-(=RWBY=)-

Chapter 13

-(=RWBY=)-

The warm light of noon filtered in through the clear glass windows of the restaurant, and Jaune allowed himself to relax, and enjoy the fact that the food was good, the alcohol better, and the company unexpectedly enjoyable.

Taking another sip of the rare, aged Mistralian whiskey, Jaune savoured the taste of pine and fruit and just a hint of smoke, as the amber liquid washed down his throat.

The cost of the bottle, needless to say, had been staggering – going well into the hundreds of lien – but seeing as it was Junior paying, Jaune had felt no misgivings about ordering the menu's most expensive foods and drinks.

Finishing the rest of his whiskey, Jaune put his glass down.

Already feeling a light buzz, Jaune spared a glance at the man furtively staring at him from a nearby table, before turning his attention to his lunch. With a fork, he picked up and gamely tried the thinly-sliced raw fish that was the restaurant's speciality, and which was – apparently – a Mistralian delicacy.

At the same time, Jaune scrolled through the news on his scroll. Most of it was run-of-the-mill stuff, from the resignation of a Valean assemblyman over credible accusations of sexual assault, to the expansion of a refundable tax credit scheme for low-income citizens. On the other hand, in foreign affairs, the news out of Mistral was extraordinarily worrying, with the Branwen tribe capturing yet another series of towns in southern Mistral. This was a new low, even for the legendarily ineffective Mistralian government; while Raven Branwen had long exercised de facto rule over the small villages and rural areas in southern Mistral, she had never yet taken a town – until now.

Of course, all this was happening half a world away, and Jaune had problems of his own to solve.

The latest one had brought him here, to a restaurant located just at the edge of the territory held by Junior's Axe Gang. As part of his promise to the gang leader to help him out in his turf wars against his rivals, Jaune had agreed to be seen publicly associating with the Axe Gang – thus signalling to rival gangs that Junior had a powerful huntsman ally, one who could brutally punish any aggression against Junior and his men.

"Melanie, I think our huntsman is getting bored of us."

"I think so too, Miltia. He seems to like staring at his scroll, instead of paying attention to the two beautiful women sitting right by his side."

With their pale skin, dark hair, and exceptional beauty, the Malachite sisters made even supermodels seem homely. His lunch companions for today, they had been bantering with each other, but now that he was being drawn in, Jaune was obliged to reply in kind.

Lazily looking around, he quipped,

"Beautiful women? Where? I would love to meet them."

That brought the anticipated reactions, as the twins smirked.

"Ooh, what sharp wit from the huntsman. Don't you think so, Melanie?"

"Oh yes, Miltia. Or maybe he just has no taste in women, after all that time hanging around cows with udders."

Jaune had to snort, at that.

"Are you guys really still not over Yang thrashing your place?"

Jaune hadn't known that his schoolmate was the huntress who had beat up Junior's gang and laid waste to his club, until Melanie had brought her up earlier in the conversation, when she asked him if he knew a certain 'blond-haired, big-tit Beacon bitch', to use the girl's colourful language. Nonetheless, he wasn't too surprised – Yang did like to club, and never had the best of tempers; had one of Junior's men tried to get fresh with her, faces would have been punched, and a brawl on the dance floor started.

The twins did not share his amusement, however, and it was with an aggrieved tone that Miltia and Melanie said, respectively,

"Do you know how many our men she injured? And how much it cost to repair the club?"

"Forget the men, and the club. That barbarian punched my sister into a pillar, kicked me in the face, and ruined our favourite dresses."

Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Yes, the world weeps for your ruined dresses. As if you don't get new ones each week only to tire of them by the next – the way you treat your boy toys, no doubt."

Upon hearing this, the twins adopted an identical set of wicked smiles.

"Why, Melania, our huntsman seems to be interested in our love life."

"Very suspicious, Miltia. Maybe he wants to ask us out?"

"He could ask, but –"

"– we'll say no –"

"– because no self-respecting girl –"

"– would be seen dating a guy –"

"– wearing a Pumpkin Pete hoodie."

The Malachites finished each other's sentences flawlessly, their familiarity as twins giving them an almost telepathic ability to know what the other was about to say, and to deliver that burn seamlessly.

Jaune himself looked down ruefully at the rabbit on his sweatshirt, and gave the only reply he could,

"Please, you think this is bad? I used to own a Pumpkin Pete onesie."

The Malachite dissolved into snickers at that, though they did manage to choke out some further japes.

"He's a little bunny boy, Miltia!"

"Awwww."

