Page 3: Echos of Steel and Bone
The Geometry of Duty ❄️
Dawn in Atlas was not a natural event. It was a precision operation.
No shrill alarm clock shattered the silence in Specialist Winter Schnee's quarters. Instead, at 05:00 sharp, the lights in her room began to gradually illuminate, shifting from total darkness to a soft white glow over the course of exactly sixty seconds, mimicking a sunrise the floating city rarely saw through its perpetual cloud cover.
Winter rose instantly, without a single yawn or sign of laziness. Her routine was an immutable ritual, a series of calculated actions designed for maximum efficiency. Discipline was not something she practiced; it was the air she breathed.
As she dressed in her immaculate military uniform, every buckle tightened with millimeter precision, every medal a silent testament to her dedication, she approached the enormous picture window that dominated one side of her room. The view was that of a lesser god observing her creation.
Below, the majestic and silent city of Atlas was waking. Transport ships, like diligent metal insects, moved in perfect patterns through invisible sky corridors. The lights of Atlas Academy shone like an artificial constellation, a promise of order and power. And far, far below all of that, through a thick sea of clouds and the industrial fog that refused to dissipate, the sick, orange glow of Mantle was barely distinguishable.
It wasn't a city to her. It was a problem. An equation of logistics and discontent that had to be managed. A constant reminder that chaos always lurked beneath the surface of perfection.
She turned from the window and sat at her desk. Her Scroll came to life, displaying a cascade of reports. Grimm threats on the borders of Solitas. Skirmishes with White Fang cells. And, as always, reports of civil unrest in the districts of Mantle. She read each one with an impassive expression, her mind analyzing data, assessing threats, formulating tactical responses. Emotions were a luxury, an uncontrollable variable in the equation of security.
But then, a personal notification appeared on her calendar.
[SCHEDULED TRAINING: W.S. - 16:00]
A sigh, so light it was almost inaudible, escaped her lips. *Weiss*.
The image in her mind was instant, not a warm memory, but a tactical assessment.
The scene shifted to the vast, icy courtyard of the Schnee Manor, a personal training ground as opulent as it was brutal. A younger Weiss, perhaps sixteen, fought desperately against three Boarbatusks. Her rapier, Myrtenaster, was a flash of silver in the air, but her movements lacked confidence.
At a safe distance, Winter watched her. Unmoved. Arms crossed.
"Sister! There are too many!" Weiss shouted, her voice a mix of exhaustion and panic. "I think I'm reaching my limit!"
Winter's response was cold, as sharp as the Solitas wind. She didn't move from her spot. "Get up, Weiss. Fight. The limit only exists in your mind. No one will come to save you when it truly matters. You have to be able to save yourself."
A Boarbatusk, taking advantage of a moment of Weiss's hesitation, charged from her flank. Weiss turned too late. Terror paralyzed her face.
Just as the tusks were about to hit, the air filled with a flash of white and blue. Winter was no longer in the distance. She had moved with a speed that seemed to break the laws of physics, appearing between Weiss and the Grimm.
She hadn't drawn her main weapon. In her hand, she held an elegant dagger, the secondary one hidden in the hilt of her saber. With an incredibly precise movement, she deflected the Boarbatusk's charge, not with brute force, but by redirecting its momentum, causing the beast to spin out and crash into the ice.
At the same time, without even looking, her free hand moved back and created a propulsion glyph at Weiss's feet, launching her younger sister out of the reach of another approaching Grimm.
The deflected Boarbatusk recovered and charged again. This time, Winter drew her main saber. The blade gleamed, and as it activated, a faint, frosty mist erupted from the Dust chamber. She created a time dilation glyph in front of her, slowing the beast to a snail's pace. Then, with a series of lunges so fast they were almost invisible, she struck the weak points in the Grimm's armor. Ice crystallized in the cracks with each hit, and the Boarbatusk froze in place before crumbling into a cloud of dust and ice shards.
The other two Grimm, seeing a superior predator, backed away.
But Winter did not press the attack. She sheathed her saber, the frosty mist dissipating. She turned, not to the Grimm, but to her sister, who was lying on the ground, breathless and wide-eyed.
"You're dead," she said, her voice cold again, with no trace of the combat's exertion. "You hesitated. You looked for help. In a real battle, you would be dead. Get up."
With that, she retreated with the same speed she had appeared, returning to her original position, leaving Weiss alone, trembling, in the center of the courtyard, with the two remaining Grimm regrouping.
The lesson was clear: *I will protect you from death, but I will not save you from the fight.*
The memory faded, leaving Winter in the silence of her quarters. The hardness of her face, the mask of "Specialist Schnee," softened for a fraction of a second, replaced by a deep, hidden concern.
«Was I too harsh?» she wondered, her own thoughts a silent voice in her mind. «Perhaps.»
But her father's face, Jacques, appeared in her memory, cold and calculating. She knew he wouldn't leave Weiss alone. The world wouldn't leave her alone. Weakness, in the Schnee household, was not a simple flaw. It was a death sentence, a gilded cage from which there would be no escape. Every blow Weiss took now, every moment of terror she overcame in the frozen courtyard, was a notch carved into the key she would hopefully one day use to free herself. It was a blow that could save her life tomorrow, far from this house. Far from him.
With a determined movement to push those thoughts away, she composed a short message on her Scroll.
[MESSAGE TO: WEISS SCHNEE]
"Training is canceled today. I have a last-minute assignment. Do not slack off. Practice your glyphs. Focus on endurance."
Weiss's reply was almost immediate.
[MESSAGE FROM: WEISS SCHNEE]
"Understood, Specialist."
