Chapter 41: Ghost of the Present

AN: Lucky you guys, you get the upload two hours early because Rogue One. Enjoy.

Well, here I am. Still writing author's notes for chapters that won't get released for three weeks. Guess I'm just bored from the complete lack of assignments I have.

Back to the story, Kassidy's out on her own on the streets of Vale. Ozpin's practically started a manhunt for her, her own teammates are searching for her, and the White Fang aren't as peaceful as she was led to believe. How long can she last all alone?

(Perspective: Weiss)

The two sisters insisted on starting the search early the next morning, and with a lack of being able to argue against both of them simultaneously Weiss had decided to accompany them. Not to say I wouldn't be looking for Kassidy either, but did they really need to start this early? At least with me around, we'll have a chance of actually finding her. While Ruby and Yang were content with caterwauling in the streets, Weiss was more interested in searching with her eyes rather than her voice. Conversing with Bob about the girl that was their missing teammate was beyond illuminating.

While not an expert on human psychology by any means, Weiss considered herself at least an intellectual equal to the reckless pain in the neck that was Kassidy Smith. And with the blonde's computer now answering to her, at least as far as helping the search along went, Weiss was confident she knew enough about her to conduct an intelligent search. Though I still can't decide whether or not I want to actually find her.

Weiss Schnee did not change her mind lightly. But when you can watch a person's surroundings, listen to them exposit their thought processes, for a time period covering more than five years, it tended to put things in a fresh perspective. And in Kassidy's case… even a Schnee would change their mind with such a preponderance of evidence.

Bob's explanations were real eye openers. Dredging from audio recordings, video recordings, and simple exposition and background knowledge, Weiss learned everything she could have wanted to know about Kassidy's past situations. How this 'Project Colossus' had turned her into a freak of nature, how this government agency was determined to keep her and her brother as their own. How her family died, and how it tore her apart. How she was blamed for crimes she never committed, and hunted for crimes she had to commit in order to stay alive. Weiss had changed her mind – Kassidy wasn't a mass murderer. She just happened to really like not dying.

Weiss had also picked up on the girl's habits. How Kassidy would never sleep pressed into a corner; doing so left her trapped if she got, well… cornered. How she would go dumpster diving for clothes, and what kind of clothes she looked for. Various places she would be liable to keep a cache of supplies until she needed them on a rainy day. Weiss even had a listen at the miscellaneous accents Kassidy was capable of recreating at the drop of a hat. Knowledge was the most important tool anyone could have, and for this fight Weiss armed herself with every scrap of knowledge she could get her hands on.

None of that knowledge, however, helped her decide what would or should happen if they actually found her. Kassidy was probably just as likely to start shooting as she would be to come in peacefully. The most likely scenario would be that she led the trio on a wild goose chase throughout Vale. But surely Kassidy viewed them as serious threats, and Kassidy had an incredibly strong tendency of outright eliminating serious threats at the earliest convenience. Weiss white-knuckled the hilt on Myrtenaster. If I have one thing I can blame her for, it's for teaching me how to be paranoid. No chance in Dust I'm going after her unarmed.

Some sudden yelling from the sisters brought Weiss out of her thoughts. "Kass!"

"K!"

"Kass! Where are you?

"K!"

Ruby finally growled, "Weiss, you're not helping!"

Weiss instinctively took a standoffish posture at the accusation that she wasn't helping the sisters look. "Oh, you know who might be able to help? The police."

"Ugh… Weiss." Alright, what's that for?!

"It was just an idea!" And a perfectly rational one at that! The three of us can't possibly cover enough ground in any meaningful time frame, and the police have the tools and experience needed to actually find her.

"Yeah, a bad one."

"Weiss, I think we should hear her side of the story before we jump to any conclusions." If it weren't for their present situation – and the incorrect insinuation – then Weiss would've been shocked by Yang's willingness to do something in an intelligent manner.

"I'm not jumping to any conclusions! I just think we're not going to find her in time when it's just the three of us! I think that come tonight, you'll all realize the wisdom behind getting help."

"And I think Weiss' hair looks wonderful today!"

The sudden voice from behind them made all three girls jump. Ruby had the most extravagant reaction of them all. "Ah, Penny! Where did you come from?"

"Hey guys! What are you up to?"

Yang answered, "We're looking for our friend, Kassidy."

"Oh! The other blonde-haired girl, right? So, where is she?"

"We don't know. She's been missing since yesterday."

