[REFINED Oct. 27, 2018] Author's Note: Ain't nothing here, chief.
Enjoy.
Chapter 12: "There are two types of people who rule the world: hypocrites and dictators. Hypocrites don't apply the rules to themselves and dictators exempt themselves from the rules altogether. Point is, you'll never come out on top by playing by the rules." - Raven Branwen
Jaune's POV
Somehow, when I left for Beacon, it never occurred to me that within a month, my skills as a lockpicker would be put to the test. With hands as big as mine, using such delicate tools in such small movements was never exactly something I was great at, but growing up as I did, I certainly had enough practice to be considered passable. Picking a lock was one of those skills that was versatile enough to be worth learning and simple enough to teach group of people, so I always had plenty of time to learn to break into things. Under my current working conditions, however, things were a little difficult.
"Why don't we just break down the door?" One of the voices from behind me groaned. It sounded like Cardin, but I wasn't really paying attention, nor did it matter to me in the slightest who was whining. From the annoyed huffs and impatient circles being walked behind me, it was plainly obvious that I had four very bored accomplices who had no patience whatsoever.
"Because," I grunted out angrily as the stupid pin from the lock slid out of its place, frustrating me further, "we're trying to be nondescript."
"Yeah, we get that." One of the others called out, crouching down next to me so that I could get a somewhat peripheral view of him. That is, if I gave him the satisfaction of looking at him, which considering the lock I was trying to pick, I did not. "But considering we're all the good guys here, why are we hiding?"
"First, vigilantes are technically bad guys," I started off, hoping they didn't press that issue of morality and open a whole big can of worms that I did not need on top of my current Beacon situation. "This guy is a criminal, and we were hired to 'encourage' him to stop being a criminal. Neither sides want the police involved here, got it?" I made sure to hold the tension rod tight as I turned around to make sure that each of the four did get it. After making eye contact with them all, I returned to my craft.
"Right, so…" another one piled on, crouching on my other side. If I knew their names, that might actually help, but since I don't care to, nor could I recognize their voices, I'll just deal with it. "We got all that. Get in, toss him around, scare him a little, take his illegal stuff, and make him a better person. Cool. We're all on the same page here."
"I'm sensing a 'but,'" I chimed in agitated as I again let the lock slip and reset itself.
"But that doesn't explain why we don't just kick the door down. We could leave him enough of his illegal money to buy a new one."
"You're assuming he deals in cash," I countered, rededicating myself to slowly and carefully picking each pin of the lock. "The real reason is that when he gets home, if his door is kicked in, we lose the element of surprise."
"He's not here?" Cardin asked. "How do you know?"
"I know because the person who wants him to stop doing illegal things is his boss, who told me what time he gets off his shift. He won't be back here until thirty minutes from when we got here, at the very earliest."
"Oh, that's good. Maybe we'll have the door open by then." The one on my right snipped.
"For your information, this is not as easy as the movies make it look." I huffed as the second pin clicked into place. It was only a five-pin tumbler as far as I could tell and so far, I hadn't made it past three, but I was in a hurry each time before now. "It's not as simple as sticking a bobby-pin in and using it as a key. You've got to outsmart the lock, manually adjusting each pin until you find the right position for them all." At least, with the primitive tools I had with me, that was my only option. That I could even take two paperclips and fashion them into a makeshift tension rod and pick was decently impressive, but sadly not super effective. Back at the Tribe we had some actual lockpick sets grinded out from some steel, and with the strength provided there I could have just very easily raked back and forth until the pins fell into place. Right now, I feared that if I raked back and forth, I would break the paperclip. And that isn't some sort of paranoia; the first set I tested earlier broke when I tried, and I was lucky that I brought extra paperclips.
After a few more moments, the tension rod spun in the lock and just like that, the door was open.
"Finally." Someone whined as I cut them off, motioning for everyone to be quiet. There shouldn't be anyone here, but stupid assumptions like that were begging for disaster, especially considering who my partners were right now. I've worked with some idiots before, but this is just ridiculous. Why did I think this was a good idea?
Wishing that I had brought a weapon, I pushed the door open and began fanning out throughout the apartment. It was small, but bigger than one person would need and had a second bedroom. For someone on Junior's payroll, this place is a little too nice, all the more evidence that Junior was right about this guy. I motioned for Cardin to go check one bedroom and I checked the other, taking the spare bedroom and finding it mostly empty. Upon convening back in the living room, it was clear that the place was empty, so I shut the front door behind us and locked it.
"Gloves on, guys," I called out to everyone as a reminder. "This punk would be an idiot to call the cops on himself, but I'm not going to jail because someone was too stupid not to call the police." They all complied, pulling out the generic rubber gloves we had bought on the way over. "Everyone turned their scrolls of at Beacon like I told you to, right? Not off, but shut down completely." Four panicked individuals checked their scrolls, but thank dust none of them had forgotten. "Good. Spread out, keep your voices low, and see what you can't find hidden around the place. My contact didn't say what we're looking for, only that this dude is in way over his head."
The three non-leader members of CRDL took their orders and fanned out, one per bedroom and the extra one checking the bathroom. Cardin, however, approached me instead. "I still don't like this. I feel like you're setting us up."
"You must think really highly of yourself if you think I would put this much effort into getting you in trouble." I cut back automatically, fighting a roll of my eyes. "I'm right here, aren't I? What sort of a set-up involves all of you witnessing me breaking and entering?"
