Arc One: Atlas
Chapter Two: Risky Behavior
Natsuki held the towel wrapped ice pack to her head with one hand while Winter attached electrodes to her other arm. The white-haired girl had accepted her breaking and entering to return a single earring better than she thought she would. The relief that appeared in the normally stoic soldier's eyes when she had seen the earring had made her smile. She had not expected the Special Operatives commander to then request to take a look at her Aura in compensation for the act of breaking and entering, though.
"You have an impressive Aura reserve," Winter said as she looked at the information on her scroll. "I'm surprised you even need that ice pack."
"Healing quickly is not something my Aura is capable of," She answered. "And as for the high reserves, that comes from having a nearly realized semblance."
"An impressive feat for someone so young," Winter remarked in a monotone as she pulled off the electrodes. "Most never fully realize their semblance and when the do they are not as young as you."
"And just how young do you think I am?"
"You look to be about my sister's age, so I would have to say seventeen years."
"I'm eighteen actually, old enough to buy booze, not that I would." Natsuki flicked her ears and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "If it tastes as bad as it smells, I'd be happy to go my entire life without drinking any.
Winter glanced briefly at the cream colored ears sticking out of Natsuki's black hair before coiling the wires she had removed. "It is probably for the best that you don't. Alcohol can make fools of the best of men."
Natsuki's ears tilted back in thought and she didn't miss the way Winter glanced at them again. "You sound like you speak from experience."
"I suppose I do, only the man I know has always been drunk every time I've seen him. Everyone seems to think highly of him, so I assume that he is a good man when sober."
"You should just ask?" Natsuki suddenly said, lowering the ice pack.
"Pardon?"
"My ears, you keep looking at them. So why don't you just ask? I won't mind?"
Winter hesitated for a moment, expression stoic as it had been throughout their conversations. Natsuki wondered what it would take to make her smile. Finally, Winter seemed to come to a decision. "To my knowledge, faunus' that have furred appendages usually possess the same hair and fur color, but you do not."
"I dye my hair," She answered with a shrug. "But that's not what you really wanted to ask so try again."
Winter's brow furrowed slightly at that before finally getting to the question she felt was too rude to ask. "What species of faunus are you?"
"There we go. For future reference, it might feel rude to ask, but it is usually best that you do instead of risk making assumptions. As for my species, I'm a gray wolf Alpha."
"Grey wolf?" She repeated skeptically.
Natsuki grinned, flashing her white canines. "No one ever believes me when I tell them. I really am a gray wolf, though, I just get my fur coloring from my grandmother on my mom's side; she's a fennec fox."
"At the chance of sounding rude, do you mind my asking what your other animal trait is?"
Electricity crackled across the surface of the faunus' skin and the lights flickered overhead. "Don't call them animal traits. A faunus is no more an animal than a human is. You'll offend any faunus you meet if you use terms like that. Leave that to the real racist bastards like Professor Tawny."
"You've been through my books." It wasn't a question. Natsuki didn't reply still crackling with electricity. "What should I call them then?"
The lights stopped flickering once she asked the question. "Faunus traits is acceptable. However, if you know what trait it is your referring to then you should just call it by name. As for those books, I could tell that you've only recently bought them and haven't gotten the chance to read them yet. And I suggest that you don't, men like Tawny tend to exaggerate or completely lie when they discuss faunus. If you have any questions it would better for you to go to the most credible source there is, an actual faunus."
"My apologize, I wasn't aware."
"I know you weren't." Natsuki sighed. "I'm sorry for my anger. Normally I would be much calmer about this, but after my run in with your neighbor earlier it just reminded me of all the racism I've seen in this city."
"That is why you wear the fedora I presume."
Natsuki glanced at the hat where it sat to her right. "Actually I wear the hat for another reason. As you've probably noticed my ears tend to be very . . ."
"Expressive," Winter supplied when she trailed off.
"I was gonna say twitchy, but I suppose expressive fits better."
An alarm went off on Winter's scroll, startling both of them. The white-haired Schnee reached over to turn it off and stood up from the table.
"I need to make dinner. Would you like anything?"