The twins were grinning like Cheshire cats, and clearly enjoying themselves at his expense – but Jaune didn't mind. It was all in good fun, and more importantly, the man spying on them from a nearby table, on behalf of the rival Harmony Gang, got to see that there was a powerful huntsman who was on good terms with Junior's most trusted lieutenants – and who would be inclined to help punish any attacks upon the Axe Gang, were such to occur.

This wasn't what Jaune wanted to be doing with his free time, but he needed to stay in Junior's good graces, if he wanted to call upon the sort of illegal favours that would help him carry out the even more criminal tasks that Watts was setting him. And of course, while all this might require him to beat up some mobsters, Jaune was never going to kill them – which was more than what these men could expect from some of their fellow criminals. And while Jaune wasn't enthusiastic about supporting a criminal gang, he knew that his refusal to get involved would not stop Junior extorting the local businesses or preying on civilians; in contrast, to the extent that Jaune managed to intimidate the rival gangs into quiescence, violence in gang-controlled territories would subside, and fewer innocent civilians would get hurt over the greed of gangsters and the pride of criminals.

That was the conclusion that Jaune arrived at after thinking things through; though idly, he wondered if he wasn't getting too good at rationalizing his actions. It did not escape his attention that, bit by bit, he was getting more like Ozpin. Indeed, the reasoning he was using to justify himself here – that Junior was going to commit crimes anyway, and that it was better for Jaune to be around to minimize the resultant harm – was precisely the sort of counterfactual and morally fraught reasoning Ozpin had used to justify Jaune's involvement in the White Fang raid – that the Fang was going to successfully steal the gravity dust regardless, so it was better to have Jaune around to minimize the harm done.

The raid.

Jaune's musings turned to his recent mission with the White Fang. It had ended successfully, Jaune's destruction of the strike fighter having allowed the remainder of the raid to proceed smoothly and without further difficulties – with the White Fang breaking into the target warehouse, moving a hundred tons of gravity dust onto ten trucks stolen from the airbase's own motor pool, and then hightailing it out there.

And while Jaune had managed to plant his tracking devices onto the purloined crates of dust, it remained a fact that the White Fang was currently in possession of enough military-grade explosives to blow up whole parts of Vale's central business district.

Jaune could only trust the authorities to do their job and keep track of the dust before any of it was used in an attack; if they didn't, the price of getting into Salem's good graces was going to be high indeed.

This was also far from the last morally questionable thing he was going to be engaged in; Watts had contacted him earlier in the day, to give him his next task.

"There's an open seat in the Valean Assembly, and a coming election to decide who fills it. The district represented has a faunus majority, and we think a friend of yours is just the person to win it. Pay a visit to her in the hospital and convince her, will you?"

Jaune shook his head to clear it; he could worry about the task later. For now, he had to deal with other matters.

"Oh yes –"

As Jaune refilled his glass of whiskey using the already half-empty bottle, he decided to move the conversation along.

"– why don't you guys tell me more about Junior's business? I've always heard he's deep into money laundering, but how does that work, exactly?"

This new topic wiped the smirks off the Malachite sisters' faces, and coldly, they retorted,

"Junior doesn't launder money –"

"– or commit any crimes."

"He's an honest businessman who owns a club –"

"– which got thrashed by an actual criminal."

The twins delivered the denial flatly, without a hint of discomfort in making so blatant a lie.

Jaune had to laugh, and it was in some mirth that he replied,

"Yes, and Yang might well be in jail, if Junior had actually filed a police report; strange, for a law-abiding citizen not to do so. But anyway, I'm genuinely curious about how something like money laundering works – maybe you can enlighten me, so I'll know what the criminals get up to, in contrast to our good friend Junior who only makes an honest living."

Jaune's reply induced the sisters to sniff, haughtily, though elsewise they reacted differently. Melanie rolled her eyes as well, and said,

"Ask my sister – she likes knowing nerdy things."

Miltia glanced at her twin with some irritation, but did begin launching into an explanation.

"If some criminals – like the Harmony Gang –"

Jaune hid a smile at the offhand barb.

"– earn some money illegally, like through selling drugs, the gang needs to make that dirty money look like it came from a clean, legal source. Otherwise, the police will start asking questions about where you got your money from, and that's how you end up in prison."

Miltia then took out a scroll, fiddled with it for a few seconds, and then raised it up for Jaune to see.

"Here's a piece of art. How much do you think it's worth?"

Jaune peered at the senseless riot of colour that was the painting, before shrugging.

"Don't know. Look like some random paint bomb went off on a canvas, to be honest."

