Hey everyone! Welcome back to another chapter of 'The Darkling Thrush'!
Like I said last chapter, divisive right? In regards to all the comic book stuff, It's actually important thematically to this arc and the story overall. Superman is an icon of hope, and one of the main themes of Thomas' Hardy's poem, which this story was inspired by and shares the same name, is about hope. So that's a little insight into not only the origins and direction of this story going forward.
Thank you jin0uga, noone297, Baoh joestar, Bagration, Ussop, winddemon199, Guest, Steve the minion, Nordlending and Guest #2. I enjoy reading your comments, I thrive off them in fact.
This was a difficult chapter to get out. I got sick while writing this. I tried to soldier on, but I just couldn't do it. I'm feeling a bit better, but even as I write this author's note I have tissues jammed up my nose keeping the gunk from leaking out. So I apologize in advance if things might seem a little incoherent, I honestly couldn't edit this chapter even if I wanted to. I wrote a couple thousand words the first try, I was forced to scrap everything and start again. Also, Nordlending brought up a point about the story needing line breaks. So I'm experimenting and seeing if that works. Anyways. on with the story.
Warning: This is a story about Russel, right? He's our protagonist, but he's an antagonist like Cardin in the eyes of Teams RWBY and JNPR.
XXVIII
Downtime: Part 3
When Velvet woke up this morning the last thing she expected when she sat down behind her editor's desk with the Shining Beacon was a poorly written slander piece about one of the schools finest. She'd wanted a normal Sunday, where she and the rest of the volunteer staff assembled Monday's newspaper. She just wanted to sit back, relax, see what Blake had in store for the Author X column this time around, maybe Team RWBY would've shown up for that interview they promised her about the Mountain Glenn situation.
So you could imagine her displeasure when one Lance Grimsby walked through the door and threw such a character assassinating piece onto her desk. For months Velvet had been dodging the Grimsby boy, he'd been this strange tick that'd been following her almost everywhere she'd gone. At first Velvet had thought he was some first year student looking to an older more experience one for guidance.
A few days before the incident with Team CRDL in the dining hall, Yatsushi had caught the Grimsby boy lurking outside their room. He'd played it off as him getting lost, still trying to find his way around campus. And then after that Velvet couldn't help but feel like something had been following her to and from class.
And then after the incident with CRDL, Lance had gone out of his way to act the role of hero, standing up to bullies such as Russel. It didn't go well for Lance, he wound up with a concussion, bad tumble down the stairs. Then he found out about her working as an editor for the paper. Which brings them to the present.
"What'd you think, Velvet? Worthy of print no doubt, eh?" Lance smirked to himself as he stood there looking proud.
When Velvet had returned from her mission with the rest of her team, she'd found it a refreshing change of pace to not have one such as Lance stalking her every move. As she'd heard from a number of reliable sources, he'd been tied to a pole butt naked and then dragged off by the authorities. There were murmurs about suspension, but given Lance's presence it appeared those rumors were false. Drat.
"It's certainly reads like something you'd write." Velvet said as she held back the urge to vomit. Lance was not a world class author, neither was she, but at least she knew when journalism needed to be restrained. "You have five curse words in the first paragraph alone."
"So? Did you at least get to the part in paragraph four about the firsthand accounts I scrounged together? Pyrrha unknowingly confessed to a number of students who she slept with." Lance said as he placed a finger on the paper, tapping said paragraph.
"No and I don't need to." Velvet said without skipping a beat. "I can't print this. I won't print this."
"Wait what? What about freedom of speech?!" Lance exclaimed in protest. "Come on Velvet, what could be so bad about it?"
"The second paragraph is a detailed dramatization about Pyrrha mid orgasm." Velvet retorted with a deadpan expression. "This is slander and smut."
"It's tasteful." Lance countered.
"It's appalling." Velvet said sounding disgusted.
"Look, maybe if you continue reading you'll see how this story benefits you." Lance said, imploring Velvet to continue looking over the paper.
