First Cycle
A long time ago, there was a philosopher who lived in a barrel near a market. He did this because, as he would probably say, life was just life. Not much remains of his words or ideas, but this philosopher told a story once, and someone happened to write it down:
A man, living in a valley, finds that a boulder rolled off the ridge and into the midst of his crops. The man is both saddened and angry. This boulder flattened his crops and gouged giant ruts into his land. There was nowhere to push the boulder; the land at the bottom of the valley was very narrow, and the man made use of as much of the land as he could: he had his patches for crops, trees that he kept for firewood, and a stream for water. He couldn't push the boulder through these spots without ruining them, and he wanted to fix his crop land. The man decided that he would push the boulder back up the side of the valley, through the rut it carved into his land, minimizing the damage. So, he set to it, pushing the boulder up a very narrow path. If he stopped, the boulder would roll right back down; there was no stopping until he reached the top. The way was rocky, so it shredded the man's sandals, and then bloodied his feet. The path became steeper, and his arms could not be taken back from the boulder, because it would roll backwards and crush him. The birds had at his eyes, eating one of them; he wasn't able to swat them away. It rained, and mud soaked into his wounds. His clothes were torn off by the winds, and he became sick.
He finally pushed the boulder out of the valley, and walked back down. He fell and rolled off the path, breaking an arm, causing the bone to stab through the flesh. He left a smear of red clay as he rolled down, the blood mixing with the dirt. The man crawled back into his home, and saw that several Grimm had made a den inside during his absence. The man ran outside, screaming, and his torso was crushed by the boulder that had rolled back down the hill.
The philosopher really liked telling that story; during the cackles afterwards, people had to step back, otherwise his spit would hit them in the face. Word has it, the philosopher himself was killed by Grimm, and that he didn't care much. There were several paintings of it, one being called "Death is Simply Death." This was a man, after all, who said his last wish after his death was to be left to the beasts.
It was only natural.
\ \ \ / / /
A ray of light from a fractured, dead moon lanced between the curtains on the window, highlighting the frayed edges, small holes and tears throughout the fabric. The moonlight was dissolved by the glow seeping out of a desk lamp that sat among a mess of books and notes, pages of them, all covered in the small, neat handwriting of an over-diligent student, someone who becomes dedicated to a task to the near point of a grim hilarity; maybe even near the point of self harm. This was the kind of person who would forgo meals and sleep, someone with the precision of a team of professional stenographers. It, perhaps, betrayed a feeling of desperation. The desk, at the very least, painted a picture of someone who had dedicated themselves to an idea, something that her studies represented, to an almost pathetic degree. It could have been an attempt to escape the noise in her head. Someone who fell in love with something that could never love her back.
The handwriting on the papers clashed with the mess of the desk; scattering the notes as such seemed an act of deliberate sacrilege. They lay crumpled all over, as if thrown about in either a fit of emotion, or were just dropped down while she was in a state of beyond being careless. There was no order to the pages, and the notebooks that used to house them were severely damaged. The pages had just been let to fall out wherever they happened to. Same went for all the hardcover books, ranging from textbooks, philosophical tomes, to works of fiction, all of them very long. Discarded books on the revolutionary lay open, the text on distribution of wealth, the tyranny of power systems and the rights of workers now declaiming to noone; the pages yellowed, and the words contained within were slowly being buried in dust falling like a light snow flurry.
Books were draped on the inactive radiator, the small, cracked table next to the cooking stove, and a few were piled on the counter near the sink, which was full of dishes. A light mist of fruit flies caught some of the moonlight from a second open window, looking like a buzzing dust devil over the sink.
The bed was free from books but not clothes. They were arranged at random, though they were all clean. Next to them was a shelf that held a reloading tool, some very small vials of Dust, and maybe two hundred rounds of standard ammunition, some pistol caliber or other.
The apartment was one room, but spacious enough, maybe eleven or twelve feet wide, and fifteen long, at least. It felt more like a hotel room; a small "hallway" coming in from the front door, and on the right as you walked in was a tiny bathroom with a stall shower. Frosted glass door, one small bit of non-door frosted glass, shove the whole thing in a corner and you got yourself a ghetto shower. The room smelled wet, like the earth under a rock. The white walls were yellowed, but weren't streaked yet. The vent in the ceiling had spots of black. The girl who lived here didn't think the duct lead to the outside.
The rest of the place smelled distinctly of her. Every bead of sweat that dripped out during sleep floated in the air, remnants of nightmares following her into morning. Performing daily workouts in here didn't help the situation. She had spent hours over the weeks on the hardwood floors, out of breath, body completely drained from one exercise or another.
This girl was now sitting at the desk in her underwear, pushing the books to one side, laying out a cloth with an oil stain on it. She placed her collapsed Gambol Shroud there, and began to play with the slide ejector on the machine pistol. Her eyes were unfocused, and she kept moving the slide back and forth, hands never going near the small container of cleaning oil on her right. She murmured to herself, and a trembling went through her, followed by several deep breaths. Her eyes lit on the oil bottle, but suddenly zeroed in on one of her arms. She held it up, and looked at it in the light of the lamp. She flexed her fingers, one by one, flexed the forearm, the bicep, then back to forearm, and back to her fingers. She cracked her knuckles. She traced the lines of her palm, scrutinized her fingerprints, rubbed the flesh of her forearm, and finally worked the fingers of both hands together, like she was warming them on this hot and humid night. She pitched forward at the waist at this point, but did not fall from her chair, hands still clasped together as such, and began to murmur to herself again, like in prayer. Only the words were fragments, fractured sentences, thoughts that were leaking out in drips when they were meant to be contained within her. This went on for twenty minutes.
She got up stiffly and walked into the bathroom, switching on the light and looking at her face in the mirror, the golden eyes reflected there blank pools in a stone mask. After a moment, she leaned forward and began to move her jaw about, studying the ligaments in her neck, watching how the skin stretched. The murmuring began again, and she closed her eyes and gripped the bathroom sink hard. The crack between the sink and the wall widened some more.
