"Columbia was here?!" Robin exclaimed, her mind going a million miles a minutes.
"Where is she? Who saw her?" she asked grabbing at Coop's shoulders as though trying to shake an answer out of him.
"The antlered boy could barely form a sentence until he shoved Robin off of him. She still had a million more questions about Columbia and her appearance.
"Coop, you better tell me everything."
Robin dragged him into the prep room and practically threw him onto the bench.
"Start talking."
"Jeez, you know generally when people are friends they don't toss each other around and -."
Seeing the cold look on Robin's face he could tell she wasn't in the mood.
"I was hanging outside the arena when someone pushed by me, long ponytail and tall, wearing blue." He gestured at Robin's signature cobalt blue top."Like your kinda blue."
Coop paused trying to remember what happened, "Then there were a few people chasing after her. Th-they were all dressed like White Fang members."
Robin blinked in surprise, the White Fang? The most notorious group of rogue faunus known to Remnant? And Columbia had been with them?
"Are you sure it was her?" Robin asked sitting down across from Coop.
"They started asking people things about the Steel girl, which way she went and where they thought she was going. Everyone thought they were talking about you, but I know it was her."
Robin's lip had stretched into a thin line, if this was true then that meant her sister was alive. Her mind whirled off again, to everything that had when Columbia had left. Why did she leave and now, more importantly, why did she come back? After all this time, why did she come back?
A long silence weighed heavy between the two faunus. Robin didn't notice that Coop had moved next to her until he spoke again, "Robs." A dumb nickname that he had given her when they first met, "Robs, are you okay?"
"She angrily wiped away the tears and responded.
"I'm fine."She said before standing up and pulling herself out of Coop's grasp.
"Robs-"
"I said, 'I'm fine!'" she yelled yanking her helmet off the bench and heading to the back room.
"Robin! Come on!"
"Leave me alone, Coop! I have shit to do, I'll see you tomorrow." She picked Migrare off the floor and stormed out of the prep room. The fighters-on-deck, who had seen the scene parted the way for her like the Red Sea.
She skipped her usual routine of changing back into street clothes before leaving the arena to distance herself from the place. Immediately she regretted it as the icy cold breeze of winter stung against her legs. Her breath came out in icy puffs, illuminated by the streetlights. With her arms wrapped around her chest she began the trek back to her apartment. Robin flinched as one of her fingers twitched to a cut in her shirt and its pair on her body.
She swore, usually she bandaged her injuries back at the arena but she needed to get out off there. she had been there. Columbia, the name almost sounded like a curse in her mouth. Certainly didn't match the girl who, before she had left, was the posterchild for a big sister. Not to mention an actual posterchild for this advertisement for some brand of sunscreen. Then she had been one of the top students at Signal and began competing.
Robin wasn't sure about the details, she hadn't been at the forefront of attention. She didn't blame them. Honestly, as they were both hunters, she would have done the same. As a kid, it was amazing, a celebrity as her sister. That is, it was until she got to Signal.
Every teacher, every student asked about her sister and commented on how much she wasn't like Columbia. Surprise, idiots, I'm not my sister despite my immense physical similarities. Beyond their hair and their noses (of course), she couldn't see why.
At this point , Robin had made her way back to her apartment in the outskirts of Vale. Waving her communicator in front of the building's door and the familiar click of the lock sounded allowing her access. Quietly she walked up the stairs until she reached her door.
The comfort of her bed was welcome as she tried to warm up, her body aching from the walk back and the cuts all over her body. Her helmet and mace laid at the foot of her bed along with a few pieces of armor. Sitting up in the bed she heaved herself over to the small bathroom next to the bedroom.
A fluorescent light flickered on over the dirtied mirror/medicine cabinet. Robin unlatched the top part of her skirt, leather panels made to look like a gladiator skirt, and unzipped the dark blue combat skirt. Leaving a small pair of black compression shorts and her three quarter sleeve blue top. Which was a dark maroon where her cuts stuck to the shirt.
Wincing, Robin removed the top revealing her sports bra. She looked at her battered reflection with a sigh, a few cuts were scattered across her arms and sides and one even had found its place on her cheek. Taking out the rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball she began to clean her wounds, a ritual that was well-rehearsed.
Maybe she did look like her sister, only differences lied in their eyes and body. The Steel sisters both had long black hair and both had the faunus features that they inherited from their parents. Robin had warm chocolate brown eyes that always seemed to offer a shoulder to lean on. Either that or they were cold and dark as pitch with a look that would pierce your soul. Columbia, however, had inherited their mother's steel grey eyes, always cold as a tundra and lived up to their family's name. She was also far taller and much more muscular than Robin who, as she grown, had adopted a more gangly height with a thinner, scrawnier look. Her sister had a heart shaped face and she had been blessed with what one could only describe as an angular oval.
Other than that, they were two peas in a pods, Robin thought sarcastically. She slung her hair over her shoulder in order to properly clean another cut on her shoulder. Grimacing at herself in the mirror she wondered what had made her sister come back, after all these years of being so completely gone.