"I don't know if I should be amazed by the fact that you need an alarm to start dinner or the fact that it goes off at 9:30 at night." Natsuki stared at the clock for a moment and then groaned. "Xander's gonna kill me."
"I was under the impression that the two of you were close, so why would he murder you?"
"I told him I'd be back before curfew and as you can see, it's an hour and a half past. Not that it would be to much trouble to get back to the hotel without getting caught."
Winter glanced at the clock, pausing in her dinner preparations. "As the commander of the Special Operatives, I can't knowingly let you break curfew."
"Then what do you suggest I do? Sleep in the laundry room?"
"I would not be resistant to sharing my home tonight and you may use my scroll to inform your friends."
"You know, you're not so bad, Schnee. I'll have to take you up on that offer."
Winter paused beside the couch before she left the next morning. Her guest was still sleeping peacefully, stretched out contentedly across what she had always considered to be an uncomfortable couch. The light blue blanket she had given her before going to bed had fallen down to her hips in the middle of the night, revealing her impressive abdominals. Most of the people Winter knew with such defined abs were men, so it interested her to see a girl that was so fit. One might think it would take away from her femininity - especially with her short hair - but to Winter it only showcased the girl's strength. That being said, she did find it a bit inappropriate that Natsuki went around without a shirt.
Natsuki's wolf ears twitched in her sleep, a thin layer of blue electricity rippling across her skin as if she could sense that she was being watched. As Winter continued to stand there, the faunus rolled onto her side, knocking her blanket to the floor and revealing her black tipped tail. Natsuki had never revealed the other faunus trait that made her an Alpha, but Winter was able to guess when the faunus never took her trenchcoat off. She could see why.
The white bandages wrapped around the appendage had unfurled slightly in her sleep revealing the ugly scab that looked suspiciously like someone had tried to cut it off and hadn't gotten far. The injury didn't appear to be deep, but due to the slowness of Natsuki's healing ability it had yet to heal completely. While slow, Natsuki's Aura was powerful enough that Winter doubted that it would leave a lasting scar. In fact, she was sure that it would be near impossible to give the young woman any lasting scars to tell the tales of her heroism.
"The fact that you're up this early implies that you have work, so why are you watching me sleep?" Natsuki asked sleepily and yet strangely alert, ears twitching.
"I was considering if I should wake you or let you continue to sleep."
"Well, I'm awake now," Natsuki replied, tone amused. "Thank you for letting me stay."
"I was returning a favor."
"Returning a favor?"
"For your assistance earlier in the square."
"Oh, that. You don't have to repay me for that."
"I wanted to it. And to further repay my debt, there's breakfast in the fridge. Feel free to consume it before you leave. Now I really must be going."
"Do you know how worried we were?!" Xander shouted before Natsuki had even closed the door behind her.
"I wasn't worried," Nickolas corrected without looking up from his tablet.
"I can take care of myself, Xander," She replied with a sigh.
"I know you can, but you and I both know that the White Fang wouldn't hesitate to slip a blade through your ribs if they had the chance."
"I called to let you know I was somewhere safe, didn't I?"
"And then refused to tell us where you were?"
"Because I knew you'd end up coming to get me and if you really must know, I was with Winter."
"Winter?" Yasmin repeated. "As in Winter Schnee?"
"Unless you know of anyone else named Winter," Natsuki retorted.
"Why were you with her?"
"I was returning an earring of hers that I found; she let me stay the night since it was after curfew and no, Yasmin, nothing happened. I slept on the couch and she in her room."
"I'm not worried that you slept with her. I'm worried that you were around her at all. She's a Schnee."
"Don't judge a person by their family, Yasmin," Xander told the stoat to Natsuki's surprise. "From what I could sense from her, Winter holds no hatred for faunus. If anything she's a bit curious about them."
"Definitely curious. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go take a shower and then we can plan for the next mission."
Nickolas set his tablet on the nightstand that had been pulled out from the wall before checking the hologram projectors. Nodding to Xander, he sat back on the hotel bed the two boys had to share. Xander closed the curtains, plunging the room into semi-darkness, before joining him. A map of the Atlas kingdom was projected above the nightstands surface as Natsuki switched the projector on.
