Chapter 16:
Dark Tidings
Bloodborne is property of Fromsoftware. RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth
"Talking"
"Mental Speech"
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Marcus Black let loose a content sigh as his home rose up in the distance. Only now, could he truly relax. Those days and weeks following the completion of a job—before he can retreat to safety of his own personal castle—were always the most stressful. But now, he no longer had to worry about cops on his tail, or idiotic clients that think they can kill him and erase what they'd done (he never killed them in kind, though. Just broke into their homes and took a picture of him standing over their—or their children's—sleeping forms with a gun to their heads. It tended to get the point across).
He unlocked the front door, walking into a dark house. Marcus narrowed his eyes, walking further in, Aura flashing across his body. His eyes darted across the dark room, arms held up, fists clenched.
But nothing happened.
Marcus scoffed, "Want me to come to you? Fine," he smirked, "I'll play your game."
He tiptoed through the house, heading for the basement first. It, like the rest of the house, was dark. He opened the door just a few inches, reaching into the pouch tied to his leg. He pulled out a teargas grenade (good for escaping in a pinch), primed it, and threw it down the basement.
But the only sound that followed was the steady hiss of gas. Either the brat managed to fix up one of Marcus's gas masks, or (more likely) he wasn't down there. He left the basement behind, heading for the stairs.
He should have gone there first, because light was coming in from the attic. A lot of light.
Abandoning all subtlety, Marcus stomped up the stairs. Gone barely a month and the brat forgot everything he'd learned. Disgraceful.
He slammed the attic door open, prepped to charge at his lazy son, only to pause at the sight before him.
Mercury may have gotten Marcus's build, hair, and eyes, but there was one major difference between him and his son. The brat was far more studious at his eight years of age than Marcus had been at any age. So he wasn't entirely surprised to see Mercury sitting in the middle of an avalanche of papers, staring intently at his Scroll.
What was surprising, what made him pause, was the blank stare Mercury sent his way as he said, "People are asking for refunds."
Marcus blinked, his previous aggression making way for confusion. "People are what?"
The brat just tossed him his Scroll. Marcus indulged him, grunting upon seeing an article on 'The Butcher of Sanus'. A stupid name—sure, the man killed a lot of people (so many at a time that Marcus couldn't help but be impressed) but he didn't tear them apart. It'd more accurate to call him 'The Headhunter' or 'The Guillotine'.
He shook his head, turning his full attention to the article.
'The Butcher's Sordid Beginning,' it read. The Butcher—Gehrman was his name—grew up in Vale's ghettos and had a rough childhood blah blah blah.
He arched a brow at his son, who rolled his eyes, still sifting through the papers, "Keep reading."
He twitched at the command but stayed his hand—Mercury, for all the brat's faults, wasn't an idiot. He quickly learned not to waste any time with nonsense. Thus, Marcus returned to the article, skipping the boring bits.
'…He started his murderous career young. His early victims including Ulysses Aurum, Jade Trinidad, Karl Elm, and Alex Gol—!' Marcus gasped, recognizing the name.
At once, his previous anger returned. "Alex Goldman was one of my kills!" One of his better ones, if he said so himself. Still made him chuckle, when he recalled the man's horrified stare as Marcus covered him head-to-toe in raw fire dust before throwing a lighter at him.
"Sure." Marcus whipped his head up at Mercury, who flinched, "I mean—that's not the only name." He gestured to the papers on the ground, "I recognized a few of them, and decided to look back through your old contracts."
Marcus narrowed his eyes, "You went through my study?"
Mercury gulped but, to his credit, he didn't fold. "Yes. I had to make sure, especially after we started getting letters from past clients demanding you return their money."
Pat-Pat-PatPatPat
Mercury snorted as Marcus turned to the attic window, "Speak of the devil." The boy made to get up, but Marcus moved ahead of him, opening the window and letting the messenger pigeon in. It flew to the corner of the room—where they kept the bird seed—and Marcus removed the message from its leg.
The rolled-up paper had a purple spider stamped on it; Misha 'Lil' Miss' Malachite's personal sigil. He didn't open it though. He was tired, and angry. He needed a drink, something to help him stew as he detoxed from his last job and planned how to best deal with this…situation before he could care about anything else.
"What's it say?" Mercury called out from behind him.
Marcus tucked the paper away, "You don't need to know. What you do need to know," he turned to face his son, who stiffened under his gaze, "need to be reminded of, really, is that you cannot enter my study without permission."
