[X] Miltia. They haven't talked for a while, and since she's coming back anyway, Yang better see what that's about.
Stepping into the building Four had designated, Yang pulled a jacket around her, flaring her Aura slightly, just a little, to keep herself warm.
Why did it have to be so cold?
Trying to ignore it, Yang walked up some stairs, and pushed herself into a room.
...Huh. She was the last person here.
"Hey, everyone." Yang waved. "Sorry I took so long."
Everyone looked over at Yang, and she took a moment to look over them.
"You must be Yang." Said a tall hulk of a man, at least a head taller than Four with an impressively large torso. He wore a pair of glasses on the end of the nose, and seemed to have a weapon similar to Four's. He looked down at her for a moment, and opened his mouth to say something more.
"Don't bother her." Four ordered, as she flexed her claws in anticipation. "Sorry, Yang. I told him to stay to himself..."
"He didn't really say anything bad, though?" Yang asked, kinda confused. "If anything-"
Four shook her head. "Trust me, Yang. He acts all professional and mature and kind, but my Disciple is not the kind of person you want to be interacting with."
"...Okay." Yang said, rather confused.
"Yang Xiao Long." Said another voice, and the girl with yellow hair turned to look at who must have been Fuyu Chizakura. "It's been a while since we met."
"Hi to you too." Yang noted, looking over the man. He was sitting in the window, looking out to the night with his black hair hanging down his back. He looks over at Yang, and she notices he seems to have replaced his visor with a shorter, slightly larger one that seemed to be clinging closer to his face than before. "So Four ended up hiring you?"
"The contract was enough to tempt me, I confess." Fuyu admitted. "I still haven't forgotten our last fight, Xiao Long. Rest assured, I have striven to cover the weaknesses that you were able to take advantage of last time."
"You brought along more than one weapon?" Yang asked.
"Significantly more."
Yang blinked, then smiled. Heh. He was amusing.
Nodding at the man as he cleaned the edge of his blade while staring out into the night, Yang looked towards Miltia.
"How are you doing?" She asked.
Miltia looked over at her. "Me? I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Yang asked. "I heard you and your sister-"
"It's nothing." Miltia insisted. "Come on, don't we have a fight to get on with?"
"Not for a bit longer." Four replied, scrolling through her scroll (heh) as she did so. "I'm just confirming some information about the plan first."
Miltia looked over at Four, then back at Yang.
"It's really nothing." Miltia insisted. "It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
Yang frowned, but didn't push the topic. Miltia's words were somewhat unconvincing, but Yang didn't want to push the issue just yet. It wouldn't do to antagonise someone before Four's plan started properly.
Turning to the last person in the room, Yang looked over towards the last member of the group. Fox Alistair, the Beacon student, who was looking towards the nearby wall. Or, well, not really looking. His gaze wasn't focused. He was just kinda facing it.
"Fox?" Yang asked. "I don't think we've talked before. Good to meet you."
Fox nodded in her direction, and Yang took a moment to note that, somehow, Fox was wearing a singlet that showed off his arms without being visibly bothered by the cold.
Well, he was a Beacon student. Maybe he just picked up a trick to help him ignore the cold better. That was probably an Aura manipulation exercise. Or maybe he also had a fire aligned Semblance like Yang did.
Or maybe he was just ignoring it so he could show off all the scars on his arm.
...Oddly enough, a lot of the scars were positioned up his arm enough that they were in line with the backwards-facing blades attached to his fists. Maybe he had some trouble figuring out his weapon at first?
"...So, Four hired you as well?" Yang asked. "I saw you fight last time you were here. You did alright. Beat up Blast at a time where I couldn't get around his Semblance, and did well against that Marcus guy."
Fox looked at Yang and grinned, a scar visible over his lips and strained as he did so.
"...You don't talk much, do you?" Yang asked.
Fox shrugged.
"Alright then." Yang shrugged. "I'd try to push the point, but I can see that trying to get you to talk is a Mute point."
