Everything hurt. More than usual, which was saying a lot.
It had been a busy week for everybody, including him. He had no idea what on Remnant those psychos were scheming, but apparently they weren't very good at minimizing losses. He'd hard through the grapevine that a lot of the grunts had been sacrificed so the top brass could get away. No surprise there. The young boy sat up in his marginally-more-lavish bed and immediately regretted as a lance of pain shot through his chest. He doubled over and coughed, letting curls of greasy blonde hair stick to his forehead. He needed another shower, but the hot water and steam exacerbated some of his symptoms.
One would thing being kidnapped by a criminal organization would mean living in squalor, but not quite. His room had all the basic amenities of a rather mediocre hotel, complete with a shallow closet, desk, and queen-sized bed. Not that he got to use any of them other than the lattermost one. The young man hacked and spluttered as he thumped a fist into his chest. He spat a glob of gnarly greenish-yellow phlegm into his hand and made a face.
"Bronchitis. Of all things to stick me with and they choose something so menial," he muttered to himself hoarsely.
It was a laborious task just to get out of bed, but he needed more medicine. And a glass of water. Half-dressed in only a pair of jeans and a greasy T-shirt, he opened the door to his so-called cell and into his more abstract prison. Jaune had no idea where the hell they were - it wasn't like anyone told him anything - but it could use a bit of color. Concrete grey corridors extended on indefinitely before him, accentuated by the roughshod fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead. The bore plodded barefoot down the hallway, hunched over as he tried in vain to crack his neck.
Body aches, chills, and a wicked bad cough were the mildest things he'd been saddled with, but somehow they were the most annoying. Maybe because he got more of his meds for the serious stuff. With a scowl he pushed open a pair of double doors into what he had come to dub as "the pit", a massive sprawling section of their headquarters that resembled a construction sight more than a terrorist hideout. Across the dirt and gravel surfaces, a variety of small and impermanent buildings had been put up to service the basic necessities of a White Fang cell.
Men and women, each clothed in white vest and simple steel masks, wandered back and forth. Some worked, others talked, but most of them didn't pay him any mind as he made the familiar trip over to the medical tent. His standing limp, courtesy of one idiot who thought he was too good for aura, made the journey more agonizing than he'd hoped, but it would be all worth it for that sweet, sweet valium.
"Oh hoh, is that Jauney-boy I see!?" a smarmy voice called out across the work site.
"God leave me alone."
Jaune heard the boots crunching on gravel as the figure approached him, but didn't turn to look. Maybe it was just some unfortunate hallucination from the phantom head trauma. No such luck, a hand clapped down on his shoulder and nearly folded him like a table in the process. Just as quickly, that same hand suddenly wrapped around his arm to steady him.
"Oops, heh, sorry about that," a broad-shouldered ox faunus smiled. "Kinda forgot about the whole... diseases thing."
"Really? Because I haven't," he replied testily.
To his credit, the man managed a sheepish smile. "R-Right, yeah. Anyways, it's been awhile since any of the guys saw you about. Was wondering if maybe the lady in red transferred you."
"To where? An even worse, godforsaken shithole? Gee, I couldn't imagine such a paradise," the blonde "healer" grumbled. "What do you want Oxford?"
"Just wanted to thank you for taking care of my cousin. I knew it was a big ask, especially when you had all those other patients, but the guy has double the energy he had before! A real go-getter attitude, you know?"
Next time, I hope someone decides to shoot him with double the bullets, Jaune thought silently to himself. "Yeah well don't expect any more favors from me. It'll be days before I can walk off this limp. Tell that idiot to be more careful."
"Roger that, bossman! As thanks, let me tell you about a little rumor I heard," Oxford leaned in. "A little birdy told me that we're shipping out pretty soon. Ol' firecrotch apparently is getting the train ready for some big scheme."
"Halle-fucking-lujah."
