An: Hey, I'm not dead. Yeah, sorry about that. My first two weeks at college were a lot busier than I thought they would be, and when you don't write for a little bit it's hard to start up again, but everything has calmed down now so hopefully I can return to a more regular update schedule. I realize that I'm not the best person on this site to keep with consistent updates, but I'm far from the worst, so don't hold it against me too much. This chapter is also long so that should help a bit.
Blake was exhausted. She could only pick at her food, in Beacon's cafeteria, while her partner glared holes into her. Blake had returned to Beacon just in time for morning classes, so she hadn't gotten any sleep, and the second they had any free time Yang would confront her, very upset, and demanded answers. Russel and Sky were also clearly worried and curious but they seemed content with letting Yang handle all the talking, or in this case, yelling.
If they had expected any clear answers, however, they had been sorely disappointed. It was already lunch time and everything they asked her she either deflected or gave some flimsily excuse. Blake knew this was causing a fracture in her team, but telling them what really happened would not only require explaining that she was a faunus, with a connection to the White Fang, but they would have to believe her in the first place. If someone came to her and said they were attacked by some furry monster with two tongues, she would think they were crazy.
"Where were you last night?" Yang asked once again.
Blake rubbed her bandaged arm beneath the table. It still hurt and had gotten very itchy. "How many times do I have to tell you. I was out doing some shopping and lost track of time. By the time, I realized what time it was the last bullhead back to Beacon had already left, so I had to rent a room and spend the night in Vale."
"And you didn't think to inform your team or answers any of their calls?" Yang said.
"My scroll died and I didn't have a charger."
"You could have asked the hotel for theirs or just asked anyone on the street," Sky mentioned looking embarrassed to have said anything.
"You're also not looking too good. Almost like you didn't get any sleep at all," Russel said making it clear what he thought of his team leader's story.
"I'm sorry," Blake said looking at each one of her teammates. "I'm not used to this leadership thing. I made a mistake. Can you please stop nagging me about it?"
"This has nothing to do with being a leader," Yang yelled slamming her fist on the table causing Sky's drink to spill onto his food. "This is about being a friend. You can't just leave without saying anything. Don't you trust us?"
Trust? That wasn't a word that could so easily be thrown around. Blake had trusted someone before. Trusted them more than she did her own parents. Trusted that he was doing the right thing and would continue to do the right thing, but that trust had been peeled away until nothing was left. Yang might be able to believe in everyone she meets until proven otherwise, but for Blake trusting wasn't so easy.
"Just drop it, okay. Nothing happened last night that you need to worry about. I just wanted to check up on some things." Blake knew it wouldn't just be forgotten like that, but that was all she was willing to give them.
Team BRYL ate in awkward silence, only broken when Sky asked where Yang's little sister was. She always ate with them and usually brought her whole team along. Yang just shrugged saying she was doing something with her partner. Besides that, short exchange, the table remained quiet, going unnoticed by the noise of the lunchroom. Blake chose to focus on that instead of the angry, but pleading, look Yang gave her whenever their eyes caught each other.
The main topic of conversation was of course still about the two faunus murders. Some students were glued to their scroll as news stations brought the story up about every fifteen minutes. The police still didn't have any leads and it was putting people on edge, it was causing some parts of the population, especially the faunus parts, to claim that the police just didn't care about faunus death. There was already a faunus rights protest planning to be held the day after tomorrow.
Right now, it wasn't shaping up to be anything more than a walk through the city streets, but Blake knew that if this murder spree continued and no one was brought to justice, which wouldn't happen since no normal investigation could lead the police to that thing, things could get violent. Just from what Blake had overhead in the White Fang meetings last night, retaliation was on the forefront of their minds.
She didn't care what Jaune and Emerald had said. She had to stop this.
She was so lost in thought that she brought her fork down hard enough to get stuck in her tray. This did not go unnoticed by Yang. "Blake, you seriously need to talk to us. Whatever is going on we can help." Yang gestured to Sky and Russel who nodded in confirmation. "And if you really won't do that, at least get some sleep. You can barely keep your eyes open. I can cover for you in class."
Blake grinded her teeth. Why did she have to get such a nosy partner? Couldn't she see what was at stake here. There was no time to relax. True, Yang didn't know the entire story, but even from her point of view there was a serial killer running loose. If she was the huntress she claimed to be then she should have been demanding to go after him, but all she wanted to do was sit here and goof off.
Blake was about to say something that she definitely would have regretted later, but luckily, before her mouth could get her in trouble, another incident drew her attention away.
