The Dreamer Gate

by Malignent

Thousands of Uruk-Hai are drawn to Remnant after a ritual gone wrong, and are more than capable of bringing their own taste of war to this new world. Now the people of Remnant must deal with this new and numerous threat. As the Tournament draws near, and the actions of the Uruk Leaders grows ever bolder, can peace truly be maintained?

6. Chapter 6: The Warmonger

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of The Rings, the Middle-Earth universe, Shadow of Mordor or RWBY.

This work will contain moments of intense violence, dark and dirty humor, and canonical divergences.

---

The Warmonger

"Can I at least walk? This floor isn't exactly the most comfortable thing."

Yang couldn't see, the cloth tied so tightly around her face that it dug in at places. If she had proper use of her hands she would tear it off first, but alas her hands and feet were bound, and her captor was currently dragging her along the ground by the cuffs around her wrists in quite the uncomfortable manner.

"I would've let you walk here, Lady." she heard the one pulling her say nonchalantly "But last time I did that ya socked one of my guys in the jaw, so consider this your penalty."

She couldn't deny that the moment she found herself conscious enough for it, her first instinct was to swing at the nearest Uruk voice she could... but still!

"Penalty? Oh I'll show you a penalty!"

"Jeez, do you ever stop talking? Kinda giving me a headache here."

"I'll give you more than a headache after I get out of these things."

And so this back and forth went on for some time until finally her captor dropped her unceremoniously on the ground. She immediately tried getting to her feet, struggling with the bindings as she did so. She couldn't see her captor, but could guess from the sound of a heavy door swinging closed that he had put a risky amount of space between them. Once in a sitting position, her bound wrists flew up to her face and pried off the cloth, almost immediately making her flinch back from the unexpected brightness.

They were underground somewhere, if the cave walls and floor were any indication, but it was by no means naturally occurring. The rock floor had been flattened sometime previously, and there were a series of lights jury rigged high on the walls. There were several thin columns of stone holding up the stone above, presumably left there by whoever dug this place out in the first place.

The sound of movement drew her gaze back to the wooden door, or more importantly the single Uruk who stood between her and that door. Covered in that white and blue body paint, blue trousers, torn blue cloth wrapped around his neck like a scarf, and an odd metal helmet which he was currently removing, he stood out way too much from the Uruks she'd fought in the past week. With Bubol it was because of his perverted madness and generally disgusting appearance, with Krimp it had been due to his odd mannerisms and sheer tankiness. This guy was distracting by design alone...

...well that and his oddly human appearance.

Yang had to do a double take at first, because he just had too many humanoid facial features. Besides the two large jagged teeth that sprouted from either side of his lower jaw, she'd nearly mistaken him for a regular bald guy.

"So, in case you forgot... Name's Krosh." he said casually as he tossed his helmet to the side and let it skid along the ground as he patted his chest "Krosh the Warmonger officially but just saying Krosh is nice and simple."

His manner of speech too, Yang blinked again as Krosh stepped forward "You-"

"Sound like one of you?" the Uruk rolled his eyes as he reached into the pocket of his trousers "Yeah, been getting that a lot since we showed up here, not really important though."

He pulled out a key and tossed it to her, she stared at it for a moment before looking back at him. He nodded towards her cuffs and folded his arms with an expectant expression.

"What are you-?"

"Thought you might want them off."

Cautious of some type of ploy, Yang inched towards the key before swiping it and backing up. When Krosh just gave a bored yawn, she tested it to find that his words were true, after letting the cuffs on her wrists and ankles clatter to the ground, Krosh spoke up again.

"Good, now seeing as I purchased you and were told you could fight, I need you to beat the piss out of some people."

"I'd rather do that to you, buddy." Yang said with a hint of spite as she stood tall, Krosh was just a bit under her height, allowing her to glare straight into his casual expression as she cracked her knuckles.

"I know." he said with a simple shrug before gesturing towards her "But you won't."

Yang blinked at him before balling her hands into her fists "Is that a challenge?"

"No," he shrugged "just a fact. But before you get all pissy, don't you want to know what I need you to fight for?"

"Actually no," Yang muttered as she started walking towards him "I think I'd rather walk out of here right now, preferably after paying you back for the less-than-comfortable ride here."

Krosh gave a small hum of acknowledgement before giving her a humored grin "If you say so, lady."

The Warmonger unfolded his arms and stretched as the huntress stepped towards him, stopping suddenly as her hand shot towards his unguarded throat.

He slapped her hand out of the way.

Yang had enough time to blink before his arm swung back and backhanded her with enough force to send her stumbling away.

"Hey lady!" she heard called out as she massaged her cheek and looked back at Krosh angrily, watching him adopt a half-assed battle stance and slowly shift from one foot to the other "I was planning on training you myself for that fight you're going into, so this is pretty much where things were going one way or another."

He paused in his movements to clap his hands together "So here's how its going to go, lady." he nodded back towards the door "That's unlocked, all you need to do is get to it and fly free or whatever. But I'm going to be as honest as I can here, you're not getting to it."

"My name...is Yang." the blonde growled towards him as she stood once more and adopted a proper combat stance

"Yeah well," Krosh said with another casual shrug "I only remember the names of things that are useful, so we'll just call you Lady for now."

---

~The City of Vale, several days ago~

"Scuse me!"

The two young girls paused in their walking, turning only to flinch as they saw the figure who had spoken to them. The giant form was covered head to toe in heavy clothing, the only indicator of who was underneath being the odd but definitively male voice which came from within.

"Sorry lassies, just wonderin' if you could point me in the direction of this place?"

The giant offered a single piece of paper, on which the words 'Bacon Acadumy' were shoddily scrawled.

One of the girls raised her glasses to give a strange look at the paper, then pointed towards it "This... is supposed to say Beacon, right?"

The giant nodded enthusiastically, excited at the prospect of finally receiving an answer.

The girl smirked as she lowered her glasses and pointed off to the side. Confused, the giant followed her finger towards Beacon's massive and easily visible form which rose on a cliff in the distance.

"That's Beacon?!" he exclaimed "I thought's that was where ya fancy folk lived!"

"How many people did you ask?" the girl glanced back towards him "I'm pretty sure most people here know where Beacon is. In fact, I don't know anyone anywhere who wouldn't know where a single one of the combat schools were."

"Well lots of the folk I asked went and ran away from me when I would ask where the Huntsmen came from." the giant sighed as he glanced down at his misspelled note "One of them yelled this at me while he was runnin' so I figured if I found out where this place was I'd get me answer."

"Oh," the other girl finally spoke up, initial fear of the giant's frame changing to sympathy at his story "not one person tried to help you?"

When the giant shook his head in the negative, it seemed to make the girl's eyes lower in pity.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she muttered before looking back up at him "if it makes you feel any better, I can kinda relate."

"Really?" the giant tilted his head in confusion

"Yeah, I can safely say Vel's had problems in the past." the Glasses girl patted her friend on the shoulder supportively.

"But why?" the strange man asked as he scratched his head "She ain't big and scary like I am."

The thought of her being 'big and scary' made the girls hold back some laughter, but Vel stepped forward "No, it was more because of... you know 'these'"

She shook the strange appendages which sprouted from the top of her head, making the giant's face take on even more of a confused look.

"Why though?" he asked "Those things ain't scary either!"

"Well I'm happy to hear you say that," she said before looking away "but they are to some people."

Seeing her companion's downtrodden expression, the girl in glasses changed the subject "So, what exactly did you need at Beacon anyway?"

"Friends!" the gaint said without hesitation

She raised an eyebrow "Friends?"

"Yep! Met a couple of good pals who say they went there." The giant sighed as happy memories began running through his mind "Ain't got many friends of me own back home, figured it'd be easier here!"

The girl with the appendages tilted her head to the side "Is that because of the whole big and scary thing?"

"Nah, me brothers love bein' all big and scary, made funna' me for actin' all kindly and such." He scratched his cheek at the unpleasant thought "Me big brother himself kicked me out quite a while ago."

"That's terrible!"

"But I don' blame 'em at all!" the giant said quickly "I ain't really up to their standards after all, too friendly for their tastes."

"Well then Mr..?" The girl in glasses egged him for his name

"Oh! Name's Krimp, it's actually a bit longer but I like Krimp!"

"Well Krimp, my name's Coco. And you can consider us pals if you plan on sticking around Vale for long."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you seem like a pretty cool guy. But me and Vel got people waiting for us, so if we see you again maybe we can hang out."

The giant was speechless, only able to wave goodbye to his new friends as they continued walking to their prior engagement. Beneath the scarf wrapped around his mouth was a massive grin, and even the looks other bystanders gave him did nothing to deter the sense of joy he felt at that moment.

"And then I hopped on a ship and came over!" Krimp finished as he placed his hands on his hips "And that's the story of how I came to Beacon!"

"That literally answered not one of my questions." Weiss deadpanned

The disguised Uruk tilted his head to the side with a sad look in his eyes. He briefly glanced back at Blake, who had positioned herself at the door and kept her watchful gaze leveled on him, then turned back to the heiress"Whatdya mean, friend?"

"And don't call me that!" Weiss insisted "I am not your friend!"

After Krimp's unexpected reveal, the two huntresses had ushered him into their room and away from the suddenly concerned eyes of their fellow classmates. They'd had to ask him to do it, neither of them had the sheer strength necessary to force him anywhere. Thankfully, he'd been as compliant as he was since they'd last encountered him, sans the tedious battle, following their orders with a smile despite the worried looks the confused members of Team JNPR had sent towards him. After ensuring their dorm room was properly locked, they had immediately sat him down and demanded Krimp tell them how he got to Beacon. His response was less than informative.

Weiss had had enough of him. The sheer refusal to answer her questions in a manner that was actually enlightening coupled with that annoyingly persistent insisitence that they were no less than the greatest of companions had eaten at her since they'd first met him. In the woods they'd been far too preoccupied with Bubol for her to have to deal with him long, but now? Not only did he imply he'd just magically appeared in Vale not a day after they'd broken his arm, which he'd also somehow completely recovered from, but he's also been gallivanting around as if there wasn't a single thing wrong with him being there. Unacceptable!