The man smiled and patted much more gently this time before returning to his regularly scheduled duties. Even more sore than before, our intrepid hero finally made it to the altar of promised drugs. The medical tent was just that, an army green installation somewhere between an expensive camping tent and a big top tent you'd find at a carnival. Inside, rows of cots sat visibly on either wall of the structure. Between them, medical supplies, surgical tools, and machinery that must've been ten years behind on the times sat scattered around. Jaune brushed aside the flap as he entered, hocking another loogie onto the bare ground and grimacing at the aftertaste. Bronchitis, what an absolute farce...
"Jaune Arc, is that your wretched cauldron of afflictions I hear?" a snarky voice from a corner of the tent called out.
"Drugs, now!" he called back.
He heard a beleaguered, aggravated sigh from the hidden cove before the speaker came into view. Dr. Barker was, according to word, a former physician who got blackballed from the practice after attempting to hide his faunus traits. Said traits being a pair of admittedly unnerving chameleon eyes he usually kept concealed behind thick glasses. Now, among his so-called brethren, he forwent such a disguise and affixed each ocular orb onto him. Jaune never liked how they seemed slightly out of tune with one another, each one always just slightly ajar of its counterpart. His incarceration hadn't quite endeared him to the faunus populace, but there was something exceptionally uncanny about it.
"I can't believe you were a pediatrician," he mumbled under his breath.
"Hm? Speak up boy."
"I said can I get another prescription?"
Dr. Barker's lips thinned. "What are your symptoms?"
"Everything. Everything and anything. Look, just hand over the pills," he replied, irritated. "Playing twenty questions isn't going to fix my mild concussion."
"As you once told me, the afflictions you choose to place upon yourself are not nearly as potent as they should be," he replied evenly.
This fucking guy. "Yeah, they're not. But when I'm juggling a baker's dozen of injuries that would hospitalize a normal person they kinda stack up."
"Alright, alright! Geez, don't need to bite my head off," the man relented and sauntered over to one of the cabinets. Using his key, he opened it up and began to inspect its contents. "Now, I don't need to tell you this but I will as your healthcare provider. You may be able to ride out most of the side effects of these medications but that does not mean you can take them all willy-nilly. Prolonged use of the wrong mix of pills could be detrimental to your kidneys and liver."
"Yadda, yadda, et cetera et cetera," he gestured for the doctor to hand them over.
The man did so, a bit hesitantly, but he wasn't about to risk the wrath and possible reprisal of their "ally's" favorite lapdog. Jaune swiped the three bottles and uncapped one with practiced ease. Unheeding of the recommended instructions, he took a couple of the white capsules and swallowed them dry. It was about the least comfortable thing he'd done to his body all month anyhow. Instantly, he felt a sensation reel through him. Not so much a ripple as it was a metaphysical tug. He was hard-pressed to put it into words, but it was like a pop-up warnings for his soul. Jaune felt his aura course through his veins for a moment as his semblance quickly separated the side effects from the benefits, isolating the negative aspects of his favorite food. The rippling sensation settled as the two categories fully detached from one another, and he absently set about to putting all the side-effects onto his "phantom self".
Again, it was hard to describe, but he could more or less shunt the same things he could take from others into some kind of pocket space where it didn't bother him so much. Blood loss, headaches, ailments, and the like were all fair game. In fact, he'd been hard-pressed to find something he couldn't take away. On a whim, he'd tried to take one of the grunt's manic depression and succeeded in doing so. Of course, he felt like shit for the following fortnight and resolved never to do that again, but it was possible. Jaune guessed it would be another day and a half before the symptoms would subside and fade away into... wherever they seemed to go.
His semblance - which he dubbed "Helping Hand" as a derisive remark - was still a mystery to him. A lot of its particulars eluded him. Not that he truly cared, but it made explaining his limitations annoyingly difficult. In short, he could take on the afflictions of others and force them onto himself. To avoid accidentally killing him, he was able to place the taken ailments and shove them to some sort of one and a half space. They weren't gone by any means, just... less permeable. Less severe. A stab to the heart wasn't going to kill him, but it still hurt like a bitch and made it almost impossible to do anything.
