A/N (Amish's Note): Next up is SirMandokarla, with another excellent chapter. I won't say who it focuses on, because I'd rather not spoil the surprise. But first, a note from the author.
A/N (Author's Note): Ever have things moving a little too fast for you? That was my experience before and after writing this chapter. It's a chapter that really could have used a second draft or a much less complex Semblance involved. Still, I think it was a great first draft and got across what I wanted, even if it was a bit rough. It's a testament to the power of getting a story written, so it's possible to see everything that can be improved.
I hope you'll see the strengths and weaknesses of this chapter, and that we'll both learn from them. I promise it's worth reading for the ideas alone.
Title: Black on White
Author: SirMandokarla
Shiro Wan watched the other men at the table carefully, slowly blinking one eye, then the other. Three of them, once he counted down the doubles. One had already folded. The green-haired guy, with the cards as they were, Shiro would have said he was sitting on a triple, but with how confident he looked, a full house wasn't out of the question. The last one, scrawny man, looked about to fold, if only Shiro…
He fumbled around on the table, pushing his shot glasses aside, and raised his bet, grinning in a way that didn't actually have any mirth behind it. Gods, he was tired.
"Bar! 'Nother Vacuan Nectar," he yelled, making the scrawny one flinch and fold his hand.
A minute later, he knocked back another shot and played his hand.
And stared.
Damn. The other guy only had a triple, which was fine, but there was a whole different problem. Shiro hadn't looked at his own cards.
Damn.
"Fine," he growled, teeth aching from his clenched jaw.
"You're out, old m-"
"I sad FINE!" Shiro stood, ignoring his chair hitting the ground. He held out a hand to ward off the barkeep and made for the door. "After the job, I'll pay the tab after the job."
Should have used his damned lucky deck.
The door slammed behind him and he started making for the town border. Not one of the sides with the rivers, obviously. Even if he felt like taking a swim, which… he sniffed experimentally... eugh, alright, he probably needed. Well, even if he felt like that, wouldn't matter much right before a fight with the Grimm. Gods, he'd had a bath yesterday, how did he stink so bad already?
Well, an evening of drinking, night of cold sweat, and morning of drinking probably hadn't helped.
Shiro felt like he hadn't slept properly in weeks. Not since his last visit to Haven. Didn't matter. Haven was going downhill fast, anyway, and he'd bet his last card everybody was busy panicking about that disaster that just happened over in Atlas. Maybe he'd just avoid the cities for the next year or so, let it all blow over. Better than getting picked off by some terrorist.
At the gate, Shiro spent a good half minute yelling at the worthless guards before they finally opened it, and by then he was ready to tear his hair out. Worse, some of the white strands did come out, already greasy and lank. Grimm take it, he'd better not be going bald. That was all he needed. Good twenty years with the best hair in the business and as soon as he stopped taking care of it, it up and left. He sure wouldn't be getting any credit for his face when it was gone.
Movement in the forest scared him out of this reverie, and he was already reaching for a deck of cards when his eyes adjusted and he saw he'd been jumping at shadows.
With a sigh, Shiro checked his pockets for his cards, then his jacket pockets, then his other jacket pockets. All packed. Probably should have checked that before leaving the wall. Adding in another long-suffering sigh for effect, the Huntsman trudged into the forest.
Shouldn't be hard to find this thing, if the villagers' stories were accurate, and they never were. So he was looking for something that was "the size of a house, with a hundred teeth and claws that could tear a man in two!" Well, that last one was usually correct.
So he trudged through the forest until he saw signs of an Ursa, maybe an Ursa major, and figured that was good enough. He took out a deck of cards and started shuffling them. Then he activated his Aura, concentrating as best he could until he started thinking clearly again.
There was a roar in the distance, and Shiro started walking again.
Stopped.
He could leave it. Or even lead the thing to the village. No need to pay his tab if-
He snarled at himself and kept going until a very angry Ursa came charging at him.
That couldn't be it, could it? One Ursa? Gods, sometimes he forgot how helpless most villages were. A couple of guns, some brave hunters with bows or knives, nobody who could handle anything bigger than a baby Beowulf. Shiro was in the middle of idly picking the top five cards off his deck when he realized something a little concerning.
The Ursa was still getting bigger.
A lot bigger.
The first two cards Shiro threw, he mostly did it to try to get a sense of where the monster was. At this point it was looming three times his size and hadn't reached him yet. When two numbered diamond cards hit trees on either side of its path, building a corridor of ice, it gave him a sense of just how massive the thing was.