"I just need to know how you did it for Pete's sakes!"

"Is Pete another one of ya friends?" Krimp tilted his head to the side with a smile "I'd love to meet him!"

"It was a meta-"

Krimp raised a finger with a smile "I've met tons of folk since I got 'ere, but it don't mean I'm tired of new ones!"

"Just listen for one second and-!"

"Why ya want me to listen for one second?" the Uruk asked "Wouldn't ya want me ta listen to the whole thing?"

"Blake please," Weiss turned on her Faunus with a look of desperate anger in her eyes "I don't think I can take much more of this idiocy."

Blake nodded with a sympathetic look before steeling her gaze and "Krimp, exactly how many people have you talked to since you got here?"

Her worries were similar to Weiss's, though more focused on what the Uruk had been doing in their absence. How he arrived was a puzzling mystery for now, but that was no more initially concerning than what his actions were. He'd had enough time to do who knows what, an Uruk hidden amongst the City of Vale able to blend in seemingly uncontested, the thought alone was enough to make her mind race with all the people he could've hurt in that time.

"Uh," the Uruk scratched his head as he thought "what's one-hundred minus three?"

"Ninety-seven!?" Weiss exclaimed

"Now calm down there buddy, it was probably more. Me math skills are a bit dodgy, some o' ya friends been helpin me with 'at though!"

Weiss gritted her teeth, anger clearly evident in her expression "We just got back after a trek through the wilderness, its physically impossible you've been here for days unless you have a semblance that lets you teleport!"

"Nah," Krimp gave another dismissive wave "my magic thingie's way cooler than that! Jaune said so!"

Weiss made a mental note to interrogate the young Arc on that, but for now "So what is it then?"

Krimp took a minute to think "Wait, I actually discovered that on my trip with Jaune and Cardin's boys!"

Weiss and Blake immediately shared a questioning look as Krimp clapped his hands together.

"You guys ain't seen my Semblie thingie, 'ave ya?" Krimp chuckled before patting himself down "Well's let me show ya right quick, just need to find-aha!"

The giant produced a pen and lifted it in front of his face, then he squinted... really hard. After a while nothing happened, Blake and Weiss turned to look at each other as Krimp started making audible grunts of effort whilst staring holes into the pen. Finally, after a full sixty seconds of nothing he released the pen.

And it didn't fall.

Krimp's breathing was heavy, eyes glued on the writing utensil that floated before him.

"T-ta da!" he exclaimed with a strain in his voice

Weiss narrowed her eyes at the very painful sounds of effort Krimp made as he desperately tried to keep the pen afloat.

"W-wait that's not just it!" Krimp raised a finger and poked the pen, and slowly it began rotating on the tip of his finger "A-Awesome, ain't I-it?!"

"And...that's it?" Weiss asked in a dumbfounded manner

Krimp suddenly gulped down a massive amount of air as the pen fell to the ground, the uncomfortable sounds of grunts now replaced with the uncomfortable sounds of hearing someone nearly nine times your body weight struggle to catch their breath. Despite this, Krimp's smile never seemed to lessen in the slightest, the pathetic nature of his semblance seemingly lost on him as he beamed with pride.

"I saved one of me friend's drinks with that power!" Krimp gloated before clapping "Oh just think of the other ways I can help my friends with it!"

Blake sighed "Look... just tell us what type of things you've been doing around here, and try to stick to important stuff, please?"

"Gotcha!"

"Great," Weiss took a steadying breath "We might finally be able to get something of worth from-"

"So I met Jaune not long after the ship ride-"

"Oh for-!"

---

~Vacuo: Uruk Shantytown~

Maku and Ishga turned around another shoddily built structure on their way to the next place Tarz wanted them to set up a Dreamer Gate. He'd been trying to see just how distance might affect the strange red portals.

"Why are we doing this a third time?" Ishga complained as they passed by a group of Uruks gambling around a wooden barrel "We already set up two, why does he want us to go all the way to the edge of this place?"

"Ain't it a law or something?" Maku asked as he stepped over an Uruk who'd drunken himself unconscious, "Ratlug usually does his tests three times before moving on, I had always assumed smarter Uruks just had a fascination with the number three, tarks too for that matter. Even some of them Elven folk had a lot of threes in their practices."

"Yeah but why three? Why that number specifically?"

"I think it goes something like, 'One is far too little, and two just seems like ya half-assing it. Do something four times and its fundamentally inefficient if ya require that many do-overs to feel satisfied by the result."

"That doesn't sound right."

Maku raised an eyebrow, "How so?"

"Just seems like such a shrahk excuse."

"To be fair, Ratlug ain't like most brainy Uruk so I can't say others can compare to him too well." Maku admitted as he paused to see a larger Uruk in armor forcing one of the slaves along. The two brothers moved to the side of the narrow alley they were in to let them pass as the conversation died down a bit, with Ishga finally speaking up.

"Why'd you go with them?"

Maku turned towards the red-themed Uruk with a questioning look "Excuse me?"

"The Storm, why did you follow the Grand Shaman when he disappeared?" Ishga turned to him with narrowed eyes "Father always told us the definitive meaning of loyalty was to stand by your master no matter what, and to honor his wishes when you can't."

"And father ended up dying at the hands of a mad fool," Maku pointed out "His words should be taken with a grain of salt else they lead to similar results, brother."

Maku turned away and began walking once more "Besides, the Warchief never demanded my presence before, so what real difference does it make if I'm there or not?"

"He was concerned by the lack of followers who stuck with him after Bubol's exodus."

"Then perhaps-!"

Maku's words were interrupted as a yell was heard down the alley they'd been traveling through. As one the brothers turned to see the slave from earlier running from the Uruk Escort. Before they could draw their weapons to join in the chase the Pursuer drew a large hammer from his back and tossed it. The heavy weapon slammed into the slave's back and brought him to the ground. The Escort caught up and kicked him once before retrieving his hammer and sliding it into a strap on his back next to its twin.

"Who's that?" Maku leaned towards his brother

"Muggrish Rock-Crusher," Ishga replied, watching as the berserker dragged the slave off "strange... he usually spends most of his time with one of the Warchief's advisors."

The Rock-Crusher dragged the slave into one of the nearby shanties, pushing aside a cloth which acted as the door. Maku wordlessly walked over to the shanty and spotted a crack in its ramshackle exterior. To his brother's surprise, the Warmonger kneeled and peered into the crack.

"What are you doing?" Ishga asked before gesturing towards the path they had been taking previously "We have work to do-"

"Silence yourself and come ease your suspicion." Maku said without turning away.

Ishga looked miffed for a moment before conceding and finding another hole in the shanty's wall to peer through.

It was a single room building like most of the smaller shanties were, with a single hole in one of the walls which was obviously supposed to be a window. A dirty cloth was hung up in front of it, making the rest of the room murky-looking at best. What they could see was a figure sitting at a desk, Skog the Corruptor, looking mighty impatient as Muggrish tossed the injured slave into the chair opposite of him.

"You think ~Cough!~ you can just drag me from my cot, starve me and my friends-" the slave paused to hack violently, still managing to look on with hatred at the Uruk before him.

"Before you continue," Skog said with a scowl before reaching behind him towards the window and pulling back the cloth. Sunlight poured in, illuminating the room as well as a horrific splattering of gore in one of the corners.

Almost immediately the slave wretched violently as he scooted back in fear "Oh my ~Hack, cough!~ What is that?!"

"That's the last tark who made this little question' longer than it needed to be." the Corruptor said before wiping some of the sand from the table and analyzing it passively "So here's how this is going to work: I'm going to ask a question, if I don't like it then my pal over there is gonna beat ya. Keep displeasing me and sooner or later you'll be mirroring that poor sod over there. Please me and you'll be one step closer to getting back to your filthy bedroll and passing out until the taskmasters call for you again."

The slave growled, but eventually hung his head in defeat "Just... tell me what you want."

"Good sport this one is." Skog cackled before letting his face turn serious once more as he produced a parchment and laid it in front of the slave "Tell me where this comes from."

"What are they doing?" Maku asked with narrowed eyes

Ishga gave a bit of a grumble as he watched, his eyes narrowing as the scenario before him implied certain things in his head.

The Blood-Storm gave nothing else to his inquisitive brother, who rolled his eyes before glancing back inside the shanty.

"I'm telling you, I can't tell you much more than what you already know," the slave said "I got kicked out of a lot of schools when I was a kid, I don't even know half the stuff about Vacuo let alone Mistral, and I live here! You need a history buff for this kind of stuff."

"Oh really? Well do you mind pointing us in the direction of one before my pal here turns you into something similar to jelly?"

"Well there was O'neal, the guy who got fucking eaten by your boys several days ago," the slave hissed "he was pretty into the whole historical thing."

The Corruptor sighed as he leaned back "Almost as much as he was into being delicious apparently. Anyone actually useful now?"

As they watched, the sounds of footsteps drew the eyes of the two hunters to another red-themed Uruk hastily making his way towards their specific shanty.

"Hell, I don't know!" the slave threw his hands up "Half the guys you got doing your work for you are from other contingents, the other half are just random civies, and the ones that I do know aren't gonna be much-"

The new Uruk pushed his way inside, the rush he was in apparently leading to him not noticing the two on-looking hunters "Apologies lads, tried to make it in time for interrogation but I ran into a spot of trouble with one of Hork's underlings."

"Shrakh, what now?" Skog asked him, problems with Hork's little lapdogs meant trouble for the entire stronghold "Did they start asking questions about us?"

"No no, it seems the Black Gate's Overseer issued new edicts to be carried out." The scholar muttered as he paused to fold his arms several feet away from the table, turning to admire the red mess of remains "Pigug's boys are running around frantically trying to keep up with them."