"Nothing you say will get me to reconsider, Lance." Velvet held firmly.
"It's Cardin. He's the guy who slept with Pyrrha." Lance blurted out in one last ditch effort to get Velvet to see things his way.
"Cardin?!" Velvet exclaimed in surprise. Her eyes then fell back onto the paper and quickly she read the fourth paragraph. All accounts, mostly from people she knew, confirmed what Lance was saying. "But that-on the night of-What?!" Immediately, Velvet's eyes returned to the sheet in front of her. It was just as Lance had said. He'd acquired three statements from three individuals she herself knew that confirmed Lance's story.
But the biggest take away from everything had to be the way Lance had worded the piece. The Winchester boy was portrayed under a rather negative light. The way everything was described seemed to insinuate Cardin may have taken advantage of Pyrrha in her drunken state. But that wasn't the young man Velvet knew. She looked up to Lance to explain.
"I'm just saying, given what they did to you, this is your golden opportunity to get revenge." Lance said eagerly. "You should be thanking me Velvet. We do this right, Pyrrha saves face under the guise as a victim, Cardin gets what's been coming to and more, and you get to be the one who does it. This it Velvet, by some miracle everything's aligned itself for you. You just have to give the word and send it to print."
Velvet sighed. "Lance?"
"Yes?" Lance asked with an enamored look on his face.
"That's fucked up." Velvet said before taking the paper and crumbling it into a ball and tossing it over at a nearby trash can. "Now if you excuse me, I've gotta do some real journalism." And without another word, Velvet sat up from her desk, grabbed her bag and made a run for the exit.
"W-wait what? This is your chance for revenge! Isn't this what you want?!" Lance question, confused by the turn of events.
"Nooope!" Velvet shouted over her shoulder before exiting the room.
After departing from Pyrrha's company, Russel set off through the busy streets of Vale. Through crowded sidewalks and jaywalking through traffic, that green haired mohawk sporting boy went, eventually winding up in the local law firm district in town. Given the circumstances and reasoning for his arrival in such a place, the young man couldn't help laugh at irony.
Now walking down a busy sidewalk where both human and faunus roamed as one, Russel made a sharp left turn down a familiar alley. He walked up against the side of one of the buildings and leaned against a brick wall. Kevin had a way of doing business that could only be described as obsessive.
Russel had done this dance a multitude of times. He'd stand just like how he was standing now against the same brick wall, just as how Kevin preferred. The saggy pants wearing man himself would slink out of the shadows with his whole ambiance setting routine and then they'd begin business as usual. And so, after waiting five minutes, just like how he always did, then would Kevin walk over.
It was after the second time they'd done business when Russel figured out Kevin's actions were all just a front. You could tell a lot about a man by the clothes he wore, or rather the clothes he refused to remove. Day after day Kevin would stand down that alley in darkness provided by god knows what and would step out cleaner than the clothes he wore. As Russel saw it, he was either an undercover cop or the guy loved theatre. And seeing as Russel was currently being handcuffed and thrown into the backseat of a cruiser, it was probably the later.
"Ah, Mr. Thrush, my favorite customer!" Kevin greeted boisterously as he joined Russel against the wall, which was something he'd always do. The way he leaned unsettled Russel, as if Kevin was trying to hide himself from those bystanders who walked by. It was always as if Kevin was always prepared for the likelihood of an aggressive force would be running down his alleys and he would use his customer as a human shield.
"I bet you say that to all the junkies you supply, Kev." Russel returned the pleasantries with his own charismatic spin.
"So, what brings you back in my neck of the woods?" Kevin laughed at his attempt to make a joke. Russel remained unfazed by his joke, not finding it funny in the slightest. Seeing that his quality material had flown over Russel, Kevin stifled his laughter and composed himself in order to do business. "It was funny because-you know-we're in the city and I said woods."
"Yeah I got that. I need another I.D." He said as he dug into his pocket and hand the old one over to Kevin.
