Ire.
Rewrite as of 26th Nov, 2018.
Summary: A moment meeting between two once friends. Tag: After the War AU, fallen heroes, bad end, somewhat friendship, probably a oneshot.
Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to the blessed Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. What happens inside this story, if matches with future story lines, are only coincidental - and hopefully will never happen at all.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions..."
"Nice to meet you here."
"You have some guts coming here."
A dull sound of empty glass placed on the counter, metal screeching on wood. Another dull thud, accompanied by a tired groan. The man unclasped his sheathed sword from his hip, placing it down on the floor, a plea for truce, although still well within arm's reach. Gauntleted hand gestured for a shot of whiskey, the bartender nodding before pouring the man in plate armor a stiff short glass of whiskey.
"Guts? I have that a lot." The man, however, took that as as much a welcome he would get. Criss-crossing scar tissues running all the way from his chin past his right eye morphed into a 'pleasant' smile that wouldn't seem too out of place on a galliator's face. "So... how's it been going?" The huntsman started.
The television in a corner of the small bar droned on, its flickering screen and the pour of liquor into glass the only source of sound in the room. A news section about the strings of disruptive protests in various Outer Colonies demanding more autonomy, demilitarization and a renewed inquire into the Solitas Defense Complex, and the deployment of Peacekeepers to rein in the protest. Tension slowly built as the silence prolonged to an unhealthy degree.
"Aren't you supposed to be on work, General? A workaholic as you surely wouldn't just pick a Monday of all days for a drink at the bar." The huntress finally spoke, coldly, a flash of silver fires flaring from beneath her dark hooded cloak at the word 'work'. A subtle warning. Irritated and annoyed.
"Thanks for the compliment, but no. I've been getting a few days off." The man shrugged, brushing off her non-physical glare. Still wearing that implacable smile on face, gold arrows on badge shone just briefly when he put his now empty glass down. "Comm'on, you haven't answered the question."
"Crap, apprently." Another glare, not too subtly telling the older, scarred man whose fault was that. Of all the days...
Jaune Arc called for another shot of whiskey, before sliding on the counter top the glass he recieved to the woman. Another non-subtle glare, ire rising at the transparent attempt to bribe her (but she took the glass regardless.)
A low grumble was all her reply to his smirk.
Silence. The bartender cracked open a new bottle, refilling each of their empty glasses.
"You drinking again?" The smirk tugged downward to a half-frown.
"As do you." A quiet grunt, eyebrows twitching when the woman found her voice softening for just a fraction.
"Time changes, I guess." The smile hardened for just a bit. Gauntleted hand brought up the glass of burgundy liquid, blue eyes melancholic, a brief moment of warmth as the icy sheet over them was temporarily melted away by the wine.
"Time, huh." The woman slowly said, finger stirring the glass of whiskey before emptying it down again.
Silence. The television droned on and on, images on screen changing to the upcoming 10th Victory Day Anniversary, and the 21st Memorial of Amity's Fall. A celebration was sure to commence them, along with a few heart-felt speeches rehearsed every year. She was uninvited.
"How did you find me?" A sip of the amber liquid. Her silver eyes glanced up at the glowing TV screen.
"I was in town." He shrugged. Not exactly an answer, they noted.
Luck, the man thought. And Time.
Yang, the woman thought. Or Oscar.
Cloth squeaked on glass, polishing dull crystal. The silent bartender diligently continueing his job in silence as his only two customers brooded over their drinks.
"It's been a few years." He spoke.
"It has." She said, jaws and fist clenching for just a moment. A decade. Almost long enough for some axes to be burried, some hatred forgotten. Almost.
"Do you still hate me?" The man exhaled. Ever since that day.
"Do I?" That day. She asked, gritting her teeth at the living, still-breathing reminder of someone that was once her friend.
The past buried, ires rose. A civil war snuffed from the wombs with blood, heated arguements with blades drawn. Bridges were burned and spat on, when each went their way with inferno raging inside over the burning cinders of friendship without ever looking back.
"It's... different," the commander said. The smile was no longer there. It was not really there in the begining. "Fighting other human and faunus."
"Let me guess; the bodies, the dead, the wounded, the calls for help that echoed in blood-curling screams. Souls fading to dusts and the blood staining your hands that does not." The Silver-eyed said in a voice for a long second was filled with contempt and disdain, before they had faded away into pity. "Too many, right?"