When Columbia disappeared, it wasn't unlike any other runaway case. Well, except for the fact that a small-time local celebrity had somehow managed to disappear without a trace, baffling the authorities and shocking the populace. The populace who cared about a missing faunus, to most it was just another minority name on a paper. Robin remembered countless nights searching for Columbia with their parents, her hand freezing as she hung up the posters.
The first few years were the hardest, her parents constantly arguing and then crying in a relentless cycle. They disappeared for months at a time, on another search party or performing their duties as hunters. They left Robin to board at Signal Academy and learn how to be a huntress, though fighting for the greater good didn't exactly appeal to Robin. What did appeal to her were the fights, the combat. Also it seemed to be the only thing she was good at. As the fifth year passed of Columbia's disappearance, her parent's joined the list of missing family members. The story was that they went on a hunting trip and went missing in action.
Thus ended Robin's stay at Signal and began her fighting career. She gave up on the search for Columbia and began to focus on herself, and for the first she was the center of her own life. After a few months of mourning her parents she began to find new ways to get money. At first she stole, a section of her life that she wasn't proud of. She stole food and the bare necessities of survival while working at some fast food joint that she no longer remembered the name of. That is, until a disgruntled shopkeeper's son tracked her down and tried to make her return the stolen goods.
That was when she first met Cupric Bronze, better known as Coop. Robin, obviously, did not have the money or the goods to reimburse the shop which led to her working for both the dust shop and the fast food joint for a few months until Coop took her to a tournament fight. She remembered her first experience like it was yesterday, the roar of the crowds and rush of adrenaline in her veins. It had reminded her of the sanctioned fights back at the school but much more violent. There were no rules except for not to kill the other opponents. It was her calling.
Placing the now bloodied cotton ball on the edge of the sink she looked in the mirror. Robin saw a tired, bruised face staring back at her. A now yellowed, black-eye marked her cheek from a fight two weeks ago which was now mirrored by the cut on her cheek from this night's fight. She knew without looking that her back was a constellation of scratches and scars. A few bruises punctuated her arms and thin white scars lined her body, such was the price going into her first match against one of the elites as her first match.
Robin had been headstrong, to say the least, to think that as an out of practice student could take one of the strongest fighters on the circuit. Coop had warned her, as he oversaw many of the fights and fought in a choice few. Robin hadn't understood what the big deal was until she had been up against her, Indigo Violaceous, a monster of a woman who used two hammers a long as Robin's forearm. Thankfully, Indigo took it easy on her by letting Robin give up the match and in turn the winnings.
Finally, Robin listened to Coop and trained with him for the next few months until she could hold her own and then she began fighting and had been fighting ever since, her scars were a testament to that. She wore them like badges even if others didn't see them like that. It showed how far she had come from overshadowed by an obnoxiously talented older sister. Though that didn't stop people from remarking on how much she looked like the missing Steel sister, especially those that had been regulars on the circuit.
And after all that, she was back. Robin knew it would be all about Columbia again, she couldn't let that happen. Besides, maybe Coop had been mistaken, it had happened before. There was still so much she didn't know about her and so much that she didn't want to know about her.
Leaving her clothes in the bathroom she shut the lights off so that the only source of illumination came from the lights of the city. Collapsing on her bed she welcomed the cool sheets against her bruised and sore muscles. She laid there for a moment taking deep breaths and trying to find sleep. For the first time since her parents had left she couldn't. Robin remained staring at an empty ceiling wondering how much easier it would be just to forget.
Across the city, in a dark alleyway a midnight meeting was taking place.
"I will not recruit my little sister, she doesn't need this." a tall figure said tersely as she paced down the asphalt pathway.
"I'm afraid that's not your choice, it's her's." a syrupy voice replied from the shadows. "It's the boss's orders as well, offer the position to top fighters. It's worked before, I mean look at you."
The tall figure stopped her pacing, the streetlight flickered above her like a faulty spotlight. A man stepped into the yellow light, he had a black bowler hat and hair like fire.
"Indigo Violaceous, top fighter now leader of her own branch of the White Fang. Skyler Storm, criminal extraordinaire who now works for the White Fang. And you,once famed underground fighter and now best undercover operative for the White Fang. D'you see where I'm going with this? Your little underground animal friends make the best personnel for my little operation here."
"We are not animals." Columbia seethed looking down on Torchwick who was only a few inches smaller than her.
"Yeah, well your nose seems to say otherwise. If you can't do it, someone else will."
"You told me to recruit the top fighter, not my sister!"
"And you agreed to a contract that says the White Fang owns you! Do your job." Torchwick finished with a disgusted look as he walked back into the White Fang hideout. Columbia was left alone under the flickering streetlight.
Columbia tilted her head back, a cool drizzle had started and a mist gave the lights of the city an unearthly glow. She brushed her bangs out of her face and opened her steel grey eyes to the sky.
"Get it together, Steel. It's time to pay your sister a visit." she muttered.
Five years and she knew this wouldn't be easy. She had had her own plans before her sister got involved. This was about to become far more complicated than anticipated.