"Hey everybody, crazy freaking summer right? And somehow i'm still alive :P Not going to lie i kinda had to stop writing for a little while and focus on other things(as i'm sure you all can imagine), but things are starting to settle down now so i should be able to start writing regularly again. And i would like to apologize for the short length of this chapter."
Jacob sat in the dirt of the alley for a good long while looking up at the two humans he had run into. They were however focused on his pursuer who was standing a few feet away. The three eyed each other, but the one in green leveled his gun on him while the one in red had his gun trained on the other faunus. There was a tense pause as they sized each other up.
"Your kill?" Azrael asked, keeping his gun on the fang while his gaze was fixed on Lukas.
"I was the one chasing him. And I would have caught him eventually." Lukas said. Passing a menacing grin down to Jacob.
"All the same, we have questions we want to ask him." Luis said training his perdition pistol on Lukas who now focused on him.
"As do i. Unfortunately I had to vacate the docks before I could find anyone to question. I figured I could chase him down." He pointed a finger at Jacob. "And question him with a little privacy."
Azrael raised his gun up at Lukas. "What were you doing at the docks?"
Lukas shrugged. "I was helping a friend do a little investigation. Though I take it the docks were your destination?"
"That's none of your business." Azrael said. "Who was this 'Friend' of yours?"
Lukas smiled. "None of your business."
A police airship passed overhead with a search light beaming down into the alley, instinctively all three boys leapt to the side of the alley. Azrael clamped a firm hand on Jacob's shoulder, hauled him off the ground and pulled him to the side as the light passed over the area they had been standing. Once it passed they stepped back out and as they took their original spots Azrael roughly shoved the Faunus back on the ground in-between them.
"We don't have time for this. We're taking him with us for questioning." Azrael declared. A menacing smile passed over Lukas' face and quick as a viper he drew his pistol and had it aimed at Azrael who reacting just as fast raised his combi-rifle in response, Luis took a few careful steps to the left so he wasn't so close to Azrael with his pistol still drawn on Lukas.
"I told you. I need him for answers. My mission is to gather Intel on the White Fang and this is the only one I've been able to find so far, so i'm not leaving without him."
Luis lowered his pistol and stepped forward between the two in a placating manner. "Fine then. It's clear none of us are friends of the white fang, so if nothing else our goals appear to be aligned. We can all question him."
At this point Jacob made the observation that he was being torn apart by beasts that now decided that instead of killing each other the meat that they would instead take turns eating.
Azrael and Lukas lowered their weapons and studied each other cautiously
"Then we need to find a place where we won't be disturbed." Azrael said looking around at the abandoned buildings. The sound of police sirens were all around them and now they needed to move or the police sweep would find them with their captive.
Lukas grinned. "I know a nice quiet place where no one ever goes. It's a bit of a walk, but i know the way."
Azrael nodded in agreement. Turning to their captive he pulled him to his feet again. "Take off the shirt." He said sharply and immediately the terrified Faunus complied. Ripping and tearing the shirt Azrael made a binding for his hands, and a gag for his mouth. Their prisoner thus bound they followed Lukas back the way he had come.
Jacob was now tied to an old wooden chair in the abandoned house Lukas had regularly used as his home. It was a decrepit old hovel that was falling apart around him. The two humans and the Faunus were standing in front of him talking in hushed whispers a couple feet away before finally they came towards him.
Azrael spoke first. "Alright. We're going to start this off simple. What's your name?"
"J-Jacob." He was tired, scared and confused. At this point he didn't have it in him to be smart about it.
"Good. Now when did you join the white fang?" He continued.
"About five years ago, in mistral."
Lukas leaned over to Luis. "This is going better than i thought." Luis nodded in agreement.
"Alright good. So, all that dust from the docks, where are you taking it?"
"I-i don't know."
Azrael grabbed and hoisted him up by the front of his shirt. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"T-the boss never told us the plan. We were just told by Adam to do whatever he said." Azrael set him back in the chair and continued.
"And who is Adam?" Azrael asked. But before he said a word Lukas stepped in. "He's the leader of the White Fang. Angry, moody, pretty dangerous, likes to wear a face mask."
The three of them backed away from Jacob and moved to the doorway of the room where they were now talking well out of earshot of their captive. "I don't think we're going to get anything useful out of him." Said Luis.
"Clearly, it's smart though. Keeping underlings like him in the dark minimizes the risk of exposure if they're captured." Azrael said, agreeing with his friend.
"So what do we do now then." Lukas asked. Azrael looked at the shaggy youth with suspicion. "We." He said gesturing to him and Luis. "Need to get back to school before we're missed."
"You're beacon students?" Lukas asked.
"Yes." Luis said. "Why?" Lukas smiled. "No reason."
"Well what do we do with him then?" Luis asked, gesturing to the prisoner.
"He knows too much, we should kill him." Azrael said without a moment's hesitation. The stunned faunus began to struggle at his bonds at the implications. He began babbling on in fear.
"No no no please I won't tell anyone who you are, I swear. Let me live and I'll leave vale tonight I swear!"
"He may be right." Luis chimed in. "He's a white fang member. Who's gonna wanna listen to him trying to slander beacon students. It's his word against ours as it is. And there really is no proof."
