"Really?! A cat-nap?"
Blake woke up to the voice of an annoyed Torchwick. It appeared to be morning, as daylight was pouring in from the second story windows of the warehouse.
Rolling off the couch and onto her feet, Blake rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She was way too tired to be dealing with her pseudo boss right now.
"What do you want?" She asked reluctantly.
"Your first day on the job and you're already this jaded? I might have to bring this up on your performance review…" Roman was having too much fun with this.
The more Blake learned about Torchwick, the more she understood why she hated him. If front of her was a man who possessed the strength and determination to bring about change, but instead wasted his gifts for personal gain. He teased and belittled others just so he could feel like he was in control of the situation around him. Torchwick didn't seem to care what others thought about him, as long as he got what he wanted.
Blake's thoughts wandered to Adam. Unlike Torchwick, Adam's feelings towards anyone not aligned with him were full of spite and vitriol.
Perhaps Roman's more apathetic view towards others is better than Adam's personal vendetta against the world?
Either way, both men seemed to hate being ignored, as Blake noticed when Torchwick's smile quickly faded when she completely ignored him and started fixing her hair. Realizing she lost her bow when she got arrested, Blake made a mental note to get another one as soon as she could, if only to avoid being recognized as easily on the streets.
"You seem stressed" said Torchwick, not willing to be silent for any long stretch of time, "I don't know why, you've done a lot of work like this before I'm sure."
Tired of always being the one asked a bunch of questions, Blake resolved that she should ask Torchwick something to keep him from annoying her with his snooping.
"What made you choose this line of work?" Blake figured that asking Roman to talk about himself was the best way to keep him from annoying her.
Roman gave Blake a look of surprise before starting, "Breaking the law is how I've survived this long."
"Yeah, but haven't you ever thought about trying to do some good?" Blake was glad the spotlight was finally off of her.
"I do good things every day! Take yesterday: I held the door open for a man I had just pickpocketed, tipped the waitress at the restaurant I was eating at with his money, and I helped a pretty girl get out of a misunderstanding with the law." The sarcasm in Torchwick's voice was quite apparent, but there was still a sense of entitlement that people who thought they were above the law had.
"Have you ever thought about not breaking the law?" Blake knew Torchwick wasn't the type of person to have a life changing revelation from a conversation but figured she could at least get some insight into the man.
"Yeah, I break the law, but does that make me a bad person? Here's a lesson I thought you of all people would have learned by now; The law isn't good. The law exists so that the people in charge can do whatever they want, and the people at the bottom like you and me have to pick through the scraps to get by. Think about it, if I hadn't come by and picked you up, you'd probably be killed off by some member of the White Fang trying to keep you from talking. That's just the way things are. The police would sell off your stuff and buy their spouses something nice with the money."
Blake could practically see Torchwick hopping on the metaphorical soapbox.
"But we can't live in chaos! Many laws are stupid but some laws-"
"Laws are just rules that keep people from doing what they want, and what people want is to have power. You think the people in the government and CEO's of companies got to where they are now by following the law? Life is like a casino; if you play by their rules, you'll always lose. Everyone knows the house always wins! I say sneak in with an ace in up your sleeve and have some fun. I'd rather be kicked out of the establishment rich, than walk out broke, if you get what I'm saying."
Blake understood where Torchwick was coming from. His past had obviously skewed his views of right and wrong. It would be hypocritical of her to think that the law is the end all be all of true justice, as someone who had to work outside the law to try to bring about her idea of justice.
Maybe I should change the subject before I start sympathizing with the criminal.
"Whatever, what did you want me to do?" Questioned Blake, not wanting to admit that she partially agreed with some of the things he had said.
"Well," Torchwick said matter-of-factly, clearly considering himself to have just won an argument, "I'm going to give you an easy task. It won't pay particularly well, but if you can do it for me, I'll let you tag along for some bigger jobs. I need you to deliver this package to an associate of mine in the upper-class district in the north west part of the city."