"Did your mother spend the night with a mammoth?!"
How in the Grimmlands had the villagers fought this thing off?
Shiro threw his next card, into the creature's face, blinding it with fire and starting to melt the ice around it. He finished with a six of diamonds for gravity, then an eight of spades for electricity.
The Ursa roared in agony as electricity arced across its body, and Shiro admitted to himself, as he threw a six of spades, that the extra electricity probably wasn't necessary. Still, better safe than sorry when it came to jobs. It wasn't like free time. Better not to take any risks.
So he watched, bored, as the Ursa fried and disintegrated.
"Well, job done." He started to pocket his deck, mentally tallying the replacement costs, and paused with the cards halfway into his pocket.
That wasn't his usual anxiety he was feeling. Not even that vague ache he'd had for weeks. Something was planning to attack him.
He pulled two cards, a hardlight ten and a two of hearts for fire, and looked around.
An agonizing throb behind his eyes, like somebody taking his brain and trying to crush it barehanded, nearly got him killed. Something dropped out of the trees and landed in front of him, three others walked out of the forest. Surrounding him. They were… wrong. He couldn't focus on them properly, couldn't look directly at them. When he forced himself to, his eyes watered and his vision darkened.
Then one of them spoke, and that was so much worse. His ears rang with the sound, or maybe the sound was just a ringing, buzzing, noise that he couldn't imagine anything actually making.
It didn't matter. He threw his two of hearts. Two of the creatures dodged away and Shiro had to flip over one charging him from behind, kicking it in the back of the head as it passed. A massive blade - Shiro couldn't tell whether it was attached or being carried - overbalanced the thing and gave Shiro the time to turn on the next one, drawing the next five cards in his deck.
Three and five of clubs; air. Nine of hearts; plant. Two of spades; earth. Jack of Spades; a Semblance card.
Which Semblance had he stored in that one? No time to think on it, and he couldn't focus, anyway. Shiro threw down a wind Dust card that blasted the area with dirt and gave him a boost to the nearest tree. Two of the creatures followed him into the air, one gliding towards him, the other jumping between trees.
That was strange. They didn't look like they had wings. Did they?
The migraine grew down into the base of his skull and Shiro threw his next card almost haphazardly. The nine of hearts hit a tree, which started growing so fast all Shiro could do was duck the branches that came at him. The whole area went dark, completely shaded by a tree five times the size it should be.
That wasn't great for Shiro and his cards, but he'd deal with that-
Right now. A sound like a damn gunshot made him fold his ten for hardlight, throw his second wind card to make room, and draw a pair of new cards that he barely managed to glimpse as a queen and high club before he had to move again.
He tried to snap the arm of the thing that attacked him next, but it rolled with the attack and landed in the arms of its… friend?
If he didn't kill one of these things fast, one of them was going to get the upper hand. That big one with the massive sword thing wasn't fast, but Shiro didn't like the idea of being trapped here with it.
One of the fast ones nearly landed on top of him. It's weapon was like whips, whirling around on both sides of him, but almost harmless. Whatever it was, it didn't distract Shiro from the others circling him.
No matter. He had his Jack of Spades. Amid the thousand little explosions, Shiro folded that card and stepped into the attack.
It passed right through him, giving him just enough time to crush an earth Dust card to the monster's chest and give it a nice kick. It flew backwards, encased in stone. With any luck, it would suffocate while he dealt with the rest.
He went for the big one, weaving between big, slow attacks to knock the weapon - it was definitely a weapon, he was sure - away and into the ground.
Down to a water Dust card and a Queen Semblance card. Queen might be powerful enough to be useful, but he didn't know which one it was. Instead, Shiro pulled the top card from his deck and-
Watched the big one pulled away on a line from one of the others. Then he was dodging something like lightning coming at him from behind.
Damn, he was getting tired of these things helping each other out.
But… Grimm didn't help each other. They went for the kill and-
Shiro's legs nearly buckled as a wave of nausea washed over him, and he didn't see, barely noticed, as the biggest monster came back down.
He noticed when it hit him. He noticed pretty well. The blade slammed down on his shoulder and it felt like somebody dropped a truck on him. He screamed and went down, dropping his hand of cards.
These damned… things shouldn't be so agile. Shouldn't be able to work together so well.
Shiro's hands shook as he reached for his cards and looked up with blurry vision to see the thing that might take his head.
