"Liquid dust?" Kallen said, for what must have been the third time. She stared at the sample vial Lelouch had brought to the room with them, having sent the rest to the Morrigan. The three of them had made it back unscathed. Now they stood in a loose circle, watching the thing.
"It's not possible." Suzaku said, shaking his head. "Are we sure it's not some kind of fake?"
"Perhaps." Lelouch said, eyes narrowed.
"How… how would this even happen? It's not like dust can melt. Right?" Kallen asked.
"Indeed… curious." C.C. said. Kallen jumped a little in surprise—the strange woman was lounging across Lelouch's desk, prodding the vial with a finger.
"Do you know anything about this?" Lelouch demanded. C.C. raised her eyebrows.
"Me? Why would I know anything about it?" C.C. asked. Lelouch continued to glare, and C.C. responded in kind. "If I knew, I would tell you. I've never heard of such a thing."
"Alright, then." Lelouch allowed, sighing.
"How the heck do you even use this?" Kallen asked.
"I don't really see how it would work all that differently in liquid form." Suzaku said.
"I mean, I guess, but you couldn't really throw it or laminate it into weapons, right? Maybe you could soak it in, but, wouldn't it be even more of a hassle to transport and store? Why not just use regular dust?" Kallen asked. Lelouch glanced her direction.
"If Mr. Xiong is to be believed, they've been injecting it." He said. Kallen froze. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
"Injecting it?" Suzaku tried. "But that's—"
"Insane. Bizzarre. Apparently highly potent." Lelouch said, looking back at the vial.
"Potent." Kallen stared down at the stuff. "Potent how?"
"Granting considerable powers, similar to or even greater than those granted by standard dust use, for the duration that it remains in the blood stream. All the firepower needed to tip the scales in a gang war… but also, highly addictive." Lelouch said.
"Fuck." Kallen said, staring at her shoes. Visions of addicts in the slums bounced through her head—she'd lost a lot of people back in Nihon to Refrain. Her old piano teacher, childhood friends, her nanny. Even then there were times, especially after Naoto, that she'd felt the tug of temptation herself.
"How have we not been hearing about this?" Suzaku asked.
"According to Xiong, only the Blue Suns and Red Dragons have access. It's been a rumor for awhile, expensive but available; supply has grown considerably in the last few weeks." Lelouch brought his hand up to cradle his jaw, which would have been slightly funny to Kallen had the situation been any less serious. "The last few killings involved dust. That kind of damage could have been done with normal dust, and I doubt any witnesses are interested in talking, but it's still a wonder that the media hasn't caught wind yet." Lelouch said.
"Not long after Torchwick began his heists." Suzaku glanced over, eyes meeting Kallen's own.
"Oh." Kallen said. The idea hadn't occurred to her, but it was obvious. "You think someone's using the dust he's stealing to make this… what are they calling it?"
"A few names—hot tonics, plaz, Xtremis. Mostly just Juice. And, yes, that sounds like a plausible theory. The Blue Suns and Red Dragons are the biggest drug-runners in Vale, with Refrain and Red-Eye respectively. They'd be the natural buyers for a new drug, not to mention that they'd be especially interested on the eve of a gang war." Lelouch replied.
"We should send this to the police." Suzaku said. Lelouch glanced at him.
"Why?" Lelouch asked.
"If they don't know about it, their people may not be prepared. They can use this to track down Torchwick." Suzaku said.
"Unless he's working with some of the police, and this is all a ruse." Kallen said.
"That doesn't make sense—they'd be making their own jobs harder, arming criminals with new weapons." Suzaku shook his head.
"Crooked cops don't usually care about the people they throw under the bus. It could easily be one of the higher-ups trying to get rich." Kallen replied.
"Then we find a way to turn it over openly enough that they can't just cover it up. At least we'd be warning the officers on the street and the public." Suzaku said.
"True," Lelouch said, "but we can't act rashly. Giving information to the police could compromise our identities, if they should manage to trace it back to the source. There would be pointed questions about how and where we picked it up."
"If it saves lives, does that really matter?" Suzaku frowned at Lelouch.
"It does." Lelouch replied, narrowing his eyes. "Being compromised is unacceptable—and, If we can't be certain that this will make it into the hands of someone who will act, there is no reason to assume handing it over would save lives."
"What in the name of all the spirits are we going to do with a crate of liquid dust, Lelouch?" Suzaku asked, waving an arm. "Leave it sitting on the Morrigan? Sell it on the street? The authorities are in a much better position to do something about this, to find out where it's coming from. It's not like we have the resources to learn anything from it!"