The use of the formal title was like a small dagger of ice. A reminder of the distance she herself had imposed, a necessary distance to forge her sister into the weapon she needed to be to survive.
She stood, her face once again a mask of perfect professionalism. Her Scroll vibrated with a new directive from General Ironwood. A reconnaissance mission near the outer walls of Mantle.
She exited her quarters, her boots echoing in the sterile, white hallways of Atlas. Ready to impose order on a chaotic world, unaware that the greatest chaos imaginable had just landed, wounded and bleeding, directly beneath her feet.
The Reflection 💧
The cut was abrupt, a blink of existence. One moment, he was in the sterile white halls of Atlas; the next, in the damp, oppressive darkness of an alley in Mantle. The clean, silent sound was replaced by the constant dripping of water from a rusted pipe, the distant hum of heavy machinery, and the soft whisper of wind funneled between the buildings.
A groan escaped his lips, a low, rough sound that brought him back to consciousness. It wasn't a sudden awakening. It was a slow, painful ascent from the depths of oblivion, like a swimmer rising to the surface through thick, dark water.
The first thing he felt was warmth.
A gentle, constant heat on his back, fighting against the glacial cold that had seized the rest of his body. For a moment, he thought he was home, in his bed, with the morning sun streaming through the window.
«Warmth... Why do I feel warmth? Am I in hell? No, hell probably smells like sulfur, not... sourdough?»
The scent hit him next. Not the stench of garbage he expected from an alley, but the unmistakable, warm, and comforting aroma of freshly baked bread. His stomach, empty and aching, twisted in response.
He opened his eyes. His vision was a blur of dark shapes and the distant orange light. He took a mental inventory. *Move your toes. Check. Hands. Check.* Nothing felt broken, but every inch of his body screamed with a dull ache. And then, the sharp pain. A white-hot, stabbing fire in his side. He felt the sticky dampness of blood through his makeshift bandage.
The thirst was the worst. A sandy dryness that scraped his throat. He saw a rusted metal barrel in a corner, with meltwater pooled on top. It wasn't ideal, but it was water.
Crawling on his hands and knees, every movement a torture, he reached the barrel. He leaned on the icy rim and bent down. And then, he saw his reflection.
The water was murky, but the image was unmistakable. And it was wrong. Terribly wrong.
It was his face, but not the one he'd seen in the mirror that same morning. It was younger. The fine lines of stress etched by years of burnout were gone. There was a vitality to the skin he didn't remember having.
With a trembling hand, he touched his face. His fingers brushed the skin over his right eyebrow. Smooth. The scar was gone. He pulled down his sleeve, his heart pounding with a rising panic. The "lazy worm" scar... also gone.
It was his face from when he was nineteen.
«Panic set in, cold and absolute. Is this a hallucination from the fever? A side effect of that portal? The question was no longer 'where am I?'. It was 'who am I?' 🎭.»
He knelt there, in front of his own ghostly reflection. He was in an unknown place, in a body that was both his and not his, and the feeling of dissociation was so overwhelming he almost wished the monsters had found him.
Just then, a sharp, metallic sound startled him. The bolt of a back door at the end of the alley.
Instinctively, he scrambled into the deepest shadows. The door opened with a groaning screech, revealing the silhouette of an older man, his back hunched from years of labor. He stepped out into the freezing air. He wore a flour-dusted apron and, atop his head, Russet could make out the subtle shape of two small ram's horns.
The old man didn't see him at first. He dropped a bag of trash into a bin and stretched, letting out a tired groan. But then, his eyes adjusted to the dark and locked onto the huddled figure in the shadows. He froze.
There was a tense moment of silence. The man's eyes were not hostile, but they were incredibly wary.
"I don't want any trouble," the old man said, his voice low and raspy.
Russet tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. Instead, he simply shifted a little, revealing the large, dark stain of blood on his side.
The man's eyes widened slightly. He glanced up and down the alley, then back at Russet. He saw his young face, his eyes filled with a panic that was not that of a thug, but of a trapped animal.
After a long, tense deliberation, a struggle visible on his wrinkled face, decency won. With a sigh that sounded like a resigned curse, he approached.
"Dammit," he muttered. "Get inside. Quickly. Before an Atlas patrol sees us."
Bread and Warnings 🍞
The heat was the first thing that struck him upon crossing the threshold, a dense, humid, and glorious wave that enveloped him like an unexpected embrace. The contrast with the cutting cold of the alley was so abrupt that his muscles, taut from shivering, involuntarily relaxed, nearly causing him to fall. The aroma of bread, yeast, and something sweet and sugary was so overwhelming it almost made him dizzy. It was the smell of life, of normalcy, a sensory sanctuary in a world that until now had only offered him the scentless void of snow and the metallic stench of the city.
The old man guided him with a firm but not rough hand on his shoulder, leading him through the back kitchen, a labyrinth of stainless steel tables covered in a fine layer of flour and brick ovens that radiated a comforting warmth. He led him to a small storeroom filled with sacks of flour stacked to the ceiling, the air heavy with the smell of raw grain. He sat him down on a rickety wooden stool that seemed as old as the baker himself.
"Stay here," the old Faunus said, his voice a rough whisper. "Don't touch anything. And don't make any noise."
He disappeared and returned moments later with a glass of water and a large, dark chunk of bread, so hard it seemed like a rock. Russet didn't wait for a second invitation. He took the glass with trembling hands and drank the water in a single gulp, not caring that it spilled down his chin. Then, he attacked the bread with the ferocity of a starving animal. It was flavorless, it was just substance, but it was the best thing he had ever eaten in his life. It was real. It was sustenance.