"Then why us?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I asked back, finding from his silence that it wasn't. "Because you guys would actually do it. Do you really think that my team, or Team RWBY, would do this?" Nora I could absolutely see, provided that I controlled the information I gave her carefully. If I told her the lines about this guy's boss being worried and just wanting him to give this life up without the police involved, she would be down, I feel. Ren is a little harder to read and may not like it, but he might have been persuaded to come along, if only as damage control. Pyrrha, though? She's the one person out of all our teams that I'm the least-close to-which is bad, seeing as she is my partner-but I can already tell this would be a major hang-up for her. Team RWBY would be even less fruitful, with only maybe Blake and Yang persuadable. If I approached anyone and they flat-out rejected the offer, I was then on the hook for being willing myself to do it.
"Are you saying we're worse people? Is that why you picked us?" Cardin sounded somewhere between insulted and confused, with a dash of accusatory thrown in. Yes, that is what I'm saying, idiot.
"I'm saying," I replied, echoing him, "that you four seem to have more flexible viewpoints than my team. You match my own out-look well, at least for this." When he didn't have a reply, I felt the need to push on. "For example, you're not bothered by what we're doing, right?"
"I mean, not really." He answered honestly in what was beginning the feel like the most bro moment we might ever have. I need to wrap this up as soon as possible, then.
"Technically, what we're doing here is illegal, which makes it wrong. We're doing it anyways, either because we think we know what's best or we don't care if its wrong."
"It's the first one." Cardin answered. "Right?"
"I can't answer that for you. I can answer it for myself." Cardin stayed quiet, prompting me to answer it to him. "I value certain things in the world; everyone does, and mine is a unique mixture of things. I'm here because doing this offers more benefit to the things I care about than not doing this would."
"That…is it?" Cardin asked carefully.
"You make it sound like it isn't a significant, calculated decision. The main reason that I don't normally break into apartments is because that's wrong, and normally being a good person is important to me." This was just what I needed, having to explain my moral process to someone when it wasn't exactly clear to myself. Why can't this dude show up already?
"Then why is this different?"
"Obviously, it's because this offers me unique advantages that are more important to me than being a good person." Specifically, a way to learn about my family and who I am without Raven being involved, though that isn't something I could explain.
"Oh."
"It if helps, the fact that this guy isn't a good guy does help smooth things over. I wouldn't be doing this to someone innocent." I added on, watching Cardin visibly relax, as that was clearly an important distinction to hear. Deep down, I wasn't 100% sure if I was telling the truth, and that bothered me. Or it would if I thought on it more.
"You guys might want to come see this." A voice called out from the spare bedroom. "This whole closet was filled with stuff."
We all walked in to find several duffel bags laid out on the bare mattress, zippers open but nothing taken out of them yet. "It doesn't look like he was all that worried about hiding the stuff. It was just sitting there in the closet."
I opened the closest bag to me and started looking through it, and if I'm honest, I was impressed by what I saw: illegal weaponry. Not necessarily dust-powered weaponry or Huntsman-level weaponry; no, this equipment was more specialized for assassin work, though in a looser sense than one would think. These weapons were all illegal because they were designed to cause pain and unnecessary damage, or they were concealable. I pulled out a knife and held it up for the group to see.
"Whoa, that's cool. What is it?" The one with the mohawk asked.
"It's a tri-point blade. It's got three blades that twist so that any stab wounds are nearly impossible for doctors to seal fast enough to save the poor bastard who got stabbed." I handed the knife around, letting anyone look at it. "Last time I checked, they were outlawed pretty much everywhere except Vacuo, because of course they're not outlawed there. I'm not sure what is illegal in Vacuo."
"Does that mean that all of this stuff came from Vacuo?" Cardin asked.
"I doubt it. Vacuo's metalsmithing industry sucks. There's just no good iron out in the sand, so the fact that these are all high-quality makes that unlikely." And truly, these weapons were of surprisingly good quality. There were brass knuckles with protruding spikes, switchblades, hook-blades, you name it. This felt like what a kid would find wrapped in a fancy bow on his birthday, except instead of a kid, a member of the Tribe. Or Ruby. "Take this, for example," I said, pulling out a large dagger. "It's made of porcelain. That's highly illegal in Vale."
"Porcelain? Like a toilet?" Someone asked. "That sounds like it would be a crappy dagger."
"Yeah, if you hit it against another sword it might break, but that isn't what it's for. It has no metal, so it can't be detected by a metal detector. This thing is designed to sneak inside a building and murder someone." I took the weapon back, giving it a once over as an idea popped into my head. I mean, I could use a backup weapon, and this certainly would have some merit to it, provided no one found out about it. I can't foresee any situation where I would need to sneak a dagger through metal detectors, but that's no reason not to be prepared. I sheathed the dagger and found that it came with a collection of belts, so that it could be worn anywhere from the small of your back to strapped to your leg. The four of CRDL watched me put the belt on and strap the dagger to my back, just under my shirt, but didn't say anything about it.
"What's in the other bag?" I asked, redirecting their attention.
"Look for yourself." Normally, I would have been a little upset at being told off like that, but when I took the advice I found the bag half-filled with lien, likely the illegal, unreported profits made by our apparent arms-dealer.
"Holy shit." Cardin let out loudly, followed by the rest of his team.
"Well, don't just stand there, grab as much as you can fit in your pockets." I announced, the four of them not needing to be told twice. Cardin went first, because of course he did, coming over to me when he was done. "I would say it's better if we use this money than the arms-dealer who made it."
"You're not taking any?" He asked confused as slightly accusatory, likely getting back on his fear of me setting them up.
"No, I already have a payment from my contact. You four can keep it." I answered honestly. It was over double what I had made from the raid on the White Fang, but I wasn't really in a position where I needed to build up lien, and becoming rich was never a motive for me, hence me leaving Raven's Tribe. Plus, if they did get busted, not taking any money would help give me an alibi. 'Oh, they all identified me as the leader? Of course they would, they hate me. I wasn't there, I didn't even get any cash from the thing!'
If Cardin asked, though, I'd still tell him I'm not setting him up; I'm just hedging my bets.
