Ch.4:Falling Stars
The sign says, 'Welcome to Elsinore' but there isn't anything welcoming about this place. Underneath the welcome, there is a scratched out 2,500 stars. I guess that's the word they use for their population. The buildings are like the ones in Mistral except far more red and gold than green and white. However, their colors look dull and lifeless; almost as if no one has lived in them in a while. The whole time is as quiet as a farm but with none of the peace. Back home, it made sense that there was no noise, it was only me and Aunt living there. Here however, everything felt wrong. The hustle and bustle of Mistral city isn't here. Nor does this place have the laidback aura of a small town, like the one near Aunt's farm. The people that occasionally walk past us kept to themselves. We could only hear the whistle of the wind. Barely any vendors in the farmer's market and the ones that are here are not trying to sell their food but instead they sat in silence tapping away on their scrolls.
"There's barely anyone here." I say. "The whole place feels so dreary."
"Yea, me and Reese have been trying to do something about that." Bolin says.
"I suggested busting out tricks on the Town's theater stage, but Mayor Reyez was all 'That is a mockery of our tradition. And you're so cool Reese for thinking that'." Now Reese doesn't have her hood or face paint on. Her 'War Face' as she called it while scrubbing it off on our way back here.
"I think that last part was made up." Nadir says. "Grimm will keep attacking if everyone keeps feeling like this."
"That's how it's been for the last week. We were sent out here to help fix the Grimm problem but we haven't gotten close at all." Arslan says. She walks in front of us, not turning her head to address us.
"Well, things are a little more positive with her around." Bolin smiles and points to a girl. She's running around town with a huge bag on her back, handing various items to the town goers. Each one of them wind up smiling just like her. Then she ends her route by coming up to us.
"There you all are. I got the stuff you asked for." Her sleek pink dress bounces with her steps. She pulls a black and white chaser ball out. "One realm chaser ball for Bolin."
"Awesome." He bounces the ball back and forth between the endpoints on his staff. His ball control looks so natural, like a pro. I notice the orange, black dotted tail wrapped around the girl's waist when she pulls out a colorful candy bag shaped like a wheel. "This was hard to get, but I got you one Elsinore Roulette, Reese."
"These are the lancer's knees." Reese says between handfuls of bites.
"That is way too old school." Bolin states.
The Faunus girl then hands a book to Nadir. "An encyclopedia of our local fauna for you."
He deeply bows to her. "Thank you."
Lastly, she turns to Arslan. "I know you didn't ask for anything but I didn't want you to feel left out. So, I got you The Art of Mistral Cooking." She holds it out for her, but only gets a grimace in return. Then Arslan walks past her. In the brief time I've known her, she hasn't been nice to anyone. Does she has a problem with everyone?
"Woo." The girl wipes the sweat from her brow and turns the bag upside down, showing it's empty. "That's everything."
"I'll take the cookbook, if you don't mind." Nadir asks.
"This is the Town's helper, Lily Tora." Bolin introduces the Faunus girl.
"She's super awesome and nice." Reese holds up her hand to hide her mouth as she speaks.
"I'm not that great." Lily looks at me and suddenly her eyes begin glowing. "Wow, who are you?"
"O–Oscar." She gets pretty close, which makes me nervous. Reese elbows me and winks. She is totally misreading this situation.
"Sorry!" She backs off abruptly. "Are you a huntsman that's gonna help our town?"
After looking at all the miserable faces that past us, all I want to do is help. But Ozpin has other thoughts. "I wish we could help, but getting the relic of knowledge to safety is our priority. Besides, these four young huntsmen should be fine."
His voice holds that typical calmness he always has, but this time he sounds more rushed. I grimace hearing how little he cares about these towns people. "Don't you care what happens to everyone here?" I thought. I received no reply from him. I doubt he's ignoring me, otherwise he wouldn't have said anything. Usually I could think in order to talk to Ozpin, but now there's nothing. I smile. Maybe this split is working. All I have to do is resist him more.
"Yes, absolutely." I say, then lose authority of my body. Ozpin takes over. Every time he did this, it felt like sleep paralysis. I'm fully conscious, able to see, feel, touch, hear and taste everything but unable to even move my body. To see my whole life past before me and not able to experience as myself. It enrages me each time he thought he should be in control of my life. I try to move my arm, my leg even my toe, but it's no use. I'm restrained in my own body with absolutely no room to move. "Actually I—" He utters with my mouth, but is cut off by Lily.