Fox snorted, and Yang could hear him chuckle faintly.
She... Didn't know if mute people could audibly laugh, so she was fairly sure Fox was just playing with her. Or just preferred not to talk much. Either or.
"Alright." Four declared, putting her scroll down from her face. "I've got the plan down. Here's what we're going to do."
Everyone stepped around, forming a semicircle in front of Four, who cleared her throat and got ready to five a speech.
"Alright people." She explained. "I've asked a few captives, and we're going to go over what we know one more time."
Everyone nodded, and Four started pacing.
"The White Fang are going through with their plan here. There's going to be three of them here. Two underlings, and a lieutenant. The last one is the important one here, but I don't want any of them getting away."
She pressed a button on her scroll, and a hologram opened up. A graph appeared, with several lines pointing towards several people.
"We all know that the White Fang has been striking at Dust stores to buy certain kinds of Dust, and I want to know why. That's not overly important right now, but all you need to know is about the lieutenant."
Four tapped the hologram, and it expanded on a picture of a woman in a trench coat of some kind, and a red cap. Her long hair blocked out most of her face, but what was visible looked annoyed.
"This is Otoko." Four explained. "She's a Dust dealer of... Well, that's not relevant right now. What is relevant is that she's going to be in the Fight Club right now, making bets. And she'll also be keeping track of who bets on what, so she can sell to whoever has the most money. I've put in a request to see her after the show, and I've given her Decadus' name."
Decadus nodded, and said nothing.
"The rest of you can contact her if you want." Four continued. "But for now, I merely want to explain the plan. I want either Decadus or one of you to take the best possible winnings, but if that fails, at the very least I want you denying as many winnings to the White Fang as possible."
Yang nodded. "Beat up just enough people to mess up whatever betting scheme they have?"
"Too much won't be needed." Four waved. "You'll only need to do one fight each. In that time, I want you to try and identify who the White Fang members are, or at least the lieutenant."
"I assume you'll be having us follow anyone who we suspect of being part of the White Fang?" Fuyu asked.
Four nodded. "Exactly. Decadus will return here after the fight to lure Otoko here after the fighting. If everything works out as best it can, then Otoko will be coming here first, and I half expect the White Fang will be trying to intercept."
Fox made a humming sound, in consideration.
"Following that, everyone should identify at least White Fang member." She continued. "We have one extra person here, so we can be wrong once."
"Anything we should keep an eye out for?" Miltia asked.
Four cleared her throat again, tapping the hologram again to bring up a still picture of a person lying on a bed.
"This is a White Fang member." Four explained. "A fourth member who was supposed to be here today. He's not going to be. So for one thing, the White Fang members are likely to be looking for someone, as well as possibly on edge if they fear he's been captured or that he's sold them out."
She paused for a moment.
"Well, and there's the obvious." Four continued. "The White Fang are a Faunus Hate Group. If someone's walking around with bunny ears, they're more likely to be the person you're looking for then a person without."
Yang frowned, and looked at Four, who shifted.
"...That came out rather racist, didn't it? Sorry. Didn't mean to make anyone uncomfortable. Point stands, though."
"...Fair enough." Miltia decided.
Stretching her arm a bit, Four looked over everyone again.
"I don't think I need to talk about much more." She decided. "The people running the fight club tells me this'll be a collection of one on one fights, so go in there, try to identify a target, fight them, beat them. If people start looking like they're throwing a fight to someone else, consider it for a moment, those two might be the White Fang. Everyone understand that?"
There was a collection of nods.
"Good." Four decided. "Let's go then."
Yang looked over in time to see Fuyu walking towards and then out of a window, while Fox left the room immediately. Decadus took a moment to tweak his weapons for a moment, before going to stand behind Four, and when Yang looked over to see Miltia walking out, and ran up to catch up to her.
"Hey." Yang said, as she matched Miltia's pace. "Mind if we talk while we walk?"