"Suit yourself. What do we do with this stuff now that we've found it?" He asked, gesturing to the bag full of weapons that we couldn't just leave here or take with us.
"I…have an idea." A very bad idea, but an idea nonetheless. "Did anyone find an old cell phone or something in there?"
"Yeah, this dude has a flip-phone in here." One of them called out, tossing it to me while the last of them finished dividing up their payday. There had to be at least 20,000 lien for each of them there; not a bad day's work. I caught the phone and turned it on, it giving off an old-timey jingle as it booted up.
"Burner phones. Gotta love them." I mumbled to Cardin as I waited for the phone to finish turning on.
"You sure seem to know a lot about this stuff." Cardin stated warily.
"Yeah, I do, don't I?" I answered back flatly, giving him no resolution. "Alright, everyone to the other room. I gotta call a buddy about getting rid of this stuff, and he won't like it if he hears anyone with me. He spooks really easy." My lie was pretty plain, but after I had just led them to a pile of lien, Team CRDL was pretty pliable. Cardin did give me a look before walking out, but seeing as this was the same guy who bullied faunus, I couldn't care less about whatever he thought of me.
With them out of the room, I shut the door behind me and dialed the number I had in mind. It was one of her many numbers, but as far as I was aware, it was still active. The long wait as the phone dialed left me with enough time to second guess why the hell I was calling Raven right now. Wasn't the whole point of working with Junior to get information that Raven is trying to keep from me? Yeah, it was. Wouldn't telling Raven I was on a job for someone else tip her off that I wasn't loyal only to her? If she didn't already know that, this would confirm it. Wouldn't this be—
The phone was picked up, but no voice spoke. This was normal, as Raven would never speak first to a random number calling her. She knew that the number of people who had that number was limited to her own men, and from the process of elimination could probably figure out it was me calling, but she wouldn't ever be tricked into giving herself away by her voice unless someone spoke first. "It's Jaune. I have a gift for you, no questions asked. Portal."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence on the line as she judged the words, before the number hung up. Before I could even react, a portal opened up just a few feet away from me, and Raven walked out. Her mask and armor were on and her hand was on the hilt of her blade, ready for any set-up that I might have drawn her into. I pointed to the duffel bag left on the bed without a word, and she walked over to inspect the items. She looked around the room, clearly taking her time and soaking up as much information as she could about what I was doing, and I was thankful for the blandness of this spare bedroom because it wouldn't tell her much of anything.
"Don't ask. I just needed some way to get rid of this stuff." Raven didn't reply, instead cocking her head to the side, silently judging me, though her curiosity was evident. I could feel her damn smirk through that mask and really didn't need her commenting on anything right now, and for once, she didn't. Raven grabbed the duffel bag and left, her portal closing behind her soon after. I looked down at the flip phone in my hand before taking the battery out and snapping the thing in half for good measure. Raven would have my head if anyone took that number from that phone.
"What are you doing here, Jaune?" I asked myself despondently. "Wasn't the point of coming to Beacon to not be like Raven? This feels like Raven." Breaking and entering and stealing from other criminals is absolutely something that Raven would do. Maybe it was foolish of me to think that I could just undo fourteen years of her teachings just because I had flown the nest, but the whole reason I was here was to find out what Raven has been hiding from me. I wouldn't be here if Raven would tell me about my family, or how I came to the Tribe, but since she won't tell me, I have to use other methods to find out. And that's exactly what Raven would do in my position, isn't it? "Jeez, I'm a lot more like her than I'd like to admit, aren't I?"
Pushing those thoughts from my mind, I left the room and rejoined my makeshift team in the living room. "It's done," I offered simply as they looked at me expectantly. I had closed the door behind me so as to hide the fact that I had just made those things magically disappear. Cardin's been getting curious and I don't need him asking any more questions than he already is. "Only thing left to do is hide and wait for our target."
Cardin's POV
"Alright, do I need to go over the plan again?" Jaune asked, pulling on his ski mask like the rest of us. Our target was supposed to show up at any time and Sky was currently watching out the window to see when he arrived out front. "You know what, I think it would be safest for me to go ahead and say it again."
"Just how stupid do you think we are?" Dove asked from his spot in the doorway of the spare bedroom.
"You don't want me to answer that," quipped Jaune. "Alright, the plan is simple, so that it can't possibly be messed up. He walks in the door and finds that his lamp doesn't work. When he walks to the kitchen to turn that light on, Sky pops out from behind the couch, Dove comes out from the spare bedroom, Cardin comes out from the bathroom, and—wait, what's your name again?—you come out from the main bedroom. I'll be behind the kitchen counter. We're not armed and he might be, so disarm him first and then grab a hold of him." Jaune's voice was commanding but without any real aggression behind it, more like he just wanted this to work than he wanted to be in charge. I get the feeling that he doesn't really want to be doing this, but if he's gonna let us take all that lien, I don't really care. "And whatever you do, let me do the talking. We're just here to scare him. How we looking out there, Sky?"
"I see a big-ass dude wearing a suit and a red tie coming in the front door. That him?"
"Probably. Get into your places."
We all hurried back into our spots. It wasn't that dark in the apartment, but we were used to the dark by now and it should be enough to hide us. Not like we can't take one guy, but we would just rather not be seen. That's what the ski-masks were for, too, although wearing them made me feel a little bit like the bad guy here.
The jingle of keys could be heard from the other side of the door and after a few moments, the door slid open. From my spot peaking out of the bathroom doorway down the hall, I saw a somewhat large person—a little smaller than me, but still bigger than average—walk through the door, closing it behind him. He tried to flick on the switch to the lamp as he walked by it and made it nearly two steps before he realized that it had never come on. "Aw, what the hell? I just replaced that bulb," the man complained before turning to carefully walk to the kitchen. He kept his eyes low and walked slowly, trying not to stub his toes on anything.
