Author's Note: This is my first one-shot and it gets a little brutal at the end. It features Geist and Robert Cobalt.
ANIMAL CONTROL
One and a half years ago
Town of Scot
It was the night of the full moon. The night was remarkably clear and with it being a Friday, many men and women were on their way home after nights on the town. Through them passed one man, and the rest parted around him like the sea around a rock. No one wanted a thing to do with him.
/
Geist strolled through Scot smiling with amusement as people flinched away from him, some even saw him coming and crossed to the other side of the road. The natives of Scot knew exactly who the half-skull was, and no one would mess with the leading enforcer of the "man in black". Not even militiamen were willing to tangle with the man. He had a reputation after all. One that involved such things as people disappearing without a trace, opponents being gutted and left to die while holding their own intestines in their hands, and most terrifying of all, at least to the militiamen, it was said that he had a personal habit of "humanizing" faunus who dared to oppose him.
If anyone had been brave enough to get close to him they would have seen that he was actually walking with a slight limp. Someone had managed to hurt the untouchable that night, not that anyone would ever know about it. After all, only Geist had survived the encounter.
/
Earlier that night
Geist smirked to himself as he approached the house. This was where the only loose end from his plot earlier this year was staying. After all he couldn't let the man convince others that the young Lady Violet was untrustworthy. That simply wouldn't do.
No, the young noblewoman would be the one to lead the fuanus, but she wouldn't begin doing so until the time was right for his master. And that meant The White Fang had to be dealt with first. So for now he had to make sure no one could ruin her reputation. After all, that would be Geist's job in the coming years.
As he advanced on the house he could see movement through at least two of the darkened windows. So he hired himself some protection. That is as adorable as it is irrelevant. No hired security forces had ever been able to challenge him and they wouldn't start now.
He walked up to the front door, and then he did the last thing they would expect an assassin to do. He knocked. He heard movement inside and after about thirty seconds a man wearing an expensive suit answered the door. The man was obviously a bodyguard, he was built to look intimidating and that was the hallmark of smart bodyguards and bounty hunters both. If you can scare the would be attacker enough you wouldn't even have to fight. The other hallmark of good security was, of course, being able to fight if someone called their bluff.
When the bodyguard saw the mask he knew the bluff had already failed, so he immediately defaulted to fighting. He went for the gun hidden under his jacket, but Geist was faster. He channeled his semblance and his cloak billowed over his shoulders and enveloped the man's head. The bodyguard struggled for a moment and then went limp. As his body fell the cloak returned to its position hanging at Geist's back.
Giest drew his swords and stepped into the room, knowing it was a trap. He planned to trigger it. As soon as he crossed the threshold the rest of the bodyguards opened fire. But Geist wasn't there anymore. He had already rolled forward, and as he came out of the roll he beheaded the guard who had posted himself just inside the door. The other four were spaced out around the room. They now had a clear shot on him, or so they thought.
Before they could fire the man closest to Geist suddenly lost his grip on his rifle. The weapon hovered in the air then turned and fired precise bursts on all four of the surviving guards. Then Geist released his semblance and the rifle clattered to the floor.
The enforcer strode deeper into the house, he was confident that those had been the last of Cobalt's guards. As it turned out he was right, but in his arrogance he had forgotten that Cobalt was a former soldier. Master Sergeant Robert Cobalt, twenty year veteran of the Scot militia, stood in front of Geist holding only a small pistol. Geist grinned and attacked, but he paid for it. As the assassin advanced Cobalt fired off his entire magazine, only one of the rounds got through Geist's aura. But that one round ripped into Geist's calf. Geist was angry now, and so with a single slash he gutted the would-be mayor like a fish, and then he "humanized" him, cutting off his dog tail. The mayor would die a painful death, not as a proud faunus who had stood for faunus rights, but as a human.
Cobalt's own endurance betrayed him, it took him nearly fifteen minutes to finally die. All of it spent in agony.