Jaune felt the Bullhead tilt forward as Qrow adjusted their course. The subtle hum of the engines softened and the vibrations beneath his boots evened out as they descended. Through the translucent hull panels, the sprawling outline of the city of Belmont unfurled beneath them, consisting of low buildings, long streets, and dark patches of forest interwoven between neighborhoods like veins of untamed green.
Yang leaned forward in her seat, squinting as the Bullhead banked. "Huh. Doesn't look anything like Vale," she said, tapping a knuckle against the window. "Feels… I dunno, older? Less shiny."
Jaune nodded. Vale's skyline was all shimmering towers and sharp silhouettes—steel and glass reaching as if hungry for the sky. Belmont, by contrast, looked closer to a painting of an old school town that had grown a little too quickly: lots of squat, blocky commercial districts, box-shaped warehouses with rusting roofs, old brick schools and offices, and winding suburbs of modest homes. Smoke stacks rose here and there from small factories on the outskirts, and only a handful of buildings topped more than six floors.
"It looks kind of rustic," Ruby murmured beside him, her eyes bright with interest rather than judgment. "But nice. Like the kind of place where every street corner has a bakery or a hardware store with a grumpy dad behind the counter."
Yang snorted. "Or shitty dive bars."
"Please," Qrow said over his shoulder, not missing a beat, "they've got great dive bars. And terrible ones. And, one artisan whiskey place that is criminally underrated. People don't talk about it because they don't want anyone else to know."
"Wow," Yang deadpanned. "Shocking. Qrow likes the alcohol."
Qrow lifted a hand as if giving a lecture. "I like good alcohol... which Belmont has. It's practically cultural heritage."
Ruby ignored the banter, leaning forward to peer between the seats. "Uncle Qrow, you've been here before? Like for missions?"
Before Qrow could answer, Raven spoke, in a matter-of-fact tone. "We've been here three times." Her voice held no nostalgia or disdain, just information. She didn't look away from the windshield as she spoke. "Due to the lack of awakened in the world, most Rank 2s get rotated through different regions. Belmont's Nightmare zones aren't as numerous as Vale's due to the population, but zones tend to be unpredictable. Especially when it comes to Rank 2 zones. Be thankful that the ones you've seen so far haven't been temporal ones. Those are a headache."
Ruby's brows pinched. "Temporal…?"
"Don't ask," Qrow muttered. "Hard to explain."
Raven continued. "The last time we came through, there were four Rank 2 Nightmare zones. The base leader here, wasn't able to handle it, so we had to step in and help. Fortunately, we stopped it in time, before the Amalgamation spilt over into the real world. Barely."
Jaune swallowed. He remembered his own experience with an Amalgamation spilling over onto the real world. And the deaths that followed. If he could help it, he never wanted to see such a sight ever again.
"That said," Raven added, eyes narrowing faintly, "Belmont usually maintains good communication with Vale. And with LUCID in general."
Qrow exhaled through his nose. "Yeah. Usually."
The Bullhead slowed even further, the sleek craft gliding above a lonely stretch of dry hills northwest of the city. The terrain below was quite barren—patches of scrub brush, dirt and rock formations that jutted like cracked bones from the ground. It felt removed from civilization, far removed from the city lights only a few kilometers away.
"Why here?" Yang asked, unstrapping herself.
Qrow flicked a switch. A soft mechanical whir hummed beneath them. "Base entrance is just ahead."
A rectangular hatch—big enough for two bullheads to pass through—rose from the ground like a metal lid being pried open. Dust and pebbles slid off the sides.
Ruby blinked. "So we're just gonna fly straight in?"
"Nope." Qrow powered down the engines. "Everyone out."
That caught all three of them off guard.
Jaune hesitated halfway through unbuckling. "We're… not taking the Bullhead in?"
"Not if the base isn't talking back," Qrow said plainly. "Protocols. If a facility goes dark, you don't bring an expensive aircraft straight into its mouth. For all we know, their system has malfunctioned, they've got hostile activity, or someone booby-trapped the landing bay."
"Booby trapped?"
"Indeed. We don't know the situation, so traps could also be a reason."
Jaune frowned. Grimm didn't create traps. Only humans did. Which meant... there was a possibility that other humans were involved. And the only group of awakened that Jaune knew of, that weren't a part of LUCID, was the group his father was a part of.
Sleepless.
Yang muttered under her breath, "Oh. Fun."
Raven was already out of her seat. "Come, children. From here on out, we're going in on foot."
They disembarked one by one, legs crunching on gravel and dried grass. The city of Belmont was visible in the distance, a patchwork of lights beginning to flicker on in the early dusk.
The open hatch yawned before them—dark, unlit, and steep. A cold draft drifted up from the depths.
Jaune peered down. "This is the Belmont LUCID base… entrance?"
Qrow folded his arms. "Yup, one of them. For aircrafts, specifically. And to hide it from anyone who shouldn't know about it."
Ruby tilted her head. "So… what happened to the people inside?"
No one answered immediately.
Finally, Qrow's expression hardened. "That's what we're here to find out."
Raven stepped forward. In one smooth motion, she dissolved into her shadow, then emerged—
FWOOSH
—in the unmistakable silhouette of a raven. The small shadow-bird fluttered twice before landing on Qrow's shoulder. Its beady red eyes shone faintly in the dimming light.
Jaune still hadn't gotten used to seeing her use the ability. It was eerie every time.
Qrow jerked his head toward the hatch. "Come on, kids. Stow the jitters and stay sharp. If the base is fine, we'll know soon enough. If it's not…"
He let the sentence trail.
Ruby stepped up beside Jaune. He could see her fingers twitching restlessly, brushing the buckle of her equipment harness.