And so he played healer to the White Fang, an unwilling human sympathizer who'd been brought into the fold by that raven-haired bitch. Nearly six months of being passed around various cells had apparently earned him a name to the authorities. Whoever had the absolutely hilarious idea to dub him "Agent Scapegoat" was no doubt going to be the recipient of the other half of his power once he found them.
"Mmm, thanks doc," he gave a lazy wave to the man. "And if anyone comes in here with any injuries, please, don't hesitate to leave me alone."
"Noted, Mr. Arc."
He returned to his room, munching on the occasional pill to take one edge or another off. When Jaune finally opened the door to his room he felt his mood plummet as he spied someone lounging on his bed. A girl, more of a woman really, sat perched on the edge of his bed with her scroll in hand. Despite being more than a foot shorter than him, he knew better than to express his annoyance. The visitor's tricolored hair would've stood out in even the most trendsetting fashion shows, made all the weirder due to the fact he was almost sure it was natural. As he entered the room, she looked up and gave him a playful smirk. Well, "playful" in the sense of a cat torturing a mouse to death.
"Neo," he said with thinly-veiled disdain.
The woman beamed and stood up with languid grace. Her parasol sat propped up on the nearby wall as she spun her scroll on her finger. She regarded him with amusement as she strutted about his cramped quarters. Jaune couldn't say he understood the woman at all, but he knew she heralded nothing but pain for him. She was a close associate of that other one, which, combined with Oxford's portent of doom, gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"What do you want?" he asked as she finally sidled up in front of him.
The woman tapped something into her phone and an automated text-to-speech voice translated. "Roman needs to see us."
"Why?" he narrowed his eyes.
"We're leaving this shithole. Hope you weren't too attached, semicolon-closed parenthesis," the artificial voice dutifully stated.
Leaving? They'd barely been here three weeks! Now that he thought of it, he wasn't entirely too sure of where they were in the first place. Some sort of ruins if the flight in was any indicator. For a boy who'd lived his life in the sticks outside of the big city, they could've been ten years old or hundred. The tricolored thief virtually danced around him, taking extraordinary care not to brush him the slightest. All it would've taken was a second to unleash all the bullshit they'd forced onto him with none of the safeguards. Exceptionally thief or no, you didn't just walk off a bullet wound and concussion wrapped up in a four-course meal of seasonal sicknesses. He sniffed and grabbed his hoodie from where he'd thrown it over the desk. Stuffing the pill bottles into the jacket, he followed the whimsical little psychopath back out into the pit. Things weren't any noticeably different in the pit. Floodlights illuminated the ground, obscuring the cavernous ceiling above. Grimm were apparently pretty active on the surface, but there weren't many subterranean types native to this part of Vale.
Neopolitan led him onwards towards a jeep that held only a single driver. Jaune looked around to see that there were no other cars or anyone packing up to leave.
I guess I get priority. They probably have to pack up a lot of this stuff anyhow, he mused to himself as he hopped in the back seat. Neo petulantly "called" shotgun and made it obvious by jabbing him in the chest with the butt of her umbrella. He hacked up another wad of mucus and spat it off to the side, narrowly avoiding her boots.
She gave him a disgusted look and quickly hopped into the front seat. Playing with fire, sure, but they wouldn't let her kill him. Their real boss still apparently had use for him. She was more likely to get immolated herself for attempting to defy her. The car roared to life and quickly they left the safe confines of the small encampment. The chasmal tunnels around them held bits of half-constructed railroad tracks and concrete platforms that served as a snaking labyrinth of pathways. Apparently the job was never completed and many of the areas were the home of some of the more nastier Grimm native to the ruins above. As such, it didn't take long for everyone to figure out what was and wasn't off-limits.