Penny gasped and walked up to grab Ruby. "That's terrible! Well don't you worry, Ruby, my friend, I won't rest until we find your teammate!"

Yang leaned over and whispered, "Now might be a good time to continue the search, don't you think?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Weiss joined her teammate in making a hasty retreat from the scene. After putting a few blocks' distance between themselves and Penny, they ducked into a shop to see if the owner had seen Kassidy. However, this turned out to be a bust.

"Thanks anyways!" The two walked out, and Yang planted her hands on her hips with her head low. "This is hopeless." Weiss ignored the stray comment in favor of looking around, though she had to backpedal to get out of the way of a girl with a hideous pink hoodie and tore up jeans that looked like she dug them out of the trash. As the two Huntresses continued on their way, Yang remarked, "You really don't care if we find her, do you?"

"Don't be stupid, of course I do!" Weiss let out a soft sigh, and added more resignedly, "I'm more worried about what'll happen when we do find her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've been talking with Bob last night and this morning, trying to see if I can't learn more about Kassidy so we'd have a better chance of finding her. I've learned so much about how she acts and how she thinks… and I'm just worried."

"Did Bob have any good news for us?"

"Not really. I mean, I know roughly what I'm looking for now, but this isn't going to be easy. Yang, she's been doing this for longer than we've been training to become Huntresses. I'm starting to think we won't find her unless she wants us to find her."

"Well, why wouldn't she want us to find her?"

"Because she's panicked, and she's paranoid. She's focused on survival above all else. And we're trying to find her and bring her back to Beacon. She's worried about we'll do to her, Yang. And to be honest, I'm starting to have second guesses as to whether or not I do want to find her."

"Weiss, how could you say that?!"

"As best as I can guess, the only two ways we find her is if she wants to be found, or if she finds us. And if she's truly that paranoid about what we'll do to her, then she may start thinking we're a threat to her life. From what I learned from Bob, she isn't one to just sit around when there's a real danger to her; she's more liable to go and fix the problem herself, often permanently."

"But… that makes no sense." Yang was genuinely perplexed. "Doesn't she know who her friends are?"

"If you ask Bob, she just thinks friends to be people who haven't tried to kill her yet."

"K…" Yang is truly agonizing over this, isn't she? "I hope she finds out soon. I hope she figures out that she can trust us." Suddenly, and without warning, Yang grabbed her shoulders and bored into her with red eyes, the telltale sign she was angry. "She CAN trust us, right?" So that's what this is about? She's still afraid I'm going to try and hurt Kassidy?

"Of course she can! I'm just… worried is all." Satisfied with that answer, Yang let go and the two resumed walking down the street. Frustratingly enough, that girl with the horrendous hoodie was still right in front of them. "I'm worried for her, I'm worried what she might do, ugh! I don't know what or how to think about her! Curse that dork for turning me into a nervous wreck!"

Yang reassured, "Look, no matter what that simulator showed, no matter what she's done in the past, she's been a real good friend to us these past few months. Either she's not the same person she was, or she's the greatest con artist to have ever lived. And I'm pretty sure we're both aware of her complete inability to lie." The two girls chuckled lightly. "Either way, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure she'll be fine, Weiss." Yang's head drooped lower. "At least, I hope she'll be fine. I hope she figures out that she has people that care about her for who she is."

Weiss would have replied, but she ran right into the girl in front of them. "Ugh, what is going on -! Oh, sorry, ma'am."

A rough, heavily accented female voice answered back, "Not problem. My fault anyway." Abruptly, the figure walked away quickly. Yang was about to keep going, but Weiss was frozen right where she was.

"You okay, Weiss?"

"I'm fine, it's just… I listened to what accents Bob said Kassidy could make. That woman sounded really familiar somehow. I don't know, it's probably nothing."

"Well, why don't you enlighten me on how we're supposed to look for her? I feel kinda useless just yelling out K's name like this."

(Perspective: Kassidy)

Been awhile since I've had to pull out Russian. Don't think even Bob knows about that accent.

Tucking into an alleyway, Kassidy allowed a few minutes to get a good cry out of the way. She hadn't noticed Weiss and Yang walk out of the store until she was right on top of them, and by that point it would've drawn too much attention to go tearing across to the other side of the street. So she had to listen as the two argued behind her. Should've known they'd somehow get Bob in on this. Need to be more careful how I go about tearing through the RemNet, that computer knows all my most common tricks.