After fifteen minutes of this she took a five minute shower and dressed herself with the clothing on the bed. She left her hair a mess, but still took care to wrap the cat's ears that peeped up through the tangles; she used one of her black ribbons to fasten a bow, and tied another to the Gambol Shroud. The weapon was swaddled in the oily cloth and slid under the bed, but after a shrug, she retrieved it and stuck onto the metal sheet tied to her back. Something reflected in the moonlight on her face, maybe a smile; the girl seemed much more calm now, comforted. Blake wanted to leave through the window instead of the lobby exit, inconvenient as it was, because it meant she got to take the weapon with her; openly violating curfew laws would make the night rougher than it needed to be.
\ \ \ / / /
She stuck to the Thieves' Highway-the tops of the city buildings-for no real reason. Sure, there was a curfew, and this was a good way to dodge it, but practicality wasn't her reason. Thinking on it, there didn't seem to be any reason for doing this. She ran as if being chased, probably causing a racket to anyone inside the buildings she was running on. Her eyes started to dry out from the rush of wind, and then tear. She hated that when it happened; her eyes were open too wide, and she was running too fast. A stitch was forming in her side. Blake needed to slow down, and did; only then it became obvious how hard her breathing was. She'd mindlessly run to beat the devil, and it was still a long night ahead.
Off to the right, stood a massive wall that cut right through the districts of the City of Vale. You could see the very tops of some buildings, and what was left of Ozpin's Tower, but that was about it, even from this height. The citizens had lost their collective minds when the wall had gone up, but the situation encircled in the exclusion zone was still deemed too dangerous. The Kingdom… hell, Atlas was still there, in force! Both of these parties were still repelling and hunting the Grimm inside, claiming that victory was nowhere in sight, but they were still able to build that massive piss-off wall! It was ludicrous... unless you had been there, and seen the actual hordes which poured into the city in the aftermath of the terrorist siege.
The Dragon on the tower could still be seen.
She turned away, and kept on to her meeting with Wolfe.
\ \ \ / / /
The bar where the meet up was supposed to happen was the bar you're not supposed to go to, the one that is in every city in every age, with the same scratched and chipped up tables, stools, walls, teeth, faces, and morals. The bar where when the cops show up, they are always angry and already have their clubs in hand, because everyone on the force knows this particular bar, and nobody wants to deal with it. They only yell "Stop!" after they start hitting you. It's called being a proactive officer… and being the survivor of multiple stab-wounds.
That bar.
Wolfe was sitting in a corner booth, on the fringe of the light, because when you decide you're going to be creepy, you might as well go all the way. It was respected. Custom, if you will. He was living up to his nickname, "White Dog." The young man had pallid skin, and a last name that was far cooler than he was. Wolfe always wanted to be called "Silver Wolfe," but Blake swore that was a euphemism for an older man looking for a younger woman.
They had argued over that for maybe thirty minutes straight. An agreement was reached to never broach the subject again.
She slid onto the seat across from him, her eyes bored. Wolfe had a goatee and some strong features, a hard line of jaw, good cheekbones, and could be considered handsome, except he was too skinny, his head too boxy, wrinkles were in the corners of his eyes, some gray had snuck into his black beard and hair despite still being in his twenties, his eyes were sunken and kind of small, and his thin lips always seemed to be stretched into a leer. But he didn't smell. He didn't wear cologne, but he didn't smell. Dressed like crap though. Baggy clothes. Easy to get snagged when climbing a fence. And probably not baggy by choice; his thinness didn't seem to be accidental. Still had all his teeth though, until he pointed that leer of his at the wrong person.
The leer dripped off his face when he looked over her shoulder at the hilt of Gambol Shroud. "Belladonna, you… you brought your piece here?"
She shrugged. "My hair covers it."
"No… no it doesn't…"
"From the back it does."
"What the hell is the matta with you?"
Blake leaned forward. "You really wanted me to just show up here unarmed?"
"Yeah!"
She just sort of stared at him for a few minutes.
He stared right back, cocking his head.
Blake asked, "You wanted me to come to this bar, unarmed?"
"It's a restaurant and grill."
"What?"
"Restaurant and grill."
"Those are both the same. That's like calling it a 'grill grill.'"
"No it's not!"
"Yeah, it is. Bar and grille, not restaurant and grill."
"The sign outside says restaurant and grill. 'Kök Bloc: Restaurant and grille.'"
"'Kök' doesn't mean either restaurant or grill. This isn't even the Bloc Borough. You misread it."
"No, I didn't."
"Then the sign is wrong."
"You tell 'em that."
"Maybe I will."
A waitress walked over. Wolfe leered at Blake, but then the waitress leaned forward and looked at Wolfe. "Now, are you goin' to order somethin'? You're friend is fiiinaaaally here." She turned and looked Blake up and down. "Wait, she old enough to be in here?"
They both said "Yes," at the same time.
The waitress held out a hand to Blake, "Lemme see."
Wolfe watched with wide eyes as Blake pulled out her Scroll and brought up an ID. The waitress snatched the Scroll out of her hand, plugging it into her own. Both Scrolls beeped back and forth, and she held up the picture to Blake's face. After a few seconds she handed it back to Blake. "24, huh?"
"Yep."
"Well, Miss Yukamoto, can I get you anything?"
"Water."
"Well now, don't go too crazy tonight. Don't want to spend all your money."
"Make it a water with lemon, then."
The waitress narrowed her eyes. Blake shrugged at her.
Wolfe tugged at the waitress's sleeve, asking for a whiskey. He got a, "Uh huh," as a response, and then she stormed off. He started laughing.
"I made her mad enough, don't rub it in by laughing at her, Wolfe. It's not a good idea."
He waved his hand slowly, dismissively. "Holy crap, that fake ID worked."
"What?"
"It worked! Miss Yukamoto!" His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was wiping at them with a dirty napkin. His voice and laughter was a wheeze.
"The… the ID you gave… sold, me, you… didn't know if it was going to work?"
Wolfe just kept his eyes squeezed while he wheezed, and nodded his head up and down.
