Volume 1, Chapter 17
La Vida Loca
Part 1
After that mission, we were forced to lie low for a while; after all, there isn't much mercenary work capable of being done when three members of your squad are recovering from serious injuries. Emerald, Neo, and I had all been shot towards the end of the fight with Summer, and while I got off relatively lucky with the bullet merely lodging itself in my shoulder, Emerald and Neo had both been shot in the leg. Fortunately for Emerald, her chaps had halted much of the bullet's momentum, both giving me ample reason to stop making fun of her fashion sense, while also relegating what should have been a serious injury into merely being a flesh wound; she was actually able to pluck the bullet out of her leg and wrap a bandage around it before we left. Neo, however... Well, Neo's wound was a little more serious. One must remember that, without her boots, she's only fifty-one inches tall, and built like a pixie. While this makes her a smaller and thus more difficult target to hit, this also means that anything that does successfully hit her is going to be able to do a lot more damage than it would to somebody of larger stature. Getting shot in the thigh with a 9mm round would obviously suck for anyone, but it was even worse for Neo, who would take as much damage from that as someone of my size would from a magnum round... If only it had actually been a 9mm round she'd been shot with. Summer Rose was not one to mess around; if she shot a Grimm, she wanted it to die, not laugh as the round merely stuck in its flesh. So rather than use the 9mm rounds I would have initially thought made more sense (after all, you can carry quite a few of those without becoming weighed down), her weapons were chambered for one of the largest possible cartridges you could logically put in a semi automatic handgun; measuring in at 12.7x40mm, Neo had taken a fifty-caliber round just above the knee. And while the wound hadn't been so serious that she would be forced to quit her mercenary career and become a town guard, the bullet had managed to fully penetrate her leg and crack her femur. We managed to extract the bullet once we returned to camp... But with how large the bullet had been, and how tiny Neo herself happened to be, it would be a while before her Aura managed to fully heal the damages, effectively keeping her off of her feet for the foreseeable future.
In light of all that, I could understand why Cinder was furious with me, for I was rather angry with myself as well. While I still disagreed with the assessment that Summer needed to be killed, it was inexcusable that I'd allowed her the opportunity to nearly kill the rest of us; it was entirely my fault that Neo was injured, and while she herself didn't hold it against me, I was determined that I would no longer be the weak link. I would retain my conscience... But I would restrain it, where necessary, in order to prevent such a disaster from ever occurring again. In the meantime, however, the matter remained that I had chupped up rather badly, and as my boss, Cinder had to address that in the form of disciplinary action. And while I did get off extremely lightly, for reasons that will make themselves apparent later in my tale, at the time, I almost wished that she had resorted to some sort of physical punishment, such as a beating, or even a torture session. Not because I'm a masochist, despite all logic pointing otherwise... But because the actual punishment ended up being much, much worse:
I had to be Neo's caretaker.
M: +6 D: +0
"I can't believe I'm actually doing this..."
This, in this case, referring to the costume Lee was currently wearing. Which honestly wouldn't have been so bad if it was realistic representation; his mother had worked in a hospital, and, while not a nurse herself, had often told him how dedicated they tended to be towards their calling, often working dozens of hours of overtime in a single week as needed in order to save the lives of critical patients. So Lee wouldn't mind wearing scrubs, seeing as he held nothing but respect for those in the medical profession. Unfortunately, Lee was not wearing scrubs.
"Oh, relax! I'm sure you look fine."
"This is both humiliating and degrading!"
"Well, genius, I do believe that was the point."
"Shut up..."
"Shouldn't have told Neo you'd do anything to make it up to her."
Lee promptly shut his mouth, unable to find anything to rebut that with.
"I hate you."
"Yeah, yeah. Now get out here so Mercury can have his eye candy."
"Oi! How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not gay! And even if I was, I wouldn't be gay for Lee of all people!"
"Oh, so you have a type, now?"
Even as the sounds of... aggressive face-desking could be heard, Lee chuckled uneasily while he placed a hand against the restroom door, preparing to step out. He still wasn't quite comfortable... But, for Neo, he would swallow his pride. Besides, this had just become a prime opportunity to mess with Mercury as well. It was definitely sinking his own ship... But at least he wouldn't be the only one humiliated... Probably... Hopefully...
'Chup it.' The door was opened, and Lee strutted through. "Uh huh. You keep telling yourself that while you ogle these legs." Legs that were currently adorned only in a pair of knee high, white lace stockings and matching platformed boots. Continuing upwards, he was wearing a white mini skirt, an open fronted blouse that revealed a well toned abdomen, and a white lace brassiere.
