"Jesus fucking Christ."
I bit back the expression as best I could, but only ended up with a sore tongue. A hot pang of agony pecked against my brain.
A severe case of sleep deprivation (I had been ignoring the auditory hallucinations ever since the fourth day on the extermination) was what I'll pin this mishap on.
Mishap is a generously lenient word for what just happened. Fuck-up is closer to the magnitude of my... fuck-up.
And yet, despite my efforts to hide that I was once a Catholic - or even from another world - I have divulged a detail from my past life.
Hephaestus was something I could narrowly get away with. Of the four gifts granted to humanity, Hephaestus was the ancient god of the gift of creation. He also was evoked by way of fire of a forge. Thus, I was capable of making justification for this.
But not for the deity of another religion. One could say that Jesus's name evokes the thought of white for purity but...
Christianity doesn't exist in this world.
Desiree's miserable mewling ceased abruptly and her grip slackened. In my arms she remained motionless. The ten seconds that passed were filled with the most painful silence I have ever experienced in my life.
In those ten seconds, I contemplated my next course of action.
I wasn't ready to reveal who I was. Hell, I wasn't planning on ever doing that! I guess old habits die hard.
Desiree created some distance between us and pushed away from me just a bit.
"What?" her weak voice was filled with curiousity and... anticipation? "Gray, are you...?"
"Shit," I muttered. "Do you know who that is?" Likely not, but you never could know.
"Yes."
Oh fuck.
She was the other one. The Brothers told me.
My twin sister, of whom I had grown up with for the whole of my life, is from Earth.
But that would mean...
I bolted to my feet and pulled Thunderstruck. In naught but a second, my blade was against her throat.
"Wha-"
"They told me about you. That you would try to stop me from changing anything." Dez sat there defeated. She didn't try to resist.
"Gray, what are you talking about?"
"They warned me. They told me that you were going to stop me from changing what happens." My nostrils flared and my blood boiled. All this time my enemy was my sister.
Tears streamed down her face yet again. Her cracking voice pleaded with me.
"Please, Gray. Not you. Please." I gulped and my heart raced. Was I really about to do this?
"Why?" Was I going to kill my own flesh and blood? For what? My own chance at a new life? End hers to extend mine? Is that how it is?
"Why what?"
"Why would you try to stop me?" I sternly interrogated. My hands shook uncontrollably. I couldn't do this. Not to my sister.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Gray, please. Tell me what you mean!" she screamed. She was more of a warrior than me. Even in the face of death, she fought for her survival. Even when racked with immense amounts of guilt and threatened by her own brother, she trusts me.
My knees were shaking and my face was cold. Each and every breath I took was unsatisfactory and every blink conjured watery anguish onto my eyes.
I dropped my lance with a clatter and fell to my knees. Thoroughly undeterred by my aggression, my sister approached me gently and wrapped me in her arms again.
"Do you know who- or what RWBY is?" I asked not even turning up to face her.
"No, I don't. Please, Gray... Tell me what that is."
That...
That changes everything!
If she didn't know what would happen and was simply living just to live, she couldn't know how her presence would impact the show!
I compiled what I remembered of the show and what the overall outcome would be of certain events. I mentally constructed a timeline.
And so I told her what she didn't know. How RWBY was a work of fiction and how we had been reincarnated mind and soul on Remnant. How RWBY was a team of four huntresses in training that would change the world for the better.
She took it better than expected. Not once did she question me or what was to happen. All of it seemed absolutely incredible to her and she was blown away by my words.
"I've been tasked with fixing this world, so to speak." Maybe I'm being too trusting, but I've already told her more than enough. "I can tell you more later. Get some rest." Guilt welled up in the front of my brain, tilting my face to the floor. "And... I'm sorry." I shuffled my way to the door. "I'm gonna check on Kermes."
A small hand wrapped itself around my forearm and a cheeky use of her semblance prevented me from pulling it away from her. Dez didn't want me to go. Her doubly haggard frown replaced whatever words she would've used to beg me to stay.
"I'll be back. Try to get some sleep." With that, she hesitantly released my hand.
The trip to the infirmary was brisk. Inside the room was the girl in question, beneath a myriad of heavy sheets and bandages and an oxygen mask.