As he ate, the old man returned with a bowl of steaming water, some clean rags, and a bottle of an amber-colored liquid that smelled strongly of alcohol and herbs. He knelt in front of him without a word and began to work.
"I'm no doctor," he began, his voice a low mumble as he carefully removed the makeshift bandage, "but this needs stitches. The best I can do is clean it. It's going to hurt. A lot."
Russet just nodded, his jaw tight as he swallowed the last bite. The wound, exposed to the warm air, seemed to throb with a new intensity.
"You were lucky," the baker muttered, examining the wound with a critical eye. "The claws didn't touch anything vital. But they tore you up good. Grimm?"
The word was strange, guttural. «Grimm...» "…What?" Russet asked, his voice hoarse.
The old man looked up, his tired, dark amber eyes locking onto Russet's. "The creatures. The monsters out there. The ones with the bone masks and red eyes. That's what we call them. Grimm."
The word resonated in Russet's mind, giving the nightmares a name. A fleeting flashback, the memory of his own ragged scream in the white tundra, hit him with a new and terrible understanding.
"What if... what if you're the one who attracts them?" he whispered.
The baker paused. A small, sad smile, devoid of humor, touched his chapped lips. "Everyone here attracts something, kid. The cold, poverty, the wrong kind of attention... The Grimm are just one more thing on the list. They feed on misery, and here in Mantle, we've got an open buffet. The trick is learning to live with the monsters you call."
He returned to his task. "Bite on this," he said, holding out a piece of dry leather. Russet did. The old man pressed the rag to the wound.
The pain was an explosion. A liquid fire that spread through his side. Russet choked a scream into the leather, his body arching, his knuckles white. He endured, counting the seconds until the agony subsided.
"But the Grimm aren't your only problem," the old man continued in a low voice as he wrapped a clean bandage around his torso. "Not even the biggest, some days. Those clothes you're wearing... they scream 'outsider'. And here, being an outsider means being a target. Especially for the Atlas patrols. They think everyone down here is a criminal or trash. You give them an excuse, and they'll haul you off to the mines."
He finished the bandage with a tight knot. "And if the patrols don't get you, the SDC thugs will. They think they own the city just because their masters in the sky own the Dust."
"Dust?" Russet asked, the pain making it hard to focus.
The baker looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. "What rock did you crawl out from under, kid? The Dust. The energy that keeps the lights on, that's heating this very room. Crystals. The stuff that makes that damned city float." He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling.
He stood up, his knees cracking from the effort. "Now rest," he concluded, his tone making it clear the conversation was over. "You look like you're about to fall over again. I'll wake you when it gets dark. The shadows are kinder in Mantle 🌆."
The old man turned to leave, but Russet's voice stopped him.
"Wait," he said, his voice a little stronger now.
The baker turned, one eyebrow raised.
"Thank you," Russet said, sincerely. "You saved my life." He paused. "Can I... know your name?"
The old man studied him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Elias," he said finally. "My name is Elias."
"Russet," he replied, offering his own name in return. "Russet Prime."
Elias nodded once, a short, almost imperceptible gesture. "Well, Russet Prime. Try not to attract any more monsters to my back door."
With that, he left, leaving Russet alone in the warm, quiet storeroom. For the first time since he had fallen into this world, he wasn't completely alone. He had a name to answer to, and a name to remember. It was a start.
A Window to Another World 🏙️
Elias did not return. Russet was left alone in the silence of the storeroom, a silence broken only by the soft rustle of the flour sacks and the dull, constant throb in his side. The exhaustion was an overwhelming weight pulling at his eyelids, but sleep refused to come. His mind, fueled by pain, confusion, and a first meal in what felt like an eternity, was too alert, too scared to shut down.
He stood up carefully, using a stack of sacks for support, and limped to the storeroom's only window. It was covered in a thick layer of grime and frost, but there was a small circle in the center that someone, likely Elias, had wiped clean to keep an eye on the street. Russet pressed his forehead against the icy glass, the cold a welcome distraction, and looked out.
And he watched.
Not like a tourist looks at a landscape. He watched like a *traceur* studies a new route, like a predator assesses a new territory. His brain, trained to break down complex environments into lines, angles, and the dynamics of movement, began to analyze the human ecology of Mantle.
He saw a Faunus, a young man with nervous fox ears that twitched constantly, exit a shop across the street. Almost immediately, two guards in immaculate white Atlas uniforms intercepted him. Russet watched the power dynamic in the body language, a dance as old as time. The guards, with their straight backs and their stiff, economical movements, taking up space, projecting an effortless authority. The Faunus, visibly shrinking, his shoulders slumping, his hands in sight at all times, avoiding eye contact.
«It's the same dynamic I saw a thousand times between school bullies and their victims,» he thought, a bitter taste in his mouth. «Universal. Depressing.» The memory of feeling small and powerless in front of a demanding sponsor, smiling and nodding while his gut screamed at him to run, washed over him like a chill. The same feeling of being sized up, judged, and found wanting. 😒
His gaze shifted to a group of workers unloading a truck with the omnipresent, arrogant snowflake logo of the SDC. They moved heavy crates that glowed faintly from within with pale blue crystals. *Dust*, Elias had told him. The energy that made a city float. The workers, covered in a soot that seemed permanent, moved with a resigned slowness, their shoulders slumped from the physical weight and something else, something heavier. They were automatons of flesh and bone, performing the same task over and over. Then he saw the SDC supervisors, clean, in their white coats, hands behind their backs, watching from a distance. They didn't help. They didn't direct. They just... watched.
