Chapter One: The Robbery
Morgan POV
On a dark and lonely night in Vale City, a teen of seventeen was walking through the city streets. This teen had an air of strength and power about him. He wore dark red plate armor on his torso, shoulders and arms. He wore a lighter red leather jacket and pants under the armor. On his belt was a sheathed sword.
The teen had a shock of unruly reddish brown hair from which two orange and black tiger ears were showing. An orange and black striped tiger tail was also swinging behind him. His ears were flattened against his skull in apparent annoyance and his golden eyes scanned the multitude of closed storefronts, looking for something.
As he walked, he stretched and yawned. "Damn. Can't believe every single shop's closed. Load of bullshit." he said finally.
He removed his scroll from his pants' pocket and opened it, browsing through it absentmindedly. As he looked through his scroll, he heard a commotion. He looked up.
He saw a bunch of white suited goons robbing a shop called From Dust Till Dawn. The teen became very annoyed. "Really? You have got to be fucking kidding me. The only Dust shop I like in this shithole is being robbed? Fuck." he griped.
He contemplated just moving on and going back to his apartment. After all, wasn't his business that the human's shop was getting robbed. But he was one of the few humans who didn't piss the teen off and he didn't discriminate against Faunus.
"Damn it." he hissed as he walked up to the goons. "Hey. Get away from the shop and return the Dust you stole." he commanded.
The leader of the goons, a woman in a form fitting white bodysuit, turned to him. "And who are you, boy?" she demanded.
"Name's Morgan Rubrum. You?"
The woman laughed and shook her head. "I'm not surprised you don't know who I am. But you've wondered into an operation far above your paygrade. Not that you'll recognize the name, but I am Chatte Blanc. Men! Eliminate this pest." she said.
At her command, the goons stopped what they were doing and converged on Morgan, drawing swords and knives. The Faunus teen grinned, however. "You think these low level grunts are gonna kill me? Well, you clearly don't know who you're dealing with." he stated.
He launched himself off the ground, reached the first goon in less than a second and roundhouse kicked the poor bastard into the brick wall across the street, where he crashed with enough force to leave a small crater. Morgan straightened and looked back to Blanc. "You sure you wanna tangle with me?"
Blanc looked bored. "Really? You kick a goon into a wall and think you're hot shit? How about this: whoever can bring me this kid's head gets their cut for today's operation tripled!" she called out.
That got the grunts moving. After Morgan's display, they were hesitating but it seemed that their greed overrode their sense of self preservation. The remaining twenty goons rushed the Faunus teen with weapons drawn and murderous intent.
By the time the first grunt reached him, however, he was already gone. They looked up and saw he had jumped into the air. He thrust his hands forward, unleashing a massive gout of flames that took out about half of the goons.
He landed lightly on his feet and settled into a battle stance, raising his fists to guard his face. "It's gonna take a helluva lot more than that to kill me. Try to do better, huh? I want an actual challenge." the teen taunted. He detached his sword and sheath from his belt and tossed it to the shopkeep, who was watching all of this go down.
"Would you take care of that for me, old timer? I want to make this more interesting." he requested while putting his guard back up.
The remaining mooks rushed him and Morgan easily dodged all of their strikes. Some of them got close to hitting him when they aimed for his tail but he moved it at the last second and rewarded their "cleverness" by slapping them away with it.
After toying around with them for a couple more minutes, Morgan got bored and effortlessly brought down the last ten goons in a single strike.
When he looked back toward Blanc, she looked ready to either explode and/or kill. Either way, Morgan thought her expression was priceless. "I asked if you were sure you wanted to tangle with me. I'm not just some kid, you know." he smirked.
Blanc narrowed her eyes. "I guess if you want to kill someone properly, you have to do it yourself." she growled as she drew dual daggers from her belt.
Morgan grinned. "Hey, shopkeep! Gonna need that sword back now." he called out.
The old man obliged him by tossing back the sheathed sword, which he caught. He unsheathed the sword and attached the sheath to his left forearm and it unfolded into a shield. He settled back into his battle stance and the two combatants began circling each other.
As they did so, Morgan took stock of Blanc's appearance. She was tall and willowy, not appearing too strong but Morgan knew appearances didn't mean shit when it came to strength. She had waist length silver hair tied into a ponytail and gleaming silvery-grey eyes. Her white bodysuit was leather and zipped low to accentuate her… womanly features, likely to distract male opponents. What Morgan found interesting, however, was the pair of snow white cat ears on the top of Blanc's head.
"You're a Faunus but your goons are human. How come?" he asked.
Blanc snarled. "I don't have to tell you shit, boy. I just need to correct the mistake of said underlings of failing to kill you."
Morgan chuckled. "You'll find that's not an easy task."
Blanc snarled again and rushed Morgan, daggers swinging. He raised his shield to block the strikes and was surprised when he slid back a foot. "Damn! I can feel some actual power behind that. Which Academy did you go to?"
Blanc growled. "Shut up, shut up!" she yowled as she side kicked Morgan's shield, sending him flying. He crashed into the same wall he kicked the goon into earlier. The force of the impact made his shield fall off the magnet that was keeping it on his bracer.