Her teammates had many reasons as to why they thought she wouldn't get too close to them. Bob had his own ideas too. None of them got it right, though. Fear drove her to keep a safe distance from Ruby, Weiss, and Yang. Fear of pain. When Matthew died, Kassidy got a first hand lesson in how physical pain was nothing compared to emotional pain. It was why she did her best to not hold on to emotions for any longer than it took to get the point across. It was why she couldn't let herself get close to anyone ever again. When you got down to it, her life was more or less controlled by fear, much as she won't admit it to anyone. It was why it was incomprehensible to her, at this point, that she would care about others, and others would care about her.

Kassidy had expected many things when it came to being all alone in Vale. What she didn't expect was how much it would hurt to be all alone again. She didn't count on the lethargy of, whenever she woke up, not having to fight with Ruby as to who got first shower as she got back from her morning workout. She didn't expect the quiet that came from a lack of Weiss drilling everyone on how important mornings were and they all needed to hurry up so that nothing went to waste. And above all else, she didn't expect the pain that came from not having to put up with Yang's crap in the morning. Despite her best efforts, it actually hurt to be away from her team.

From what she overheard, it sounded like her absence was affecting them just as much. The worst part was that she wanted to believe them. She wanted to believe that they didn't care about the fact that she was a murderer, or at the very least that it wasn't a big deal in the long run. Kassidy wanted to believe that they actually cared about her, that they wanted nothing more than for her to be back at Beacon, safe and sound. Alright, enough crying, Smith. That life's gone now. You can't have that anymore. If you go back, you'll be killed and set up as an example at best. You'll just… need some time to get used to being alone again. That's all I need. And because today couldn't be allowed to be easy in the slightest, I even got jumped by the White Fang AGAIN earlier this morning.

Regaining her composure, she got back out on the street and kept walking to her initial destination. There were waves on the RemNet about an S. Wukong that was an accomplished petty thief, and seemed to know everything there was to know about the city. He even seemed like a reasonable person, too. A trap was a distinct possibility, but right now she needed contacts and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. She strolled up to the café and checked the Scroll she had swiped to make sure this was the same place they had agreed to meet.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd show up!" A hand found its way over her shoulder, causing her to throw it off and drop into a crouch, stopping just short of drawing her pistol. The man, or boy to be more accurate, seemed vaguely familiar. Wait, that's right! That's the Faunus from the boat a couple weeks back! "Woah, a bit jumpy are we?"

"Yeah, we are." Getting back up, she spoke tersely. "Look, I'm waiting on someone here, and I haven't had the best of days. So if you could kindly keep from touching me any more than you have to and allow me to conduct my business, I would really appreciate it."

"Okay, okay, I get it! Uh, by the way, you wouldn't happen to be waiting for a Sun Wukong, would you?"

Kassidy panicked at the mention. How the fuck does this guy know? Spotting a conveniently placed alleyway right next to them, she pulled him in out of visual range of the street and stuck her pistol in his gut. "Start talking. How do you know that?"

"Easy, easy! You're talking to the guy! Y'know, you're not the first person to pin me to a wall in the alleyway, but you are the first to do so with a gun. I'm not into sadism, by the way."

"You're not into… what?" Kassidy's brain had to go through a quick reboot to process what just happened. Shoving her pistol back into the hoodie's pouch, she backed off, embarrassed. "My apologies, Mr. Wukong. Man, talk about making a bad first impression."

"Meh, no worries. I've been through worse. So how about we take this meeting of ours inside? Dunno about you, but I'm starving."

In response, her stomach gave a fierce growl. "It may be that I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."

Sun winced at that. "Ooh, yeah. You're starving too. Don't worry, this place is great!"

The two got a patio table on the second floor. Public, easy vault over the ledge for a quick getaway, secluded enough that nobody would eavesdrop on them. Sun dug into his own sandwich without hesitation, and it took every ounce of Kassidy's self-discipline to keep from doing the same. Instead, she settled for sizing up the young man she was meeting.

"Like what you see? I tend to have that effect on the ladies, y'know." Sun flashed her another wink, which, while probably charming to most, only served to mildly aggravate her.

"I'm sure you do. You're just… not what I was expecting from Vale's latest petty thief and street rat."

"I'll take that as a compliment." He was about to take a sip from a teacup held by his prehensile tail before suddenly remembering something. "Wait a minute! Didn't I see you a few weeks ago with a couple other ladies? What happened to them?"

Kassidy quickly went over how various methods would play out, before quickly deciding on a route to take. "Yeah, those were my teammates at Beacon."