"And blank, dead eyes that searched for the slightest glimpse of hope, never to find any." He drained his glass of whiskey in one short gulp. "Too many. And it never gets any easier."
"Easier." She mouthed out the words. "For me, it has."
The droning noises of the news station continued, white noise playing in the background. The channel was now reporting on the mysterious disappearance of a local gangleader, now finally found strung up on a tree and mutilated beyond all recognization - only recognized by his chopped-off head sewn back on his body, among with piles of evidence of the dead man's wrong doing at his feet. The man glanced up, and listened to the ghastly news with rapt attention, brows knitted before he looked down at her, who was looking down at her near-empty glass, and a wordless 'Ah.' escaped his throat.
"A bit excessive, don't you think?" Jaune Arc finally said.
"You of all people don't get to judge me." She coldly hissed, sitting up straight.
"No, not judging." The man huffed, the jagged, crisscrossing scars on the man's right cheek morphing into a smile again. "Just commenting. And wondering what he did to receive the... 'me-treatment.'"
Somehow, she couldn't keep a glint of amusement from showing on her lips at his words - before the woman growled, glaring. But it was too late, and the man was smiling even harder now. Before a dark chuckle came from her lips, a small desire to wipe it off his.
"Nothing as bad as you did, I assure you..."
"Hmph. I don't doubt that." He shrugged, but the hardening of his laugh was enough for her. "What did he do? Trying to rob you? Some drug baron? Or was he a cultist?"
"Slaves." She gritted out the single word. "He traded in lives. And now, he has paid in his." The woman's eyes bore into the general's like twin drills as she slowly spoke. "Women. Children, Jaune."
The man visibly stiffened at the words she stressed out, his eyes glazing like curtains slamming shut, the blue surfaces once more frozen emotionless like Atlas ice, staring right back at her burning orbs of silver fire. "...It seemed like the right thing to do, then."
"'Right?'" She spat, her teeth bared back in a snarl at the callous, empty words full of indifference and self-delusion said by the man. The change was not unexpected, they both knew it would come to this. Her fists shook as her lungs drew in a strained, painful breath, trembling as it struggled between the torrents of emotions within her. "Do you call it... Right...?" She hollowly repeated, her eyes daring him to say 'yes.'
The man's stared at her, and nodded. "If it's what's necessary... then yes."
The huntress snarled, shooting off the barstool with such force that it toppled backwards onto the floor with a resounding thud. The man tensed, rising slowly from his seat while the bartender behind the bar shakily reached under his counter, before he was pinned in place when two pairs of eyes glowing with aura snapped to him. The shotgun and shells fell from his hands as he all but tripped and fell backwards onto his end, clattering a few times as the frightened man clambered backwards until his back touched the hard surface of the liquor cabinet.
"U-uh... Please... Don't wreck m-m-my bar...?" The bartender squeaked out, trembling on the spot under the blistering intensity of the gazes focused on him. The Red Reaper's and the Butcher of Vytal's.
The two pairs of eyes, however, furrowed at the man's fearful reaction and tore away from him, meeting, and snapped away again. Aura fire winked out, to the eternal relief of one very unlucky man.
"'Right'..." The woman verbally spat out the word, a look of utmost disgust and contempt on her face. "Are what I did 'right', Jaune? Bribery and blackmail, planted evidences and bullets under pillows, agreements made with knives pressed to throats? People disappearing in the night and assassinations, slit throats and corpses riddled with bullet - a complete betrayal of the Huntsman's Oath?" She said angrily, her hands balling into fists. "Do you call it 'right', the high-powered anti-material round that ended preemptively Madison's May Uprising, Jaune? Do you call that 'right' too, or are you going to explain to me why those are 'necessary'?"
"No... I wouldn't. But it certainly is better than kicked down doors in the middle of the night, my soldiers filing in with zipties and black bags or guns blazing. It is absolutely better than what happened that day." The general pointed out in a terse tone, making no movement even as the huntress reached down and lifted Crescent Rose up, the act making the beleagued barkeep again squeaking out in fright. "Don't you think so too, Ruby?" He spoke, unfazed even as he stared down the gaping blackness of the rifle's barrel.
"Ha, 'better.'" The woman shook her head, a humourless, painful smile twitching upwards on her lips. "Do you really think that being 'better' than a mass-murderer... ah, no, a hero like you would wash it all away so easily."
"You haven't answered my question, Ruby." There was a click as gun's hammer cocked back. There was silence as their eyes stared, blues and silvers, resolves clashing to see whom will blink first.
