Welcome everyone. Let's get started...(chapter starts a few days after chapter 1)
Mai kept her gaze on the stars outside her window, thinking of her father. She looked down at her canvas, seeing Jielong flying around, wanting to be released. She brung the serpent out of the canvas and looked back out the window. Jielong wanted to cheer her up, so she licked her face again.
"Hehe...at least I know that you have my back," Mai said as she stroked Jielong's chin.
"Hey." Mai almost screamed before turning to see her uncle. "I'm headin downtown to get some dust supplies. Wanna come?"
"Y...yes, I would love to," Mai replied, getting our of her seat. She grabbed her canvas and walked out with her uncle, Jielong quickly returning to the canvas before-hand. She admired the streets of Vale. She was cramped in that town she called home back in Mistral, and now she gets her first real taste of the outside world.
"Impressive isn't it?"
"Definitely." The two then find the store they were going to. "Dust Til' Dawn? That's an odd...oh I get it now."
"Best place in Vale to get dust nowadays," her uncle told her. They enter the shop, which caused the bell above the door to ring. The shopkeeper smiled at them.
"Welcome." Her uncle approached the counter, but not before he allowed Mai to explore the store. She looked at a small, red dust crystal. She wondered what it could do, so she got out the paintbrush. She began to paint the red dust onto it. After she was done, the dust fell onto the "floor" of the canvas. Jielong tilted her head at the crystal before she ate it. A red aura surrounded the serpent's body, which confuse the daylights out of her.
"Wonder what that did?" She then painted a large boulder, to which Jielong rammed into in a cartoony fashion. The rock instantly broke apart.
"Hm...so dust gives my drawings powers based on said dust's color? I wonder what other things I could do," Mai said. Out from the corner of her eye, she noticed someone. It was a girl roughly five years older than her, with black hair with red tips, silver eyes, pale skin, and wearing a black combat dress with a black skirt that's red on the inside, black boots, and a red cape that she wears behind her.
She was reading a weapons magazine, something her father often read time to time. Her attention was then drawn back to her canvas. Jielong was shivering in fear. It's as if she was trying to tell her about something.
"Is there something wrong?" Her question was answered when multiple men came in. One of them had ginger hair and wearing a fedora and a white suit. Jielong was freaking out on the canvas. So those guys are why she was so scared. And if Jielong is scared of them, then she should be as well!
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late," the man asked the shopkeeper. One of his goons pointed his gun at the old man.
"Aye! What's the big idea," Mai's uncle questioned, holding onto the hilt of his sword in case this went south.
"P-please! Just take my lien and leave!" Mai's uncle looked at him and then back at the goons. He unsheathed his sword and pointed it at them.
"Get the fuck out of here if you want to see yourselves without a missing leg. If you're going to take this man's hard earnings, you'll have to go through me," he told them. The boss of the goons smirked with a cigar in his mouth.
"Were not here for the money. Men. Grab the dust." Mai's eyes widened. Her uncle grew a scowl on his face.
"Alright. Looks like I have no choice, but to apprehend you." He looked at Mai. She already knew what he was wanting her to do, so she exited the shop. She sat down by the window so she can keep an eye on her uncle, in case he got hurt.
"I want to help," she said to herself. She began looking deep into her imagintion, trying to find something that could help her uncle while he fought against those bad guys.
...
...
...
"That's it!" Getting her paintbrush, she began to paint the thing she saw in her mind. She stopped halfway however, as multiple goons and her uncle burst from the window. They land in the road to continue their fight. The crash had also caught the attention of the girl from before, who joined the fight with her scythe! Her eyes then turned to the man in the white suit. He had a scowl on his face, with three goons behind him.
Her eyes widened when he saw her cowering under the window, with canvas and paintbrush in hand. A menacing grin grew on his face. His boss told him of a girl with a magic paintbrush that looked exactly like this. Better make this quick.
"Get her." The three goons ran after her. She went into an alleyway and hid behind a dumpster, hoping to get the painting done.
'Come on, come on!' Afte adding the last bit of detail, she tapped the end of the brush. Electricity came from the brush and hit the painting, bringing it to life. On the canvas stands a warrior in a suit of armor that was unknown to the world, even she had no idea where that kind of armor came from. She brung the warrior out of the painting. He stood at a staggering seven feet, which baffled her to no end.
"Gotcha!" A strong arm grabbed Mai's shoulder and dragged her out from behind the dumpster. She screamed in terror as the warrior finally realized that he was alive. Seeing his mistress being taken, he unsheathed his katana and charged at the goons responsible.
