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Beta(s) :
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Y'all wanted a shopping trip. XD
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"Hmmm… I don't know, Cerulean." Adel, er, Coco hummed when he came out of the little changing… Closet, thing, in the fourth pair of virtually identical green cargo pants. The woman herself was sitting on a little chair across from the changing closet, arms crossed and ankle on her knee. She cocked her head this way and that, looking it over, and sighed, "The green works, but… Those pockets-
"Are useful." He defended gently, "Convenient storage."
"Ugh, they break your silhouette up way too much."
"That's good." He grunted, "Harder to see me. The eye catches organized shapes. Disorganized ones-"
"Fine, fine, I get shape and tactic theory. Sheesh." She rolled her eyes and chuckled, turning to pick up the supplemental armor pieces and handing them to him.
They were simple, several layers of overlapping steel plates riveted onto simple, hardened and under-padded leather. They fit onto his thighs snugly, their straps tying taut over the tops and bottoms of the deep pockets on the sides of his thighs, clicking together on the backs of his thighs. A similar set covered his shins, and heavy, leather boots protected his feet from whatever tried to get at his toes.
Which, according to coco, was a surprising amount of Grimm.
It'd do, though, especially after some 'help' from his Ghost.
"That's still a lot of metal, Cerulean." Coco warned him, "No way it doesn't slow you down."
"And protect me."
"Aura isn't enough?"
"No." He grunted, ignoring the urge to point out how poorly Aura had served her in the mines. Instead, he argued, "Always good to have a… Fall-back."
"Fair enough, I guess." She shrugged, plucking the first actual shirt from the pile of clothes they'd gathered up and smirking. "C'mon, then. Let's keep it goin'."
He could only sigh - evidently, he'd made a mistake earlier after all.
After nearly an hour - and a stack of easily fifty various shirts - they settled on a simple, collarless black long shirt. It was fitted, and hugged his chest and arms a bit snugly for his liking. But it was cut and tear resistant, too, ideal for field-work and actually able to hold up relatively well against the smaller Grimm. And knives, too, if the need came up. It wasn't actual armor, of course, but it could help.
Although, well…
"C'mon, tell me you don't see half the store checking you out, Cerulean." Coco teased as they meandered through the rows of hanging and folded clothes.
"I'm trying not to." He grunted, more and more anxious the longer their eyes stayed on him.
"Why?"
"Don't like it."
"At the risk of sounding like a broken record…" He shot her a confused look and she snorted. "Cuz I'd be… Repeating myself? Like a broken record?"
"Ah." He frowned, then shrugged and moved on. "Don't know. Just don't like it. Not my thing."
"What?" She scoffed, "Romance?"
"Mhm." He added, "I'd rather focus on being- On Hunting. Protecting people. The rest is… The rest."
"Gods, there's two of you…"
"Come again?"
"Oh, sweetheart, you wish." She snorted, then laughed outright and loud when, confused, he gave her another look. He opened his mouth to ask what was so funny, but she waved him off before he could and sighed. "Tell you when you're older. But I meant that… Well, you're a lot like my teammate. Velvet, I mean. Shy, bookish, and way the hell too focused on work, work, work."
"Our work is-"
"Important, yeah, but…" She shrugged, "You deserve to actually live your own life a little, you know?"
He frowned, unsure of what she actually really meant. He was content, after all. And his work was important - was work to be proud of, in fact. Work to find real meaning in. So how was he not living his own life?
He just couldn't quite parse it…
"Sorry, sorry." Coco cut his thoughts off suddenly, slipping by him and paying him a smaller, more contrite, smile. "Vel says I worry too much. 'There's time', she always tells me."
"Time isn't guaranteed to any of us."
"And that's what I always say…" She sighed, picking through the over-shirts idly. "Maybe I do worry too much… Just my nature, I guess."
"We worry for those who around us abound." He said, carrying the first words his Ghost had shared since they'd come into the store and he'd gotten busy studying every of the thousand and one designs stretched out across its shelves and tables. "For alone 'thout, we'd have long past drowned."
"Oh, you're as poet now?"
"Sorry."
"Don't be." She laughed, "That was actually alright. Vel is more into poetry than I am. I oughta introduce you."
"I suppose."
"Anyway," She sighed, "Who was it?"
"Surge." He answered for Guiding Light once more. "You wouldn't know her. She… Wasn't ever very famous, around here."
"In Vale?"
"Outside her home."
"Ah, well…" Coco shrugged, "Back to it, I guess."
At last, after another hour of milling about and going through it all, they settled on a dark blue, sleeveless and padded shirt. It was a bit thin too, but stiff, made of multiple thin layers of cut, tear and vaguely bullet resistant fabrics layed out one on top of the other. Along with a thin layer of 'neutralizing cloth' designed by Atlas that, apparently, was able to absorb some of the impact of incoming hits. As along as the cloth didn't simply get ripped through, at least. Like his long-sleeved under-shirt, it fit him snugly. But unlike it, it was too textured by the padded layers to hug him skin-tight.
