Remnants of Another World

Chapter Seven

Velvet

Between the nightmares from beyond the city and the finest Atlesian technology turned against them, the few remaining students of Beacon were struggling to stand. Nora went down, and Ren went down a moment after her. Coco unloaded a stream of bullets at the Paladin, her gatling gun buzzing like a hornet's nest, but they ricocheted off of it without even scratching the paint.

"Uh, this is bad!" Neptune called out, holding his ground but unable to push the machine back.

However, Coco wasn't worried, and if she wasn't, then Velvet wasn't either. Sure, she wanted to run—she was part rabbit for Dust's sake—but being part of the team meant staying with the team, and no matter how bad things looked, Team CFVY always pulled through.

And, most importantly (according to Coco), they made it look good.

"Well, I guess now is a better time than any." Coco stopped firing and turned around. "Velvet!"

Nothing more needed to be said. Velvet always stayed in the background in team fights, not because she was weak—but because she wasn't. She was CFVY's eleventh hour; their trump card waiting for the most dramatic moment.

She blinked in surprise. "Really?"

Coco gave her a single nod. "Just make 'em count."

Velvet took a deep breath and did something she had never done before.

She stepped forward into the fight.

She should have been terrified. Every fibre of her being should have been screaming at her to run—but instead excitement filled her heart. As a Faunus, she had grown up knowing how different she was from everyone else, and she'd always wanted to blend in.

"What are you doing?" Weiss demanded. "She's going to get hurt!"

But Coco was the opposite. She wanted Velvet to stand out, not to bully her into it, but to build her up. And as time went on, Velvet's timid nature and Coco's cool confidence merged until her ability to blend into the crowd became a style all of its own.

Coco smirked. "Just watch."

Since she had arrived at Beacon, she had always kept her eyes on others, instinctively memorizing not just the fighting styles of the other students, but the way the walked, the way they stood, the way their hands fidgeted when they were nervous. Right now, though? Right now, they were watching her.

And then she vanished.

"So, was that part of the plan?" Neptune asked. "Or should we panic?"

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"Now remember, no matter what steps out of the portal, you have to kiss it as soon as you can," Matilda said. "Anything could pop out, and some of the familiars are dangerous, but you have a few seconds while the thing's disoriented. Even a dragon will be confused right after it's summoned, and you don't want a giant, fire-breathing monster to collect its wits without a contract seal."

Tiffania nodded, eyes wide and earnest. "Do you really think I'll get something like that?"

"Doubt it. No offense, kid, but you don't have a fire-breathing monster personality. Knowing you, you'll probably end up with some cute, cuddly forest critter, but you'll still have to kiss it before it has a chance to run away." Matilda hoped Tiffania got something closer to a cute, cuddly bear than a cute, cuddly squirrel, because her mixed elven heritage left her vulnerable. A stranger would try to kill her on sight for her pointed ears, but she didn't have the Ancient Magic that made elves dangerous to defend herself with either.

"I wish you could stay," Tiffania said softly.

Matilda smiled. "Sorry, but I have a job lined up in Tristain. I'll back in a few weeks, a month tops." She still wasn't sure what alias she'd go with, now that Demoux was off the list. Longueville, maybe. She'd never been Longueville before. But she'd always be Fouquet. She'd spent too much time building up the infamy of the master thief to stop now.

"And we're nearly out of money," Tiffania said.

Matilda nodded. At first she was happy someone was standing up to Albion's royal family, but as the civil war waged on, more and more dead soldiers left their children with nothing but dirty streets. The orphanage was Matilda's fault, really. She had brought back a five-year-old who was coughing up blood so Tiffania could heal him with her mother's amulet, but afterwards, Tiffania wouldn't send him away, and Matilda … she never could turn her back on them. They had over a dozen shrieking, giggling brats now, and that number would only grow until the war was over.

That mean they needed money, and that meant stealing. She'd never tell Tiffania that, though. The girl was too sweet for her own good.

"The book you got me said I should speak an incantation before the contract," Tiffania said.

Matilda rolled her eyes. "That book was written by a noble, and most nobles are idiots." The book was stolen, too, but she left that out. "Nobles like to drown everything in ceremony whether it needs it or not, and this doesn't need it at all."