A thud of metal hitting the floor and a slight whimper. All of Team BRLY turned to see Cardin Winchester towering over a rabbit-eared faunus looking down with smug satisfaction at the lunch tray he knocked onto the floor. "Don't you know? Animals are supposed to eat from the floor," he said.
The girl's rabbit ears lower as she looked at her now ruined food. She didn't say a thing before she walked away, right out of the cafeteria.
Yang growled, her eyes briefly flashing red as she watched Cardin laugh it up. "I can't wait to kick his ass across the arena." Her anger towards her partner momentarily forgotten.
"Why wait till combat class? Why not just do it right here in front of everyone," Russel suggested.
"Idiot, that will just get her, and probably us, in trouble."
"We're huntsmen and huntresses. It's our job to protect people. How can we do that if we're afraid of getting in a little trouble," Russel said.
"Why doesn't she stand up for herself? She's a year above us, right? She should be able to wipe the floor with him easily."
The three of them look towards Blake, their leader, for input. As if they wanted her to make the final call. What did they want her to say? She didn't like what was happing either, but she couldn't jut order her partner to go and attack that racist. What would everyone else think if she did that? They would pay more attention to her, at the very least, and they might figure out she was a faunus, it had already been proven her cover wasn't exactly perfect, and if people found that out, they would label her.
Just another quick to anger faunus that uses violence when things don't go her way.
She came here to get away from all that. She would not risk it for something so stupid. Still, she felt bad for that girl. She had seen her around, but had never talked to her. It hurt to distance herself from her own race, but it was just another risk that she couldn't take. What good would talking to her even do. Even if they became friends and she found support in Blake, it would only be one person a little bit happier. The White Fang would still kill people and faunus would still suffer under the SDC.
Speaking of Schnees. "Someone else is going to handle it," Blake told her team, not sounding all too pleased with the outcome.
The heiress of the SDC, Weiss Schnee, approached Cardin. Blake didn't know how someone stomped with elegance, but somehow, she pulled it off. Cardin turned his head, glaring at the floor, but stood his ground against his team leader and partner. Behind the Schnee was Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, the other two members of team CLWN. (Yes, it really was pronounced 'clown.' Yes, it was a school wide joke, and yes, the Schnee had been furious and summited multiple formal complaints to get it changed.)
The Schnee immediately started to berate and lecture her partner for his "uncivilized" and "childish" behavior. Blake took notice that at not a single point did the Schnee confront him about his choice of victims. To her the problem wasn't that her partner had harassed a faunus student, it was that his actions were hurting their team's reputation.
Not like there was much of a reputation to uphold.
Team CLWN was probably the most infamous team in their year, possibly even all of Beacon, and while most of it came for the Schnee's and Cardin's constantly clashing personalities and ideas, a large chunk of the blame could be laid at the feet of the overly energetic, some say half-insane, hammer wilding warrior.
If Cardin and the Schnee were like oil and water, Nora was the person vigorously shaking the beaker. Most of the time she was fine, forgoing the fact she was a walking wracking ball, but when Cardin bullied someone, or the Schnee gave any order she didn't agree with, things got heated fast.
Overall team CLWN consisted of a leader that wanted everything her way, a bully who believed he was above everyone, a girl who refused to be ordered around, and a guy who was too passive to fix any of it.
They were a dysfunction mess, and yet they felt more like a true team than BRYL ever had. Cardin, the Schnee and Nora might butt heads every other day, but when it mattered they could put it all aside. They had the highest team combat score by far. The Schnee was a brilliant strategized and coordinator. Cardin, who had first had been a thoughtless berserker, had been whipped into shape to become the team's nearly unbreakable wall of aura and muscles. Nora was an unstoppable powerhouse, and Ren was a quick hit-and-run fighter. Every argument they had was more like family bickering than actual fights. It kind of reminded her of how Emerald and Jaune had acted towards each other. Even now, it felt like the Schnee was an older sister scolding her younger brother for not playing nice with the other kids.
Blake turned away, not wanting to watch a second more. Her team was nothing like that. There was always this gap between them. They weren't distant from each other, but they differently weren't as close as they should have been. They had simple combos and solid teamwork, but it was nothing compared to the absolute area dominance team CLWN produced in the arena.
Blake clenched her fists. When everything was over, she promised to be a better leader.
Jaune was looking at Tukson's book store from across the street. There was a memorial in front of his store with flowers and pictures of the man. Everything relating to the crime scene had been removed, so Jaune wasn't hoping to discover anything new, he just wanted out of his apartment and some clean air while he thought. Emerald was still asleep, so it was just him, left alone to bounce ideas around in his own head.