"Yay!" Lily grabs both of my hands tightly, then back off just as quickly. "Sorry if that was a bit sudden."
"No, it's alright. I—" Bolin claps me on the back.
"Now that that is settled, let's take you to the mayor. Is he in his office?" Bolin asks.
"Actually, he's settling a dispute right now. I can take you to him." Lily says. Ozpin tries to say something again but this time Reese interrupts.
"Welcome to the team Cool Boy Oz." Ozpin sighs, then relinquishes control to me. I didn't have to do anything. He got beat by social pressure. For once in my life, I'm thankful for that.
Lily brings us to Twinkling Lounge, the pub for the town. A lot of screaming and wood cracking comes from inside. I draw in a quick breath, wondering if Grimm slipped past us and made it into the lounge. But I am the only one astonished by this. Everyone else looks casual, as if the cries of a man is part of their everyday. Arslan waits at the front entrance for us. "Is it the treacherous trio again?" Lily asks her.
"Find out yourself." Arslan answers.
We go in and immediately see someone punched into a chandelier. Just like in a comic, he stays stuck in it. There are ten other people, half well-dressed while the other half are dressed for a robbery, all around the pub fighting it out while everyone else watches and cheers. Dancers on stage continue moving to the beat of the bumping music. It's like no one cares that a man is a chandelier now.
"What's going on? Why is everyone okay with this?" I say, looking towards the group for answers.
"It's okay, it's all part of the show." Lily says. If that was supposed to be an answer, then it only made me more confused.
"This must be a part of their culture." Ozpin says. "Observe before you make any judgments. Just look at everyone's faces."
Everyone is smiling. People are laughing, drinking and enjoying themselves. It is the exact opposite reception that we had before when we first entered the town. "That's our mayor right there." Lily points to a tone, tanned man with purple aura gloves punching a hulking thug at light speed. Despite his smaller size compared to his opponent, the mayor is holding up against him pretty well. He already has him pushed backed to the wall, all the giant man can do is hold up his guard. "You and your group of hooligans have tormented our town long enough. If you think you can steal away people's possessions like it's your own then I'll show you how they really feel." The wall buckles and creaks while the thug tries to block the punches coming at him quicker than he could see. Each blow resounds across the venue like a strike against a mat. His body is pushed back more and more with each hit until I could see cracks of light coming through the wall. "I'll seize victory right from your grasp." The mayor sends a cross punch with so much power that it sends the thug straight through the wall, letting in streaks of sunlight. He wipes his brow, a look of relief on his face.
"I think that settles it." He releases his purple aura gloves and dusts his hands. "I hope my fellow councilmen know how to handle themselves as well." All of the other well-dressed individuals stood over knocked out men. They all let out an affirmative yes then everyone began to cheer and the councilmen bowed. Even the huntsmen around me are clapping. I join in on all of the fun.
"Mayor Reyez." Bolin calls to him after the cheering died down. The other councilmen busy themselves with arresting the pub brawlers. Reyez turns to us, still looking dignified even though his red vest and white shirt is in disarray. "This is Oscar. He wants to help rid Elsinore of its Grimm problem."
"How do you do Oscar?" We shake hands. His grip is firm, but not overwhelming. Feels like he's been through more physical work than just punching. "Let's not sully the mood here. We can go to the private booths to talk." We all follow his lead to the stairs. Before going up, he stops and looks at us. "Lily?" We all look back to see Lily on her tiptoes slightly crouched over behind us.
"I just thought, maybe I could help your conversation with tea or those biscuits you always like." Lily says.
"No need. This will be a private conversation for the protectors of Elsinore."
"Well, maybe if I could,uhh…"
"Shouldn't you be rehearsing right now?"
For a brief moment, I see the smile drop from Lily's face, but then it came back stronger than ever. "Okay! I'll go do that right now. Goodbye everyone."
"Did you enjoy the show?" Reyez says once he sits down on one of the plush couches of the private booth. This area is lush and definitely looks rich from the outset. But all of the fake plants tell a different tale. I never liked fake plants, they're unnecessary. Real plants bring life to areas, what could these synthetics do?