Yang, rolled her shoulders. "Alright. Let's get this over with."
.
.
The moment they stepped through the hatch and into the aircraft tunnel, the stale air wrapped around them like a cold shroud. The passage ahead stretched on seemingly forever—an industrial artery burrowed beneath the barren hills outside Belmont. Narrow strips of reflective lights dotted the ceiling at wide intervals, each one catching their silhouettes briefly before letting darkness reclaim the edges.
For a moment, everyone simply stared into the tunnel's length, the scale of it settling in. Jaune exhaled slowly. The silence here wasn't peaceful. Instead, it felt like the place had been holding its breath long before they arrived.
Qrow stepped forward first. "Let's move."
Then they ran. An effortless, inhuman sprint only awakened could perform. Their footsteps blurred, each stride covering meters at a time. Wind roared past Jaune's ears as he kept pace behind Ruby, watching the reflective lights strobe across her armor like red flashes on a dark canvas.
No automated defenses activated. No turrets unfolded from the walls. No security drones tracked them.
Nothing.
The quiet only grew heavier.
Eventually, the tunnel widened and opened into a hangar bay large enough to hold multiple aircrafts, though still smaller than Vale's sprawling underground hub. At least eight Titan-Class Rune Frames sat locked in their support docks—sleek, humanoid mechs holding silent vigil, their armor plates glinting beneath the overhead lights. Power still flowed through the facility; holopanels flickered softly, coolant vapors hissed from conduits, and ceiling fans thrummed at a lazy rotation.
But not a single person stood in sight.
Jaune slowed to a halt. Yang came up beside him, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the hangar.
"This… is weird," she whispered.
Weird didn't begin to cover it. The Vale branch always had personnel moving at all hours—mechanics, analysts, squad leaders, technicians. Even late-night shifts were busy. But Belmont's base felt like someone had pressed pause on reality itself. Everything was functioning. Everything was powered on, and even operational.
Except the people.
Ruby stepped past a Titan Frame, her hand brushing its leg plating. "There's no way they'd leave these behind. Even in an emergency."
"Especially in an emergency," Jaune added quietly.
Qrow didn't answer right away. His frown deepened, and he jerked his chin toward a corridor branching off from the hangar. "We're checking everywhere. Stay close."
They moved together, tension simmering beneath every step. The first area was the simulation chambers. They were slightly different from vale's. These ones were circular rather than rectangular, with walls lined by projection nodes. The interface was still active, humming faintly. A status feed floated above the control console:
NO USERS DETECTED
LAST SESSION: 13 HOURS AGO
INTERRUPTED.
Ruby swallowed. "They stopped mid-run?"
"Doesn't look like they stopped on purpose," Raven murmured.
The armory was next. Racks upon racks of weapons—firearms, runic forged-blades, shock gauntlets, thermal axes—stood in disciplined formation. Lockers still open.
Everything suggested people had been here just moments before. Everything suggested they'd stepped out expecting to return.
But no one had.
Silence followed them from room to room.
The cafeteria was the worst.
Trays remained on the tables. Forks still held bits of food. A plate of cold noodles sat under a heat lamp, half-eaten, as if the soldier who had been there had only left for a minute.
Ruby stood rigid in the doorway, hands clenched at her sides. Yang's expression grew cold, jaw tight. Jaune felt the back of his neck prickle.
"This is…" Ruby whispered, unable to finish.
Raven stepped past her, eyes hard. "Not natural."
They moved on quickly after that.
The research labs were deserted. Terminals still displayed ongoing analyses. Rune compatibility tests, tracking, surveillance logs. One workstation showed a paused magnification scan with a note scrawled in the corner:
Return in five minutes.
Jaune stared at the words longer than he should have. Five minutes could mean anything. Five minutes before a break. Five minutes before stepping out to help someone. Five minutes before something happened.
He didn't like the possibilities his mind conjured.
They finally circled back toward the heart of the facility: the central intelligence hub.
The moment they entered, the entire group halted.
The holo-screens were online, casting a faint glow over the room. Maps of the Dream Realm—fractured cities, Nightmare zones, fog densities—floated midair. A dozen feeds normally updated in real time: squad movements, connection statuses, grimm activity.
But every single one of them displayed the same error.
CONNECTION LOST.
Ruby's breath hitched. "All of them…?"
Yang stepped closer to one of the large displays, hands braced against the console. "No uplink from any scout unit, patrol squads or even the base interface. That shouldn't be possible. There are redundancies for the redundancies."
Jaune felt a chill crawl down his spine. "So where is everyone?"
Qrow exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as though warding off an oncoming headache. "Well… it seems this is a bigger problem than I thought."
The understatement felt painfully thin.
Ruby turned to him, voice soft but tight. "Uncle Qrow… what do we do now?"
Qrow turned away from the displays and faced the group fully, the weight of years etched onto his expression. His gaze moved from Yang to Ruby, from Raven to Jaune.
"There's one place left to check."
Raven crossed her arms. "If they were dragged off by a grimm, we'd see signs. So... it seems that they might be in there..."
Ruby frowned. "In there? You mean—"
Qrow nodded once, grim.
"The Dream Realm."
Silence fell like a hammer, dense and suffocating.
Jaune felt his stomach twist—not out of fear, exactly, but in grim understanding. If an entire base had gone dark, all at once, with no signs of struggle, no broken equipment, no alarms…
Then maybe the answer wasn't in the waking world at all.
Ruby's voice came barely above a whisper. "Everyone? But how?"
"Not sure. Lets check the sleep pods, just in case there are any technicians sleeping inside. Then the camera feeds. We'll reroll the data to see what happened to the people in here."
.
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