The teen struggled to his feet. He looked down at his shield. "That thing never manages to stay on for an entire fight, does it? Oh, well. Don't need it anyway." he said as he rushed Blanc and slashed at her midsection. She backflipped away. Morgan kept advancing, aiming haphazard attacks toward Blanc and she kept dodging or batting his attacks away.
He snarled as his attacks were so easily dodged. He aimed another slash at Blanc, which missed of course, before backflipping away from the engagement. He unbuckled the straps on his armor and stripped it off.
Blanc looked at him incredulously. "You're taking off your armor? I'm assuming you want to lose?" she jeered.
"No, I wanna win. Damn hunks of metal are just slowin' me down." He jumped up and down, warming up and testing his speed. "Oh, that's much better! All that metal really weighs a guy down, you know?" Morgan settled back into his battle stance.
Blanc rolled her eyes and settled into her own battle stance.
Morgan rushed Blanc again, much faster after he stripped off his armor. He launched a flurry of slashes toward her midsection but she was still easily dodging his attacks. "For fuck's sake! How are you so fucking fast?!" he snarled.
Blanc smirked smugly. Morgan kept on slashing and hacking toward the woman, making zero headway to actually hitting her. Morgan felt a familiar heat rise up around his hair and hands as his anger and frustration rose. He dropped his sword, trying to lose as much dead weight as possible to gain as much speed as possible.
He attempted to grab Blanc to keep her in one place so he could actually hit her but she kept dodging. The teen felt steam rise off his hands and hair as he became angrier and angrier. "Get back here!" he roared. He started launching fireballs from his hands in order to hit her while on the move but she twisted out of the way at the last second.
He caught up to Blanc for a second and went to punch her but she roundhouse kicked him in the ribs, sending him flying into another brick wall. He pulled himself out of the crater and glared at Blanc, molten gold eyes shifted to red. He flung his head back and roared into the night sky, yellow flames erupting out of his hands and hair, bathing the dark streets with a warm glow. He rushed Blanc yet again and managed to punch her square in the jaw and sent her flying into another storefront.
The now flaming teen walked slowly towards the cat woman. His punch had dazed her and she was shaking it off when Morgan grabbed her by the collar and hoisted her up to his eye level. He slammed her into the wall and started punching her in the face with all his might. Repeatedly. It wasn't long before he felt her Aura shatter but he kept going. He felt the bones in her face fracture and her blood sizzling away on contact with his flaming fist.
He raised his fist to punch her again when he felt an invisible force throw him into yet another brick wall and knock him out of Berserker Mode. He rubbed the back of his head as he pulled himself out of a wall for the third time that night.
"Ow, ow, ow! Fuckin' hell, I'm real tired of gettin' slammed into brick fuckin' walls." he griped. He looked toward Blanc and saw one Professor Goodwitch looking over her.
"Hey, Professor. What brings you here tonight?" he called out.
She turned her hawkish gaze toward him. "I heard something about a Dust robbery in progress and when I investigate, I find you here trying to murder the perpetrator. May I ask why you have decided to nearly kill Chatte Blanc?" she demanded.
Morgan raised his eyebrows. "You know this chick?"
Goodwitch rolled her eyes. "Not personally, no. But I do know that Chatte is the second in command of a notorious crime syndicate called Le Syndicat Blanc. They mostly deal in Dust and advanced technology. But that is beside the point. You haven't answered my question, Mr. Rubrum." she explained.
He shrugged. "She robbed the only Dust shop I like in this city, set her goons on me and pissed me off. She dead?"
Goodwitch narrowed her eyes. "Luckily for us both, no. If she was, you'd be tried for murder, you'd lose your spot at Beacon, the police would lose a lead and I would have to file even more paperwork than I already have to. Why were you even out here the night before the first day of term?"
"I was hungry and my fridge was empty. Speaking of which, I'm still hungry." he said.
Goodwitch rolled her eyes again. "Of course you are. There should be a Mistral place down the block that's still open. Make sure you don't get into any more trouble, alright?"
He picked up his armor and weapons and started walking toward the place that Goodwitch indicated and waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, I got it."
As he walked down the street, he sensed someone watching him. He whipped around, drawing his sword. "Hey! I know you're there, dumbass! Sneakin' up on me ain't a good idea, ya know!" he called out.
He heard a chuckle to his left and turned to face it. "Rather observant, aren't you?" the source of the laugh said. It was a woman very similar looking to Blanc, only slightly older, in a white suit and with a fluffy dog's tail.
"You've proven to be quite the thorn in my side. You've taken down my sister and stopped tonight's operation. If she was a crucial part of my plans, you would die here and now. However, I have more important things to do than to waste my time with you. But I'm warning you now: interfere with my plans again and I will not hesitate to kill you. Good evening, Mr. Rubrum." she said before leaping away with a speed Morgan couldn't currently hope to match.
He stared at where she disappeared and vowed to find this woman again.
AN: It is finally done! I want to know what you guys think of this chapter! What I did right and wrong, all that jazz.
So, who is this mysterious dog tailed woman and who is Le Syndicat Blanc? Review and let me know what you think! Until the next chapter!