Jaune looked around to see nothing but blackness. It was as if he was in a room with no light. "Hello?!" he called out. All of a sudden the sound of a switch flipping was heard. Jaune turns around to see a light shining down on a body. Around the body was a pool of blood. Jaune runs over to it and kneels with shock. He calls out to the darkness again.
"Help! Someone help!"
When Jaune turns the body over he realizes that it was the bandit girl he killed he yelps and scoots back away from it. that was until he felt something behind him. He looks over his shoulder and saw another body lying there. He recognizes it as the bandit girl whose tongue he bit off.
All of a sudden it was as if the darkness slowly dissapeared, only it wasn't darkness. It was bats, ravens and crows circling Jaune to make it seem like he ws in a dark room. The flapping of wings filled Jaune's ear which caused him to cover them. However, what came next was the worst part: The screeching of the flying creatures.
"MURDERER!"
"KILLER!"
"BUTCHER!
"CUT-THROAT!"
Each individual animal created a new synoym, each more horrifying than the last. Jaune yelled back. "NO! I didn't mean to!"
"REAPER!"
"ASSASSIN!"
"They hurt my friends! I had no choice!"
"What a load of shit," A low yet familiar voice said. Jaune turns to see a shadow like figure standing with what seemed to be its hands in its pockets. Dark yellow eyes was the only light that Jaune could see. "You know you always have the choice to take someone's life."
"Who are you?"
"Come on, don't even recognize me?" The figure smiles a white smile with little traces of blood in between what Jaune assumed was teeth. The longer Jaune stared the more apparent it became. Jaune was looking at himself.
"No, no you are not me!"
The figure shrugs. "You're right, I'm you about a year from now. Soon, killing will become so easy for you. In fact I know you feel it now. The power that comes with it." The figure grinned menacingly. "You crave it."
"No!" Jaune said. Again, the winged creatures circle Jaune shouting out names. Jaune covers his ears and rocks back and forth. "I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!"
Brawnz saw the scared and pained look on the unconscious blonde's face. He couldn't help but feel guilty. He knows what it's like to kill someone for the first time. Brawnz was just lucky enough that it was from a distance, Jaune literally beat someone to death and made another choke on her own blood. Not exactly the most painless way to kill someone.
Brawnz looked at his right hand. That image of the gun in his hand as he protected his dad is still in his head. He can never forget that day. He remembers it as if it was yesterday.
A ten year old Brawnz is sleeping in his cot in the tent his family lives in. His dad was a miner for the schneee dust company so they often stayed in a place for a few months and moved on after the resources were depleted and or their boss had to relocate. Brawnz has gotten used to it. At least everyone in the camp traveled together. Brawnz never had to say goodbye to his friends, but as friends traveled together, so did enemies.
Brawnz was awoken by the sound of a scuffle and grunting. He sits up and listens closely for the sounds. He then hears someone whisper something.
"Let's go you thieving bastard," the voice said. Feet shuffle away and Brawnz gets up and goes over to his dad's cot.
"Dad," he said. "I think someone's in trouble." When Brawnz didn't get a response he was going to shake his dad awake. However, once he noticed that there was no one there, Brawnz put two and two together. However he had to be sure. Brawnz made sure that his mother was still asleep before he grabbed a flashlight and slipped out of the tent.
He looked around the tent with the flashlight shining on the desert sand, hoping to find the footprints that were left behind. After a minute of searching he found two set of footprints. He began to follow them, hopefully to find that his dad was okay.
After following the prints he began to hear voices. Brawnz turned off the flashlight and slowly followed the voices. He finds that two figures are arguing about something. The ten year old hides behind a mining machine and listens to the conversation.
"What do you want Jerry?" The voice of his father says. "I didn't take anything from you."
"Don't bullshit me Connor!" The other voice threatened. "Do you think I'm an idiot? I saw you go to my stash and take out the dust I mined. And then you sold it to the boss for extra cash!"
"I haven't even been near your tent! How am I supposed to steal from you if I haven't even been near you!"
"You think I keep my stash in my tent? Unlike you I like to make my stuff hidden, not in my tent!"
"You're the idiot if you think I don't know that. I have a stash too and if it's next to your I'm sorry, but I didn't steal from you!"
Brawnz looked around the corner to see Jerry, a man who was his father's rival, pinning his father against the mining machine.
"Figures a thief would lie. You know you've been a pain in my ass since I joined. Well now, I'm gonna make sure you won't be a pain anymore."
Jerry takes out a gun. This causes Brawnz's dad to kick Jerry away. Jerry falls to the floor and Brawn's dad jumps on him and struggles to take the gun away from Jerry. As the two wrestle, Brawns watches in horror as each of them strike each other.
Brawnz's dad was able to wrestle the gun away and toss it to the side, over to where Brawnz was hiding. Brawnz picks up the gun and holds it in his hand. He notices that it has a silencer. He looks up to see Jerry on top of his father. He then notices that Jerry had another weapon on him: A switchblade.
Brawnz gasps as Jerry pulls out the knife. "So long!" Jerry said. Brawnz checks the gun for bullets and cocks the slide. He then points it at Jerry.