Lukas nodded. "Or we could wrap him up and dump on the police stoop."
The other two thought for a moment. "No, that would leave far too many questions. They'll wonder who delivered him, and if they find out it was us they'd want to know what we were doing with him." Azrael stated.
"Alright then. So we let him go?" Luis asked, looking at each of them before receiving a nod from each. "I'll take care of this then." Luis said with a sigh of relief before walking over to the prisoner and once all the bonds were undone Luis took him with a firm hand and led him down through the ruined house to the front door.
"You don't need me to tell you just how lucky you are, do you?" He said, casting a steely eye over him.
"No." Was all he said. They hit the bottom of the stairs and continued on to the front door.
"Take my advice kid. When you leave this house I highly recommend you look into other lines of work. Unless you're begging for an early death."
At the base of the steps he turned back to look up at Luis. "We don't want to die. We just want to be treated like Humans."
Luis stared down at the boy for a while before he shut the door and went back up to the other two.
Back upstairs the boys began to adjourn. "I suppose I should thank you for stopping him, I was going to catch him eventually, but it's nice to not be running around the city all night." Lukas said, offering a hand to Azrael who hesitated before accepting the handshake.
"I suppose it was all chance then." Replied Azrael.
"If that's what you wanna believe." Lukas said, shrugging.
Azrael looked over to Luis who opened his scroll. "Welp it's getting late, I believe we should be heading back to the school now."
Nodding Azrael looked again to Lukas. "I don't suppose you have a scroll number we can reach you on?"
From his torn jeans Lukas produced his own scroll. It was banged up and the glass had a crack in it, and it was noticeably dim. The boys took a moment to swap information.
Walking down the street Luis kept looking over his shoulder periodically, and it was only when he had been absolutely sure they were alone did he dare ask the question.
"You don't think that Lukas was a.." He said letting the question hang there for Azrael to pick up.
"What makes you think that?" He asked. Luis shrugged.
"I'm not sure, it's kinda like the feeling I got when i met you. It was a leap of faith that time but now, i'm not too sure."
"You can tell if someone was an Astartes?" Azrael asked.
"You didn't get any kind of feeling from him?" Luis asked.
"I didn't say that. But still it's not worth bringing up if there's no point. Besides, what if we're wrong?"
Luis looked down at his feet from a moment before he spoke. "I just can't imagine how many of us are here though, How many could there be?"
Azrael shrugged. "I'm not about to go around asking everyone on Remnant and neither should you, if the wrong people found out we might get committed to an asylum. Or worse..."
"What's worse?" Luis ventured.
"We get the attention of someone else."
"I know what you're talking about. I've thought about it too. But the odds on that seem-"
"Like the odds that two chapter masters from first founding chapters would wind up on the same world together like this?" Azrael interrupted. They walked for a moment in silence before Luis continued.
"I suppose we should be careful then." He stated.
Azrael nodded. "I pray that we'll never need to address this subject again. There is no reason we should ever have to bring it up with anyone."
"I see." Said Luis.
They walked in silence for the rest of the way. They would duck and hide whenever they saw a police cruiser. Eventually they made their way back to the airship depot and saw they were done running for the night. The entire place was deserted and silent.
"Great, It's One in the morning and we're stuck in Vale." Luis said looking around the abandoned area.
Azrael looked over their schedule. "The start back up at Six tomorrow, that should give us time to make Monday morning classes."
setting alarms on their scrolls the two of them found a couple benches to lie down and stretch out on, and finally got a bit of shut eye.
Roman burst through the door and made his way over to the table with the meager haul he'd gotten away with from the docks. Looking over the map sprawled before him he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Damn kids." He muttered to himself. Lighting a cigar he steadied himself but he could swear that nowadays he smoked more out of stress then pleasure.
"How very disappointing Roman." The voice caused Roman to turn to face the voice already knowing who it was.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here so soon."
Cinder came in flanked by her two sidekicks. But roman remained focused on Cinder for the moment. "And we were expecting more from you roman." She said as she began to walk towards him.
"Hey you guys suggested working with those mutts from the white fang."
Cinder cut him off. "And you'll continue to do so Roman, all we ask is for a bit of cooperation."
"The cops are onto us now, they have prisoners, and evidence. We're going to have difficulty with all the extra attention on us."
"Not to worry. I brought an extra hand to help us with that." She made a gesture with her hand.
On his right Roman saw a shadow detach itself from the darkness and moved into the dim light of the warehouse.
At first the pale, taught skin of the face combined with dark soulless eyes Roman thought he was looking at a skull. But as the figure crept closer Roman could make out the long jet black hair that went past his shoulders and his body looked almost emaciated, he was dressed in a faded grey shirt and pants and had long metal talons on both hands that were covered in rust and what Roman thought was dried blood. It took a lot to unnerve him, but Roman felt a chill go up his spine looking into the black pits of his face.
"This is our new recruit. He is going to give the cops a good chase to follow while we finalize our preparations." She turned to look at the silent figure and simply said. "You know what to do." He only gave only a silent nod before backing to the shadows and disappearing again.
"Where the hell does she find these people?"