I.
One Step Forward
It was official, hunting Grimm out in the frontier paid like absolute shit.
There were even a few moments here and there where Mercury was sorely tempted to reach out to some of Marcus's old contacts for work. He never did though, Marcus and anything related to him could go and rot in a ditch somewhere. He was through with that part of his life and he wasn't going to go back on his word, his pride wouldn't allow it.
Even if it meant he was stuck taking dead-end Grimm hunting jobs in the middle of nowhere.
Mercury had spent the last couple of months hopping from some no-name town to another, scrounging up whatever hunting jobs he could find all the while. When he factored in the costs of maintaining his prosthetics as well as resupplying the ammunition for his greaves, he more or less ended up breaking even from the jobs he took. That wasn't even counting his living expenses, which ended up bringing him into the red more often than not.
Troy was going to be his fourth new town in the last month and they all shared one thing in common.
The absolute shit pay.
An older woman with large rabbit-like ears stood behind the counter in the town hall. Brown hair along with equally brown colored irises stared back into his own dull gray ones.
"Hello there!" The woman happily greeted. "You're not from around here, are you?"
Mercury just nodded his head at that.
"Well, welcome to the town of Troy! I know it's not the most exciting place, but I do hope that you enjoy your stay." The woman gingerly replied with a smile. "Oh, and I'm Chiffon by the way."
Mercury just blinked in response. He wasn't used to speaking with someone that had such an… Upbeat personality.
"... Mercury." He eventually replied out of obligation. "You got any Grimm hunting jobs?"
"Oh, are you a huntsman?"
And there it was with the same old routine as usual. He'd go into different towns and ask for jobs, only to be questioned if he was a huntsman or if he had a license. At this point, he had gone through the same conversation so many different times that he was basically on auto-pilot. And as he had soon come to find out, a lot of towns also liked to low-ball him on the already abysmal payout because he didn't have a huntsman license.
It was annoying, but he needed the money badly so he dealt with it. It didn't really surprise him anyway, it was a dog eat dog world out there and anyone would screw another person over if it helped them come out ahead. Hell, his own father basically fucked him over harder than anyone else ever could.
It really did make an ex-assassin want to reconsider getting back into his old occupation...
"Well Mercury, if you can take care of the Boarbatusks in the valley, the reward's 3500 Lien."
He was just about to mindlessly accept the job as usual before he quickly did a double-take.
"Wait… Did you just say 3500?"
"Yes, why?" The woman replied with a raised eyebrow. "Is it not enough?"
Mercury couldn't help but narrow his eyes.
Thirty-five hundred just for killing some Boarbatusks? The job seemed way too good to be true, but was he in any position to not take it? He needed money to keep his legs in fighting condition, ammunition for his greaves, and then there were his living expenses to worry about as well. Even if there might have been something sketchy with the job, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
Mercury was used to being dealt a shit hand in life anyway.
"Nah, it's fine. I'll take the job." He briskly answered before turning around to head out. "Thanks."
"Good luck and be careful out there Mercury!"
When Mercury finally got to the valley, he could see why the job paid thirty-five hundred in cold hard Lien.
There were a lot of Boarbatusks. He wasn't even sure if he was going to be able to take them all down at once. His ammunition sure as well wasn't going to last if he tried, so he'd have to take down a good chunk of them with melee attacks instead. Things were probably going to get a bit dicey, but it wasn't like he had anything to lose.
He could always cut his losses and high-tail it if things got too bad. Sure, he'd probably end up going hungry for a few days, but it wasn't anything new for him. It wasn't like Marcus was always there to provide a warm meal after all.
He ended up going hungry in the night more often than not.
Mercury ticked the safeties off his greaves and opened things off by firing a salvo of Wind-Dust rounds into the horde. The air around the area all but imploded as he rushed into the valley. Wind-Dust was pricey but it did a good job in disorientating his enemies, which allowed him to move in for the finisher with his greaves.
He crushed the skull of an unfortunate Boarbatusk with the backend of his steel-toed boot. Another one took a Dust round to the face and before he knew it, he found himself right in the middle of the horde. A sharpened tusk grazed his ribs, ripping a hole into the fabric of his shirt.
Mercury made sure to kill that one extra painfully.
As he continued to fight off the army of Boarbatusks, he heard a shotgun go off in the nearby distance. Buckshot shells slammed into the hide of a Boarbatusk in front of him, killing it instantly. Mercury turned his attention towards the source of the shot for a brief second and saw another man ripping into the horde of Boarbatusks with a Scythe of all weapons.
He wasn't going to complain about the help, but he sure as well wasn't going to split the reward with the guy.
It took a while to cull through most of the horde, but with his newfound partner, they had done a pretty good job of it so far. Most of the Grimm were now slowly decomposing corpses on the ground. Mercury soon found himself standing back-to-back with the Scythe wielding huntsman as the remaining Grimm began to encircle them.
There were about maybe fifteen or so Boarbatusks left, so it wouldn't take too long to mop the rest of them up.
"Names Qrow." The man casually introduced himself, his Scythe hanging over his shoulder.
"... Mercury." He replied out of obligation more than anything.
"You think you can handle the ones on the right?" Qrow asked as his weapon mecha-shifted from a scythe into a broadsword.
Mercury just scoffed at that. "You think you can handle the ones on the left?"