He had gone over everything he knew about this case probably a thousand times. It was frustrating to feel so close to the answer but just not getting it. There was some way to track the spider-slug, or at least predict where it would strike, Jaune knew this because Roman hadn't just happened to be in the right place to save that girl. He had known where to be and had been waiting.
Jaune was also nearly certain that it had to do with the way the first two victims had been positioned. There was simply no other reasonable way to figure it out unless Roman had some special tool or piece of evidence Jaune didn't, but as much as a cryptic bastard as Roman was, Jaune didn't think he would actively withhold crucial pieces to the puzzle. Everything he needed he already had, there was no missing piece. It was what Roman must have meant when he said, "you're doing a good job, but you're still bad at it," but damn if he knew how those pieces fit together. He had mapped out a third point where that girl had been attacked, and that, combined with the other two victims, did make a triangle, but pretty much any third point would have made one. It didn't mean anything and it definitely didn't match up to where they had been pointing.
Could it really just be anywhere between those two lines Jaune had mapped, or had the spider-slug been planning to set her body up somewhere else and that was just where he had found his victim? Roman hadn't been at that exact location, after all. From that girl's story, she had to fend for herself for a little bit, meaning Roman had been a little off the mark… or he could have just been waiting till the last minute to do something. Jaune could easily imagine that scenario. For being an underground criminal and a caretaker, Roman sure did love his theatrics.
There was also the question about all the victims being faunus. At first Jaune had dismissed it as mere coincidence, why would that thing care, but it was now three-for-three and the human population of Vale vastly outnumbered the faunus population. They had all been White Fang, too. Actually, that cat girl wasn't, or maybe she was. He should have asked her although thinking about it, she probably wouldn't have admitted it if she was. If she was part of the White Fang, did it even mean anything? As far as Jaune could tell the spider-slug seemed to attack its victims at night and most upstanding citizens wouldn't be out during that time. Since, assumedly, the White Fang would operate during those hours, it would make senses they would be the ones getting killed. That wouldn't answer why it was just faunus being killed, though. The White Fang weren't the only criminal elements that walked the night. So, did them being faunus matter? And even if it did, what could he do with that information?
Jaune paced into a nearby café and, took a seat, taped his fingers and shook his leg as he waited for the waitress to take his order. There was a mother trying to restrain her two kids as they begged to get one of the little cakes on display. Did they have to be so loud? Shouldn't they be in school, anyways. Actually, was today a weekend? That shouldn't matter. Didn't they know that someone had been killed here recently?
Jaune thought about getting up to inform the two children of the grisly event, but stopped when he realized what the hell he was actually thinking. The waitress came by and placed a drink in front of him. Jaune didn't remember ordering anything but he guessed he must have. He grabbed the drink and downed nearly half of it. He set the mug down and resisted the urge to spit it back out. He didn't like black coffee—he didn't really like any type of coffee. Why had he come in here again?
Jaune forced himself to stop.
He took a deep breath and tried to forget about everything.
He needed to slow down. He was starting to go insane. This problem was getting to him. The second he had woken up he had been fretting about, questioning if he should have even wasted time sleeping in the first place. Someone could have died while he had been in dreamland.
No one had, he reminded himself, but the thought still weighed on his mind.
Jaune took another deep breath. Instead of thinking about all the things he couldn't solve it was time to focus on the things he could. Roman had actually given him more information then he probably intended, simply from his appearance last night. He already mentioned how it proved that was a way to track the spider-slug, but it also gave some insight into what it might do. Roman had gone out of his way to stop it last night which implied that a third body was the last thing the spider-slug needed before it completed whatever it was trying to do, and Roman didn't what that. However, Roman was willing to let him take over meaning that even if Jaune failed, the results wouldn't be Remnant ending. That was a comforting thought, at least. Roman and him couldn't be the only caretaker in Vale, after all. The fact none of the others had stepped in probably meant they didn't think this issue was that important. Likely Roman had only stepped in because for whatever reason the spider-slug accomplishing its goal on that particular night would have been an inconvenience to him.
Still none of that helped him. It only made him feel a little better about his possible failure. Jaune needed something concert. Something that might push him in the right direction, and as sad as it was to admit, he wasn't going to find it on his own.
He was going to need a second opinion. He just hoped he wouldn't be killed trying to get it.
"You've got balls for coming back here. I'll give you that," Junior said from behind the bar.
