A Fairly Reasonable Crashout (RWBY Adam SI) ch 3

+++

The alarm woke me like a slap.

Pasiphae stirred beside me, her voice groggy. "Hnng? What's going on?"

"Company announcement," I muttered, already swinging my legs off the bed.

She reached for me, warm fingers brushing my arm. "Wait." Then she leaned up, pressed a kiss against my cheek. "I love you."

I glanced back at her. Smiled. "I love you too."

The coat slid over my shoulders like a weight. I stepped out of the room and found my father already in the kitchen, cradling a steaming mug that smelled sharp and bitter. His face was stone.

"Dad."

"Son," he said. His voice was calm, but flat. "I've got a feeling this is either going to be bad… or very bad."

I didn't answer. Just nodded and headed out.

The air outside was still thick with dawn. Cold enough to bite. Lights flicked on in windows, doors cracked open—neighbors were waking, pulled from sleep by the same sound.

The loudspeakers crackled to life.

"To all miners of the Schnee Dust Company…" The foreman's voice rang from the megaphones. Tired. Trying to sound composed.

I stood on the porch, arms folded. My dad joined me, sipping his coffee with slow, deliberate gulps.

"There is news I must share. Some good. Some… less so. I ask for your patience while I explain."

I didn't like the tone. Too formal. Too rehearsed.

"The bad news," the foreman said, after a pause that dragged too long, "is that the Schnee Dust Company will be temporarily—and I stress, temporarily—lowering your wages."

The world slowed.

What?

I heard it echoed around me. From behind fences, through open windows. Voices rising like sparks.

"But! There is good news," the foreman pushed on, too fast, too loud. "This measure is only temporary, and it will be reversed. Please, do not worry. The Company will take care of you. You are not alone in this. We are all struggling. So let us move forward—hand in hand!"

And just like that, the speakers clicked off.

The silence that followed felt like the breath before a scream.

The silence broke not with words, but with a metal cup clanging against the porch railing—Dad had thrown it. Coffee splattered across the wood, steam rising in little angry wisps.

"Hand in hand," he muttered, jaw clenched. "They want us to hold hands while they pick our pockets clean."

I watched him, saying nothing. The weight in my stomach was back, coiled and cold. Around us, murmurs were swelling into curses, feet stamping onto dirt, doors opening wider.

Someone down the road shouted, "Temporary, my ass!" Another voice called back, "They'll find a way to make it permanent, like last time!"

Pasiphae stepped out behind me, her sweater hanging off one shoulder. "What did he say?"

"They're cutting wages," I said. "Calling it 'temporary.'"

Her lips parted, then pressed shut. She didn't ask anything else. She didn't need to.

From down the street, we heard the first sounds of something more than anger—metal dragged across stone, a toolbox kicked over, someone yelling for a rep. The air was charged now. Tense. The kind of mood where a single wrong word could snap the whole camp in half.

Dad stepped down from the porch and started walking, not fast, but with that stubborn stomp of his.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Gonna have a word with the foreman," he said, already halfway down the steps, not even looking back.

"I'm coming with you," I muttered.

He stopped cold. Turned halfway—just enough for me to see the steel in his eyes.

"No," he snapped. "You're not."

He didn't soften. Just jerked his chin toward the porch.

"You've got a wife. A life. Stay put. Watch the house."

He turned away, voice flat.

"This'll be quick."

+++

The crowd gathered too fast. Word spread like fire on dry grass, fury moving quicker than any morning shift ever had. What began as a handful of miners cursing under their porches turned into a march—boots pounding gravel, voices rising in a raw, angry thrum that echoed off the walls of the sleeping camp.

By the time Ercole reached the foreman's office, half the site had poured in.

The building crouched at the end of the main path—lights off, blinds drawn, curtains twitching behind dusty glass. It looked like it knew what was coming.

"This is bullshit!" someone roared.

"We break our backs for this company!" another shouted, their voice cracking on the edge of rage.

"Shit's already hard enough, and now you want to screw us?!"

No answer.

No creak of the door. No voice from the loudspeakers. Just silence—broken only by the sound of breathing, sharp and loud, rising in waves that turned the air dangerous.

