It may seem reckless, but using summer days to stop a growing terrorist movement is a notion I would consider helpful.
It all started out simply enough. A walk around the more densely faunus southtown exposed a lot of secrets. Some of them pleasant, others... much less so.
Three white claw marks in the side of an air-conditioning unit demarcates places to be a meeting area for more than just recruiting efforts. Sometimes, this mark is a ways off from the venue. In those cases, light animal footprints of varying species are used to create a secret path to said place.
At first, I had meant for me to do this alone. Mapping out common spots would give me a good idea of when and where essential personnel would appear.
Cut the head off and the body will follow, or so I thought.
Once Dez and almost once my mom had caught me coming back, Dez insisted she tag along. I attempted to leave alone the night after, but her persistence to help me forced me to bite a bullet.
So after I had found a good number of cell meeting grounds, I got to work deciphering their hieroglyphic "code."
It was easy. They literally tell new recruits what the symbols they scratch in mean.
Most common are three claw marks: safe havens and areas of respite. Less common are single fangs: active boycotts. Open jaws with a number are sinister and intimidating: the building marked is subject to torching on that date of the month.
So I pinned all of those too. Boycotts typically mean a sit-in or an actual boycott. I would ask the (always human) owner how business has been and judge the tactic accordingly.
Active boycotts are signs of a passive, less radicalized cell. Simply not going to a store is easy and so is organizing that with a bunch of like-minded, mistreated people. Refusal of patronage is something I'd rather see.
Sit-ins are organized by the difficult ones. Cell leaders or managers use sit-ins to bring business to a screeching halt whenever. The Vale police force get involved regularly. Their interventions are never pretty.
There are a fair share of racist cops in this section of Vale. When they use force on the faunus in those sit-ins, the faunus use it as a justification to kill somebody.
All sit-ins I've seen always end up with at least two deaths: a human and a faunus.
I remember a time when humans supported the White Fang. Celebrities and huntsmen speaking out for the minority. Now those kinds of people have been shunned.
What has this world come to?
-XXXXX-
I realize now that I didn't finish that thought.
It had started out simply enough. At first, we were just performing reconnaissance.
Eventually, a new mark was created: a cage. The cage would mean that the resources in these buildings were of import and needed to be taken.
Then, 24-hour dust dispenseries were being trashed. One in this area was run by a close family friend.
To be fair, this person wasn't the most supportive of the White Fang. He served faunus customers, but his attitude towards the group almost got his business struck down.
Key word: almost.
Desiree stepped in when she learned that the Fang were planning on holding up the owner's daughter. The moment a group of grimm-masked assailants converged in an adjacent alley, she jumped down and subdued them all.
Without her mask. In her zealous indignation, she incapacitated a group of four faunus.
I let her know how she might have compromised our operations. She was regretful.
On the bright side, the little SDC subsidized dust store didn't get robbed.
We laid very low the week after. Nothing, as far as we could tell, really happened.
Our return was quite eventful.
-XXXXX-
"The meeting's starting, Gray."
From the warehouse's darkened skylight, the chattering voices of those inside died down as the loud, booted steps of a ringleader entered the room.
"Good evening, brothers and sisters. You have all done well these past few weeks. It is a rough estimate, but over 300 kilos of dust of different types have been taken from the humans." Ringleaders are our colloquial term for the cell organizers. They are supposed to meet every 5th and 25th of every month to give a report and encourage growth. "Our particular area is responsible for more than 200 of those kilos. For our efforts, our very own sect leader has come with words of thanks and wisdom."
I was expecting the cell leader.
Not Adam Taurus.
And standing in the background was the one and only Blake Belladona.
He went on and on about righting injustices and that humans around have been more docile and compliant. I had none of that shit and pulled Desiree back away from our spot.
"Dez Dez Dez! You see that girl with the cat ears and black hair and yellow eyes behind Adam?" I whispered to her hurriedly. She nodded and peaked again. "That's Blake Belladonna! She's important and we can't risk anything happening to her!"