Jaune was slouched over on his stool, starting to have second thoughts. The Malachite twins flanked either side of him, and since it was too early for the club to be officially open, there were no witness if something were to happen to him. He hadn't brought Emerald since putting her in the same space with the twins would sabotage any reasonable negotiation, but with the almost predatory look the girls were giving him, he was wishing he had.
"I'm just here for some information as a paying client. I don't want to start anything."
"I'm well aware of your commitment issues," Junior sneered.
"I apologized for that," Jaune said. "I didn't mean to disappear. It just some things happened and I couldn't call you."
"Yet, you can't tell me what that 'something' was. Not that it matters. I wouldn't have expected any excuses. You're lucky, most gangs don't let runaways off so easily."
"Stop associating me with your gang. All I did was cook food. I'm no criminal." So, what if he committed a handful of crimes, like forgery and robbery, and whose "friend group" comprised of exclusively criminals. None of that made him a criminal. Jaune Arc was straight as an arrow.
Junior sighed. "What is it that you want to know."
Jaune straightened up ready to get down to business. His reason for coming here was simple. If the White Fang really were being targeted by the spider-slug, Junior would be the one to ask. He would know if the White Fang had been up to anything odd lately. "You know about those two faunus that were murder recently?" Junior nodded. "I need to know who they were and what connection they had to each other."
"Why do you want to know about them?" Melanie said from his left.
"Yeah, you playing detective now?" Miltia echoed from his right.
"Something like that," Jaune replied looking at his ex-boss.
Junior held out his hand making it clear what he required. Jaune handed him a handful and lien and had to fish out more when Junior grunted in disapproval. Once the funds were appropriately transferred, Junior stashed it behind the bar and started talking. "Both of them, the bookstore owner and the farmer, were White Fang members, not just supporters but actual active members. They both ran hideouts were members could gather and hide stuff. Other than that, they kept mostly to themselves. I don't even think they ever personally met each other. There were rumors that the bookstore owner was trying to get out, but my sources say that the White Fang didn't make a hit, so if you're trying to find the killer, I don't know. Is that enough for you?"
"No, not really," Jaune said.
"Well, that's all I got. Those two were nobodies. I only looked into them after they were killed."
Jaune placed his head on the bar counter in defeat. Nothing Junior said had helped, and at the end of it all, it turned out Jaune had known more than him. He really shouldn't have put so much faith in Junior. He'd didn't know what was going on or had and real interest in it. Too him this was just another murder. How many of those must have happened daily in such a large city. Was Jaune really going to have to call Roman even after he had already shown up to give him a helping hand. He could already hear the orange-haired thief laughing at him and calling him an idiot.
"Before you kick me out, could you at least take a look at this and tell me if any of these places mean anything to you," Jaune asked pulling out the map he had marked on.
Junior took the map from Jaune's hand like he was a solicitor who wouldn't go away. "They just look like random spots in Vale to me," Junior said after looking at it for maybe five seconds. "What are these lines, though?"
Jaune, too gloomy to come up with a convincing lie, just told the truth. "They're the direction the two faunus were pointing when they died. I'm sure it means something, but I don't know what."
"What the hell are you getting up too?" Miltia said, honestly sounding a little bit worried.
"Honesty, I'm not sure myself anymore."
"The lines intersect you know," Junior said as if he was reading off a script.
Jaune shot up. "What are you talking about? Are you seeing the same thing I am? Those lines are completely straight. They aren't ever going to touch."
"They aren't on this flat piece of paper you drew them on, but Remnant's a sphere."
"Huh."
"Did you even go to school? Parallel line doesn't exist on a sphere because the curve of the sphere forces them to cross each other." Jaune looked at Junior like he was a Oum sent angel. "You seriously didn't know that?"
Jaune slowly shook his head. He was glad to see the Melanie and Militia weren't giving him any disappointed looks suggesting they hadn't known either. "So, where do they meet?" Jaune asked nearly jumping over the counter.
Junior gave him a rough shove to send him back. "I can't tell just from looking at it, and I'm not doing your math homework. Work it out yourself," He said, tossing the map back to Jaune.
He clutched at it with a new sense of hope. This was what he had been missing. "I could kiss you right now."
"Try it and you'll be leaving her in pieces."
"I'll accept one," Melanie teased.
Jaune was in such exhilaration that he didn't even think. He embraced Melanie and gave her a quick, sloppy kiss on the cheek before running out of the club to find a library or someplace else that could get him what he needed.
Melanie was as stiff as a statue as she brought her hand up to her check, feeling some of Jaune's saliva. Melanie was never one to shy away or be embarrassed by anything sexual, but she didn't know how to react to this, and the bright blush on her face made it very clear.