It could be said that neither did, but the truth was that one already had, since a long time ago.
"Yes. Yes, it's worth it." Ruby finally spoke. "It's worth sending myself, my innocence to damnation even if I can save the live of one other who deserves it." Her lips quivered, her silver eyes burning with the cinders of something he could recognize. Contempt. Hatred unbriddled, directed at them both, as her hand trembled, her finger pulling tighter and tighter on the cold metal trigger until it was a hairline's breadth away from firing. "I understand it now, why you did it. Are you happy now? Now that I'm as much a monster as you?"
"No. No, I never thought so." His tightly gritted jaws unclenched, as he shook his head. "Not for a single second." Jaune stated again, his voice softened, if just marginally, as the shadow under his eyes pulled away to reveal a rare moment of his true self slipping through the cracks of his mask. "But I know that you gave them a choice. You always do. I did not."
There was a spell of silence, before a broken laugh came from the hoarse throat of the huntress.
"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" Ruby clicked her tongue, brows furrowed chiding the mere thought he suggested. "That instead of me sending pawns to their deaths like your and Weiss and Oscar's 'grand' chess game versus the Great Evil, I go by myself and give the pawns a chance to walk themselves out of the board?"
"Yes. Because anyone can see that you're lying." The man said, his eyes boring back into her silvers. "It hasn't got any bit easier on you."
A moment passed, before the Aura faded away with a fizz. Without a word, the gun fell from his forehead to hanging limply by her side, and the huntress lifelessly slumped down at the feet of the drinking counter, not even bothering to pick up her fallen seat or sit on another one. Leaning on Crescent Rose for support, bangs of hair covered her eyes staring unfocusedly at the floor. Again, she couldn't do it. Just like the last time.
The still standing general turned to the bartender, who knew what he had just heard shouldn't. The man in question gulped as the general's eyes narrowed just briefly, his hand reaching inside his coat pulling out something that gleemed with metal. The general frowned, and tossed it to the petrified man. The bartender blinked, looking down at the blue-green credit chip, and back up at the standing man whose eyes were rolling exasperatedly as he called for two more drinks. And for him to make himself scarce. Which the man gladly did.
Before with a wordless sigh, the man pushed his own stool aside, and sat down on the feet of the counter next to her. She felt him did, but did not pull away. The man passed her a glass. Her hand squeezed before taking a sip from the glass.
The hands of the clock on the wall turned, as the room was now only them.
"...I hate you." She growled out, after some time. The half-empty glass hanging limply in her free hand shook, before going still again.
"I know." The man sighed, a trace of regret almost slipping into his voice.
Her voice softened to a whisper. "I loved you."
"...I know." And regret did. Tears prickled at the corner of the Reaper's eyes.
"Then why."
"...I..." the man opened his mouth.
'-I will not let Remnant burn again because of your weakness!' Metal rung with every strike, faces inches from one another over the clash of steel. Burning hot tears fell, red with the ashes of a burning city, a glacial and holocaust-like fire just like the man's reflection on their blade-locked arms. It was right. It was necessary.
'Not burn?! You call this- Not burning?!' Her voice was raw and unbriddled with cinder-red ashes, as petals of flame fell before their eyes. Fire reflected in the man's blue eyes, and for a brief second his arms faltered- And it was completely wrong.
He blinked, feeling the warmth of a hand cupping his face. Not strong enough to be a punch, not iron claws trying to gourge out his eyes, unlike then. Just a hand, pale and calloused yet surprisingly soft, slowly turning his head to face her, her silver eyes turned to face him, gazing, hand examining, tracing over the scars on his face. A deep, discolored and horrific gourge that ran from his chin vertically upward, running over his right eye and all the way into his dusty, matted blond hair, criss-crossed with dozens of smaller cuts, and she felt the slickness of blood running through red-tinted shards of glass from a shattered visor, cherry blossoms splattering into the air as her fist kept coming down and down.
The minute tremble in her hands were almost unnoticeable.
"You still keep the scar I gave you." She spoke, on her face a small scowl torn between guilt and scorn.
"I deserved worse."
"Maybe." You are. Already.
The hand fell from his face.
"Why are you here, Jaune Arc? Surely you are not here only to deliver an 'I'm sorry', are you." The woman's fell back to the wooden boarded floor. There wasn't any hostility left in her voice, ire nor contempt.
The man's eyes darkened, and closed. Her hands clutching Crescent Rose tightened. His mouth cracked opened, and came from them was a monotonous, tired voice, rueing and hesitant of what he was about to say.
