Chapter 23: Molotov Cocktail
AN: So I started writing this the instant I was finished with the previous chapter, and really the only reason I didn't publish both of them at the same time was an exam the next day. I don't know if it makes me a bad person to be so eager to get this part of the story out, but so be it. Also, "Meet the Brawler" got its revision, having now been renamed to "The Trick About Punching."
In this installment, today was a far, far bigger issue than Kassidy recognized. Yang's left to pick up the pieces from her partner's actions, and then they need to have a little talk.
(Perspective: Y)
Ruby and Weiss burst into the room before she did. Her little sister darted to get some sleepwear, then into the bathroom to change, then was out and in her bed before the front door even had time to close. Weiss sat at her desk, got out a notebook to study, and then just stared dumbly at it, as if she somehow forgot that she needed a pencil to write anything. Yang sighed and dropped her book bag off at her desk. Climbing into her own bunk, she dug out her scroll and was about to start up her fighting game before she decided she wasn't in the mood. Flopping back, she thought about the day's primary antagonist.
Today was so infuriating for everyone involved. Whatever nightmare Kassidy had this morning, it seemed like it broke her. None of them could get back to sleep after she left; whenever they tried, her blood-curdling screams came back to haunt them. When the three of them failed to find Kassidy at breakfast with Juniper, Pyrrha told them of how she found the blonde in the training room, fists completely shredded, screaming incoherently at a punching bag. When they got to class, not only were the bloodied, bandaged appendages obvious, what was also obvious was Kass twitching so much Yang was afraid she'd break into a seizure.
When history came around and the gunslinger argued with Cardin in front of the whole class, Yang could see the telltale glint in her eye, the way her legs curled. Kassidy was waiting – no, she was hoping – for a fight. A fight that she got a lunchtime, as she blew up at Nora thanking Jaune for help with homework last night. She and Weiss practically had to be drug apart before the gunslinger stormed off. And the actual fight…
Yang didn't want to think about the duel. It was bad enough. Everyone knew that Kassidy didn't have an aura, but that Lark kid didn't seem to care. Everyone gasped when he snapped her neck, leaving her head facing mostly backwards. But there was a louder gasp when she reached up, grabbed the sides of her head, and snapped it back in place. And then she slammed his face into a pillar. Over and over again, past the red, past where his aura shattered, breaking his nose before Glynda finally separated her from the boy. Everyone knew Kass could be terrifying in a fight, but that? She could give a Grimm a run for its money.
Her partner never showed up for dinner. She just vanished after team training, which was easily the worst part of today. Sure, Weiss probably didn't help by antagonizing her, but it doesn't change the fact that Kassidy nearly shot the heiress. Yang had to step in and try to slap some sense into her partner, almost literally. Ruby called off the training at that point, thank Oum, but not before the brawler caught an emotion in Kass' eyes that she'd never seen before: fear.
Paranoia aside, Kassidy was never afraid. She wasn't afraid when she was fighting her classmates, she wasn't afraid when she tore apart CRDL a week and a half ago, and she wasn't afraid when she decided to take a solo run through a thoroughly infested Emerald Forest. Her partner was one of the strongest people she knew mentally speaking, always willing to do whatever it took no matter what it entailed.
Which is why Yang couldn't allow a repeat of today. After every single class, the professors stopped her to ask if her partner was alright. Well, all of them except Goodwitch, who basically threatened her to not let it happen again. Not a single word had been said at the dinner table after their greetings; even Nora didn't feel like telling a story.
"Yang?" Ruby called to her from her bunk with a broken voice. The blonde instantly dashed over to see that Ruby had been crying. "I'm scared." She did NOT make my little sister cry…
"Yup, that settles it." She stroked her sister's hair, but Yang's voice had pure venom in it. "Me and Kassidy are going to be having a nice, long talk tonight. Probably followed by me beating some sense into her."
"No, no, no!" Ruby's eyes went wide, and she sat up swinging her arms wildly. "I'm not scared by Kass. I'm scared for her." The brawler's head tilted to the side, which prompted the black-haired girl to explain. "She's hurting real bad, Yang. She's hurting bad, and I can't figure out how to make her stop hurting. Which is making me sad, because I'm the team leader, y'know? It's supposed to be my job to help you guys, but I can't think of anything to help her." Her sister's heartfelt plea absolutely broke Yang's heart. But she knew that Ruby had indeed figured out a way to help the gunslinger. As if to confirm that, the youngest member of the team looked her in the eyes. "Do you think… do you think you could talk to her? Like you do for me?"