A pang of painful recognition hit him. The vacant look in the workers' eyes. The mechanical movement of someone who has turned their life into an obligation.
«That was me...» he thought, the realization as sharp as a shard of glass. «Two days ago. Doing the same move over and over for the camera, until I forgot why I started. They carry crates of Dust. I carried the weight of the 'Zenith' brand. Different cage, same bird.» 🦜
The sound of the SDC truck starting up was louder and more oppressive than any other sound on the street, a sonic assertion of its power that made the windowpane vibrate against his forehead.
As the truck pulled away, his gaze fell on something smaller, quieter. Two children, bundled in ragged, ill-fitting clothes, were standing in front of Elias's bakery window. Their faces were pressed to the glass, their eyes wide and filled with a silent longing for the pastries and breads displayed inside. One of them raised a hand and drew a shape in the fog their breath made on the glass.
The image transported him instantly to his own childhood. To summers running barefoot through the vineyards, the warm earth under his feet. To the taste of grapes stolen straight from the vine, so sweet they made him close his eyes. To freedom. To abundance. To the simple, never-questioned certainty that there would always be food on the table. A pang of guilt shot through him, sharp and unexpected, for all the fame and money he had once taken for granted, for complaining about his "gilded cage" while these children looked through the glass of theirs.
«So this is what this place is,» he thought, his inner voice now stripped of all irony. The sole source of vibrant color on the gray and orange street was the glow of the Dust, a constant reminder that the only real "energy" in Mantle was the kind being extracted from it, leaving its people empty and drained.
He pulled away from the window, his heart heavy with an understanding that went beyond Elias's simple warnings. He was no longer just a stranger in a strange land, a neutral observer. For the first time since he had fallen into this world, he felt something more than fear or pain for himself.
He felt empathy. And beneath it, a slow, dangerous, and very familiar ember of rage.
The Departure 🚶
The world faded into a haze of pain and exhaustion. Russet didn't remember falling asleep, only the sensation of surrendering in the warm darkness of the storeroom. He slept. He slept in a deep and dreamless way, as if his body, pushed beyond all its limits, had forced an emergency shutdown.
When consciousness returned, it was not gradual. It was a blink. One moment he was in nothingness, the next, he was awake, alert. The storeroom was quiet, lit only by a sliver of orange light filtering through the dirty window. The air still smelled of flour and baked bread.
He moved to sit up and braced himself for the wave of pain he expected. And it came, but... it was different. Less sharp. More of a dull ache. Like the echo of a scream instead of the scream itself. Carefully, he lifted the makeshift bandage to look at his wound. What he saw puzzled him.
It wasn't healed, not by a long shot. But the edges of the cuts, which he remembered as red and inflamed, now had a pinkish hue and seemed to be closing. The swelling was down. It made no sense. A wound like that should be worse, infected perhaps. In his world, a recovery like this would have taken a week, not... how long had it been?
He looked out the window. The sun was setting. He remembered passing out at dusk. Had he slept for an entire day? Almost two?
«My body felt... efficient. The deep fatigue had been replaced by a manageable muscle soreness. It wasn't normal. It was another piece in the impossible puzzle of this place. Or maybe, a piece of the puzzle of what I had become. 🤔»
Beside him, on a sack of flour, was a bowl of cold stew and a piece of bread, along with a glass of water. *Elias*. The old man had come, seen him sleeping, and left him food. The quiet kindness of the gesture moved him more than he expected.
He ate slowly, savoring every bite, allowing the food to return his strength. As he ate, his mind worked. He was stronger. His wound was healing at an unnatural rate. But he wasn't invincible. And every minute he spent here was a minute the old man's luck was being tested.
He couldn't stay.
The realization was as clear as it was painful. Elias had saved his life. He had given him food, treated his wound, offered him shelter. But every hour he spent here was an hour he was putting this good man in immense danger. If a patrol found him, if the SDC thugs found out... Elias would pay the price for his kindness.
«In my old world, people helped because it was the right thing to do. Here... here helping someone seemed like an act of rebellion. And I wasn't going to drag that old man into my personal war. I owed him more than that. 😥»
He finished eating and waited. A few hours later, when the darkness outside was total, he heard the kitchen door open. Elias entered, and stopped when he saw Russet standing, his backpack already on his shoulder.
"I see you're finally awake," the old man said, his tone neutral. "I was starting to think I'd have to charge you rent."
"Thank you," Russet said, his voice now clear and firm. "For everything. But I have to go."
Elias nodded slowly, as if he had been expecting it. "Probably for the best. The night is safer for ghosts."
Russet took out his wallet and held out the bills from his world. "It's not much, but please, take this for the trouble."
Elias let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Save your colored paper, kid. That's worthless here." He reached into his own pocket and pulled out a small, thin plastic card with a magnetic strip on the back. It had a symbol that resembled a stylized L with two horizontal lines through it (Lien). "Take it."
Russet hesitated. "I can't accept this."
"It's not a gift," Elias retorted. "It's an investment 💱. You've cost me a bandage and a bowl of stew. Consider this an advance. If you survive, maybe one day you can pay me back." He held out the card. "There's enough on there for clean bandages and maybe a cheap room for a night. Use it wisely."
Russet took the card, feeling the weight of the debt. A debt he didn't know if he could ever repay.
He headed for the back door.
"One last piece of advice," Elias said from behind him.
Russet turned.
"Keep your head down," the baker said. "And trust no one. Here, trust is a currency more expensive than Dust. And most people are bankrupt."
Russet nodded, committing the words to memory. "I'll remember that."