Her slow, mechanical breathing and lethargic reaction to me pulling a seat up was the result of her being pain medicated six ways to Sunday. She was lucid, but only barely.
Mr. Birch placed a glass of water at her bedside with a smile and nod to me. I reciprocated the gesture.
"How is she?" I asked.
"She's got a few broken ribs, a broken clavicle, dislocated shoulders... Some of her tendons were torn on top of all of the gashes too. But she'll be good to go in a week's time." He checked each of those off with his index finger and scrolled down on her medical file. "She's on a lot of meds right now and I'm numbing her pain with my semblance, so she likely won't be able to answer anything you ask her. If you're just visiting, try not to talk too loud."
Kermes Diamant was the most qualified huntress in our grade level. She was all around nice and kind and had one if the brightest minds in our class. She did usually keep to herself though, so she only had a few acquaintances.
Auburn hair was buried beneath her head and her crimson eyes carefully traced my face. A thin grin graced her face when she saw me.
Kermes is someone I'd be confident I can call a friend. We were paired up for more than a few group projects and we ate lunch together a few times. She liked this one quiet spot at the edge of the Signal forest. One thing led to another and I just started relaxing with her there.
That was only three weeks ago when I started eating there. This young woman who I had just befriended had been almost mortally wounded.
This fucking planet.
I gave her hand a tender squeeze which she imperceptibly returned. I lingered like this until the controlled respiration and metronomic tone of the equipment lulled her to sleep in minutes.
I was just about to leave when Yang burst through the door.
"Where is she?!" she practically yelled. I gave her a quick shush and indicated where she was. She rushed to Kermes's side and sighed in relief. "Oh thank the gods."
"Wait. How do you know Kermes?" I hadn't ever seen Yang hang out with Kermes. Why was she so concerned?
"We're roommates and friends." Oh. That's how. "Could you give me a rundown, Doc?"
"She's got a broken clavicle-" Mr. Birch tried.
"Make it short, please." Mr. Birch chuckled and obliged.
"She'll be good in a week. She's out cold at the moment and loud noises will just make her pain worse, so pipe down, alright?" Yang acknowledged that with a hand wave. Then she stood up and dragged me out of the infirmary by my hood.
Resisting didn't work, if you were wondering.
Rounding the corner of the building out of sight of anyone, Yang pinned me against a wall.
"Gray, your sister was her partner." Yang growled, hauling me up to my feet. My gray, confused eyes met her burning, red, scalding eyes. "How could she let that happen?"
"I don't know! She might have frozen up!" Yang's gauntlets clicked back. "D-did you get taller?"
The blonde girl punched the wall immediately to my left, cratering it and throwing gray concrete dust into my already gray hair. Okay, not cool.
"Take it easy, Yang." I placed my hands on her shoulders and pulled her tense arms down. "Just breathe. In and out." She took my advice and the red in her eyes soothed to lilac. In her rage unwinding, she spat out to the ground,
"Arena level four. Tomorrow morning at nine. Tell her to be there." And then she power walked her angry ass away.
Holy fuckin' shit.
Well. I'll just take a shower and hit the sack then.
-XXXXX-
"Dez. Dee. Wake up."
She woke up with a start and uneven breathing.
I gave her a moment to snap out of it. And then I began my case.
"What happened to your armor?" Lifting the plate carrier yielded pulverised ceramic dust and tattered ballistic fibers falling out.
"It saved my life? What else does it look like?" She replied, getting up to take the armor piece from me. I let her have it but evenly pushed her to her bed. I had her sit and pulled the suspiciously pristine shirt on her off. "Hey, hey!"
Two claw shaped scars were drawn from her upper right back to her lower left back.
"Really? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I... didn't want to worry you." Her flushed face angled down and I ran my finger over the wounds. They didn't feel deep and were luckily superficial. Dez winced and I pulled back. "It still kinda hurts, you know."
"Sorry." I let a decent length of time pass before I mentioned Yang's summons. "So, Dez? Yang wants you to meet her on the fourth floor of the arena tower today before nine." Uneasiness polluted the room.