The jeep rumbled over more tracks as it tore up the ground below. The drive was mostly silent save for his occasional cough or sniffle. Neo didn't seem to mind and instead played some sort of sugary, brightly-colored rhythm game on her phone as she hummed along to the music. The driver just seemed disconcerted with his two occupants and kept both eyes firmly ahead. It wasn't very long before they came upon another chamber that must've been designed as the main platform. It was just as big as the camp, but held an actual locomotive which was currently being loaded up with all sorts of things. White Fang grunts ran back and forth as they hurried to finalize the last preparations of their disembarkment. The jeep pulled off to the side and they were let out near a cluster of activity. Jaune turned to ask Neo what they should be doing only to find the woman gone, vanished without a trace as usual.
"N-Neo? What- Why do I even bother," he sighed. "Whatever. Someone here has to know something."
He approached the train, brushing by squads of armed soldiers and those carrying crates full of mechanical parts. Just what the hell were they smuggling here? Jaune watched with growing apprehension as a crane slowly descended a long cylindrical device onto one of the train cars. A waiting terrorist quickly pushed the thing into a compartment on the roof of the car before shutting the panel. Looking down the way, he could see the process being repeated for nearly every train car save for the front. A surly figure shoved into him, nearly knocking him to the ground in the process. He heard a muttered insult from the asshole, something about him being human, as he continued to load up the cargo.
The blonde boy was tempted to unload on the guy just for that, but decided to keep hold of his only form of defense for the meantime. He only had one shot after all, and it wasn't worth it to waste it on one dickhead. Instead, in lieu of anyone else who seemed to know what was going on, Jaune headed for the front of the train. Surely there he would find someone who could tell him what the plan was. There was an aire of tension throughout the complex, perhaps owing to the frantic pace everyone worked at. Jaune continued on his way only to stop as he saw the contents of one of the train cars.
His jaw promptly dropped, then threatened to unhinge when he got a good look at five meter tall battle mech currently squatting in aforementioned car. A trio of grunts worked to get it settled in as if it was the most normal thing in the world. No way could the White Fang produce this on their own. They were raiding or buying most of their weapons anyhow, and no one he knew of could produce something like this. Stolen, given his host's MO, but from who? Somehow, Jaune didn't think he wanted to know or know what they planned to use this for. He was better off leaving it to the authorities to handle. It wasn't like he could give a walking tank the sniffles anyhow.
Unnerved, the young boy continued on his way towards the front but stopped once again as he spied a familiar - and loathsome - figure. Roman Torchwick was a man who stood out in any crowd. Whether it was that stupid white suit of his or his immaculately styled red hair and bowler hat, the guy had presence. So it wasn't hard at all to see the man barking orders at the soldiers around him. Unlike Jaune, the rank-in-file were at least cowed by Roman's presence. The man spun his can around on his finger as he took another puff of his cigar.
"Dammit, what do I pay you pack mules for!? Get that crate of dust on board sometime today, please!" he shouted into the crowd of teeming terrorists. "Animals."
"Yeah, hi, I know no one cares but would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on!?" Jaune shouted at the man as he limped over a pile of upturned debris.
He turned and scoffed. "Good to see you too, golden boy. Somehow I thought you'd keeled over by now."
Roman, unlike his partner in literal crime Neo, was a known quantity to him. He'd been the first memorable face since arriving in Vale. And from the moment they met the two men hated one another. Roman was a sleazy prick and a conman of the highest caliber, not to mention a fashion disaster. One would think an internationally recognized criminal would know a thing or two about subtlety. The man took another puff from his cigar and walked over to Jaune who stood a few inches taller than him. Not that it mattered, since, for all Jaune's hatred of the guy, Roman would mop the floor with him in a fight.
"Today's your lucky day, kid. We're moving on from these accommodations and making our debut to the city proper. By this time tomorrow we'll be all over the news."
That didn't sound good at all. "What do you mean? What the hell is that big robot mech thing back there!?"