Which he was grateful for as the eyes on him started to trail off.
"Hunter's stores have a lot of variety." He grunted, pulling on a pair of heavy leather, fingerless gloves, each backed by layers of dull steel.
"Have to be, yeah." Coco nodded, wrapping a measuring tape around his chest and humming. "Hunters come in every shape, size and style. Shops have to cater or it'd all fall through."
"A wise outlook." His Ghost spoke, musing quietly while Coco put his numbers into one of the terminals along the wall to order the last of his gear. "The Hunters are seemingly among their premiere and primary defenders. Having easy access to what they need or, judging from the input terminals, and the stations and personnel I detect in the floors above, the the ability to make, repair or alter items would be of the absolute highest priority."
"Mhm." He nodded, "It's smart."
"Have to be." Coco hummed, "Or we'd all be dead."
"Fair enough."
His armor arrived a few quiet moments later.
His chest-piece was made up layers of steel attached to a leather vest that zipped up the front. The plates were arranged across his front and around along his ribs in a roughly 'W' shape, albeit stretched out and distorted. It stopped just below his sternum, protecting his vulnerable insides, and curved down and around to either side. The leather it was stitched into went down along his ribs and stomach a couple inches past the edge of the metal, leaving him his flexibility albeit at the cost of the protect his plating would have given him.
Stomach bare, and back unarmored to save weight and his movement range, but enough for now.
It'd do.
The helmet was an old, refurbished black helmet from Atlas' military. Unlike their newer ones, he was told, this one was full-faced, with a wide, armored-glass visor that covered his face from just above his eyes to just below his lips and was rimmed in heavy armor. It had a few ensconced lenses of several sorts across his forehead. None were larger than his eyes, and half of them weren't even half that size. According to Coco, it housed a suite of more advanced features - from a thermal reader to night-vision system and a and a short-term recorder for 'mission review' and 'other noise like that'.
Coco was always so informative…
It fit comfortably, though, its worn supports hugging the sides of his head and resting against his forehead comfortably. He reached back to a tiny power button on the back of his head and, with a little hum, it sprang to life. His visor back-lit in a gentle, undisturbing dull orange as status readouts scrawled across his visor. Finally, after a few moments of working, it settled, displaying his range to objects as he looked around in the corner of his display, along with the time and temperature. And, when he turned to his rifle, it even brought up its model - or tried to, flashing through several names before settling on 'bolt action rifle' and leaving it be - and an ammo count that he wasn't sure how it came to.
It was accurate, though.
"Impressive." He hummed, "They don't use these anymore?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
"Dunno." Coco shrugged, tapping the side of his helmet to make sure it wouldn't move and then nodding. "Maybe they preferred that people could see their faces? Or… Maybe these are more expensive?"
"I… Don't think it should matter if it works."
"Yeah, well, I agree, but jackboots aren't the smartest." She sighed, handing him the dull green cloak he'd already picked out. She didn't hide the grimace as he pulled it on and clasped it closed around his neck. "Ya know, you… Look like a game character, Cerulean. Right out of a video game."
"A what?"
"Gods, your poor child-hood…" Coco sighed wearily, shaking her head and waving him off when he cocked his head. "Anyway, you look all set. How do you feel?"
"Better." He nodded, and Light but it was true. His armor fit well, and as he slid his axe into a loop on his belt, the weight settled comfortably. But…
"Cerulean?" Coco asked as he turned, "You good?"
"Something's missing." He murmured, looking out across the rows of clothes, bolts of cloth, armor plates, helmets and everything else. "I can feel it."
"Yeah?"
"It's… Instinct." He explained, "Lie an itch at the back of my mind. Something I need…"
"Follow it." Guiding Light told him, "Listen to your instincts."
Finally, his eyes fell on a box, set between a pair of cloth-cutting stations where customers and workers both could make quick changes to whatever they needed. The better to fit their ideas.
Pacing over, he pulled out a thigh-long and wide length of dull creme cloth, rolled up and shoved into the box and unfurled it with a hum. On it was a simple, faded sun, stitched just off center in an obviously mistaken way that matched the dull yellow trim around its edge. He turned and laid it out, folding its edge over where the sun was off-center, so that it would rest more in the middle, and used a sewing machine to stitch in a belt-tunnel.
He slid it onto his belt and let it hang along the outside of his thigh and felt…
Right.
"Now," he grunted, still unsure of the sense behind it all, "I feel ready."
"Yeah, looks good." Coco hummed, "Now, you just need a new gun."
"Mine's fine." He defended, taking it as she handed it over and hanging it off his shoulder. "Just need to fix it."