Miltia burst out laughing a second later.
Emerald walked down the wide streets of Vale's industrial district. When she had woken up Jaune was already gone. She had called him, but all she got in return was the grating sound of his half-coherent ramblings. Emerald hoped he wasn't acting like that in public or they would put him in a mental hospital.
Jaune hadn't given her any instructions, but she wasn't some dog waiting around for her owner to come back. At first, it had just been going out to do some things around town. It was nice to walk around and not be on the watch for potential targets and police, but it also got boring very quickly.
She couldn't have been out longer than a few hours, but it was becoming a slog to walk through stores and hear middle-aged women argue about which was the better deal. What kind of lives did these people live where they could argue about something like that? Their idea of excitement was probably the cliffhanger at the end of their weekly show.
Emerald missed her blond roommate. Jaune was fun. He was a little dumb and overzealous, but he knew how to live. Nothing was too insane for him as long as he thought it needed to be done. She thought about finding him and tagging along with whatever he was doing for the investigation, but that would just make her an observer, hardly better than what she was doing now. Jaune wasn't the only one who could do this. She had a working brain. She could investigate without him, hell, she had done most of the legwork at Bury anyways.
This led her to the industrial district, where the cat Jaune had brought home had been attacked. Emerald didn't know the exact location, but Jaune had given her a general idea. Unlike at night, the industrial district was filled with the heavy sounds of machinery and men running around as containers were moved for one place to another.
She got an odd look from time to time, but nobody tried to stop her or were too bothered by her presence. They were all too busy with their job to hit on her either. Although they did still steal glances, it was a much better setting than the main city where teenage boys with nothing to do sat around drinking and trying their luck with anything with a womanly shape.
Emerald didn't blame them for trying to chat her up. She was gorgeous. Her dark, exotic skin tone, her slim figure, and her perfect hair put her above the model-like huntresses, in her opinion. Her looks were the only gift her birth-parents, whoever they were, ever gave her, and she wasn't going to let them go to waste. A thief had to use ever weapon available to them although her fists clenched and her eyes hardened as she thought back to what she had to give up in order to have her aura unlocked.
Without really paying attention, Emerald managed to find her way to the attack site. There was nothing distinctive about it or any odd feeling about the area, but Emerald knew that this was the place because it turned out she wasn't the only person who had this idea.
A sneaky little feline was crouched near a building, examining the wall. "Shouldn't the kitty be in school." Her bow perked up and her hand went to her weapon as she jumped to face the sudden voice. Her amber eyes narrowed when they landed on Emerald and for a minute it looked like she was going to run away, but she quickly realized that wouldn't do anything.
"I would appreciate if you called me by my name. It's Blake," she said, her hand still hovering over her weapon. "and classes are done for the day."
"Don't you have clubs to go to or even friends to hang out with," Emerald mocked.
"This is more important."
"I'm sure." Emerald made sure the cat saw her eyes roll. "Didn't we tell you to leave this alone, though?"
"You don't get to decided what I do or don't do."
"Ture, but you're just wasting your time. You don't even know what you're doing. Tell me, how much insight has looking at that wall given you?" Emerald was glad to see the girl's features harden in irritation and embarrassment.
"At least, I've been trying. You just got here."
"It's call relaxing, something you've clearly neglected."
"How can you say that! People are dead. That thing killed them, and nobody is trying to stop it. Nobody even knows it exists. I'm the only one."
Emerald's mischievous smirk vanished as she genuinely got angry. "Are you serious? The only one. Do you even remember who you're talking to? We said we would handle it? There is absolutely no reason for you to interfere."
"Clearly there is. You say I don't know what I'm doing, but I think it's the other way around. You say you have this handle, yet I've been in school all day and still beat you here. What have you been doing this entire time."
Emerald shrugged. "Like I said, I've been relaxing. Walked around town for a while. I also slept in. We were out late last night, and not all of us got to take a cat nap."
Emerald knew that Blake wouldn't like that answer, but the sheer anger that worked its way into her body took even Emerald by surprise. "Do you even care what might happen if that thing is left to roam free! If it kills another faunus there's going to be a riot. More people will die."
"You're being dramatic. People are scared and uncertain, not violent and crazy."
"You don't know the White Fang like I do. Anything they can use to blame humans they will, and if they think they have the momentum things will get violent, fast."
"Let's say I believe you, and the White Fang really is preparing for a huge terrorist attack. What is this creature-hunt you're on going to do to stop it?"
