Arc Three: From Shadows
Part One

She could still feel the burn, the licks of the flames as they scraped away at the remaining flesh on her body; her clothes having likely already burned away. She could feel them as they washed against her, fluid-like along with the scorching heat in her lungs as she fought for breath.

Blake had to admit something - this was not what she thought burning alive would feel like. Sure, she remembered the flames and she remembered the searing pain before her nervous system shut down, but that’s all they were now; memories. Now, all she felt was the pain that eerily resembled the sensation of drowning.

Golden eyes flashed open. The eyes that should have been burned from her skull now adjusted to what appeared to be incredibly murky waters. Strange, since Blake didn’t remember the harbor’s waters to be so… green.

But all these thoughts could wait as Blake now fought to claw her way to the surface, her lungs screaming to give up for a second time in her adolescent youth. Her limbs ached as she fought against the water, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest as a reminder that, yes, she was alive, and if she wanted to keep it that way, she needed air.

Soon she broke the surface. Blake let out a loud gasp as she greedily chugged in precious air. Her lungs burned with every deep, desperate breath, and her limbs still protested every movement. Breathing heavily, she spotted where the water became land and began swimming over.

Where was she? This definitely was not the Vale harbours she remembered raiding when she was with the White Fang. This wasn’t even the Mistral or Vacuo harbours, now that she thought hard about it. Was it possible she had been tossed into the sea, and whisked away by the currents to an otherwise uncharted island off the coasts? Probably. That was logical, right?

Pulling herself up onto the muddy beach head, her knees and fingers sinking into the cold earth beneath her, Blake began to work up as much water from her lungs as she possibly could; coughing and gasping for air now that there was such a commodity available. Her chest heaved and her entire body shook as more and more liquid was ejected from her lungs in painful bursts.

Soon the wet coughs became dry. Feeling as if her throat would tear apart, Blake coughed for a final time before flopping onto her back, staring up at the blue sky and the green canopy of leaves. She slowly raised an arm, holding her hand in front of her face, outstretched to the heavens. Her golden eyes studied the limb as if it would fade away.

“What in the world?” Blake muttered to herself, rubbing the mud from her limbs as she touched the smooth, silky if not dirty white skin in confusion. “Why do I still have… I… don’t understand…”

And it was at that moment she noticed something else: she was completely naked. A slight blush came upon her face as she pondered just how long she had been out, and who possibly had seen her in such a state.

Blake’s wonderings were instantly put on hold as from behind her in the bushes, a rustling caught her heightened hearing. The pair of cat ears on top of her head twitched at the noise. Blake scrambled to her feet and took off in a direction, leaving a clone of herself behind as a decoy as she sought coverings. The way she saw it, it was either a Grimm, or a person, and she really did not want to be seen like this right now.

Blake waited in the bushes as she did her best to silently weave together a bunch of fern leaves into makeshift clothing. Her time in the White Fang had taught her valuable survival skills, and luckily, with the plantlife strewn about, she could use it to tie it all into something resembling clothing. It would do, for now.

Suddenly, what looked like a Beowulf made strictly of random chunks of fallen tree branches stepped out into the clearing, sniffing around for what Blake guessed was it’s next meal, if a creature made out of wood could even eat. It’s eyes glowed a sickly green color that made the monster look even more threatening than it already did.

Yeah, Blake was definitely getting out of here until she could find some actual clothing. Blake turned tail and ran off into the brush before suddenly stopping - a thought occurred to her: where’s Gambol Shroud?

Looking back towards the pool she woke up in, which she now identified as a swamp, Blake’s keen eyes scanned the shores for her beloved weapon. She cursed under her breath when the sands turned up barren. She turned her gaze to the water, praying that her weapon would turn up. Her eyes widened when, against all odds, she actually spotted it.

Sticking just out of the water, the ribbon fixed to the end of the weapon fluttered in the wind like a flag just beckoning to her. It also seemed to have attracted the attention of the wooden creature and it’s now emerging friends, that looked exactly like the first one.

“Well, that’s just fantastic.” Blake grumbled to herself, crouching down low in order to avoid being spotted. Okay, she needed to rush back into the water for her weapon. While also staying out of sight of those wood monsters. Which were all very curious about the flapping of the ribbon. No pressure, then.

Taking off at a sprint, the girl relied heavily on her semblance to create mostly unidentifiable shadow copies of her body as soon as she broke the treeline. Using the burst of speed to move forward faster, Blake dove and took a firm grasp of Gambol Shroud and rolled into another sprint; her shadows now with the added form of her prized possession.

Unfortunately for Blake, the wolves made of timber weren’t as clueless as she’d hoped and took off at a sprint in the same direction that her shadows had taken.

“Oh, that’s just perfect.” Blake whined as she glanced back momentarily to get an idea of how close her attackers were. Just as she did, three more wolves joined the alpha by means of a smoky fog gathering up materials to form the ravenous creature; it was a pack of them.

Blake’s training finally beat past the instinct to run and began to calm her down, reminding her that she was trained to take on bigger. With a bit of a smirk, Blake unsheathed her blade and skid to a halt for only a moment before taking off towards the creatures and vaulted off a fallen log.

Flying through the air, Blake was quite glad that the creatures weren’t human or faunus given her state of reveal. She quickly landed on the back of the wolf and brought her blade down in one swipe, her sheath down in a second and continued alternating as she continued to sprint leap onto the second, then third. As soon as the fourth and final creature had collapsed into firewood, Blake shoulder rolled and sheathed her weapon once more in one fluid motion before coming up to view her handiwork.

“I suppose if anything good were to come out of this…” Blake muttered as she began picking through the pieces. “It’s that there’s plenty of relatively workable materials that I can cover up!”

An hour and a half of work later, Blake stood from her project now wearing mostly woven vines and leaves as a sort of base for wood plate armour covering almost her entire body. Looking up from the remainder of her enemies, all she knew was that she needed to find somewhere moderately safer than this hellhole of a pond.

Instead of taking off at a run, Blake instead to take a quieter approach and walked in a direction that wasn’t towards the swamp. Placing Gambol Shroud on her back now that she could actually do so, Blake focused all her senses on detecting potential dangers as well as potential food sources now that the day was growing long.

About an hour of walking later the faunus happened across a relatively passive looking clearing in the treeline. Of course, passive didn’t mean completely docile so Blake lowered herself into a crouch and neared the edge to survey the area.

Training her eyes and ears in all directions, all Blake could hear was the sound of running water to the right of her; though she would hazard a guess that it was still quite aways away. Still, a river meant water source if she found a way to purify it.

“Okay, so for a lack of man-eating animals, I think this is a decent spot to camp out in…” Blake announced to herself, standing up entirely once she was confident that she was alone. “I feel like Yang would make some kind of witty remark here…” Blake’s mood suddenly dipped at the reminder of her teammate.

Blake’s mind went back to the battle, and how she could do nothing but watch as her entire team had been murdered in front of her. Ruby, Yang, and Weiss had all fallen before the flames had consumed Blake. The people she loved the most, and she had failed to save them...

Just as a tear threatened to fall from her eye, Blake shook her head and wiped the tear away. “Tch, you can’t sit and cry when there are things to do, Blake! You can do that after you’ve built somewhere to sleep!” She yelled at herself. With a short nod, Blake took one step... and promptly fell to the ground, tears streaming down her face. The Faunus let out a strangled cry.

Ruby, Yang, Weiss... She hadn’t known them for long, but those three girls had helped her so much and saved her from herself. She had truly considered them family. And now they were gone, yet here, Blake was, alive and alone in a hostile place with no one. Blake cursed the world, cursed the people who had killed her friends, and cursed herself.

A few more minutes were spent on the ground crying. Eventually the tears dried up, and it took all Blake had to push herself to her feet. Her eyes were red and her throat burned, but she ignored it - she had work to do. Blake walked a few steps to a bunch of fallen branches and picked them up. They would do nicely.

“Alright, now let’s see if I can remember how all this works…” Blake muttered as she began tying branches to a pair of trees using vines as lashings after splitting them with her blade. Four failed attempts later and Blake sat beneath a mostly solid organic shelter, her back resting against one of the trees that made up her support.

“Fire. I need fire to keep warm tonight…” The girl whispered to herself. Pulling a moderately respectable sized log from her pile, Blake began the task of fashioning a fire bow out of a stick and a strand of vine lashing to hopefully create the spark of light she’d need.

Ten minutes of continuous sawing and she soon had embers. Desperate but deliberate fanning of the flames had a small fire dancing on the log before her. As the smoke rose up and began to pour out of the weaknesses in her shelter, Blake couldn’t stop the return of the putrid scent of her flesh melting and bubbling.

With a small squeal of protest, the log was kicked out from under the tent and the fire put out as it rolled a couple feet away.

“Dammit, dammit!” Blake cried into her pulled up knees again. She recovered once more and crawled out to retrieve the log and start over again; keeping the fire out of the shelter this time.

The starting of the fire took only a couple of attempts this time, since there were still existing sparks hiding where they couldn’t have been put out during the roll and soon Blake sat at a crackling fire; just trying to tune out the crackling of her skin from her mind.

Pulling her black hair forward over her shoulders, Blake absently combed her fingers through the fibers as she turned her mind to what her next task should be. Her answer came in the form of a rather loud grumbling originating from her own body.

Food! She still needed to find food. Blake sighed and stood, donning the wooden plates she’d previously taken off. Strapping her weapon to her back once again, Blake took off at a jog towards the direction she hoped the river was in with the intention of either catching fish if they were there or, heavens forbid, another animal hoping for a drink of water.

Blake stood on the shores of a surprisingly wide running river, thankfully without any other creatures around. Examining the edges of the water, Blake hoped to whatever deity was watching over her that there was signs of moss or lichen on the rocks.