The quiet pissed them off more.

The shouting surged, a tide crashing harder against steel. Ercole stood at the edge of it, arms folded, eyes locked on the door. He could feel the heat of the mob—body heat, sweat, anger—boiling up from the cracks in the ground they'd been told to break and bleed into for years.

A wrench slammed into a support beam—clang!—a sharp, metallic fuck-you to the silence inside. Someone hurled a tin cup; it clattered against the wall and rolled to the steps, dented and twitching in the dust.

"Foreman!" a voice roared—young, raw, trembling with fury. "Get your coward ass out here!"

Still nothing.

No movement. No footsteps. Just the wind scraping dust across the steps and the simmer of a crowd ready to boil over.

Then—a whistle.

Sharp. Piercing. Too clean for the chaos.

Heads turned in unison.

And there he was.

Frick.

The peaked cap on his head bore the SDC insignia, shadowing his eyes. Behind him, like a row of ghosts, the SDC security team stood in formation—uniforms spotless, rifles slung tight to their shoulders, fingers twitching too close to the triggers.

Frick strode forward, boots crunching on gravel, his face carved from stone.

"Your complaints have been noted," he called out, his voice cutting through the crowd like a blade. "But this ends now."

The mob rippled, bristling with fury, but Frick pressed on. His tone didn't falter.

"This facility remains operational. Your contracts—which you signed—explicitly forbid unlawful gatherings or disruption of Company activity."

Someone spat, a wet slap against the dirt.

"Blow it out your ass," growled a voice from the back.

"Fuck you, toff!" another snapped, their words shaking with barely contained rage. "What you're doing ain't legal!"

Frick turned his head slowly, like oil dripping from a broken valve. The tension didn't touch him. He was calm—too calm. A man built for moments like this. A man who smiled when things started to burn.

"Is that so?" he asked, his voice steeped in mock curiosity.

He reached into his coat and pulled out his scroll, thumbing it open. The screen lit up, cold and clinical in the morning haze. He scanned it, then read aloud, his tone crisp and cutting.

"'Clause 7-B, subsection 4…'" He glanced up, the corners of his mouth curling into something that wasn't quite a smile. "'The Schnee Dust Company reserves the right to enact temporary wage adjustments in accordance with regional economic conditions and workforce availability.'"

His eyes swept the crowd, daring anyone to speak.

"That's you, by the way."

A curse hissed from somewhere in the mob. Someone kicked a crate. The air grew thicker, heavier.

Frick raised a finger, as if delivering a lecture. "Oh, and here's a good one: 'Failure to comply with adjustment notices may result in termination of contract and immediate forfeiture of residence and employment protections.'"

He snapped the scroll shut with a flourish.

"Should've read the fine print," he said, stepping closer. His boots crunched louder now—deliberate, each step a warning. "Of course, you can leave. That's your right. You're not serfs."

The word hung in the air, sharp and ugly.

"But," he continued, his voice dipping lower, softer, "will you find anyone else in Atlas willing to employ faunus? Willing to employ... you?"

The crowd shifted, uneasy. Anger flickered—still hot—but doubt crawled in like a sickness.

"I understand this situation is difficult," Frick said, his tone dipping into something almost gentle—but his eyes stayed cold. "But as the good foreman said, this is a temporary measure. Not permanent. Not personal. Just... necessary."

He stepped down off the platform, closer to the line where the crowd swayed like a wave just before the break.

"All that's required of you," he said, pacing slow, deliberate, "is to mine. That's the contract. That's the exchange. You dig, and the Company takes care of the rest."

He stopped. Let the weight of silence settle on his next words.

"Out there?" He pointed toward the distant hills, where smoke from the morning fires still curled lazy into the sky. "Out there, no one takes care of you."

The crowd shifted. Not quite backing down, not yet. But no longer charging forward either.

"Here, you have a home," Frick continued. "A wage—even if it's less, it's something. Water. Power. Shelter. Out there, you've got the clothes on your back and a world that barely wants you breathing, let alone employed."

He locked eyes with a young miner near the front. Couldn't have been older than twenty. Dust smeared across his cheek. Hands clenched around a rusted pickaxe. A flicker of doubt in his face—just enough.