"You're wrong, Suzaku." Kallen interrupted. Suzaku and Lelouch turned to her with almost identically raised eyebrows, and she had to make a concerted effort not to laugh at the strangeness of it. "We do have something: access to one of the best labs in Vale. Beacon Academy's research wing. We can take a closer look at it there."
Suzaku looked between the two of them, shook his head, and headed towards the bathroom—most likely to brush his teeth, Kallen guessed, if he was keeping up with his normal routine. Lelouch gave her an appraising look, and Kallen did her best to meet his gaze without flinching. To her surprise, he offered her a small nod of approval.
"Tomorrow evening, then." He said.
The lunch table was unusually glum. It was understandable, Weiss supposed, given that the grades from the first exams were in.
She wasn't especially happy herself; two full points off of Professor Peach's test for an embarrassingly misplaced decimal point, and no less than three and a half off from Prof—hrm, Doctor Oobleck for 'unsourced speculation' on the subject of early dust mines in Vale. The imperfections rankled her, seeming to mock her from the surface of the page. She allowed herself to dig her fork into her salad with slightly more force than was necessary.
"Sooo," Ruby said, smiling an excited smile completely at odds with the environment around her, "How did everyone do?"
"Eh." Yang said, shrugging. The girl's slouch didn't seem to suggest anything good, although that could have just been her characteristically horrible posture. "I've had worse."
"It went… alright." Blake said, staring into her soup bowl.
"It didn't go as well as I'd hoped." Weiss admitted. The other three turned to her in surprise.
"Really?" Yang said, grinning. "You? Made mistakes?"
"Yes." Weiss replied, glaring at the girl as she took a careful bite of salad. "I'll be adding an extra hour to my study schedule to compensate."
"Whoa. That's nothing to Schneeze at." Yang said, eyebrows raised. Weiss considered, for a moment, how very easy it would be to launch the nearby jam bowl at the brawler's beloved hair.
"My efforts before this have clearly been insufficient. This is the obvious recourse." Weiss said. Ruby frowned.
"Wait a second, Weiss, you're already so busy. Are you sure that you can even do that?" Ruby asked. Weiss bristled.
"Of course I can. I have to." Weiss replied.
"You do seem to spend an unusual amount of time studying." Blake chimed in.
"Yeah. Do you even have hobbies?" Yang asked.
"Yes. Of course I do." Weiss replied.
"Well, what are they?" Yang asked. Weiss opened her mouth to reply… and then found her mind drawing a blank. The silence dragged on a moment too long.
"Wow. Okay." Yang said, eyes widening by the second.
"I, read the SDC quarterly reports." Weiss said, crossing her arms. Yang stared at her, as did Blake and Ruby.
"And that's… fun, for you?" Blake asked.
"Yes." Weiss replied, trying to sound more convinced and less embarrassed than she felt. It didn't seem to work. It was sort of fun, wasn't it? Learning the intricacies of the logistics of the organization she wanted to manage one day?
"You know, this explains a lot." Yang said. Weiss looked down at her salad, suddenly fighting to keep the blush from her face. It had never seemed so… strange, before. Was she strange?
"Yang! Shush!" Ruby reprimanded, poking her sister in the side.
"Ow! Geeze, okay, I didn't mean anything by it." Yang replied. "Sorry, Weiss."
"I accept your apology." Weiss said. She spent a moment searching for something else to say. "I… I used to read, for fun, before I began my studies."
"What did you read?" Blake asked. Weiss met her gaze with no small amount of surprise—the girl was genuinely interested. They had talked surprisingly little, so far, and Weiss realized suddenly that she didn't know much about Blake at all.
"Well… novels, mostly. Fantasy, science fiction, mystery. Silly little things." Weiss said. It was strange, remembering those days… it brought to mind warm sunbeams of the gardens, the vast multicolored forest of books huddled in their alcoves, tucked away in the thrillingly cavernous and quiet halls of the Schnee family library. Soft armchairs, flickering candlelight, the thrill of adventure. Looking back on it made her want to smile, but… it also made her heart ache. She didn't want to think about it.
"Do you remember any of their names?" Blake asked.
"I believe… I remember one particular stormy night, some book about a dark castle hidden high up in the mountains of southern Sanus, with some sort of strangely afflicted nobleman who drank blood to survive." Weiss said. Blake smiled.
"Ah… The Count in Crimson." Bake said. And suddenly, Weiss could see the book in her mind's eye, clear as day. Deep red, lined in gold, pages well-worn and familiar. Words, flowing in marvelous loops of ink. The title, written in silver shapes embedded in on the cover.
"Yes! Er, yes. That's the one. Have you read it as well?" Weiss asked.
