A/N: I own nothing, at all. all licenses belong to their proper owners. Short chapter this week, but i think it is a good contrast to the previous. All feedback is welcome and I hope you enjoy.
It had been three weeks since the incident at the docks. Surprisingly, there hadn't been any fallout from the whole situation. Days went by, classes were attended, and weapons were tuned and modified. Team RWBY had been working on their team combat in prep for the tournament that would be accompanying the Vytal festival, they had put at least three hours a day over the week into improving their teamwork. Steele had sat on the sideline for the most part due to his not being allowed to participate as a part of team RWBY in fights. Instead he and XR had been practicing at the kill house, going over the kind of drills they would practice back on the frontier.
The displaced battalion of now militia forces had been billeted at Beacon, until there was a need for a large combat force they were mostly just sitting around and working as mechanics and labourers at the hangar; there was a plan in the works to have them establish a patrol between the nearby villages. Johnson and Annie had dedicated their time to helping Steele and XR master the AWS and their systems. Johnson was his new DS, every moment on the training field, in the kill house, or on the gauntlet was supervised by him if Steele was on foot. Annie on the other hand, was bringing him up to par in a Titan fight; turns out that simulators- no matter how good- weren't a suitable replacement for a skilled Pilot. Annie made it clear as day that he had gotten lucky so far.
That was all during the week though, Steele's current concern was making sure that the people in line at the shelter didn't get too uppity. When contract work had gotten short- a few weeks before the thing with Blake, since then there hadn't been any- Steele had gone looking for something to do on his days off. Between his 'work', his liberal interpretation of salvage laws, and the help of a money launderer and a decent investment manager, Steele had ended up with nearly half a million Lien to his name. It all came together in the form of a community center housed in a defunded school in the middle of the Faunus ghetto on the outskirts of the city.
The center pulled triple duty as a shelter, public kitchen, and a general community center. Running a few hundred beds, a small medical ward, a kitchen, and a number of community outreach programs was expensive, and the place ran off of donations and volunteers. In an uncharacteristically soft- or as he was suspecting, unable to develop in the middle of a war- move, he had made an anonymous donation to the value of the six digits and walked up the same day looking to volunteer. Steele had been spending his weekends where nothing else was happening working 12-hour days, he still hadn't gotten the hang of having free time to himself and so found himself needing to do something.
Between working security during peak traffic hours and the rest of his time doing maintenance on the facility, he was happily busy on the weekends. It was the lunch line currently, a meandering long line of Vale's unwashed and unfed looking for relief. Food, a shower, and a place to sleep for a few hours was something they were more than happy to supply. The issue was that the White Fang liked to cause problems because humans worked at the shelter- claiming that the humans were enforcing Faunus inferiority- junkies caused problems just being them sometimes, and half their clients suffered from some sort of illness- mental or physical- that needed to be accounted for. There was also the small issue that a lot of the people here had suffered under discrimination, racial violence, domestic violence, and all the other things that came along with poverty.
Steele's partner for the shift was an older Faunus who went by Swamp. Swamp was the closest thing they had to a personnel manager, he had the final say about who was allowed to volunteer and where they were allowed to work. It was interesting working with Swamp, the guy didn't give a fuck about personality, only what you did. He was old too, had to be pushing his 60ies by now. Swamp was bald, with a bushy black beard that was halfway through greying, but not in the handsome salt and pepper look some were lucky enough to get. He had a broken nose and was missing a few teeth, as a child he had had his ears forcibly docked. Steele and Swamp got along quite well, they had both been miners as children and both bore the marks of their forced labour.
The two of them were out by the main entrance, watching over the people milling around the yard that acted as a waiting area. The old playground was getting plenty of attention from children from out and about the area, the line was its normal noisy self. Most of the people in the line were chatting with their neighbors, some were quiet and standoffish, and the last group was the one that needed watching; Swamp called them the Feral. They had been on their own out on the street for so long dealing with the realities of life on the street that they were barely able to function in polite company. Aggressive, Hostile, and paranoid, it was they were thankful, but it took them a long time to warm up to and trust the volunteers.