His eyes caught on the blade he'd been hit with, still resting on his shoulder. Had… had the thing hit him with the dull edge? That… didn't… make any...
The buzzing overwhelmed his hearing and he fell backwards, kicking the thing's legs out from under it, rolling back and snatching for the first card in his deck. He didn't even care what it was, he threw it anyway.
The card hit the newly-grown tree, and the world turned sideways. Gravity.
Shiro pulled out a new hand of five as he fell.
King of Hearts! The rest didn't matter. He folded it in half and waited for clarity to hit.
Except it didn't, because Amara's Semblance had this thing about making the right decision at the right time, whatever that meant.
"This is why it's not an ace, Amara," he growled, leaping to spin around a tree branch and kick one of the monsters into the ground. He could hear his heart in his ears, drowning out even that endless buzzing and the sound of rushing water when he threw an eight of clubs. He dropped, grabbed one of the monsters out of the air, and dragged it into the water with an ice card to follow.
That was two frozen in the ice. Shiro glided down the ice flow, looking around for the others. The big one and the one one with the… why were there still four monsters?!
No, three of them were the same, one standing still, watching, while the other two swung through the tree canopy. The big monster slid down the ice after him, one of the agile ones dropped down in front. Shiro tossed an electricity card, the most dangerous he had that wouldn't melt the ice, but the agile one didn't land. It dodged the card by vaulting over Shiro with a staff, and the move caught him enough by surprise that the other one nearly landed on him. It was all he could do not to hit the ice face-first.
The damn thing on his back was like a monkey, impossible to dislodge, so instead he turned his back on the big one, figuring the clinger would make a good meatshield.
Except apparently the other one had been right behind him, and it was holding his cards!
Shiro blinked, and for a moment the thing was gold, not black. Then the creature threw all his cards and the world exploded.
Sun Wukong was pretty sure he was yelling, but it was hard to tell through all the noise. There was steam everywhere and he was pretty sure the ice burying Scarlet and Neptune had just cracked open because grass grew through it at mach four.
"Sage, can you get-" Sun was interrupted by Sage turning around and slamming his sword into the ice. The faunus winced at the damage that was definitely going to cause to Sage's sword, but he had other things to do. "Thanks. I got Shiro."
Sun picked up the unconscious man and slapped on the handcuffs he'd brought with him. They'd be packing the guy out of here without getting to check in at the town. Hopefully that wouldn't get him in trouble.
In a minute, Neptune and Scarlet were climbing out of the miniature glacier, both shivering from the cold but otherwise doing alright.
"He sure put up a fight, didn't he? Just like Qrow said." Sun asked, mostly to get the guys talking as they started towards a nearby clearing that hopefully still existed. "I didn't think he'd go down with his deck. What happened there?"
Neptune shrugged, still hugging himself to warm up. "Don't know. Jus- just glad he's..."
When Nep didn't finish his thought, Scarlet added, "could have been anything. Qrow said he collected Semblances, right? We're lucky he didn't bring out anything too crazy."
"Did you see his eyes?" Sage asked as he put his arms around Neptune and Scarlet. Both of them leaned into him, since he was the only one with any warmth to spare.
Sun had seen the man's eyes. They'd kept flashing red, then going back to normal, like the Grimm inside was only half in control. It was one of the weirder infestations they'd seen since Marina got them working on this job. They all seemed just a little different, at least with the Hunters.
He tuned back into the conversation with Scarlet asking, "so… who's next? Where are we going?"
"Hopefully Vacuo," Sage muttered. "I'm tired of tracking Hunters all over Mistral."
Sun winced and hitched the man on his back a little higher as he jogged to catch up. "We've got to save everyone, guys. That means all the Hunters lost in Mistral. You know they need us."
His team all nodded, and Neptune even managed a smile. They were all on board with that idea. Sun smiled back, something between relieved and proud. He had the best friends on Remnant. He wouldn't choose to be anywhere but helping them save people.
"Another one gone! Right out from under our noses! These are our soldiers! We rebuilt them! They're ours! Atlas was ours! This is unacceptable!"
Team CRDL watched Lieutenant Avus Halia, completely impassive. Almost unaware. Waiting.
The Lieutenant turned to point at them, all but snarling with rage. "You four are on the next flight to Mistral. Whoever's interfering with our people there, you will kill every one of them."
None of CRDL said a word. None of their expressions changed. Each of them saluted.
"Get to the transport! I want you out of here within the hour!"
As one, CRDL turned and walked for the door.
They had a mission to accomplish.