"I have. It's a classic, and for good reason." Blake said, nodding. "Ursula B. was quite an author—have you read the rest of her work?"
"I… can't recall." Weiss said, frowning. It was something she would have known, at some point. For a moment, she could practically see a vision of a younger version of herself, enthusiastically babbling in a thoroughly embarrassing fashion about her favorite books. A time long gone.
"Aw Blake, maybe you could let her borrow some of your books!" Ruby said. Blake looked suddenly taken aback, but Weiss beat her to the rejection.
"No, no—there is simply no time. I cannot let myself continue to slide in my studies." Weiss said.
"Dang, Weiss. How bad did you do, to get you this worked up?" Yang said. Weiss crossed her arms.
"If you must know, I lost five-and-a-half points." Weiss said. Yang just stared for a moment.
"On… which test?" Blake asked. Weiss frowned.
"All of them. Put together. If I'd gotten five whole points off, on a single test…" Weiss stared off into the distance for a moment, visualizing how horrible that would have been. "I suppose this isn't the worst-case scenario, all things considered."
"Oh." Blake said, brows furrowing. Yang had crossed her arms, eyes narrowed. Even Ruby looked suddenly a bit deflated, the grin fading off of her face.
"What?" Weiss asked, more than a little alarmed at their reactions. "What did I say?"
"Hey guys! How's it going?" Jaune Arc said, taking his customary seat at the table with a platter full of food and a smile on his face. A smile that immediately faded into concern as he took in the general mood. "Exams got you down?"
"Don't." Yang said, stabbing her fork into the chicken breast on her plate and beginning to carve far more aggressively than was necessary. Weiss felt suddenly nervous. "Don't ask."
"Ooo-kay, then…?" The Arc boy said. "Um, anyway, it's been a pretty stressful week. Do you all have anything planned yet for the weekend?"
"Nah, not really." Yang said, stretching.
"I, for one, will be studying." Weiss said. Jaune's face fell a little.
"Oh… Well, I've got some complementary tickets to see the new Spruce Willis movie, at the Monarch Theater downtown, on Saturday. Want to come with me, beautiful?" He asked, seeming to try for a smolder. Weiss stared at him for a moment. Was he, seriously, trying to buy her interest? With cheap movie tickets, of all things?
"No." She said, firmly, before taking another bite of her salad. Jaune's face fell more; the fool was obviously disappointed.
"I could go with you, Jaune." Pyrrha suggested, having just arrived at the table. She took her seat directly next to him, smiling in his direction—clearly an act of pity. Jaune smiled back, but shook his head.
"Aw, thanks Pyrrha, but you don't have to do that. I wouldn't want to take up so much of your Saturday! I'll just pass on the tickets to my sisters." Jaune said. Pyrrha's smile turned oddly strained.
"No, really—" she began.
"Wait, wait—Ply Hard 2 is out already? I thought it wasn't premiering until next week?" Yang asked.
"Ah, well…" Jaune said, smiling sheepishly. "My sister Calliope knows some folks in the industry. They offer us tickets to special showings every once-and-a-while."
"Huh." Yang said, sitting back. Her eyes flickered back and forth between the assembled teams—Nora and Ren had just arrived, bickering cheerfully at their normal hum—with a sort of scheming grin on her face that Weiss instinctively distrusted. "How many do ya think you could get your hands on?"
"Team field trip?" Ruby asked, a bright and excited smile lighting up her face. Comprehension dawned in Jaune's eyes, just as Weiss understood.
"No!" Weiss said, far too late.
"I could definitely get enough for everyone! None of my sisters are that interested, really, so there should be enough." Jaune asked.
"Wait, really?" Yang said, raising an eyebrow. "Jaune-y-boy, just how many sisters do you have?"
"Oh, I guess that hasn't come up. Um, seven." Jaune said. The table collectively stopped what they were doing, staring at him. Even Weiss.
"Uh, Jaune? Seven?" Nora said, brow scrunched together. "Wow, your parents must've really gotten busy urgmph—"
"Raising you all. It sounds like a handful." Ren finished, stuffing the rest of the muffin into Nora's mouth.
"Yeah, that's about right." Jaune said, chuckling nervously.
It was, well and truly, odd. Weiss had rarely met someone with more than two or three siblings, and… seven? Seven? That was madness.
"You have seriously been holding out on us, Jaune-y boy." Yang said, grinning.
"Can we meet them? Do they live here in Vale?" Ruby asked, bouncing excitedly in a moderately adorable fashion.