His blunt observation was met by Miltia gesture with her scroll, as if in emphasis.

"That painting was sold for almost five hundred million Atlesian lien."

Jaune sucked in a breath.

"That much?"

"That much. Because that's art – it's all subjective, and paintings are worth whatever people say they're worth. So if you have one hundred million lien in dirty drug money, you can buy some fancy painting that's being sold at an auction house for ten million – and then set up a fake buyer who uses your dirty drug money to buy it from you for a hundred million, with no one thinking it too strange."

"And bam –"

Again, Melanie interjected.

"– that's a fuckton of clean money you can spend."

Miltia nodded in agreement.

"Then there are casinos. You buy chips with cash, you play a few games, you win some and lose some – and then you cash in your remaining chips as clean winnings."

As Miltia finished speaking, Melanie threw back a shot of whiskey, before adding,

"We've been to the casinos in Wind Path, and you can really tell who's there to do their laundry. Those guys play like pussies – not like the real gamblers, who blow insane amounts while trying to get the thrill of winning big."

Miltia looked side-eye at her sister.

"Yes, Wind Path... I remember someone got so drunk she threw up on the blackjack dealer and then tried fighting the fifteen bouncers who turned up."

Melanie only shrugged flippantly.

"Don't remember that."

"I wouldn't remember it either, if my brain had been this close to dying from alcohol poisoning."

"Girls, girls."

Jaune inserted himself into the argument, so as to steer it back on course.

"Miltia, you were saying?"

Miltia Malachite gave her sister a final, unimpressed look, before turning back to Jaune.

"Anyway... beyond casinos, there's also the good old-fashioned way of money laundering, using businesses that use a lot of cash, and where it's hard to track how much you really earn. Restaurants, car washes, arcades –"

"Clubs, as well?"

Jaune couldn't resist getting that jab in, and his reward was a frosty look from Miltia – though Melanie seemed somewhat amused, if the way she hid a snicker as a cough was any indication.

Regardless, Jaune was quite pleased with the way the conversation had turned out. What he had learnt was interesting enough, of course, but far more importantly, the entire exercise had allowed Jaune to signal to the Harmony Gang spy nearby that he was well aware of Junior and the Malachites being involved in criminal activity, and yet was associating with them all the same time. This suggested that he wasn't bothered by their criminality, nor too hung up about mere legalities – all of which suggested that he would be rather likely to help Junior out, were the man to request aid in punishing attacks upon the Axe Gang.

"So, like, that's the basic idea of money laundering. You're interested?"

Miltia finished her explanation, but also threw in some shade at his inquisitiveness at the end.

Jaune took a long draught from his whiskey glass, and let the smooth liquid wind its way down his throat, before replying.

"Not really, no. Though since you mentioned Wind Path, it made me remember that I've always wanted to visit Mistral one day."

One of the perks of being a huntsman was that one got to travel far and wide, though that was something denied to Jaune for the foreseeable future. The various tasks Watts had planned for him – including the latest one – were all going to be carried out within Vale itself, which meant Jaune wasn't going to leave the city, let alone the country, any time soon.

Taking another long drink from his glass, Jaune began describing to the twins why he had always wanted to travel Mistral.

"Would be nice to visit the Candlelight Path in the Viridescent Forest, or Sky Lake on Everwhite Mountain, or the Bridge to the Stars... though I guess since the bridge is in south-eastern Mistral, you might have to fight your way through Branwen bandits to get there."

At this point, the Malachite sisters shared a look – one Jaune could not even begin to decipher.

Then, as one, the twins turned to him; and with more sombreness than he had ever seen them muster, they said, one after the other,

"No bullshit, Arc. Raven Branwen's dangerous."

Jaune knew the sisters were being deadly serious, when they were calling him by his name, and not by any mocking monikers like 'huntsman' or 'little bunny boy'.

"If you want to be in our business, you need to know the rules, and the one rule above all is – you don't mess with Raven Branwen."

Appreciating that the twins were warning him in good faith, and trying not to seem ungrateful for advice – even if he honestly thought the counsel trite – Jaune said, mildly,

"Don't worry, I know how dangerous the most powerful huntress in the world is."

A Champion in her time, and after her defection the most wanted criminal alive, Raven Branwen was by all accounts the single strongest living being on Remnant – a fact readily apparent, when over the course of a dozen years Mistral sent one Champion after another to kill the bandit-queen, only for the traitor to duel each in turn, and every time come out triumphant.

And all this before she acquired the powers of a Maiden; and so Jaune believed Ozpin, when the man had confided that Raven Branwen was second in strength only to Salem.

Unaware of his ruminations, the twins shared yet another glance with each other, before firing off a seamless explanation made in collaboration.

"You don't understand, Arc."

"You really, really don't."

"The bitch could kill you with sword and dust sorcery, but that's not the point."

"She's has an army of elite huntsmen, bigger than any Kingdom's."

"Turns out if you're forced into a bandit army and forced to fight for your life everyday –"

"– you get really strong, really quick."

"And it's not some third-rate extortion racket she's running."

"Junior says it's an ideal she's selling."

"She tells the peasants –"

"'It's my job to protect you –'"

"'– and yours to obey.'"

"And the peasants like it."

"Because it protects them."

"Keeps them safe."

"And they know Raven Brawen could do worse."

"Just take, whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

"But she doesn't."

"And they respect that."

"Besides, this deal Branwen offers them?"

"It's better than what they used to get from Mistral."

"Which is nothing."

"Random raids from bandits; no help when plague kill half the village; Grimm attacks, left unchecked."

"Yeah, bitch-queen's deal is much better."

"So maybe it's basically a feudal contract –"

"– but still –"

"– but they like it –"

"– like her –"

"– and so long as Mistral doesn't understand that –"

"– southern Anima is all hers."

"Take it from us –"

Miltia stopped speaking, suddenly, and Jaune looked at her quizzically.

It was then that someone else spoke.

"Heh. Why are you kids talking 'bout my dear old sister?"

A rough voice, harsh like the sound of stone on sandpaper, interrupted their conversation.

The Malachites themselves were silent, their eyes glued to the man standing behind Jaune.

With a pretty good idea of who exactly was here to interrupt their lunch, Jaune turned his head around, and said, shortly,

"Mr Branwen."

"Arc."

The unshaven, shoddily dressed man plopped himself down onto an empty chair, before reaching for the whiskey bottle.

Drinking straight from it, Branwen quaffed down a ludicrous – and indeed, dangerous – quantity of the hard liquor, before releasing the bottle from his lips, and giving a contented sigh.

"Aaah, that's good stuff. You sure know how to pick 'em, kid. How much did it cost?"

Jaune told him, and the man blanched.

"What a scam. Here's a tip, from an actual alcoholic to an aspiring one – look for the stuff that gives the most grams of alcohol per lien. Saves you a lot of money, in the long run."

Then, Branwen paused, and frowned, as if a thought just occurred to him.

"Well, guess it doesn't matter, since us alcoholics die too early to have to worry about retirement or any of that boring stuff."

With anyone else, Jaune would have enjoyed the banter; but right now, he was anything but pleased.

"What do you want, Branwen?"

Ozpin had been very clear – he wanted the infiltration mission kept from everyone else in his inner circle, for fear that one of them was a traitor who had turned his cloak to Salem.

Jaune didn't think it was Qrow Branwen, but then again he couldn't conceive of Glynda Goodwitch or any of the headmasters having betrayed humanity to the Queen of the Grimm. Cinder Fall herself, for obvious reasons, couldn't be the spy – which made Jaune wonder if Ozpin was not being overly paranoid.

"Why'd you think I want anything, kid?"

Branwen took another draught of whiskey, though this time he was somewhat more civilized about it, by pouring the alcohol into a glass, rather than drinking the liquid straight from the bottle.

"Did Ozpin send you?"

Branwen shook his head.

"Nah. Though if you apologized to him, and admit you fucked up, he'll rescind your expulsion, and take you back into Beacon, no problem. Glynda argued really strongly about giving you a second chance, you know – but old Oz was adamant; said you were unrepentant, so how can he trust you to make the right calls in future missions?"

As Branwen spoke, Jaune forced his somewhat alcohol-dulled mind to focus; he had to stay sharp, and avoid giving away the impression that he was not as estranged from Ozpin as he was meant to be – for that would run the risk of hinting that Jaune was being deceptive in his dealing with Watts and Salem.

Ozpin himself had done an excellent job in making Jaune's expulsion plausible. The public was fooled readily enough, by the story of his reckless abandonment of his teammates in favour of glorious single-combat with the Necrovalock.

Meanwhile, Winter Schnee – who might have been suspicious, given how her sister had made no mention of Jaune's recklessness during the initial flight back from Rothenburg – was dealt with easily, just by having Weiss lie to her, and say that she had not wanted to blame Jaune when he was still comatose from the Seer attack.

