry and abruptly strode forward, grabbing me by the shoulders.

“Can't you call for backup or something!?” The researcher screamed, stringy hair dangling in front of his manic face as he stepped into my personal space.

I winced as my ears rang from the volume as well as the spit that shot into my face. Henry saw my discomfort and immediately jumped to my aid.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” The man yelled, stepping in front of me and shoving his coworker back. Being much larger than the other man, Henry's shove sent him staggering backwards, nearly tripping over his feet, “You know that we don't get any service here! The nearest SDC radio tower is over fifty miles away and we're surrounded by dozens of feet of solid rock!”

“Then what are we supposed to do!?” A woman asked hysterically, “Just wait for the Grimm to break on and kill us all!? We should just kill ourselves right now and save ourselves the pain of being torn apart by those monsters!”

Her eyes locked onto me, wide and manic, “You, girl! Give me those swords! O-or that gun! I don't have aura so it should only take one bullet! You don't have to worry about running out!”

My eyes widened as she took a step towards me and I stepped back, my claws unsheathing on instinct as I was faced with this woman who had clearly lost her senses.

“Nobody's going to kill themselves!” Henry sounded like he was at his wits end, grabbing the woman and pulling her away from me, “We are going to get out of here alive! We have a Huntress now! She can protect us!”

“She's just a kid!” One researcher protested, making me scowl slightly, “What is she going to do against all those Grimm? We're better off waiting for-”

The argument was forestalled by another tremor, this one much more powerful than ever before. Several researchers were thrown to the floor from the force of the shaking and I was only just able to stay on my feet by grabbing onto Henry's lab coat.

“What's going on!?”

“It's the tremors!”

“They've never been this big before!”

“We're gonna die! We're all gonna die!”

My eyes widened and I turned to Henry in panic, “Wait! That wasn't you guys!?”

He looked back at me as I stumbled, falling into his side as I lost my footing,”What are you talking about!? We have nothing to do with this!” He shouted back, grabbing onto me and holding me up.

“Then what-!?” My words were cut off by a massive crack like lightning striking and a I stared in horror as the floor suddenly cracked, splitting into several places that began to give way.

And then I was weightless, falling downwards as the floor gave out from underneath us all. Screams of terror escaped the mouths of the researchers and myself as we were sent plummeting into a massive sink-hole, falling into a deep darkness that was seemingly endless.

By pure instinct, I glanced down as I began to fall. My eyes widened in pure terror at what I saw as I plummeted into the hole clutching Henry for dear life.

A boney-white body, massive and scarred, was barely visible thanks to the light beaming from the fluorescents up above. Crimson eyes stared up in the darkness, waiting and watching as it's meal was brought to it by the inescapable force of gravity and I was suddenly struck by a horrifying realization.

The Grimm outside weren't there to prevent anyone from escaping.

They were waiting.