His son paled, before flushing with anger. "What? But that's not fair! You were gone and I had to—"
Whatever he had to say was lost as Marcus hurled the Scroll at him. The boy dodged it, but it left him open for Marcus to knee him in the face. He'd gotten his Aura up in time—his body flashed white the second the scroll sailed over his bent over form—so he didn't break anything. But he was still lifted up from the force of the blow, letting Marcus grab him and throw him into the attic wall. Then, his Aura broke, but he grabbed the now-broken scroll, gripping it like a vise as he glared up at Marcus.
Marcus just smirked, letting his sons anger and indignation wash over him. It'd taken awhile, for the boy to default to rage instead of fear and sadness. Now Marcus could really enjoy their spars. However, he couldn't continue their current spat; he was tired, and Mercury, even if he'd broken one of the rules of the house, had done good work. Thus, he said, "Clean this mess up. Be in the basement by noon tomorrow for training."
The brat grit his teeth, but spat out, "Yes sir."
Marcus headed for the stairs but paused at the door. "You unlock your Semblance yet?" he asked
"No," was his son's quick reply. Very quick reply.
Marcus looked over his shoulder, but the boy's back was to him as he knelt on the floor, gathering up papers. He could be lying, try to keep Marcus from stealing his Semblance (which wasn't 'stealing' so much as turning it off, but saying he'd steal the Semblance and maybe give it back would better motivate his son) or he could be telling the truth. Given that the boy was calmly performing his given task, Marcus was inclined to believe the latter. Unless, of course, Mercury had gotten better at lying.
He let the matter lie, heading downstairs to get drunk an forget about his troubles for a few blissful hours.
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Arthur had to admit, for an immortal witch, Salem had a sense of style that would put any member of Atlesian high society to shame. If world domination didn't pan out (and in the millennia before she'd met him, it hadn't) she would make a terrific interior decorator. Granted, everything in their conference room was either black, red, or orange, but that didn't change to fact that the decorations carved into the table were gorgeous, or that the chandeliers hanging above them shone like the stars.
It really distracted from the dreary, desolate landscape just outside the windows. Ah, and who could forget the herds of Grimm that roamed all around them.
He turned away as a dozen Goliaths lumbered past. He shivered; he'd never get used to that.
He decided to invest the time he had in something useful before everyone else (all two-and-a-half of them) arrived. He pulled out his scroll, opening the file he'd compiled on Gehrman. The very light file. To be certain, Gehrman had quickly built up a ludicrously bloody reputation, but the man's early career, if not his entire life, was lost to amidst broken lines of code. And it was Arthur's fault.
He knew that some men cursed their genius. Pietro Polendina once lamented that his mind made it difficult for him to find love (to which Arthur, before he faked his death, would always reply that prostitutes were an option). Leopold Merlot—well, the less said about that particular madman the better.
In any case, Arthur was not beset by that weakness. He was smart, incredibly so, and it had never given him cause to feel bitter over his intelligence. No, all the problems he'd faced in life were due to others' issues with his intellect, not his own. Until now, at least.
When he accepted Salem's offer to join her cause, she'd told him she could help him disappear from Atlas. But that wouldn't do. Even if his genius wasn't properly appreciated, a sudden disappearance would have raised a few eyebrows. Suicide was also out of the question, because any who spent more than five minutes around him knew that Arthur had no cause to kill himself. A suicide bombing, however, an attack on the institution and people that had stifled him at every turn? Well, anyone that spent five minutes around him knew that Arthur could very well do that.
So, Salem used her considerable magical might to create a flesh-and-blood copy of Arthur that blew himself up in the middle of Atlas's CCT server farm. The chaos the initial blast caused alone was more than enough to ensure Salem his eternal loyalty.
Alas, it was that exact chaos that was the cause of his current problem.
Wha-BOOM
Arthur managed not to flinch as the doors to the large room slammed open. Salem glided through, Hazel and Cinder—nose turned up in the air in a poor attempt of emulating Salem—following behind her.
She took her seat at the head of the table, Cinder taking the seat to her immediate left. Hazel slid into a seat directly across from Arthur. Something struck the scientist as odd with the arrangement—and then it hit him. There were no insane, reverential ramblings from a loud, homicidal Faunus.
Arthur had never liked Tyrian, but he had to admit the mercenary had a certain liveliness to him.
Salem let them all stew in silence before turning her coal black eyes towards him. "Arthur," she said, voice prim and proper, "you've finally gathered information on this mysterious individual that killed Tyrian?"
Arthur straightened in his seat, "…Sort of."
Salem shushed Cinder's infuriating giggle before arching a brow, "Sort of?"