"So as the three of you know, Adam has recently risen to fill the leadership role in the White Fang. According to my source, it's rumored that he killed the old leader, but that doesn't matter to us right now. What does matter is that we know Adam is orchestrating an attack here."
She reached forward and tapped a spot in the forest next to Atlas city, using her semblance to control the projection and zoom in.
"This is Brimstone, a rather large Dust mining town. The Brimstone mine lies about half a mile outside of the town and is owned by the SDC. The workforce consists - as you can probably guess - of faunus who can see in the dark. This mine, while not the largest, has deep veins of fire, lava, and - surprisingly - lightning Dust.
"According to my contact, Adam has managed to convince over half of the faunus miners to help set up explosives inside the mine two weeks from now. With as much Dust as the mine contains, the explosion will have over a mile radius and would not only destroy the mine but the town itself. During this explosion, Adam and . . . another faunus will be attacking the train carrying the dust from the mine to refineries in Vale."
"Is this other faunus Blake, perchance?" Yasmin asked darkly.
Natsuki hesitated before nodding, touching the scarf at her neck. "We have a week to gather supplies before we head off to Brimstone which will give us a week to survey the town and the mines in order to come up with a plan."
Over the years, Natsuki had found ways to distract herself and hide her pain from others, whether it be physical or mental. Xander had a sometimes unfair advantage over her with his semblance, always able to sense what she felt no matter how well she hid it. Natsuki, while sometimes irritated by this, was also extremely grateful for his empathy. It allowed him to be her voice of reason and that was probably the only reason she was alive and able to act like a rational faunus. However, there was one thing Xander knew never to ask about and that was the matter of her heart.
Like all alpha faunus, Natsuki had the ability to imprint on up to three people. That was one thing Professor Tawny had gotten right, but it was so much more than what he had described it as. The three imprints were to the alpha, three tries to find the person they loved with all their heart and wanted to spend the rest of their life with. There were no redos for an alpha choosing a mate thus they were not only encouraged to find their other half in another alpha but to never imprint before their first heat cycle. Natsuki would have known this had she'd been enrolled in an alpha academy like she was supposed to be - and she probably wouldn't have joined the White Fang either.
Natsuki had been eight when she first fell in love. It had been a little over a year since she had first joined a nonviolent White Fang when she met the girl destined to become her first love. Despite it being winter, the young cat faunus was dressed in only a thin shirt and a pair of jeans with holes in the knees. She could barely hold up her cardboard sign due to her shivering. Natsuki had given her the warm cream scarf she had brought from home. Natsuki's brother, Leo, had seen the act of kindness and had donated his beanie. A young bull and stoat faunus had also donated a jacket and pair of gloves. It was the very beginning of the friendship between Natsuki, Yasmin, Blake, Leo, and Adam.
Two years later, when Blake had given Natsuki the blue scarf she still wore to this day, she realized that her feelings for the cat faunus were stronger than simple friendship. The imprint happened shortly after that realization. Now the two were on opposing sides of what may soon turn into a war. If the two were to ever come face to face, Natsuki doubted that she'd have the ability to take up arms against her.
With the failure of the first imprint, one would have expected her to be more careful in the future. However, it took the complicated situation of her second imprint for her to learn to guard her heart, but that's a story for a later time.
"What are we going to do about Blake and Adam?" Where Xander knew not to ask, Yasmin chose to anyways.
Natsuki paused in the loading of a clip, running a thumb over the golden prongs of a bullet thoughtfully. "Nothing."
The two girls were alone in the hotel room, doing maintenance on their weapons while the boys were picking up some camping supplies.
"Nothing?" Yasmin repeated in surprise.
"I am the only one with enough Aura to stand any chance against Adam, but my semblance is worthless against his. That makes my chance of success in a fight with him very low and yours non-existent. As for Blake . . ."
"You can't keep protecting her forever, Natsuki."
"I know, but . . . I want to wait for just a bit longer, just long enough for Blake to make a choice as to what she really wants."
