This chapter, I will begin to add time stamps to the beginning of each new arc, in the format of how long it's been since Lee awoke on Remnant. For example, Y: +2 M: +3: D: +4 would be 2 years, 3 months, and 4 days since the events of Chapter 1. Also, the genre has officially been updated from Adventure to Drama.
Volume 1
Chapter 5
Networking
Part 1
The White Fang: a Faunas rights group that started out peaceful, before turning to more belligerent methods, which would eventually escalate into outright terrorism. When I first arrived on Remnant, they were still a mostly peaceful group, only just beginning to make the transition to violent extremism. And to be honest, I really couldn't blame them. I had barely been on Remnant for a few months and I could already tell that they were considered second-class citizens at best, outlaws at worst, and for what? Having the "misfortune" to be born with animal appendages, heightened senses, and the ability to see in the dark? Sounds like a classic case of jealousy to me. If you ask me, humans should have been embracing the faunas, and over time intermingling to better the species as a whole... But I suppose that's transhuman eugenics, which itself is a very morally grey field, which I see no need to go into here. My point is, the crux of the matter is that society on Remnant was corrupt at the most basic level... And apart from the White Fang and a few vocal minorities, nobody seemed to care enough to change that. So I really didn't feel any sort of guilt when Cinder told us we were going to be robbing a business owner who refused to serve Faunas...
M: +4 D+16
Evening
"Wow. I know humans can be racist, xenophobic bastards, but I've never heard of a business actually refusing to serve paying customers. Exploit groups they consider undesirable and make them pay more perhaps, but outright refusal? Damn..."
Caerulean was currently lounging at a table on the patio of a small cafe, sipping at a cup of tea whilst on a video call with Cinder via scroll. He had just watched a young, wild maned man with a lion's tail be bodily thrown from the premises of a club, having apparently not realized the place was an anti-Faunas establishment. And he hadn't even really done anything to warrant the rough treatment, either; he'd waited patiently in the line, which was made up of similarly clothed humans, made it all the way to the front with no incident, and then been set upon by the bouncers in less than thirty seconds. All while the humans behind him either laughed or watched on indifferently. Lee felt bad for the guy, but more importantly, disgust towards his own species.
"I take it you have no objection towards appropriating some of their assets, then?"
Mostly green eyes met amber as they settled into a serious expression, leaving no room for his boss to doubt his willingness to proceed. "No, ma'am. I'm ready to get this show on the road." A brief pause as he glanced across the small two-person table to lock eyes with his partner, who nodded. "Neo is too."
"Good. But we are still ahead of schedule. Wait until Emerald and Mercury make their move, then stick to the plan; you both know what to do."
"Aye ma'am. Team Blue Moon out."
A raise of the brow was all he got out of Cinder before the connection was terminated from her end, causing him to sigh before turning his attention to his partner... Who was looking at him like he was crazy. Which, while a common occurrence, was just the least bit disappointing in this instance.
"You know... Because cerulean is a shade of blue and neapolitan is a flavor of ice cream?"
"I still don't follow."
Lee sighed. "...You've never had Blue Moon ice cream, have you?"
And on that day, The Lord said: "Let there be light!" and there was light in Neo's eyes.
"Oh! That! I saw it in at this little ice cream parlor in Mistral once but I ended up going with red velvet that time! So... No."
"Oh. Well, I haven't either, but at least that makes sense now, right?"
Neo shrugged before sipping her latte. "Sure, but if we're coming up with clever team names, Team Leo seems like it'd make just a little bit more."
Lee froze mid sip, eyes widened in momentary shock as he processed the suggestion.
"I take it you never thought of that."
"Nooo," Lee began, dragging out the 'o,' "... But that sounds too much like 'Neo', if you ask me. And 'Lee', for that matter."
"That's kind of the point though."
"Too easily confused."
"You're just jealous you didn't think of that first."
"Am not! Besides, that also sounds more like a ship name!"
"What, and Blue Moon doesn't?!"
"Nope!"
"Does too!"
"Does not!"
"Uh huh!"
"Nuh uhhhh okay, yeah, it does. I guess I'll just leave team naming to the combat academies." Lee was just grateful Neo hadn't decided to tease him about the shipping comment; it was bad enough that he was already the victim of some universe-breaking story-book protagonist shenanigans to drop him into this world. The last thing he wanted was for it to go a step further and have in-universe references to said situation, lest he begin to lose his sanity... Wait. He was partnered with a telepathic, heterochromatic, ice cream obsessed midget... And about to rob a night club. With said telepathic, heterochromatic, ice cream obsessed midget. It was a safe guess that sanity was not on the list of things Lee had going on for him right now.
With a sigh, Lee turned away from his partner to look back to the club; the lion Faunas had left by now, but towards the back of the line of people waiting to get in he could see Mercury and Emerald... The latter wearing heels and a tight skirt the color of her name.
Stealth pun. Nice.