"Planning on drowning your sorrows in some bar tonight only to find it's expired, eh? Mhm." Kevin nodded as he looked over the faux I.D. "Alright, I can whip you up another in jiffy. But it'll cost you twice as much."
"Twice? That's ridiculous." Russel protested. Kevin's work was good, but not enough to warrant such a sharp increase in cost.
"No, it's business." Kevin shrugged. "Tell you what, I'll sweeten the deal. Free of charge I'll throw in a copy of the shit your buddy had me scrape up for him?"
"My buddy?" Russel questioned, not sure what Kevin meant.
"Buddy, friend, partner, I don't give a shit. The guy, the tall guy that came in with you that one time a couple months back, Cardin." Kevin said catching Russel's interest. "He had me pull together some stuff for him. As it happened I made two copies, one to sell to him and one to sell to you, if you're interested."
"Why would I buy that?" Russel asked, wishing for more incentive for him to go along with the deal. There wasn't a doubt he would go for it, he need the I.D., but he might as well make Kevin work for that sale.
"So you're telling me you don't want to know what kind of secret terrible thing he had me dig up for him?" Kevin implored. Thinking it over a little more, Russel eventually caved and dug into his pocket and handing the man twice the usual payment. "Thought so." Kevin smiled as he counted the lien. Satisfied, he turned back to the shadows of the alley where no doubt he had some elaborate setup. "Alright give me a sec."
"Alright, one new I.D. and one folder of unmentionables." "Now get lost you're drawing too much attention to me."
With their business concluded, Russel walked out of the alley and Kevin returning to his 'office'. Along the way to catching a cab back to Beacon, Russel checked out the folder he'd bought and read the contents. Wat he found wasn't much of a surprise but still enough of a headache to cause Russel to sigh in frustration. "God dammit Cardin."
"And then he jumped out the window?" Yang questioned doubtfully at Nora's tale. Standing inside Team CRDL's dorm room the members of Team JNPR, minus Pyrrha busied themselves with sacking CRDL's belongings in search of any clue as to where Cardin might possibly go. All the while Team RWBY stood watching, unsure how to process the events that led up to now.
"Have a look for yourself, there's a crater and everything!" Nora shouted over her shoulder as she opened a worn duffel bag. She quickly rummaged through the contents before pausing to examine an old but still in good condition pocket knife. "Cool." She smirked to herself before folding the knife into the handle and taking it. "They wouldn't mind if we took souvenirs right? Course not. They're bad guys."
"We don't doubt that, Nora." Ruby said as she stuck her head the CRDL dorm window for a look at said crater. "But given all the commotion from earlier, you could hardly blame us for thinking you threw him out the window."
"Me? A defenestrator? Preposterous!" Nora said dramatically. "I will not stand here and have my good name besmirched!"
"Defene-what?" Yang raised a confused brow at Nora's choice of wording.
"Defenestration. The act of throwing one out a window." Ren informed as he dug into the CRDL closet. Out poured a mountain of dirty laundry, causing the JNPR ninja to recoil at the sight. "Would it kill them to clean up after themselves?"
"Why don't you guys just chase down one of Cardin's teammates? Maybe then you wouldn't be guilty of barging and entering." Weiss remarked.
"We would but Dove was last seen getting carted off in an ambulance." Jaune said as he dug through the nightstand beside what he presumed to be Cardin's bed.
"Oh my gosh, is he alright?" Ruby gasped.
"He and some of the other students were playing blackjack for candy. Turns out one of those candy bars he ate expired a decade ago." Ren recalled. "So, worst case he's getting his stomach pumped."
"And what about Sky?" Blake questioned as Jaune violently ripped out the nightstand drawer and flipped it over allowing the contents to spill out on the floor.
"I talked to Willa-you know-Team WILL Willa? The one who writes the slash fanfiction?"
"Yes we know all about her nightly escapades around a computer." Weiss rolled her eyes.
"I still don't, actually." Ruby raised a hand as if she were sitting in a classroom and waiting to be called on by the teacher. "What's slash fanfiction?"