"What's he asking for?" Muggrish finally spoke up, this new development apparently garnering more interest than listening to the slave complain.

"They're regulating grog-"

"The bastards!" the Corruptor barked "It was hard enough finding enough stuff to replicate a semi-decent swill, now they's takin' that from us too?"

"Didn't we have enough of that regulating shrakh back in Mordor?" the Rock-Crusher grumbled as he glanced towards the literate Uruk

"Well Hork's been convinced that having lesser Uruks on the swill will have us more prepared when some form of retaliation from the men-folk occurs and-"

"Hogwash!" Skog growled before folding his arms "All Uruk fight better with some good grog in 'em, Hork should know that simple fact by now. Unbelievable... Torz, ain't Dreamer doin' anything about this?"

"Torz the Literate One?" Ishga whispered under his breath, momentarily drawing his brother's attention.

Torz tapped his fingers together "Well, Tugog has been trying harder to get in touch with his visions nowadays, its gotten to the point where he can't be around as often as-"

"Oh for the love of- He's off sleeping for days on end while Horkie boy loses his damn mind over a bloody wall, the hell's the point of figurin' out this gate scenario if we's all just gonna end up executed by the end of it?"

"Now we don't know if things will turn out that way," Torz pointed out before gesturing to the thoroughly confused slave still sat at the table "we should focus on continuing the interrogation and-"

"What a load a shrakh," Skog sighed before raising a finger for emphasis "last time the big bastard was like this that executioner of his had to have three blacksmiths workin 'round the clock forging new swords for him and those head-hunters of his. The blades kept breaking because of all the beheading they were doin'!"

Maku had heard enough, sliding down as the red trio inside continued their back and forth, almost completely forgetting about the lost human caught in the midst of their arguing.

"So, seems like you weren't the only ones working on this Gate situation of yours," the blue-Uruk stated with a shrug "though it seems these fellows are interested in a much more different aspect than you was."

"It has to be Dushrat," Ishga muttered, and to his brother's confused glare he stated "let's just say he was curious about this as well but was assigned elsewhere for the time being. He'd often have Torz gathering info wherever he couldn't be, so I guess he wasn't keen on waiting."

The Blood-Storm sighed "Can't believe he'd do this without me, I wanted him to hold off till after we'd calmed down the Black Gate's Garrison a bit. So many of those lapdogs are waiting for a chance for us to start killin' each other, and with them so suspicious of the master- Maku?"

Ishga realized that somewhere in the midst of his angry reflecting, his brother had taken off. Glancing around himself, he caught sight of a blue form disappearing around the corner of the shanty. Realizing where his brother planned on going, the Blood-Storm immediately turned back to the hole in the wall to find the three Uruks still grumbling about the recent changes.

"So... should we have been talking like this around the Pinkskin?" Muggrish asked, but Skog waved him off

"No worries big guy, he was paste the second we fished him outta the crowd."

"Wait what?!"

The panicked voice of the slave was overshadowed by the sudden entrance of Maku himself, who simply strolled inside as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Judging by the swiftness by which the Uruks inside had hands on their weapons, it was not.

"Is that? Ishga's brother, right?" Torz glanced towards the other two "The one with the Shaman?"

"What are you doin' off your leash Storm boy?" Skog asked as he unlatched his spiked club from a loop on his belt "Shouldn't you be lodged halfway up your master's arse?"

"Good to see you're doing well," Maku grumbled as he glanced between the trio "just passing by when I heard you guys yelling at the little runt over there."

"Hey can we get back to that paste thing-?"

"You heard us?!" Skog spoke over the now-increasingly worried slave.

"Well to be fair, we could've probably been a bit quieter." Torz mentioned with a raised finger "I was under the impression that being heard was not much of an issue."

"What in the dark lord's name would give ya that idea?"

"Ah, I do believe it went 'Those brain-dead grunts wouldn't know an interrogation from a belching contest'." The scholar pointed out

"I would never-"

"You do have a habit of downplaying risks." Muggrish muttered

"You're here to be big and intimidating," the Corruptor stated "talking is for real Uruks, not hired help."

"I assume you came in here for a reason," Torz pointed out to Maku before his cohorts could continue their argument "a high-ranking member of the Shaman's Elite such as yourself would not directly involve yourself in a miniscule matter such as this without reason."

The other Uruks did take note of the truth in the Literate One's statement, returning their gazes to the Warmonger.

"My reason's simple," Maku shrugged "you want to find out more about the origin of the Dreamer Gate. I can help you."

---

~Unknown Cave~

The grunts of effort echoed through the cave, rebounding off its walls before dissipating. This was to be expected, what wasn't to be expected was that they came from only one person.

Yang slammed into one of the stone pillars dotted around the room, taking a second to catch her breath before glaring over at Krosh, who had only a semi-amused look in his eyes.

"Listen Lady, I said we'd be working on your dodging." he pointed out before nodding towards her "Stop trying to fight back and focus on dodging for Sauron's sakes."

"Sorry," Yang coughed before giving him a smirk "its just that your face looks so punchable. Probably just instincts or something."

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Krosh gave a small chuckle before raising his fists "Not going to help you out much though, lady."

Yang simply sighed before pushing herself into a standing position once more and clenching her hands tightly as the Uruk began stepping towards her. She swallowed as she raised her hands to defend herself, watching his arms sway slightly. She tried looking for a sign as to which he'd attacked with, when suddenly his leg shot out instead.

She immediately slid to the side as his foot carved a chunk out of the stone pillar behind her, but his leg didn't stop moving as Yang tried to orient herself once more. She looked up just as he slung the torn rock at her with his leg. She leaned out of the way as it sailed past her, unable to turn fast enough to block the following kick which connected with her side and forced her back.

Krosh returned to his previous lazy stance with a sigh "Too slow lady, gonna have to get faster."

Yang gritted her teeth, biting down on her rebuttal as the Uruk folded his arms "You know," he began "this'd probably work a bit better if you weren't so stiff."

"What?"

"Stiff Lady, geez." Krosh waved it off with a roll of his eyes "Never mind, where were we?"

He glanced back in her direction to see Yang crack another smirk, "I think we were right about HERE!"

On that last word she activated her semblance, the bored Warmonger actually having to shield his eyes as the decrepit cave was suddenly flooded with more light. Having saved up the damage from the last hour of abuse, Yang knocked her knuckles together as Krosh gave another sigh. He scratched the back of his head for a moment and clicked his teeth together as flames radiated from Yang's Aura.

"Well fine," he said before smiling as she advanced "guess we can work on offense now. Don't expect it to be much easier, Lady."

Yang never thought such a simple word could annoy her so much, but the way this grade-A bastard managed to say it with such condescension just irked her.

Krosh extended a hand towards her and gestured for her to come at him, to which she answered appropriately. He backed out of her first grab, shifting between feet as he watched her approach for a follow-up. She let loose, fists flying with enough force to signal Krosh to step out of the way. He kept dodging backwards until his back pressed against one of the stone pillars, which seemed to distract him for a second. Yang capitalized, lunging forward as he turned his gaze on her.

He stepped forward before jumping back on the pillar and leaping towards her. Thankfully, Yang could see this quickly enough to slide her head out of the way of the flying knee that passed just past her ear. Suddenly, his foot extended and used her shoulder as a stepping stool. He landed several yards away as she recovered from the small jab. Krosh frowned as he saw this before letting another tired-smirk cross his face as he shook his head.

"Even with all that magic stuff, far too stiff lady."

Yang didn't have enough time to ponder his words before he suddenly raced towards her. He spun out of the way of her fist, swinging his leg into the back of her leg as he did. Instantly she was brought down to a knee, jerking her head to the side just to catch a flying foot to the face. She rolled back and pushed herself back to her feet as Krosh came at her again.

She jumped back as he kicked at where her head was again, but he kept the pressure up. She raised both arms to block his fist, catching it in between them as she grunted. She'd been forced back several feet, boots digging into the ground as Krosh raised his leg. She jumped back out of the way of the kick, charging back in and sending another series of swings his way. After several more quick dodges he ducked under one and rammed his head into her gut, making her cough and grab at the impact zone as her back slammed into another stone pillar. She glanced up as he charged her again, leaping with both feet as he sailed towards her.

She threw herself out of the way of the dropkick, rolling onto her hands and knees and glancing up just as the Uruk leaped at her from the pillar. She rolled out of the way again as he skidded on the ground and was dashing at her again with an arm rearing back before she had even fully stood.

She went to deflect the oncoming fist, only for his hand to open mid swing. The punch turned into a sudden grab, and before she knew it he'd dragged her arm behind her and kicked her leg in again.

Face down in the ground with a boot on the back of her neck and her arm trapped in his grasp, Yang struggled rabidly to no avail.

"I've fought in worst situations Lady, stop your struggling so we can get back to dodging already." Krosh seemed like he was humored by her attempts "If you don't I can just dislocate both your arms and step on you until you become more cooperative."

That prospect actually gave Yang pause, but before she could decide whether struggling was worth it, the Uruk gave a small hum "Actually, that sounds far too entertaining to pass up on actually."

Before she could contest that, a horrid pain forced a scream out of her throat as he pulled.

---

~The Sandy Expanse: Abandoned Drilling Station~

"So let me just see if I've got this straight," Tuka murmured as he watched on in disbelief, before him was an Uruk by the name of Borgu who was crouched near the detached loader "You've been hiding in a deathstalker-"

"Her name was Gretchen damn it!"

"Gretchen's den for all these months?" the Berserker didn't want to believe it, it had taken them quite some time to slay the beast. Probably would've taken longer if they didn't come across something conveniently big to drop on her. Yet this scrawny thing claimed to be living with it?

Borgu was busy trying to chisel words into the loader which had been used to kill said deathstalker, or Gretchen as he seemed adamant to call it, in order to mark its grave. The beast's body had already finished evaporating, and the poet's crying seemed only to grow since. If Zog's word was anything to go on this Uruk was apparently a pretty well-known sod. Tuka never had the pleasure of meeting him, but Uruk lyricists like Zog seemed to idolize this one.