"Now." Jaune called out as the target got within striking distance of Jaune's spot behind the kitchen counter.
"What the—" the man was cut off as Jaune struck him once, staggering him backwards right into the arms of Dove and Russel who had come out from the bedrooms. Each of them secured a different arm and the man tried to struggle before I came up and delivered a blow to his gut, keeping him from having any air in his lungs to cry out with.
"Dee Rudo. Age, twenty-six. Mr. Rudo, do you mind if I call you Dee?" Jaune's voice was a little different, thought not because he was disguising it; instead, it sounded like he was going for a more theatrical voice and was really showing off.
"W-what is this?" The man bumbled out, confused.
"You're right, that's too informal. Mr. Rudo it is." Jaune finished his thought, completely ignoring his question.
"W-whoever you are, you're making a mistake. This place is under Junior's protection!" Dee whined, doing a really bad job at not looking scared. At this rate, this idiot might wet himself.
"Really? Are the weapons you've been running also under Junior's protection?" Jaune answered back dangerously, shutting Dee up entirely. "Thought not. You should have stayed a henchman, buddy. We didn't have a care in the world about you before you got into all this mess." To punctuate his point, Jaune pulled out the big knife he had taken from the pile earlier, and brought it up to Dee's face. Dee stared down the weapon in fear, watching nervously as Jaune brought it down to his arm, slicing at his bicep. The knife cut through the suit jacket really easily and even sliced into the man's skin, but only a little, as Jaune didn't seem to put any real force behind the cut. "No aura? That's kinda stupid in your kind of work, but then again, we have established you aren't the sharpest illegal ceramic dagger in the bag of banned weapons…" Jaune said, waving the dagger (now with a hint of red on the blade) in front of Dee's face for good measure.
"What do you want from me?" Dee asked, terror growing in his voice, as apparently this dude is completely spineless.
"I want you to make our jobs easier. Can you do that?"
"W-what does that e-even mean?" Gods above, this dude is a wimp. It's one little cut and some mean words, and he's about to wet his pants.
"Go back to being a small-time thug, 'kay? We didn't care what you did back when you were just a lackey." Jaune answered coolly. "Now, you're running all sorts of illegal weapons and that's just a nightmare for me and my boys here. Do you have any idea how much paperwork I have to do to get each confiscated weapon like that taken care of?" Jaune paused to let the man answer. He never did. "It's a lot of paperwork. I hate paperwork. So we had a better idea."
"W-what is that?"
"I'm so glad you ask, Mr. Rudo." Jaune answered back almost playfully at this point. "We could take you down to the station, book you, charge you with all sorts of crimes for possession and distribution, and then each of us could spend two weeks tracking down all the official procedures for disposing of those goods. Or…" Jaune trailed off, looking at Dee expectantly. The gesture didn't translate well with ski-masks on, though, and Dee just sat there looking frightened and confused. "Or I could just stop running weapons," Jaune threw his voice to the side, pretending to speak for Dee. "Or you could stop running those weapons! That's an excellent idea, Dee!"
"T-that's it? You're not gonna arrest me? O-or...?" He trailed off, clearly imagining worse punishments than a little cut on his arm.
"That depends. Are you going to sell more of these things, or are you gonna go back to being a glorified bouncer?"
"No, I won't. I promise!" Dee offered earnestly, only to receive a deep gut-punch from Jaune that made the rest of us flinch from its suddenness, not to mention its ruthlessness.
"I didn't hear you say it." Jaune offered simply, whispering his words closely to Dee in creepy, unsettling manner. "This is a great deal for both of us. You get a second chance, and I don't have to do any real work. I need to hear you say it."
"I won't, I swear!" Dee answered again, his words choked out as he was trying to regain his breath after the punch; it also sounded like he was starting to cry, which was only magnified when Jaune pulled out the dagger again and held it against Dee's cheek.
"The words. I need to hear them." Jaune commanded, er, threatened? I wasn't sure at this point. This was…more than any sort of interrogation that I could come up with, and I would have thought that I would be the leader among our group in that category. Honestly, I'm beginning to rethink why I ever thought going after Arc was a good idea in the first place; I'm so glad this happened before we actually carried out that plan to get revenge.
"I'll go back to being a thug, I swear! You'll never see me doing this again, I promise!" Dee cried out, tears streaming down from his closed eyes.
"Alright. We'll see. Let him go, boys." We did as told, releasing our target and backing away towards the door, with Jaune following closely behind. "You'll find that we've made it a lot easier to give up selling those weapons. It's hard to sell weapons you don't have." Jaune called out as he walked out the door, shutting it behind him. We all hurried down the stairs and out into the street, dipping through a few alleyways before we felt like we were far enough to not be caught, and once we were, we took off our masks. "Well, wasn't that fun?"
Jaune's POV
I woke up as I felt myself falling, a sensation that turned out to be true as I smacked the ground face first. I quickly rolled over to get my bearings and prepare to react to whatever strike my assailant would throw next. Normally when Raven catches me napping, she'll do something mean to wake me up—like, say, pushing me off of the bench that I had been napping on just now—followed by a strike designed to hurt just for the sake of hurting. I never did quite buy into that I needed to be 'ready at all times, even when asleep;' I still just think that she enjoys attacking me whenever she can. I wouldn't call her a sadist, but she does like to inflict pain on others just for the fun of it, so...actually, I guess that makes her a sadist.
What I opened my eyes to was not Raven Branwen trying to kick me in the face, rather the very curious eyes of Nora, peering at me from behind the bench I had just been pushed off of.