"Well, most of them do. We grew up here—they're all pretty busy, though, so I'm not sure that they'll have the time to meet. My sister Saph definitely won't, since she moved off to Argus." Jaune said. Pyrrha put a hand on his arm, looking more than a little surprised.
"Argus? Jaune, that's where I went to school." She said.
"Aw, yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about it. Saph seems to really enjoy the city, something about all the trolleys?" Jaune said. That sounded familiar; Weiss had read about the significant government dust purchases for the purpose of building up the settlement's infrastructure, though the quantities were of course nothing near the scale of what was required on Solitas itself. Yet Pyrrha smiled, apparently delighted at his rather banal statement.
"Oh, most definitely! I wonder if I've ever run into her. Or, maybe my mother has—how wonderful!" She said.
"Do your parents live in Argus, then? It is quite an up-and-coming settlement—the population has nearly doubled in the last five years, if I'm remembering correctly." Weiss asked. Pyrrha's smile fell, a little, and she looked down at her hands.
"My mother lives there. My father passed away, some years ago." She said.
For the second time today, at Weiss's admittedly unwitting hands, the mood at the table plunged. Ren and Nora had almost identically neutral expressions on their faces, though Weiss didn't miss the way that their hands had found each other on the edge of the table. Ruby had an understanding sort of sorrow in her eyes, face sadder than Weiss had seen it. Jaune looked horrified, Yang grim, and Blake concerned.
It was one of the unspoken rules; generally speaking, you didn't ask about family. The kinds of people who were driven towards hunting Grimm for a living almost always had a reason for doing so, a deeply personal and painful reason, and there was no point in digging around for such things—especially when there was the threat of Grimm involved. If someone wanted to talk, that was one thing, but asking? No.
"I'm sorry to hear that, and I apologize. That was much too forward of me." Weiss said, nodding in her direction. Pyrrha smiled a small smile and shook her head.
"There's nothing to apologize for. It's no great secret." Pyrrha said. "I'd much rather talk about this field trip idea, if that's alright. I think it sounds grand."
"Pyrrha…" Jaune said, putting a hand on her arm. "I… just, you—duck!"
Jaune tackled her to the ground, just in time to avoid the full jelly-slathered roast pig that smashed into the table in front of where she'd been sitting and crushed the wood to splinters.
The rest of the group, having no such warning and interception, was taken by surprise. Weiss only had a split second to shout before the table buckled, launching dishes everywhere. A dizzying moment later, Weiss was flat on her back. A horrible mix of french fries, ketchup, and balsamic dressing had stained her perfectly maintained, personally-washed, freshly lint-rolled uniform.
Weiss stood. Slowly.
The rest of the team seemed to be in similar shape, excepting Pyrrha, who had been shielded from the worst of the condiments by the fool Arc's admittedly broad back. The girl now seemed strangely paralyzed, staring wide-eyed up at Jaune, who stared instead in the same direction Weiss was. At the CRDL boys, currently pointing and laughing in their direction, on whose table was a notably empty pig-sized platter.
"Ruby." Weiss said.
"Weiss?" Ruby asked, a full slice of toast still stuck in her hair.
"Pass me the swordfish."
"What is it," Suzaku asked, grimacing as he crouched behind nerve-wrackingly flimsy defenses, "with these people and food fights?"
"Beats me." His partner replied, poking her head out carefully from behind their overturned table shelter for a moment.
"I can't believe this. This is Beacon, the best and most respected huntsman academy, and we can't even get a peaceful lunch." Suzaku grumbled, keeping a firm hand on his tray.
"Hm." Kallen said. Suzaku narrowed his eyes in her direction—he knew that hm. Kallen looked back.
"You're still mad from earlier." She said.
"No, I'm not." Suzaku replied, ducking a little lower as a full basket of garlic breadsticks flew by overhead, smashing against the wall and scattering like glutinous shrapnel.
"Yes, you are." Kallen said, irritatingly certain. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Here? Really?" Suzaku said, gesturing to the general mayhem. Kallen shrugged, scooting over and laying her back against the makeshift barricade.
"They aren't going to be done anytime soon. Looks like Yang managed to hit that sunglasses girl in the face with a turkey on accident, so now it's a three-way fight. The assholes are mostly down, at least. Unless you want to get a faceful of marinara sauce, we're stuck here." She said. Suzaku sighed.
"Look, Kallen… I don't like where this is heading. The lies, the schemes, taking justice into our own hands…" Suzaku shook his head. Kallen gave him an appraising look.
"I don't think it matters so much whose hands justice is in, as long as it's being done." Kallen said. Suzaku frowned at her, though that was exactly what he would have expected.