He opened the door and slipped into the shadows of the Mantle night. The cold hit him again, but this time, he was prepared. He was wounded, but healing. He was alone, but he now had a name to hold onto. And he was in a world that wanted to kill him.
But now, he had a clean bandage, a full stomach, and a card with a few Lien in his pocket.
It was a start.
Supplies 🩹
Mantle's night air was a different beast from the alley's. It was colder, sharper, and it carried the stench of the city: a mix of damp metal, burnt coal, and the subtle, acrid smell of desperation. The orange lights from the heating pipes that ran along the buildings like incandescent veins cast long, dancing shadows, turning the streets into a stage of light and dark where anything could hide.
Russet stuck to the shadows, moving with a caution that bordered on paranoia. Elias's advice echoed in his head like a mantra: *Keep your head down.* He tried to obey. He hunched his shoulders, tucked his chin to his chest, and tried to mimic the shuffling, resigned walk of the people he passed—men and women with faces etched by exhaustion and cold, their gazes fixed on the icy ground.
But it was a mask that didn't fit him. It was like asking a wolf to walk like a sheep.
Years of training had ingrained a body language in him that was now a betrayal. He couldn't help it. His steps, even while limping slightly from the stabbing pain in his side, were too light, too efficient. He landed on the balls of his feet, a *traceur's* habit to absorb impact and always be ready for the next move. His shoulders, despite his efforts to slouch, remained instinctively straight, his center of gravity perfectly balanced.
And his eyes... his eyes couldn't help it. They scanned. Constantly. While his head was pointed down, his gaze darted from side to side, analyzing the rooftops for routes, the alleys for exits, the dark windows for observers, the faces in the crowd for threats.
«I'm a beacon,» he thought with a growing anxiety. «A neon sign flashing 'I'm not from here'. Every muscle in my body is screaming that I don't belong.»
People noticed. They didn't look at him directly—life in Mantle taught you not to seek eye contact, not to invite trouble. But he felt their sideways glances, quick, assessing looks that cataloged him in a fraction of a second. *Outsider. Trouble. Prey.*
The hum of the city was overwhelming. The rumble of Dust trucks, the hiss of steam from ventilation grates, the murmur of hundreds of conversations in a language he understood but that sounded alien, peppered with slang he couldn't comprehend. It was all an assault on his senses, so different from the silence of the tundra or the familiar sounds of his own world.
His objective was simple: an apothecary. Elias had given him vague directions: "Follow the main pipe three blocks, look for the green mortar and pestle sign." He needed painkillers for the fire in his side, real bandages to replace the dirty rag, and something to disinfect that wasn't the baker's homemade moonshine.
Finally, he saw it. A small shop wedged between a pawnshop with bars on its windows and a noisy bar from which discordant, aggressive music spilled out. The green mortar and pestle sign flickered weakly, one of the letters burnt out.
He entered, a rusty bell announcing his arrival. The inside smelled of dried herbs, chemicals, and old dust. An old man with thick glasses—so thick his eyes looked like two small, magnified dots—glanced at him without interest from behind the counter. Russet moved quickly, his eyes scanning the shelves filled with strange-looking jars and boxes. He grabbed a roll of bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, and a box of pain pills with a label he didn't recognize. He paid with the Lien card Elias had given him. The transaction was silent and anonymous. The old man didn't even meet his eyes.
He felt like he was being watched. A feeling on the back of his neck, an instinct honed by years of exploring places he wasn't supposed to be.
As he stepped outside, he turned left, as if heading back to the bakery, but stopped in front of a dark shop window, pretending to look at his reflection. And he saw them.
Two men. They were leaning against a wall on the other side of the street, under the orange glow of a heating pipe, feigning a conversation. They weren't Atlas guards; their clothes were too rough and worn. They weren't workers; their hands were too clean and their eyes were too alert. They were scavengers. Urban predators. And their gazes never left him. They weren't looking at an injured kid.
«They don't see a victim,» he realized with a chill. «They see something different. They see the way I move, despite the injury. They see the backpack, which probably looks high-quality in this place. They see an outsider who clearly doesn't know the rules of the jungle. And in Mantle, different isn't interesting. It's an opportunity. 🤑»
Russet felt a knot of ice in his stomach. Elias's advice came back to him: *Trust no one.*
He clutched the small paper bag with his supplies and began to walk, not in the direction of the bakery, but the opposite, heading deeper into the labyrinth of streets, trying to lose himself in the more crowded areas. He knew it was useless. The game had begun.
The prey, now aware of its hunters, was desperately searching for a terrain it could call its own.
Mantle Alley 🧱
For Kael and Bor, the night had been disappointing. The cold was more bitter than usual, and the people on the streets seemed to have even less in their pockets than ever. They had tried to scare a couple of drunk miners, but the men had just stared at them with such an empty resignation that they almost felt sorry for them. Almost. In Mantle, pity was a luxury that cost you a hot meal.
They were about to give up and go spend their last few Lien on some watery soup when Kael saw him.
"Look at that," he hissed, nudging his bulky partner.
Across the street, coming out of old Elara's apothecary, was a kid. He wasn't from around here. Kael knew it instantly. The clothes, though torn, were made of a material you didn't see in the lower districts. And the way he moved... it was strange. Most people in Mantle walked with their heads down, shoulders hunched, as if expecting the sky of Atlas to fall on them. This kid, even while trying to go unnoticed, moved with an elastic fluidity, an efficiency that was completely alien. And his eyes, even from a distance, weren't fixed on the ground. They scanned. Always moving.