The prodigal poet glanced back and nodded morosely to the beserker's question, wiping tears from his eyes as the sad music resonating in the area grew just a bit. Uthug had tried blocking the noise out with his hands but, despite his own disdain for its seemingly unending persistence persistence, Tuka was able to tolerate it.. at least for the time being.

Tuka couldn't find the singer's fascination with the pint-sized Uruk, who was even thinner and ganglier than Uthug. Hell, he seemed to be even thinner than that female tark Zog kept carrying around. If his apparent lacking in the physical department wasn't enough, Borgu's magical talent in this realm consisted of this annoyingly persistent music which seemed to waft from him endlessly. Yes, according to him he'd discovered it not too long after leaving Hork's tower for 'greener fields'. According to Zog he did that a lot in Mordor too, acting as the travelling minstrel type.

"I'm gonna call shrakh on that." Uthug piped up, having been stuck in a similar state to that of a berserker throughout most of the Poet's explanation "Those dark beasts can't even look in the direction of us without gettin' a hankering for Uruk Meat."

"She wasn' like that, chums." Borgu stood and backed away to look upon his handiwork sadly "She wasn't like them, she was a special one."

And just like that the damn music picked up once more as the Poet placed a hand to his chest "She was my best deadly friend in the world~! And though I'd never even talked to that girl~! I'd rush into my hidey hole, and her bloodlust touched my soul. So I realized just-"

"Sounds like you just hid from her whenever it got back from hunting," Uthug interrupted the song before scratching his chin "Though I will admit, hiding right under the nose of the area's apex predator is a high risk high reward gamble ya took there."

The poet seemed unimpressed with having his impromptu musical interrupted, but waved it off as the music shifted back into its slightly somber chorus "Sure it may have started off as a strained relationship what with me having to hide whenever she came back from the hunt, but I know deep in my black heart that Gretchen and I understood each other right up till the end. We was both man-killing machines who just so happened to make each other's acquaintance in a tight little love den in the middle of nowhere."

Tuka tried not to think too deeply on Borgu's implication "Wait, so how've you been surviving out here if that bea-Gretchen killed or chased off whatever got near?"

"I just ate whatever she hadn't finished," Borgu stated

"What she hadn't... so..."

"Yep, snuck out from time to time to nibble on whatever she'd cut down!" the poet sighed before rubbing the grave loader fondly "good ol' symbiotic relation we's had."

"Pfft," Uthug was not so easily convinced "and what if she don't kill nothing? What then?"

Borgu shrugged before jerking a thumb to the side "My hidey Hole was packed full of these tasty treats that was kept in boxes and-"

"You've got food?"Tuka interrupted

"Of course, older than sin really... but edible!"

"Then why would you need to eat a beast's leftovers?"

"And ruin our symbiotic relationship!?" The poet gasped, as if the rational thought was a personal insult. Borgu shook his head at Tuka, who merely sighed, before glancing a bit to the side "By the way, is ya pal over here okay?"

Borgu was referring to Zog, who stood off to the side staring at him in amazement, as he'd been doing for quite some time now. The singer recognized that he'd been spoken to, and quickly shook his head before rubbing the back of it "Oh! I was just uh, thinking that its kinda gettin' a bit late and well, we ain't got many options right about now so-"

Uthug realized what he was going to say and stepped forward "Oh don't you even think about-!"

He stopped when Tuka placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back, the berserker grumbled "What are you doing, we wanted to rest here. It's what we fought the damn deathstalker for."

"I will not be subjected to two song-crazed worms at once! Dealing with one is enough, but this one's got some damn music following him around like a cloud of stinging pests."

"Oh please, you can't honestly believe wandering out there in a dark desert is better than dealing with some music."

The musket-wielder turned back to the two lyricists, narrowing his eyes in contemplation.

"So can you get any tune?" Zog questioned as he leaned on his shield

"Dunno about that, haven't tested it much." Borgu said as he kneeled in front of the grave, "I did found out how to lower and raise how loud it was, didn't want ta agitate Gretchen with it... Gretchen..."

As the singer comforted the poet, Uthug turned back to the Berserker "Do I even need to say anything?"

"He just said he can lower-"

"Lower! Not stop. Key phrases here lad," the angry Uruk leaned forward a bit "I was thinking we could just kill him and have a good rest in here without the extra noise."

"...That's completely unnecessary." Tuka stated before gesturing around "A semi-decent roof, possible food, and the area shouldn't have wandering Grimm till after we're long gone."

"Come on! Just a quickie with ya axes or my spear rifle thing."

"Hey guys!"

The two glanced up as Zog walked over, "Just heard that Borgu's willing to have us stay over for a bit, he needs people for Gretchen's farewell speech tomorrow."

"We're the ones who killed the damn thing."

"Quantity over quality he says." Zog retorted

"She would've wanted it that way!" the poet cried out

"Tuka please!" the musket-wielder begged

"Look, if you want to be such a whining little runt over some music, then feel free to head on out there on your own. Ain't nothing to stop you."

As expected, Uthug had nothing to bite back with at that. He just angrily fumed at the berserker who rolled his eyes as a low moan caught his ears.

"Oh! Is that part of the music too?" Zog asked

"Could only get instruments though," Borgu scratched his chin "could never make a chorus for myself."

"Eh its just the Tark," Uthug grumbled before glaring at Zog "Oi, why ain't ya keepin' that damn thing muzzled or somethin'?"

"I don't got a muzzle."

"Just stuff a rag in her mouth, I ain't got time for listening to Tarks whine and moan."

"Oi Tuka, do we-?"

"We don't have any rags, less you mean to tear a piece of your already shoddy cloth off and use that?"

"Why can't one a you lot do it th-?"

"Excuse me ma'am, do ya know how to make any fancy clothes?"

The Traveling Trio stopped in the midst of their rising banter as their attention was brought back to Borgu, who was now kneeling in front of the groaning captive.

"P-Please, pain... can't feel my leg..."

"Yes yes, you're injured and wish for aid I get it," the poet waved it off "but you're a tark lady right? Surely ya must have some skills in spinnin some good thread eh?"

"Head pulsing... eyes dimming... throat dry..."

"See we're havin' us a ceremony soon and... well," he rubbed a hand on his dirty trousers "I ain't wearin' me usual rags for somethin' this important, Gretchen deserves better."

"What exactly..." Tuka took some time to properly take in the sight before him, leaning back towards the other two as he did "is he doin'?"

"Being a dumb glob, obviously." Uthug folded his arms and glanced to the side "Honestly I've come to expect it from music-folk."

"So he wants to dress nicely for his pet's farewell." Zog said defensively "If I had a beast as charmin' as she sounds I'd want her remembered with honor too!"

"She nearly killed all of us!"

"That being so," Tuka muttered as he glanced back to the Poet as he continued conversing with the struggling Faunus "I can see many upsides to sticking around at the moment."

---

~Unknown Cave~

"Oh come on, Lady."

Yang rolled onto her good side and gasped for air, trying to refill her lungs after the long-winded scream she'd just finished.

"I just dislocated it a bit, geez, didn't even snap it like I usually would." Krosh stepped into her line of sight and crouched down beside her head.

"Yep..." Yang gritted out whilst controlling her breathing "I know... totally felt...worse than this...before..."

"Still yapping even in pain," the Warmonger shook his head "I can respect dedication like that."

Yang glanced up at him "R-Really?"

"Yeah, but in respectable people." the Uruk chuckled to himself as Yang pushed herself into a sitting location, trying to keep from applying pressure to where her arm had been dislocated from her shoulder.

"You know, that kind of sass talk isn't what I expect from a kidnapper."

"No no, I just bought you, not kidnapped. If I was the one who'd kidnapped you, you'd have far more broken bones." He shrugged "My doctor mentioned it having something to do with having a bad rep with women."

The blonde simply gave him an unamused glare, prompting the Uruk to shrug as he stepped away "Whatever," he said before clapping his hands together "now come here so I can shove that thing back into place. We can continue after-"

The sound of an unlocking door interrupted the warmonger, drawing the eyes of the room's two occupants to the only notable door in the little cave.

"I thought you said that was locked?"

"I lied." Krosh admitted casually before glaring at the Uruk who stepped through the door. He was also in blue and white body paint, with trousers identical to Krosh's. Besides the obviously thinner appearance of this new Uruk, the most eye-catching thing about him was the metal contraption hooked up around his head.

"Mulgrim?" Krosh said as he narrowed his eyes "I wasn't planning on calling you until-"

"I know, Captain." Mulgrim's voice echoed within the metal contraption "Sorry ta say that you're playtime's gonna have to be cut short."

The Warmonger visibly deflated, the cockiness from before almost immediately being replaced with annoyance "Is it my old man again? Because you can tell that bastard-"

"Shaman's orders, you and Ogthrak got somewhere to be."

Mention of the Shaman made Krosh sigh, knowing he had no way of getting out of THAT kind of order "Fine, guess me and Oggie get to spend some quality time together." he straightened up and jerked a thumb back towards the blonde "You're still gonna have to take care of my little champion here."

Mulgrim audibly grumbled at that, but nodded all the same as Krosh stretched and walked past him out of the door. "And Grim," Krosh stopped in the doorway "Only I get to play with the slaves, if I smell trouble then we'll see how tight that lovely hat of yours can get."

With that he gave another lazy smirk and turned before letting the heavy door close behind him.

Yang got to her feet, one hand clutching her arm as Mulgrim turned back to her. He pointed at the limb while tilting his head to the side. Yang didn't answer, instead catching her breath so she could 'deal' with the problem. This wouldn't have been the first time she'd dislocated something, hell she'd probably had bones put back in place even before she started training to be a huntress. As the adept tank of Team RWBY, Yang had had more than enough chances to get used to physical trauma, even without her aura there to cover for her. But that Krosh guy, the way he'd yanked it out of place was just... odd... in the painful way. She wasn't about to start crying or anything, she could handle it. But that initial yank had shocked her into screaming in a way that she hadn't in a long time.