Both of us were out the dorm and on our way to the arena in moments. Desiree replaced the powdered remains of her old plate with a brand new one. The matte black rubber exterior of the new panel was easily visible through the three large gashes on the suit they were in.
Yang waited in the middle of the arena floor. We were right on time. Pointing at her, I warned my wary twin.
"Try to talk her down. You may be in for a fight either way though." She reached halfway into her next stride when she halted and spun around to me.
"What? Why?" She flicked her eyes between me and the blonde in the distance, quietly thumbing her sword's pommel. "Isn't she..."
"Kermes's roommate, yes." I leaned against my other leg and towards her ear. Whispering, I affirmed whose side I was on. "Don't blame yourself for what happened. I know for a fact that there were other huntsmen before that had the same happen to them." A relevant thought crossed my mind. "The outcome might have been even worse for them."
"But that means that worse could have happened to me and her!"
"But it didn't, right? Count your blessings."
"That isn't a fucking blessing, Gray! One of us could have died!" I huffed in frustration.
"Good thing that didn't happen, right?"
"But-"
"Shut up and talk to Yang already." I sat on one of the bleachered sides of this level of the arena. Our conversation barely echoed around the room due to its emptiness. Desiree's hesitation was just one sign of her fear of Yang. The rattling of her sword in its scabbard because of her shaking hand was another. "Go on. This needs to happen." Doling out tough love was not unfamiliar to me.
Yang initiated the conversation from a good distance away, giving Dez pause. I couldn't hear the first part of it, but eventually things escalated.
"You're a coward!" Yang yelled across the floor. The words hit Desiree like a truck, her actually getting knocked back by them. Her hands slowly crept up to her face and an electrifying spark shot up my spine. "You didn't do anything to help her!"
"I'm sorry!" And just like that, Yang assumed a fighting stance and shot off, rocketing towards my sister with a pair of shotgun blasts. I had to catch myself from equipping Thunderstruck out of habit; after all, gunshots typically started fights I got into.
Desiree pulled herself down below Yang's monstrous attack and weaved around her back. The blonder of the two spun around with a wicked hook that would have clean clocked any normal person.
Desiree pushed her back leg out and applied her semblance to the ground, skating backwards away from Yang. Yang being who she is, pursued with more of her violent jabs before she caught on that she wouldn't catch onto Dez.
Yang threw her fists down in indignation as Dez, still sliding around with eloquence, continued to apologize. The move wasn't the beginning of a tantrum - or rather it was but concealed by the fact that the spent shells in her golden gauntlets sprung out. She grabbed a long rack of ammunition from her back pockets, flung them high into the air, and slammed her wrists into them. The rows of firepower conformed to their slots on the gauntlets.
Yang stuck her left foot forward and held her left arm parallel to the leg. In a slick motion, she pulled her right arm over her left and in line with her torso, the bracelets that adorned her forearms chambering the shells with magnificent grace.
A quick one-two sent two high-velocity explosive slugs at her moving target. Thoroughly unprepared, my sister took both to the stomach and hit the wall with no small amount of force.
I calmly breathed to myself and squeezed my hand. As much as this needed to happen, I couldn't just watch as my little sister got beaten. At the same time, this is something that needed to happen.
Right?
Yang closed on the dazed Desiree with another flying punch. Her senses came back at the right time and she slid around Yang's back again.
Expecting the hook, Dez dropped lower. Instead, she was greeted with a roundhouse and a mule kick, sending her into the center of the arena. Groggily, she got to her wobbling feet.
Yang walked up to her and pushed her down. Okay, they need to stop now.
I leaped over the lower set of seats and sprinted full force to the two before something drastic would happen.
"Alright, that's enough." My feet ground against the floor as I placed myself between the girls. Gloved hands on my hips, I discreetly took my weapon off of safe.
"Yang..." Desiree coughed, wincing as she held her side. "I'm sorry-"
"Why are you apologizing?" Yang quipped. The sentence put me off. It sounded familiar... "You're too busy apologizing that you didn't tell me why you should be sorry." Dez pulled herself up with the aid of my arm, which she supported herself on.
"I'm sorry-"
"Oh my gods!" Yang yelled, planting her hands on her head and pacing around. "Quit apologizing and tell me what the hell happened!" Even I shrunk an inch at her anger.