"If you feel like it." Miltia replied, before slowing down a moment. "...You're going to ask about Melanie, aren't you?"
"Sorry." Yang winced. "I get the idea that it's a rough patch, but-"
"It's fine." Miltia insisted. "Why would there be a problem?"
Yang looked at her. "Last time we met, you said that you were feeling terrible because Melanie was looking so pathetic. Now I hear you had a disagreement with her, and you're expecting me to say you're fine?"
"I'm fine." Miltia insisted. "It's not a big deal, really."
"How?" Yang asked, as the two of them left the building. "I mean, you don't just change like that so quickly-"
"I know you're worried, Yang." Miltia shrugged her off. "But really. It's okay. It doesn't matter. Nothing mattered. It didn't..."
She paused, and leaned against the wall of the building next to her, taking a deep breath.
"...It's not like I care." She insisted.
Yang stopped to look at the girl in the red dress. "...You don't look fine, Miltia."
"And you look so much better." Miltia bit back. "You run off into a forest full of Grimm and keep throwing yourself into a nigh-impossible fight just because you're feeling bad, but I stumble a bit and you need to take me aside to see what's wrong?"
Yang froze, as the words hit her.
What the hell was Miltia trying to imply here? Yang already knew that she was weak as she was, and she needed to be stronger. Was there supposed to be something wrong with that?
"Just talk to me, Miltia." Yang asked, her voice starting to get icy. Damn it, she wasn't hiding that enough.
"...You want to know what happened?" Miltia asked. "Fine. It's not like it matters. I tried to talk to Melanie."
"And?" Yang asked.
"...Fifth time in a month." Mitlia said. "Fifth time I tried to talk to her, and the instant she sees me, she asks where Five is. I ask her how she is, and her answer depends on the last time she saw Five. Everything is about Five."
Paling slightly, the Huntress in training grabbed Miltia's hand. "...That must've sucked."
"Why would it?" Miltia asked. "Yeah, sure, I thought I was doing something wrong at first. But I took your advice there, Yang. I went out and got in a bunch of fights. Won a bunch of fights. And you know what? I get it. I'm not the terrible sister. I'm not the sister that never even bothered asking how the other was coping."
...Oh no.
"Was that what it was about?" Yang asked. "You didn't think Melanie cared?"
"Naturally." Miltia said frostily. "I tried to talk to her, and she just shrugs me off? I made the effort. I'm not in the wrong. I'm... I'm not..."
Her breathing hitches, and she wipes something from her eye from a moment, pulling free from Yang's hand in the process.
"...Come on." Miltia muttered softly. "We're gonna be late."
Yang nodded silently, and set off after Miltia as she started walking away.
...Damn it. She didn't know what to say here, to make Miltia feel better. That situation of hers sounded terrible. Yang knew that Melanie had been messed up by Five's song, and that Miltia wasn't taking it well, but this?
Had it really gotten bad enough that Miltia had to justify things to herself like this? Try to convince herself that her sister didn't matter to her just so she stopped feeling bad about watching how bad off her sister was, when she couldn't help?
She must feel terrible-
"Are you alright, Yang?"
The girl with yellow hair stopped again, as the memory came to her.
...No, she was just being paranoid. Ruby knew she cared. Ruby worried, but she wasn't as bad off as Melanie was, and Ruby never pushed the issue. She knew that Yang was fine. And Ruby, she must've been feeling bad after watching people get hurt, but that was why Yang needed to get stronger to keep her safe. Ruby was fine, and she knew Yang was fine.
Didn't she?
With an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, Yang wandered on to the Fight Club building.
...She'd need to have a talk with Ruby later. Just to... Just to assure herself.
With the Fight Club Fighting starting soon, there are a few relevant fights going down. For now, though, who will fight first?
[X] Decadus
[X] Fox Alistair
[X] Fuyu Chizakura
[X] Miltia Malachite
[X] Yang Xiao Long