Following the bank, Blake came across her own little personal piece of heaven as she nearly dropped into what looked like a tiny pool of not only clean water judging by the moss surrounding the pool, but also the fish! Blake stared hungrily at the creatures swimming around in lazy circles, her mouth hanging open with a small strand of saliva threatening to escape.

Blake drew her sword and held it ready for a strike. The blade came down, pierced the white waters and continued down into the body. A cloud of red erupted and Weiss fell, impaled on her own rapier. Blake gasped and backpedaled, bringing her weapon with her with the fish still struggling to somehow rejoin its friend.

Soon the fish, and Weiss in Blake’s mind remained still. The image of her friend’s final moments replayed over and over in her mind - Weiss struggling in vain with her own weapon protruding from her chest, blood pouring from the wound and staining her white dress...

Blake shook her head and took in a deep breath. There would be time for that later. Right now, she needed to survive. She made to turn back to her camp, but stopped halfway and took one last look at the river. She gazed into the running water for a long moment before turning and running back.

Having safely returned to her camp, Blake made use of the best, straightest stick she could find to use as a cooking skewer before setting her meal to cook and let her mind go blissfully blank as she sat in her lean-to to watch and listen to nothing in particular.

“What in the world...?” Blake mumbled to no one in particular, not that she had much choice. “How am I still alive?” Blake’s mind insisted on reviewing the footage it had chemically recorded in her brain, zooming in and enhancing the malicious grin on the woman’s face as her flames consumed Blake’s body. “Is it possible the others are alive too...?”

Blake remembered Ruby’s final moments - how she had rushed head-first towards Roman Torchwick and had been met with an explosion that had left nothing behind. Blake supposed that it could have been possible that Ruby had simply escaped behind the cover of smoke, but her leader had never been one to run away.

Blake recalled Yang’s anguished scream at seeing her sister’s gruesome demise. Then the blonde had been challenged by the tiny mute girl - a fight that had left Yang broken, beaten, and bleeding out. She and Weiss had looked on in horror, unable to help, as Emerald and Mercury had shown up and...

The image of Mercury standing over Weiss’ corpse flashed through Blake’s mind. Then she remembered plunging Gambol Shroud through his lung and watching the life leave his eyes. Blake decided to think of something else.

Any way Blake looked at it, there was no escaping a blade running through your throat or your chest. And there was no way to escape an explosion occurring directly on a person’s body nor escape fatal flames as they stripped you of everything.

But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? After all, she was still here. But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how. She was alive... And her friends had died, she was sure of it. She had no proof of the contrary. And she refused to let herself hope for the impossible.

A snap of the fire dragged the young woman back to her sorrowful reality and to the task of cooking dinner. Crawling out from under her protection to check the fish, Blake figured she was cat-like enough to be able to stomach a partially cooked fish than wait any longer for a fully cooked one.

The first bite of food had Blake nearly cough up and toss the remains; it was that bitter. “Oh, man. Could use some tartar sauce, and I don’t even like tartar sauce!” Blake complained as she bravely bit off another mouthful and chewed. Mid-chew, Blake had a sudden thought: she didn’t know if this fish was even safe to eat. Imagine that - she’d survived being burned alive, only to succumb to poison by fish. Even in her mostly depressed state of mind, she found herself chuckling at this thought as she rather quickly finished the remainder of dinner and tossed the bones into the fire.

Lying back on a mat of woven leaves, Blake stared up towards the evening sky in silence. Something she hadn’t done since enrolling at Beacon.

Golden eyes went from star to star, the lights twinkling faintly in the night sky. Odd, she couldn’t recognize any of the formations. “Well,” Blake said to herself. “I guess I have nothing better to do.” And with that, she began finding different clusters of stars and assigning names.

Arc Three: From Shadows
Part One End

Author's Note

So, here we are! Arc Three!

The first three chapters of this arc were written by my editor and good friend, Soren Mercer. I served as editor. Soren wanted to give you guys a short message from him:

Soren’s Note:
So, I’d like to just take a second here, and let you all know the parts of this arc I wrote, From Shadows, I wrote waaaaay back when I Burn was still halfway completed. That said, I don’t know if everything I wrote is going to make it into the final version, as you the reader may think that what I wrote is boring or unfitting of the story that Qrow’s put so much time into.

Additionally, I did not write the full arc, only a number of chapters which I’m sure Qrow will put mention that I wrote it to a point; I doubt that I’ll be finishing this arc myself as it is, given that I haven’t written anything in… quite some time… I’ll still be playing along as his Editor for the little changes he’ll be making in the following chapters, and for the chapters he’s going to write himself in the future.

As you can no doubt tell, his style of writing is much different from mine, but believe me when I say that doing it this way is necessary. While I'm putting out the three that Soren has written, I'll be working on the rest of the arc, too. I can't promise that the entire thing will end up being released on a consistent schedule, but I'll try my best.

Which brings me to the arc. From Shadows is about Blake. Last chapter, Fluttershy popped up in the little tease of what's to come, but she won't show up for a bit. For this arc, we wanted to mainly focus on Blake and how she survives all alone.

Please look forward to the rest! If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll answer.
-Qrow