"How do you suppose we keep that from happening?"
"She'll see the current White Fang's cruelty and she'll abandon it."
"Okay, so what do we have to do?"
I hadn't thought of that just yet. My mind was clouded by the fact that Blake was here, in person, cheering alongside the rest of the terrorists down there. Her inciting incident hadn't happened yet.
Then it hit me.
"At some point maybe next year, her and Adam rob a train. She... I think she changes her mind then." That meant that we were far too early. "We can't do anything now, but at least we know for a fact that she's here in Vale. Let's get out of here."
We jumped down from the roof and hit the ground quietly. What we saw next chilled us to the bone.
Slipping our masks into the bags we brought, we started walking at a normal pace. After just passing the entry point into that venue, we met someone we knew.
"Katrina?" The name pulled the adrenaline into my blood. Her head of white hair and white wolf ears flung in our direction as she stopped midstep.
"Dez? And Gray?" She turned slowly to face us properly.
She was going to that meeting.
"What are you two doing here?" Katrina asked forcefully. Her hand twitched down to her weapon at her hip and so did mine.
"We're just looking around for places to eat at." Just as we practiced, Desiree gave us a fake alibi. "We just finished a late night run with all of our gear, so..."
I softened my stance and Katrina followed suit, a distant frown taking shape too.
"Yeah... I was running too." Purple irises fell to the ground. "You two... probably shouldn't run through here though. Neighborhoods like these are pretty sketchy sometimes." I chimed in this time.
"Oh, thanks for the advice." After a second of silence, I followed up. "We should go then."
"Yeah." Kat said to herself. "See you guys around." She ran around the building and out of sight.
I heaved a dry breath out with a hatred and nudged Dez. We had to get out of here.
So we ran our trail back home.
"Fuck!" my sister yelled as we entered a forest trail at 1 A.M. "Gray!"
"I know!" I yelled back in between breaths. "We'll talk about it later!"
I had never run so fast before.
There were obvious implications for Katrina's attendance of a White Fang meeting. She was obviously part of the Fang, for one.
However, her enrollment at a combat academy also meant that she could stand toe-to-toe with low level huntsmen. Like us.
My heart, aching in pain, sped up even more. A pulsating wave of fear invaded my thoughts, met by stern anger as we silently entered our room.
"Dee." I threw the rubber knuckled gloves that stuck to my sweaty hands to the ground. Even on the soft carpeted floor of our room, the hard rubber clicked against itself. "Promise me this." I drew in a breath and let it out shakily. "If we have to kill her..."
Dez stared at me in disbelief. She didn't blink.
"You will not hesitate."
The words stung my slowing heart. I'm sure it did more to her.
She stuttered a few times before I was sure her thoughts stopped. Sitting at her bedside, she slouched and silently wept.
She didn't even know she was crying.
"We can't let her stand in our way." I sat beside her and turned her face to mine. "If she becomes an obstacle, we'll..." I trailed off as she nodded warily at my words.
"We'll... I'll do it." She broke down and let her nails dig into her face as if it was the reason we were put into this position. Pulling her in intensified her emotional pain greatly.
"I swear to you and all that is fucking holy, I'll try to keep her out of this." Mentally signing off that contract didn't ease my emotional pain at all.
Somehow, some way, we'd cross weapons. This I know for a fact.
This world is twisted and cruel.
-XXXXX-
So, being denizens of it, we took our anger out on those pulling the strings.
Slow like a scalpel, we carried out little missions to make any meetings and events we watched a pain in the ass.
We purposefully avoided the areas we deduced Katrina frequented.
Whether we were scared of her or wanted to provoke her, we didn't know. One thing we do know is that we didn't forgive the White Fang for taking our friend.
It was the tiny things we did that made us feel better. Scuff out the claw marks to confuse new members, mark up faunus-run/White Fang-backed businesses, simply steal back small quantities of dust to fuck with their logistics... All of them were minor inconveniences at best.
And at worst a debilitating loss for the Fang. Attacking your own supporters isn't a good way to get more.