He would make sure to comment on it later, if only for the rise he'd end up getting out of her. In the mean time, it was his job to keep an eye on the Black Gem (okay, so maybe he wasn't completely done naming things) until they made it inside. His part of the plan wouldn't begin until that happened. But... that didn't mean he and Neo couldn't review said plan while they waited.
"So... tell me again why Merc and Em are standing in line instead of just sneaking in?"
"Because Cinder wants them to be noted by the club's security as patrons; if they get caught somewhere they aren't supposed to, they can pretend they just got lost looking for a private place to... You know."
Lee scoffed. "That'll be the day... But seriously; Mercury being forced to stand in a line?"
As lazy as Merc could be in the morning, it had barely taken Lee a week to realize that Merc absolutely hates waiting. With every fiber of his being. Be it something as small as waiting for someone to finish using the toilet, or short as waiting for a song to download to his mp3, Merc simply could not wait without opening his mouth to complain about it. So it was astonishing to Lee that the first phase of their plan would involve Merc waiting in line for something, when they could have just as easily just snuck into the place. Not that he was completely incapable of waiting... But it was practically a given that he would end up making a scene about it and drawing attention to himself.
Neo, far more acquainted with Merc than Lee himself was, could only shrug. "I'm honestly just as skeptical as you are, Lee. But that's the way Cinder wants to do this... Besides, he seems to be doing fine right now."
"Only because he's busy staring at her legs whenever she isn't looking." Which Lee honestly did find frustrating, since while Emerald was certainly an attractive woman, her usual attire revealed much more skin than what she was currently leaving uncovered. And she tended to wear shorts both to sleep and work out in, and she shared a room with Mercury, so it wasn't as if getting to see her legs was such a special occurrence either. So yes, they were a set of nicely shaped legs, and most certainly warranted a certain level of appreciation... but having lived in close proximity with her for more than four months now, Lee was pretty much immune to being affected by Emerald showing skin, even if it did look smooth and creamy enough to be molten chocolate...
Okay, so maybe he wasn't quite immune. But at least he didn't feel the need to stare every time she looked away, and Mercury really shouldn't have either, considering he'd been partnered up with her for about two years now.
"~Somebody sounds jealous!~"
Lee gratefully tore his gaze away and turned to face his partner at the singsonged jape, suspicions confirmed when he saw the lazy smirk taking up half her face; she was just as bored as he was. Well, okay, he could handle that.
"Sounds more like somebody else is jealous that the first somebody might be jealous... Which he isn't." Lee's smirk matched Neo's... which didn't falter.
"As if. I was just worried that my sidekick might have bad taste."
Lee rolled his eyes; such a casual insult, and not even directed at himself that time. "Be still, my beating heart," he monotoned in order to convey the sarcasm... while simultaneously leaving the question of whether he was referring to Emerald or Neo herself. Either way, BURN!
Neo rightfully chose to interpret that statement to be directed at her, recoiling as if struck while placing a hand each to her heart and over her mouth. "Oh, how my heart breaks at thy cruel words! That thee would willfully wound me so!"
Lee's smirk just grew wider. "I wasn't aware that you even have a heart to break."
"Ouch."
Cue the chuckles as both laughed at the conclusion of their little game.
"Seriously though," Lee began as the two simmered down, "I can't believe that we're hinging anything on Mercury waiting in a line."
"Speaking of, they've finally reached the front of it. Shall we go?"
Lee took one look at Neo's outstretched hand and shuddered, before plastering on the brightest fake smile he could muster. "Couldn't we enter via a more... conventional, method? We are pretty swanky, strolling through the front door would be pretty easy!"
A fiendish giggle was her response, in turn prompting Lee to sigh in resignation while taking the proffered hand. "All aboard!"
"Chup me..."
Before we continue, let us keep the record clear: even after the better part of a decade, I still hate traveling via Neo's semblance, the side effects are that bad. In my universe, there was a popular book series that featured an ability much like Neo's, and it could be used by pretty much anyone above the age of 16 so long as they had a license. Despite this, the average person still preferred to use slower, less convenient, and more inefficient methods of travel. Why? Well, to quote the series' protagonist, it felt a lot like being "forced through a very tight rubber tube." As apt a description as that is, it is also a severe understatement when applied to Neo's particular permutation of this phenomenon. In the story I mentioned, the average person would say that teleporting felt like having iron bands tightened around your chest, your eyes forced back into your skull, you ear drums forced deeper into your head. If it was their first time, they probably vomited as well. What that story didn't mention is that that was the easy part; were the uncomfortable feeling of being compressed the only issue, then I wouldn't have complained so much.
When you toss a ball, it rises, and then it falls. When you pull on opposite ends of a rubber band, then let go, it snaps inwards. And when you compress multiple dozens of pounds of person into a point small enough to break the laws of space and time, then let it go... yeah. Because it's her own semblance, Neo's aura and body are able to compensate for the worst of it, leaving her with the rubber tube experience. To anybody unfortunate enough to be brought along as a passenger, though? It doesn't matter how ironclad your stomach and esophagus are, at the very least you'll be parting with a mouthful of whatever you last ate. And that's if you're used to it. I was... but only because we had practiced for a whole week beforehand. Fortunately, no strategy of Cinder's is executed without tactics in place to contend with known variables, and this one was no different...