She used her annoyance at being humiliated to distract her from the sharp sting of 'dealing' with the problem. Mulgrim simply stood by watching her with apathy which seemed to rival Yang's simmering anger.

"Old man?" she'd mentioned as she turned and began sizing up her new... 'friend' "he calls those spawn pit thingies his old man?"

The metal-headed Uruk tilted his head at her before sighing deeply "Don't know why it'd matter much ta ya, ya obviously don't know much 'bout where true Uruks come from, so don't see no point in tellin' ya 'bout one o' the fakest to ever walk the land."

"Well aren't you just a shining ray of positive vibes."

"Ya need ta rest for ya next training session, Krosh don't want ya dragging ya feet next time he comes around for something ta punch."

Yang wasn't exactly writhing in anticipation for that, and she wasn't sure a hard nap would be enough to get her in good enough condition to match him if this guy was telling the truth. If Krosh came back for round two, she was sure he'd end up nearly crippling her again. She was adamant in maintaining shape, like most in her profession would, and she could tell immediately that this was not the proper way to train the body. If anything, if he kept it up in the same manner as today's 'session', there was a risk Yang would actually lose some effectiveness in the process.

Despite that worrying thought, Yang knew she was lucky. In the hands of an unknown enemy, the list of horrible things that could've been done to her were pretty infinite. She'd gotten lucky that the scumbag she ended up in the possession of actually needed her for something. Keyword being needed, and in one piece if their previous spat meant anything. If she was just some disposable toy then he'd probably torn the whole limb off for shits and giggles.

It wasn't good by any means, but at least like this... like this she had time. She had time to wait for rescue or search for an escape.

Speaking of escape, she noticed quickly that Mulgrim continued staring at her from off to the side.

"So are you gonna-?"

"Stand here watching ya? Yes. I'll be doin' 'at."

They sat in silence for a while, with Yang glancing between the door and the still Uruk "What exactly is keeping me from kicking your teeth in, taking your keys and getting out?"

"Fact that I ain't got no keys."

Some more awkward silence.

"Wouldn't that mean you're technically locked in here too?"

"Yep."

"... you gonna tell me why?"

"We ain't got camera thingies set up yet, I'm ya camera."

Well that was just great, Mulgrim the Camera guy. Yang had little doubt that she could take him, even without her gauntlets and a sore arm. He didn't give off the air of confidence that Krosh seemed to radiate, nor the crazed bloodlust that someone like Bubol seemed to have seeping out of his diseased pores-

Yang gagged as she remembered that particularly disgusting Uruk, and winced as she realized her win/loss against these things was currently 2:2. And that win against Krimp was due more in part to Ruby's mid-battle strategizing than anything else. For guys this seemingly behind in terms of literally everything, they seemed far more threatening than she'd originally thought. Coming across that Eater guy's raiding party, they just seemed like an uglier form of regular thugs with crappier weapons. Especially with the obvious lack of intelligence that many of them had displayed at times.

Speaking of which...

She glanced back at Mulgrim, who narrowed his eyes at her. He only seemed moderately intelligent for an Orc, not as smart as Krosh but maybe, just maybe on a Krimp level. If that was the case...

"Hey um, you guys got a bathroom in here." Yang tried to make herself look as needy as possible.

He raised an eyebrow "A what?"

"You know a bathroom, a place where- you guys don't have bathrooms do you?"

"Bath- ya mean a bathin' hole? The hell would we give ya a bathin' hole?"

"Okay no," Yang scrunched her eyes for a moment before they shot open "the place you go after you drink too much and it needs to... ya know...come out?"

"Ya've gotta corner right ovah there."

The brawler groaned "What about after you've eaten too much meat?"

"Ya've gotta corner right ovah there."

Welp, the old sneak out through the plumbing system routine is clearly out of the question. And if that was how they treated waste, she had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't get him to give her some privacy. Perhaps she'd have to rethink the upsides of knocking him out if she was in there long enough for the corner to actually become a necessity. She glanced past him towards the metal door once again. She wasn't entirely sure if she could do it without her gauntlets, but maybe if she could get her semblance charged up again she could simply punch her way through.

"Well what're you gonna do if I decide that I don't want you watching me all the time," she crossed her arms as the Uruk rolled his eyes "I mean, you don't look so tough."

"Don't have ta look tough, Lady, just gotta be tough!" Mulgrim grumbled

"Oh yeah, well prove it!" She tried egging him on

"No."

"I'm sorry what?"

"Krosh said I ain't able ta play with 'is toys, so I ain't playin'."

"Oh what, you're just gonna let that guy tell you what to do?"

"He's a Warmonger, so yes."

This was just getting her more angry, all this time these guys proved themselves to have at least some level of inherent need to hurt stuff. Even Krimp was unable to keep himself from beating the piss out of them while they were 'having a friendly brawl'.

"Come on! I thought you said he was one of the fakest Uruks ever."

"One o' the fakest who could probably beat me to a pulp with a single toenail."

The blonde proceeded to sigh as she massaged her arm again, if this guy refused to take the bait, the only hope she had was to charge up next time Krosh came by for 'training'. And as soon as that would probably be, that just meant more time for people to worry about her. Yang didn't like letting people worry about her, she was the strong, supportive friend who could make even a Schnee laugh (rare as it was) not some damsel who made her friends worry about them all the time. And she was sure her sister would be tearing her hair out trying to find her, she just had one of those bigger hearts.

Damn, what if her dad caught wind of this? The mental image of Taiyang running himself ragged with another potential loss made Yang's frown deepen. Sighing again, the brawler could only hope that her teammates weren't worrying themselves too much about her.

---

~Beacon Academy~

"-and then afterwards Nora told me all about how Jaune was havin' some girlfriend troubles. So since I was so good with friends I decided to help him. I couldn't do it alone, so I went and got some other guys to help me out!"

Weiss was seconds away from goring herself with Myrtenaster, how many excessively convenient adventures can one fat monster have in the span of three days? The answer was too many, as Krimp had regailed them with stories of how he'd somehow managed to befriend the majority of the kids in their grade. She'd stopped looking at Blake for mental support, as the Cat-Faunus's features had been frozen in baffled disbelief since the Arcade story with Penny, as if her suspension of disbelief had been battered into oblivion by the sheer amount of illogical conveniences that the Uruk was spouting.

The worst part was that he had proof of almost every deed he'd spoken to them about. Somewhere during his journey Krimp had gotten ahold of a scroll, and had been taking various pictures during his companionable exploits. They could've been fake, but with how much Team JNPR seemed to enjoy his presence she could only fear that this wall of flesh had somehow worked his way into the hearts of their comrades. It was insulting, for the past few days this monster had been having after-school special adventures whilst they were reeling from the aftermath of their fight with Bubol. To think that one of the things responsible for Ruby's hospitalization and Yang's kidnapping was sitting here laughing about an excessively over the top shopping trip the'd gone on, it...it wasn't a nice feeling to have.

Krimp was going through his scroll as he neared the ending of his latest story, stopping once he found the picture he was looking for.

"-and so then after Cardin paid for the milkshakes, we all carried Jaune out of the store cheering his name in order to make him feel better!"

He turned the screen towards them and sure enough, its image revealed the entirety of Team CRDL in casualwear throwing various gang signs to the camera. They were clustered around Krimp, who was taking the picture as well as hefting Jaune up with his free arm. The Arc was dressed in what could only be described as 'hoodlum' attire which seemed far too baggy for him, complete with a ridiculous pair of dark shades and a backwards cap. Despite the forwardness of the attire, the look on Jaune's face seemed to cry out for anyone to rescue him from the nightmare he'd just been forced through.

"Good times." Krimp said before lowering the scroll and taking a deep breath "I'll never forget that one afternoon yesterday."

Weiss glanced to Blake, who simply leaned forward stiffly before asking "How?"

"How what?" Krimp tilted his head to the side

"Blake, you already know we aren't going to get anything useful out of this... thing." the heiress tried intervening before another idiotic explanation was provided

"But Weiss, I thoughts if I told ya about my times here, you two could use it in the future when you make more friends!"

"This is not even close to helpful!" Weiss said with a grunt of defeat "We've been listening to you rave about all this nonsense while our Teammate is currently bed-ridden!"

"Yeah, I heard about that." the Uruk shook his head "Tis a shame what happened to little red."

"You know, we might've been able to avoid that if you had helped us." Blake finally spoke up, still recovering from the ridiculousness of Krimp's tales.

"But Bubby's my friend! Can't sully his good faith now can I?"

"He smashed her into a tree!" Weiss accused

"Well honestly, I don' know what you guys expected goin' up against 'em." Krimp shook his head sympathetically "He's one of the deadliest archers in all of the Dark Lord's army!"

"B-but how?!" Weiss exclaimed "How can that gyrating pervert be that dangerous?!"

The Uruk tilted his head to the side before smiling once more, "Oh! Story Time again!"

"Wait no-I meant-!"

The Uruk took a long breath before glancing between the two girls and speaking "See Bubby wasn't always so... uncontrollable, as he is nowadays. Used to be a loyal warrior who could swing a blade faster than a hunter could throw a spear. He followed under good ol' Cappie Stakuga, never even touched a bow... 'till one day..."

~Middle-Earth, many years ago~

"Cut out their eyes! Make 'em weep blood!"

Captain Stakuga's words resonated within the Uruk forces as they scaled the walls of the fortress, roars of blood thirst matching his own as his underlings pulled themselves over the edges and towards the criminally outnumbered human defenders.