Tiffania nodded. "So, when you summoned your—"

"Oh, for the love of Brimir, stop stalling and summon it already!" They'd be here all day if she waited for Tiffania to ease into it.

Tiffania cast the spell, and Matilda readied her wand just in case she choked. She was prepared to protect the girl if she summoned something dangerous, and immobilize the summon if it tried to run, but she was not ready for what came next.

A girl stumbled out of the portal, slender and about Tiffania's own age. She had long brown hair, brown foreign clothes, and brown eyes opened wide with shock. And bunny ears. But those were fake, a cute accessory. They had to be.

Before Matilda or the summoned girl could say a word, Tiffania, true to her instructions, leapt forward and kissed the girl smack on the lips.

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They were real. Velvet sometimes got tired of saying that, because even people who knew about Faunus felt the need to touch them to make sure, and no one in Albion had ever heard the term.

Of course, they had never heard about Grimm either, and living in a world without monsters was worth a few lengthy explanations. Part of her felt bad for being yanked away from all her friends at what Coco would call the most dramatic moment, but she couldn't hold a grudge about being drafted to protect an orphanage of small children without feeling like a horrible person.

And she liked it here in Westwood. The children loved her because of her cooking, which was ironic because she didn't have any cooking skills—but her Semblance allowed her to memorise the last three seasons of Survival Chef with as much effort as it took her to learn Tiffania's ability to play the harp.

And Tiffania was beautiful, through and through. Her music was beautiful, her face was beautiful, her heart was beautiful. She was a bit clumsy, though, on account of being a tad top heavy, but Velvet would cut out her own tongue before saying that out loud.

Even Matilda was likable in her own way. As brusque as she was, her heart was in the right place, and Velvet was sad to see her go when Matilda had to travel south to a new job opportunity.

Really, the only thing Velvet didn't like about her new life in Westwood was a few bad headaches, which Tiffania could take care of. She had a magical ring, inherited from her mother, that could cure any injury.

Even caffeine withdrawal.

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A few days after Matilda left—about a week after Velvet arrived—they ran out of carrots. She knew when she was living a cliché, but they were good for your eyes! People always talked about how Faunus had better night vision than humans did, but that was because humans never ate their vegetables.

Besides, you couldn't make carrot cake without carrots. It was nearly the third most important ingredient, and that meant they had to leave Westwood to buy supplies.

"Shouldn't one of us stay behind to watch the little ones?" Velvet asked.

"We won't be gone long," Tiffania said, "and they can look after themselves for a few hours." She raised her voice so the children could hear. "Until we get back, Aideen's in charge."

"Yes!" a ten-year-old girl with wild frizzy hair cried out. "My reign of terror begins now!"

"But you have to promise to be good."

"I will, Tifa."

Tiffania smiled. "See? They'll be fine."

"What if someone comes while we're gone?" Velvet asked.

"That happens sometimes," Tiffania said. "Last time a robber came while I was gone, he searched the place for valuables, but all he could find were turnips and orphans. He actually ended up leaving money behind."

Velvet was about to ask about Grimm before she remembered Albion didn't have any. A world without Grimm. She wondered if she'd ever get used to that. It was good, but Velvet was a Huntress. Without Grimm, what was the point of her?

The only Huntress, the only Faunus, and beside her was the only half-elf. They walked down a trail so grown it could barely be called that, both of them wearing wide brimmed hats to cover their ears. That felt wrong for her. At Beacon, most of the Faunus had hidden their heritage, and any number of them could have surgically removed an extra pair of ears or horns, but Velvet never did. She never had the courage to protest or fight, but she could stand.

Also, the school uniforms didn't allow hats.

Soon the skyline of Saxe-Gotha came into view. "Tiffania," Velvet said. "What happens if I lose my hat?"

"I don't know," she said. "People might laugh if they think they're fake."

Velvet nodded. "And if you lose yours?"

For a moment Tiffania didn't speak. "When the king found out about my mother, he had her killed, my father killed, and our entire household, including Matilda's family."

