RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC51: Dolor (Raven's team)--2

Yang and Neptune put out most of the fire and evicted most of the Grimm in their sections of town.

When they finally rendezvoused with the others, Cinder was still hanging back.

The fighter, who finally introduced himself as Fred, was sullenly telling the others what happened.

"It was a normal day, and they just appeared out of the trees like phantoms," he said. "Didn't warn us, didn't offer us a chance to give them what they wanted without a struggle, just swooped in, broke whatever they could and took whatever they wanted. Those who fought back were cut down. Some who didn't fight back were still assaulted. In more ways than one."

Emerald looked at him strangely, and then looked at the town townspeople.

Some of them gave her bitter, hollow looks before turning away.

"What does that mean--" Royal began before Mercury kicked him in the shin.

"Ow, what...?" Royal trailed off. "Oh."

Apparently he was sheltered enough not to get it right off, but off course, the bandit tribe had bad reputations for a reason.

Yang made a face.

"One of the creeps from my Mom's tribe hit on me once," she said to Neptune, aside. "He was nothing I couldn't handle--all of them. But I guess she had more standards."

"Your mom has issues, Yang, but I can't see her allowing that kind of thing in her camp." Neptune looked green. "Didn't she say as much...? I forget that other bandits aren't...well...scrupulous about it."

Yang shook her head somberly.

Fred seemed insulted that they even interrupted his story to figure this out, and went on in a miffed tone. "Anyway, after they had their fun, they left. The Grimm followed them more quickly than I've ever seen before. Like they were waiting just in the woods for them to leave. I don't understand why they'd hesitate to attack those scoundrels."

"They weren't the ones scared," Mercury noted. "But yeah, it's not very fair, is it? That proves the monsters are evil intentionally. Balance my a--."

He meant that the god of darkness clearly had a bias, whatever the story had been. Why else would Grimm prey on the weak more often than just the bad people who had negative emotions of other kinds?

His team understood this, but the townspeople didn't and thought he was being stupid. Some of them made sounds of derision.

"There's no way they could plan that." Cinder had approached finally, almost unnoticed. "Grimm don't just hold back unless someone tells them to."

"Oh, is that so, Miss Expert?" Fred was bitterly sarcastic. He didn't know who she was and thought she was just being pompous and patronizing. "Well, if you know a Grimm-whispering technique, it's nothing we want near us."

"It is near you." Cinder ignored his tone, surprisingly--or it just went under her radar. "That was my point, you fool. Someone must have called the Grimm in. But they didn't follow the bandits, they stayed here. That implies the person never left--or whatever they used is still here."

That was actually a pretty good deduction.

"What makes you so sure?" someone said warily.

Cinder started to say that it was what she would have done in the past--and stopped short of outing herself. "It's my business to know," she said instead.

"I think she's right," Royal spoke up. "I've seen her proven right before. It makes sense."

"And who would do something that insane?" Fred said crossly. "Are you accusing us of it? The b-----d is probably dead already if there was such a person."