"Sit up, Clark. I know you're awake," the phantom said only seconds after Clark had gained consciousness.

Clark pushed himself up onto his feet. He'd tried to keep his eyes closed and peer out at his surroundings with X-ray vision, but he'd only had time to view a bit of the underground cavern the phantom had placed him in.

He and the phantom met each other's gaze. Hardly any of Clark's clothing had survived their fight, so he was nearly naked as he stood. There were a few lamps providing light, although they didn't need it.

The double presented the cavern with a wave of his arm. "Welcome to your temporary new home sweet home."

They were hundreds of feet underground surrounded by rock. There were amenities by Clark's feet: spare clothing, sleeping bags, food, water, toilet paper, soap, and a bucket. At one end of the cavern was a hole in the ground which eventually widened out into an empty chamber when Clark checked it with his X-ray vision. Behind the phantom was a tunnel that he must have flown in through, a winding path which didn't allow a hint of sunlight in.

"You remember our deal, right?" the phantom asked.

"I stay here and work on getting us home."

"That's right. So get started on the crystal." The double pointed at the pile of clothes, on top of which sat the blue shield. "Oh, and just to make sure you're properly motivated, I've prepared a little something."

The phantom shot away into the tunnel. Clark strained his senses to maintain both X-ray vision and super-speed, but he couldn't manage it and instead waited for him to return.

The double returned with a young boy. The arrival surprised Clark and prompted him to put on some of the supplied clothing at super-speed. Black-haired and silent, the boy was clearly frightened of the phantom and cowed into silence.

"Who is this?" Clark asked.

The phantom shrugged. "I don't know. Hey kid, what's your name?"

"Arthur," he responded in a quiet, clipped voice.

"What is he doing here?" Clark glared at his conceited doppelganger. "This wasn't part of the deal!"

"Calm down, Clark. He's just a little insurance and incentive to make sure you don't start slacking. And if you don't like it, what are you going to do about it?" The phantom inched forward, certain in his conceit and the fact that Clark wouldn't fight back. Not with the child here.

Clark released some air out of his nose and shoved down his anger. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Nothing much. I'm not a fan of baby-sitting, so he's going to stay down here with you. Take good care of him. Or don't, I don't really care, I'll just find some other kid to take his place."

"Fine." Clark motioned to the child. "Hey buddy, come here. I'm sorry about this, but you'll be safe here."

Arthur looked uncertainly at the phantom. It wasn't until the double said "Well hurry on." that he moved.

Clark shielded the boy behind him and glanced at the supplies. "How long is it going to take me to use the crystal?"

"How should I know? That depends on you."

"What if we need more food and water?"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to get you some." The phantom said, then he pondered. "Or maybe I'll see how much faster you work when you have a starving brat on your hands."

"Don't you dare." Clark stepped forward.

The phantom mirrored the move. "Or what, you want to fight?"

"It's daytime," Clark noted.

"You still think that gives you an advantage?" The double wagged a finger. "Nope, I can fight you anytime, anywhere now thanks to my Semblance." A sheen came over his skin, so thin that only they could have seen it. Immediately, he darkened, the light of the lamps fading to near-nothing when it hit him.

"You've unlocked your aura. How?"

"That's a secret." The phantom stepped back and floated up. "Just focus on getting the crystal working." He flew off.

\\\\\

"Well this is just great." Yang announced, her sarcasm boiling with an undercurrent of rage.

Weiss agreed with the sentiment, although not nearly as strongly. Multiple train cars lay around them, overturned in the snow and broken after a Grimm attack on their passenger train. Fortunately, the rest of the train was en route to Argus. Unfortunately, team RWBY along with Qrow, Ozpin, and a diminutive old woman with prosthetic eyes had been left behind and would have to find transport to the city on their own.

"Thanks for the warning about the Relic attracting Grimm, Ozpin," Yang continued. "Really helped us out."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The headmaster sighed with the face of a fourteen-year-old boy. It still wasn't a sight Weiss had become accustomed to. "I had hoped we would move fast enough that it wouldn't be an issue. I apologize for being mistaken."

Yang snorted. "You apologize? Wow, that makes it all bet-

"Yang, enough," her uncle interrupted. "We need to focus on getting moving, especially if that thing is a Grimm magnet. Ruby?"

"I got it." Ruby answered with an empty tone that made Weiss' heart ache.

Her bright and cheery partner had become withdrawn and distant ever since they'd learned what had happened to Clark. She wasn't the only one shaken by his departure, Weiss had noticed it among many of them. Yang's temper frayed more easily, Jaune and Pyrrha had comforted each other in secret whispers as a couple. Ren was quieter than Weiss remembered and while his partner retained her liveliness, it seemed strained.

Weiss couldn't say how Qrow and Ozpin had been impacted. They were anxious, but they had good reason to be when handling the Relic's security. Besides them, the only ones who were mostly unaffected were Weiss and Blake.

Of course, they felt sympathy for their friends' loss, but Weiss had hardly even had a full conversation with Clark. Blake didn't seem to know him that much better either. Offering comfort was a difficult task when they had to also learn how close he'd been with them.

"I don't have a signal, anyone able to search for the nearest town?" Blake asked.