"You'll find out when you're older." Yang stated firmly, quickly casting death glances at Weiss and Nora as a warning not to ruin her impressionable sister's innocence.
"…So we asked Willa and Sky got up to leave before Dove fell out. She said while they were in the middle of a game he had an 'epiphany', claimed everything was 'right under our noses'–whatever that means–and then apparently he ran out the room to Beacon Tower." Nora said, recalling her earlier conversation with Willa.
"We went to Beacon Tower, no sign of him." Ren said a matter of fact. "We asked around, people saw him enter, but no one saw him leave. It was really odd."
With the only other two members of CRDL incapacitated or MIA, that only left one other for them all to turn to. Team RWBY shared uncomfortable glances amongst each other, as it was their history with said last remaining member of CRDL was by far the rockiest. "And Russel?" Blake spoke up.
"Oddly enough, no one knows where he is." Jaune said as he finished sorting through the miscellaneous objects he'd dumped onto the ground.
"I've got his number if you want it." Blake said as she pulled her scroll out of her pocket.
"Wait, how? Why?" Jaune asked in surprise.
"The circumstances aren't important." Blake stressed, hoping to put that one Sunday behind her. "I just have his number. You want it or not?"
"Oh yeah hand it here." Jaune reached his hand out for Blake to place her scroll on his palm.
"Knock, knock." All eyes darted at the open doorway. There stood Velvet outside the room staring inside. "Is it cool if I enter?"
"Oh no it's cool. We don't live here." Nora said welcomingly before resuming rummaging through Team CRDL's belongings.
"So, hi, Velvet." Blake waved at her editor awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"
Raking a step into the ransacked room, Velvet was careful not to step on anything and contribute to the growing mess. "Lance tried to get a story about Pyrrha and Cardin published." Velvet informed, causing everyone in the room to pale. "'Tried', don't worry, I ran interference. But that doesn't mean word won't get out."
"Ugh." Jaune groaned. "Pyrrha's life is going to fall apart."
"Cardin's too." Velvet said as she recalled Lance's rather negative portrayal of events. "Lance was going to portray it as if Cardin used the night drinking at the dance to have his way with Pyrrha."
"That's because that actually happened." Jaune said bitterly, causing everyone to react in shock. "What? You're all surprised? This is Cardin everyone! He blackmailed me and tried to get me to hurt Pyrrha. Did we all forget that? This is all just one of his sick twisted games at hurting us."
"No. That's not the Cardin I know." Velvet firmly declared.
"'That's not the Cardin you know'?" Yang raised a brow at the implication. "Velvet, did you stop by our rooms first before coming here?" Velvet remained silent. "You came seeking Cardin out first? Why?"
"He's a bad guy, Velvet." Jaune spoke bitterly as he began to dial Russel's number into his scroll. "Cardin is an irredeemable racist, an opportunistic bully and overall a chauvinistic asshole. You of all people should know that."
Velvet frowned, not liking being talked down to. "Why're you all even here anyways?"
"Cardin needs to pay." Jaune said seriously, exuding his intent. "I'm going to call Russel, maybe we can get him to help us." Jaune said before hitting the call button on his scroll.
And then they heard the familiar ringing of a scroll receiving a call. Once again all looked to the doorway and there stood Russel, a folder under his arm and a hand digging into his pocket. "Hold on a sec guys, phone call." He said casually before taking his scroll and answering the call. "Hello?" Russel spoke into the receiver.
"Uh…" Jaune looked to his friends for advice, unsure how to handle the situation. Everyone in unison simply shrugged, causing Jaune to move ahead and respond over the scroll. "Um…hi?"
"Cunt!" Russel shouted sharply into his scroll, causing Jaune to yank his head away from his. Russel then hit the 'end' button on his scroll and placed it back in his pocket. "Alright, why the fuck are you all in my room?" He asked. "Better question. Why is it a lot messier than when I left it this morning?"