"He's awake now!" Nora called out as she left me, content with whatever it turns out she had accomplished. Though my instincts were now extremely confused, it was starting to come back to me now: I took a nap on the bench during group spars, which we were doing instead of the normal 1v1 fights that Ms. Goodwitch liked to put on. Someone had mentioned something about those being tomorrow and that today was more focused on learning to fight with (or against) your teammates—and it was possible that Ms. Goodwitch was the one to say that; I wasn't exactly paying attention. It made sense, considering that it would get almost nothing done if we only had four or five matches per day for the entire class, but currently I was a little too out of it to remember what had been said.
I got in way too late last night and so far I had managed to avoid any questions about it, but I can only repeatedly return at like 4am so many times before my team gets worried. Part of that was because I never actually came back to my dorm, instead crashing on the floor of CRDL's dorm. They may not have liked me much, but 80,000 free lien does a lot to build friendships in my experience; that, or I just let them have 80,000 lien to let me sleep on the floor, making that the worst hotel in history. Either way, if my team does come after me for questions, I had a built-in excuse ready to go: after getting a little alcohol in me at the club, I decided to go make nice with CRDL. It had the added benefit of being 100% true, if you discounted the whole 'lie of omission' thing.
"Seriously, how did you fall asleep in the two minutes it took the rest of us to get ready?" Yang called out from a distance. I pushed myself off the ground to find that my team and Team RWBY had taken over our own area of the training grounds and I walked over to where my team was standing around.
"I don't feel like that deserves an answer." I taunted back at Yang, for no other reason than I didn't actually have a good comeback prepared, but couldn't be seen to let her have the last word. "Anyways, what are we doing?"
"Miss Goodwitch suggested that we all try some hand-to-hand combat with our teams to try to build some teamwork." Ren answered, taking my attention away from Yang. I'm not sure how punching my teammates is supposed to do that, but okay, sure. Why not? "I thought we could start off while Nora and Pyrrha help watch our form for us, then we do the same for them."
"Uh, sound good to me," I responded. A quick glance over at RWBY confirmed that they seemed to be breaking up into a similar session, although currently they were arguing over who had to fight Yang, and it looked like Blake was losing.
"Alright, then," I announced, lowering into a boxing stance. "Come at me?"
"Like that?" Pyrrha asked, confused. "You're still wearing your weapons and they're kinda...large. Shouldn't you take them off?"
"They're just dead weight. I'm not going to use them." I answered back, not taking my eyes off Ren, who had tossed his weapons aside.
"Then take them off," Pyrrha suggested again, a little more forcefully.
"But in a real fight I wouldn't be able to take them off just because they're heavy."
"It sounds to me like Jaune's buying time," Yang taunted from across the mat, apparently having been eavesdropping. That, or we were just loud, which was usually true. "Scared of fighting Ren?"
"Should I be offended?" Ren mumbled.
"Alright, fine," I huffed, unstrapping my claymore and its holster from my back and tossing them aside with a clang. "If you want me to treat this like a spar and not a fight, I'll treat it like a spar and not a fight." I unstrapped Crocea Mors from my hip, tossing it near the other weapon, before untucking my shirt and pulling up on it.
"Whoa now," Yang called out as I took my shirt off, tossing it over onto the weapons. It was constrictive and if they don't want me to treat this like a real fight, I'll take any sort of advantage I can get. Besides, Ren was wearing a vest that wouldn't offer his arms any resistance anyways, so only my shirt offered a disadvantage. If they wanted me to use advantages that I'll never actually have in a fight, then I will. "We didn't want you to strip, just toss the weapons!" I ignored her, rolling my shoulders and neck to make sure they were loose. Fortunately, I hadn't put on the hidden dagger and strap I had looted last night, instead leaving the technically-illegal weapon in my locker.
"Uh, Ren," Nora called out. "He has an advantage," Nora almost sang, making it obvious she was implying something.
"Does he?"
"Uh, duh. Everyone knows that fighting without a shirt is distracting."
"That's not what it's for." Pyrrha corrected Nora. "It's a pretty common thing for melee fighters and boxers. He can move faster without it. I used to train hand-to-hand in just a sports bra for the same reason."
"Are you sure? Because my enemies always complained about me 'distracting' them and that it 'wasn't fair.'"
"Ren, please tell me she's kidding…?" Pyrrha called out, exasperated. Ren made a point of ignoring her, instead taking a battle stance opposite of me.
"Your team is weird." Yang called out, with Blake nodding along in agreement despite 'watching' Ruby and Weiss; she was clearly eavesdropping, though she wasn't as blatant as Yang.
"Shouldn't you be watching Ruby and not imagining Nora topless?" I called back, not taking my eyes off Ren as we started to circle each other.
"I'm not—" Yang cut herself off. "Ah, forget it." Oh good, after last night, she's finally learning.
Ren and I took steps towards each other, closing the distance until we were within striking distance. I threw a few probing jabs to test him out and Ren rather easily avoided contact, never pressing his attack. I faked a large right hook and Ren took the bait, dodging behind and under the blow in an attempt to deal free damage to my side, but I stopped the attack half-way through and reversed, catching the side of Ren's head with my elbow. With Ren dazed, I threw out a couple of jabs at his stomach to force his hands down, before coming back at his head with a massive punch from my right. Ren brought his hands up but instead of trying to block, he brought both hands open in front of his face. My fist should have flown right between them but stopped when it suddenly impacted a pink barrier. With my attack stopped and me out of position, Ren kicked the side of my knee, forcing me down on that knee as Ren continued to spin from his kick. After a moment, his foot was back around to roundhouse me in the face and I flared my semblance, stopping his kick dead in its tracks just as he stopped my punch.
I had flashbacks of my fight at the docks as I reached up to grab and pin his leg, but since I was underneath him courtesy of his strike to my leg, I lunged forward to completely catch him out of the air. I supported his back with my free hand and lifted him above me as he tried to squirm out of my grip, but never could. I tossed him straight up in the air and as he came back down I did a roundhouse kick of my own (okay, I tried to spin and kick and it was ugly, but functional) and knocked him across the mat.