"I just... I just... couldn't move! I know it sounds stupid-" Desiree attempted.
"It's not stupid."
"What?" I asked, unsure of what she was getting at.
"It's not stupid." Yang closed her weapon up and sat down. "My uncle told me."
I then remembered a small anecdote of her nearly getting killed. She recounted the events.
"It was a long time ago. My mother - or rather my stepmother died on a mission. It broke my dad." Yang began, playing with her hair. "He told me that Summer wasn't really my mom and that mine... Mine ran away. In the middle of the night I took my little sister with me in a wagon to look for my mom." She smiled a grim smile. "I kept walking, further and further into the forest. Rven though I was tired and Ruby fell asleep in the wagon, I kept going. Eventually, a few grimm showed up and I had just about given up. I was too tired to move my legs and too scared to scream." Yang gulped down her fear and rubbed the goosebumps she had just acquired.
"I just... Stood there. Terrified. I was going to die and because I brought my sister with me, I would have gotten her killed too." I dared not to interrupt her. Her knuckles turned white and water built up in her eyes. Despite this, she sniffled and maintained her composure. "My Uncle Qrow came just in time and saved us, but I learned my lesson. I can't let others be hurt by my actions. So I chose to become a huntress."
"Yang, I-" Desiree got cut off by Yang standing up and pulling her in.
"Don't say anything anymore. I'll never forgive you for this." Yang pushed Dez to an arms length away and looked her straight in the eyes. "And I'll expect you to act next time. I know it's asking for much from someone I just punched, but can we still be friends?" The two of them broke out into steadily increasing laughter that morphed into cry-laughing as I waited off to the side.
That's... nice. This would be the kinda thing that people get warm and fuzzy over.
So. Yang's anger over one of her friends is a start. When Ruby begins next year, Yang's going to adopt that mama bear instinct more prominently.
-XXXXX-
Dez had unhooked her armor finally. After her incident with Yang and the subsequent friendship they made, they decided that the first thing to do was to spar.
Predictable, since they had similarly fiery personalities. Pun on and off on that one.
"Hey, G?" Dee asked, stowing her torn armor on a hanger in her closet. "Thanks for... well pushing me out there."
"Yep." Now is the moment I had been waiting for. "Can I be honest with you?"
"Uhh, okay." She sat on her bed and nursed a sore shoulder from one of her altercations with Yang.
"I don't want you to stop calling me that. Gray, Junior, G, or even Gainsboro." I hung my head. No matter how I approached this, the conversation will be sober. "We are from another world to save this one. If what you say about not knowing a thing about RWBY is true, let me sum it up for you: we have a lot to do." Peering up to her curious eyes, I gave her a choice. "Assuming of course, you'll help me?"
Without even a moment of hesitation, she agreed.
"Yes."
I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding and felt as if the figurative weight on my shoulders was lifted like a literal weight.
"First off, my real name is... my real name is..." I could not for the life of me announce my real name. It wasn't as if I had forgotten it. "I was thr son of... Fuck!" My stuttering was ended momentarily by a sharp, searing pain in my head which forced me down to my knees. Loose droplets of blood clung to my lip from my nose.
I had been cursed to not remember the names of my past life. The gods had damned my life on earth.
"What the hell happened to you?" I held my hand up and warned Desiree.
"Don't mention a name from back then." I wiped the blood, it smearing across my mouth, and grabbed her shoulders. If I could remember Nathan Lorry, how come I couldn't remember-
I briefly lost vision in one of my eyes and my tongue had been scored. Maybe certain names have a certain amount of import? Either way, I am in a not-dubious pain.
"Gray, your eye is bleeding!" I blinked the red in my eye away and wiped the reddened tears off, leaving a streak of cold moisture across my sleeve. A look in a mirror showed me that I had indeed suffered a... subconjunctive something? I remember a game where that was a symptom.
"Okay, we aren't going to bring this up again." My tongue stung with every word and strangely enough, aura wasn't helping. "Anyways, get more rest. We'll start tomorrow." She agreed with me and we both got into our respective beds.
Pain kept me from resolving the day immediately. To my luck, I had also been asked a question.
"So when you left last year's winter break... That was for what?"
"The White Fang. I'm monitoring their movements for one specific individual among them." I curtly answered and hinted at my desire to sleep with, "Good night."
"It's 4 in the afternoon."
"Good afternoon then."
And I was promptly whisked away from consciousness.
-XXXXX-
"So what exactly are we doing today?" Desiree wondered aloud, having dried her hair out. She stared blankly at the sword she had just grasped hold off, silently contemplating about something somewhere on the edgeless blade. Shaking her head, she frowned and cocked her hips to the side. "You need to start talking."
"Well first off, we need to plan. The thing is, we're too early and everything is so random that planning is out of the question at the moment." Checking my wallet to see if I had a decent amount of lien, I shot Hei Xiong a text asking if I could meet up. "Today, we're finding a way to hide our faces."
Amazingly, Hei replied. No words, just a location.
"What the hell for?" Dez was losing her patience as I refused to answer her questions.
"You never know. We might have to do... less than reputable things." Merely saying that sentence made my spine shiver in anticipation. Both sets of my parents made it abundantly clear that crime is something they'd never tolerate. Desiree's reaction wasn't unwarranted, then.
"What?!" She damn near lost it at that, throwing her weapon down. "You cannot be serious."
And then we went off on each other. I brought up repeatedly that this for sure would work. She countered it with a fairly good point.
That can't be the only way, right?
For that, I had no counter. Until I remembered that there was a criminal element in certain places and times. Bringing that up and the idea that subterfuge would be a surefire way to gain an undeniable advantage against what or whoever we face off with convinced her. However, she proposed a compromise.
She put forward the proposition that we will only use any criminal connections we make if it is necessary to leverage ourselves.
I told her to keep in mind that circumstances change all the time and that the current details of our concurrent agreement must be flexible and will definitely be mutable, as unforeseen variables leading to unforeseen consequences are guaranteed in our line of work.
We shook on it and took a cab to the other side of the bridge. We pulled up on the curb to an unassuming, shorter-than-average building. The muted gray concrete and inconspicuous black paint hid the construct's inside quite well and the normal outside doors concealed the inside enough that the taller, sliding doors that adjoined the club and the lobby surprised me.
Cautiously walking inside with my sister trailing me, I took a look around. Large glass pillars cornered an out of place but fashionable disco ball on the dance floor. The tiled dance floors were obviously lights, but were unilluminated. A number of black leather booths lined the left and right and the bar stood across the dance floor from the door. Above and a little off from the bar was the DJ's box, though it was more of a balcony than an actual stage or box.
Sitting at the bar were a pair of twins I had seen before and behind the bar itself was the man I was looking for. I made to approach the bar, but unceremoniously stopped my advance as I heard a nonzero quantity of firearms being charged and aimed in my direction.
Desiree panicked and drew her sword and I sighed.
"Calm down. They're not going to shoot us."
"They're aiming at us! What the hell do you think comes next?!" Desiree's machine pistol flicked to and fro target to target. "What the hell are you waiting for?!"
I gotta admit: it is not fun to be staring down gun barrels from one direction, much less all of the directions.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen that is no way to greet one of my clients!" One by one, all of the red-lense shaded bouncers took their sights off of us with Dez doing the same a little after. "Let's go to the bar." A quick walk there earned us no more ready weapons. "Sit."
Propping myself up onto one of stools, I was instantaneously surrounded by the twins on either side of me. I couldn't exactly see her, but I know for a fact that Desiree took a step back in disbelief. Instead, she just sat off past Melanie to my right.
"Before we begin, do you want a drink?" I blinked lamely at his question. Is that even legal?
Short answer: yes.
"But I'm 15?" I remarked.
"You're a huntsman, right? Law allows it, but it isn't explicitly stated. Plus, aura burns some of it out anyway." Hei- Junior answered. The twins giggled and Dez sat there just absolutely confused.
"Huh. That's pretty cool." I opened up the archive of drinks I wanted to try when I got old enough to and kept pulling up the same drink. "Can I try a strawberry sunrise?" And then I asked, "Do I have to pay for this?" Junior shook his head with a slight grin. The twins giggled to themselves again.