Blake was just staring at him again until the waitress clomped back over and slammed the drinks down before zipping off. Then Wolfe suddenly quit laughing, leaned forward and sipped at his drink, dropping the leer. Speaking softly, "Well, whaddya want, it kept you off the grid so nobody could contact you while you waited for a way out, so don't look or whine at me like that. Now, you'll wanna listen to this. I gotta job for ya. You know this already… man, stop lookin' at me like that. You wanted to be left alone, and you also wanted money. I'm not an idiot. You can clamber over that wall and you're one of those…," he smiled, "Well, now, I guess I can't do nothin' but speculate you had something to do with that school over there, but regardless what you've done before or whatever is of no concern to me, you can deal with Grimm, fightin' or sneakin', and I know for a fact you were able to grab an apartment with that bogus ID and if you hadn't been able to do it I'd help ya out. A faunus to boot, see in the dark and crap, very useful in this line of work, I'll tell ya, though I gotta say it's really freakin' weird to see someone your age so good at this kinda thing but there I go runnin' my mouth again so forget it, it's not my business and it's better not to pry. But ol' Wolfe isn't gonna just leave you out there, no way, and you can count on that. You see, we need one another, and there's no way I can let a beautiful friendship such as this just fall apart. I don't even care if you have some kind of beef with the White Fang or are scared of 'em, whatever the case may be, and I think you're worth the risk. And you really want that money so you can skip out of this blown out and busted town. So maybe stop starin' at me like that, alright?"
She relaxed her face. Not because she had really relaxed; struggling through the tangle of Wolfe's words was like struggling through quicksand. You just don't do it; just wait for the point to bubble up, and interrupt.
He nodded, thinking that she agreed. "Okay, very good. Now, this job shouldn't be too hard. Just over the wall, not too far in, and back. Well, a little more complicated than that, you bustin' into a mansion of sorts-I think it's a mansion, well somebody lived there-and there might be one or two mercs still in there guardin' the value-ables and whatnot," she hated the way he said valuables, "but it's two probably retired guys collecting a pension sitting in a abandoned house where most of the Grimm are already gone. Like I said, just right over the wall. Client wants a specific necklace back. It's a gift…"
"I don't care." She didn't have the time for this information; knowing less about motivation was the smarter move, anyway.
"No, you do care, because I need to to make sure this looks like a bog-standard robbery with no clear objective except to pick up as much swag as possible. Also, since I pissed that waitress off, notice how she don't come back over here? Got the place to ourselves. Who cares if she spit in it. I can handle bein' sick or whatever. Look at me! What the hell could she even possibly give me! Anyway, now, if I just flat out told you to grab up everything you could, you'd roll your eyes like you are doin' right now and tell me to piss off, because you got this thing about not doing straight-up burglaries or somethin', I dunno what ya deal is, whatever, but, yeah, listen, we need to make sure it isn't all about the necklace, the client was very clear about that. Seriously. You see, she had this son who went and got himself killed the day the Beacon tower got all jacked, and this son married some girl this lady didn't like. Like, before the tower thing. Married her before. A few years ago, I think. I don't read the society section in the newspapers. Son's dead, she wants the necklace back, it's a family heirloom, blah blah. This whole thing has been very much out in the open before, threats of lawsuits and stuff, but now we're bein' called. It's perfect; more and more people are climbing the wall and grabbin' what they can, even the royal family is makin' noise in the newspapers… man, with the communication grid down, newspapers are comin' back. Guess we ain't the only ones comin' up in the world! Anyway. Grab the necklace, and a ton of other crap. That way it doesn't seem like our client hired someone to steal the necklace. Don't kill anyone."
"You seriously going to ask me not to kill anyone? And, can we really trust this woman? This whole thing might blow up in our faces. If the necklace spat is this public…"
"Don't worry about it. I mean, yeah, it's a bit of a gamble, but the money we get out of it is pretty good. You should be able to finally skip town. Probably not by air, but at least by boat or somethin', you know? I'm not too keen on stickin' around myself, Belladonna. Lookin' at the state of things…"
Nothing was said for a few moments, until Blake spoke, "Atlas is not going anywhere soon."
"No. I've been hearin'... and don't get too freaked out, okay? I've been hearin' they're still worried about some element of the Fang stickin' around, gettin' over the wall. Also, the looters that keep gettin' in… it's gonna be a mess for a while. Maybe even years."
"Atlas can't stick around that long."
"I don't know what their plan is. I mean, it's not like we're bein' occupied or anything, but it certainly don't look so good, either. Plus, with communication down, it's not like they have to worry about their worldwide image, either."
"There's no way to keep them supplied for much longer."
"They ain't just gonna pack up and leave. If word got out, it'd look real bad. Nobody likes people who run."
Blake sighed, and kept a shaking hand under the table. "This city isn't anything anymore. It's just an opportunity for the wrong kind of people."
"It wasn't always like this… wow, I'm gettin' worried about the state of things. What does that tell ya? But the Fang got no hold in this place. No matter whatever happened on the TV. Getta hold of yourself, kid. Just get the necklace. You'll make it out."
"I always do. I always just… get away…"
"Yeah, that's the spirit!" Wolfe's smile dripped off his face when he noticed Blake had hunched in on herself. But then her head snapped up, taking him aback.
She asked, "All right, where is the place?"
It was located far from any of her known entry points into the exclusion zone. She was going to have go a long way, sneaking past whatever Grimm nests flanked her path. She already had a map of the known dens of the creatures (though "known" was a very small number of dens), and it even had some now out of date patrol routes for soldiers (better than nothing), but all the markings on the map were clustered around entry points into the EZ, where most people-sensible wall-hoppers, the wall-hoppers who lived to come home-stuck to. Her target was in uncharted territory; you couldn't use a flashlight in the EZ, it could be too easily spotted. If you used it outside on the streets, a fly-by over the zone might catch it, or a night patrol on the ground. Use it inside, and you might have to deal with a crazed squatter or monster. Perhaps plural of those last two. And it was almost even too dark for a faunus; inside the EZ, light seemed to be just sucked up and dissolved. Night vision meant low-light vision; the moon usually helped out with that. But absolute dark? No. The only other times she had seen darkness like that was outside various White Fang camps, and the lonely streets of Mountain Glenn. To see darkness like that so close to home, and enveloping Beacon, unnerved her. It was like it was creeping in on her, following her from her youth, at first stealthily, and now boldly.
She thought about the White Fang masks, how they covered a Faunus's glowing eyes; there was a reflective layer over the photoreceptors in her and any other Faunus's eyes. That's why they glowed, like an animals. And that was one of the reasons for the masks. So they could lurk in the darkness… like a monster...
Inside an EZ building, you saw nothing, and maybe heard breathing-until a monster knew you were there.
Then... everything would get real quiet.
She had taken to sleeping with the lights on back in the apartment. She had explained to her few contacts that it wasn't out of fear; she could spend nights in the EZ, and had, but when she got home, she wanted to swathe herself in luxuries, such as her desk lamp.