I think it was brilliant, what we did. After they sacked a faunus owned business and lost traction for a bit, they always scouted a marked place first before they struck, oftentimes giving the workers time to call authorities or close prematurely.
It was still bad for business, but not as bad as it could have been.
That hesitation, though, wouldn't last long. They soon found a semi-legitimate justification for that: if they can't meet there to plan, they can meet there to hurt whoever owned the place.
Over the course of two and a half months, we had inadvertently made the White Fang's goals more advanced.
And we had no more time to further those goals. The school year was starting again.
-XXXXX-
I'm glad Dez and I aren't Ruby's age.
Mr. Wheaton just had a new program pushed onto the first-years.
They start earlier than returning students. Then they have to forge their weapons in the first month of school and get assigned to instructors right after.
So not only do they begin the year before us, but they also have more responsibilities when they start.
Nothing changes for second-year students, but third-years like us...
Not gonna lie, I'm a little upset that third-years have to mentor first-years. We have to help them with their weapon creation and then we have to make sure they don't fail out.
On the upside, I'll have an easier schedule overall.
But I personally think the fourth-years should be mentoring instead of us.
Whatever. I'll take a more flexible timetable.
I have to get Ruby as my mentee. Qrow still isn't here, so she'll probably get Ms. Alba Fiontan as the improvised weapon professor.
Not a single professor at Signal knows how to use a scythe.
Dez is finally learning her rifle techniques. She also finally named it.
Gunmettle, she calls it. A courageous name for a brutal gun.
She currently has Fiontan as her instructor. CQC will be her lesson and Gunmettle the lesson plan, as Dez put it.
I'm thinking about forging a sidearm really soon too. I've got range, but I could use something more handy up close.
-XXXXX-
So as it turns out, Ruby is planning to use a sword.
A sword.
Not a scythe. Not the weapon she was supposed to use.
A sword.
On top of that, she's been assigned to my sister.
Not me.
My sister.
I was crushed. This Ruby is not the Ruby I know.
Yet she is the only Ruby Rose in her class. The only half-sister of Yang.
The only silver-eyed, black-red haired, combat skirt wearing Ruby.
The worst part is that I can see why the professors assigned her to Dez. Dez was the former user of a sword, had a welcoming personality that worked well with quiet-types(like me, I suppose), and even had similar colors to Ruby.
The only other person I could see managing Ruby better would be Qrow or Yang.
My mentee, Midori Vermouth expressed interest in preparing a lance-type weapon. More specifically, she was a huge fan of the on-the-rise Pyrrha Nikos. She wanted a lance and shield combo. She also wanted her shield to explode. Christ.
Being the weapon tryhard I was, I suggested she load mines in the front of her shield. They were more like reactive pressure plates, but isn't that what mines are anyway? Everything was easy to make.
I especially helped her with the shield. Beneath the surface of the shield was a rotary magazine of explosives that aligned in the middle. Slamming the shield face into something detonated the explosive, spitting the spent mine case out and letting another slide in.
Now, it would be incredibly dangerous to just have a bunch of live mines on the contact surface, so they are all primed by a trigger mechanism on the handle of the shield that pulls the priming pin.
It's quite intimidating to be hit with an explosion and then have the shield both spit out a casing and a pin with a loud mechanical clang.
She's mostly focusing on the shield with her huntsman instructor. I'm only tutoring her on lance techniques.
Desiree and Ruby, on the other hand, are having a much harder time.
Ruby has a sword-shotgun hybrid. It's much more simple than many other weapons: The shotgun is the crossguard and the sword configuration is just a simple longsword.
Dez says that she can't seem to nail techniques that well and... overall isn't good.
I feel incredibly guilty saying this, but I'm glad that she's not great with a sword. I actually backseat drove Dez for some time, but she got irritated and ignored me for a whole week.
I obviously couldn't just tell Ruby to use a scythe because that would either reveal how much I knew or make me seem like an asshole meddler.
So I decided to take the long, stupidly convoluted approach.