"You want me to go to the rich district?" Blake was concerned, "but I'll stand out too easily"
"Well that's part of the challenge. Consider it a test. If you pass and get back here by nightfall, I'll let you do jobs where you're stopping criminals. Just don't lead anyone back here." Roman was back to using his dismissive tone.
Blake found the package in question on the table that she had seen all the maps laid out on yesterday. It was a large brown envelope stitched shut with green twine. No lettering was present on it, but it did have some heft to it, as Blake was surprised by how heavy the envelope was when she went to pick it up.
"Ok, where exactly is this going?" Blake was already planning her path to and from the part of town in question.
Of course, I'll make a couple of 'stops' along the way…
"There's an old house two blocks east from the bank on First Street. It has stucco walls and a green door. Place the envelope inside the doghouse in the backyard, and don't be seen."
"Can't you just give me an address? Why can't I just drop it in the mailbox?"
"Welcome to Vale's underground crime network. You won't find a group of more paranoid people this side of Sanus. I'm just relaying the instructions to you. If you got problems, take it up with the people who want what's in there." Roman said, motioning to the envelope in Blake's hands, "Although, I doubt you could run into them and live to complain about it."
"What is in here anyway?"
"It's best you don't ask. Run along now, no one likes a postal worker who delivers their packages late."
Blake didn't want to sit in the warehouse theorizing about what she was delivering, so she took the signal jammer off the table, put it in her backpack, and was off. Exiting the warehouse, Blake quickly realized she didn't even know where this warehouse was.
This might be a bit harder than I expected.
There were a few buildings in the proximity, but none of them were recognisable. Blake figured she was in Vale's industrial district and used the rising sun's position in the sky to orient herself. Now it was only a matter of getting from the industrial district to the upper-class district undetected.
Normally, Blake travelled by rooftop for stealth missions like this, but the surrounding buildings were too sparse, having many large gaps between them to accommodate whatever materials were being moved around them. Unable to find an immediate alternative, Blake started walking down the street, arms crossed with anxiety.
Suddenly, there was a truck approaching from behind Blake on the road adjacent to her. Seizing the opportunity, Blake sent a shadow clone of herself into the street and moved into position to board the truck. Since it was moving in the direction she was headed, it could only save her time, and if she played her cards right, Blake would be quite hard to spot by any wary eyes.
The driver, seeing the shadow clone of Blake in the middle of the street, swerved and honked as he tried to maneuver around the illusion. While the truck was swerving, Blake threw the blade of Gambol Shroud into its side, hanging on with the ribbon she had attached to the weapon. Using the ribbon as a slingshot, Blake accelerated herself onto the side of the truck. The shadow clone was a decoy, making the truck swerve so it wouldn't notice Blake slamming into the side. Now on the vehicle, Blake removed Gambol Shroud from the truck's side and swung herself underneath the chassis. Blake hooked Gambol Shroud on the differential and crawled forward to the axle. Even though she was upside down, Blake could get a good view of where the truck was headed.
About half an hour later, the truck made a turn and started heading west, and Blake needed to get off and reorient herself. At the next stop light, Blake unhooked Gambol Shroud and rolled out from under the truck. She was no longer in the industrial part of town, and with plenty of tall buildings around her, she used Gambol Shroud to fling herself onto a nearby rooftop.
Now above and away from all the trouble the streets were going to giver her, Blake made her way north. Swinging from building to building was nice, despite being dangerous, and it wasn't long before Blake was amongst the nicer houses of Vale.
Now where is this bank?
Blake wasn't exactly familiar with the street names in this part of town, so she opted to look for the bank before she looked for First Street. Looking from intersection to intersection on top of the taller buildings in the area, eventually Blake saw a storefront with a sign with a picture of Lien on it. Blake focused her eyes on the intersection sign and sure enough it was a 'First Street'.
With it being close to noon, the sun was high in the sky, making it difficult to determine which way was east, especially since Blake had been a bit lackadaisical when it came to keeping track of which direction she was swinging and jumping between the rooftops. Lucky for her, she had her scroll on her which had a map of the area on it. Blake also realized that her scroll had a compass function on it, feeling a bit foolish for having used the sun as a means to guide her.