This was Vale, now.
Wolfe told her to take notes as she walked. They could sell that info. She wanted to smack him in the head, and this want gave her pause. It wasn't so long ago that violence against another person turned her stomach. It didn't matter how slight the attack was; she just didn't like hitting anyone. This distaste helped her make one of the most important decisions in her life, and now, here she was, thinking about smacking somebody in a moment of petty anger. This anger was strong, for some reason. Control over impulses like this had been part of her earliest martial arts training; with the knowledge of how to wage war, came the control of how to use it when necessary.
She could snap his arm if she wanted to. Cut it right off.
She looked at her own arm and flexed her fingers, with something almost like admiration on her face. The amazing mechanics of flesh, the beauty in its design. And how easily it can be destroyed.
"Belladonna?"
"Yeah?"
"You don't gotta mark every single freakin' thing you come across. I get it, I get it. You are the one takin' all the risks, so I ain't gonna push you too hard on it. Just… keep it in mind, okay?"
"Do you have a lot of debts or something?"
"Wha'?"
She repeated the question.
"Whaddya mean?"
"Always on about the money. More than even a greedy man. And I've dealt with some real greedy people."
"Yeah? Well, I don't really trust the know-how of a nineteen year old. Where is that waitress? Doesn't she see I'm empty ovah here?"
"I protested at those mines, Wolfe. And then some. I've been around."
"Yeah, that's nice. Nobody gives a crap. You think you're special or somethin'? Look around, at everyone in here. Who don't have a story to tell? Besides, no matter how much of tough girl you are, ya still in this room sittin' across from me, surrounded by all these other people.
"There's that culture, what is it… maybe Meangerie, somethin' out there, where they say a photo of you is actually a picture of you in your own room, or your general environs. They call what we here in Vale call a personal photo a 'close-up.' That's it! Our idea of a personal picture, or selfie! Just a close-up, to them. Got into an argument with some guy over this, some guy who wanted me to take a picture of him and his girl. Called my take a close-up! Unbelievable! But he goes on to say that you have to judge a person by everything around them, what they surround themselves with, not just their face. What's that worth? He said he wanted the surrounding area to be the focus; it wasn't just a picture of them, it was a picture of where they decided to take their vacation. That's what was going to define them.
"I've always kept that in the back of my head. It sounded pretty smart.
"And now we got you in here with me. And I can't help but think of that picture."
She got up, pushing her hair back to cover Gambol Shroud. Wolfe just laughed at her, but still said, "Take it easy, girl…"
"How much time do we have to get this necklace to the woman?"
"She wants it in two days."
"So I have to go tomorrow. This is nuts…"
Wolfe shrugged, and she turned and left. She felt the stares of several men rolling up and down her back as she walked. Sometimes, and for some things, people don't check your I.D.
\ \ \ / / /
The rest of the night was spent casing the entry she was going to use tomorrow. She stuck to roofs again during her journey, dodging the military police patrols. Violating the curfew was one thing, but doing while armed meant going to the internment camp for a long time; she would be put to work maintaining the wall for the few months it would take for her to be processed by the authorities, and then it was off to the penitentiary, where if her former connections to terrorism were discovered, the world would never hear of Blake Belladonna ever again. There would be nothing her parents could do out in Menagerie; that was too far away to be in the loop with communications out. Did they even know that Beacon had fallen? Nobody in town had any good connections. Weiss wasn't even around, and what the hell could the brat do for her anyway?
No, she fought, Blake had fought, and so had Yang, the three of them together, plus more. Ruby had led a counter attack with some of the others, and then Blake thought about her fight with Adam, and then she refocused on the wall, clearing her mind.
It was a fifty foot climb, but the searchlights were lax here. Two at the very top, and precious few lights along the base. There was the occasional patrol of an armored carrier, headlights splashing up the wall and buildings like breaking waves on a rocky shore, a lone gunner peeping his head out behind a massive machine gun mounted on the top of the vehicle; this man was either the least liked, or the least senior, of the patrol. The night goggles on his head hid his eyes, and made him look alien, a big eyed creature with a twitchy mouth swirling about in a turret like a demented ballet dancer clutching their partner, the long-snouted gun that could split a Grimm in half with sustained fire.
She wasn't going to climb over the wall. Chancing the Chute was the best bet, if it hadn't been closed off yet, or if anything hadn't nested in it, either.
The opening was three feet wide at the base of the wall. A small camouflaged door, covered in debris, that led to a tunnel where the only guidance was a rope. It was a one hundred foot crawl, and there wasn't much air; plus, the Chute didn't go in a straight line. It simply couldn't, because there were foundations, electrical wires, pipes and whatever else under a city's streets. A few holes were poked here and there to let air in, but most of the tunnel ran under the wall itself, which was pretty wide. You couldn't allow yourself to start panicking down in the Chute; you would hyperventilate, and then probably run out of air and die. No one would even know if you passed out in it, at least, not until the next person tried to crawl through and found the body.
Only so many people were allowed to know the Chute existed, and it was smart thinking to let others know you were taking it. It would be a claustrophobic nightmare if one person coming out of the EZ ran into somebody trying to make their way in. Especially if equipment and swag was being hauled. She was one of the privileged few; part of her payment for one excursion into the EZ was being told of the Chute's existence. What a deal.
Speaking of swag, there was no way she could grab too much from the mansion. Three feet wasn't much room to work with; she wouldn't even be able to keep Gambol Shroud on her back. She was going to have to cradle it in her arms again, sort of the same way a soldier cradles their rifle when they drop prone. She had nearly cut her face open one time she used the Chute, when the sword came loose; she had the weapon in her hand, tucked under her, as she crawled forward. A button must have gotten hit or something, because the next thing she knew there was hard steel pressing right on her face, a line of it running down from the corner of her eye to her jaw. She could still remember the metal on her cheekbone, a mix of a strange pressure and pain. She had spent ten minutes pulling the blade away from herself; a sudden move would have ended in a slash up her face.
Another patrol went by, and she stared at the entrance from her viewpoint, hanging from a ledge; Gambol Shroud was anchored into the stone, and she was dangling lazily from the "ribbon" attached to the hilt of the weapon. These patrols never looked up, unless it was straight up the wall. Idiots. Nobody was scaling the wall. Ever. Not one of the entryways into the EZ involved climbing. It was either bribes or sneaking through gates. Nobody was dumb enough to try and climb a sheer vertical face. But the patrols watched it, all the same.