"Looks like a little Atlas bird that fell out of the nest," Bor grunted, his small eyes gleaming with greed. "And he looks hurt."
"Exactly," Kael said with a cruel smile. "Hurt, alone, and lost. He's perfect."
They began to follow him, keeping to the shadows, unhurried. It was a game they knew well. They let him wander deeper into the labyrinth of streets, let his confidence erode with every sideways glance he shot their way. They guided him, subtly, cutting off his escape routes, funneling him right where they wanted him.
Three blocks later, the prey walked into the dead-end of Rust Street Alley. End of the game.
They took their time, blocking the only exit, their silhouettes framed against the orange light of the main street. They watched as the kid turned, the realization dawning on his face. The mix of panic and resignation in a victim's eyes was Kael's favorite part.
"Looks like you got lost, outsider," Kael said, his voice a mocking hiss as they stepped into the alley. Their footsteps echoed in the confined space, slow and confident. He savored the moment.
Russet backed up instinctively until his back hit the cold, damp wall at the end. The impact sent a jolt of pain from his side, but he didn't let it show on his face. His hand clutched the small paper bag with his supplies tightly, the only fruit of his risky excursion. His other hand discreetly came to rest over his wound, applying gentle pressure.
«Calm down,» he told himself, his own inner voice cold and distant, an echo of his father's training. «Panic is a luxury. Panic gets you killed. Analyze. Assess. Find a way out.»
But there was no way out. The alley was a brick tomb.
Bor, the bulky one, stepped forward, cracking his knuckles, a dry, unpleasant sound meant to intimidate. "Let's make this easy," he growled, his voice deep and emotionless. "The wallet, the coat, and whatever you've got in that pretty backpack. Now."
«Not the coat,» Russet thought with a bitter irony. «It's the only thing keeping me warm. And the backpack... the backpack is non-negotiable.»
He knew he couldn't win a fight. He was injured, outnumbered, and likely outmatched in weight. His parkour training was about fluidity and evasion, not hand-to-hand combat. A direct hit to his wounded side and it would be over. Surrendering was the logical option. Hand over his things and hope they left him alone.
But something inside him rebelled. The memory of Elias's advice. The image of the children staring through the shop window. The sight of the floating city, arrogant and distant. He had been a victim since he had fallen into this world. He had been hunted, wounded, exiled. He was tired of being the prey.
His *traceur's* mind, instead of shutting down from fear, kicked into overdrive, entering a state of hyper-awareness. While his eyes remained fixed on the thugs, his peripheral vision was absorbing everything, breaking down the alley into a map of possibilities. He wasn't looking for weapons. He was looking for routes.
The brick wall to his left, rough, with a few loose bricks that could serve as fingerholds. The rusted drainpipe running vertically up the right wall, unstable, but possible. The small, grimy ledge ten feet up. The distance between the two buildings...
«There's no way out... at ground level,» he realized, a spark of defiance igniting within him.
Kael smiled, mistaking his silence for submission. "Good boy. Now, the backpack first."
He took a step toward him, holding out a grimy hand.
In that instant, Russet made his decision. The logical option was surrender. But survival, sometimes, had nothing to do with logic.
Ghost 👻
The world slowed down. The air seemed to thicken. in the fraction of a second it took Kael to take that final step, Russet's mind became a whirlwind of calculations. The fear didn't disappear, but it was shoved to the background, replaced by the cold, precise logic of movement that had defined him for nearly a decade.
«These walls...» he thought, his eyes flicking from the brick wall to the pipe. «These pipes... this decay... it's the only familiar thing in this hell. They don't know this language. But I do.»
A fleeting smile, sharp and filled with a defiance born from desperation, crossed his lips.
«This is my turf.»
Just as Kael's fingers were about to brush the strap of his backpack, Bor, the bulky one, lunged from the other side, trying to cut off any lateral escape.
That's when Russet exploded into motion.
It wasn't forward, nor backward. It was upward.
With a speed that betrayed his injury, he took two quick steps toward the brick wall on his left. His foot impacted the rough surface, not to stop, but to launch himself. He used the momentum to throw a spinning kick, not to injure, but to shove Kael back, giving himself a precious inch of space.
He landed from that kick directly into a two-step run towards the overflowing dumpster that was against the opposite wall. He leaped onto it, the dented metal groaning under the impact. The jump wasn't high, but it was enough.
From the unstable lid of the dumpster, he launched himself toward the right-hand wall. His fingers, still numb from the cold, found a precarious grip on the rusted drainpipe. The metal was icy and slick with moisture, and it groaned in protest under his weight.
For an instant, it looked like he would fall. His feet slipped on the brick wall, and a sharp pain shot through his side. But his years of training took over. He found a foothold for the tip of his shoe in a crack in the mortar, flexed the muscles in his back, and began to climb.
All of this happened in less than three seconds.
Kael and Bor were frozen, their brains unable to process what they had just seen. One moment the kid was cornered, the next, he was ten feet in the air, ascending the wall like a spider.
"Dammit! Get him!" Kael shouted, surprise turning to fury.
Bor, frustrated, grabbed the first thing he could find on the ground: an empty glass bottle. He threw it with all his might.
Russet, in the middle of his climb, heard the whistle of the air. Without looking, he instinctively pushed his body away from the wall, using only the strength of his arms. The bottle flew inches past his head and shattered against the brick in an explosion of glass.
The evasion was so fluid, so impossible, that Kael's jaw dropped. Reaching that height was already ridiculous. Dodging a projectile in mid-air while climbing was something he had never seen.