He slashed down on one of the goons, causing said goon to drop his weapon. The warrior then kicked the goon into a wall before stabbing another one, sending that goon into a trash can. The last goon, the one gripping Mai's arm, made a break for it, but was knocked unconscious when an axe was thrown at him at a speed fast enough to break his aura in a single hit.
"Thank you..." the warrior helped her up. She dusted herself off as well as the canvas. She then bring out Jielong from the canvas, who looked at the warrior with curiosity. "Come on! We have to check on uncle!"
"Hold on child." The warrior picked his mistress up and placed her on his shoulders. The warrior ran out of the alley to see that the battle has taken to the roof of a building. A bullhead was flying over the building, with a woman in a red dress firing fireballs at her uncle, the girl from before, and a new woman she hasn't seen before.
"We need to hurry! I don't know if uncle is okay or not!"
"Do you expect me to be able to help without a ranged weapon? I can't exactly grow wings out from behind me," the warrior responded. Mai quickly went into her mind and began to paint. After she was done, she dropped a strange symbol onto his katana. He looked at his blade. Something was different. He pressed a button on the hilt, which wasn't there before, and it transformed into a rifle with a bayonet at the end.
"Much better." Mai then painted a floating platform that took them up the building. They arrived just in time to see the bullhead leaving. Holes littered the rold of the building and smoke filled the air.
"Uncle?"
"Thank goodness your alright." Her uncle emerged from the smoke and hugged his niece. He then looked at the warrior.
"And I suppose that you're one of her creations," he questioned.
"Yeah! Uncle, I would like you to meet Xan! My personal bodyguard I guess," Mai said.
"Pleasure to meet you..."
"Shiro," her uncle introduced himself. The smoke cleared, revealing the woman and the girl from before. The new huntress adusted her glasses before glaring at the girl. Her eyes lit up with admiration when she realized who she and Shiro were.
"Your hunters!"
"Hey uncle, who is that," Mai asked.
"Dat would be Glynda Goodwitch, one of the teachers and assistant principal of Beacon Academy," Shiro replied.
"Can I have your autograph," the girl asked. However, Glynda gave her a strict glare, which caused the girl to shrink back. She then looked over to Mai and her uncle, who sighed in realization.
"This day just keeps on gettin' better, doesn't it?"
In the bullhead:
"The Paintbrush of Creation was right there! How could you lose it?"
"We almost had it, but the brat had made a warrior that beat the goons I sent to catch her. I was running low on time. And then those two finished off my other goons. I had to run or I risked getting caught," the man in the white suit explained in fear. The woman with pitch black hair and a red dress had fire coming out of her hands in anger. But then she calmed. The fire disappeared from her hands as she sighed.
"You and Neo are still too important for the mission. If you fail to grab it the next time the opprotunity comes, you WILL suffer the consequence. Do you understand," she questioned.
"Y-yes ma'am."
"Good. Now get back on the controls, we're heading back to base."
Vale Police Station:
Mai sat in the corner of the interrogation room. She held her paintbrush tightly as she watched Xan and Jielong interact on the canvas. Glynda was walking around a table, with the girl, who she found out was named Ruby, and her uncle sitting at the other end. The room was barely lit, with Mai being almost invisible in the darkness.
"I hope that you two realize that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly. You put yourselves and others in great danger," Glynda began.
"But they started it! I was only trying help him," Ruby whined.
"I will say, your fighting skills are almost as good as mine," Shiro said to the girl, not bothering to listening to Glynda.
"If it were up to me, you'd be sent home... With a pat on the back..." Ruby smiled, but Shiro sighed. He's already been through this before.
"And a slap on the wrist! I've known you for many years Glynda, I wouldn't forget the same lecture your givin' poor Red here," he added. Glynda glared at Shiro, but turned her attention to Ruby.
'Shiro, I will never get used to your smart-ass comments,' Glynda thinks to herself. "You'd be right there, but... there is someone who would like to meet you two."
'Already know who sister,' Shiro says in his mind. At that moment, Glynda steps out of the way, revealing a man in green holding a coffee mug and a plate of cookies.
"Ruby Rose," the man said, leaning in to look at her face. "You...have silver eyes."
"Heya Ozpin. Been a while since we last met," Shiro interjected.
"Pleasure to finally meet you Shiro. It's really been too long," Ozpin stated. He looks back at Ruby, who was sitting there, twiddling her thumbs. "So! Where did you learn to do this?"
'I will never get over how Ozpin has so many secret cameras around,' Shiro said in his mind as Glynda brought up a tablet, showing Ruby and him fighting the goons from before.
"S-Signal Academy."
"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed," Ozpin questioned. Even Shiro was surprised. He never thought Signal was one of those academies that housed a teacher that taught scythe combat.
"Well, one teacher in particular," Ruby added.