"You're right. We... Weiss requires your... no, the Red Reaper's service." Her head drooped further, from her throat coming something between a pained, expectant snort and a hollowed out sob. Of course they did, they all came to her for the same reason. The cuffs of her hand wiped across her face, and she stood up from the floor. She held out her hand to him, which the general took and looked up to her face, the pale, inscrutible blank shadowed by the dim light of the room. He pulled out from beneath his overcoat a beige envelope, and - doubt filled his eyes for a brief, almost unnoticable second, before he shook it off and wordlessly held the envelope out to her.
Unsealing the envelope revealed a folder of files, attached to its front a few ledgers' worth of names, addresses, weekly schedule and security details. Summing up to more than 30 listed targets, more than a third of those Council members and other such politicians. Her eyes glanced up unblinkingly at the general, and the man only nodded, telling her to keep reading.
Turning to the folder, her gaze first fell on, and paused before the omnious 'TOP SECRET' stamped in big, crimson letters on its front. Quickly flipping through the pages, it started unassuming enough with a brief note on the current situation in Vacuo, which was followed by intelligence reports and graphs, statistics of population groups and cost-analysis models of prediction, obscenely large figures of number intermitten between them and repeated 'Confidential's and 'Level-8 Scenario', 'Contingency' and other such jargons that she could scantly understand yet began to build up an ugly picture in her mind. Before her breath caught, her eyes briefly widening on her impassive face when what came after became that of a list of military units, deployment schedules, strategic objectives listing civillian targets, of those that bears the possibility of harboring rebels, and understanding surged to her mind as she linked it all together. Fingers clutching onto the files dug into its back cover, silver eyes darting up to meet the man's iron-hard gaze - before she reread it all over again and again, paper flapping in a blur as her blank mask was replaced by disbelief, and anger.
"This is..."
"Operation Contingency." The man spat the word 'Contingency' out with as much disdain and venom as he could muster. "The Council wants to send a message: No 'Rebels' will be tolerated, and they will be dealt with. Whether they are a rebel or not."
The woman's eyes fell on the stack of file again, at the numbers and cold-blooded calculus adding up to represent what is at stake. No words came from her gaping mouth, as her ears rung with the sounds of Bullhead cutting through the sky of Vale, and a wailing siren that would not stop. No, as she looked into his eyes she could tell the sounds rung in both of their ears, the knight's and the huntress'. What had happened, and what will happened. Another mere footnote upon the list of atrocities commited in this Game. Just how many more there would be?
A hard swallow. A shaky breath drawn inwards, silver eyes glanced up at blue ones facing her. "And what shall you do if it pass, General?"
The man's eyes shuttered and reopened, and gone was any light, warmth or scant of emotion in them. Like a flipped switch, the knight was gone to be replaced by the cold, unfeeling general, and his voice pulled her from her trance, leaving the question unanswered. "What the Council requires of me."
"Of course." Ire arose once again in the woman's chest. "You have always been the Council's lapdog, after all."
If it had brought anything out of the general, he made no reaction. His unrelenting stare held on her unmovingly, and he continued in his monotonous voice. "...Councilor Schnee is trying to delay it, but her veto has been overriden by the unanimous approval from the rest of the Council. As of now, High Councilor Goldstein has set the motion to be passed on..." He briefly paused, glancing at the news on the TV before his cold blue gaze settled on her. "On the eve of the 30th. Approximately thirteen days, 6 hours and 50 minutes from now."
"Amity's Fall." The huntress spoke, her voice a mere whisper speaking outloud in the silence of the room.
There was a soft crunch as her nails bit through the cover of the folder.
She closed her eyes. Very ponderously, her white-clenched fingers uncurled, releasing the lump of scraps of paper and bits of plastic in her hands.
"And what..." Her teeth gritted. The bitter, ashen words rolled off her tongue. "What... service do you require, General?"
Cold blue eyes settled on her. They both knew what was coming out. "Stop the vote. Make sure it does not pass. How you choose to do it depends on you." The general commanded briskly, cold and distant. "However, try to keep it clean, or at least limited if possible. Anything too overt can jeopardize its' success, or result in critical mission failure.
"Noted." A curt grunt.
"If you accept, a down-payment of 3,000,000 lien will be deposited to accounts of your choosing. The rest of the payment, which will be your to decide, could be transmitted incognito through the SDC-Net after completion, or arranged to be passed over directly through a future meeting. Or else, you can make it a favour, what ever fits you-"
"Goldstein."