Russet didn't stop. He reached the grimy ledge, pulled himself up with a single arm, and for a moment, he knelt there, looking down at his aggressors. His eyes met Kael's. There was no fear in his gaze. Only a cold, hard assessment.
A couple of civilians passing by the alley's entrance had stopped, drawn by the shouts. They were staring up, mouths agape.
"What... what the hell?" one of them muttered.
Kael, enraged, pulled out a knife. "Get down from there, you rooftop rat! You can't stay up there forever!"
Russet gave him one last look, almost pitying. He stood up on the narrow ledge, ran along it, and braced for the final leap to the edge of the roof. And that's when something strange happened.
He calculated the jump by instinct. It was a long jump, one that, on his best day, in peak physical condition, would have required a maximum effort. Now, injured and exhausted, he knew he would likely fall short, that he'd have to scramble to catch the ledge.
He jumped.
But the push was... *more*. More than he expected. His body felt strangely light, the power in his legs was explosive. Instead of barely making it, he overshot the edge. He didn't have to scramble to catch it; he landed directly on the rooftop with an agility that surprised even himself.
«That... shouldn't have been so easy,» he thought, a new layer of confusion adding to the adrenaline.
He stood on the roof, looked down one last time, and disappeared into the shadows before his pursuers could process what had happened.
Kael and Bor were left in the alley, staring at the empty rooftop. The wind howled between the buildings. The kid had vanished.
"He disappeared," Bor whispered, in disbelief. "Like a ghost."
Kael said nothing. He put his knife away, looking at the rusted pipe, then at the roof, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the Mantle cold ran down his spine.
On the street, the witnesses began to talk in excited whispers. They hadn't seen a scared kid running from two thugs. They had seen something impossible. A shadow that defied gravity, that dodged projectiles in mid-air, that leaped between buildings as if it were his playground.
That night, in the bars and mess halls of Mantle's lower districts, a story was born. The story of a ghost. The first, hesitant seed of the legend of the Copper Crow had just been planted. And it had been watered with fear and awe.
Heights 🦅
He didn't stop.
Logic told him to hide, to seek immediate shelter. But his instinct, the same one that had made him jump from the cliff, screamed that distance was the only safety. He ran.
The world became a blur of rusted metal, cracked concrete, and the orange sky of Mantle. He leaped from one rooftop to another, his movements no longer a terrified flight, but a symphony of muscle memory. His body, despite the pain, remembered the flow. A precision jump over a ten-meter gap. A roll to absorb the impact. A *tic-tac* off a wall to reach a higher ledge. It was the language he had spoken for nearly a decade, and in this alien world, it was the only dialect that still made sense.
He only stopped when his lungs burned as if he were inhaling embers and his legs threatened to give out completely. He had gone several blocks deeper into the heart of the industrial districts, a labyrinth of rooftops where chimneys coughed thick smoke and giant pipes twisted like steel serpents.
He found a hidden spot, a dark niche behind a massive ventilation unit that hummed with a monotonous energy. He slipped into the shadow and his body gave up. He collapsed against the cold metal, his backpack falling beside him with a dull thud.
The adrenaline that had kept him moving vanished all at once, like a drug wearing off abruptly. And the pain returned 🤕.
It returned with a vengeful force, a tide of white-hot fire spreading from his side. He looked down. His makeshift bandage was soaked through again. A dark stain of blood was slowly beginning to spread across the fabric, a reminder that his spectacular escape had come at a price.
He lay there, panting, the freezing air scratching his throat. From his hiding place, he had a perfect view of the street below. He saw the constant flow of people, hunched figures moving under the orange light. He saw an Atlas patrol pass by, their boots echoing on the pavement with a martial arrogance. He saw the deep shadows in the alleys, shadows that could hide men like the ones who had harassed him, or worse things.
«Down there,» he thought, his mind feverish but strangely lucid, «it's their world. A hunting ground full of rules I don't understand, of predators I can't anticipate. Down there, I'm the prey.»
His gaze lifted, sweeping over his immediate surroundings. The interconnected network of rooftops. The highways of steam pipes. The fire escapes that climbed the building walls like metal vines. It wasn't a city. It was a vertical ecosystem. A jungle of asphalt and steel that rose toward the clouded sky.
«But up here...» A new understanding, an epiphany born of pain and perspective, began to form in his mind. «Up here, the rules are different. There are no crowds. No patrols. Just angles, distances, and gravity. Up here, the rules are mine.»
A bitter, humorless smile touched his lips.
«The floor is lava 🌋.»
That simple children's game became his new philosophy. His gospel of survival.
With his last ounce of strength, he forced himself to move. He needed a real shelter, a place where he could heal, where he could be safe. He crawled across the rooftop, his eyes scanning every corner. And then he saw it: at the top of an adjacent apartment building, one that looked abandoned, an attic window was broken.
Getting there was a trial. One last painful jump, a precarious climb up a crumbling brick wall. But he made it. He slipped through the broken glass and fell into the dusty darkness inside.
It was perfect. An abandoned attic. Cold, full of cobwebs and the ghosts of past lives, but it was dry. And, most importantly, it was inaccessible from below. It was his nest. His sanctuary.
With a sigh that was half relief and half exhaustion, he took off his backpack. He pulled out his small flashlight, its beam cutting through the darkness. Then, the medical supplies he had managed to save.
The survivor's ritual began. In the trembling light of the flashlight, he removed the blood-soaked bandage. He cleaned the wound again, this time with the proper antiseptic, choking back a groan as the liquid burned. He applied a clean gauze pad and secured it with a new bandage, wrapping it with a firm, professional tension.