Regardless of this, hanging several stories over the streets while military police patrols arrested anyone violating curfew was not the time or place to suddenly start questioning what you were doing. She was planning on stealing. Like a common cat burglar. She chuckled a bit, and her ears twitched. But she couldn't take her mind away from this trail of thought. What happened? A few months ago, it was schoolwork, a tournament… and a serious investigation into the activities of criminals and terrorists… so, okay, it had been not only stressful events, but all around some very strange things for kids to be getting into, but it was the job they had signed up for. If they didn't know how far, or deep, the rabbit hole was going to go in the beginning, they sure did after trying to stop that train in Mountain Glenn.
But… this? She was working with a common criminal. For… what, exactly? What end goal?
This is what she did. She found things, took things, or broke things quietly. That was her job. She was just doing what she did.
What kind of crap was that. She was hanging off a building planning on subverting a military cordon so she could swipe a bunch of swag from innocent people.
She didn't steal from innocent people. She stole from the wealthy. The people who profit off the sweat of others and think nothing of it. She didn't do what most of the other looters had done, which is just take whatever, from wherever, not thinking twice about it. So this wasn't her planning on stealing from innocent people.
Just because they were wealthy didn't mean they were evil.
But power comes from pilfering it from others.
What about Weiss.
What about every single thing the Schnee family had done up to that point.
But… didn't she leave all this behind her? These thoughts, beliefs? To fight for everyone?
Just do the job.
Don't think about it.
It doesn't matter. Just get the money and bail.
Another patrol vehicle trundled by. She felt she had a good idea on how often they passed now. She climbed her way back up the building, and headed to her apartment.
Back home, she pulled off her old and sweaty clothes, found and prepared the clean clothes for the next night, oiled her weapon, looked how little Dust she had, and then collapsed onto her bed above the covers. She lay face first and barely moved throughout the day. She looked dead. There was nothing glamorous or cute about it. One arm was cocked at a strange angle, bent under her. The other was thrown out, fingers touching the end of the bed. Her breath was labored. Her hair frizzed out over her face, strands getting sucked into the open, gasping mouth. She didn't move through any of it. An insect landed on her back, and bit. Nothing from her. The bug flew off, bloated and pregnant with blood, and warmed itself in the sun rays coming through the window. There were no dreams for the girl in the bed.
The sun dropped and rolled off the edge of the horizon, and the broken face of the moon hobbled back out, casting it's pitiful light once again. She was up, stroking at her arm, then staring at herself in the mirror, and finally a quick shower before dressing and grabbing the Gambol Shroud.
"Time to go to work."
Hanging in the same spot as yesterday, waiting for the next patrol vehicle. The instant it passed, she yanked the grapple free, and the ground rushed up at her as if attacking. It was ridiculous to watch this girl land with bent knees, wearing ankle boots, no less. Such was the power of the huntress; though, admittedly, one of the lamer displays of the power, at that.
Darting across the street in half a second, she threw open the hatch to the Chute and flung herself inside the blackness that waited. The door fell back down behind her, and she took to the long crawl through this earthen throat, constantly bumping her head on the moist dirt ceiling. Small particles kept falling into her cat ears. She had forgotten to the tie ribbon around them, and now felt naked, though there was nobody to see her make this crawl into the belly of the beast. The loose dirt made her shudder. All it would take was one rumble, one too many vehicles to go by, one Grimm to leap down from a roof, and this whole tunnel could collapse. Would anyone ever find her? What would her parents think happened to her?
Due to her strength, she could crawl so much faster than most people, but it still was too long to be under the ground. Blake's shoulders would brush past one of the flimsy wooden supports every once in a while, and each time, she would feel both comforted and nervous. These supports so wouldn't last much longer.
This was it. This was the last time she was doing this. Never again. This was idiotic. If she died down here, buried alive and suffocated, it would just destroy the hearts of whatever friends and family she had left. Outside the tunnel, she thought herself alone and unwanted, but once inside, all the people that would be left behind crowded her mind. All the people left to live in a world without her. No. She was never taking the Chute again. This wasn't going to be like the last time she made this promise during her last trip, or the trip before that. This time, she was serious. Never gain. Last trip through the Chute. Period.
Blake pushed up the trap door on the exit, and looked around. Nothing. No soldiers, no drones, not even a Grimm. It made her nervous. It wasn't natural to see city streets completely empty and quiet. There wasn't even any litter. Movies always showed a newspaper or plastic bag blowing by, but in reality, there needed to be people littering for that to happen. When there was no one left, the litter disappeared, too. It was a still as a painting of an empty city… but it was real. She was there. And it didn't feel right.
Feelings were pushed aside; she got out of the Chute and crouched. No point in waiting for an air patrol or drone. She started to make her way towards her goal.
The buildings seemed to lean over her, not one light in their windows; beasts with a thousand dead eyes, titans of a dying planet flanking her path. Scarred, cracked, and burned, broken glass looking like grinning teeth. These were normal sights. What always freaked her was the buildings that didn't look damaged. That was extra wrong to her. A smashed deserted building made sense; a quiet, normal building with no light or noise at all was too messed up. She tried not to focus on them.
Ugh… walking in these shoes hurt.
This always happened; it was never after a big landing or anything, but a few minutes later, maybe after the adrenaline wore off. The pain would go away soon enough; her poor toes, crammed into the front of the ankle boots. You always wear smaller shoes, that just about fit, and tight clothes, when climbing a fence. The last thing you wanted was to get snagged on something, or trip over your big, dumb feet. Why did she have to wear heels, though? That's what kept getting asked to her back in the day, while she was still training. Since then, she's made a habit of keeping them on. Adam had laughed at her. Blake Belladonna was a stubborn little thing. Her parents had said the same. Always willing to do something in spite. Others in the Fang had chided her, saying that she could wear combat boots, or sneakers, hell, even sandals, not clunky heels that would make noise on hardwood. But she didn't make any noise. She could fox-walk in these, make the balls of her feet hit first, then roll the rest of her foot down. She'd make it work. Because she was as stubborn as an ass. A regular mule, all right.
Feet still hurt, though.
