Professionals and Amateurs

The Huntsman begin his interrogation by leaning against a nearby column, pulling a flask off of his belt, and sipping from it while glaring at the pair of them.

"Kids." He muttered once he'd finished. "Always kids who cause the most problems."

Pyrrha shifted uncomfortably, not really sure what to say. She kind of wanted to ask about his last name. Was that just an unfortunate coincidence, or was he actually from the Branwen? And if he was, how had someone from that unpleasant tribe end up as a Huntsman in Vale?

As much as she'd have liked to know those things, they hardly seemed appropriate to simply blurt out. Not when he was clearly the one who would be asking the questions.

Next to her, Blake didn't seem to have the same idea of what was happening. "We're not children. We know what we're doing."

Do we?

That earned them a snort. "Uh huh. Sure ya do. How about we start this by you tellin' me exactly what you think you are doing? Besides starting brawls in bookstores, on the streets, and in the middle of nightclubs."

Pyrrha cleared her throat. "We didn't start anything inside. That was someone else after we left."

"Uh huh. Then what were you doing in there?"

"Um..."

Blake spoke for them, "Exploring Vale."

The Huntsman gave her a flat look. "Try again."

"We-"

"Yeah, no." He cut her off with a dismissive shake of his head. "You were there to ask Junior a question. Not gonna waste my time asking just how you knew about him, so instead I'm just going to ask what he told you."

Blake clammed up, and Pyrrha loyally stayed quiet even when the Huntsman glanced her way.

"Look, kids. I'm the nice cop in this situation." He took another pull from his flask as if to disprove what he'd just said. "You can tell me, or you can tell Glynda, or you can tell the cops when I call 'em in."

Oh dear...

Next to her, Blake flattened her ears but said nothing. Pyrrha... wasn't quite as ready to defy a real huntsman. "We were just asking why Torchwick was working for the White Fang."

"Pyrrha!"

She flinched at Blake's hiss, but Branwen merely grunted. "That's a question a whole lot of people have asked these past couple of months. What did he say?"

Pyrrha shrank a little at Blake's glare, but now that it had been said her friend apparently didn't see the need to stay quiet. "He didn't say anything, and neither did Torchwick when he tried to confront us in the street. Just told us to start looking into the dust robberies."

Branwen narrowed his red eyes. "Lot of those happenin' these days. Not sure what those maniacs would want with that much dust, but I doubt it's good. No offense little girl."

"It's..." Blake seemed to slump. "...no. You're right. They are maniacs now. I don't know what they're doing either. I'd have never thought they'd work with Humans at all, much less someone as openly racist as Torchwick."

"You didn't learn anything before you left?"

A shake of her head. "By the end I was... they didn't trust me anymore. Not with real missions. I was lucky if I knew what the mission was about before they told me I was going with."

Branwen grunted. "Stuck you on Grimm duty and left you there?"

"Yes." Blake replied before quickly asking a question of her own. "How much dust has been taken?"

"Not your business." He said flatly. "You two are getting your little asses back to the hotel you think is a good hideaway, and you're going to stay there until Oz gets back."

Pyrrah swallowed. "How did you know...?"

"Because unlike you two I'm actually good at my job." Blake glared at him for that, and Pyrrha felt herself getting a little nettled as well.

We have hardly been doing that badly! And it wasn't our fault that things fell apart and stopped us from capturing him.

"We're doing rather well, I thought." She surprised herself by actually saying the words out loud. "We captured several terrorists, and nearly captured a wanted criminal as well. We would have if not for the chaos that other huntress caused."

The man snorted. "A blind man could have captured those idiots you beat up in that store, and be sure to tell the next people Torchwick robs about how you 'nearly captured' him. I'm sure that'll make 'em feel a lot better."

She winced and felt her courage falter yet again.

"Important people are working this problem." He drawled, already turning turning his back on them. "You two stay out of this. Now I've got to go yell at another teenage girl who managed to cause me all kinds of problems tonight."

"The one who..." Pyrrha faltered when he looked over his shoulder, felt Blake touch her arm, and rallied. "...um, the one who started the stampede in The Club? Is everyone there all right?"

Instead of responding, he just rolled his eyes and walked away. "Back to your hotel girls. Don't let me catch you trying this vigilante crap again."

...you could have at least told us if everyone was fine.

She bit her lip as the huntsman vanished up the nearby stairs, leaving them alone.