"I see..." Ozpin laid the plate of cookies in front of Ruby, who took a cookie and ate it in one bite. Seeing no one retaliate, she shoveled the rest of them into her mouth.
"It's just that I've only seen one other scythe-wielder of that skill before. A dusty, old crow," Ozpin said.
"Oh! That's my uncle," Ruby mumbles. She swallowed and wiped her mouth, feeling a little embarrassed. "Sorry, that's my uncle Qrow! He's a teacher at Signal. I was complete garbage before he took me under his wing. And now I'm all like-" Ruby then proceeded to show off some karate moves. Shiro couldn't help but smile at her. She reminded him of himself at that age.
"So I noticed." Ozpin sets his mug on the table and sits in a chair. "And what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?"
"Well...I want to be a huntress," Ruby replied.
"You want to slay monsters?" Shiro zoned out from the explanation Ruby was giving them and looked back at Mai. She was in the darkness, but he knew she was there.
"You okay Mai?"
"I'm fine. I just want this to end so I can get out of here without everyone seeing my friends," Mai whisperer to him. Shiro nodded and turned back towards Ozpin. He and Glynda were looking over Ruby, trying to find any faults.
"Do you know who I am," Ozpin asked, breaking the silence.
"You're Professor Ozpin. You're the headmaster at Beacon." Ozpin gave her a small smile before saying "hello." "Nice to meet you."
"You want to come to my school," Ozpin questioned.
"More than anything," Ruby answered. Ozpin looked back at Glynda, who only looked away and scoffed.
"Well...okay." Ruby's eyes widened as her mouth went agape. Ozpin smiled before Ruby got out of her seat and cheered.
"You may go now. I would like to speak to the other two in the room," he told her. She said a silent "thank you" before quickly leaving the room. Ozpin looked into the one corner of the room, the one where Mai was sitting at. "You may come out now. I wish to speak to you."
Mai slowly stepped out from the shadows and took the empty seat that Ruby once sat in. Ozpin shifted a little in his seat before looking at Shiro.
"Ozpin, I don't like that look," Shiro said. Ozpin then looked at Mai, who held her grip on the brush tighter than she has before.
"The Paintbrush of Creation. One of mankind's strongest creations. It entrusts itself on someone's and uses the painter's imagination to create whatever he's thinking of. It seems to have entrusted itself with you, young Mai," Ozpin began.
"My father said something like that," she said.
"Your father was a good man. He and his ancestors created some of the greatest artwork and literature Remnant has ever seen. And with something as great as the Paintbrush of Creation, there are those who want it for their own, often evil deeds," Ozpin continued.
"Why would someone want to use the paintbrush in a bad way," Mai asked as she tilted her head. Ozpin adjusted his glasses.
"Uh...to create more bad guys," Shiro told her.
"Ohhhh okay," Mai said. She held her canvas close. "But, The Paintbrush probably won't trust them. What would that mean!?"
Ozpin and Shiro both looked at each other before they looked back at her.
"Um...mind stepping out for a bit," Shiro asked. Mai nodded, though confused on why he wanted her out of the room. The police opened the door for her, and she stepped out and into the waiting room. She sat down in one of the chairs and looked back at her canvas. Jielong was sleeping beside Xan as he sharpened his katana.
"Hey Xan," she began.
"Mistress, are you alright," Xan asked.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine," she told him. She got out the paintbrush. "You hungry?"
"No, no, I'm fine...though I probably need a new stone to sharpen my blade with," Xan replied. Mai smiled, and quickly drew a few stones. They fell in front of Xan. "Thank you." Taking one of the stones, he continued to sharpen his katana.
"When do you think that father will come to Vale?" Xan remained quiet.
"I...don't know mistress," he said. "Since I wasn't exactly around when you left for Vale, I wouldn't know for sure."
Mai began to quiver. Her father hasn't arrived. Today he should've gotten here, but he hasn't even called uncle Shiro yet. She was about to say something else to Xan, but Shiro stepped out of the interrogation room and into the waiting room. She saw her sitting there staring at her canvas.
"Mai. Let's go." Mai got out of her chair and followed him out of the police station. Mai felt tears stream out of her eyes as she looked back up at Shiro.
"When is d-daddy supposed to get here," Mai asked. Shiro noticed her crying.
"He will get here soon Mai. I promise," he reassures her. Mai simply smiled, wiping a tear from her cheek as they continued their walk home.
Finished! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you have ideas for the next chapter, leave a review.
Le oof. Reworked the portion of the chapter with Ozpin, mostly because I realized he wouldn't tell anyone of his enemies. Big mistake. So I fixed it.
This is Sporedude135, signing off...