The general blinked, taken back by her sudden declaration. "What? The High Councilor?"
"...Alexander Goldstein. That will be my only price." She slowly repeated, her eyes reopening glowed with an icy firmness that left no room for concession. There was a quiet thud, as what's left of the black folder fell onto the floor, and caught fire, a smokeless silver flame that spreaded to the rest of the scraps on the wooden floor, but did not spread any further, simply consuming every trace of the document, folder and files whole.
"He will pay for what he has done." The woman simply spoke as aura faded from her light-coated hand. The General's jaws was set in stone as he fell deep into thoughts. Silver flame flickered in the two pairs of eyes as they watched it burn under their feet, before their gazes met again.
"What you are asking of me..." He slowly said, his eyebrows furrowing at what is being demanded of him.
"Is not treason." There was a glint of something dangerous in her silver eyes accompanying her lips' twitched upward serenely. "You are not doing anything. All I want... is for you to do exactly nothing when the time comes, Jaune. Just a few minutes. And besides..."
Silver stared into blue. The smile became a dark and terrible grin. "...Isn't this the best message to the parties concerned, that there would never be a repeat of that day?"
Further silence lasted between them two, as the crackling flame slowly winked out, silver flames reflected in their eyes withering and died once there was nothing left, not even scorch marks. But the embers in their eyes still glowed hot as their stares faced the other's head-on. Before, finally, the man's eyebrows eased into a peeved look, his lips morphing into a humourless, resigned smile.
"You do understand that once the shot has been fired, I will be ordered to hunt you down, don't you."
"Let's make it a good show for them, then. Oh, and do tell Weiss I'd like a word with her later. Personaly." The grin widened on the Reaper's face as they nodded, simultaneously. The man held out his hand, which she took. A faintest smile reached their lips as they shook hand, feeling her smaller, slender hand be clasped in his big, warm hand. And held there, an old feeling of longing thought lost to time. The moment ended as soon as it came, however, when their hands fell from where they were linked back to their respective places. Jaune Arc nodded, for one more time, before he scooped down and picked up Crocea Mors to leave.
Floorboards creeked as he walked past her. The woman pulled the cowl of her cloak back on, and breathed, once more finding solace in the cover of shadows.
"Contingency." Ruby suddenly spoke up after the leaving man, her eyes not moving from where the man had stood before. "You wrote it, didn't you?"
The man halted on his feet.
"Yes. I wrote a Contingency." He sadly said, confirming her doubts. "But someone proposed a Conspiracy, and now I've brought it to you."
For a moment, Jaune stood still and quiet, spine straightened and head risen tall like he was expecting something, fighting back agaisnt some unseen force pushing him down. In the end, nothing came, and his shoulders sagged. The great knight crushed under the weight of the uniform on his back, to become a hollow shell of his very self. And from his throat escaped a quiet whisper, a quiet plea to his old friend to do something he couldn't.
"Stop it, Ruby. Lest that day comes to repeat again." He glanced back at her for one last time, his furrowed brows speaking of something else that he wanted to say, before he decided agaisnt it. And stepped forward, pushing on the twin doors of the bar with a creek.
"I wonder why you do this, unlike so many other times, but... Thank you." Ruby tentatively said after the back of the retreating man, her eyes much more gentle than what either of them had expected or imagined. Jaune halted on his feet again, looking back to her with wide eyes. "For trying to do something."
His eyebrows furrowed again. But this time, he didn't try to hide it, and came to his scarred and worn face was what amounted to a crestfallen smile.
"I made a mistake, Ruby. I'll do whatever it takes to fix it."
The wooden doors of the bar swung open and closed. The woman stared at where the man had disappeared through, leaving her all alone once more in the bar.
As do I, Jaune. As do I.
"...But at the end of day, all that matters are your actions."
A/N: So... yeah. This happened. A... bitter take on what could happen in the future of Remnant, a what if of fallen heroes, casted away principles and the cold, blank shells worn to protect one from the coldness of those Grimm nights. And a bit of cinders of love lost to the ages.
Personally, I was finally satisfied with it, mostly, after so damn long. More than a year, actually.
Well, tell me what you guys think of it, please? Whether it's good, bad, so-so-ish, all constructive criticisms are welcomed!
Cheerios! And the best of thanks to my friend/beta Sandiitos96!
-P
Edit: Maybe this won'r just be a oneshot, maybe!