"She's already made her choice."
"Has she? You and I both know Blake and we know that she has never liked the idea violence for equality. She like all of us never felt there was any other option, that the violent approach was the only chance we had left for equality." Natsuki slid the bullet into the clip before snapping the two halves of the clip together. "So we will wait."
Yasmin grudgingly accepted the response and went back to tending to her own weapon. Natsuki slid the filled clip into the last slot on her ammo belt, the lightning and wind dust glowing softly within their clear shells. Turning her attention to her dust boots, she removed the dust inserts from the heels. They were still nearly full since she hadn't used them after saving Winter when she refilled them. Xander and Nickolas rushed into the hotel room just as she finished topping them off.
"We need to leave tonight," Xander managed to inform them as he panted for breath.
"Why? We still have three days to prepare."
"It appears that the Atlas military has received the same information we have. There's a train leaving for Brimstone tonight with a team of hunters. Unless you guys want to walk through a Grimm infested forest, we need to be on that train."
Natsuki put the lid back on the bottle of yellow dust. "When does it leave?"
"Eight thirty."
"Four hours, we can make that work." She snapped the inserts back into her boots and pulled them on. "Yasmin and I will go shopping to pick up the last of the supplies we need while the two of you run a check on your equipment and load up on ammo."
Yasmin sighed and rotated the blade of her kusarigama into carrying form and attaching it to the thin lightweight magnet stitched into the back of her shirt. The golden chain draped down past her hips and her tail twitched slightly as it brushed against the cool metal links.
"Sounds good to me."
The metal tread in Natsuki's boots rang loudly against the sidewalk as she ran. The city was quieter at night, but not by much as people went about their late night business, whether that be getting drunk in a bar or going to see a late night movie with a date. The faunus curfew was extended on weekends, so the four teens weren't in danger of getting in trouble for that.
"Damn it, we've already missed it! What the hell were you two doing?"
"Metro. Food. Supplies," She answered Xander, knowing he'd be able to figure out her meaning. "Come on, we still have a chance of catching it."
"Yeah, well you're going the wrong way!"
"Just trust me."
She hurtled through the sliding door of a mall, dodging shoppers and ignoring the shout of a security guard. Her friends close on her heels, she made a beeline for the elevators. She caught the door before it could slide shut, allowing the others to tumble in after her. In her haste, Natsuki barely refrained from pressing the button to the floor they needed in rapid succession.
The other people in the elevator stared in wide-eyed shock - and a little bit of fear - at the human and two of the faunus. Yasmin went unnoticed thanks to her semblance. The stoat faunus was carrying not only her weapons and backpack but the other faunus' weapons as well. The other three each had a backpack, but due to the size of their weapons and Natsuki having returned her borrowed trenchcoat to the Irving family home they had to rely on Yasmin's semblance to conceal them.
"You know that train's not going to be making any stops until it gets to Brimstone, right?" Nickolas asked, slightly out of breath.
"I wasn't expecting it to."
"Then why the hell did we come this way?" Xander demanded.
Natsuki didn't answer as the elevator came to their stop. Nickolas uttered a curse as she took off running again. They were in a food court of mainly fancy expensive restaurants. She glanced at the restaurants until she found the one she was looking for. They had begun to close up for the night unlike many of their neighbors who were open late into the night. The emptiness made it easy for her to navigate her way through the restaurant without having to dodge waiters or patrons. The wolf faunus' ears twitched beneath her fedora as she pushed open the balcony doors. Gripping the iron railing, she stared at the train track two stories below them, measuring the distance between herself and the approaching light of the train.
"Please tell me we aren't jumping," Xander begged.
"I'd be lying if I did," She replied, backing up from the railing. "On my mark."
Yasmin shifted the strap of Nickolas' shotgun trident into a more comfortable position over her shoulder. "We've done worse."
"Get ready," Natsuki warned, readying herself for a running start.
"Hey, you four, stop!" Mall security shouted from behind them.
"Now!"