Velvet felt cold. Being part elf, it seemed, was worse than being a Faunus. She felt her camera case to reassure herself, just in case a gust of wind tried to kill them.

Tiffania, though, seemed far less worried. She had done this before, and all she had to do was keep her hat on. Saxe-Gotha was surprisingly rustic for its size, reminding Velvet that Albion didn't have electricity or, judging by the smell, plumbing. Horses pulled carriages through cobblestone streets, and beggars lined the sidewalks.

Velvet stayed close to her friend, trying to keep an eye on everything at once. "Is the city always like this?"

Tiffania shook her head. "It's gotten worse since the war started."

"Right, the, um, the Reconquista?"

She nodded. Velvet had heard a few things about the civil war, though Westwood was isolated enough to keep her from seeing it first-hand. Tiffania was neutral, and had taken orphans from either side. The Royalists had already tried to kill her a few years ago, so they weren't on her side, and technically she was third in line to the throne right after the prince, so the Reconquista wouldn't take her in either. Finally, she had pointed ears, so both sides would kill her on sight regardless.

A crowd waited for them in the town square, surrounding an argument they could barely see over the shoulders of those ahead of them. They should have moved on. They were vulnerable enough without getting into trouble, but they couldn't help themselves. They'd just find out what was going on, and then they would leave.

"… all way! Honor, tradition, all for the false priest!" a man said, though with his back turned to Velvet, she couldn't say how old he was. His clothes, once fine, were ragged and stained as though he had made his bed in the gutter. His swaying motions and violent gestures marked him as drunk, either on liquor or simple rage.

His opponent looked to be his opposite in every way. She stood proudly, wearing a white military suit without the whisper of a wrinkle and her light blonde hair in a tight bun. "Look at yourself, old man. Do not embarrass yourself further."

"I'm not the one who should be embarrassed, girl! You're the embarrassment! You and every Reconquista turncoat shame everything Albion stands for!"

"Enough! I will hear no more treason, even from my own father."

The man spat. "I am father to no traitor, Alexandra!"

The woman fell silent for a moment, and her next words were so quiet Velvet could barely hear them over the breathing and shuffling of the crowd. "Then I regret nothing." She swung her wand in a wide arc, creating a gust of wind as hard as a brick wall. The spell was meant for the man, but it hit a wedge of the crowd as well, knocking Velvet, Tiffania, and countless others to the ground.

The townsquare reached a crescendo as everyone started screaming at once. No, Velvet realized. They weren't screaming—she was just hearing them with a second pair of ears. Oh no.

She activated her Semblance, channeling Fox's unique style of martial arts to pull herself out from underneath the man who had fallen half on top of her. Her hat! She needed her hat! It was somewhere around …

Suddenly it didn't matter anymore, because Tiffania's hat fell off too, and someone noticed. Then they started screaming for real.

"Elf! Elf!"

Tiffania, wide eyed and still on the ground, grabbed her ears, desperately trying to hide them. "No." Her voice came out as a whimper. "No."

As the panicked masses pulled away, Velvet stepped forward and offered Tiffania her hand. "There's not much point in hiding for either of us now," she said, smiling. The crowd was frightened now, but that fear would turn to anger like lightning to thunder. Of course, if Velvet could milk their terror for an extra minute, it would make their escape that much easier.

She pulled Tiffania to her feet with one hand, and Yatsuhashi's weapon, a curved sword larger than she was made of hard, blue light appeared in her other. "What say you we get out of here?"

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A/n So, my editor is Australian and Velvet's voice actor is Australian, so I thought, "Great! When I write Velvet, I can have her use Australian spelling instead of my normal barbarism of American English." Then, like two words turn out to be different. Oh well. At least I got to include a sort of cliff hanger, so that was fun.

By the way, I have a sort of head canon of Tiffania actually doing stuff in Albion instead of waiting for the plot to come for her, because there's no point in letting Louise have all the fun (and suffering). For those of you who are interested, I have no idea what chapter is going to come out next, but I'm partially done with Ruby, Weiss, and Summer, so it may (or may not) be one of those three.

Thank you everyone who left reviews, and thank you Magery for editing this to make it readable.