Arrows were loosed, but despite finding their marks in the skulls of the Orcish horde the monsters continued pushing. Captain Stakuga growled as he watched skirmishes break out, despite the well-trained nature of his Uruks, the men-folk managed to hold them for longer than the master would find acceptable. The Captain was easy to identify amongst the crowd of other Uruks, and was targeted by the defenders who were currently uncontested.

Several swings of the massive great sword clenched in his hand were enough to send the tarks flying off the edges of the wall, screams following them as they plummeted to certain death. Stakuga had no chance to gloat, as soon an arrow found its mark in his shoulder. He stumbled behind several tumbled crates, roaring in rage as he leaned out to spot the true spine of this agitating resistance.

"Somebody bleed those damn archers!"

At his command, smaller Uruks began climbing the nearby towers situated along the walls. The bowmen took note of them and began picking off the climbing opponents before they had a chance to outmaneuver them.

"Move faster you worms!"

As he roared this, Stakuga had left himself open. A nearby defender had just finished off the Uruk he'd previously been engaged with, and spotted the enemy captain focused on ordering his followers. The defender gripped his sword in both hands and charged, gritting his teeth to keep the Uruk from hearing his panicked breaths.

But as he reared up to swing, a smaller Uruk slid between them blade already drawn. They collided, the defender reeling back from the sudden parry as the Uruk charged him "Die for the master, tark!"

The Uruk slashed at him, swords colliding several times as the Wall Defender tried to assume a proper defensive stance. What he hadn't anticipated was for the Uruk to crouch low and sweep his legs out from under him. Before he could roll out of the way, the impish Orc buried his blade into his stomach, leaving no time for the defender to gasp out a cry for help before pulling the blade out and stabbing him several more times.

"Bubol," the voice of his Captain drew the otherwise preoccupied Uruk's eyes to Stakuga "grab some worms and take those towers! Our useless archers need something to distract their foils proper!"

"Yes Captain," Bubol nodded furiously before running a tongue along his teeth "we'll hang their entrails from the ramparts!"

With that the impish Uruk whipped his sword from the thoroughly mutilated human's body and charged towards the nearest defender tower. Ducking and sliding through the many skirmishes occurring between the opposing forces. As he got closer, the three bowmen atop the tower included him as one of their targets. Bubol licked his lips as he noticed one crossbow turn in his direction.

He ducked behind a pair of dueling swordsmen just as the arrow was fired, finding its mark instead inside the human sword-wielder's back. Darting from the fallen human, Bubol saw the Bowman load another arrow. He also spotted the door to the tower, guarded by two humans with great-shields who were standing their ground under assault from three Uruk-Hai berserkers.

Grinning ear to ear, Bubol leaped onto a nearly destroyed cart and ran along it as a bolt buried itself in the wood near his feet. He leaped from the carriage towards one of the berserkers with enough force to shove the larger Uruk onto one of the Defenders' spear and send both man and Uruk crashing through the tower's door. The berserker cursed him, but was soon distracted by the new advantageous position he had atop the defender and began swinging his axes upon his pinned victim whilst ignoring the weapon he was impaled upon.

Bubol stood and took a breath as he spotted the spiral stone stairs leading up to the top of the tower. Licking some blood from his blade, the Uruk grinned and raced up the stairs to the sound of the roars of his battle brothers. Reaching the top of the tower, Bubol threw open the hatch leading outside and pushed out into the open to see two of the three bowmen turning on him while the other continued assisting his fellow warriors from above.

Bubol growled as he pulled himself out, one arm already rearing back with his blade as his quarries notched their arrows. He reared back fully and threw his sword at one of the bowmen, causing him to panic and send his arrow wide. The other arrow found its mark in Bubol's chest, but did nothing more than cause the Uruk to cry out in humored anger as he continued running towards them. The panicked bowmen raised his arms as the thrown sword carved through his wrists, the force sending him back against the stone edge of the tower as the blade fell at his feet. The other bowman reached for another arrow as Bubol approached, but was distracted by a growl and glanced to his side to see an Uruk archer scaling over the side of the tower.

The arrow found its place in his head instead, and the Bowman threw his bow to the ground as he drew a dagger from his sash. He swung it downward only for Bubol to catch his wrist with his own, they struggled against one another with the blade caught between them as the third Bowman struggled to stay focused on supporting his brethren from above. The second grunted in pain as he stood and tried reaching for his own dagger with one of his wounded hands, accidentally kicking the Uruk blade to the side. The sword skidded into Bubol's line of sight, making him hiss and shove the first bowman off him as he ran for the blade.

Picking it up, Bubol used his momentum to charge into the wounded bowman shoulder first. The force sent the man tumbling over the side of the tower, smashing into the side of the wall below before tumbling down. Bubol had no time to mock him, turning in time to deflect a swing of the first bowman's dagger. The other bowman could not risk it, and turned his weapon from the battle below to the one behind him. He pulled back his arrow, steeling his breath as the Uruk and his comrade slashed back and forth at each other. The Uruk noticed him out of the corner of his eye, but was busy deflecting the flurry of attacks from the other Bowman.

"Keep him steady!" the bowman called out

His partner seemed to nod as he went in for a jab with his dagger, Bubol twirled around him trying to get at his back. The dagger-wielder spun around in time to deflect the sword, the two pushed against each other until Bubol's eyes traveled to the side to see the Bowman's fingers loosen. Immediately Bubol ducked to the side, kicking at the back of the second bowman's legs. The man fell directly in line of the other bowman's arrow, which pierced his neck as he fell to the ground.

"No!" the last human archer cried out as he reached for another arrow, Bubol racing towards him.

The Uruk was spurred on by the pounding sound of footsteps coming up the tower, and as he raised his blade to execute the last feeble defender a hand grabbed his shoulder. Bubol didn't have enough time to turn and question the owner of said hand before a blade tore through his torso, the tip traveling through his insides and poking out from his front. The Bowman seemed to mirror his own shock, before the hand's owner pulled him back and sent him sprawling to the ground in a heap.

"Lord Gauldfry!" the bowman exclaimed as he watched the sun reflect off the chest-piece sported by the armored knight who had saved him

"Can you still fight!?" Gauldfry barked at him as he pushed past him

"Wh- I mean yes, but I assumed you'd be helping your father escape-"

Bubol tuned them out, focusing instead on the blood spilling from the deep wound in his gut. He didn't feel pain, only anger at being wounded by such a cheap shot. He rolled over and glared at the knight who seemed to be trying to steady the shaken bowman, weren't human lords supposed to be noble in battle? Bah! What was he thinking?! A human being honorable in battle, it made him laugh. He choked up a bit of his black blood during this laughter, but that didn't stop him as he glanced towards his sword. It was much too far away for him to reach in a timely fashion, so he turned his gaze to the corpse of the Uruk archer who had been shot earlier. Or more importantly... that Uruk's crossbow.

"I need you to find Captain Albany," the Knight said to the Bowman, who nodded at his words "tell him we can not hold out for long. I'll do what I can for now, but you must get this letter to him before the Orcs get through the blockade."

The Bowman nodded whilst gripping the parchment tightly, and the Knight prepared to send him forth before seeing the soldier's eyes suddenly widen at something behind him. The knight immediately turned and threw himself to the side as Bubol swung a crossbow at him, the prod of the weapon instead traveling into the neck of the bowman instead.

"Damn you!" the Knight cried out before charging him sword-raised.

Bubol struggled for a second to pull the repurposed crossbow from the bowman's neck as the human charged him, the blood of the soldier's gurgling out with an empty call for air. He instead took note of the arrow still notched in said crossbow, and twisted around with the human still stuck on his crossbow's prod. He pulled the trigger and sent a bolt slamming into the knight's chest plate. Though it couldn't puncture, the force did cause the lord to stumble.

Bubol dodges to the side as the knight's sword cleaves into the stone behind him, of course the body of the bowman causes his balance to be thrown off. He tumbles to the ground with the corpse, the bowman's quiver of arrows spilling out beside them. Gauldfrey turns on him just as Bubol frees his bow from the neck of the bowman, then charges on him blade drawn. Bubol slides back out of the way of the knight's leaping slash, stepping back into range to plunge a pilfered arrow into the knight's lesser armored armpit.

Gauldfrey gasped in pain before swinging his sword to the side, catching Bubol in the nose and sending him sliding away. Bubol scrambled to his feet, hand grazing the corpse of the Uruk he'd pilfered as he ignored the sudden flooding of blood in his nostrils from the large gash which appeared on his nose.

Gauldfrey pulled out the arrow with his free arm, wincing as he stood. Gripping his sword in both hands, the Knight turned just as the Uruk finished loading another arrow into the crossbow. He charged him, not giving the Uruk enough time to fire, instead the attacker was forced to use the crossbow to block the quick slash of the Knight's sword. Bubol slid out of Gauldfrey's view, stumbling backwards as the Knight immediately spun to face him. The Human charged again, blade drawn, as the Uruk tried steadying the crossbow as he stumbled back.

That's when it happened, an arrow was loosed which sailed downward immediately. Whether it was through luck, or by some inherent skill, the arrow slid through the tiniest of divides between armor on the knight's foot. It traveled through the flesh and bone before the tip traveled out the back of his heel into the wood ground below, essentially pinning the knight in place. But the knight was still in motion, causing the bolt to dig into gristle in a most horrible manner and throw his momentum off as it was yanked out of the ground.

Bubol saw his chance and capitalized as the Knight barreled wildly towards him, ducking under a wild swing of the defender's blade, Bubol brought the crossbow's sharpened prod swinging up under his helmet and through his jaw. Gauldfrey came to a stop almost immediately as blood filled his mouth, free hand flying towards the crossbow to attempt to pull it out. As he did so, Bubol drew another one of the bowman's arrows he'd pilfered before promptly burying it in the small slot in the Knight's faceplate.

As Gauldfrey went limp on his weapon, Bubol made sure to twist the embedded arrow side to side as grotesque sounds echoed within the dead man's helmet "Nice shiny set ya got there, tark. Gonna have me lot's o' fun with it, I will!"