"A rifle's great at range, when you control the situation." She argued, "But if they get close, or there's too many, you need… Options. Options other than your axe, I mean."
"I suppose…"
"Just c'mon." She chuckled, "We'll pay and I'll show you a place I know."
"Alright."
The 'place she knew' was another couple blocks away but now, they had more space. Not because the evening meant the streets were emptier - they very barely were - but because everyone took one look at him and made room. Something about an armored, armed, cloaked figure strolling the street apparently had that effect, it seemed.
He didn't mind it terribly - if only because it made their walk quicker.
The weapon's shop was a smaller, more out of the way one than he'd expected. Instead of the huge department she'd shown him to for his armor, this one was barely twenty feet in diameter, with what he was sure was a similarly sized storage room just past the counter. Rifles, shotguns, handguns - the whole variety were arrayed along the walls behind secure, chain-link fencing with pin-code openers and key-locks alike.
The large, bearded old man behind the counter smiled when he saw them and waved, "Coco! What brings you 'ere now, you wee chip o' a lass?"
"New friend." She bobbed her head towards him and leaned against the counter, "Met him out on a mission."
"Yeah?" He shot a look up and down her and scowled, "You look worse for wear."
"Yeah, well, weren't for him, I'd be dressed in a suit." She grimaced and the man paled, and Cerulean felt that she'd told him a lot more in a way he couldn't understand. Even so, she moved on and the man listened more intently. "He needs a back-up."
"Yeah?" The man turned to him, "Auto or nah?"
"No."
"Gotcha." The man hummed, "Grimm Hunter?"
"Is there another kind…?"
"You'd be surprised, lad." The man nodded, turning and slipping into the storage area in the back. When he came back, he laid a long, heavy, black revolver on the counter. It was more than sturdily built, with a padded grip and a simple, green glow-sight at the end of the barrel. "Six-shots, hammer function is auto - no pullin' back - and it can handle Dust-laced rounds. Caliber's 'nough to punch through light Grimm armor easy as a knife through pie."
He picked it up, weighing it in his hand, and hummed pleasantly. "The weight is… Balanced."
"I don't make slop, boyo." He chuckled, "Oughta do?"
"Mhm." He nodded, "It'll do."
"Right." He nodded, laying a simple leather holster out beside it and grunting. "Take 'er and enjoy. On the house, for savin' the wee lass' ass out there."
"I… Am grateful."
"Just put it to use." He grunted, turning toward the storage room with a grunt and a wave. "Now get. Closin' up."
"Right." Coco nodded, "G'night, Marcus."
The man grunted and Cerulean followed Coco back out, onto the street. Turning, she smiled and asked, "Need directions for a hotel?"
"Yes, please." He nodded, "Sleep sounds nice about now."
"I bet." She chuckled, holding out her hand. "Gimme your Scroll, I'll send you on your way."
He nodded and pulled it out.
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Ozpin smiled at the familiar presence and turned as the fluttering stopped and Qrow stood, rolling his shoulders and falling into the seat across from him. Quietly, Ozpin asked, "All well on your end?"
"Mhm." He nodded, "Had favors to pay back. Sorry I'm late."
"The young man who saved Miss Adel's life?"
"Mhm."
"Then I'm far from bothered, Qrow." He smiled, "A promising young man?"
"Very." He nodded, "Took a Delver down all on his own. Real fish out of water, though. Never been to Vale, doesn't know his way 'round a lot of stuff. Looks at it all like it's all new to him."
"A country man come to the city." Ozpin nodded, "You gathered a file?"
"Of course." He nodded, fishing out a little packet from his jacket and laying it on the desk. "Copies of everything I had made for 'im. Get this, he didn't have any papers."
"None?"
"Nope." Qrow grunted, fishing out his flask, "I got 'im covered. Copies for us, too, of course. But I don't think he's one of hers."
"No?"
"He wouldn't have a reason to save a Huntress if he was." He grunted, "Especially not when it was so damn risky for him."
"A fair point. And, as always, your diligence is quite appreciated." Ozpin nodded, sliding the packet into a drawer in his desk and humming. "Now, to more important business…"
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Ozpin has the detes. .
Just no reason to really look, yet. Ruh roh~
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Vault Monk :
Longer if he stays masked most of the time~
Red Demon Eye :
He did in fact get a sidearm, lol.
Sly Sage :
I actually already have the ship planned for this one, lol.
MM Browsing :
Arc.
Nope - because it's unique to Remnant.
They did see his face, yes. BUT, canonicially, everyone except Velvet wasn't at Beacon during Initiation or for a while after, even. Which is expressly why I used them in the fic for the roles I did. They wouldn't recognize Jaune, because they'd never seen him before. And Qrow, similarly, was away until now.