Since no one at Signal knows how to use a scythe - which might be the reason she isn't using one - I should bring someone that did to Signal.
The problem was that finding someone was hard.
Don't take me for an idiot, either. I kept Qrow in mind.
He was not an easy man to find. I almost didn't find him, but a friend by the name of Junior did.
So, here I am, staring this haggard disappointment of a man down in a bar on the bad side of Vale. The bar was drab and dilapidated, with blemishes poorly hidden along the walls by the stains of spilled beverages. The drunken man was not much better. His clothes were faded and disheveled, hair messy and beard hardly kept. His weapon was nowhere near him. On the lonely corner table was more bottles of hard alcohol than there were rounds in my gun.
The smell hit me all at once as scents of alcohol, sweat, gunpowder, and lead. It twisted my nose and I grimaced as I grabbed a chair and placed it in front of him.
A flash of silver caught my eye. In his hand was a silver crucifix hung on its side, weaving its way around his fingers.
"Qrow Branwen?" I asked but was ignored. "I would like a word with you."
"Who was it?"
"My name is-"
"How was she related to you?" He slurred. "Girlfriend, wife, sister..." He lazily picked his head up to get a glimpse of me. "Mother?" Barring little else, he let his head fall to the table.
"What do you mean?" I actually had no idea what he meant with that question.
"The girl I slept with. How was she related t'ya?" Gripping the cross tightly, he closed his eyes.
"I don't think you've slept with any of my family." I said. "At least I hope." I added. Qrow let out a hollow laugh and resumed fiddling with his necklace ornament.
"That's funny, kid. That's real funny." He pushed his head off the table, nearly sliding off his chair in the process, to look at me. "T'who do I owe this fine pleasure to?"
"My name is Gainsboro Argent." Holding my hand out to shake was a mistake, his slackened grip and sweaty hand made me regret that formality greatly. "I would like to talk to you about a job."
"What kind? Escort? Rough up?" He leaned further over the table and the shadow on his head darkened. "Hit? I don't do any a' those."
"No, no, no!" I shook the thought out and corrected him. "I mean an actual, legitimate job." Unimpressed as he was, I completed the request. "I would like for you to work at Signal Combat Academy."
"Nope." He rejected, leaning back. "Not gonna do it."
"I will pay you on top of your salary."
"Why should I? Why should I work for a combat academy when I make bank bodyguarding twitchy rich people and exterminating grimm? You really don't know me, kid."
I couldn't put my cards on the table. I had to come up with an excuse.
But I couldn't come up with one. In a panic, I said something that definitely got his attention.
"You know your nieces go there, right?"
Immediately he stood up and had me in his hands.
"Leave them alone. This isn't a threat. This is a PROMISE." His stagnant breath and heavy tone made me cringe in both disgust and fear.
"I'm not gonna do anything to them! I just wanted to let you know that I'm your sister's daughter's friend!" He narrowed eyes at me. Two minutes pass where my face is still 3 inches from his face.
Then he let me go and I fell into my seat, heaving a hot breath into the table.
"So..." He began, letting another minute pass. "Why do you want me to work at Signal?"
I thought about what I could say that would convince him to go but also not reveal what the true intention was. I threw caution to the wind and said,
"There's more to discuss aside from that. We need to meet up some other time." Pushing my scroll onto the table, I accidentally knocked a bottle over.
It shattered on the floor and I was reminded of his semblance in that moment.
"How can I trust you, kid?" he rightly suspected.
"I'll just tell you it'd be bad luck for anyone else involved." The red irises of his eyes became more revealed as he got the connotation.
I gave myself a mental high-five at the slickness of that figurative vocal maneuver.
That seemed to have convinced him enough to at least talk to me elsewhere. I made my leave and began my trek back to Signal from across Vale.
Not before slapping some lien for a replacement drink for the one I broke.
-XXXXX-
Getting in touch with Qrow sucks.
He takes forever to respond to texts and doesn't ever pick up for calls.