"That's exactly the problem. It's not justice if it's being done without the consent of Vale, it's vengeance." Suzaku replied. Kallen scoffed.
"What's the difference, when it comes down to it? What even is justice, Suzaku? Britannians like to go on about justice this, justice that, the oh-so righteous order of the world. They sure as hell don't have the consent of the places they rule." Kallen said.
"Yes. There is no justice under Britannia." Suzaku agreed. Kallen squinted at him.
"Yeah. Not much justice for some of the people living here in Vale, either, Suzaku. Get off your damn high horse for a second. What's really bothering you?" Kallen asked.
"I already said." Suzaku said, though even as he did so it he realized that wasn't quite true.
"Well, I think—" Kallen began, before something slammed into the other side of the table and splintered it in half. Both of them stared at the hole where their table-shield had been, before looking up at the burning mane and outstretched fist of Yang Xiao Long.
"Found you." She said, grinning like a playful wolf.
Suzaku took one look between her and Kallen, and leapt for a discarded baguette.
Class afterwards was anticlimactic, all things considered. Suzaku was grateful that Professor Goodwitch's powers had cleaned the many, many stains from his uniform while they put the cafeteria back together. It was still shocking that no one seemed to have earned detention or some similar punishment in the process, though the irritated and disappointed stare Professor Goodwitch had directed towards the combatants had been a reprimand in its own right.
As professor Peach continued her lecture, however, Suzaku found his thoughts wandering.
Why was he upset? He hated the lies. He hated being on the wrong side of the law. He hated being used as a thief. He hated the fact that nothing could ever just go by-the-book.
He realized his hand had found the pocket watch again, and flinched away.
It was more than just that, surely. Lelouch wanted to help people. Suzaku wanted that too. But, wasn't that how the story always went? You set out to help people, with good intentions in spite of your flaws, and then find yourself slipping slowly into Hell? Break one rule, break one law, and you begin breaking others? He had more than enough guilt as it was. He wasn't sure he could survive any more.
Then again… Suzaku had never been able to stop Lelouch from doing something he'd set his mind to. Of the two of them, Lelouch had always had the stronger will, even if he'd been weaker physically. He'd managed to befriend Suzaku in the first place, in spite of Suzaku's own wishes.
Thinking of those days brought a small smile to Suzaku's face—the thin, pale-skinned, bony-armed boy coming back again and again to the Kendo dojo, demanding rematch after rematch. Getting bruised and battered and beaten, over and over again, to win him over. Suzaku remembered the exact moment he'd realized Lelouch wasn't doing it for his own sake, but for his sister's, and had finally decided to give them a chance.
Wasn't that why he'd agreed to come to Beacon in the first place? Hadn't he known exactly what he was getting into, the first time he laid eyes on the shambling mess that was his old friend?
Suzaku shook his head, and forced himself to focus on professor Peach's lecture once again. Kallen took better notes anyway—if he'd missed much, at least he had hers to fall back on.
He glanced at Kallen, who was keeping careful track of Peach's words while her hands danced across the page of her notebook. She had her own sort of shorthand that she'd begun to teach him back at Ashford—he still didn't understand all of it, but it was still useful.
It had surprised Suzaku to learn just how intelligent she was, back in Ashford; her grades had seemed remarkably average. But she paid attention, more attention than anyone he'd met aside from Lelouch, to pretty much everything. She could have easily been top-of-her-class if she'd wanted to be. Even with the benefit of private tutors and a lot of hard work, Suzaku was only a little above-average, and then only in a few subjects. Even his note-taking was boring, procedural, and irritating, while hers…
It was fascinating to watch her pen flying from one side of the page to the other, tracing intricate note-patterns even while her eyes remained fixed on the professor. It reminded Suzaku of meditation, some sort of trance. He'd gotten used to watching out of the corner of his eye—it wouldn't do to stare—while they had been at Ashford. It was a remarkable skill.
Probably useful for terrorism, somehow.
Gods damn it. Best to leave that train of thought.
Suzaku forced himself to focus, again, on the class this time. All they had to do was finish class, eat dinner, and retire to the room for the evening and finally get some sleep. At least the rest of the day would be less hectic.
Doing inventory on the loot from the Blue Suns heist had taken Junior a whole day. He'd spent it listening to his favorite albums in his office, whistling along and flourishing with his pen. He'd even busted out the good whiskey. The haul was enough to tide them over for another month, at the least, and he couldn't help but smile.
His luck being what it was, the moment he finished, stood, stretched, popped off his headphones and turned around, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Well hello there, cub. Long time no see." Gabriel Lazano said, grinning wolfishly. "Let's go and have us a chat."