It was at this point that Bob made some kind of beeping noise. Yang and Ruby practically fell from her bed; nobody had known Bob was still in the room with them. The hell? Kassidy doesn't go anywhere without Bob.
"What are you still doing here, Bob? Did Kassidy forget you?"
"She didn't forget me, she dumped me off and left me behind while she went to Vale."
"Wait, what?" Yang jumped down to the floor. "What could possibly possess her to leave you behind? You're practically welded to her back half the time."
"I'm not sure. I haven't been able to get a signal from her iris cam, so I can't see what's – hang on, the signal just came through." A few tense seconds passed before the computer spoke back up. "For the love of – Kassidy, you Java-damned idiot. Not this again. Yang, can I ask you for a favor?"
"What's wrong?" The brawler was feeling incredibly uneasy with what Bob was saying.
"Can you go up to the roof and bring her back down before she does something truly moronic?"
"What's she doing on the roof?" Ruby was innocently inquisitive as ever, while Yang was panicking that her partner had turned suicidal.
"She's not suicidal, Yang." The artificial intelligence seemed like he could read minds sometimes, a possibility that wouldn't honestly surprise her. "You'll see. Just try not to be too hard on her, please? She's had a bad enough day as it is, and she's going out of her way to make it worse right now."
That was all the explanation she needed. Dashing through the halls and finding a door to the roof, she climbed up onto the shingles. Hearing voices a little ways away, she started clambering across as quickly as she could, before freezing when she recognized Jaune's voice.
"Kassidy, is that alcohol?" Yang's heart dropped, silently pleading that her partner would refute the boy's claim.
"Maybe. I'm not giving you any, if that's what you want."
Yang ducked behind a section of the roof where she couldn't be heard and tried to get her ducks in a row. Kassidy had turned to alcoholism? Trying to drown her fear or pain or whatever made her a nightmare today in the bottom of a bottle? This was bad, real bad. Trying to force herself not to panic, she listened to the rest of the conversation, about Kass talking with Jaune about how in over her head she felt.
Alright, this just got a whole lot worse than I thought it was. Is Kassidy not sure on becoming a Huntress? But she's been doing so well for someone who didn't have an aura. Dust, she's a better fighter than a couple of the kids with aura. She leaned her head back against the shingles and tried to think. Yang wasn't a counselor. She liked solving problems head on, tackling them and pummeling them into submission. Well, why wouldn't that work here? She's been running or hiding or drinking away her problems all day. Maybe facing the music will do some good. Satisfied with her half-thought-through plan, the brawler realized that the conversation had died, and Jaune had left.
Getting up, she walked over and decided now was the time to strike. "Is that really how you feel?" Her partner jumped and bugged out at her, before facepalming.
"Bob sent you, didn't he? Shoulda known he'd try something like that." There was the slightest slur to her voice, but other than that and the empty bottle she was holding there wasn't a whole lot of evidence that she'd been drinking. "How much did you hear?"
"Come on over here with me. Let's talk about it." Not waiting for the gunslinger to have a say in the matter, Yang grabbed her free wrist and drug her up to the roof. Kass eventually took lead, and brought her over to a part of the roof where her gigantic hiking backpack was resting. Next to it on the ground was a six-pack of beer, with two missing bottles. Slumping on the roof, Kassidy reached over and opened another. Yang decided to start the conversation with the obvious question. "How much have you had to drink?"
"Not enough." After eyeing the look she was giving her, Kassidy apparently realized that answer wasn't going to cut it. "This is the third."
"And how old are you, really?" Oddly enough, none of the team had been able to get a straight answer on the matter. Bob offered no comments on her age, and Kassidy herself only muttered something about being 'around sixteen or seventeen'.
"Not old enough to drink legally, if that's what you're asking." The gunslinger took a long swig from the bottle, and Yang cringed. She'd seen this kind of drinking before. Uncle Qrow might be a drunk, but at least he was somewhat reasonable. No, this was her father's kind of drinking, the drinking he did after Summer died.