Thankfully, I was able to arrange a meeting with him in a bar he chose.
The "Crow-bar."
This fucking alcoholic. Of course he was hammered before I got there. Absolutely blasted but still somehow lucid.
It amazed me how someone can be so dumb but still in control.
"Ruby can't sword fight." There was a whole half-hour before this where I had been listing off pros and now I've been listing a bunch of cons I wanted him to fix.
"I know she can't. But that's why she's going to a combat academy. To learn."
"Yeah but she needs to do better, faster."
"She'll do things at her own pace."
"Her pacing isn't good enough."
"If she fails out, she fails out."
I was getting frustrated with this guy. Not only does he smell bad, but he has the nerve to waste my time by just disagreeing with everything I say.
The smell bad part was supposed to make me feel better. It didn't work.
I had to get him in somehow. Timing wasn't an issue, as instructors came and went and usually had flexible procedures.
Posing a good reason to go would be the challenge as I've stated before.
So I turned to what basically amounted to a gamble.
"Fine. I'll let you in on a little secret."
That got his attention.
"I have knowledge of events that have yet to come." A sad grin met his face and I could tell that he wouldn't be taking me seriously.
"What, that we all die? I've seen that future too."
"Are you a betting man, Qrow?" I poised myself.
"Yeah, sure, but you should know why by now." Qrow chuckled. He was obviously referring to how his semblance makes competitors less fortunate literally.
I'd show him that I was different.
"What I know and what I'm about to bet is about to change your whole world." I smugly started. Not buying it still, I continued. "Ruby'll die on her first extermination if she isn't using a scythe."
"A what!?" Qrow damn near spat out his whiskey into my face. "You can't be serious."
"I am. And even if she does use a scythe, she'll still die." Then I pointed a finger at him, "You need to teach her how to use it."
"So you know more about me than I thought you did." Qrow sighed, not bothering to empty his glass. "I try to only use the scythe against grimm..." He scratched his beard. "And how am I supposed to believe that you're not blowing shit out your mouth? How did you become aware of these 'events?'"
"I don't have proof yet. But if you do sign up, you'll know I was right if she makes a high caliber sniper scythe called... called..."
"The name? Is that the name?"
"Yes. And it's name will be... Crescent Rose." I said the name with an unseen intensity and placed a strange weight on it. I must have done this subconsciously, since I knew that everyone's futures would be hinged on its existence.
Either way, it didn't change Qrow's hearty laughter.
"Oh, don't worry. You saying it so seriously is funny in itself, but the sheer coincidence that she'll slap her last name on it is what got me." Qrow uncorked a different bottle of alcohol - one that wasn't whiskey - before he forwent the drinking glass. "You know what I mean?"
I knew exactly what he meant.
He was trying to pretend like that name wouldn't be a tribute to her mother. That him chugging a bottle of rum would get me to forget or to lose my train of thought.
Nope. This very act reminded me, even. I took the cue from drinking to forget and wondered: what could Qrow want to forget? Why would the name "Rose" cause him to drink?
"So, her last name? Not her mom's?" He didn't know what I was asking at the moment and simply raised an eyebrow in questioning, still sipping the drink down. Until I hit him with, "Not for Summer?"
That sure got him to understand.
"What I know can change the future- will change the future. She can save Remnant!" Qrow stopped and sobered up as if on command. I could tell that he was beginning to agree with me.
"And if I still say no?" My stomach churned at this question, but I knew he was testing me. There couldn't be any fucking way he'd say no to this, even if it was just an astronomically low chance.
"Then I'd have to force you to." I said, pulling courageous intent into my face from places I didn't know existed. I pretended to have the resolve and the ability.
Qrow simply sat, silently. He resumed his drink, shaking his head and gaining a grim figurative aura.
"Alright, kid. I'll do it." He conceded. "I ain't gonna be there for long. Only as long as she's there."
Oh thank the gods.
"Yes! Yes, of course!" I slapped some lien cards on the table as a symbol of good will. "I got your drinks, sir."