Frick saw it. Pressed the advantage.

"Don't throw that away. Don't throw the stability away. You've got families. People who rely on you. Kids who wake up every day expecting their parents to come home with food, with something to live off of. You walk now, you don't just leave the job—you leave them in the dirt."

A few heads lowered. Others turned.

He didn't need to break them. Just tilt them.

"We're not your enemy," Frick said, letting the mask of calm sympathy wrap itself over the iron beneath. "We're your lifeline. The SDC is not going to abandon you. The SDC is not going to toss you aside."

The guards hadn't moved. Rifles still up. Triggers still waiting.

"The Company has employed thousands of faunus like you. Fed your families. Built homes. Paid wages when no one else would even look you in the eye."

He turned in place, addressing the entire mob now—like he was preaching from a pulpit made of concrete and gun barrels.

"The world out there?" He jerked a thumb toward the distant gate. "It doesn't want you. It never did. Atlas? They'll slam the door in your face the moment you're not useful. But here, in this camp, you have a place. A future. That's more than most."

A few heads bowed—not in agreement, not in surrender—just... worn. Cracks spider-webbing through pride under the weight of survival.

Frick saw it. Drove the knife deeper.

"We don't want to cut wages," he said. "But what choice do we have? Dust output is down. Supply lines are tighter. And still—still—we keep you fed. Still we keep the lights on."

He stepped closer to a father clutching his daughter's hand. They hadn't spoken once since the speech began. Just watched, waited. But now, Frick looked directly at them.

"You think protest will fix that? You think yelling will fill your pockets? You think rebellion buys your children boots when winter comes?"

Silence. Heavy. Bitter.

"You want to survive?" Frick said, finally dropping all pretense of softness. "Then do your job. Take your pickaxe. Hit the rock. And keep the system moving."

He turned on his heel and faced the guards.

"Lower weapons."

The rifles dropped—mechanical and sharp.

Frick didn't even flinch.

He looked back to the miners.

"This is your last warning," he said. "The next time you gather like this… it won't be words."

Then he stepped aside, clearing the path to the foreman's office.

"Dismissed."

Frick watched them leave, one by one. He clocked their faces, each bearing that tight, practiced neutrality, the kind workers wore when the boss was near and the knives weren't quite out yet. Subdued—for now. But not all of them. Some stared.

And stared hard.

They were the last to go.

Those ones, he'd have to keep an eye on.

He stepped into the foreman's office, clicking his tongue as he found the man half-hidden behind his desk like a startled mole.

"Is it over?" the foreman asked, voice low, breath shallow.

"For now," Frick said, brushing dust off his coat sleeve with the kind of precision that made the foreman swallow. "They might believe they still need us. But it won't take much to burn that idea out of their skulls."

He clicked his tongue again, deliberate. "Just hope, foreman, that nothing untoward happens during this pay cut."

"Untoward? Like what?" the foreman asked too quickly.

"Accidents. Emergencies. That sort of thing," Frick drawled, pausing at the window, watching the last silhouettes disappear down the hill. "Nothing that would make them think it's time to demand lien."

The foreman's face twisted through a dozen thoughts in a blink. "My miners are careful. They wouldn't do something stupid like get into an accident. If they do, it'd be their own fault," he snorted, brash, too loud. "Worry not. My mine may be old, but no accidents will happen here."

Frick stared at him. The foreman sounded like he actually believed that.

And that was almost cute.

Frick didn't smile, but there was a small shift at the corner of his mouth, like a cut waiting to scab over. He walked past the foreman, letting his shadow slide over the man's boots like spilled oil, thick and cold.

"No accidents," he repeated, voice dry as bone dust. "Let's pray the north agrees."

"Right..." the foreman drawled. "And what do you intend to do now?"

"Now?" Frick blinked. "I stay here, out of sight and out of mind, and work quietly. Your workers do not need to be reminded that I am here. Let them pretend everything is normal and hopefully, things will return to normal."

+++

They returned with slumped shoulders, the kind of posture that said more than words ever could. A slow, trudging descent down the slope, boots dragging in ash-stained gravel, heads low—not bowed, not broken, but heavy with something sour.