Steele was leaning up against one side of the main doors with the Torrent in hand and the Sidewinder on his back, Swamp's knee was acting up, so he was sitting down with his shotgun across his lap. The two of them had been at their posts for around an hour and would be in place for another two if the line moved at the normal pace.
"So, I got this cousin. She's a student up at Beacon, like you." Swamp spoke slowly for the most part and had a habit of making you answer your own questions with one of his own. He sounded simple but was a damn smart man. "She says that you normally cover your arm in a wrap when you aren't in armor, but I've only seen you wear it once. First day you were here. Don't blame you, those are some nasty marks. Guess what I'm getting at, why not here?"
Steele took a few minutes to answer, it was a good question. "I'm one of what? six humans who work here. The only one on security during the weekends. Most of the people here have good reason to distrust humans, lots of people came from the villages hoping for a better life, now look at this. They're out here, begging, most of them have a place to sleep, most of them have a job. Things aren't as bad as they used to be, but there is still so much room to improve. These people are the ones who fell through the cracks. You think that they are going to feel safe around a heavily armed human after what some of them have been through? These marks, they show I know what they've been through. I keep my arms covered because people see them and pity me or judge me. Here, they're just part of the scenery, they make me one of the group instead of an outsider."
Swamp just went back to watching the line, he would think for a while and they throw something new at Steele. The line continued past them, a few nods from familiar faces, a few shared words, a smile for the old lady and her granddaughter with the wolf ears who always stopped to talk with him when they came through. "Steele! I did it, I got accepted! I'm going to Beacon next year."
The granddaughter had been able to attend a local combat school, that was the main reason they had to come here for meals, putting a child through combat school wasn't cheap. "Good for you, you worked hard to make it. I'm looking forward to seeing you in action. your grandmother worked hard to make sure you had the chance, do her proud.
"so, who is it for? You? Or them?" Swamp came out of left field there. It took Steele a moment to figure out what he was talking about, their previous conversation coming back to him.
"Me, I guess. I fought for freedom my whole life; this is the first place I've ever just walked around with the brands showing. Its not that I feel safer or more comfortable, just that I feel like I can. If it helps others, then I'm all for it."
Swamp huffed and shifted in his seat. "I've heard worse reasons. You going to take a look at that heater up on the third floor? Thing started venting again a few days ago, no one has been able to get it to work properly."
"Yeah I'll give it another poke. that's what, the ninth time the thing has gone? At this rate I might just pull the thing out and rig something up." Steele had 'fixed' that damn thing twice himself, thankfully someone else had worked on it the last time. Something was fucked up in the inner lining somewhere and it kept rupturing, the thing was way past needing to be replaced, but really, they couldn't afford to replace anything they could fix for free. They spent the rest of the shift making small talk with the line before Swamp went home and Steele went up to take a look at the damn heater.
It had been a good day; three whole meals had gone through without any issues and that heater only needed a spot weld to get back to working. XR hadn't needed much maintenance, the range was empty, nobody had tried poking into his business. The team was out when Steele got back, leaving the dorm surprisingly quiet for a weekend night. It was odd, but not unheard of. Usually Yang and Ruby were out and about until sundown, Blake was either curled up with a book all day or out with Yang, and Weiss, well Steele didn't actually know what she did with her weekends when the team wasn't together.
Steele didn't hesitate to take advantage of the fact that no one was around, taking a long shower and packing up for bed. His head had just hit the pillow when there was a knock at the door. Sighing, Steele got up and made his way over. There was a very formal looking Luna on the other side. "Forrest Steele, you have been summoned by the Stella Clan of the Order of the Knights of the Maidens. To answer for your activities that have put to risk: members of the clan, the peace in the Kingdom of Vale, and the reputation of the Order. You will appear before the leaders of the clan in two weeks time and will be accompanied by a member of the clan to ensure your safe and timely arrival."
She handed him a proper scroll; a roll of paper sealed with wax. Then she turned and walked off without another word. Steele just stood there in the door watching her go, staring dumbly into the void as he processed that the consequences of his actions had somehow caught up with him. He was shaken out of it by a punch to the shoulder, Yang and Ruby had come back. "See something you like Spaceman? didn't figure she would be your type."
Steele held out the scroll. "I think I'm fucked."