"Don't!" He yelled. Jerry looks over to see Brawnz standing there. He raises an eyebrow.
"You think you can shoot me boy?" Jerry said. He stabs Brawnz's father in the chest causing the man to clutch the wounded area. He then slowly approaches Brawnz. "Well? Shoot me boy! Shoot me!"
Brawnz's hands shook as Jerry stepped closer and closer. Jerry was moving faster and faster as he got closer to Brawnz. "Jerry don't hurt him, he has nothing to do with this!" Brawnz dad said.
"Maybe not, but It'll send a clear message."
Jerry smiled wildly and raised a knife at Brawnz. Brawnz gasps and dives out of the way of the knife and slowly backs away from Jerry, gun in his hand. "Sorry boy, blame your father for this." Jerry said as he got closer. Eventually Brawnz yelled and closed his eyes as he pointed the gun in Jerry's direction. He fires off five shots.
When Brawnz doesn't feel something entering his skin, he opens his eyes to reveal Jerry, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. Brawnz then notices the blood running down him. "You… bastard…"
Jerry falls back and Brawnz stares in horror. His father was able to get up and walk over to them and see what happened. He notices his son and slowly walks over to him, still making sure he isn't losing blood. He goes behind Brawnz and turns him around.
"Don't look, son," He said as he hugged his child.
"I…I…" Was all the young boy could say.
"Don't look. You did what you had to."
Brawnz continued to look at his hand. He shakes both his hand and his head. Now was not the time to remember. He needed to be there for Jaune when he woke up and needed to make sure they were both safe.
He sat next to his friend and waited. He didn't know what would come first, the escape or comforting Jaune.
With Nolan and Roy:
Nolan and Roy followed the directions that the bandit gave them to the female prison. Nolan learned that the prisons are a makeshift cave the bandits found. They dug a little more and used metal and wood to make more prisons.
Fortunately the cave wasn't a big one, hence why the bandits had to dig. As they navigated through the cave, slowly and stealthily as to not let anyone know they escaped, Nolan whispered to Roy. "Hey, you okay man?"
"I'm fine, why?" Roy said as he kept an eye behind them.
"Well Jaune and I were the only ones that really fought in there. You two just froze up." Nolan held up his hand as a way to tell Brawnz to hold. Both of them lower themselves and behind rocks. Two bandits carrying assault rifles slowly walked and talk out of the cave. Roy and Nolan heard a little bit of the conversation.
"The purple haired one's really hot," one of them said. "Think Eric'll share her?"
"Nah mate," the other said. "You know how Eric is, once he got his eye on one, he's going to want to keep her. Besides, from what I remember we still got three other girls locked up and waiting for the initiation."
"I still can't believe we got Shade students.
"Bah! I can't wait for the initiations. I'm fighting Eric. That git can jump in hole for all I care. I'm definitely going to get a dance from her."
"Hey man if you want to fight the bastard for a dance, be my guest. It will be funny to watch your drunk ass get slammed through a table."
"Hey at least I can handle a few drinks!"
The conversation could no longer be heard as the two bandits were too far off for them to be heard. Nolan and Roy look at each other. "You think that's Nebula?" Roy asked.
"You know any other purple haired girls?" Nolan asked.
"All I'm saying is they could've taken people from Picaro." The two begin moving again to find the cells.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I'm telling you I'm fine." Nolan gave a backwards glance to Roy. The dark skinned boy sighed. "Look, I froze because I had no idea what to do. I panicked. I saw you and Jaune fighting, and after almost getting raped, my mind was blank. It shut down. At least it did for me, I can't say the same for Brawnz."
"But you're good now, right?" Roy nodded. "All right, let's go get our friends."
The two continued further into the cave, occasionally stopping and hiding to make sure the bandits don't see them. They eventually reach a long narrow place in the cave. Nolan slowly peaks around the corner to see a guard standing in front of a door. He was smoking a cigarette and he had what looked to be a pistol holstered to his side. He wasn't really paying attention so he didn't notice Roy and Nolan peaking around the corner.
Roy and Nolan walk a little bit away and discuss their plan of attack. "Okay, what do you got Roy?"
"It's a long straight and narrow so only one way to the door. However he has his pistol holstered and it's only fifteen feet to the door. We can try to rush him but the scuffle could cause others to hear. If we can get him away from the door we can ambush him."
Nolan and Roy were looking around for any kind of a distraction. Throwing a rock wouldn't do it as stones fall all the time in a cave. Perhaps throwing a stone in the bandit's face could work?
As the two brainstormed, Nolan noticed a small scurrying thing out of the corner of his eyes. He realizes a cave rat came out of its home, most likely to look for food. Nolan nudges Roy and points to the rat. Roy realized what Nolan wanted to do and looked at his teammate.
"You sure it'll work?"
"I'll get his attention," Nolan said with a confident grin. He reaches hand towards the rat, a ball of aura engulfs it. "When you hear the sound of the guy struggling you come over. Oh and, watch my body will ya?"
With a slight jolt the aura around the rat glowed and Nolan slumped over.