"A little, how you say, gift from Atlas. We don't have the receipt so we can't return it," the man shrugged helplessly. "But we'll make good use of it. For now, all you need to worry about is getting onboard the train. Cinder wants you with us for this."
Their boss? Jaune's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Hell if I know, kid. All I know is that it's generally unwise to refuse her demands. Now, stop being a little prat and-"
"Hey boss! You're gonna want to see this!" a voice called from a way's away from them.
Roman gave an aggravated sigh. "Is it good or bad, because, let me tell you, I have had a day."
"Uh, it's a little girl?"
"That would be pretty bad..."
Wait, what? Jaune turned towards the voice and saw two White Fang grunts dragging a small girl in a red cape towards them. The girl seemed alive and relatively unhurt, but kicked and struggled in vain against the two much stronger men. Said men deposited the indignant girl at his and Roman's feet, earning a sharp grunt from the unfortunate captive. Jaune looked between all of them with much confusion. The way Roman was talking, he seemed to know this chick.
"Hey there little red. Much more manageable without that oversized garden tool of yours?" he taunted, leaning on his cane.
The girl grit her teeth and suddenly charged! Roman barely even reacted as he turned on his heel and stuck the end of his cane out. It caught the edge of the girl's foot and send her tumbling right into Jaune's awaiting arms, or chest rather. He was surprised at how light she was, as even in his deteriorated state it didn't require much strength to grab onto the girl. Immediately, she began to kick and whine as his mind simply defaulted to holding onto her. Who was this and why was she here?
"Uh, Roman, explanation please?" he asked as the girl's legs kicked out uselessly.
"Just a little brat who's been in my way for awhile. I'm guessing that means her little pals aren't far behind either. Perry, get this thing moving!" Roman ordered one of the men.
"Can someone-"
There was a strong scent of roses right as the girl vanished from his arms. He felt a rush of wind accompany her as the girl seemingly shot straight out of his hands like a cannonball. He whirled around to see the former captive running down the tracks away from them. Roman smirked and pointed the butt end of his cane towards the girl. With a small flick of a switch, the crook fired out like a grappling hook to snag her by her hood. The girl was dragged back to their feet in a hilariously sad display.
"Not quite done with you yet, red."
An explosion shook the tunnel, rattling the subterranean ruins and sending pieces of concrete and rebar scattering. Those assembled glanced up as silence momentarily descended over them. The room suddenly shook again as another explosion, louder this time, rocked the place once more. Jaune saw a small crowd of grunts pouring out from behind the corner of a ruined building right as a third and final boom rang out, accompanied by starburst of light and heat from just beyond their line of sight. Four figure rushed around the corner in hot pursuit of the grunts. Three of them appeared to be girls in black, white, and yellow respectively. The fourth was a much older gentleman in safari gear wielding a... torch of some kind? Jaune couldn't really get a good look at it from this distance.
Given the redhooded girl's triumphant smile, they were allies. The aforementioned "little pals", no doubt. In their distraction, their captive made her move. She leapt over Roman's head, smooshing his hat down over his eyes in the process, and raced to catch up with her allies. With an annoyed snarl, Roman responded by pointing his cane at her and unleashing an explosive flare from the end of the weapon. The other White Fang soldiers nearby followed his lead, peppering the oncoming foes with a staccato of gunfire.
Jaune covered his ears and made a hasty retreat, deciding that whatever this was didn't really concern him. Instead, he pushed past throngs of confused terrorists to make it to the front. He was not about to die here, that was for sure. Jaune threw open the doors to the compartment and stepped inside, angling his head out of the car to see what the hell was going on. Soldiers followed his lead and started to board the locomotive which took off not a minute later, leaving those unfortunate few behind. Roman joined him in the front moments later, swearing under his breath.
"So, I'm guessing this wasn't part of the plan?" Jaune sneered.
"Not now, golden boy. With any luck, we'll have ditched those losers back there."
"Sir, they've made it onto the train!" a grunt suddenly called out.
His sneer redoubled. "So much for that."