Better to be too resourceful than not resourceful enough, I guess.
Heading two blocks east of the bank, Blake saw a house matching Torchwick's description. She was almost home free! The only problem was that this street wasn't as empty as the other ones Blake had been on. Sitting on a bench on a porch just two doors down from the target building was a girl wearing a white dress. Even worse for Blake was that this girl didn't seem to have anything better to do than twirl her parasol and look up and down the street, and Blake was worried that this girl's faraway eyes may catch a glimpse of her if she wasn't careful.
Blake made her way back down onto the streets, careful to not be seen now that she was approaching the target. She was hyper aware of the lack of bow on her head, remembering how upper-class people generally looked down at the Faunus; there was no way Blake could try and blend in. Figuring the best way to get into the backyard would be from the opposite side of the girl, Blake walked around the block so that she could approach the green doored building from the optimal side.
The bench the girl was on didn't give her a full view of the street, so Blake got as close as she reasonably could to the target before she snuck into the back yard of the house four houses away from her goal. Looking over the fence, she could see the part of the backyard she wanted to get into, and what she assumed was the top of the doghouse.
This has to be it!
This was the final stretch. If Blake could get in and out of this backyard unnoticed, she was free to do whatever she wanted for the rest of day. Scanning the other yards and roofs, there wasn't a soul to be found, so Blake quietly hopped fence after fence until she was in the target backyard. Sure enough, there was a red doghouse with a wooden roof in the corner of the yard. Blake walked up, put the envelope inside and up against the side wall so that no one would see it from a distance, and backed away.
Now the issue was getting out of the backyard. There were three yards adjacent to this one, with at least one person in the area that could spot Blake. Going up the street wasn't going to work with the girl in the white dress around to spot her, but going back the way she came could be risky as it'd be a dead giveaway to anyone that may have seen Blake enter the backyards that she was doing something suspicious. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the path and potential lines of sight, Blake opted to hop into the yard of the house on the adjacent street. This way anyone on the streets seeing her exit the backyard wouldn't have seen her enter the yards, so they wouldn't know her path.
Part of being stealthy was knowing not to look suspicious, so Blake walked past the house she was behind and back onto the street at a moderate pace. If anyone saw her creeping around, they'd immediately assume the worst, so moving confidently was the key. Now back on the streets, Blake left the residential district and found the nearest alley. She started walking, planning on where she should go first. It was around noon and Blake had to be back at Torchwick's warehouse by nightfall, so she had plenty of time.
Maybe I should try to find the electronics guy Roman was talking about. If he's not super close with Roman I could probably just leav-
"I thought stealth was one of your strong suits."
Blake turned around and unsheathed Gambol Shroud. Before her was a woman leaning on the bricks of the alley, arms crossed. The girl had a steel breastplate that covered her torso but left her muscular, tattooed arms exposed, except for the steel bracers on her wrists. She had flared silk trousers that were mahogany coloured, with matching boots.
The woman started walking towards Blake, whipping her back length brown hair and staring at Blake with her hazel eyes.
"So, you're Roman's new lackey? Probably won't be for long at this rate."
Confused, Blake kept her weapon drawn and slowly walked backwards.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Blake asked.
"I'm one of your boss's colleagues. People call me Uma. I ordered some things from him that you were supposed to deliver today. You did good not to check what was in the envelope, that would've gotten you killed on the spot, but your technique was quite unimpressive."
"What's going on?" Blake asked shakily. She still had no idea why this conversation was happening, and Uma's threatening appearance and lack of reassurance was raising all sorts of red flags in Blake's head.
"This was a test." Uma said in a deadpan voice, "and you're not getting a good grade. You were quick and sloppy Blake, and that's not going to cut it. There's a new player in town, and she plays for keeps. If your job involved her, you'd be dead, but I'm a bit more generous than that."