Pasiphae grabbed my arm hard. Her grip wasn't trembling, but it clung—like she wanted to anchor herself before the world cracked underfoot.

I walked towards my father.

"How was it?" I asked, though the answer painted itself on his face long before his mouth moved.

"We're getting pay cuts," he spat, voice hard enough to chip teeth. "So corporate can line their pockets a little more. 'Temporary,' they said. Bastards."

I didn't speak. Didn't need to. We both knew what that word really meant.

Temporary. A lie as old as time.

Temporary became standard. Emergency became policy.

I swore under my breath.

"Fuck."

Pasiphae blinked, the tension in her hand twitching. "But… what's wrong? If it's temporary, then—"

"No, Pasiphae. It isn't," Dad groaned, dragging a hand down his face like he wanted to peel the skin off. "Wages used to be higher. Back when Nicholas Schnee still ran things. But ever since he died, it's been one cut after another. Lower. Lower. Every year."

Pasiphae turned toward him, eyes wide, breath catching. "That's—no. That's got to be illegal. They can't just keep cutting."

"They can," Dad said, and the way he said it—it wasn't anger. It was history. Exhaustion layered over fact. "It's in the contract. We could fight it—but to Atlas? To the SDC? We're little more than fuel that screams when burned."

Pasiphae stammered, her voice breaking like porcelain. "That's... that's..." She couldn't finish it. Whatever the word was, it was buried under disbelief.

I took her hand. Her palm was cold. Or maybe mine was just too warm, clenched too tight around everything I couldn't say.

"It's going to be fine," I told her. "We've got enough saved to get out. More than enough. I was hoping to stack a little extra for the road, but screw it—we'll make it stretch."

I'd been saving since I was old enough to know the shape of a lien chit. Since I could walk, I worked. And since I could count, I hid—every spare mark, every side job, every coin dropped and forgotten.

Eighteen years of scuffed hands and dirt-cheap meals. Eighteen years of stolen hours, sleepless nights, whispered plans.

All of it, just to buy a door.

And now we had the key.

Pasiphae looked at me, and there was something else in her eyes now. Not relief. Not yet. But permission. Trust.

She exhaled, soft and shaky. "Alright…" she murmured.

But her hand didn't let go. Not yet.

The day we tried to finish as normally as we could. We went to work. Into the dark. Into the gut of the mountain where the rock was thick and the air came sparse. We carried our tools like we always did. We wore our gear. We punched in. We pretended. Pretended it didn't ache. Pretended the rage wasn't there, crouched in our lungs like black mold.

I stepped into the shaft, and the glow from the dust-crusted crystals lining the walls barely cut through the dark. Their light was cold, an anemic shimmer that didn't chase shadows—it bred them. My boots crunched over gravel. The silence here wasn't quiet; it was thick, like walking into a mouth that had just stopped chewing.

Then—fingers, rough and calloused, landed on my shoulder.

"You okay, kid?" Dad's voice, low. Steady like bedrock.

I swallowed, hard.

"I'm just…" I drew in a breath, thick with iron and ash. "You know how I feel."

He nodded, looking past me down the tunnel where others trudged, helmets low, shoulders sloped like the weight of the mountain had finally found them.

"Yeah," he said. "Everyone here does."

Our brothers and sisters of the pit walked without speaking, without pace—grief carved into every step. Hope had been too expensive for too long. And now the SDC was asking for a little more.

"It sucks," I muttered, voice catching in the dust.

"It does," he agreed, exhaling long and tired as we moved deeper, joining the procession. "But we don't really get to choose the shit that happens to us, son. All we get is how we carry it. And how we carry each other."

Steel on rock echoed ahead—pickaxes meeting the wall with the dry clack of defiance. One rhythm, one voice. Our kind of music.

We reached our post—Tunnel 8, right flank. Familiar scars met us, old stress fractures that had been patched, forgotten, repatched again.

Dad adjusted his helmet, pulled his gloves tighter.

"Don't think about that now," he said, nodding toward the wall. "Think about your wife. Think about what's waiting when you get out. Think about your future. Think about yourself, kid."