"Jerk." Blake growled, "Did you really have to tell him, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha hunched her shoulders a bit. "I'm sorry. I... just kind of blurted it out. I couldn't help it. And... I don't think he'd have given up if we hadn't said why we were there."

Her companion let out a frustrated breath, feline ears twitching once. "That's... ugh. You're probably right. Dammit. This is going to complicate things."

It seemed like it was going to do a lot more than that. A Huntsman had told them to stop what they were doing, and stay in their hotel until Headmaster Ozpin returned from Vacuo. That seemed like a pretty definitive end to their investigations to her.

Before she could say as much, the harsh squeal of metal on metal began to fill the station. A subway train came into a view moment later, slowing rapidly as they both stood up.

"Should we-"

"Not here." Blake gently touched her arm. "Wait until we're back."

"All right."

They were the only ones who got on at their station, and there weren't all that many people inside the car either. A few gave them odd looks at first; probably thanks to her bandanna. Blake pulling their weapons out from under coat so that she could sit down easily stopped those. Well, it stopped anyone from doing more than risking glances their way once in a while.

By the time they made it to the Wall Station everyone else in their car had either gotten off, or quietly moved to others.

"Do I really look like a criminal?"

"Not really." Blake sighed as they stepped outside of the station, walking the dark streets back towards their hotel. "It's me, I think. Armed faunus make people uncomfortable. That you're hiding your face probably makes them think you're just hiding your own faunus trait. Two faunus with weaponry in public? That's two too many for most people to want to be around."

"Oh." So everyone had simply left their subway car because they thought they were... "So just because we have huntsman weapons people think we're with the White Fang?"

The other girl nodded tiredly. "Welcome to the life of a faunus, especially one trying to become a huntress."

"Oh." She said again, more quietly. She tried to imagine everyone reacting like that to her if she walked into a diner, or store. The kind of nervous tension and quick departures.

She'd seen some of that before. No matter what her reputation was, civilians had always gotten a little nervous when they approached her while she was armed. Like that poor child's mother on the train. But they'd always calmed down quickly enough when she hid her weapons away, or even when she merely secured them on her belt.

Somehow I don't think those passengers would have been any calmer if we'd hidden our arms. It probably would have just made them even more nervous and upset.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You thought it was about you, which is... I don't know." Blake sighed, kicking a loose stone as they walked. "Better, I guess. You didn't even think it might have been me, did you?"

"Well... no." She admitted. "I'm sort of used to being the center of attention. I know that's not a good thing, and I don't enjoy it, but..."

Blake finished the thought for her. "But you're used to everyone staring at you all the time."

"Yes." Pyrrha said. "Are you?"

"All faunus are." She replied. "One of my mentors told me that you never get away from it, except among other faunus."

"Is... it all negative like that?"

Blake shrugged. "Not always. For every Human that hates me there's three more who are just curious, and so long as I don't have Gambol Shroud in hand, most are fine treating me like a person. But... there's also the fetishists, who are just as much of a problem as the racists."

Pyrrha twisted her lips. "I think I know what you mean. I've had my fair share of fan mail from people who... I am very glad I never met in person. I know it's not quite the same, but maybe... it's close?"

"Maybe. Anything actually happen?"

"Rarely. My agent and trainers were good at keeping them away." She paused, then shook her head. "Once someone broke into our mansion when I was fifteen. The family barricaded ourselves in the kitchens until the police arrived, but when he was taken in he claimed I had enticed him to do it with my beauty. That it was his fate to... I believe the exact words were 'put a child in me'."

Blake looked ill. "Seriously?"

"Yes." Pyrrha shook her head. "I started keeping weapons near my bed and on my person at all times after that. It was... that was the last time I ever saw my father care about me as his daughter."

Her friend still looked rather green. "That's... ugh. No, you win that one. Worst I've ever had is Humans trying to invite me on a date, and thinking that I should be grateful for it. Nothing like a celebrity stalker crazy enough to try something. And... well, my former partner was good about driving them off when we were trying to lay low."

"My agent was very good at that too, at the parties I was made to attend."

They spent the rest of the trip swapping stories about people's ill-fated attempts to ask them out. Laughing at the snobby pick-up lines that Pyrrha had heard at events, snickering at the more low-brow but just as pathetic attempts that Blake had received. Tales of how Fusia and Ray had ruthlessly bullied anyone foolish enough to make a pass at her while they were around, and stories of how Blake's own friends had done the same.

"He was always very possessive." Blake opened up a little about her old partner when they got back to the hotel, both of them waving to the staff as they walked in. "I... used to appreciate that, when it all began."