"If I stop it another faunus won't have to die, and the White Fang—"
"Do you hear yourself! Do you honestly believe that preventing one murder will change anything? The spider-slug isn't the only thing that kills people. Some poor faunus could be getting stabbed to death right now. You killing this thing isn't going to bring any conclusion to the crime. Faunus will still be mistrustful of the police. Tension between humans and faunus aren't going to go away, and the White Fang will just find something else. If you want things to change you have work towards it, not just play whack-a-mole with every new problem that shows up. At best, you're just restore things to the status que."
"Then why are you doing this, huh! What are you going to get from killing this monster?"
Emerald couldn't take it anymore. Her stiff and ready stance, that was normally reserved for fight, was loosened as she took a calming breath. "You sad, sad girl. We're doing this because it's our job. Jaune might be doing it so he can save someone's life and feel like a hero, but that's more of a motivation than the reason he's specifically tracking this monster. The simple fact is that this is the job we stumbled on and we plan to see it through. Did you know that if this had turned out to be a crazy serial killer we were just going to leave it be?"
Whatever words Blake was about to say died when she heard that. Her mouth hung open and her arms slacked to her sides. "What is wrong with you.?" The faunus seemed to beg for an answer. "You can't abandon people, walk by them when they need help."
"This is the last time I'm going to say it. It is not our job to help anyone and everyone. We deal with a certain type of issue, and leave other types of issues to other people. It's how society works. I lived on the streets until not too long ago and even I know that, yet you don't seem to understand that simple concept. Would you yell at an accountant for not helping to deliver a baby? Just go back to Beacon and kill the grimm like a good little huntress."
"I'm not giving up."
Emerald was glad that her scroll started ringing because she wasn't sure if she wanted to continue this conversation. Words would never bridge the ideological gap between them.
Emerald had no problem taking the call right in front of Blake, knowing it could only be Jaune. "I figured it out," he said. "I know were the spider-slug is going to attack, or at least where it wants to attack."
Emerald smirked making sure to talk loud enough so Blake could hear. "You found out where the creature is, that's great. Where is it? I'll meet you there." The scowl of the cat's face made it all worth it.
"Would you be able to find it if I gave you the longitude and latitude coordinates?"
"Um…no."
"Are you at the apartment? I can meet you there, need to pick up my sword anyways.
"I'm actually in the industrial district. Wanted to do some digging of my own."
"That's great, actually. The location is just a few blocks away from where that girl was attacked. I'll send you the location and get there as fast as I can. I don't think it will try anything until nightfall, but be careful."
"You don't need to worry about me, I'm more scared about you tripping over your shoelace and hurting yourself while running to get here."
"Hardy har har. Seriously, though, this thing is dangerous."
"Okay dad, I won't take candy from strangers, and I won't get into any strange cars." Emerald paused and stole a glance at the feline who was subtly trying to listen in. Happy with the distance between them she softened her voice. "But thanks for caring."
Emerald ended the call. "That was my partner," she told Blake as if she couldn't have guessed. "He found what we're looking for, so I'll be off. Feel free to look around here to your heart's content."
"I'm coming with you," Black said quickly matching Emerald's footsteps.
"Are you sure you're not a goldfish faunus because if after that conversation, you think I'm going to let you follow me, you've got some serious problems."
"I know you don't want me to come but you can't stop me. If you try to force me away, I'll just follow you from the shadows."
"Then I'll just give you the slip."
"I won't be that easy to lose."
"We'll see."
The two girls walked away while the real Emerald leaned on the warehouse wall. The cat would realize the trick soon enough, but Emerald would already be long gone by then.
Illusions were so convenient.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Emerald asked.
Jaune picked up a mostly burnt through cigar he found on the ground, it was the exact type Roman smoked. "Yeah, no doubt about it." They were still in the industrial district, but instead of the endless rows of warehouses where cargo was stored, they were stood in a fenced-in area besides a huge factory. It was filled with only huge piles of gravel and some rusting pieces of metal.
"If it doesn't show up soon, we're going to be in trouble."
Jaune had to agree. The sun had dipped into the horizon about an hour ago. If it wasn't for the etch that Jaune made to produce some light, they wouldn't have been able to see at all, but it wouldn't last forever and had already begun to fade. It was just another problem with his etches. He really needed to learn more techniques. His only other magic wasn't much more than glorified storage. The goal was to be able to store his sword and shield in the Apeiron and be able to bring them out at a moment's notice, but that was more complicated than he thought it would be, and even if he got it down, his swordplay wasn't really at a level where it could assist him against any huge threat. With Emerald's help he had gotten better, but huntsmen level skills weren't built in a couple of weeks.