Focusing on that helped keep her from constantly staring up at the windows. If she never looked down and away from them, what was ahead wouldn't be seen. It always helped to have something else to think about when doing this. If you paid attention to every little thing, you would go mad. Start seeing Grimm, soldiers, and looters everywhere. But she was all alone. Just what she wanted.
Two Grimm burst out of a building behind her, snarling and biting pieces out of each other. They landed on the back of a car, smashing in the street. She couldn't tell what the beasts were. Probably Beowolves. They rolled into the street, and then squared off circling each other. She kept moving, deciding against hiding. The beasts might not fight for long; Grimm never did. The things could barely heal, so neither would want to get into a real fight. Or maybe they would. Maybe the fear that hung in this place…
Don't think.
Keep moving.
They can smell you.
Half a block away she shot a grapple up into the side of a building, and then swung herself onto a fire escape. It wasn't until she was off the streets that she dared to turn around and see what happened.
Neither of the Grimm were there.
There was a window next to her, a yawning blackness. She tried not to look into it, and kept scanning the roads, the sides of the buildings. Two whole sets of ears weren't picking up anything at all. The Grimm had just vanished, and she didn't want to move until she knew they weren't right behind her.
It wasn't the two Grimm that worried her. It was the fact that they were almost never alone, especially when threatened; swarms of the monsters were lurking in the buildings. The creatures were much smarter than anyone wanted to give them credit for. If the Atlas military flattened the buildings to get rid of the monsters once and for all, Vale would never forgive them. Not anyone of this Kingdom who learned of such vile tactics would approve. People were always banging on the walls of the EZ, begging to salvage their lives, saying they didn't care if they were ripped down and shredded by the horrors within, they were already finished, their entire lives had been blockaded and sequestered away. Outside, they had nothing, and were nothing, on equal footing with the hundreds of homeless refugees that couldn't escape the Kingdom, cut off from their own countries.
The Grimm were swarming in the buildings, and she felt no envy to all the soldier patrols and the few remaining huntsmen that were going building by building, clearing them out. Though, to be honest, the pace was closer to room by room. The enemy advantage wasn't pure numbers-though there were many Grimm-but the fact that the beasts just kept coming from everywhere. And many huntsmen were needed outside the city as well. This is what she told herself everyday when she remembered she wasn't helping out. But what could a kid like her do, anyway. They weren't letting any of the students help, too. There was nothing she could do.
She wanted to wait ten minutes. She didn't like the open window next to her, but she still wanted to wait. If trouble came, she could swing from grapple to grapple and dive into the Chute. It was far too small for any Grimm to fit inside.
She wasn't going to get ten minutes. Somebody must have heard the Grimm, because a gunship with a searchlight flew right over the wall and started scanning the streets. She slipped into the window, gritting her teeth the further and further she had to back away to avoid the now frantic sweeps of the searchlight. It wasn't too long before the window was quite far from her; her back was now pressed against a wall. She slid to a crouch, and saw a doorway with her faunus eyes, but couldn't see much through it. She needed some light, such as from the moon, to really see on the dark, and in here, there was nothing. The strain on her eyes made her feel like she was pushing them out of her head. They were so dry.
One time when she was an elementary school student, she was coming home from a field trip when the bus broke down completely when on a stretch of country road. The lights wouldn't even come on. The driver and teacher worked at the engine in the dark, but were having trouble seeing anything; they were mostly just pretending to be doing something, killing time until another bus arrived to get them. She took to staring out the window, and remembered barely seeing anything in that fairy tale dark, that dark of nightmares. It wasn't just the humans, but the faunus that thrived in civilization, and once they were out, they might as well as been naked. It didn't matter the animal pride they carried in their hearts; those woods she saw as a child were a place that no person was to go, the very reason that the primal fear of darkness stirred in the very soul of every person. And now she was there again, right in this building, like a frightened eight year old, staring into the pitch black maw of the doorway, waiting for a claw to materialize from the darkness and slit her up from her nose to her toes and then drag her into the depths, leaving nothing to be found.
The searchlights passed on, and she ran back out onto the fire escape. There was nothing in the streets or skies. She grappled back down and continued scurrying from doorway to doorway, now only five blocks from the mansion. It took thirty minutes, and it may have aged her thirty years. Every creak, every rustle, anything that could be a moving shadow was studied, and more than once she drew down the sights of her weapon and rested a finger right on the trigger.
"Is this what you really wanted, Adam?"
Was it possible to hate anyone this much, to deliberately inflict this?
She didn't know what to think of him anymore. She didn't even know if she could stop herself from killing him when the time came. Not since she had seen the aftermath of the attack, had calmed down after the battle and really drank it in. It would take something monumental to calm this feeling inside her.
\ \ \ / / /
The target building was three stories tall and had electricity here and there. Whenever a ship or drone would start to get close the lights would dim inside. She had no idea how they knew that even a drone was getting close. Someone on the roof? Maybe, but she couldn't see them.
There was space, wider alleys, between the neighboring buildings and the target, with a fence around the whole thing. The building looked like it could be commercial, offices, and maybe the top floor was for the family to live. That's probably where she wanted to be. She had no schematics on the place.
An entrance near the bottom floor looked all glass, but it was intact. It was crazy. Any Grimm could make it over the fence real easy; the building wasn't fortified to fend off such an attack. But there it was, now glistening in the rain that had started up, without a single pane broken or marked.
There was no way there could be many working cameras, but already, looking down from the top of a building across the street, there had to be at least four people walking around outside, all with some kind of short wave communication; they kept raising something to their faces. So, they were checking in with one another. All four guards had assault weapons. That wouldn't be enough to keep any Grimm back. She scanned the rook again, and thought she saw a very, very long rifle barrel peeking out over the edge. Still not enough to fortify it. Was there a hunter or huntress inside? Someone that was a free agent, that would take any job? She hoped not.
She was on her stomach, and she slid back and played around on her Scroll, filling in some gaps in the map between the Chute and here. There wasn't much to add, outside some Beowolf sightings and a solitary Ursa. Still, if it was a clearish path, that would be worth something. As long as nobody got killed due to her saying it was marginally clear. She slid the Scroll back into a pocket, and rappelled down to street level.
Crouched in an alleyway, she made sure Gambol Shroud was loaded one last time.
"One…"
The rain dripped off her nose. She pushed some hair back behind her ears.
"Two…"
The fastest way to the third floor would be to get up the building and make her way down from the roof.