"Where'd you even get it?"
"Some prick calling himself Junior wasn't keeping a close eye on his inventory. Dunno what a guy like him is doing with that kind of name, though." Kass smirked, but the expression turned to confusion when Yang busted up laughing. "Oh c'mon, the name's not that funny. Or did I just say another pun?"
"No, it's not that." Calming down, Yang explained, "Right before I came to Beacon I went to Junior's club to try and find an old friend." She cringed putting it like that, but the brawler didn't feel like now would be a good time to tell her partner all about her first mother. "I kinda busted the place up."
"Why am I not surprised?" Kassidy took another drink, and Yang decided to confirm just how bad this had gotten.
"How long have you been up here?"
The gunslinger shrugged. "Half hour? Forty five minutes? Haven't been keeping track."
Yang's eyes bugged out. Drinking two beers in a half hour, as young as she was? Was this girl trying to kill off her liver? "Please tell me you had dinner at least."
"Nope."
"Yup, that does it. You've had enough for tonight." The brawler reached over to grab the bottle, but her partner's damned reflexes apparently hadn't been impaired as much as she thought. A hand slapped away hers.
"No I haven't."
"You're going to get horribly drunk if you keep this up!"
"That's kinda the point."
"You're seriously going to drink all six of those beers?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Her slur was starting to get more pronounced as she took another drink. "I need three 350 milliliter bottles to get the dreamless sleep I need. And yes, I did check the alcohol content before I swiped them." Yang had a look of confusion, which her partner apparently picked up on. "What, did you seriously think I'd just go randomly drinking? I'm not a drunk, I just need something to make the nightmares go away."
Oh… "Why not get sleeping pills from the infirmary then? They've got some pretty strong stuff."
"Because sleeping pills don't work. And before you ask, yes, I've tried. So I decided to do some, uh, self-medicating whenever the nightmares come back. Alcohol's been what works best, and some of it doesn't taste that bad either." She took another drink and grimaced. "This tastes like piss-water though. Shame I didn't steal anything better."
"Well I could've told you that." A moment of silence passed between them, allowing Yang time to think. Alright, so this isn't necessarily horrible. Yeah, still need to get her to quit drinking, but she's obviously not a drunk. Hell, how many drunks have I known to precisely calculate how much alcohol they need to reach a specific state of intoxication?
"How come you want to be a Huntress?"
The brawler was shocked by the question out of left field, but she decided to indulge her partner. "I'm a thrill-seeker. I want to travel around the world and get wrapped up in as many crazy adventures as possible. I want to wake up not knowing what the day will hold. Plus I get to help people, so that's a big plus."
"Do you know why Ruby wants to be a Huntress?"
"She always wanted to be the hero. Yeah, she can be a bit idealistic from time to time. But still, she always had this desire, this need almost, to make the world a better place. To go around helping people and saving the day. Maybe a bit naïve, but if anyone can pull it off, it's my baby sis." Yang suspected there was a reason behind these questions. "So why do you want to be a Huntress?"
Kassidy took another drink from the bottle and didn't answer for a few seconds. "I'm not sure I want to." Yang had to pick her jaw up from off the ground, which gave her partner time to explain. "When I got here, I knew I had already gone and drawn too much attention to myself. Sitting with Ozpin, I had two options: try and fight my way out, or go with his little experiment. The answer was fairly obvious at the time." Another drink. "This place is great, don't get me wrong. But it's quite obviously not for people like me."
"People like you?" There wasn't anything accusatory in Yang's voice, nothing hostile. Just simple curiosity. Her partner needed someone to vent to, so she decided to be the vent.
"C'mon, don't even try to pretend that I belong here. I don't have an aura, I don't have this awesome transforming weapon. I have near-death experiences on a weekly basis at this point. I'd be willing to put money on not making it through this semester alive. Even if I do, this job we're signing up for doesn't exactly have a high life expectancy. I'm going to get myself killed, and for what?"
"Maybe it's to help society." Of course that was the answer, but Yang decided to just lead her partner into it.
Kassidy didn't take that for an answer, however. "Society?" she scoffed. "What do I owe them? All society's ever done is try to kill me."
I think we're getting somewhere. "What do you mean?"