Pyrrha found herself nodding. "Was... what was it like?"

"Please tell me you're not asking about sex."

She blushed beneath her bandanna, and her voice got a little high pitched. "Of course not! I'm not... I'm not so crass!"

To her surprise Blake let out a full-bellied laugh, a hand coming to cover her mouth. "You're too easy, Pyrrha. I know what you meant."

"You..!" Pyrrha couldn't stop her own giggle, lightly shoving Blake's shoulder. "Stop teasing me!"

Blake's grin was wicked, and something in it made the hallway feel warmer. "Never."

She tried to reply but found herself stuttering, "Y-you..."

That grin only sharpened, then dark hair blocked her view when Blake turned to unlock their door.

Why is it so warm in here!?

Taking the moment, she brought her hands up and rubbed furiously at her face to see if that would help. It didn't, not really, but things seemed to change once they were both inside of the room all the same.

Blake's expression turned serious as she pulled her coat off, tossing it and her weapon onto her bed before sitting beside them. "I'm... I'll tell you about Adam some other time. I don't think I'm ready."

"That's fine." She quickly assured her. "I didn't mean to pry, I've just... never had a relationship before."

Her friend's voice returned to its usual dry tones. "I can tell. I promise I'll tell you sometime, just... not tonight."

"All right. Um..." Casting her mind around for a different thing to talk about, she slowly remembered the panic she'd felt after Torchwick had figured out who she was. "...can we check the news?"

Blake's ears straightened. "Right. I'd almost... better put it on, we can plan our next move while its on mute."

Nodding, Pyrrha quickly set Milo onto her own bed before finding the remote control. A bit of fiddling let her find the local news station, which was currently covering... some kind of celebrity gala.

Thank the gods... if they knew about me, that would be the lead story.

Which seemed terribly egotistic of her, but she still felt certain she was right.

Muting the television, she sat down on the edge of her bed so that she could see both Blake and the screen. "So... what do we do now?"

There was a thoughtful hum from Blake before she spoke. "A huntsman being involved makes this a little more complicated. We'll have to be careful about which dust stores we try to stake out to watch for Torchwick and his partner."

Pyrrha blinked a few times. "Um... didn't he order us to stop?"

Blake blinked a few times right back at her. "Yes. So?"

"So... aren't we stopping?"

"No."

Her mouth got a little dry. "Um. Why not?"

"Pyrrha, just because someone says they're going to do something doesn't mean anything is actually going to get done." Blake explained, her tone one of forced patience. "Do you have any ideas how many times we've heard that something is going to be done about racism? About attacks on faunus?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I... can guess it's a lot."

"Right." Blake said. "And just because this Huntsman says he's going to work on it, doesn't mean he's not going to have other things to do. Grimm to kill, celebrities to bodyguard. We have a lead, and we can't let it go."

"I... guess." Pyrrha hunched in a little. "I'm... not as comfortable with this."

A deep sigh came before Blake got up, stepped over, and then sat down directly beside her. The smaller girl leaned against her side, and Pyrrha found herself leaning in on reflex as well.

"Pyrrha. I have to do this. I have to. You know why."

She swallowed, nodding. "For your friend. For everything that happened."

"Yes. I'm going to get the proof I need from the White Fang to make her killer face justice on Menagerie. I... I need your help. Please."

She really does. She can't fight Torchwick's partner alone. Only you can do that.

That was true.

He didn't tell you anything of what's happening. Didn't tell you if everyone at the club was all right. Another person giving orders, and expecting you to obey.

Pyrrha straightened her back, the thought steadying her. She'd spent her entire life obeying orders. Being a dutiful puppet who did not ask why, who did not ask for more details, or reasons. Who danced at the tune of anyone who played, regardless of what her heart truly wanted.

I left all of that behind... I have to leave that behind. That's what this is all about. I can't give it up now. I can't. I won't.

Licking her lips, she moved her left hand, holding it palm up. "I'm... I'm with you."

Blake's warm fingers wrapped around hers, voice quiet, honest. "I... thank you, Pyrrha. Thank you."'

She was disobeying the orders of a professional Huntsman. Trusting a former terrorist. Living with one, even. If this went badly she could be identified, could be... gods, she could be arrested even. Denied entrance to Beacon. Every tabloid from here to Mistral would describe how the Invincible Girl had run away form home to engage in a life of vigilante crime.

Pyrrha... had never felt more free than she did in that dingy hotel room, with Blake's hand in hers.

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat