RWBY A Day in the Life of Crime
Chapter Special: Meaning Behind the Mask
A/N: Well, it's been over a year since I updated. Seeing as the last chapter I updated was on the villains taking a vacation, let's pretend that's where they've (and I've) been all year long. The lack of updates has been largely in part to the fact I lost my notes on where I wanted this story to go, and I was just too unmotivated to continue for quite some time.
But, I went through my content and found some unpublished chapters from last year, so I decided I'd post them up to motivate myself to get writing so I can finish this series. Thought it might be interesting to show how the ranking system within the gang works.
The Grimm gang wore terrifying white masks, distorted animal faces made monstrous. But these masks didn't only serve to frighten their victims and any and all who simply gazed upon them, but they were also a ranking system within the gang. Depending on one's mask they had more power in the gang, as well as more privileges. This system had been devised by Cinder. It was meant to give incentive for her gang members so that they could want to rise through the ranks by training hard, and by working hard. This would ensure she had more powerful gang members, as there were perks that came with the type of mask one wore.
Her system did end up working like she wanted it to, perhaps too well, for soon she was severely lacking those who were supposed to be on the lowest rung of the ladder. So she had to make a few adjustments, make it harder to climb the ranks. Her system helped propel those with power and ambition higher, making it so that her gang had more skilled fighters than any other gang. And to make it even better, she also issued demotions. Thus if one of her workers messed up once too many times he would be knocked down a peg or two. She over saw all these promotions and demotions personally but once her gang got to be too big she had to issue people in her place to take care of such small matters, for she had far more important things to worry about, like keeping her gang running smoothly and spending time with Ruby. It was actually Ruby who wore the top ranking mask in the gang. It made sense, given how she was the gang leader. Cinder had once worn the same mask but had relented it to her girlfriend once the time for the switch of leadership had occurred. Ruby's mask was a Grimm dragon mask, modeled after real life dragons that lived in the forests of Remnant and that flew over the seas to fish for food. The girl rarely wore it, unless it came time for serious battle. Otherwise she rather walk around maskless and fight her opponents that way. The dragon mask was given only to the leader because they were supposed to be as aggressive and dangerous as a dragon themselves, their temper expected to match the fiery breath of the beast. A dragon was also chosen for it had fire capabilities much like Cinder had, but that part of the meaning had been lost when it had been handed down to Ruby.
Cinder than had gone on to don the Grimm Sea Dragon mask. It wasn't an official mask that had existed before but Ruby had insisted on creating the ranking for her. It was meant to represent someone who had once held more power but now was mainly retired from doing criminal activities of the violent and bloody sort. Thus it was a dragon to represent ferocity but a water one, because water was a soothing and calm element meant to show that the wearer of this while still dangerous like a storm at sea, did not use or engage their powers in savage affairs.
Cinder had chuckled when Ruby had first given her the mask. It was beautiful and terrifying like all the Grimm masks, but she knew that the girl was giving her this mask with this meaning in the hopes that Cinder would no longer strive to want to help Ruby on her missions. The girl wanted Cinder to wash her hands off of all gang affairs. Cinder would not, however. For despite Ruby's claims in wanting to save her, she could not completely detach her livelihood from the gang. It ran in her veins, her having spilled gallons of her own blood in order to make it run. It powered her muscles, her having to toughen her flesh to get the results she wanted. It beat with every heartbeat of hers, her heart and soul invested in the very results and lives of those in the gang. And Ruby was here too. There was no way she was going to leave the girl's side at any cost. If they were going to quite the gang they were going to do it both, and it didn't seem like Ruby wanted to quit any time soon therefore Cinder wasn't going to either.
After Cinder's mask, a mask that gave her much sway over the gang but which signaled to others that she should be guarded and protected from leaving to fight in gang battles, was the the Nuckelavee mask. This mask was reserved for the gang's commanders- men and woman who had proven themselves countless times in battle to be strategic masterminds and powerhouses in their own right. There were eight of them and they governed over their own portions of the Grimm gang. They reported to Cinder their course of actions and plans (despite Ruby being the leader, she wasn't exactly good with this kind of stuff, so Cinder, as the vice leader would take care of the matters that Ruby dubbed as 'boring' so the girl could take to formulating plans and eating cookies) but they also had underlings that controlled the even smaller divisions of the eight so called Grimm armies, for the gang was certainly big enough to have their own armies now. And those who worked under the Nuckelavee were called King Taijitu's, running around and doing errands in keeping the armies together when the time came that such armies were needed, which wasn't often thankfully.
And in the armies themselves, there were several more ranking systems, mainly based on the physical power of the workers. There were Goliath's, Beringel's, Boarbatusk's, Beowolf's and lastly Ursa's, ranked from most powerful to least powerful. Ursa's were those commonly referred to as the lowest of the lowest rank, and they were basically Grimm gang grunt's, doing the worst tasks. Ursa's didn't have specific tasks to them and sometimes they could enter an entirely different field, for everyone who joined the gang at first would end up an Ursa. If they proved to be only good at physical labor they would rise the ranks through in the physical department. If they did not have a proclivity for such laborious activities then they would be sent to other sections of the gang such as financing, espionage, information proliferation or interrogating.
There were of course other ranks that did not fall in between these rankings for the people who wore them weren't known for their physical strength but for their cunning and sneakery. There were Creep's, those who were into keeping tabs on all the information running in and out of the city. There were Geist's, those who conducted espionage and infiltration into other gang's or law enforcement or governmental stations. A Geist outranked even the King Taijitu's given how dangerous and secretive their line of work was. Creep's, however, were barely above Beowolf's since their line of work was by no means dangerous, still they provided valuable information.
Those who wore the Death Stalker masks also were in their own category. They were the one's who were known for their chemicals and for their poisons. They often worked together with the Geist's as their field of work required them not to be on the forefront of the fighting necessarily but to be more in the behind the scenes. Death Stalker's were roughly on the same level as Beringel's for they were the scientists of the gang and vital to forming the weapons, not just poisons, although that was their field of expertise, and held words of importance and knowledge to be given when it came time to designing new weapons for the Grimm gang members to use. Cinder often pushed them to make weapons whose designs had never been done before. And when they did their work she would keep the results locked up after mass producing them, for she did not want to reveal their secret weapons just on some low level and everyday activity such as robbing a store. No, let the city think the gang only used common marketplace weapons. But when the time really came, then all the Grimm designed weapons and poisons would be sprung free to cause untold devastation.
Lastly, there were three more rankings. These ranking were neither physical or intelligence. They were more of the odds and ends bits of the gangs.
The one who wore the mask of the Seer was one who was an interrogator of the gang. They would take the victims that the gang had kidnapped and get the answers Cinder wanted out of them. Wearing this mask meant that the person under it was good with words, with understanding the mental processing of the person they were interrogating in order to get the best results. Cinder made sure only to hire the best of the best. All of her interrogators could out smart and out speak anyone, even her occasionally, something she had to be careful of for these people could even out manipulate her sometimes.
One such exception was Neo. She was the top interrogator, yet she did not utter a single word in order to achieve that rank. Just alone with her appearance and the looks and body language she utilized in the interrogation room she was able to get results. It was a mystery how she even did it. When Cinder had gone to see the interrogation one day, she herself had felt a little scared of Neo and had to leave early, even though all the girl had done in the ten minutes Cinder was there was cross her arms over her chest and then uncross them some time later.
The only conclusion Cinder could come to was that the lack of conversation, that the silence was what was more terrifying than being yelled at and thus it made the person so uncomfortable they started to babble. For even the toughest cracked under the heavy absence of words.
Neo's friend Roman, was in a different field from her. He was involved with finances, a section of workers which wore the mask of the Griffon, for although the man found them boring he had an exceptionally sharp mind when it came to numbers. He could find the best ways to save money or to cut back on costs that Cinder couldn't have even begun to notice. He was also good in investing in the stock market and doubling the money they already had. With him on Cinder's side he ensured the gang's coffer's were overflowing with money. The hefty paychecks the working members received was often enough to draw the attention of people who wanted money and didn't care how it came to be.
For those new people who were interested in joining the gang, they were simply called pests for the time being until they could undergo the tests of loyalty, courage and bravery that awaited them before they could become full fledged members. It was the people who wore the Wasp mask that oversaw these inductions and initiations, and who weeded out the weak and saved the strong. For those member's accepted they became Ursa's ready to rise through the ranks.
And the final rank to touch upon was the Nevermore rank which simply consisted of people that carried messages and fetched things for other's, sort of like secretary's. The Golith's had their own, the King Taijitu's had their own, and so did the Nuckelavee's. This ranking was very low, almost at Beowolf level, except for the two people known as Mercury and Emerald. They were Cinder's and Ruby's personal assistants and thus when they wore the mask of the Nevermore everyone knew that their ranking was different from the other Nevermore's, for they had the power to boss the other members of their section around.
This system ranking worked very well for Cinder. It was efficient, it motivated others, and most importantly it got her the results she wanted.