"Ugh, don't call me sir. It makes me feel old."
That day, I celebrated with Dez. I made her know what Ruby was to do. We were ready.
-XXXXX-
Within half a month, rumors circulated about a haggard huntsman being present on the Signal campus. I had an idea who it was.
"Hey Gray! This is my cute little sister, Ruby!" Yang presented me. I grinned to the young girl that hung to her older sister's side.
She was wearing her long-sleeved black dress with the red trimmings and her waist sincher. She even had her iconic red cloak, but it was hung around her neck. From what I remembered, she had her cloak pinned to her dress with the silver crosses Qrow had? She did have one of those, but it was larger and on her belt, which suspended a black leather scabbard that itself held a black-hilted, silver pommeled and guarded sword.
I pretended like I didn't quite remember her.
"Oh yeah! She's Dez's mentee, but I think you also mentioned you had a sister." I lied. I perpetuated the falsity by stepping deeper, with a truth. "I think I've actually seen her before." Ruby brightened up considerably.
"Yeah! You showed me your weapon two years ago when I was with my dad!"
"Oh you're right!" I said, spinning out Thunderstruck and holding it out to her. "I was thinking about making a sidearm for it, but I'm for sure keeping this one."
She grabbed hold of it, clumsily. The weight almost immediately put her on the ground, but she used aura and made sure that wouldn't have happened. She admired the piece as much as I do, carefully rubbing the metal construction and testing the blade.
"May I see yours?" I asked in turn. Ruby hardly even looked at me when Yang just unsheathed it and handed to me.
"Yeah, she's drooling over yours for now."
The blade was a deep crimson red, as I've come to see as common. The large, bulky guard seemed just a bit too large for a blade of this length and width. In every other regard, it was a masterwork: the blade had been beveled beautifully and smoothly, the point was even and sharp, the hilt had perfect ergonomics for a girl with hands like Ruby.
Like, even as essential as it was, the shotgun could be easily removed. An easy pair of cross pins held it in place. Pushing them out allowed the gun to slide up and off the sword. What was left was a frankly light weight and usable sword. Its lack of a crossguard was a glaring concern, but it could otherwise hold up to other like swords.
After I had thoroughly appraised the weapon, I immediately went to my plan.
"So have you guys heard about the new instructor?" I reinitiated.
"No. Who is it?" Yang asked, pulling my weapon away from Ruby. In response, Ruby blushed and pulled her hood over her head once she realized she had investigated someone else's means of attack longer than she had had a conversation with them.
"I think his name was... Qrow with a Q?"
"Really?!" both girls slammed me with. Yang explained her and her sister's outburst, "He's our uncle!"
"Your uncle uses a scythe?" I continued to ask.
"He does?" Ruby questioned intensely.
"Does he?" Yang wondered.
"I dunno, that's just what I heard." And just like that, I made them want to have their uncle expose a part of his weapon. Ergo, I made them want to learn more about his personality. "Well, I gotta go and get started on my notes and think up what I want for my sidearm. Nice to see you again, Ruby." I made my leave.
That wasn't a lie. I did do my notes for my classes and poured a lot of thought into what I wanted.
It had to hit hard, first and foremost. A high caliber would amend that.
It also had to be easy to access, but that would be the holster's job.
Those being the only two criteria, I submitted the specifications to the designer.
I've come so far since coming here. Both to Remnant and to Signal.
But that wasn't enough. I had to go even further.
-XXXXX-
"Death is a distant rumor to the young."
-XXXXX-
(A/N: Wow, has it been a while since I last updated.
Hey everyone! Rico here. Thank you for keeping up with The Calming Storm. Thank you for your patience and understanding! College had eaten up all of my time and I had to use my winter break to piece this chapter together. Now that I know what to expect from college, I can likely upload more often, but a regular schedule is still going to be far off. Yes, this is a double upload. I've had the Intermission in the workshop for a time now, and I feel it would be fair to upload them close to each other. In any case, I hope you have enjoyed the fic so far!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Cheers, Rico.)