His etches were supposed to cover for his lack of offensive strength, and did a good enough job when Emerald could distract the target, but the longer he was using them the more he realized some of their glaring flaws. Three in particular could make them absolutely useless in certain situations. The first was the one he had been dealing with since the beginning. Etches were slow to make and pretty inflexible when you started which wouldn't be too bad expect for it feeding into the second problem. There was no way to add a delay to them. Once he finished drawing them they activated. Jaune had created a pseudo workaround by drawing most of the etch but not quiet finishing it. It allowed him to set up a couple different options like he had back in Bury, but it wasn't perfect. He still had to be by the etch to finish it, and he just had to guess what etches he might need, and since every little change made the etch do something different, he would have to guess exactly right. The millions of variations also made it impossible to carry a load of near completed etches around, drawn on playing cards or something. Searching through the deck for the right one would probably take more time than just drawing it from scratch.
They were both serious problems, but as long as he had Emerald around they weren't insurmountable. The third problem, however, would likely be the death of him if he ever encountered it. He had only thought of it recently, but it was no less critical. If Jaune ever had to fight anyone with any knowledge of etches he'd be done for. It wouldn't matter how fast or proficient he became at using them. By their very nature, it was him drawing a diagram of exactly what he was going to do. It would be like shouting out your attack before you did it. Roman had already proven that Jaune wasn't the only one with this knowledge, and it wouldn't be hard to believe that some of the otherworldly beings would know about them too. It worked both ways, of course, but Jaune didn't have anything else to rely on while he was sure someone like Roman had a thousand different tricks.
"Why are you so pale?" His partner stated. "We're going to beat this thing no problem. If it ever shows up, that is."
"Maybe it got spooked by Roman and it's too scared to attack anyone," Jaune joked.
"Wouldn't that be a kick in the shin. We'd have to keep coming back every night until it grows a pair."
"Are you suggesting you're not enjoying our bonding time?" Jaune said, faking offence.
"Aw babe, are you really that lonely? Isn't sleeping together enough for you?"
"I don't know who your trying to embarrass with your suggestive remarks. There's no one else here, and I know full well we only sleep in the same room."
"I'm hoping the spider-slug has a sense of humor. We might be able to hear it if it starts laughing."
"This is serious business you know. This thing was able to overpower a Beacon huntress. It could be preparing to kill us right now, and we would never know since it has that invisibility trick."
"I doubt it had to be that strong to take down the little kitty, and didn't you already make it so it can't sneak up on us?" Jaune nodded. His light etch was doing more than just allowing them to see. Just because the spider-slug could slip between their vision didn't mean it wasn't there. If the spider-slug tried to sneak up on them the etch would work as an alarm since the light wouldn't be able to pass through the spider-slug making it very easy to tell where it was. "See, so we've got nothing to be afraid of expect dying of old age waiting for it to show up. Seriously, we're standing in the exact spot it wants to kill someone with our guard down, at least from its perspective. What more could it want?"
In the distance a burst of noise cut through Emerald's complaints. It sounded like gunfire, probably because it was. Jaune jumped to his feet coming up with the answer to Emerald's question. "A faunus."
It wasn't long until they had made it to the source of the noise. Dim streetlights lit their way, so they were able to see the large, fury creature in their path. For some reason, it was stuck in the middle of the street with one of its leg trapped in an ice sculpture of the cat faunus Jaune had brought back to the apartment. He didn't really have time to question how strange it was as Emerald sprinted ahead of him, transforming her weapons and swinging the blades at the creature's hind. At the same time, another swinging blade came at the creature's face.
The three blades cut deep gashes into the creature causing it to arch its body in pain and release a horrible splutter of noise. It legs trashed around widely, trying to hit the things causing it harm. A black streak dove between the moving appendages and managed to sever one at the base. Red blood splatter onto the ground as the disembodied leg continued to twitch a few moments longer.
The spider-slug's two tongues shoot out in a screech of spit and pain. It was enough for the creature to dislodged it's trapped leg and use the still attached ice as an improvised mace to strike at the figure who had taken it leg. The figure dodged away easily, landing between Jaune and Emerald."
"How did you know to come her?" Emerald growled.
"You might have gotten me with that trick, but I knew where you lived. All I had to do was wait there until he came back and then track him," the cat faunus said. Emerald gave Jaune a very nasty look.
"I'm not your enemy here," Jaune pleaded as he watch the creature hobble around to face them. It seemed to recognize how much danger it was in because in the time it took a person to blink it disappeared. "I don't think so," Jaune said as he finished the etch he had been drawing.