"Not now! You, do whatever you can to stop them. Use the mechs if you have to just get them off!" Roman pointed his cane threateningly towards the man who scurried off with a small "eep!". The blonde haired boy had no idea what the thief's angle was. Pilot this train to... wherever they were going and then, what, get off? He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer anyhow.
They continued on like that, the two men - three if one counted the grunt steering the train - sat waiting at the head of the train. Occasionally, explosions would rattle the entire locomotive which became more frequent by the minute. By the lack of panic on the criminal's face, Jaune surmised that this also, somehow, a part of their plan. His mind suddenly rang back to the strange devices the grunts were putting on the train cars. Bombs? But why would they be blowing up their own train? Jaune paced nervously back and forth, his limp momentarily forgotten in the face of this batshit crazy plan.
The sounds of fighting and explosions slowly began to reach the front of the car. And with it, Jaune's anxiety continued to grow at an exponential rate. They didn't think he was a part of this, did he? Was just an unwilling bystander! A hostage victim! He had no part to play in this madhouse. The door to the car opened again, but this time it wasn't a soldier who stepped through. It was one of the girls from earlier, the one dressed in black, who now wielded what appeared to be a cross between a pistol and a sword.
A huntress.
"I'm not with him!" he called out.
"Well hello little kitty-cat. You know we really should stop meeting like this. People are gonna talk," Roman teased.
The girl was having none of it, and immediately leapt at the man. She dashed forward into his overhead swing only to vanish as a clone made of fire appeared in her place. It detonated a moment later, sending the criminal into the air where she caught him with a few quick swipes of her blade. The close confines did not make for safe spectator seating for either him nor the driver. It was undoubtedly an incredible showing though. The two exchanged blows so fast he could barely keep up, each parrying and blocking only to counterstrike. It was a true display of skill he couldn't even hope to stack up to.
That should be me, he thought bitterly to himself, despite the danger. I deserve to be going on missions like this and fighting bad guys. Not sitting here as a human penicillin bottle.
It would've been him if he hadn't opened his big mouth. If he'd just left that guy alone and didn't fix him he would be in Beacon right now with his own team, making new friends and getting the girls. Instead he was here, watching two people fight to the death in the middle of a train rigged with explosives. The battle was not to last however as the girl made another clone, this time one of rock, which trapped Roman's cudgel. The girl swung her arm downward and released a blinding purple slash of pure aura that cleaved through the rock and the thief's guard. Roman smacked into the control panel and bounced with enough force to land him squarely at the feet of his opponent. Her blade tickled his throat as he coughed and gave a nervous laugh.
"Golden boy, any help here?" he chuckled.
The girl's fierce amber eyes suddenly snapped to him, and he immediately raised his hands in surrender. "They kidnapped me, I am not with them."
"You're the Scapegoat, right?" she asked.
"Man I wish people would stop calling me that..."
"You're all coming with me. Don't try anything funny," she ordered.
The driver cleared his throat. "Look, I know it's a bad time to ask but was there someplace I was supposed to stop at?"
"Why do you ask?" Jaune turned as the driver pointed out the window. The young boy could very plainly see a massive wall of rock and stone sitting there at the end of this tunnel. "So, uh, I don't suppose there's an exit hidden that giant pile of boulders?"
"Brace for impact!"
Everything went black.
0-0-0-0
"It's done ma'am," Emerald reported to her as she watched Atlas cart off Roman. "They're taking him to Ironwood's flagship now."
"Good, and our little Scapegoat?"
"Already in Beacon custody. The General wants to interrogate him, but it seems likely that they'll let him stay at Beacon for a little while."
Cinder's lips curled into a smile. All according to plan. With that feckless imbecile in place to screw over Ironwood when the time was right and her own little mole right under Ozpin's nose, she had all the tools she needed to enact her plan. The Maiden's power would be hers, and that dusty old wizard would be dead by the end of this. All it would take is a little patience.
And of that, she had plenty.