A quick check revealed that none of them could. "I can get an aerial view and see if there are any nearby," Weiss said. She'd only managed summoning recently, but the Queen Lancer formed without issue. She leaped onto it and it climbed into the air. She watched for Grimm, but none came close. In the distance was a collection of buildings and fields, perhaps a farm?

The Queen Lancer brought Weiss back down and she informed them of her discovery. "It's not a far walk. We should be there within thirty minutes."

"Alright then, let's go," Qrow said.

They'd only taken a few steps when the old woman shouted. "Hey! Are you all just going to leave a helpless old lady to trudge through the snow by herself?"

They exchanged glances before Qrow walked over to her and crouched down. "Climb on."

"Thank you, young man." She climbed on and looked to them. "Now get . . . moving. You there." She pointed at Ruby.

"Me?" Ruby looked from side-to-side to make sure she didn't mean someone else.

"Yes you, come closer."

Ruby stepped over to her, confused by the request. As she did, the old woman turned some dials on the side of her prosthetic eyes. "What's your name?"

"Ruby Rose."

"Do you have anyone in your family history named Calavera?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Hold on a second, Calavera?" Qrow asked. "As in Maria Calavera, the Grimm Reaper?"

"Well, you certainly know your history. I haven't been called that in ages."

"You're the Grimm Reaper?" Qrow tried to stare at the woman on his back, but he couldn't turn his head that far.

"I am."

Blake raised a question. "And what is so important about you being the 'Grimm Reaper'?"

The old woman explained. "I'm Maria Calavera, also known as the Grimm Reaper. I was a famous huntress in my time, no one you young girls need to worry yourselves about."

"Why did you ask about my family?" Ruby asked.

Maria waved the question off. "Oh, no reason that deserves a second thought. You seemed to have a family resemblance, but now that I've looked at you more carefully I realize I was wrong. Silly me."

They continued on their way to the farm.

\\\\\

Clark heard footsteps on the stairs he'd carved in the tunnel at the phantom's order. It had been days since he'd last seen him, but that didn't stop Clark from pushing his X-ray vision and super-speed to the limit to try and check if it was him. There wasn't much else to do down here, after all, and it could be useful someday.

It wasn't the phantom coming down, but Mercury, one of Cinder's underlings, with supplies.

Actually, it seemed that he was a former underling now. Before, it had been Roman who'd brought Clark and Arthur supplies. Neo hadn't entered the cavern yet, but Clark had seen her on the surface. It looked like the phantom had convinced them that they had better prospects with him on Earth than with Cinder or Salem on Remnant.

Clark had briefly weighed the possibility of getting them to turn on the phantom, but the double was ruthless. He'd kill a traitor without a second thought and Clark didn't want to be responsible for their deaths, even if they were criminals.

"Who's coming down?" Arthur asked.

"It's not evil me, so there's no need to worry," Clark said. That was how the two of them usually referred to the phantom, 'evil Clark'.

After another minute, Mercury walked down with grocery bags. He set them down. "You got anything for me to bring up or tell Trav?" he asked.

"No."

Mercury walked out and Clark checked what he'd brought. Most of it was food, but there were also Dust cartridges to power the lamps and the portable stove that Clark had demanded the phantom to supply them with. If they were going to be stuck here, Clark wasn't going to make Arthur eat the processed, premade food that the phantom had carelessly brought them at first.

All the food went to Arthur. Clark wasn't sure how serious the phantom had been about starving the child, but if their supplies were ever cut off, he was going to make sure Arthur lasted as long as possible.

Arthur wasn't hungry now, so Clark just set the food in one of the depressions he'd made in the rock. It was just one of the many changes Clark had made to the cavern. He'd widened it out so the 'bathroom' was around a bend and could lend Arthur some privacy. It was also big enough for the boy to run around and play, a good distraction from his kidnapping.

Meanwhile, much of Clark's time was spent on sitting in a corner of the cavern with his eyes closed and the Kryptonian crystal in his hand. It still warned him when the phantom was near, but otherwise it might as well have been a fancy-looking paperweight.

'Jor-El, come on. I need to talk to you.' Clark began his attempted communication with the crystal the same as he always did. At first he'd asked it to help bring him home, but he'd quickly realized the danger of that. He didn't just want it to bring them to Earth, he wanted a plan to somehow bring them to Earth while imprisoning the phantom. That required the crystal to actually talk to him though, which it silently refused to do.

Clark opened his eyes for a bit and turned it over. There was another sign of its activity besides the ability to warn him of the phantom's vicinity. The first day of his imprisonment here, there had been some damage to it after he'd used it to block the phantom's heat vision. However, the very next day, all the cracks had filled up and the chipped edges had smoothed over. It was as good as new.

"Clark, can I go sailing again?" Arthur came over with the makeshift sail they'd made with a rod made out of the cavern wall and spare clothes.

"Sure." There was plenty of time for Clark to be ignored by the artificial intelligence based on his biological father. He went over to the floorspace he'd smoothed over and chilled its surface with an application of his breath. His powers still amazed the young boy, and it was a good chance to let him have some fun.

Arthur ran over to the ice and raised the sail. "Ready!"

With regular super-breath, Clark propelled him around the ice while the boy giggled in delight. He could figure out how to operate the crystal later.