Uma held out her left arm as if she was going to choke Blake with it. Blake immediately shuffled backwards, but suddenly something felt off. It was as if someone was grabbing Blake and pulling her towards Uma, and Blake quickly found herself struggling to continue to move backwards. She stepped back about three more feet before the force pulling Blake grew too large and her feet started sliding along the ground. The closer she got the stronger the force felt, and Blake found herself flying headfirst towards Uma's outstretched hand.
With her shadow clones being useless in this situation, Blake swung Gambol Shroud at Uma in a desperation attempt, but without missing a beat Uma grabbed Blake's wrist with her left hand, pulling Blake even closer.
What is going on-
Before Blake could even think, Uma's right hand was on Blake's throat, lifting her off the ground.
"I suggest you take your job a bit more seriously." Uma said with a look of grim satisfaction on her face, "just because you're not scared of the police doesn't mean there's much scarier things out there."
Blake was struggling to breathe. Her Aura could only do so much against the sheer strength of Uma's hand on her throuat, and her left had a similar death grip on Blake's wrist. There was no way out of this.
"Now then, off you go!" Uma said as she threw Blake into the brick wall beside her.
Taking a moment to gather herself, Blake sat on the ground. She thought the job had gone perfectly, but apparently, she's on thin ice.
The White Fang wouldn't have choked me out for that one.
Blake shook her head. She shouldn't be comparing what she was doing now with the White Fang. This was just a temporary setback until she could get into Beacon. Acceptance letters were due to be sent out in a few weeks and Blake was hoping that the admissions office didn't have a very thorough background check.
Looking over to her assailant, Blake was surprised to see no one there. Just like that, she was alone in the alley. Blake thought that her life as a criminal had taught her how to live life on the streets, but whatever she was mixed up in was a lot more than Blake wanted to have to handle.
I need to find that electronics guy and get this tracker off of me before it's too late!
Finding a random underground business in Vale was no easy task, especially with a deadline of one day. Blake was going to have to use all of her resourcefulness to track this place down. Walking down the streets of Vale, she knew she'd have to go to the not so nice parts of town to get any leads.
First up was the thrift shop on the southern part of town. It took a while to get there but Blake was confident someone here would be aware of any sketchy side businesses in the area. After purchasing a replacement black bow for her cat ears, and some new boots that covered up the ankle bracelet better, Blake started asking around for a place she could 'get some old electronics fixed'. Throwing in the more obvious hint of 'I'm looking for someone that can…take something off my hands for a price' seemed to jog the memory of one of the locals, and Blake was quickly directed to a storefront a few blocks away, being asked to 'take the back entrance'.
Blake was cutting through an alley to get to the shop when she found herself at an alley intersection. She walked straight through it but glanced over to her left and saw something that made her heart jump. There, down the alley, were two people talking. One of them had a White Fang uniform on and had their back to Blake. The other, facing in Blake's direction, tilted her head and made eye conduct with Blake.
Uh oh.
Instantly one of the woman's eye ignited into an orange fire and Blake, not wanting to be burned alive in an alley, proceeded to sprint as far away as she could. Making a turn, Blake saw a metal door and figured it would make a good hiding spot. Sending a shadow clone down the alley, Blake ran up to the door, cracked it open, swung herself inside, and shut it, all in one fluid motion. With her back against the door, Blake listened in horror as someone slowly walked past the door and stopped for a moment, before turning around. Their footsteps eventually faded away back in the direction she had come from.
"This ain't a shelter. Either buy something or get out."
Blake looked up and saw a man sitting in an office chair at a desk with various mechanical equipment lying around. The man wore blue coveralls and was holding a soldering iron in his hands. At the centre of the desk was a Scroll that had been taken apart. The room was very barebones, only having the desk, a chair, a lamp, and a bunch of tools. There was only one other door into the room.
Scared, surprised, and confused, Blake asked, "Do you know a Roman Torchwick? I'm looking for an electronics specialist that can help me out."