The room promptly exploded with laughter.
"Yeah yeah yeah, I look ridiculous, I know..."
He may as well not have said anything, for all the indication he received that he'd even been heard. So, with a sigh, Lee strutted the distance from the restroom to the living room, eliciting another round of hysterics as he (unintentionally) nailed the model strut. His destination being Neo, who was currently sprawled on the sofa.
"Y'know, that's not very lady like, Neo: you're only a couple of degrees off from flashing Mercury."
All laughter froze, as Neo slowly turned her head to inspect her current position, then tracked towards Mercury... Who had unconsciously allowed his gaze to travel up Neo's mostly bare legs and under her skirt, only the angle preventing him from seeing more. Lee didn't need to look back towards Neo to realize her expression could most likely freeze Hell over... While also melting an iceberg... Located in the Oort Cloud. God dammit, Merc, you weren't supposed to actually look...
A gently restraining hand was pressed against Neo's arm. "Easy there, tigress: you can't really blame the man for window shopping when you've got the merchandise on display. Besides, he wasn't even looking until I called attention to it, so if you're gonna kill anyone, you can kill me."
Normally, Lee wouldn't even think about getting between Neo and her prey; as much as he'd improved during his six months on Remnant, he still wouldn't last very long in a fight against Neo. He liked to think was less a problem of skill and more a problem of fighting style, seeing as he relied on quick, powerful strikes, while Neo relied on using her opponent's own momentum against them. Were they to actually fight, Lee would either overextend on a punch and find himself catapulted across the room (Neo was the master of the Hurricanrana), or he would find himself holding back to the point where he would not be quick enough to hit her. Either way, it would end poorly for Lee. Fortunately for him, however, she couldn't exactly go on the warpath while her leg was wrapped up in bandages, which Lee was in charge of changing on a regular basis, so Lee was safe... For now. He'd probably pay for his stunt later... But he also knew that, assuming Neo didn't just forget about it before she finished healing, she would not be nearly as hard on him as she would Mercury. Who would probably still be subjected to some sort of retribution for daring to take a peek... But, again, since he'd been lured into it, Neo would likely go easy on him. Or at least easyish, hence why Mercury sighed in relief when Neo turned to stare blankly at Lee.
"Don't for a moment think that you're off the hook,"
'Damn it,' Lee thought to himself.
Neo smirked. "But I think I just made Mercury pee himself."
Lee rolled his eyes. "I doubt that, but okay."
"Doubt what?"
"Nothing, Merc. Just Neo being Neo."
"...Whatever."
Lee rolled his eyes, but refrained from throwing out any sort of barb; he was, after all, still the one currently cross dressed as a nurse albeit, one you might expect to see on Halloween... or in a very tacky pornography. Which reminded him. Err... The nurse part, not the porn. It'd be kind of weird if porn reminded him that he was supposed to be tending to Neo's wound at the moment, right?
"How's the leg feeling, Neo?"
It'd been nearly three weeks now since she'd been shot. And while on Earth that would probably not be a whole lot of time to successfully recover from such a wound, Aura was an amazing thing, one that Lee was grateful for in this instance. Not that he wasn't usually, if anything it was quite the opposite; having grown up on Earth where Aura had never even been heard of, the closest thing he could have equated it to was some sort of cross between ki/chi energy from the Dragonball series and The Wavelength from Soul Eater, with just a dash of magic added in. Which is perhaps why, being fans of both series, he was able to progress so far in his mastery of his own Aura in such a relatively short period of time, but he digressed; the important thing was that with the addition of Aura, or, specifically, the both accelerated and improved healing that came with it, it was very well conceivable that Neo's leg could already be good as new.
"Eh, it's mostly fine. Hurts a little if I put weight on it, but I can prod at it now without it really hurting."
"Hmm..."
Lee crouched down beside her, and gently lifted her off the sofa, eliciting a surprised squawk from the girl as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders for balance. Which made it all the simpler for Lee to then turn and place himself in her previous seat, a surprised and lightly blushing Neo sitting sideways in his lap. Though, at the sound of identical huffs of amusement from Mercury and Emerald, Neo was relatively quick to shift until she was pretty much in the same position as she started, except that she was now almost closer to sitting than she was to laying down, with her back against the sofa's armrest and her thighs, which were currently the subject of Lee's scrutiny, resting in Lee's lap. He didn't fail to miss her blush becoming just a little bit darker.
"Your face is flushed. Could be a fever, which could be a symptom of an infection."
