Chapter 20: Need A Lift (Volume 8 Prologue)

                                    

                                          
Y/n Pov
Mantle
11:15 PM

The airship stayed deathly silent. No one uttered a single word after seeing, what I'm calling the Monstra. Seems like a fitting name for the thing. Maria dropped our altitude exponentially so we could avoid pissing off airborne Grimm. Now we were just skimming the rooftops of Mantle. The streets were empty and the place looked abandoned. Seeing as maybe ten percent of the population down here made it to Atlas, it really shouldn't be looking like this. Then again, with the heat off, the small blizzard that came through wasn't melted by the intense heat so instead of "rain", people got a snow day and then some. 
There were small pockets of people who were gathered around bonfires in a attempt to keep warm. I imagine that Ironwood cut their power supply as well to conserve theirs. All those people who died over heaters were killed for nothing. The airspace was clear of any personnel transports, and what few soldiers I did see had thrown down their weapons in the face of abandonment. So much for no man left behind...
*Ding*
My scroll got a text notification. I doubt that Ironwood just sent me a friendly message and Roy doesn't have a scroll yet. That means its either someone in this group behind me, Qrow, Robyn or one of the other Happy Huntresses. Placing my hopes on Qrow or Robyn since they were together with Clover, I opened my scroll and...
Joanna: 'Meet us at 41st and 30th in Mantle if you're not dead. Roy hasn't shut up about you.' 
...Well at least we have somewhere to go now...
Y/n: Maria, you know where 41st and 30th is? 
Maria: I do. Why? 
Y/n: Joanna messaged. She wants to meet us there. 
Maria: Heh, guess they haven't had much luck finding shelter either if we're meeting them in the streets. 
Y/n: Joanna probably has somewhere, just didn't say too much in case my scroll was compromised... Wouldn't be the first time that's happened... 
Ruby: Guys! 
Yang: What's wrong!?
Ruby: It's Oscar! His signal is reading that he's in Mantle! 
Y/n: How the hell did he get down here? 
Jaune: That doesn't matter, we have to go get him!
I wasn't arguing that we didn't, I'm just curious how he made it down here so fast. Jaunes right though, that doesn't matter right now though. I turned around in my seat and looked at Ruby. 
Y/n: Well, we need his location Ruby. 
Ruby: Straight west of here. 
Maria: Going west, coming up. 
Maria adjusted course. About ten miles away, we saw a smoke column rising into the sky. Maria and I shared a look. 
Maria: Well that makes things easier. 
Y/n: We needed something easy for a change. 
As we got closer, we saw that a group of people were gathered around a fire next to a shanty house. Sitting on a exposed water pipe was a boy with a green coat and a cane sat beside him. Can't tell if it's actually Oscar or not but it looks close enough to him to warrant checking. I stood from the co-pilots seat and walked to the door. 
Ruby was already sitting there, waiting. As the airship came to a hover, I opened the door. She didn't wait for the door to open all the way before she poked her head out.