"That there's a funny story, Russel! Too bad we don't have time to talk about it!" Nora laughed awkwardly as she attempted to divert the conversation onto something more productive. "Hey by any chance do you know where Cardin is?"
"That's mine." Russel pointed at the pocket knife in Nora's hand.
Nora eyed the pocket knife and smirked as an idea popped in her head. "I'll hand it back if you help us find Cardin." She said as she raised it up in the air for Russel to see. But then the bottom of the handle caught her eye, written in small print was an inscription. Silently Nora read it and then turned to Russel with a confused look on her face. "Who's Alba?"
Russel frowned at the mention of his mother's name. "Look, you guys are in my dorm uninvited. You've got my property. Just hand it over and leave." He sighed.
"Not until, you help us find Cardin." Jaune stepped forward with a confidence he'd never had before. It was an odd sight for sure, everyone was used to the spineless blonde bloke who'd let people walk over him. But given the circumstances it was no surprise that of all people present in the room it was Jaune who'd manned up to take charge. "Pyrrha, my friend, my partner. Cardin's put her in a compromising situation, Russel. And the only way I can fix this is with Cardin."
"Well look whose balls dropped." Russel whistled. "Look, I get that you just want to help your partner, but there's no way I'm going to help you lynch my teammate. So get the fuck out." Russel threw a thumb over his shoulder at the open doorway.
"We said nothing about-" Jaune began to protest before getting cut off.
"I heard you all shouting from down the hall." Russel threw his thumb over his shoulder and t the open doorway once more. "If you're trying to keep things quiet about Pyrrha and Cardin, for goodness sake learn to shut up."
"Ugh…" Jaune groaned as he recognized both the truth and irony in Russel's words. After all, it was because he couldn't keep his mouth shut that led to his indentured servitude beneath Cardin's heal. "Give him back the knife, Nora." Jaune glanced over at his bombastic teammate.
"Aw!" Nora pouted. But the walking lightning rod of energy did as she was told and tossed it over to Russel who caught the knife with his free hand and proceeded to inspect it, ensuring it hadn't been damaged.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Russel. No one's forcing you to help, but it would be appreciated." Jaune spoke honestly. "But I want you to know that this is going to be resolved regardless. This is your one chance to be a part of the solution."
"My one chance?" Russel couldn't laugh at how stupid it sounded. "You mean well, Jaune, I admire that. I don't know where Cardin is, but I wouldn't tell you anyways. After all, he's my partner, just as Pyrrha's yours. I'm going to support him regardless, now get lost."
"So what's in the folder?" After a moments silence Jaune pointed to the folder in Russel's hands.
"Photos of your mom." Russel quipped sarcastically. He took a step to the side and then gestured to the door. "Now, seriously, get out."
And so they did, one by one the members of Team JNPR and Team RWBY along with Velvet began to funnel out of the ransacked room. Jaune marched out, resolute to find Cardin and preserve Pyrrha's honor. He was flanked by Nora and Ren who both felt the same way. Again, Russel couldn't blame them, but he still found it annoying that they'd tried to ransom the pocket knife for his help.
The Velvet walked past. "You could've handled that differently." She whispered to Russel as she left the room. Russel nodded, accepting that he could've and probably should've. But he just wasn't in the mindset, his patience was taxed enough as it was.
And then Team RWBY left, with Ruby right behind Velvet. Weiss followed suit and then did Yang. And then all that remained in the room amongst the garbage and scattered clothes, the flipped beds and tossed drawers, stood Russel and Blake.
"Got something to say Belladonna?" Russel sneered, having noticed the one time closet faunus hadn't budged an inch unlike the others.
Blake remained silent, meeting Russel's stare with one as equally cold and calculating. The events of last semester weighed heavily on their minds. After all how could it not? It happened on a Sunday just like this one, when a crusading warrior proclaiming to serve a greater good had kidnapped and tortured some unsuspecting CRDL boy while he was busy taking care of personal business.