She glared, and he winked; they both were well aware that while her face may have been hot, it was entirely a case of embarrassment. However, that quickly gave way to pain and anger when Lee gave her wound a firm poke, eliciting an audible hiss.
"Ow! The chup was that for, jackass?!"
Lee rolled his eyes, even as he held Neo's legs in place with a firm grip. "Just checking to see whether it'd healed as much as you claim or if you were simply trying to be tough. I think you know which conclusion I just came t- Wait a minute. You said chup."
"That I did..."
"..."
"It just flows better in a sentence than that other word."
"That it does..."
Lee trailed off into a hum as he went to work, carefully unraveling Neo's current bandage in order to get a good look at the wound concealed beneath... A wound, which, at this point, he had to concede barely even counted as such. Sure, he could see where there had once been a gaping hole the width of his thumb... But now, three weeks later, said hole was non existent, the only remaining visual evidence that she ever had been wounded was the slightly discolored tissue that had been regenerated in place of her decimated flesh; the wound had scarred. But, gentle prodding confirmed that the new flesh wasn't tender (in fact, it was actually just a little bit tougher than the surrounding tissues), so he was prepared to concede that she was fully recovered... Or close enough, anyway, so long as she stayed off her leg until the bone stopped bothering her too. All of which he communicated to her as well as the rest of the room.
"Sounds about right, Lee." And with Mercury's judgement matching his own, Lee was confident he'd done everything right; after all, one does not become a highly trained, professional assassin without extensively learning about Human and Faunas anatomy... Including how to diagnose and treat wounds.
"Merc, remind me to keep in mind that you actually do know how to do more than just fight."
"Dammit, I'm not your secretary!"
"Also, remind me that I still need to buy you a uniform; I know I said your legs would look funky in a skirt, but, hey, may as well see it so we'd know for sure, right?"
Face-desk. Chuckles from the ladies in the room. A smirk from Lee himself, before he turned back to Neo.
"You don't need the bandages anymore, but I want you to take it easy on the leg for at least a week."
Lee smiled warmly... But found himself confused when she was still fixing him with a... hopeful gaze? Why would it be hopefu-
A repeated tapping against his currently bare thigh caused him to look at his thighs... Which Neo was bouncing her own bare legs off of.
"Oh. Yeah," Lee smirked at her; there was a reason she chose to wear pants most of the time, and that was because she just simply did not like how childish skirts tended to make her appear, mostly due to her fun sized stature. "You can go change now."
Lee chuckled when in the next moment, Neo was gone, having teleported out of his lap. Undoubtedly directly to her room so she could put on a pair of pants. How fitting it was, then, that it was also during that moment that the apartment's front door opened, admitting Cinder into the room and giving her a perfect view of Lee sitting on the couch, wearing a skirt and blouse. It was the first time he'd ever seen her completely at a loss for words, mouth agape as she attempted to process what she was seeing.
"Umm... I'm going to go put some normal clothes on now..."
And as he strutted back down the hallway, eliciting raucous laughter from Emerald and Mercury, he could not help but think:
Totally worth it.
Well, I promised to let you all know what was going on that made me push this back, so, here we go: I'm moving, due to my employer losing the business that justified keeping my location open. Combine that with being short staffed at several other locations throughout the region, and you have a prime recipe for getting hammered with overtime on a weekly basis, as myself and my shift counterpart keep getting sent to cover the other locations (leaving me to cover for him while he's gone and vice versa). Which means I've been working six days a week for the last few weeks while going to school on the seventh; not a very conducive situation for pursuing my own hobbies, including this story. Which left me the dilemma; do I compromise quality to get a full length chapter out on time or just slightly late? Or do I split the chapter? Well... As much as I dislike posting a short chapter after the 8 chapter fiasco the previous arc turned in to, I feel as if I must in this case, or else it very well could be another month before the first of my four planned parts for this arc is written and published.
And yes, I made an arrow to the knee joke. I'm a terrible person, I know xD
Last thing for now, and I don't normally do this: go check out MeteoriteCreature's "Battle Between Two!" It is basically Death Battle using RWBY OCs. Check it out and submit your own, peeps! Caerulean is set to appear sometime as well (though there are still a few fights that will take place before his, according to MC), and he'll need a good opponent ;)
-Until next time (hopefully, March 19th),
CS
UPDATE
Well, March 19th certainly didn't happen. But fret not, I'm still working on this. In fact, I should have the next chapter done by the end of the week. And if I have it done early, I won't be waiting for Saturday to post seeing as I've made you all wait nearly a month now. I won't say too much about what's written so far... But let's just say that the ship might just be making it's final preparations for it's maiden voyage! So stay tuned for that! :D