"See? Just imagine what Renny could do shirtless…" Nora trailed off with a hum that, quite frankly, was making me uncomfortable, given what she had just said. Pyrrha must have picked up on it, too, because she looked extremely awkward.
"What sort of form was that?" Ren asked, popping up off the ground and walking back over, clearly ready for the round to be done. That was like, what, ten seconds? We barely even got started. Ren may not be built for taking damage, but is he so much of a glass cannon that he take withstand a kick? That might be good to know when we get into a combat scenario; letting a friend die certainly goes against me leaving Raven's ways behind.
"I…don't know if that was an actual form," Pyrrha answered, unsure. "What do you think, Yang?"
"Uh…" Yang mumbled, surprised to be caught watching our fight instead of Ruby and Weiss'. She recovered well, though. "I'd say some sort of bastardization of boxing, wrestling, and absorbing kicks to the head. I don't think that's taught anywhere." It's not, as it really was just more improvisation than anything, but if it makes me look better, I won't say anything. "Especially not that last part. It looked cool, though."
"How did you block my fist?" I asked Ren, ignoring everyone else. In truth, I had locked on to this question ever since it happened during the fight and went for the big hit in the hopes that the fight would end sooner so I could get an answer. I didn't have to pick him up and kick him; it would have been better practice for us both if I hadn't, anyways. "Was that...?"
"Aura Manipulation? Yes." Ren answered simply.
"Where did you learn that?"
"Renny invented it. Didn't you, Ren?" Nora answered, confirming one thing above all else: that Ren did not invent it.
"No, Nora. I heard about what it was and spent years trying to figure it out." Ren corrected for Nora. "What about when I kicked you?"
"That?" I asked to buy time, internally panicking a little. I didn't need to be explaining how my semblance worked, because… actually, I don't really have a reason to hide it from my team, do I? "Technically, that's also Aura Manipulation, but I'm not good enough at it to project an aura." I should be, though; with my Semblance, there's no telling what I could project and then amplify. Could I make a weapon out of my Aura? A gun?
"How'd you learn yours?" Ren asked, more out of courtesy than real interest.
"Reflexes over the years." I answered back simply, remembering how much of my backstory I had already filled them in on. "Get hit enough and eventually you learn how to alleviate some pain. Plus, my Semblance helps on that front, too."
"Oooh, Semblance?" Nora nearly shouted. "Show us!"
"Nora, I just said that it helps take away pain, so how would—you know what, never mind." I walked over and grabbed Crocea Mors out from its sheath. "Behold," I announced, waving Crocea Mors in the air for dramatic effect, successfully distracting all of Team RWBY as well as my team. I brought the sword down to my left forearm, before quickly and sharply slicing into my flesh. I had to force my Aura not to protect me, suppressing my natural reflexes to protect myself as the blade bit into my skin. The wound stung but wasn't too deep, with enough amount of blood flowing from it to make a good demonstration. A quick glance around showed a various range of surprised and shocked faces, except for Nora, who was thoroughly entertained, a fact that was beginning to scare me.
"Um…what's going on?" Ruby mumbled, positioning herself from behind Weiss to see me bleeding.
"You…mentioned something about a Semblance?" Pyrrha asked uncertain as blood continued to trickle down my arm.
"Oh yeah, that." I answered back, looking down at my arm for dramatic affect. I focused my Aura on the cut and felt it slowly starting to heal, like Aura should, before I turbo-charged it with my Semblance. I burned more of my Aura by overclocking my Semblance that I did actually healing the wound, as the whole point of this was to show up the healing aspect of my Semblance. Normally, I could patch up something like this in thirty seconds without burning any significant amount Aura on the Semblance, but I spent an extra 3% of my total Aura getting this thing patched up completely in under two seconds.
"Whoa."
"I mean, it's not as cool as running super-fast or…uh…" I trailed off, looking around at the rest of the group for another example of a Semblance, eventually settling on Weiss as I remembered our spar. "Glyphs."
"Wait, do you not know your own team's Semblances?" Weiss asked with a hint of disbelief. "How are you supposed to be a team leader if you don't even know what your team can do?"
"Yeah, even I know my team's Semblances!" Ruby chirped proudly. "Rage, ninja, portals, and me, superspeed."
"Rage?" Yang asked incredulously.
"They're not portals, Ruby, for the last time. They're glyphs."
"Ninja…actually isn't that far off."
"Alright, fine." I cut them off, trying to bring some sort of order back, as futile as that would be. "Team, what's our superpowers?"
"LIGHTNING!" Nora shouted, barely able to contain herself any longer. She acted as if she had been waiting to be asked ever since the topic came up. That she waited this long was impressive, actually.
"I…am so scared to ask this, but Nora, what does that mean?"
"I can turn electricity into power and supercharge myself." Nora answered back calmly, eerily so. As she did so, her entire being seemed to be dulled, and it took me a moment to realize that wasn't just due to her sudden shift in demeanor, but that it looked like all of the color on her body—hair, skin, and even clothes—was dimmer. "Ren, please stop that," Nora asked politely and calmly to her lifelong friend. Whatever 'that' was ended, as the color returned to Nora's person and she shook herself as if testing that she was back to normal.
"What did you just do?" I asked to Ren, who looked rather pleased with himself.
"That would be my Semblance. I can hide people from being detected by Grimm." Ren answered simply yet proudly, holding his arms behind his back and straightening up.
"Can the Grimm not see gray or something?" I asked, referring to Nora's sudden desaturation.
"No, that's just one of the side-effects." Ren answered, turning to look at Nora and in turn turning her back gray. "Grimm sense emotion, and my Semblance hides people by suppressing emotion."