"Lemme guess, you got an ankle bracelet you want off?" The man went back to working on the Scroll in front of him.
"Uh…Yeah." Blake was meeting a lot of people today that she had a bad feeling about, "I just want to know how much it'll cost."
"50,000 lien. Upfront."
Blake was shocked. She had robbed entire dust shipments worth less than that.
"Is there like a… first time customer discount?" Blake asked with a nervous laugh.
"Come back when you have the lien, you know where to find me." The man said dismissively, shooing Blake away with his hand, not making eye contact with her.
Blake exited the store and made her way back to the streets, moving as quietly as possible and looking around paranoid that the woman with the burning eyes would be waiting for her, much like Uma did. Fortunately, Blake made it out of the alleys in one piece. Now back on the street, Blake finally had a moment to herself for what felt like the first time today.
Well today was a bust, but at least I got a new bow. I guess I should go back to Roman. Hopefully he pays well, I can't imagine having to work for him for long.
The trek back to the warehouse was long and uneventful, but Blake finally got back with a few hours to spare before sunset. From the outside the warehouse looked completely inconspicuous, with no lights or sounds to be seen or heard. Blake walked in the side door and was immediately suspicious. The inside of the warehouse was dark, meaning either no one was home, something had happened to Torchwick, or there was an imminent ambush.
The answer was made immediately clear as a single light turned on, illuminating the desk in the middle of the warehouse, and walking into the light was none other than Torchwick.
"Well, well ,well if it isn't the problematic protégé." Roman said with a smirk, as he always does when he starts a conversation.
"I did the job. Can you just skip the lecture and pay me?" Blake replied, having been through the motions enough times now.
"Not so fast. You really let me down today, Blake. Did you really think the job was as easy as walking into a backyard? I heard you were in and out in ten minutes flat. This isn't a race! If you're not going to be stealthy, perhaps I can still use you as muscle?"
Blake was getting more aggravated by the sentence, "Do I get a choice?"
"You never had a choice," Torchwick said with a smile, "and now you got to prove yourself all over again. Let's see what you can do. Neo!"
Out of the shadows, a figure emerged. The woman in the white dress! Noticeably shorter up close, she smiled at Blake while holding up her parasol. Suddenly shards of glass broke off from her, changing her appearance. Now she was wearing a white and brown outfit, had pink and brown hair, and heterochromia eyes.
"You two are going to fight, and I'm going to decide if you're worth the trouble." Torchwick declared, letting his voice get a little raspy at the end.
"Your opinion on me seems to have changed quite drastically." Blake said with deadpan sarcasm.
The three walked into an open area of the warehouse. Torchwick moved over to the side, and Neo stood opposite to Blake, closed parasol on her shoulders.
Torchwick assumed the position of a referee and chimed in, "Alright ladies! I want a nice clean fight. That means no murdering each other. Right Neo?"
Neo looked over at Roman and frowned.
Ok, I just have to take care of this quiet girl with the parasol who can change her appearance. This can't go worse than the match I had yesterday, right?
Blake drew Gambol Shroud and prepared for a strike. She hadn't done any training since her last defeat, but Blake wasn't going to make the same mistakes. Although Neo seemed to fight differently than that girl, simply standing before Blake in a battle stance, forcing Blake to make the first move. Slowly circling Neo, Blake was having trouble finding any openings. It was obvious that Neo knew more about Blake than she did about Neo, so Blake decided she needed to make a move that would give her some information.
Blake feigned a strike; lunging towards Neo as if she was going to attack her but sending a shadow clone in her place at the last second. The real Blake stepped around Neo at started to swing at her from behind. Sure enough, Neo took the bait and countered Blake's shadow clone's strike, her parasol whiffing through the air where she thought Blake was. Not wanting to waste this perfect opportunity, Blake attacked quickly and struck Neo in the back, except instead of recoiling in pain, Neo shattered into glass shards.
Confused, Blake stood at the illusion for a second too long and found herself getting struck in the back by Neo's parasol. Turning around, Blake saw Neo with a smirk on her face not too different from Roman's.
