Main theme: Metro Exodus rap by Jt Music, featuring Andrea Storm Kaden
Theme: Army Meeting from the Bumblebee soundtrack
Roman sighed to himself as he looked forwards at the Huntsman that stood in front of his desk. His cane twirled in his right hand, while his left laid on his desk, a recorder buried underneath his hand. He knew that, even without saying this, the Huntsman in front of him knew that he had it. However, from the way that he was standing, he suspected that the Huntsman in question didn't care.
"So, you're done?" he asked. The Huntsman nodded quickly, and Roman groaned, "Really?"
"Yeah."
Roman scowled, before laughing out loud, "Really King? Really? Do you really think that you can just walk out? Walk out of this life? Walk out of this business? Just like that?"
"I think I made that clear, Torchwick."
This got him to pause. King usually called him Roman, never by his last name.
The pause didn't last long, as Roman raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair, and going, "I've gotta ask, then: What's with the breakup? I mean, I'm heartbroken!" he smiled, dramatically dropped his cane and placed his now free hand on his heart, "Really, I am! This is so sudden, and all! So why the breakup? I thought we had a good thing going here?"
Indeed, they had had a good partnership between them. King had been one of his best private guards for his gang's gun and dust shipments, as well as helping to clear out any rival gangs or Dusters dealers on his gang's turf. Even better than the late Carmine and Bertilak, for all of the good that they were. To see him go was unfortunate, but, oh well. He could always find another.
"Yeah, well, things change, Roman", King added in, his Mistralian accent thick and heavy, "And so do my priorities. I hate to tell you this, but we've all got bigger fish to fry now."
"Oh, so you're just backing out now? Just because of a few Grimm?"
Though King was wearing a helmet, Roman could tell that he was narrowing his eyes underneath it, "Don't be a bái chī, Roman. It's not a case of 'Just a few Grimm'! In case you and the rest of your little troop here have been living under a rock for the past month, the kingdoms have just declared a Second Great War on the Grimm, thousands of people have been killed in the first day of this war alone, and, well, there's a lot of talk about the Grimm culling everyone outside of the walls and... Well, as well as them breaking down the walls and just straight up invading."
"So?"
"So, shǎguā, it's all hands on deck, now. Ozpin and the rest of the headmasters are calling for every Hunter available to try and secure as much territory as we can, and just- And just try and make a difference", he paused once more, letting out a loud breath, before going, "I'm going with them."
"You're going with them?"
"Yeah?"
"You're just going to forget our deal?" Roman said with a frown, "Just like that?" he took a hold of his cane once more, "Start speaking straight, King. You know how I feel about people wasting my time. Like you are."
"I'm signing up because that's the only thing that I can do", King responded, "Because it's the only thing that I wanna do. At least, I wanna do now. I'm not going to snitch on you, Roman. You have my word for that", he leaned his hands against his desk, "Hell, I'll even send some other Hunters your way. I know that a lot of people are gonna want easy access to dust, at least somewhere cheaper than the actual stores right now."
"...Heh, shallow", Roman got out, "Y'know, I was expecting a lot more from you, King. I was expecting something a lot more tragic. Lover got killed, family scorned, some other cliché or something. At least something with a bit more panache in it."
King was silence and still. He stood like a statue, his hands clenched into fists. Roman gazed over his fancy armour, coloured with gold rings and purple lights. He wanted to remind King as to where he had gotten that armour from.
Then, he smiled to himself, and decided to pull out the oldest, yet most effective card out of his deck, "How's your family doing, King-"
"They're dead."
His sudden retort caught Roman momentarily off guard. He then realised what King's freeze-up was for.
King's helmeted head tilted down to the floor, "Grimm got them", he swore in Mistralian, and then went, "Slit my wife's throat, cut off the heads of my parents, and stabbed my 2 kids in the stomach and let them bleed out on the floor."
His hands flexed, and then balled once again.
"Do you know what the last thing my little girl, only 8 years old, said over the scroll was, from a place where I couldn't reach or save them?"
"..."
"...'Please help me'... And I couldn't do that for her... I couldn't do that for any of them..."
His helmet tilted back up to Roman.
"There. There's your cliché motivation."
Roman's face was stoic, and impassive.
They stayed in silence for a while, before King sighed, and went, "Like I said, I won't snitch on you, and I'll direct a few other Hunters your way to buy stuff as well, but that's it", he pressed his hands against Roman's desk once more, "A word of advice: Lay low for a while. Go underground. With all of the shit that's going on in the world right now, it's not safe for anyone, least of all you, and we both know that your new 'Partners' are not the safest people to be around right now, not for me, and especially not for you."
Roman sat still in his chair, his cane kept still in his hand.
"Just... Yeah, just go underground, Roman. Keep your head down, cut off connections, whatever. Just stay alive. Things are going crazy out here."
An electronic cry cut through the both of them. King looked to the side, and then back to him. A shimmer of blue light passed over him.
"Look, I gotta go now, just... Just go low, okay? This thing'll let you know if I die, so keep it on you. Be seeing you. And remember: Fú wú zhòng zhì, huòbùdānxíng."
The colour from King faded away, replaced by blue, and then replaced by nothing. The hologram faded into nothingness, and the black sphere that had transmitted it dropped gently to the ground, rolling on the floor a little before stopping, the bright glowing blue orbs built into it slowly switching off, rendering the metal thing lifeless.
The doorway shattered like glass, and Neo stepped in, pressing her foot against the black and once bright blue sphere on the ground, and testing its strength. The obvious question was plastered over her face.
"Leave him be, Neo", Roman let out as he went back to twirling his cane, "If he wants to go kill himself out in the wilds, then let him. Besides, he won't snitch. We both know that he's honest like that", he snorted, "Well, about as honest as one can be in this line of work."
He swung his chair around, gazing through the window in his officer, and looked over the city beneath him. His city.
Neo popped up next to him, and held up 7 of her fingers. That was 7 Hunters now that had left, King included.
"Yeah, I know", Roman growled out in frustration, "We're loosing more and more manpower to these things, and as much as I would like to take us all out and commit as many heists as we can ourselves, we don't have the manpower to support an operation like that. Not anymore."
Times like this reminded him of when it was just him and his gang of Jack-O-Lanterns running about, robbing as many people as they wanted without a care in the world. Ugh, when did things have to get so complicated?
Neo made a gesture of sucking her thumb.
"Heh, Junior's guys are all idiots. I wouldn't trust them to change their own diapers on their own", as much as he liked how that brought an earnest smile to Neo's face, he then said, "Which means... We might actually have to reach out to our... 'Benefactors', and ask them for 'Assistance'."
Neo blanched at this, and Roman nodded along. She was called the Neopolitan Butcher for a reason, and even she found them to be an excessive band of lunatics.
King was probably right. He should just take the rest of his gang and go underground...
No, it was too late now. Too late to back out. He was in this fight now, and he just had to suck it up. At least, if he did, then he and his crew might come out of this with their heads.
"Let's just do our best for now, Neo", Roman sighed as he leaned back against his chair, "There's nothing that we can do about it now. We're in too deep, and now we just have to see it to the end."
Neo offered a pat on the shoulder to him in sympathy, and Roman nodded his thanks, before looking out over his city once more, and sighing.
"So long as their spies in Beacon aren't discovered, we won't be in too much trouble."
A few days later, the black sphere lit up again, to tell him that King had died in the line of duty. Roman wasn't surprised.
Just to get the languages out of the way:
Vale= English
Mistral= Mandarin (Chinese)
Vacuo= Arabic
Atlas/Mantle= German
Menagerie= Spanish