"Were?"

"Something… happened. Pretty sure I'm not welcome there anymore."

"Only pretty sure?"

"Let's just say I didn't stick around long enough for them to dig out the torches and pitchforks."

"Wow, that bad, huh? What happened?"

Kassidy stared at her folded hands for a bit, before sighing and answering, "Some things from my past came up. I'm not a bad person… or, at least, I like to tell myself that I'm not. But I'm definitely not a good person. Once things started coming out… I just panicked, and I ran."

"Well can't you just go back and explain things to them?"

She looked at Sun as though he had a third eyeball growing out of his head. "Yeah, no. At best, I'll find my head on the end of a pike as an example to everyone else. No, I'm on my own at this point."

"Okay… and that's why you were wanting to meet with me? You're out on the streets now, and looking for local knowledge?"

"Something like that."

"Well, sorry to say, gorgeous, but I'm kinda new here myself. I just know my way around cities in general. All I've really managed to pick up is that the docks are apparently a ripe place to do some pickings."

"Oh?" Haven't heard anything like that before. This should be good. Maybe a good place for a cache?

"Yeah. Heard some White Fang scum were planning on hitting this huge shipment of Dust coming in from Atlas."

Kassidy nearly choked on the glass of water she was drinking. "Wait, what? White Fang hitting a Dust shipment? How huge are we talking about?"

"HUGE Dust shipment, like, Schnee Dust Company shipment."

"Did you hear when this is going down?"

"Tonight, I think." Kassidy's face paled as she quickly assembled the facts. "Uh, are you okay?"

"Dust stores have been getting hit hard for weeks now. Except it's only Dust being stolen, there's no theft of the money from the establishments. All the signs I could dig up pointed to the White Fang, and now they're hitting my friend's company…" She looked down at her still untouched food. She wasn't hungry anymore. "Any idea where this shipment is coming in?"

"Uh, not really, no."

"Eh, can't expect to have everything spoon fed to me. I know a guy anyway, shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

"Wait, you're actually going to try and stop it?"

"Sun, do you have any idea what kind of damage a gang can do when it gets entrenched and militarized?" He predictably shook his head. "Well I do. The damn army couldn't drive them out. Entire cities burned. Like hell I'm going to sit around and wait for that to happen again."

"Alright, let's do this!"

Kassidy got up and was about to start walking away when something clicked. "'Let's'? As in, you think you're coming with me?"

"Kassidy, was it? Look, Fangers killed a few of my friends recently. I'm a Huntsman in training too, y'know. Coming over from Mistral. One of the teams - Team Red, the Rosette quadruplets - got ambushed and murdered a few weeks back by the White Fang. Not only am I not going to sit back and watch them take hold in Vale like you won't… I owe them some payback."

Kassidy thought about it for a few moments. Well, even if he tries to stab me in the back, I'm pretty sure I can take him well enough to make a quick getaway. And the extra firepower won't hurt if he's telling the truth. "Ugh, fine. If you insist on sticking around, then let me do the talking, and for god's sake quit trying to hit on me. It's getting annoying fast."

Her new best friend in the Dust industry paid off in spades. Not only did she get where the supposed Dust shipment was being offloaded at, she also managed to get how much Dust they were talking about (enough for a bomb that could level a city block), worker shifts, and even, after a quick palm greasing, keys and access codes to enter that particular section of the docks. A quick scout of the area revealed a warehouse roof that would be perfect to watch the whole thing go down, and a perfect sniping position.

For now, though, it was time for the most boring part of a stakeout: the waiting game. She had long ago memorized the layout of the area, and it left her only with her gear to occupy her time while keeping a vigilant eye out. She had changed back into her Beacon gear and drug the Garand back out of its hidey hole; if she was getting into a knock-down, drag-out fight with the White Fang she wanted to be fully prepared.

Someone landed on the roof she was on. Her rifle whipped up and was trained on the source, and it took the shock of messy blonde hair in addition to the tail to convince her not to shoot. "Still jumpy, I see. I stole you some food. You still haven't eaten since lunch yesterday, have you?"

"No, I haven't. Thanks." Granny Smith apples. My favorite, if only because the sweetness is counterbalanced with the tartness. Furiously digging into one plus a protein bar, she kept an eye on the shipping containers full of Dust that had already been stacked up.

"Anything happen while I was gone?"