"I'm sorry?" I say.
"The show downstairs. The battle between the town's defenders and the Treacherous Trio. You must have arrived late. I hope the climax was at least thrilling."
"Trio? I saw six of them."
"They never bothered to change their name once they garnered more members. It's always a hoot to hear them announce themselves as that with six people. Not good branding if you ask me.
"Was any of that real?" I ask. All I got in response was a laugh from Reyez. Reese laughed too, even though I'm sure she didn't get the joke.
"It was very much real. We, the councilmen, like to make a show of handling crime. It gets everyone cheering and having fun. That way they're not thinking of Grimm, food or our missing people." Reyez sighs and his demeanor sours. "They shouldn't have to shoulder all of that worry. That's our job.
"It's always great to see the man that went against The Zaroff in action. "Bolin says. He has a huge smile on. Reyez however, looks sullen from that comment.
"Anyways, this is the situation we are dealing with." He taps on his wristwatch and a holographic map pops out of it. We all take a look at the X's drawn on roads, completely encircling the town of Elsinore. "These areas are infested with Grimm. We haven't been able to trade with Himawari to the north for weeks because of this. Not even our huntsmen here have been able to get through. And our communication towers are down since the Grimm have destroyed it. Now we have to communicate the old-fashioned way now. Since it's winter now, we have no way to farm our crops, so we have to rely on last season's harvest and on trading. We're running low on our stocks of food, so we need those trade routes open asap."
"Ask him about the missing people." Ozpin says. As much as it pains me to listen to him, that is a good question, so I ask.
"Yes, I knew this would come up." Reyez leans back on the couch; shadows covering his face as he looks down. I shift uncomfortably in my armchair. This must be a sore topic for him to talk about. "Since two months ago we have had a string of disappearances. Multiple of our own people up and vanished out of nowhere. We couldn't find any kidnapper, or accident that may have happened while out hunting, just nothing. After weeks without any clue, people began to give up hope. I haven't seen so many funerals in accession in my life before."
"How many people are gone?" I ask, my voice shaky with sadness.
"I should know as the mayor but honestly, I stopped counting once we got to the triple digits." He says, his fingers press on his creased forehead. "I need to make sure everyone feels safe." That's tragic. I couldn't imagine the kind of responsibility he must be holding as the town's leader. But then I remember the other person in my body. Ozpin was there at the fall of Beacon while I just read it in the paper. How many lives lost on that day did he blame himself for? I want to ask him about that but I'm afraid that may make us closer, and then the split would be impossible. It feels heartless of me to say, but I may have to completely ignore Ozpin's existence to get him out of my head. So when he told me to ask why does he have only students here protecting a town this big, I ignored him."
"Why do you only have four huntsmen in training protecting this area?" I say, wait no I didn't say that. Did he really slip in and out of control that quickly? I slam my fist on the coffee table in frustration, alarming everyone. My eyes grew wide then I thought up an excuse fast. "Sorry, there was a bug on the table."
"You must really hate bugs. And tables." Reese says. Reyez clears his throat, getting us back in the topic at hand.
"All around Mistral everyone has the same problem. Since the attack on Haven, there have been very few huntsmen left to defend the nation. We have to use what we have. Now I hear the new headmaster is trying to cut even more huntsmen?" Reyez throws his arms in the air, completely exasperated. "Outrageous."
"I think the cuts are necessary. We shouldn't have any huntsmen that would only get themselves killed." Arslan says. Nadir looks away from everyone while Reyez keeps a neutral expression. I wonder if that is his poker face.
"Regardless, we could use all the help that we can get. We and the rest of Elsinore are very gracious for…" Reyez trails off, starting up suddenly and completely ignoring us. We all follow his gaze and walk over to the window. Before our eyes a whole crowd of people walk into town.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading the introduction of my OCs and my OS (Original Setting, please don't steal). I based the name of Elsinore off of the setting in Hamlet because I wanted something from a play, since plays are a major part of their history. Took a while to find one that fit.
Anyways, please leave a review if you don't mind. I use them as shotgun ammo to defend against the hordes of plagiarists that want to steal my OCs (and OSs, please don't steal or I'll shoot you with review bullets.)