The gunslinger sighed. "My dad was a war hero. When Russia tried invading Europe, it was his squad that was dropped in ahead of the main force and held the line at the Rhone. Everybody loved him. And then, six short years later, the public that loved him threw him under the bus. His own commanding officer ordered his execution, along with mine. Our friends were the first people to try and kill us."
She went to take another drink, but Yang decided she definitely had enough. Making another reach for the bottle, Kassidy's reflexes seemed to have been dulled down by the alcohol. She was as fast as ever, but the hand that was going to intercept hers missed. Yang snatched the bottle out of her hands and quickly chugged down the last third of it herself. Kass looked at her incredulously. Yang simply told her, "You've had enough to drink for tonight. Don't even try to go for one of those other three."
Her partner scoffed. "Of course not, I need those three for tomorrow." The gunslinger then glared at her. "If I wake you guys up tonight screaming, don't expect me to have any sympathy for you." Yang and Kassidy sat for a while, not talking, not doing anything, just looking at the night sky. It was actually pretty nice, the booze toning her partner down and making her actually relax for a change.
"Real nice night out. I can see why you came up here."
"Hmm." When they made eye contact again, Kassidy's eyes had glassed over, and her voice was definitely slurred. Yang recognized that the rest of the beer she had drank was making its way into her system. She needed to get one last bit of information out of her partner before reasonable conversation was truly impossible.
"You still haven't said who Matthew is."
"Shut up." The mood changed instantly. The gunslinger glowered at her partner, as though she could intimidate Yang into dropping the topic. The brawler chuckled to herself internally. Nobody stared her down, she stared others down.
"Look, whatever's going on in that super smart head of yours, this Matthew guy is obviously pretty important."
"I said shut up."
"You need to say something about it, or it'll tear you apart. Trust me, I know. So c'mon, why's Matthew so important?"
"Because I failed!" Yang flinched from how loudly her partner had just roared. Kassidy instantly quieted down, barely louder than a whisper. "I wasn't strong enough. He was always strong for me, but I wasn't able to be strong for him. I failed, and he died." She chucked the empty bottle next to her across the roof, where it shattered against some shingles. "There, you happy?"
Of course not! Whoever this Matthew was, he was obviously important to her. Her dad, maybe? Important enough that the mere memory of him dropped her into hysterics. Still, it was getting late. "Think it's about time we head back in?"
Kassidy tried, and failed, to stand up. Yang shook her head with a smile, and helped her partner up while grabbing her bag with the other hand. She decide to leave the six-pack behind, and was about to set off when Kass started gazing around.
"Looking for something?"
Her partner looked at her, and with as much sincerity as possible for a horribly drunk teenage girl to have, asked, "Do you know which window is ours? I don't think it'd be wise for me to be in the halls any longer than necessary."
The brawler could only chuckle. "No, we're not crawling through a window. C'mon, I know a shortcut."
A short walk, and a brief fight with her Scroll, saw the two blondes stumble into their dorm. Ruby and Weiss were both ready for bed but still up, and their heads snapped up at their entry. Weiss was the first to ask, "What is the meaning of this? And what is that smell?"
"She went and got herself drunk off her rear." Deciding not to swear in front of her sister, Yang dropped the pack and got Kassidy into her bed. Honestly, she probably could've dropped her partner too, considering she started snoring the instant she hit the mattress. She looked at the time – ten fifteen – and went to go collect Bob. "I'll deal with her in the morning. Don't wait up for me, I have an errand to run."
After leaving the dorm again, the gigantic tablet in her hands spoke back up. "May I ask what this errand would entail, and why it involves me?"
"You have a recording of my little talk with her, right?"
"Obviously."
"Good. Call Professor Ozpin."
"Any reason you couldn't do it with your Scroll?"
"My Scroll can't get past the do not disturb feature. I know what time it is."
"This is going to end badly. Don't say I didn't warn you." Nevertheless, Bob wasted no time in getting the Headmaster on the line, who curiously answered almost immediately.
"Kassidy, I wasn't aware you'd still be up. Is there a problem?"
"Professor Ozpin, this is Yang. And yes, there is a problem. With Kassidy. Can we talk?"
"Of course, come on up to my office. May I ask what the problem is?"
"That'll need me to be there, but for now… I don't think it's my help she needs right now."