"Thirteen…"
A slow approach from the first floor might get her more of an idea of what she was up against. The people inside were definitely pros, and probably equipped to see in the dark. And that was assuming not one of them was a faunus by default.
"Twenty-seven…"
Eight more seconds to make up her mind. She had to be over the fence by forty-three, and either all the way up the roof by fifty-two, or crouched in the bush by the service door by forty-eight, and then find a moment to check the lock.
"Thirty-five…"
Roof.
She bolted, running only on her toes. The rain covered up the little ticking noises her feet made on the pavement.
"Thirty-nine…"
Her breath was still calm. Her legs coiled and she jumped. She didn't touch the fence at all, and flipped herself forwards as she jumped. Her face just passed the top of the fence. As she finished the somersault, still horizontal in the air, her eyes scanned the edge of the roof. No rifle barrel in sight.
She landed in a crouch on the other side of the fence, hoping the rain covered up the sound of the landing.
"Forty-two…"
Gambol shroud out. Grapple sharp and sinister looking, a black fang in her hand. Twenty feet to the wall. She didn't feel steady or all the way stable running in this rain. Ran anyway. Balls of her feet. Rain had to cover the sound. Had to.
Snap of her elbow and wrist, grapple slicing the night air and striking the wall. She jumped and yanked, hurling herself into the air.
"Forty-seven…"
Still in the air. She didn't think anyone was below her. Guard was coming around the corner soon. Yanked out the grapple. Threw it again. Stuck in the wall higher up. Yanked again, kicked off the wall.
"Forty-eight…"
She swore she could hear the person beneath her but there was no way shut the hell up and focus you stupid idiot don't screw up now you're who knows how many feet in the air and surrounded by mercs who were just waiting for a fight. Grapple back out of the wall. Thrown again. She couldn't let them see her making it up the wall.
"Fifty…"
Push off the wall, yank, run up the wall a few steps, but it's wet. Left foot slides. Still got airborne. Had to be enough force to get to the roof.
"Fifty-one…"
Not high enough. Hands full with the grapple, so she throws her weapon up onto the roof. Reaches out her fingers.
"Fifty-two…"
She barely catches the ledge, and starts hauling herself up, scrambling, feet kicking the bricks, making a ton of noise. She wants to yell. Idiot! You knew it was raining!
She rolls onto the roof.
"Fifty-five…"
"...heard a noise…"
The voice was close. Too damn close. Someone on the roof with her.
She looked around, and saw the roof-access door. It's set in an angular entryway, looking like a ramp; the top of a stairwell. She slid on her stomach to the side of it, and presses flat, like she was going to will herself through the solid matter of the roof.
Where was the Gambol Shroud.
That was probably what he had heard. Not her. The blade hitting the roof
Where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it
She could see him easily in the low light, a thing that rose up like a goggled monster out of tar, long tube of rifle in his hands, shaking, headed towards the gambol shroud.
"...looks like a snake…"
He didn't know what it was yet.
Humans and their technology. And she was scared of the dark in the EZ.
She had another ribbon tied around her waist. She loosened it, and began to crawl forward.
The guard was pointing his rifle at the shroud, but then realized there was a scope on his gun. A scope that magnified its target by eight times. And his target was only a couple of paces away. He looked at the scope, and then back at the shroud. One hand started to reach for his pistol, but a sudden wind made the ribbon attached to Blake's weapon twitch. The guard put both hands right back on his rifle, which was now starting to shake even harder.
"Yo, Larry!" It was the guard's radio.
He snapped it up, and hissed back, "Shut the hell up, Lou!"
"What's goin' on up there?"
"I think there's a snake up here with me!"
"What?"
"A snake!"
"Don't you be pointin' that rifle at it!"
"Uh… I'm not."
"Larry…"
"I swear I'm not!"
"A bullet from that thing would blow right through the ceiling down here!"
"I'm absolutely not going to shoot a snake with a sniper rifle right now!"
"I know you hate snakes…"
"It's a really big snake, Lou..."
"I don't give a damn! What the hell, Larry!"
"I said I wasn't gonna shoot it with a sniper rifle!"
"Just… kick it off the edge."
"What?! Hell no!"
"Even a sidearm can go through the roof and hit my butt!"
"Yeah, well, that's your fault that your fat ass doesn't do enough PT. Sittin' down there playin' on dating apps on your Scroll while I'm up here…"
"Screw you! You're the idiot who's gonna shoot a little snake with a sniper rifle!"
"I'm not gonna shoot a snake with a sniper rifle!"
Silence for a beat.
"Lou… it's a really big snake…"
"Goddamnit, Larry…"
"It could be a Grimm!"
"What?"
"It could be a Grimm!"
A sigh. "There aren't any snake Grimm, Larry…"
"Oh, what the hell are you talkin' about! Of course there are! King Taijitu!"
"Are you seriously goin' ta tell me right now that there is a several hundred-foot long storybook snake monster on the roof with ya?"
Another beat of silence.
"It's a seriously big snake, Lou… maybe it's a baby Grimm…"
"How would a tiny snake grow inta somthin' bigger than a friggin' bus, huh?"
The next beat of silence felt even more uncomfortable.
"Am I goin' ta hafta come up there, Larry?"
"No…"
"Are ya sure…?"
"I can do things by myself." Was that a sniffle she just heard? "I am totally fine up here."
Blake stood up and put the ribbon gingerly around Larry's shoulders.
There was an opportunity, and she took it.
Hey, it was a better plan than the first, which was to try and trip him up with the ribbon.
Anyway.
Larry started spinning, making a sound that sounded like, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!" He had the ribbon in one hand, twirling it over his head like a lasso; he was also jumping up and down. He dropped the sniper rifle, and it fired. Blake's eyes felt scorched in the muzzle flash. The bullet traced off and smashed into a window across the street; the damn thing was so hot from the explosion that you could actually see the glowing slug of metal jumping up and down excitedly in the building over there, ricocheting off the brick walls like a kid after they ate up the whole candy store.
"GODDAMNIT LARRY!"
The radio was displeased.
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"
A part of the ribbon had wrapped around his neck, so his head thrashed about, causing the goggles to slide down his face. Now blind, he reached into his hip holster, and dragged out the pistol while simultaneously squeezing the trigger.