Nolan's POV:
I blink a couple of times. It takes time to get used to a new body. I get used to the new smells and sounds. I look around to see Roy and my body sitting next to the rocks. I nod to him and he nods back. I crawl over to the guard and begin our plan.
3rd person POV:
The guard took a final puff of his cigarette. He was about to drop it but he found a rat coming close to him. He looks at the still lit cig and smiles. He flicks it at the rat, hoping to hit it. However the Rat moved out of the way as it saw the cigarette flying towards it. The guard sighed.
"Of course it moves," he said aloud, covering his face. He doesn't notice the rat moved closer to him. He removes his hand from his face and continues keeping guard. That was until he felt an unfamiliar weight on his foot. He looks down to see the rat trying to climb his leg. He yells and tried to shake it off but it runs up his leg, biting him every second it could.
The rat eventually runs up his shirt and the guard is basically punching himself trying to crush the rat. As he is distracted Roy grabs a nearby rock and approaches him. Roy then grabs the guard's shoulder, grips the rock tightly, and then hits him hard in the head with it.
The guard falls to the ground, a fresh wound on the side of his face from Roy. The rat crawls from the guard's shirt and looks at Roy. Roy sticks his hand for the rat to climb on. He takes the Rat over to his original body and heads over to loot the guard.
An aura wraps around the red head's body. A jolt and squeak from the rat causes the aura to glow a little and then disappear around from the body. The rat sprints away back to its home. Nolan opens his eyes and stretches. He moves his limbs around to get used to them again.
He gets up and walks over to his friend to see him checking the magazine of the guard's pistol. "You know you didn't exactly put my body in a comfortable spot," Nolan said as he checked the guard. He realized Roy left the knife on the guard for him to keep.
"Suck it up, Buttercup," Roy said. As Nolan continues to search the body, Roy slides the guns back to have the round eject from it. He grabs it and loads it into the magazine. He then puts the magazine into the gun. Roy holster's the gun and looks at Nolan. "Does he have keys?"
"Yeah, right here." Nolan showed the key to Roy and then handed it to him. "You get the girls, I'll deal with this guy." Roy nods and Nolan takes the body and drags it away. For good measure he slices the guard's throat just in case Roy didn't hit him hard enough.
Roy unlocks the door and opens the door, only to hear a scream and see someone running toward him. Roy blocks the person's arms with his arm, causing the stone they had in their hands to fall to the ground. He then unholsters the pistol and aims the gun in their face.
When Roy realizes it was the face of his team's sniper, he sighed. Luckily he didn't put his finger on the trigger when he pulled it out. "Oum May, that anyway to treat your teammate?"
"Sorry, I thought you were one of the guards," She said. "They get a little… handsy when they drug us."
"Drug you?"
"They've been taking us one at a time and drugging us to make it so we don't run. They took Nebula and Octavia and drugged them while keeping their guns trained on us."
Roy nodded. It would make sense that the bandits would have to keep them under control seeing as how most of the girls at Shade weren't exactly girly girls. But one thing was bothering Roy.
"You didn't hear the fighting going on on the other side of the door?"
"The bandit's fight each other all the time. Now quit stalling and help us get out of these chains."
Roy looked and saw that it was May, Gwen, and Dew in the prison. He waves to them and Dew Nods back while Gwen looks away from him and waves. The way they were chained up was different compared to the way the guys were chained up. They had the chains around their ankles which were around posts. However he noticed that the girls' chains had a weird glow around them. That was when he realized that these were the aura cancelling chains. He kneels down and uses the key to unlock May's ankle from the chain.
"Thanks," She said. The door opened again to reveal a bandit with red hair coming in. May instantly was on them choking them. That was until she got a look at them and realized it was Nolan wearing the Bandit armor. "Nolan?!"
"Stop… Choking… Me!" Nolan said in a raspy voice. May didn't realize she was still strangling him and let go.
"Sorry."
Roy unlocked Dew and helped her to her feet. "About time you saved the damsels in distress," She joked. Roy rolled his eyes and went over to Gwen.
"Nolan, why are you dressed like that?" May asked her teammate.
"I'm going to infiltrate the base, see if I can find Nebula and Octavia," Nolan said. "Besides, I know how to act around bandits remember?"
Roy got done unlocking Gwen's chains. She thanks him meekly and they both go over to Nolan. "Nolan, you know you don't have to do this," Roy said.
"Look, impersonating a bandit to get a layout of the place is going to be a lot easier than trying to sneak around it. All of you go back to our cell, Brawnz is there with Jaune."
"The blonde?" May asked. "Let me guess, he doesn't know what to do?"
"He feinted after biting a girl's tongue off and beating another one to death," Roy stated bluntly. The room fell silent for a few moments.
"Jaune?" Dew said. "The idiot?" Roy and Nolan nodded. Dew shrugs. "I'll believe it if I see it."
"Well go to our cell," Nolan said. "Like I said Brawnz is there keeping an eye on Jaune. I'll get Nebula and Octavia, and then we're getting the hell out of here."
"Just don't get caught man," Roy said. the two slap hands and do a quick bro hug.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
With that done, both parties go their separate ways.
To be continued.