"This is going to blow up in everyone's faces, you know that right?" Russel said as he flipped the pocket knife open and pointed it at the young woman standing there at the other side of the room. He could understand the paranoia she feels in regards to the White Fang, he could even pity her descent into that world of fear. But that was as far as he was willing to go in order to empathize with her.
"Maybe, maybe not." Blake said before taking a step forward. She'd wasted enough time dealing with Russel, if she didn't hurry the others would surely leave without her. "We'll see." She said before walking past Russel and making her way for the door.
Russel lowered the knife, collapsing the blade back into the handle and tossing it over onto his bed. He glanced over his shoulder and watched Blake leave. "I wasn't talking about Cardin."
"Neither was I." She said before she walked through the doorway. Now in the hallway outside, Blake quickly dashed to catch up to her friends. Discreetly reintegrating into the group, Blake spoke up, wondering about their next move. "So now what?"
"Nuclear option." Jaune said as he pulled a Cardin's scroll lout of his back pocket, having retrieved it earlier. "Anyone know how to hack a scroll?"
Russel looked around the tossed room. He debated whether or not to begin clean up duty, but ultimately he decided against it. Rather, he decidedly to pretend he never saw it and hopefully Dove or Sky would come along and clean it up. He took to his bed and threw down the folder, pulling it open and quickly read through the contents.
Cardin wasn't the man everyone made him out to be, Russel knew that from firsthand experience. There would be no reasoning with Jaune or anyone else, they'd made their intent clear enough for the young Thrush to see. They intended to have Cardin expelled. They could do so just by going to Ozpin himself, but no, they wanted to bring Cardin in, to drag him in chains, make him stand before the headmaster. In order to save Cardin, Russel was going to have to get to him first.
Russel didn't exactly lie when he said he didn't know where Cardin was. The contents of the folder gave him an approximate location of his partner. So Russel stuck his head out his room, making sure the likes of Team RWBY and JNPR had gone. And then he looked out the window and found them and Velvet walking off to the Transfer Student Dorms. No doubt they intended to enlist assistance. And so the angry mob grew.
His window of opportunity to depart from the dorm without watching eyes presented itself. Russel grabbed a bag and made his way down to the locker rooms where he claimed both his daggers and Cardin's mace. Once upon a time he'd offered to take his teammate's weapons to their lockers, but in order to do so they had to entrust him with their locker combos. Nice to see things pay off.
Russel made his way to the tarmac, hailed a cab and threw his bag of weapons into the back. "Where to?" The cabbie asked as Russel sat down in the passenger seat.
"Intersection of York and Paddock." He answered.
"Merchant District. That's a half hour fare." The Cabbie said, wondering if Russel was sure if he wanted to go to such a place.
"Just get me there and we'll be alright." Russel said, not really minding the cost. And then the gondola took off, its destination halfway across Vale. The city, not the country.
This is a funny arc, because while I was writing it, I realized how intricate it actually had to be. It was intended to be a simple Russel-Cardin bromance arc, but then I realized how involved the student populace of Beacon was.
Before anyone starts throwing rocks at my house, everyone is acting against the image that we've all given Cardin. Cardin in cannon might be the type to take advantage of someone under the influence, I don't know, but that isn't the Cardin I'm writing. So everyone is railing against that other version of Cardin because that's the only 'Cardin' they know. I dragged my ass out of a fever dream to explain Jaune's side of things, as well as everyone else's.
We also saw the return of Lance in this chapter, who is by far the most disturbing character I've had to write. He's very much responsible for everything going on in the arc, even he himself along with everyone else is unaware of this fact.
I cut out at least two plot points in all the rewriting and what not I did. One of which involved Russel visiting a law office to retrieve one last thing he'd inherited from Marlowe's death. I also cut out a Sky sub plot involving Ozpin and a certain Maiden under Beacon Tower.
The whole York and Paddock thing is a little easter egg for anyone who reads mu KND fics. I sprinkle those in every once n a while.