And as for the inner circle, all of whom knew just how powerful Hazel Rainart had been, and hence how strong Jaune was, Ozpin had emphasized that strength wasn't everything – that there was no point retaining a powerful huntsman who showed no regret over abandoning his teammates, and who could not be trusted to do the right thing by the people he was charged with protecting.

With all that in mind, Jaune was eager not to undermine the headmaster's masterful deception; and so, he summoned all the venom he could muster, and spat –

"I'll rather kill myself than apologize to Ozpin, because I've done nothing wrong at all."

Qrow Branwen listened to Jaune silently, before cocking his head in manner not unlike his corvid namesake, and saying,

"Huh. Well, I ain't unsympathetic, kid. People die during Grimm attacks, all the time. That's just life. You did what you could, and maybe it wasn't the best, but best is hard to recognize when you have Beowolves and Grimm cultists up your ass.

"Just saying – if you want back in, door's open."

Qrow Branwen said all that in a relatively conciliatory tone of voice; but then, his eyes sharpened, and his voice hardened, when he next said,

"Real question is, what's a huntsman like you doing with criminal scum like the Axe Gang? No offence –"

He nodded to the stony-faced sisters.

"– to present company. "

Branwen's eyes focused on Jaune's; his vermillion orbs, boring into azure ones.

Jaune found his own eyes tightening in displeasure that was only half-fake.

"I'm keeping the peace, that's what. Maybe that wouldn't have been necessary if the Valean authorities actually did their job and suppressed the criminal underground, but since they don't, here we are. I'm doing Junior a favour –"

Jaune gestured to the twins, who nodded in acknowledgement.

"– and punishing any attacks on the Axe Gang; and if that means all the thugs being too afraid to start trouble, that's the streets made safer."

Jaune said all that, not just for Branwen, but for the benefit of the Harmony Gang spy listening nearby. This was as close as he got, to an explicit warning to the rival gangs – to not make trouble, lest Jaune came for them.

Qrow Branwen, however, was singularly unimpressed. Making a contemptuous noise while scrunching up his face, he then said,

"Sounds like something my sister would do. You kick the asses of all the gangsters and bandits in the area, and call it peace... except you're an outlaw yourself, the biggest there is, crushing the people under your boot."

Branwen drained the rest of the whiskey in his glass.

"You –"

"If you don't like her, then why don't you stop her?"

Jaune's voice was soft, but the intent behind it was unmistakeable.

Qrow Branwen froze, whiskey glass in the air midway between mouth and table.

Slowly, he put it down, before growling,

"Watch it, kid."

"Or what, you'll kill me? You're welcome to try, just like Rainart did. Wonder where he is now, though?"

Qrow Branwen looked at Jaune; really looked at him. And for the first time in this conversation, Jaune felt that the man was taking him seriously – treating him as a potential equal and enemy, not just a kid to be humoured, or a former student to be protected.

"You –"

Branwen's voice was soft.

"– really are like my sister."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It ain't. It means you're strong, and think you can challenge the world – but the world's not so easy to beat, pal."

Branwen grabbed the whiskey bottle on the table, and drained what was left of it.

"Also – I heard you and Lil' Miss Malachite's girls talking about Raven earlier. All that stuff, about how's she's so strong, so clever – but what the news don't tell you is this. My sis? She's a coward, plain and simple."

Jaune found himself frowning, and before Branwen could get another word in, he interjected,

"She's the most powerful human on Remnant. Even if we think she's evil for leading a pack of murderers and thieves, you don't get to where she is without risking your life fighting a lot of strong people, Champions and all."

"Yeah. My sister's fought the best of 'em, and killed 'em dead – but not because she's brave; it's because she's afraid. She's scared of losing, of dying, so she trained herself to become the strongest a human can be."

Branwen paused, before quietly adding,

"Or even stronger, maybe."

Maiden.

Jaune knew what he was talking about, even if Branwen thought him ignorant. And it reinforced what Jaune already knew – under no circumstances was he ever going to fight the bandit-queen, because that was a battle he was never going to win.

Putting the whiskey bottle back onto the table carelessly, Qrow Branwen continued by saying,

"Got herself an army too. And made some people call her queen. But she is who she is – a coward too afraid to risk her life for anything."

The man stood, and turned to leave.

But even as he took a step towards the exit, he paused, and turned his head back slightly.

"Oh yeah. Glynda's worried about you, and wanted me to say – even if you're expelled from Beacon, it doesn't mean you should give up on education. Go to university, go study. Learn something, anything."

He shrugged.

"Or not. And end up like me."

He gave a darkly humorous grin.

"Good luck with life, kid. You'll need it."

-(=RWBY=)-