"Well, let's find out." Qrow dryly replied before he leaped into action.
Mercury followed suit and made quick work of the remaining Boarbatusks on his side by using up the last bit of his ammunition. When he turned around to see how Qrow was doing, he was surprised to see that the man had long been finished on his end and was taking a drink from his flask. It smelled like hard liquor to Mercury and he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the stench.
It reminded him too much of Marcus and the drunken induced beatings that would follow. He wasn't sure if Qrow had noticed, as he had tried to school his features back to normal, but the man put away his flask shortly after.
"You're pretty good, kid." Qrow eventually began. "Which school you from?"
"None. My old man taught me."
Qrow let out a low whistle at that. "He must be a pretty good fighter."
"He was."
Qrow's eyes widened for a bit before he schooled his features into a solemn expression.
"... I'm sorry to hear that."
"Well, don't be." Mercury tersely replied.
An awkward silence soon filled the air, made worse by the sound of disintegrating Grimm corpses.
"... You ever think about attending a school?" Qrow eventually began, breaking the stalemate. "Grimm hunting pays a lot better when you have a license to your name."
"Can't say I have." Mercury replied with a shrug. "Why, you trying to recruit me?"
"I know a place that's always looking for talented kids like you. You ever heard of Beacon Academy?"
"I'll think about it."
They had both went their separate ways after that.
Qrow hadn't been expecting to get into a fight so close to a nearby village, but the sound of gunfire had drawn his attention. He was actually kind of glad he had decided to step in. The kid was good, a lot better than any of the other kids that Qrow had seen at his age. He might've even been better than Yang, and that was saying a lot.
Tai had trained her up himself after all, and Tai was one hell of a fighter.
Qrow knew that Oz and Beacon were always looking for new talent, so he figured that it couldn't have hurt to give the kid his contact information. If Mercury decided that he was interested in attending, he could get Oz to pull some strings to get him in, even without a formal education background from another huntsmen academy.
And if not, well it wasn't like he was losing anything from it.
It was a win-win situation in his mind. If Mercury decided to give him a call and expressed some interest in attending Beacon, then the school would get its hands on another talented kid. If not, then at the very least, he had made sure that the world wouldn't have lost out on another potential huntsman in more ways than one. Remnant would need every able-bodied fighter they could get if they hoped to win against Salem and the Grimm after all.
Qrow clasped his sword back into its place behind his waist and began to make his way towards the nearby Village of Troy. He had wasted some time on that little detour, but he thought that it was time well-spent. It wasn't as if he was on a time-table or anything, after all, if Oz had wanted him to find some info about the Red Queen's pawns that quickly, he would've given him a lot more to work with than just a general location.
Seriously, Qrow was good at his job, but he wasn't a damn miracle worker.
Mercury stared at the new contact on his scroll.
It was late into the night, and he had decided to call it a day and was currently laying on his cot. The room that he had managed to rent out this time wasn't as raggedy as the ones that he was used too, but that was more or less attributed to the new funds he had recently acquired from his payout. He was able to stock up on all of his ammunition and even have something leftover this time.
All in all, it had turned out to be a pretty good day for once.
Then again, every day could have been considered to be a good day now that Marcus was out of his life for good. At least, that was how Mercury liked to look at things, but the reality of it all wasn't always that peachy. He'd be lying to himself if he were to say that things were going well for him lately, not when he was just barely scraping by.
It really made him think about Qrow's offer.
Students at Beacon probably got three square meals a day and wouldn't have to worry about where they would be sleeping the next day. That sounded nice and all, but he also didn't like the fact that he'd have to deal with all the other things that came with being a student, like going to school for one. Qrow was right about one thing though, huntsmen with a license were able to take better jobs and got paid way better than a gun-for-hire like himself.
His thumb hovered over the call button for a long time before he finally pushed it.
"... This is Qrow." Came the voice from the other end.
"It's Mercury."
"Well, that was fast." Qrow replied with a slight slur in his voice. "You decided that you wanted to join up with ole Beacon Academy?"
Mercury thought about it some more. Did he really want to do this?
"... Hello?"
"Let's say that I was interested." Mercury eventually began. "How're you going to get me in?"
"I'll get you in touch with a guy." Qrow replied. "You still in town?"
"Yeah."
"Let's meet up tomorrow at the bar and I'll go over some things in more detail. It'll be my treat."
"... I don't drink." Mercury tersely replied. He never was fond of alcohol. "But I'll be there."
"I'll get you some damn juice then, kiddo." Qrow dryly replied.
Mercury just scoffed in response. "Heh, I'll hold you to that then, old man."
"Old? I'm only-"
Mercury hung up on the guy before he could finish his sentence. It was getting late and he was pretty tired from the long day. It was an easy way to make sure that he always got the last word in too, he was petty like that. He tossed his scroll onto the only table in the room before he stretched out his limbs and laid down into the cot. Mercury wasn't sure if he was making the right choice, but at the very least, it was his choice and not Marcus's.
And in the end, that's all that mattered to him.
Author's Note- I think I'll keep things nice and short. As I said before, this story was partially inspired by Coeur's new Adam story, so the whole Beacon thing should've been expected. I could've had Mercury out there doing his own thing, but then half the story would've been filled with OCs and that was something I'd rather not do.