At Natsuki's shout, they launched themselves over the balcony railing. Air caught against the fabric of her scarf and black jacket as Natsuki fell, sending them rippling noisily behind her. She landed on the roof of a train car with a solid thump, Aura absorbing the shock of the impact. She rolled once before a burst of electricity from her palms allowed her to cling to the smooth metal like a magnet. Raising a hand to make sure her fedora wasn't about to be torn off from the wind, she glanced to make sure the others had made it safely. Yasmin had landed on a knee a car ahead, tail tucked close to her body - just as Natsuki's was - to prevent the wind from catching it and yanking her off balance. Xander's landing had not been nearly graceful as the two girls' had been and he lay spread-eagled on the train car behind. Nickolas' landing was even worse than Xander's and his scream was lost in the wind as he tumbled past her.
"Nick!"
Natsuki lunged forward to grasp Nickolas as he rolled past, barely holding herself in place with her semblance. The boy tried to regain his footing on the smooth steel and if it weren't for Yasmin jumping back to help them, he would've fallen over the side. Once the otter faunus was pulled to safety, Yasmin went to help Xander cross the gap between train cars while Natsuki led Nickolas over to the hatch in the top of the train. Bypassing the security panel with a burst of her semblance, Natsuki pulled the hatch open so a shaky Nickolas could drop into what appeared to be a storage car. She didn't follow him until the other two had entered the car as well, closing and latching the hatch behind her.
"Has anyone ever told you that you take too many risks?" Xander asked as he felt around for a suitable place to sit, unable to see in the dark.
"Several times actually. Nickolas, some light please."
As Nickolas pulled a collapsible lantern from his pack, the wolf faunus took a seat on a crate marked 'Volatile Substance. This side up. Do not drop or expose to fire.'
"What now?"
"Set a watch and get some sleep," She answered the stoat faunus as Nickolas turned on the lantern to its dimmest setting.
"I'll take first watch," Xander volunteered and Nick was quick to take the second.
Natsuki stretched out across the top of the crate, using her pack as a pillow and pulling her fedora down over her face to block out the lantern light.
Cream wolf ears involuntary flicked at the sudden chill in the air before purposefully swiveling to focus on the faint shuffle of boots on metal. Natsuki slowly pulled her hat down until she could peer over the brim up at the military commander standing over her.
"We should really stop meeting like this," She said lightheartedly, sitting up and putting her fedora on.
"And by that, I assume you mean when you are disregarding the law and are in the process of illegal activity," Winter Schnee replied, hand resting loosely on the hilt of her weapon.
"Can you really consider us sneaking aboard this train illegal?"
"Yes."
Natsuki whistled sharply, waking up her three companions. Xander blinked sleepily as he took everything in before slapping at Nickolas' shoulder. "You were supposed to be keeping watch."
"Ow, hey. Stop it."
Yasmin grabbed the chain connecting her weapons as she leveled a suspicious glare at Winter and moved to stand beside Natsuki. "Is everything alright?"
"That depends on if Winter and her men here are going to arrest us?"
Winter glanced back at her seven subordinates who were eyeing the four teens suspiciously. Two had even partially drawn their military standard weapons in response to Natsuki's whistle. "Not this time. In fact, I have received a direct order from General Ironwood to work with you and your organization should you make an appearance."
"Is that so, and - if you don't mind my asking - what goal does your general believe that us working together can achieve?"
"He believes we could prevent there being any civilian casualties at the hands of the White Fang."
The female leader of the White Fang glanced to her male counterpart in silent question. Xander dipped his head in agreement and Natsuki turned back to Winter. She stood to her full height and held out her hand.
"Sounds like a good enough reason to me. I look forward to working with you, Commander Schnee."
"And I, you," Winter replied, accepting the handshake. "Natsuki Sora."
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, but I do own Natsuki, Yasmin, and Nickolas. Xander was created by my boyfriend.
I struggled a bit with writing Winter, but I am fairly happy with my characterization of her. I watched the intro for the new season of RWBY and am now super excited to watch the first episode. Unfortunately, I lack a subscription to the RoosterTeeth website so I have to wait for it to be released on youtube. Check out my pictures of my OC on my DeviantArt under the name 3wolfheart4.
Playlist: N/A