He cleared his throat, "Do you recall how I entered your services? The way we faked my death?"
Salem smiled—lips pulling back much like a cat's—and said, "Yes. It was quite the show."
"And you remember that I told you that the secure Huntsmen servers in the CCT were the most impacted by the 'show'?"
Salem narrowed her eyes, smile disappearing, "What is it, Arthur?"
Welling up his courage, he said, "It would appear, that the man who killed Tyrian—Gehrman—his personal information was held within the damaged servers."
"And our destroying them…corrupted the data," Salem hummed, "That is the correct term, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mistress," Arthur nodded.
"So, that's why it took you so long, then?"
"Yes," Arthur clasped his hands atop the table, "Stymied by my past brilliance, unfortunately." Cinder snorted, prompting him to glare at her. Arrogant brat wouldn't know true genius if it bit her in the ass.
"In any case," Arthur, having more important things to worry about, returned his attention to the Scroll, "though his past is lost to the wind, Gehrman has a very visible present." He tapped his scroll, sending the file to Hazel and Cinder (he, unlike the girl, was a professional). He then slid his Scroll over to Salem, who used her magic to float it over to her. An unnecessary display of her abilities. But then, that could be the point. A reminder of all that she could do, compared to them.
Cinder snorted when she opened the file, "The Butcher of Sanus?"
"Keep reading," Arthur stated. Her eyes narrowed—no doubt expecting a rebuke or cutting remark—but this was too serious for that. So Cinder did, her little eyes widening with every word she read.
He then looked to Hazel, who grew paler by the second. No doubt thanking gods he no longer believed in that he'd managed to escape with his life months ago.
Finally, he turned to Salem. He was expecting her usual stoicism—perhaps even a perverse smile at the thought of the fear permeating through the common rabble of Remnant. But neither of those things occurred.
Her grip on his Scroll was tight, so tight her arm was trembling, that he feared she would break it. Her face was pinched—eyes narrowed to slits; nostrils flared—lips curled into a sneer. She was muttering something. It sounded like…'hypocrite'? Interesting…
She caught him looking, and for a brief, fleeting moment, Arthur knew true terror as her inky black depths burrowed into his soul. And then, thankfully, the moment passed. Her stoic veneer returned, and she flicked her wrist, rocketing his Scroll back to him (he managed to catch it, but hissed at the impact). Cinder and Hazel finished soon after.
"Shall we recruit him?" Cinder asked, turning to Salem with bright eyes.
"No!" Hazel spoke up for the first time since the meeting started, slamming his fist against the table. "Are you insane?!"
Cinder scowled, but before she could make a (stupid and infantile) retort, Salem said, "It would most likely end in failure." When the brat turned to Salem with an inquisitive gaze, the witch continued. "This," her eyes flashed with fury once again, "…Gehrman has a very clear modus operandi." She sniffed, reigning in her temper, "He only brutalizes those society has deemed as 'criminals'."
"Specifically," Arthur spoke up, "criminals that were once Huntsmen or affiliated with them." He left out the implied 'like me', though the nasty smirk Cinder sent his way meant she wanted to bring it up.
"We shall not worry about Gehrman for now. If anything, his continued operations will only help us in the end." Arthur considered her statement. That would be true, so long as people did not become accustomed to his presence—to the idea of a murderous madman chopping off criminals' heads or feet—there would be a steady undercurrent of fear wherever Gehrman went. Fear that would attract Grimm.
But…that could, possibly, create more opportunities for Huntsmen. More jobs for them to complete, more chances for them to achieve juvenile glory and adoration.
Arthur sucked in a breath, eyes widening. Was that it? Was Gehrman just step one in a very long plan to further spread Huntsmen's influence and reputation? That…That was devious. Ingenious. Why hadn't he thought of it?
But who would be capable of such a thing? Certainly not the sticklers he'd left behind at Atlas (especially not the up-and-coming 'Golden Boy' James Ironwood). Vacuans could barely put up a wall without trying to kill each other. And Mistral was too busy forcing children to break each other's bones to care about anything else. Which left Vale, where Gehrman had first appeared.
Who was the Headmaster (because it was them, not the kingdoms' councils, that were really in charge) of Beacon Academy? Ozpin, he recalled. Beacon's second Headmaster since the Academy's inception almost seventy years ago. Something of a recluse—he rarely made a public appearance. There wasn't a lot about the man out there. But for Gehrman to just…materialize in the middle of Vale meant that Ozpin must be involved. If not in the man's appearance, then in all that he'd done since.