I looked at him.

"And you?" I asked.

He laughed. That dry, crooked chuckle that always sounded like it had been earned the hard way.

"Boy," he said, swinging his pick off his back with a practiced flick, "I'm forty-some years old. Damn near fossilized already. I'll be just fine."

Then he turned, squared his stance, and brought the blade of his tool down into the earth with a thunk that rang through the cavern like a promise.

+++

The kitchen was alive with heat and clatter, steam rising from massive cauldrons in hazy ropes, sweat slicking foreheads before the morning bell even finished its third toll. Knives danced. Ladles clanked. Someone cursed as a pot boiled over, spilling broth down the side like lava.

Pasiphae stood near the prep station, apron too big, sleeves rolled past the elbows. Her hands smelled of starch and onion skin.

"Carrots. Now."

The voice snapped across the din—sharp, impatient.

Pasiphae flinched. She had been staring at the stove again, or past it—eyes drifting into some fogged window in her head.

"Pasiphae!"

She jerked, blinking rapidly. "Oh—uh, sorry."

Her fingers scrambled over the chopping block, catching the bowl of peeled carrots she was supposed to hand off five minutes ago. She shoved it forward toward the scowling sous-chef, who didn't say thank you—just snatched it away and barked another order over her shoulder.

Pasiphae exhaled, cheeks burning. She reached for another bundle of vegetables and dragged them toward her, knife trembling slightly in her grip.

She chopped.

One. Two. Three. Uneven slices.

A head cook swept past behind her, trailing the scent of spice and scorn.

"Faster, girl. You think this place runs on sentiment?"

Pasiphae didn't answer. Just kept cutting. Faster. The rhythm off-beat, like a stutter in music.

She wasn't a miner but she worked in her own trench.

Then, the bell came. The break bell, the short window where they could catch a breather. Pasiphae found her way out, sitting on a crate that gave her a nice view of the mountains ahead. They were beautiful majestic things, snow-capped, and glittering.

A shadow slid into the seat beside her, silent but warm.

Pasiphae didn't need to look up to know who it was—she could feel the shape of her mother's presence. The weight of care, of softness tempered by years of holding others together when everything else wanted to fall apart.

"Something wrong, Pasiphae?" Atlanta's voice was gentle, but laced with that deep maternal intuition—the kind that already knew the answer, just waiting to be let in.

Pasiphae didn't answer right away. Her hands were still wet, pruned from peeling roots and soaking potatoes. Her knuckles were red where she'd gripped the knife too hard.

"It's this pay cut," she said at last, her voice thick. "I just… I feel…"

She swallowed. Her jaw trembled once, clenched hard.

"First, we live in squalor," she said, sharper now. "Yesterday, they interrupted my wedding. Like it didn't mean anything. Like we didn't mean anything. And now—this?"

Her voice cracked at the end, raw.

Her ears twitched sharply, rising to rigid points. Steam hissed subtly from her nostrils, curling up into the humid air of the kitchen like smoke before fire. She hunched forward, gripping her thighs with trembling fingers.

"I am just… so damn angry," she growled, voice rumbling from somewhere deeper than her throat. "They can't do this to us. They can't just keep treating us like trash—like animals in their machine."

Atlanta's face softened with pain, old and familiar. The kind of pain that had no words, only memory. The kind that knew what it meant to rage, but also what it meant to survive.

She didn't try to talk her daughter down.

She just moved, slow and steady, and pulled Pasiphae into her arms. Held her like she was still a child. Like she was still small enough to protect. Her tail—thick, soft, enveloping—curled around them both in a warm sweep, shielding her daughter from the cold kitchen light, from the hard edges of the world.

Pasiphae melted into it, her breath catching. The anger still burned—but beneath it, deeper, a hurt she couldn't name twisted inside her stomach like a hot blade. It hurt. It kept hurting.

And then the tears came.

Quiet. Heavy. Dripping onto her mother's apron, vanishing into the fabric like rain into cracked soil. Then, she calmed, sniffling.

"Can you sing for me?" Pasiphae whispered, her voice barely more than breath against her mother's shoulder.