He continued this type of mocking even as heavy footsteps preceded the arrival of Stakuga, who grumbled at the sight as he stalked over.

"Oi boss! Take a nice long look at this little meatsack," Bubol said whilst twisting the arrow a bit more "gave me a bit o' trouble but he dies like all else-"

Bubol halted as a large hand wrapped around his throat and dragged him off the ground into the air, losing the grip on his new toy in the process. Captain Stakuga brought him face to face with him and snarled "You were supposed to rally the troops, you worm! Take it with force instead o' all this prancing about shrakh."

Despite his position, Bubol grew a sick smile "I made em' weep blood in the end, didn't I?"

Stakuga grimaced, gritting his teeth as several more Uruks arrived to view the scene.

"By the Dark Lord," one chuckled as he kicked one of the bowmen corpses to the side "Little Bubol did all dis?"

"Stupid tarks didn't know what hit 'em!"

"I see a keg 'o grog in the near future lads!"

Stakuga turned back to Bubol, whose grin only stretched further as the impressed Uruks began mentioning his assured promotion "Well Cappie? Ain't we got a fort to storm?"

The Captain dropped Bubol, then turned and began walking away "Just don't go risking a push, grab some boys and follow orders next time ya dumb glob."

Bubol only cackled as he reached for the still pervasive stab wound in his torso, applying pressure as he got back to his feet and went looking for his sword. After picking it up, sunlight was reflected into his eye. He glanced to theshiny corpse of Gauldfrey and sheathed his sword before walking over. Reaching down, he took hold of the crossbow still lodged in the knight's jaw before tearing it out. He looked over the crossbow, humming to himself in amusement.

~Present Day~

"-but Bubby didn't stop there. He tried out his little bow and figured out he was pretty good wit' it. Said it was as easy as pointing it where he wanted the arrows ta go." Krimp continued speaking, fondly reciting the story he'd heard many times before.

"For someone who supposedly wasn't there," Weiss folded her arms over her stomach, the Uruk's tale giving her a sick feeling in her gut "that was quite the detailed little backstory."

"Well whenever I used to go questionin' Bubby's methods, he'd always go bringin' it up again." Krimp admitted before scratching his head "Guess you guys ain't good enough friends wit' 'im yet, but one day I'm sure he'll be tellin' it ta you too! Trust me, the tale only gets better the more times he tells it."

"I seriously doubt that."

"No its true!" Krimp glanced to the side and sighed fondly "After that bout, Bubby used 'is newfound archer skills to become the most legendary Crossbow wielder in all of the dark lord's armies! Warchief even had him train other archers, he was that good!

"So what happened to him?" Blake asked suddenly, causing the Uruk to pause and tilt his head at her "The way you described him in the story, its familiar but that wasn't the exact Uruk my team and I fought."

The massive figure groaned as a particularly bad thought hit him, and he tried chuckling through it, but for once his laugh seemed strained.

"Yeah, he got a bit sick. But he got better!" Krimp covered up quickly "Better than he was, yes. And then after that-"

"Wait-wait-wait," Weiss interrupted quickly before he could avoid the subject "By sick, you mean the stuff growing on him?"

The Uruk gave a slow nod.

"Well you can't exactly just skip over something like that-"

"He tried wearin' that Knight's armor!" Krimp seemed to blurt out as his face relaxed again

"Well I'm sure that's an interesting tale but you can't just-"

"It was! You gots no idea how funny it was seein' him stumble about in all that heavy stuff." he chuckled at the memory as Weiss grimaced in annoyance once more.

"Krimp," Blake tried to get back to something useful "try to focus on one th-"

"He turned the stuff into arrows, worked mighty find they did!"

"That's it!"

Blake glanced to the side as Weiss stood straight and marched towards the door before throwing it open, she then spun towards the Uruk and jabbed a finger in his direction "You. Get up. We're taking you to Ozpin."

"Didn't the doctor say Ozpin's been increasingly busy recently?" Blake brought up

"There's a monster wandering his campus and interacting with his students without his knowledge." Weiss stated as she gestured for Krimp to stand "I'm positive he'll consider it a much more pressing matter than whatever seems to be holding him up a the moment."

"We gonna make a new friend!?" the massive one chuckled as he stood

The heiress's eye twitched before she gave an incredibly forced smile "Y-Yep," she gritted out "He's called Mr. Ozpin, and he's really nice."

"Oh boy!" Krimp exclaimed as he let Weiss usher him out into the hall "Does he like making friends too?"

---

~City of Vale~

Some time has passed since beginning my hunt, but my mark does not seem to grow closer. I know she resides somewhere within the castle in the distance, but the defenses must be prime. Not even counting the number of semi-trained warriors stalking its halls. I've decided to get the lay of the land whilst waiting for an opportune time to infiltrate its walls and drag my mark, kicking and screaming from within the egg she cowers within. Egg? Why egg? Nest needs eggs this time of year. Maybe later, after completing nest. I've been slowly fashioning one in the corner edge of a building using bits of newspapers stolen from primitive man-things. Oh the comforts it shall provide when complete-

The bird suddenly stopped and smashed its head against the wall it was poking at, an angry caw came out as it backed away in pain. This damned body is even worse than that mental case's! As an older Uruk, Gundza could handle holding back maddening thoughts and destructive impulses by way of simple experience. The sudden overwhelming urge to build a nest and find a partner to raise eggs with? Utter torture.

When he'd jumped in the first time it was for practice, didn't seem to bad. The idea of controlling a body capable of flight was too alluring to let the thing go. But after a few good hours he'd found that, unlike Gimub, the thoughts were more dangerous than the memories. Having to clutch his head and grunt through the mad Uruk's eighty-seven years of warfare and mental declination was shrakh, but at least it died down after an hour of intense headaches. He had the suspicion that whatever this was wasn't going away, instincts were an entirely different ball park. The Uruk-controlled bird turned back to the wall and continued poking at it, trying not to let the stubborn animal's desires overwhelm him again.

Need new body, hopefully human's, they never listen to superior instincts when it matters and can hardly survive past age seventy without getting themselves killed. If I keep letting instincts get in the way of the mission I might forget my intended purpose until after the little ones leave the nest!

Gundza paused, tilting his host's head up towards the journal he'd been trying to keep and frowning at the indecipherable scratches and grooves he'd put in the wall.

How is it that that walking insult of an Uruk Krimp managed to figure out how to write far before him?

Gundza left his semi-completed nest with the intention to let it rot like the disgusting thing it was. He'd flown over Vale several times, but he was more than willing to start walking the streets if it meant having a body less annoying. He could probably nab any of the worthless humans walking about down there, but the process with Gimub was quite notable. If one of their own just started clutching his head and grunting in the middle of the street, the others would surely take notice.

So one human off on their own who's not surrounded by potential witnesses. A little more tricky, but he'd be able to stand slinking about in a homeless Tark for some time if it meant getting his mar-

Opportunity presented itself far faster than he had imagined. Near a large building with a long line in front of it, there was a single Tark in a black and red outfit stepping out into an alley through a side door. The alley was on the other side of the building away from the crowd, making it the perfect place for a little acquisition.

Adjusting his red tie for a moment, the man glanced down to the street at the end of the alleyway as he reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. In the midst of lighting one up the sudden thud of something hitting a nearby trash can made him nearly drop his lighter. He quickly gripped it before it could fall to the floor, and readjusted his bowler hat before glancing towards the source of the sound. The man stepped closer to the trash can, having to slowly lower his red shades to get a better look at the wounded bird which now lay on top of it.

"What the-?" the man stopped talking when he realized the area around him was getting darker, and he immediately glanced up just in time to see something descend on top of him.

Hey Mitch, mind explaining why we found this in the locker yesterday during clean-up?

Sir, you can't possibly think I would just-

You've been outta rehab for a week, kid, you really wanna go back this soon?!

But I-! I didn't leave anything... You got no proof Jun-Gack!

I took a chance on you, I don't think you wanna start making both of us regret it any time soon.

Gundza coughed as he stood, clutching his new head as a tidal wave of information began rushing through his skull at once. Okay... he'd done this before... it wouldn't...

Maybe if you'd pay on time you wouldn't be in this situation.

Junior's been cheating me! I don't know how you expect me to be able to do anything if he keeps giving us these wages!

Dude, my house is like twice the size of yours and we're on the same goddamn payroll, don't try pinning this on the boss.

Well I'm sorry I can't call my cousin up and ask her if she'd loan me a place to crash.

You know that's not how it is, maybe if you'd just stop hitting the Gresh Leaves you'd probably be able to afford a condominium instead of that rat-nest you're living in.

I told you I kicked that.

He pulled at the tie around his neck, grunting as he stumbled past the garbage can. A chirp made him squint at the wounded bird he'd abandoned, which had been shaken onto its bad side when he bumped into the can.

"Quiet," Gundza growled towards it as he tried to massage the sickening throbbing in his head "too loud."

He had been lucky that he was far enough away from the street to not be assailed by the sounds of those wandering the streets, as his head seemed to pulse with each new noise. He squinted and tried to focus on getting through the flurry of memories that assailed him, another pained chirp causing him to raise a balled fist towards his former body.

What a sack a shit you turned out to be.

Don't touch me, you creep!

Pay me by tomorrow or I'm callin' the boys down to kick your ass outta here!

"Just sayin', coulda picked us something better."

That voice caused Gundza to pause before he could crush the damned bird, the various memories of his new body dying down as he glanced up towards the street to see two figures walk by. They were dressed like some of those white fang grunts he'd seen before, but that voice did not belong to a faunus. Gundza tried to ignore the pain in his head as he stepped closer towards the duo with disbelief marring his new human features, his own memories coming to the forefront as he stumbled forwards. He could see beneath their masks, one had a specific set of sharp teeth he'd only seen on one other being. But how did they-?

"Keep quiet, we're almost there." the larger figure said as he walked past his partner, who gave a sigh of annoyance before following behind.