"Seems like we have similar Semblances, huh?" Blake commented. She rarely ever spoke during a fight, but Neo's constant silence combined with the sadist grin she was making just after hurting her was making Blake uncomfortable.
Neo pursed her lips in response to this, possibly because she didn't like having things in common with Blake, or maybe it was because Blake ruined the moment for her; Blake would never know.
This time it was Neo who approached Blake and prepared to strike. Blake raised both parts of Gambol Shroud up to protect herself, but Neo swung her parasol out in front of her to meet the sheath. Then, Neo roundhouse kicked Blake in the wrist, pushing her back. Blake, assuming Neo was using her legs to aim for a headshot despite their stark height difference, closed the distance between them and swung low. This proved mildly effective, as Neo did an aerial flip over Blake's arms and instinctively swung her parasol at waist height upon landing as a counter, but Blake had crouched under it and had finally found an opening. Jabbing at Neo's side with the hilt of Gambol Shroud, Blake managed to land a successful blow, causing Neo to jump backwards and wince.
Now visibly frustrated, Neo lunged at Blake, her parasol leading the charge. Blake took a defensive stand yet again, but this time when Neo's parasol met Gambol Shroud, it shattered. Instantly recognizing the illusion, Blake put a shadow clone in her place and retreated backwards. Not a second later, Neo struck Blake's illusion from the side. Seeing a similar opportunity as before, Blake jumped at Neo and jabbed at her back with the sheath of Gambol Shroud. Again, the instance of Neo shattered into glass, and just like that the fight turned into a chess match.
Landing and looking up, Blake made eye contact with Neo, who was standing just outside of striking distance. Both girls stared each other down, knowing that they couldn't know if what they were attacking was the real thing. Tightening the grips on their weapons, the scowls on their faces intensified, and the two girls ran at each other.
The two approached and swung at each other, with Neo's parasol cutting right through Blake's apparition. Then Neo shattered into bits as the real Blake shot dust at her from a distance with Gambol Shroud. Neo was suddenly behind her but again the attack hit only a shadow of Blake, before Neo's form disintegrated once more due to being struck from the shadows. Now neither fighter could see the other, both hiding amongst the warehouse shelves, well outside the predefined battlefield, searching for the other and their illusions.
After a few minutes of intense anticipation, a voice called out throughout the warehouse.
"All right, ALL RIGHT!" Torchwick boomed, annoyed, "Bring it in ladies, fight's over! We'll call it a draw…"
"What?!" Blake protested, now revealing herself from the shadows, "All that for a draw?"
"I don't have all night. Besides, you held your own. And I already know you're stealthy enough to avoid the cops, which is good enough for me, even through you're prone to walk straight into an ambush." Torchwick was annoyed but didn't seem to want to get into an argument.
Neo appeared from behind a set of shelves, gesticulating at Roman angrily. It seemed she was quite invested in her fight with Blake.
"It seems you've made a good first impression with Neo, Blake." Torchwick said, smiling at Neo.
This girl is definitely going to murder me.
"Ok, here's what's going to happen." Torchwick declared with scheming eyes, "I have a meeting next week with some crazy lady about my future in the independent crime syndicate business, and I'm going to need some muscle to back me up. You two can train with each other here so you're both in tip top shape. With your strength and my charisma, we should be able to make the most out of these negotiations. Who knows, maybe we can even rough them up a bit and send them packing?"
"How much will you pay?" Blake asked, straight to the point, "Also how much are you going to pay me for delivering your package today?"
"Here." Torchwick replied, throwing a small pouch at Blake, "There's another 5000 where that came from if we all get out of this meeting alive."
Blake caught the pouch and opened it. Inside there was 1000 Lien.
This is going to take a while.
Looking at her ankle tracker, Blake knew she didn't have a choice. On the bright side, she was finally getting a chance to train, even if it was against a girl who looked like she'd kill Blake just for the fun of it.
"Ok. I'm in."