"That's…incredibly convenient." I remarked, sharing a quick, knowing glance with Ren. I wonder how it works, too; does he interface with his targets the same way I do, or would the recipient have no idea who was doing it?
"More like incredibly not fun." Nora countered with a snort. "My Semblance is super cool and lets me smash things and break stuff. Ren's Semblance," Nora emphasized by throwing her voice to mock, "is only used for boring things, like hiding from the Grimm or calming me down so I don't destroy things." The playfulness and energy of Nora had evaporated and left her giving me a firm stare. "That's right, I know what you were getting at, mister."
"How would you feel about some special training sessions for us two, Ren?" I asked, floating the idea as a desperate attempt to avoid Nora's stare. Serious Nora is Dangerous Nora, after all.
"For just us?" Ren repeated back.
"Yeah. I'd like to see if you can't teach me how to project my aura, and my Semblance has a couple of fridge abilities that make me think our Semblances work similarly, anyways." I explained. "Besides, I need to work on an actual form of hand-to-hand anyways, and not just sexy wrestling." I gave a wink to Yang for giving me the idea for that line, and she gave me a scowl in return.
"I would be willing." Ren answered, simply. "But channeling Aura, as you should know, requires a lot of focus and a calm environment to learn how to do it." The message behind Ren's sentence was clear, and it was something that I was about to throw in myself to convince Ren if he was still on the fence. We both looked to Nora expectantly.
"Fiiiine. I'll leave you two alone on your date." Nora relented, not missing any of what was implied.
"I think she's jealous." Yang jumped in, deciding to take revenge on Nora for last night.
"W-what?" Nora practically choked out of surprised. "I have no idea whatever you are talking about, Yang Xiao Long." Nora's words said one thing, but the venom dripping from every slow, threatening syllable she spoke told another story. Ren simply rolled his eyes. "And if you ever think about implying that again, then I'll have to do the same thing to you." Nora's threat seemed very weak to me, but she locked onto Yang's eyes with her patented Nora Stare-Down mixed with a knowing smirk and for a moment it looked like she had cowed Yang into submission.
"Well, that settles that. What about you, Pyrrha?" I asked, turning to the girl in question to find her caught off-guard, also having watched the strange interaction of Nora and Yang. "What's your Semblance?"
"I—"
"Are you going to clean that up?" Weiss asked in almost a disappointed-mother sort of way—or at the very least, what I imagine a mother disappointed in the mess her kids had made would sound like. It isn't as if I had a very normal upbringing in that regard.
"Oh. Right." I answered, turning to find Weiss referencing the drips of blood that had dropped off my arm earlier before I demonstrated my Semblance. Now that I thought about it, I brought my arm up for inspection to realize that from half-way down my forearm down, generous streaks of blood still remained, making me look like the victim of some sort of vicious attack. "Miss Goodwitch would kill me if she found me making a mess."
"From what I hear, she might kill you if she found you, period." Blake countered back, and she did have a point. I may have actually patched things up with Cardin well, but Miss Goodwitch doesn't know that, nor does that necessarily mean she would care. I'm probably going to pay for that at some point, but if she hasn't kicked me out of Beacon yet, then chances are she's not going to. Score one for the undercover-spy-with-the-obnoxious-asshole-cover-persona!
"I'll go clean this up and bring back some paper towels or something," I called out, heading off the sparring mats over towards the rest area. Being as big as it is and seeing how it is first and foremost a combat training school, Beacon has several different types of training areas with all sorts of amenities. The large room where Miss Goodwitch administers 1v1 fights has a lot of seating and it generally is good for holding audiences, but this training facility was focused on the development of the students, including conditioning and strength-building. As such, there was a small kitchen of sorts with a fridge, a couple of blenders for protein shakes, and a sink, the last of which was where I was headed. It was empty, no body really doing dishes in the training area, so I stuck my arm into the sink and turned the water on.
"Okay, so there's no real way to bring this up, so I'm just going to ask you," Ruby's voice called out from behind me, surprising me that I hadn't heard her follow me. "Seeing as weapons are my thing, I feel like this isn't a weird question. Right?"
"Uh…depends on the question? Go ahead."
"What did you name your weapons?" The eagerness in Ruby's voice was plainly evident as she made no attempt to hide it. It made sense, I guess, seeing as the first time we met she fawned over my sword instead of wanting to talk to me, so weapons must just hold a dear place in her heart. By far not the weirdest thing I've encountered.
"Well, there's my back-up sword," I started off while scrubbing my arm to wash off any dried blood. In hindsight, that demo wasn't really all that necessary, but what can I say, I've inherited Raven's flair for drama. "It's my old weapon and the one I'm actually trained with. That's Crocea Mors." It felt weird calling it my 'back-up' and 'old' weapon, considering it is by far my best weapon and the one I feel like I could hold my own against anyone with. At least, when using the shield and not just the blade.
"Ooh, that's a cool name. What does it mean?"
"What does it…?" I repeated, slightly confused. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know what your own weapon's name is? Didn't you come up with it?" Ruby asked with a little bit of that same disappointment Weiss used earlier.
"No, that weapon was passed down to me. The name was inscribed on it." I answered back truthfully while searching around for dish soap to bust up some of the more stubborn streaks.
"Passed down?" Ruby asked confused and I instantly berated myself for the slip of the tongue. "Aren't you…?" Ruby trailed off, unwilling to actually say the words. "Nevermind."
"An orphan? Yeah, you're right." I answered, realizing the need to control the narrative. I don't want to lie here, but if I don't all my other lies could start unraveling, and it would be worse for all my lies to be discovered than for me to add one more to it. "I guess 'passed down' wasn't really accurate. It was a gift."
"Oh." Ruby answered softly.