Blake dropped, rolled, and grabbed up the Gambol Shroud. There was a flash of lightning, and looking up, she was able to see Larry fully illuminated, pistol now over his head has he twirled and whipped the ribbon about, firing his gun in the air.
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"
There was some rattling at the roof door, and Blake slipped off to the side of it as two more guards burst out, screaming, "LARRY! FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"
She slipped through the still open door and flew down the stairs as fast as she could. Her feet were slipping on the stairs, but there were more pressing matters.
The door at the bottom of the stairs was not locked, and she thanked every god she could think of. Pushing inside, she saw that the third floor was, in fact, living quarters. She was standing in a dimly lit kitchen that was bigger than her whole apartment. She spied an apple on the counter, and pocketed it. It was hard to get a decent apple, these days.
There were two ways out of the kitchen: one led to a dining room where a man was cleaning his pistol, and the other led to some sort of parlor or living room that was empty at the moment. She watched the man cleaning his pistol for a moment, to see if he was going to get up any time soon, and then pushed into the living room.
The sofas and chairs had been set up originally to entertain guests, but now were all pushed to the sides. In the middle of the room was several thin crates of some sort of military equipment, and a big suitcase-looking thing that must have been a computer; it's glowing screen lit up one of the walls. She looked around, and then strode up to it. One of the men who ran to the roof must have been logged into it, because she was able to see an open window with a map of the EZ, full of all kinds of markings: ways in, ways out, Grimm dens, even where every single jewelry store was . Her eyes went wide, and her hands subconsciously pulled out her Scroll and plugged it into the side of the laptop. She went about downloading the map, and started to frantically paw at the interface, pulling up all kinds of lists and files. A long compilation of names of guards that would look the other way if you wanted to get into the EZ. Even the flight paths for airships and drones. That's how they knew when to dim the lights. Holy crap. How did they get all this?
Just who was she messing with? Seriously?
She just started adding more and more into the download queue, not paying attention to what she was grabbing. Names of people in Atlas, emails asking when the EZ was going to be secured and how there was not going to be any pay increases, a list of the guards on duty in the building at the moment, a file on the new "auto-guards" or something, and various situation updates that were locally archived. She opened a few and skimmed them. They spoke of how the targets hadn't been spotted since the first attack, and they weren't expecting to find them at this rate, that the EMP was ready to wipe everything out in case something happened. They had an EMP? Whoa.
The bar was just getting all the way full when she heard people stomping around in the kitchen. She slid underneath one of the couches, closing up her Scroll.
The guards from the roof walked in, and Larry was shaking all over, teeth chattering. He collapsed onto the couch opposite her, and curled up. One of the guards asked what was up with Larry, and he received the reply that Larry hadn't been right since the attack last year; they'd found him underneath an armored vehicle, the rest of his Atlesian Army platoon all killed, torn up by Grimm. This job was the only work he was able to get, because Lou pulled some strings. "He's a hell of a shot, though. Trust me on that. He has his moments, but he's the best we have. Don't tell me about the Grimm bein' around us. You saw what happened to the son… wait, ya saw, right?"
The other guy hadn't, and as Blake was slipping out of the room, into a hallway, she heard that one of "them," (and she didn't hear what the "them," was, or who they were, but probably a Grimm) had just ripped the son right up. Cut in half at the waist, arms, legs a mess, like he'd been drawn and quartered. Blake shut her eyes and pressed on. Awful.
Everyone seemed to be tending to the shivering Larry, because the halls on the third floor were mostly empty. There was the occasional camera, believe it or not. How did they get such serious generators in here? Who they paying?
No, seriously, who were these people.
She found the master bedroom. It was dusty inside, as if the door hadn't been opened in a long time. No one must have been allowed inside. She spied that there was a window she could jump out of, and with a shrug, turned around and locked the door. Sure, they might have a key, more than likely did, but screw it. Her idea was to toss the room. If they tried the door, Blake would have a second to get out the window and figure out if running away or sticking around and fighting was a better idea.
The guards must have been under strict instructions not to sully this room with their boots, because nobody came in while every drawer was torn out, all the clothes were thrown on the floor, the shoes tossed around, and cosmetics brushed off the shelves. The closet was last, and she ripped everything down, knocking on the walls and listening hard until a hollow sound rang out. She pressed one of her cat ears to the wall, and started feeling around near the floor. There. A small button under the rug. When it was stepped on, a part of the wall, maybe a square foot in size, swung out, revealing a combination safe. Her eyes wrinkled, but then relaxed. Blake smiled. Most safes these days made a humming noise, so you couldn't listen to the tumble lock click into place. Putting the cat ear to the door revealed that the safe wasn't getting any power. It was child's play to listen to the lock as the wheel was spun round and round, and finally it was open, and there were three necklaces, several rings, a string of pearls, and even a tiny purse gun with an embroidered barrel. She took everything but the gun, and closed the safe back up.
Looking out the window, she watched the guards patrol the perimeter. She was counting the seconds again, counting their steps. She flung the window open and jumped out, wind in her ears and rain splashing against her smiling face.
She hit the ground outside the fence and rolled; when standing up, a flashlight splashed across her back. Blake just started running, not bothering to look back, and soon she was nothing but a black blur in the rain to them.
\ \ \ / / /
She was shivering uncontrollably when she climbed back in her window. All the goods were stashed on a rooftop; she never kept things like that on her for long, in case the police kicked in her apartment door. They would be grabbed tomorrow, before meeting up with Wolfe.
Except for the Scroll. The risk seemed good enough. After a shower and putting some tea on, she lay on her back, flipping through the information, adding some of it to her own map. She then took the raw files and moved them to a tiny drive. There was no way that Blake was going to hand over all of that information. Especially the information on easy targets to rob.
But the pay would be good if she did.
She sighed and rolled onto her side. One of the first jobs Blake had taken in the EZ was to find a woman's dog. Her late husband had gotten if for her on the first anniversary of their wedding, a little mix breed pup. Blake still remembered how the rain made everything smell outside that coffee shop; it wasn't too different from tonight, actually. She handed the ripped and bloody collar to the woman, who had taken it without a word, and walked away. The woman had disappeared into the crowd, leaving Blake standing there. There was nothing in those kinds of jobs, no elevated sense of morality, and nothing monetary.
But there was no way in hell she was going to give up all that information.
She tossed the scroll away, and fell asleep as the sun was coming up.