"I hate you so much right now..."
Neo rolled her eyes with a knowing smirk before ironically blowing him a kiss... which he just barely caught in the corner of his eye, while his face was hovering just above the lip of the wash basin.
"Whatever... Just, go grab me a mook, will ya? I need to get changed and into position before Cinder shows up."
Again with the fiendish giggle, before Neo disappeared, leaving a fwoosh like sound in her wake as the air in the small employee's restroom rushed to fill the vacuum left by her sudden disappearance. Just half a year ago, Lee would have wasted time looking around the room, trying to process that he was now in a small employee restroom in the back of a nightclub, instead of the patio across the street he'd been perched on just a couple of minutes ago.
Lee was no longer that man.
As soon as Neo left, Lee reached into the pockets of his coat, pulling out his weapons: a deceptively simple looking pair of scaled gauntlets. They looked a lot like your standard set of medieval plate... except that, rather than the grey or black one might have expected from such pieces of armor, they were two toned in, you guessed it, blue. They were also much thinner than one might expect, due to the outer layer being made of titanium, with a layer of lead beneath them so they still added some weight to his punches. Of course, that wasn't all there was to them... But Lee didn't have time to marvel over his own ingenuity at designing them. With a smirk, he simply put them on before turning around to wait.
It didn't take long. One moment, Lee was flexing his hands, and in the next, time seemingly slowed to a crawl as a mook in a black suit and red sunglasses appeared in front of him with a pop, arm extended in the middle of rolling his shoulder. Behind him, Lee could just see Neo with her palm placed in the middle of his back. Her predatory smirk, his look of absolute shock, the lead-plated fist with 175 pounds of body weight all being torqued into the fist flying towards his temple... The mook was unconscious before he even hit the ground.
Off to the side, a Polaroid-like camera produced a print, the sound of which caused Lee to stare at it incredulously.
"Nice punch."
Lee could only gape.
"What? Use your words, Lee."
"When did you even have time to set that up?!"
"While you were rinsing your mouth out, duh. It wasn't difficult to rig a tripwire to the camera button."
Lee frowned. "In less than sixty seconds?"
"Like I said, it wasn't difficult."
.
..
...
"Did you at least get a nice shot?"
"See for yourself!"
A happily grinning Neo handed the print over to an amused Lee... who joined Neo in grinning like a maniac when he saw the shot. The camera had gone off at the exact moment Lee's fist had made contact with the mook's face, which was slightly chubby. Combine the visible jiggle from the impact with the completely oblivious expression on his face, as well as the mirror smirks on Lee's and Neo's... That was definitely one for the photo album.
"Okay, that was pretty awesome, but we've still got work to do. Put that somewhere safe, then help me strip this guy..."
At the time, I could not help but marvel at what I was doing; my first less-than-legal mission, yet everything was going smoothly. If I was a more paranoid person, I might have even said things were going too smoothly... But they really weren't; Cinder, despite being overly cultured and aloof, really did plan meticulously, accounting for every small detail. From the vomit inducing torture session of acquainting myself with Neo's instantaneous translocation, to having Merc pretend to get drunk and get dragged out back to fight a couple of the mooks, the plan was pure genius; it went off without a hitch. Merc and I each replaced a mook with none the wiser, while Neo moved them to an out of the way location and Emerald continued to move around The Club, looking for all the world like an average girl looking to party. The infiltration phase of this mission had gone perfectly. All we had to do then was wait for Cinder herself to arrive for the negotiations...
Phew! Took me a few weeks, but I finally cranked out another chapter! Believe it or not, they were originally going to steal something like the Golden Jubilee Diamond... But then, that'd be way too difficult for a debut mission, huh? Not to mention it would pretty much confirm that Remnant is the future of our version of Earth, and Lee is supposed to be pretty unclear as to whether that's the case or if this is a completely different universe altogether. So I figured I'd downgrade to what's basically strong-arming, remaining relevant to the actual plot, and all with the added bonus of getting to reveal Lee's weapons in the process. Anyway, that's the end of my little mini rant. As always, reviews are encouraged!
Oh, almost forgot: if any of you who are artistically inclined would be willing to take a stab at it, I would love it if somebody could draw/render a cover image for this story! PM me if interested, all half-decent attempts will be rewarded with an OC of your choice making a cameo in the story at some point, while the winner(s) OC will become a major recurring character!
-CS
*PS: It seems I forgot I was writing a T rated story, and dropped an unnecessary F-bomb. Henceforth, I will try to limit myself to no more than one F-Bomb per character, per arc. In it's place, I've substituted a similar word, Chup. For those of you who aren't Sci-Fi nerds, that comes from Defiance ^_^