"I actually mean a gift, Ruby." I answered back with a small chuckle. "I didn't kill anyone for it, if that's what you're thinking."
"W-what?" Ruby stammered out of surprise. "No, I wasn't thinking that. I just thought you stole it." A few moments of silence passed as Ruby walked around to sit on the counter to my right so that we could see each other while talking. "What about your other weapon?"
"Oh, the claymore? It doesn't have some fancy name." I answered, drying off my arm and inspecting it for any more caked blood.
"That's what I was afraid of," Ruby answered in a way that made me feel like not only was she not afraid of it, but that it was what she wanted to hear. "Can I help? Please?"
"Can you help…what?"
"Name your weapon, silly!" Ruby answered back with a large smile. "I'm super good at it. Back at Signal, I used to help all sorts of people name their weapons. It was, like, my thing."
"Uh, I really don't think it needs a—"
"Every weapon needs a name." Ruby cut me off forcefully.
"Are you s—"
"Yes."
"Okay, are you sure that you want to help?"
"YES."
"Alright, what would you suggest?" I asked, trying to hide how amusing the situation was. I also have a feeling that Ruby would not appreciate me letting her win because she was too adorable to say no to.
Actually, that might have been her plan all along. Damnit.
"Well, first, describe your weapon to me. That way I can figure out how you feel about it." Ruby stated, showing off that she was as experienced with this as she claimed, or at the very least, she had given this a lot of thought.
"Um…it's large." Ruby nodded along, urging me to keep going. "The whole thing is gray. That part is pretty significant. Just kind of a smoky-gray blade, not quite black, but close."
"Okay, that's good. We can work with gray." Ruby encouraged me to go further.
"It's…designed to kill things." I stammered, running out of anything to really describe a weapon. I mean, it's a sword, not a fighter jet; swish-swish, stab-stab. What else is there?
"Okay, that's…true." Ruby allowed, clearly aware that I was struggling at this. "Put those two things together and what sort of name can you come up with?"
"Isn't that your job?" I asked back.
"I said," Ruby cut back forcefully, "put them together and come up with names."
"Okay, okay. Sheesh," I relented. "Gray…killer? Smoky slasher? Gray deathbringer? Gray death?" I mumbled as words came to me, hoping that Ruby would pick one and let me be done with this.
"That's not bad," Ruby cut in after Gray Death.
"Then it's done. We'll call it Gray Death."
"Not so fast there. You can't just name it that!"
"What?! That was the whole point!" I whined. "We literally just did all that and you're telling me it doesn't count!"
"You can't just give your weapon a normal name! It has to be in some weird language or some special code that means 'gray death.'" Ruby explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world and I was stupid for not knowing it.
"But your weapon isn't!" I think.
"Crescent Rose doesn't have an older sister whose name is in a weird language." Ruby explained hostilely, very defensive of her own weapon. "You, however, already have a Crocea Mors, so this new name needs to match."
"It needs to match?" I repeated exhaustedly. "I don't even know what language that is!"
"Okay, it doesn't have to be the same language, but it has to be something different. You can't just have one in English and one not. That's weird." Ruby dismissed the notion easily. "Lucky for you, that's where I come in. I'll find some cool-sounding translation for your weapon later and we'll see how you like it."
"I'm sure that you'll pick a good name," I answered back exhausted. It was a guarantee that whatever she picked would get used, because I can't be bothered to care enough to change it at this point. "Come on, we've wasted enough time here. I still have to go clean that mat before Miss Goodwitch finds it, or..."
"Or what?"
"Or there'll be a lot more of my blood on the mat soon."
Closing Thoughts: Hey, it's nice to see that all those YouTube videos I watched on how to pick locks and how to make lock-picks way back in Middle School paid off! Yes, I did actually make a lock pick out of paperclips, and no, it did not work. I didn't have any large paperclips and the medium one was just too thin to resist the pressure needed to push a pin up. That meant I had to try raking and it soon broke when I did that, but hey, it made for a decent segment in a Fanfic like six years later, so not a waste of time!
I know that knives that can't be detected by metal detectors are dangerous and no laughing matter, but I struggle to take the idea of a 'ceramic knife' seriously without thinking of infomercials for things like the Yoshi knife or other Shopping Network-type ceramic kitchen knives. That's unfortunate, because I added one to Jaune's arsenal. In the spirit of naming weapons, I think I'll name this one 'Chekhov." Absolutely no particular reason, none at all.
Aaaaaand it's time to play "Ruin Ike's Surprise!" Here's the rule: try to figure out what Jaune's claymore will be named once Ruby translates it.
I never said it would be hard, as if you could find it in one good Google search. How do I know that? Silly, that's how I came up with the name that it's going to receive! As a bonus, try to figure out what that one Google search was for.
Till next week.
Comment of the Week: by FF user The Exiled Darkness on Ch. 11
"If you wanted Nora as team leader, the simple fix would've been NAPR (Napier Green). Just saying. Also, Vigilantism!"
Oh hey, buddy, long time no Comment of the Week! Hold on a sec...
Bing: "mnapier"
Wait, I spelled something wrong.
Bing: did you mean "napier"?
Yes, yes I did.
*click 'napier'*
Alright, results for Napier, New Zealand; that's not it. Napier Outdoors? No. Oh, image search, cool...uh, some old printings or a UConn Men's Basketball player? That's not it. Where the heck do I find out what color Napier is?
Wait, why am I on Bing? That's gotta be the issue.
Google: Napier
It took me to Napier, New Zealand again. What the-
Oh.
Google: "Napier green"
Oh. Okay. That's a color. Not too bad of a color, either. Huh.
Yeah, Team NAPR would have worked. It would have been better than Team Jazzberry, at the very least!
Side note, if I'm struck down by lightning when this post goes up, I probably deserved it for mocking the God-King of RWBY Fanfiction...