Atlanta leaned in, her cheek brushing her daughter's hair. "What do you want to hear?" she asked softly, already knowing.

Pasiphae hesitated, the name caught in her throat like a prayer. Then—

"The Epitaph," she murmured.

Ah. That one.

Atlanta smiled. A slow, wistful thing. A memory curled in her chest, warm and heavy.

She shifted, held her daughter a little tighter, and drew in a breath.

And she sang.

The melody came low, deep, not sweet but steady—like riverwater rolling over stone. The words were old, sung in the mother-tongue, worn smooth by time. Each note carried weight, the kind of weight that cradled grief instead of crushing it.

Pasiphae lay still, eyes wide and glistening as the song coiled around them. It filled the kitchen's quiet corners, soft against the clatter of distant dishes, humming through copper pipes and steam vents like it belonged in the walls. She imagined that they were no longer in the cold, wearing thick clothes and at the mercy of others. She imagined a golden beach under a bright sun, the waves rolling in thick foam, and a green expanding forest beyond under rolling hills.

When the last note faded into silence, Atlanta looked down.

Pasiphae had wiped her tears, though the traces clung to her lashes. Her cheeks were raw, her throat tight, but something inside her had loosened.

"I feel better now," she said, voice thick, smile tremulous.

Atlanta chuckled, brushing hair behind her daughter's ear. "No matter how old you think you are, you'll always be my baby, hm?"

"Mom, I'm eighteen," Pasiphae groaned, though her protest wilted the moment Atlanta pinched her cheek with merciless affection.

"And yet you still melt the second I sing," Atlanta grinned. "Face it, baby. You're doomed. You'll understand when you have a daughter of your own."

Pasiphae huffed, crossing her arms. "I won't be nearly as overbearing as you."

Atlanta laughed, tail flicking with mischief. "Oh please. You're my blood. We invented overbearing. It's in your bones. One day you'll wake up clucking over someone's too-thin coat and realize you've become me."

Pasiphae groaned theatrically, sinking back into her mother's embrace.

"Nightmare," she muttered.

"Sweet dream," Atlanta corrected, grinning.

+++

We ended our shift like we always did—spines bent, fingers raw, lungs sticky with dust. The heat clung to us like it wanted something, and the dirt got into every damn crease of our skin. Another day in the pit. Another day survived.

I wanted to be clean. I wanted to be home. I wanted to fall into my hot dog-girl wife and never leave, let her wrap that soft, radiant body around mine and cook the ache out of my muscles. She always smelled like smoke and spice and comfort. Gods, I missed her.

Today had been merciful. No screams in the dark, no alarms blaring through the tunnels, no bodies hauled out under sheets. Just us, our tools, the moan of tired machinery, and the deep hum of something older than the mine itself.

Now we were out. Up the lift, boots hitting dirt again. Sunlight knifing through the clouds like it was trying to apologize for being late. The air above didn't taste like rot. No collapse. No fire. No sabotage. Just a normal day, and it tasted better than victory.

"I miss my wife," I muttered, wiping a long line of sweat and dust from my cheek with the back of my glove.

"Oh, I miss my wife too," Dad croaked beside me, the kind of laugh that came with a decade of dust in the lungs.

I glanced at him sideways. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes, son," he said, and lifted his arms as if to embrace the heavens. "I miss her every day. Especially her cooking. Especially that pie."

I raised a brow. "The pie that almost sent you to the emergency unit?"

"That was once," he said, wounded. "One time she swapped the sugar for salt and now it's legendary."

"You puked into the sink and wept, old man."

He placed a hand over his heart, eyes moist with fake emotion. "I cried because it reminded me of my mother's cooking. It was a nostalgic trauma."

Laughter crackled up ahead as the others picked up the pace towards our homes. Someone let out a whistle, someone else mimicked a fart noise that set off a chorus of groans.

Dad wheezed again—this time deeper, throat catching.

I frowned. "You alright?"

He waved me off with a flick of his wrist like he was batting a fly. "Me? I'm fine."

The wheeze returned, sharper.

"Just a cough," he said, smiling too easily. "Started a few days ago. Nothing serious. I'll be fine." He promised.

"I'll be fine."

+++

A/N: It begins.