The action was methodical, a small act of control in a world that had spiraled out of his. Every turn of the bandage was a reaffirmation. *I'm hurt, but I'm not broken. I'm alone, but I'm not helpless.*
When he was finished, he didn't allow himself to rest. He went back out onto the roof, to his new domain. The night was now total, the floating city of Atlas a cold beacon in the sky. He found a puddle of nearly frozen meltwater, its surface a dark mirror.
He knelt and looked at himself.
The face that stared back was the same one he'd seen in the alley: that of a nineteen-year-old, unscarred, strangely healthy beneath the grime and fatigue. But the expression in the eyes was no longer one of panic or confusion. Now there was something else. Something cold. Something hard. A determination forged in the fire of the last few hours.
He remembered the faces of the witnesses at the alley's entrance, their mouths open in awe. He remembered the thugs' words of disbelief. *He disappeared. Like a ghost.*
They hadn't seen him as a man. They had seen him as a story. A shadow. Something not quite human. And instead of rejecting that image, a cold, pragmatic, and absolutely necessary idea began to form in his mind.
«Russet Prime, the athlete, is dead,» he thought, his inner voice stripped of all emotion. «He died in that facility, with Zoe. The kid from the vineyards, the influencer, the friend... all of that burned up in that fall. What's left... is a survivor.»
His gaze hardened, the reflection in the icy water looking like a stranger's.
«And here, to survive, you can't just be a man. A man bleeds. A man gets tired. A man makes mistakes. Here, you have to be more. You have to be a story. You have to be a ghost. If that's what they saw, if that's what they fear... then that's what I'll be.»
It wasn't a decision born of arrogance or a desire for power. It was a tool. A mask. An armor forged in the most brutal necessity. If he was going to live in the shadows, he would become one himself.
He stood up, looking away from his own reflection. He was no longer a victim on the run. He was a predator adapting to a new ecosystem 🌆.
Echo in the Ice ❄️
The Schnee Manor training courtyard was a place of a cold and ruthless beauty. White marble and polished ice statues reflected the grayish light of Solitas, creating a stage as elegant as a tomb. In the center, alone, stood Weiss Schnee.
The air was so cold it burned the lungs, but she barely noticed. Her concentration was focused on a single, frustrating goal. Before her, a glyph of the signature Schnee snowflake shimmered in the air, pulsing with a white light. It was perfect. It was powerful. And it was empty.
«Concentrate,» she ordered herself, her own thoughts as severe as her sister's voice. «Visualize. Summon.»
She tried to invoke. She searched her memory for the image of the Armored Knight she had defeated, the same one Winter could summon with insulting ease. She tried to give shape to her Aura, to force it into that form. The glyph shone brighter, vibrated... and then dissipated in a flurry of ethereal snow, leaving nothing behind but the echo of her failure.
A growl of frustration escaped her lips. It was the tenth time. Or maybe the twentieth. She had lost count. She leaned heavily on her rapier, Myrtenaster, driving its tip into the ice with a force that made the surface crack. Her breath formed clouds of white vapor in the frigid air, each exhale a small ghost of her exasperation.
Beside her, on a carved stone bench, lay her Scroll. The screen still displayed the last message from her sister, the words now seeming like a mockery.
[MESSAGE FROM: ⚔️ WINTER SCHNEE]
"Training is canceled today. I have a last-minute assignment. Do not slack off. Practice your glyphs. Focus on endurance."
A part of her had been relieved. But now, faced with her own inadequacy, the frustration was overwhelming. The cancellation felt like a dismissal, an interruption to her own rigid schedule, a tacit statement that Winter's duties in Atlas would always be more important than her own progress.
"Focus on endurance," she muttered to herself, mimicking her sister's stern tone with a sarcasm no one else could hear. «As if I do anything else in this house. Endure Father. Endure my own limitations. Endure the silence...»
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to push away the frustration, searching for that center of calm Winter always described to her. She sought the inner silence, the void from which the true creation of the Schnee Semblance could be born.
And then, she felt it.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a sight. It was... something else. Something utterly alien. A strange resonance in the core of her being, an almost imperceptible tug on her Aura, like a violin string vibrating to a distant, dissonant frequency that only she could hear. It was a strange sensation, a note of chaos introduced into the orderly symphony of her soul, a ripple in a perfectly still pond. It lasted only for an instant, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, and then it vanished as quickly as it had come.
She snapped her eyes open, her hand instinctively gripping the hilt of Myrtenaster so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her fighter's gaze swept across the empty courtyard, searching for the source of the strange sensation. A Grimm? An intruder? But there was nothing. Only the icy wind sweeping swirls of snow across the ice, the oppressive silence of the manor, and the distant, arrogant silhouette of Atlas in the sky, as indifferent as ever.
She shook her head, a small frown of confusion on her forehead.
«What... what was that?»
Her logical mind scrambled to find an explanation. *Exhaustion. A strange fluctuation of her own Semblance, perhaps a harbinger of a breakthrough, a new layer of her power awakening from the frustration.* Yes, that had to be it. It was the most logical explanation. The most controlled.
But as she prepared to try again, digging her heels into the ice and adopting a combat stance, she couldn't shake the unsettling, persistent feeling that the silence around her had changed. It no longer felt empty. It felt... expectant. Like the air just before a storm.
The feeling that, somewhere outside the walls of her ordered world, a piece in a game she didn't know she was playing had just been placed on the board. The feeling that something fundamental in the world had just changed, forever.
**(Cut to black).**
| ❄️ Weiss Schnee |
<< Sometimes, silence isn't peace. Sometimes, it's just the air holding its breath before the scream. >>