"Depends on how our conversation goes." That must be part of his scam. After pouring what looked like an orange juice into a shot glass that was sickeningly red with a few ice cubes, he slid the glass onto the table in front of me. "Here."
I lifted the drink up. It was probably called a sunrise because of the way the orange part and the red part gradiented. I took a miniscule sip to test it but that yielded no flavor. So, in typical dumbass fashion, I slammed the drink down.
It was menacingly saccharine and didn't feel like a liquid at all. I was right about orange juice, but the strawberry flavor in the drink was accompanied by another, unfamiliar one that I identified as ethanol.
Due to the syrupy sweet nature of the drink, my throat felt scratchy and dry and I began to cough. Junior and the twins laughed and Dez just sat there concerned more than anything.
After that fit of coughing, I was able to clear my throat.
"Okay, a water would really help right now." A soothing gulp of water later, I figured that Dez needed to be known too. Turning to the bartender and keeping the Malachites in mind, I introduced her. "This is my twin sister Desiree." Now with her in mind, I introduced the other three people here with us. "This is Hei Xiong, also known as Junior. These two are-"
"Melanie-"
"And Miltia-"
"Malachite." I finished alongside them. Thoroughly nonplussed, Desiree did nothing.
A moment of quiet passed as I finished off my glass of water. Dez got a water too but didn't make any moves to drink it.
"Alright. What do you want to know?" Junior asked. I hummed in thought and rhetorically. I already knew what I wanted to know, but wording it was a different animal altogether. Sliding over a few cards of lien, I asked,
"Let's say... I wanted to hide my face. A few rounds wouldn't compromise my anonymity. Know where I can get one like that?" Junior whipped out his scroll and fiddled with it. After a nice while of the twins staring across each other to me and Dez actually drinking some water, Junior planted his scroll in front of me.
"I know a masquerade mask maker. Any color, any occasion." Inputting the map point and details onto my scroll was easier done than said and I had one last request.
"Would you be willing to accept more customers? Think of it as a gesture of loyalty." The man raised an eyebrow above his sunglasses. Leaning back, he poured himself a drink and gulped it all down.
"I dunno what kind of person you got in mind, but at this point, any business is good business." He hooked his shades onto his shirt and groaned. "If you think we can make this mutual, you gotta do some more for me before things start swinging back to you, kid."
I held my hand out.
"You got yourself a deal." Junior grabbed my hand and made a show out of squeezing it. Was it a test? One could guess. I crushed his hand in turn anyway. "Let me know if you got a job for me."
Dez watched the entire exchange go down. Upon my insistence to agree to the same terms, Desiree signed off a similar deal with Junior with a stipulation being that jobs would either be me and her or just me.
And thus we made our merry way to the mask maker. A few blocks down and in an alley was a back access cellar. Getting into the dusty cellar was easy. Knocking on his door? Also easy.
Getting in? Slightly harder. I had to drop a couple more lien cards just to be let in after I had told them that I knew Junior.
The man at the door led us further down a set of stairs where a woman was sat down in a workshop slaving away at a literal masquerade mask.
I really hope he was being figurative. I approached the woman and made to speak but was shushed as she painted on the littlest line on her current mask. Instead, she pointed at a stack of index cards that had empty, handwritten specification fields.
I grabbed a pen and got to work describing the mask I wanted.
In coverage, I put full-face. In style, I put 'Utilitarian' which was code for bullet-resistant as the other options I had would've gotten me an actual masque. For color, I printed black.
Special requests: discreet.
I filled out two forms exactly like that and handed the second to Desiree who was still reeling from my interactions with the club personnel.
I slid my slip to the lady who went over it carefully. She looked up to me with bright pink eyes and stood up. Motioning me over to a changing room, she took rather impersonal measurements of my head. Doing the same to Dez, she filled out the order forms and I slapped down almost the rest of my lien. Sufficient payment was our last worry and soon we were given the bland black masks and whisked out of the building.
Dez and I took a cab back to Signal. The masks were hidden in her purse and the day went pretty casually from there.
So I have laid the groundwork for Yang to visit the club. All I- we need to do now is time her investigation and convince her to check out... alternative sources.