He'd have kept thinking on the problem, but Salem had kept on speaking, and he really ought to pay attention to her.
"…the Maidens shall be the key to our conquest." Salem paused, shifting her gaze to Cinder, who preened under the attention. Stupid child; she was a pawn in all this but was too infatuated with the promise of power to realize it. "However," Salem continued, "first, we must find them." She stared at Arthur, "That shall be your next task." He nodded—it'd be a nice break from the macabre and enigmatic life that was Gehrman. "Hazel," the bulky man nodded, "you've been compromised." The Valean looked a bit put out by the statement—one of the few joys he had left in life was wandering the wilderness and causing general chaos through Grimm. "But you should be safe in Menagerie," she scoffed, "No cares about the Faunus, after all."
Hazel narrowed his eyes, "And why would I go there?"
"To put out feelers to this newfound group for equality that's started there. The White Fang."
"What for?" Cinder asked, and for once, Arthur was of a mind.
At that, Salem sighed, "Tyrian's death has brought something to light that I've overlooked. That for all the skill you all possess, there's only three of you."
"We need bodies," Arthur concluded.
Salem sent a pleased, spine-tingling smile his way, "Who better to guide towards our goals, than those that already want to tear down the current society?"
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Gehrman arched a brow as Qrow and the Xiao Long-Rose family approached him at the Bullhead waiting area. "I'll admit," the tall Huntsman said, "I was not expecting any one of you to arrive."
The girls, bless them, were barely able to stand this early in the morning, but still sent Gehrman their best smiles. "We wanted to say goodbye," Yang yawned, swaying against Tai's legs.
Gehrman's lips spread into a soft smile, "While I appreciate the gesture, rest is vital for ones as young as yourselves. You need not push yourselves for my sake."
"You're funny," Ruby giggled, pressing against her sister.
Summer laughed, "Trust me, better they be tired now, then angry that you left without saying goodbye."
"We're menaces," Yang added, prompting Tai to ruffle her hair (and, Qrow was sure, if she were more awake, she'd have slapped his hand away).
Gehrman shifted his gaze over to Qrow, and then flicked it to the bullhead.
Qrow shook his head, "Fun as travelling with you is," he stretched his arms out, laying them across Tai and Summer's shoulders, "I prefer my R&R be longer than a day."
Gehrman hummed, "Perhaps…next time, I may follow your lead." He sent an inquisitive stare at Summer and Tai, and when they both smiled and nodded, he nodded in turn.
They settled into a somewhat awkward silence (occasionally broken by Yang and Ruby's tired mumblings), before Tai asked, "You said you planned on visiting Vacuo again?"
"Yes. And Atlas and Mistral after."
Summer tilted her head, and Qrow—knowing what question she wanted to ask—pinched her shoulder. She glared at him, but he just looked down at Yang and Ruby. That got her to back down. Eventually, they'd have to broach the topic of Raven to the girls (and gods above did he fear that inevitability) but not today.
Qrow looked back to Gehrman, who was talking with Tai about something—car mods? How'd that come about?—before a robotic voice droned that the bullhead to Vale was leaving in ten minutes.
"Guess that's your cue," Qrow said.
"I suppose it is." Gehrman took a step back, and bowed at them, "It was a delight to make your acquaintances."
Summer huffed amusedly, "I'd like to think we were all friends."
Something flashed in Gehrman's eyes, and he smiled, standing back up and tipping his hat at them, "Friends it is."
"Goodbye, Mr. G!" Ruby called out.
"Happy hunting!" Yang waved. Qrow, Tai, and Summer flinched at her words, but Gehrman took it in stride, sending them a toothy grin and silently waving as he made his way to the bullhead. He was the only passenger.
It was as they were leaving—after waiting for the bullhead to rise into the air any fly east—that Qrow first noticed it. The stares. All the way to Tai's car, people were looking at them. Whispering about them.
Qrow recognized what was happening—he'd run into it back when he first got into Beacon, when people found out he was from Anima. The fearful glances from people that knew you were different. Dangerous. (Raven reveled in it, craved it. But she also liked doing her make-up with Summer and reading with Tai and going up onto the dorm roof with Qrow to watch the stars, so, like a fool, he ignored the signs).
Tai and Summer noticed it too, given the way hurried the girls into the car. When they all got settled, the remaining members of team STRQ exchanged hard glances. They didn't—wouldn't—regret what they'd done, but they had to be wary of the consequences.
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A/N: Plot things are happening. And god, do I love writing Arthur. It's just so fun! Be sure to leave a review. Later.