"Not really. They finished offloading the Dust. Now it's a waiting game to see if things actually go down." She strained her eyes to try and make out more of the situation. "Don't all you Faunus have night vision or something? Dear lord I'm jealous right now."

"'All you Faunus'?"

Kassidy winced at having her words parroted back to her in that fashion. "Sorry. Weren't any Faunus where I'm from. Didn't even know what one was until a couple months ago. Still trying to work on not sounding horribly racist by accident."

Sun shrugged next to her. "Eh, fair enough."

The two were interrupted by an airship passing right overhead. Kassidy flattened herself to the roof, meal forgotten as the intruding craft descended into the port area. "Showtime. Get to one of the other warehouses. Splitting our fields of fire will give us an advantage."

"Right." Without another word, Sun made his way to the other side of the impromptu arena. Kassidy took one final check over her gear. Garand with six clips of regular ammo. Pistol with three clips of ammo. Knife, and no Dust ammo. Better not be wasteful tonight. And would it kill them to turn that Bullhead's engines off while they're not flying around? I can barely hear a word they're saying down there!

Suddenly, a figure in a white coat and a black bowler hat came strutting out of the Bullhead, cane prodding along ahead of him. Even with all the months it's been since their encounter, there wasn't a chance Kassidy was forgetting that face.

"Torchwick…"

She would have growled more, but a sword blade pressed into her neck. "Yes, that is Roman Torchwick. Now drop the gun and stand up." Not having much choice in the matter, Kassidy complied. If nothing else, she still had her knife on her hip and her pistol in her back. Turning around, she faced her assailant, and was quite surprised to see who it was.

"Blake Belladonna. Was wondering what you had to hide. Though I'm surprised you'd be working for…" She trailed off as she looked up. The first thing she noticed was the Grimm mask she was wearing. The second was that, instead of a bow, she had a pair of cat ears poking out of her hair. "Hid the ears under your bow, huh? Pretty clever."

"Thanks. Now, keep your hands where I can see them, and follow me. I'm sure my coworker is going to want to talk with you."

"I'm sure he does. Unfortunately, I don't have many words for him in return, so if you'll excuse me." Ducking out from under the blade pressed to her throat, Kassidy drew her pistol from its resting place in her jacket and brought it up to aim. Blake was faster, though. As soon as the pistol was clearing her jacket, the cat Faunus was gone. Something hit her hard in the back of the head, and she got knocked to the ground. She was only in a daze for about a second, but that was enough for her pistol to get kicked out of her hands and something to get wound around her wrists.

"Don't worry, you won't have to do all that much talking. But you shouldn't have done that." Getting yanked to her feet, Kassidy, tested her new bonds before Blake hissed in her ear. "For what it's worth, I hope he doesn't decide to play with his food too much. Took me hours to get the blood out of my clothes last time."

AN 2: Welp, that doesn't look good. Kassidy's dead now, my bad. Tune in next time to find out just how hard I'm killing off this fic. At least it's only the three day break for you guys rather than the four day break.

Coming up next: Roman Torchwick vs. Kassidy Smith, Round Two FIGHT!

James: Yup, she's back to her same old tricks. Will she be accepted back? Ehhhhhhh. Still working out the nitty-gritty details. Looking promising at the moment, though. And in Kassidy's defense, those kills on the White Fang were self-defense. I mean, she did technically start the fight, but even if the WF wasn't the RWBY Universe's boogeymen, getting cornered by four people with masks and guns usually means something not nice is about to happen to you.

AndJrew76: A wild Goliath appears! Awesome to hear you're still enjoying the story after all this time. Thanks for the well wishes, I certainly used them this week.

Guest: Thanks for the compliments, that was kinda what I was going for with RWKY. There's enough fics out there that only tweak small things here and there, or just flat-out follow the story that Rooster Teeth set. And then there's RWBY proper. I initially made Kassidy with the thought of "which character would I need to replace by what kind of character in order to make real big changes while still keeping everything recognizable?" Blake, having the dual qualities of being my least favorite of the original four and only seeming to exist as a plot point (which goes back to point one), was the chica that got the axe.

Baconlord53: Well, you're not wrong. Hopefully things continue to get interesting; that's a sign that I'm doing my job as a writer correctly.

Tykene: Well, anything can happen, and she did leave some insights that helped improve the story. Glad she's on board, to be honest. And yeah. If you're going to monologue around Kassidy, you're gonna have a bad time.

AgentDraakis: Uh, that's not good. And not just because I can't tell whether that's a positive or negative review. Cleanup on Aisle Five!