Gundza needed to support himself with the wall of the nearby building as he poked his head out and searched for the two, finding them walking past the line in front of the building towards the two bouncers in front. The people in line openly tried to back away from what they seemed to assume were White Fang members, the bouncers raising their two rifles. It seemed they wanted into the establishment, an establishment Gundza's new body seemed to work at.

Mitch was his name, and from the memories Gundza had thrashed through, he was quite the disappointment. He had said he was going for a regular smoke break, but Gundza knew that within that pack were not the little white sticks these tarks apparently used instead of smoking pipes. They instead were wrapped up Gresh Leaves, which were apparently a more illegal narcotic, disguised as these cigarette things.

Even as Gundza slinked back into the alleyway to grip onto his pounding head, he found himself growling at the lack of will shown by this new body. Reminded himself too much of the many Uruk Soldiers who lost any semblance of respectability because their addiction to Grog or flesh outgrew their devotion to their superiors. Even now he could feel the body ache for the mix-mash of chemicals inside the little box. The Tark had dropped it when Gundza had jumped in, but the Uruk found little use for it...

...addiction was beneath him.

An Uruk's will should be stronger than this drug-addled failure, and a loyal servant to the Dark Lord and Warchief would not be swayed by the weakness of a human.

The sounds of gunfire came from beyond the alley, and Gundza groaned as he leaned out. The humans in the line were running away, some on the ground writhing or still, the two bouncers amongst them. The two figures in the White Fang outfits had already entered. Groaning, Gundza turned around and made his way to the side entrance Mitch had exited for his little smoke, unwilling to lose sight of them for too long...

...after all, how did two warmongers infiltrate a human city like this all on their own?

He had the excuse of having such a useful, albeit incessantly annoying, power. They would need something similar, and the Storm having access to a power such as that would not be good for his dearest master. If the Grand Shaman could infiltrate this place, then the Warchief would need to be made privy of such a thing. He'd still focus on capturing the white haired cur who dared lay a finger on that of the master's blood, but this was a more immediately pressing concern.

The side door led the pained Uruk-Man inside the building, where his pain nearly tripled as the overwhelming sound became much more noticeable. A club... this place was a club, not the fun kind you could kill stuff with, but where idiotic tarks go to drink, dance and all around make asses of themselves... just like an Uruk feast.

This would be the first club Gundza ever entered, and already he wanted each and every one of them burned to the ground. Only humans would consider this excessive and insulting monstrosity of a sound to be a proper substitute for a hearty drinking song with the lads. They were both meaningless in the long-run, but at least the drinking song didn't make Gundza want to gouge his eyes out with his own nails.

Another door presented itself, and despite it barely holding back the excessive noise, the Uruk was sure that the Warmongers were inside. He would not let noise and a headache deny him the chance to obtain information for the master, but despite repeating that to himself he found his hand pausing before it reached the door's handle. Every pulse of that damn music brought forth more of Mitch's memories, each one reminding Gundza of how happy he'd be when he'd be able to gut the weakling and find a better body later.

Why can't you just let me be what I want!

I can't let you end up like your mother.

Weak, weak, weak... Gundza gritted his teeth and shot his hand forward towards the handle again.

Son... w-what did you do?!

Another pulse of music made Gundza's teeth dig into his lip until he tasted blood, but he refused to be held back. Gripping the handle, Gundza charged through the door only for the noise to double by nearly ten times.

I just wanted to be...

Honestly son, what did you expect to happen?

And then it was gone...

The music that had been making his head try to smash itself against the inside of his skull died out almost immediately, the overwhelming music repaced by the screams of many humans. It was still loud, but much more manageable than that overwhelming shrakh was. Gundza could already feel the headache dying down with the fading sound of the obnoxious music, and immediately realized he had been gripping tightly to the guard railing of the catwalk he'd found himself on.

As his mind cleared of Mitch's scattered memories, the previously overbearing sound of inconceivable drudgery were replaced with more tark screams, a much more soothing sound than what these foolish humans considered music.

Pulling himself to his feet, Gundza located the source of the screams quite easily. Below the catwalk was what he recognized as the club's dance floor, in the midst stood the source of the humans' fear.

Standing with one of his feet planted on the chest of a groaning bouncer was one of the two disguised Warmongers, his partner glaring at the humans around them with folded arms. In one hand was the downed bouncer's rifle, pointed towards another section of catwalk where musical equipment was set up. Said equipment was producing smoke and sparks from bullet holes which peppered the equipment's sides.

The smaller figure lowered the bouncer's rifle and glanced around him at the fleeing partygoers, scattered among them were more bouncers who were trying to make their way through them towards the intruders.

"Just had to shoot the damn thing." the bigger intruder muttered as he shook his head "Don't you have a thing for music?"

"I have a thing for good music, Oggie." his partner said as he tossed the gun to the ground and rubbed one of his ears "But that shrakh was NOT music. You should be thanking me for sparing your ears that travesty. 'Sides, isn't it nice to talk to each other normally instead of yellig it over that garbage?"

"Would've been nice to bag the tark without alerting all of these puny bootlickers." Oggie muttered as the bouncers surrounded them.

The little pet name had all but confirmed it in Gundza's mind, these two were part of the Great Shaman's Warmongers. The mere thought of them made the Uruk-possessed human's jaws grind together, the many memories of having to deal with the Shaman's underlings conflicting with curiosity of why they were here. He knew who these ones were as well.

Growling, Gundza stood straight, smacking the side of his head whenever a stray thought of Mitch's arose. Holding onto the guardrail with his other hand, Gundza moved along the catwalk as he watched the bouncers train all their weapons on the duo.

As he moved, he noticed the figure crouched behind the damaged musical devices. One of the bouncers who wore a large bear mask atop his head, from Mitch's memories this man was apparently the practitioner of music in this establishment. If Gundza wasn't busy dealing with the Warmongers and the headache at the same time, he would toss that lowly bastard off the catwalk for blasting such shrakh in his ears.

"Can you grunts seriously not go a week without having someone blast their way into this place?"

Gundza's eyes were drawn to a taller tark approaching the circle of bouncers, flanked by two smaller females.

"Boss," one of said bouncers glanced back at the taller Tark "I know I stuck around after the last two times something like this happened, but can I just mention that I wanna renegotiate my contract if this becomes a regular-"

"Shut up and keep your eyes on these two."

"Yeah... because I was really planning on letting them just screw around willy-nilly after the last time something like this happened."

"Junior?"

Oggie's voice interrupted the taller tark before he could retort, drawing his attention to the Warmonger.

"An info broker if my knowledge is apt." the disguised Uruk said before glancing down at his partner "I must say that him coming to us was perhaps a positive result of your itchy trigger finger."

"See? I'm as trustworthy as ever big guy." said partner responded, making Oggie groan

"Yo what the hell are you guys doing?" another bouncer shouted "We ain't got no problems with the W.F. you don't-!"

"They aren't White Fang." Junior interrupted him

"Wuh-but boss-!"

"You don't have to be in this line of business as long as me to recognize that goons who dress like one group but take actions they normally wouldn't don't really go together."

"Enough banter," Oggie stepped forward "if you really are the Junior we're looking for than there's nothing more that needs to be said."

Gundza squinted his eyes as he watched the larger Uruk pull something that had been slung over his shoulder, he hadn't noticed it earlier but it turned out to be a large, empty burlap sack. He tossed it to the ground in front of the club's owner.

"Get in."

Junior and his henchmen all glanced at each other in disbelief, even the females sharing an unimpressed look. And when he failed to comply with demands the smaller Uruk stepped forward "Listen man, I gotta say my partner here's giving you a pretty generous offer. See we're going to be walking out of this place with you firmly contained within this little sack here, and he's giving you the chance to just hop on in and let us walk outta here no problem."

He shrugged before leaning back and glancing at those surrounding them "Course, I would've preferred immediately going in guns blazing, beat all these little punks into a pulp and maybe get my hands around the throats of those pretty little dolls ya got behind you there-"

He paused to whistle at girls who merely gave each other equally unamused glances before looking back at him

"But if we can just settle this matter quickly with you surrendering immediately, hoppin' into this sack here and having ya bootlickers here run off with they tails tucked firmly between their legs," Oggie gave a single, deep chuckle before his frown returned and he unfolded his arms "that'd probably be less hassle for all of us."

Gundza growled, this was how he remembered most interactions with the Storm's Elite going. He could already tell where this was going, from the looks on the faces of the club owner and those he employed, they seemed nowhere near inclined to follow the Warmonger's orders.

"Yeah, I don't know who the hell you guys think you are..." Junior stated as one of his henchmen walked over and handed him a large metal bat "but don't think I'm going anywhere easily. 'Sides, I still got to pay you back for this property damage."

As the tall tark hefted the metal bat onto his shoulder, Gundza heard the smaller Uruk snicker a bit.

"Good," Krosh said as he took his hand from his mouth "I wouldn't have it any other way."

---

AN: Welp, this is definitely the longest amount of time its taken me to finish a chapter hands down. I don't really have an excuse for this, but I can only say that due to all the things I had to remove from this one that the next shouldn't take nearly as long as this one did. The end of last year was kinda hectic for me, as it seems to have been for a lot of people. I'm not gonna say that it excuses my lack of update for nearly two months, but I just hope it provides some context.

This chapter I just had to focus a bit more on another Warmonger who must have been the more memorable of the few I've encountered over my time in SOM. Krosh was a tricky bastard who often surprised me by how thoroughly he could destroy me even after overpowering myself. I definitely changed more about him than I should have for the story's sakes, but he's still the same annoyingly effective Uruk who I had to deal with on my little campaign against his boss...who we'll get to a lot later.

Anyway, hope you enjoy, any and all criticisms positive or negative are welcomed in full so leave a review if you are so inclined to do. Follow or Favorite at your leisure and I will see you all in the next installment of The Dreamer Gate.

Next Chapter: The Shadow