The air in front of his twisted to form a miniature tornado. The spider-slug quickly reappeared as it was tossed round by the razor-sharp wind.
Emerald and the other girl fired their weapons while this was happing, and within seconds the monster's fur was gaining little red polka dots. As the winds died down, the spider-slug saw its chance and rushed the three teenagers forcing them to move out of the way. It didn't try to attack any of them, but kept heading straight, running away.
The group gave chase.
"You were supposed to leave this to us," Jaune said as they ran.
"It's the two of you who could have stayed home," the black-haired girl replied. "I wasn't having any issue killing it alone. The three of us are just overkill."
Jaune had to begrudgingly agree. Most of the spider-slug's power came from it getting the drop on people. With the three of them having gotten the drop on the creature it wasn't putting up much of a fight. Jaune wasn't sure how he felt about dragging this girl into what was supposed to be his job, but she wasn't exactly putting herself in anymore danger than she would be if she were fighting grimm so maybe it was okay.
They chased the monster back to the factory yard. It was clearly losing steam as it struggled more and more to outpace them. It crouched down and leaped towards the factory wall in an attempt to climb onto the roof and lose them that way, but it didn't even make it up halfway. It produced that sticky substance to try and climb the rest, but the girls would riddle it with bullets long before it could make it to the top. It had nowhere left to go; this fight was over.
The creature had enough intelligence to come to that conclusion too because it stopped trying to climb up and turned its body to face them. Instead of coming down to fight them in a desperate attack, it pasted its back to the wall and held out its top two legs in front of it in a 'V' shape like it was trying to grasp something.
It was very odd, and caused Jaune to wonder what it was trying to do. It only took a second for him to put it together. "Stop!" Jaune yelled to the advancing girls. Emerald headed his warning and stalled her attack. Blake did out.
She jumped into the air and delivered a massive diagonal cut across its entire underbelly. The creature expired a moment later with its top slumping over, but it's arms locked in the same position. "See," she said once she landed wiping the blood from her weapon, "I know what I'm doing."
Emerald huffed not liking the happy smile the cat was wearing. "Why did you want us to stop?"
Jaune went completely still waiting for the disaster to begin. For a while nothing happened and Jaune dared to hope that the spell hadn't been completed and the spider-slug's body wasn't suitable for the third victim, but soon enough the air grew thick and seemed to fill with the very essence of dread. A cold chill ran through Jaune's body like a bunch of tiny bugs crawling just under his skin. Looking at the girls he could tell they felt it too.
Then Jaune heard something. It was faint right now but quickly getting closer. It sounded like the beating of wings.
School paper writing for an Atlas science class.
Merlot
In literature and witness accounts, the phrase "I could feel that someone was watching me" or some other variation is often used to lead credence to a stalker or other dangerous individual hunting the person who made the claim. In order to see if this could actually be true many experiments were done to see if a person really could recognize when someone was watching them. The answer was a definite no. Neither faunus nor humans, regardless if their aura was unlocked or not, could tell if they were being watched, yet this claim keeps appearing and people insisted that they could tell. Either there is some massive conspiracy for people to lie about this feeling, they're simply crazy or too influenced by other who've stated the same claim, or they're telling the truth. A conspiracy would simply be idiotic, and these cases are far too common for it to simply be a figment of the imagination, but how could it be the truth if scientific experiments have proven it false?
It's possible there is a problem with the experiment. They all focus on the ability of the person being watched to perceive their watcher, but perhaps it not them we should be observing but the watchers themselves. What if these violent people, who prey on the general population, are the ones whose very gaze cause a physical reaction in those being watched.
Teacher comment: Merlot please try and focus your writing to subjects that actually have scientific backing. You have a great mind and your theories are interesting to read, but they more often than not live in the realm of fantasy. If you keep your feet on the ground I'm sure you'll do great things. 62/100 D-
An: Once upon a time I thought this arc was only going to be two chapters, but things happen. I hope you all enjoyed Emerald's and Blake's argument. I'm honestly not really sure what I'm doing with it. In the last chapter I came pretty close to cutting out the part about Emerald yelling about Blake but left it in honestly to just pad out the chapter, yet everyone seemed to really like it so I tried to build on it.
Also, this didn't get a huge explanation since I didn't want to drop an entire technical paper in the middle of the chapter, but if you want to know more on how the parallel lines on a sphere work and how they actually do intersect check out Vsauce's video Which Way is Down on YouTube that should help explain things better than I ever could.