-(=RWBY=)-
Chapter 14
-(=RWBY=)-
Qrow left after saying his piece, but the whole conversation had left a sour taste in Jaune's mouth.
It also made the rest of lunch a far more reserved affair, as even the Malachites could sense his mood, and chose to chat with each other over poking at him for their own amusement, as they had been doing earlier.
Then, once lunch was over, Jaune bade farewell to the sisters; his task here was done, the message to the rival gangs sent – and it was time to move on to his next task.
Leaving the restaurant, Jaune walked to the closest Valean metro station. From there, he took the train to his destination – another area in the industrial district, and a place not too far from where he himself lived.
Lacking his armour, and with a beanie over his hair and a hoodie pulled over his head, Jaune was largely unrecognizable to the public – thus sparing him the glares and glances he would otherwise have drawn. The train journey thus passed in relative peace, giving Jaune the chance to gather his thoughts and think on how to approach this next task from Watts.
...
He had to confess – he had no good answers.
It was with an agitated frame of mind that Jaune that finally arrived at the station that was his destination. Still mulling things over, he set an unhurried pace.
And distracted though he might have been, Jaune's huntsman training kept him alert to his surroundings; he did not fail to notice that this neighbourhood was – somehow – even rougher than the one where he lived. The buildings were run-down, bothering on the derelict, while groups of hard-looking young faunus men hung around the sidewalks and corners.
"Oi! Human!"
One man detached from his group of friends, and began stalking aggressively towards Jaune.
Too late, Jaune realized – being one of the strongest huntsmen alive was no deterrent in itself; one had to look the part, too, else fools would still challenge you. And bereft of armour and sword – the latter being something he could no longer legally carry, given the loss of his trainee huntsman licence – he looked little more than an ordinary citizen; weak, vulnerable, and ripe for the robbing.
"You lookin' for trouble, comin' here?"
Eyes narrowed and shoulders set, the man strode forward relentlessly, and Jaune took a moment to consider his options.
He had faced this very sort of situation the day of Pyrrha's funeral, when some drunk thug attacked him. For that, Jaune had the broken man's arm, and shattered his nose – a more brutal response than was strictly needed, Jaune could admit given the benefit of hindsight. He could have subdued the man without any serious injuries, but his poor mood from the funeral in particular – and life in general – had made him disinclined towards mercy.
Now, however...
Looking to assert his dominance, the faunus came in for a punch –
– which Jaune caught, easily.
Then, applying as much strength as was safe to use, Jaune squeezed, crushing the man's closed fist with his aura-enhanced fingers.
"Arrrgh!"
The man's scream reminded Jaune far too much of the raid on the airbase, when he had crushed forearms and smashed legs. That, along with the fact that applying force for any longer risked causing serious damage, made Jaune let go after mere seconds.
Released, the faunus man staggered back, clutching his injured hand in his uninjured one.
His friends were caught off guard, though only for a second; in the next, they all rushed forward, shouting in anger and seeking to avenge their comrade.
It was a difficult fight, for all the wrong reasons. Jaune had to use aura, just in case one of these men got the bright idea of pulling out a knife and stabbing him in the back. But with the enhanced durability of aura came superhuman strength as well, Jaune in a situation where had to fight his own well-honed combat instincts, and suppress the physical boost his aura sought to give – just so he could pull his punches, and avoid badly hurting anyone.
Pre-emptively going on the offence, Jaune brought his right fist around and punched one man in the face – breaking his nose, and causing blood to spurt everywhere.
Then, spinning around, Jaune use his left forearm to brush aside the second man's wild haymaker of a punch, before transiting into a left jab that caught the man right on the chin.
By this time, the third man had circled around to Jaune's back; an excellent move, that gave him an open line of attack on Jaune's vulnerable back –
– but Jaune was a trained huntsman, and these men were not. With a casual glance to the back, Jaune read the incoming attack, and took the necessary countermeasures.
Stepping to the side, Jaune dodged the incoming punch, before throwing his elbow around and smashing the man in his temple.
The fourth man, smarter than his friends, saw that melee combat was a lost cause; but stupider than them, he decided to escalate rather than escape.
His hand went for the pistol at his waist; and the glint of dark metal against the light of day gave Jaune enough warning that he stopped treating the fight as a game of no stakes.
Jaune's mind whirled, as he considered all his possible options.
His initial instinct was to dodge the first shot, then come in with a disabling blow –
– but there were people behind him on the street, and letting a shot be fired was too great a risk.
His next instinct was to do lash out with a kick at both gun and hand, to simultaneously knock the former away while incapacitate the man –
– but that could well mean crippling his opponent for life.
That left only one option.
His aura-enhanced physical capabilities kicked into full gear, and Jaune blurred forward well in time to grab the gun before it fired.
BANG!
The pistol fired, into Jaune's aura-protected palm, and he winced from the terrible pain that started radiating from the centre of his left hand.
Pushing through the pain, Jaune grabbed the pistol and pulled it away, out of the hand of the gangster who had just tried to murder him.
The shooter himself had frozen; he wasn't dim enough to have failed to realize that his opponent was almost certainly a huntsman, and that he himself was in for a world of hurt.
Without speaking a word, Jaune kicked the man in the his groin – and sending him collapsing to the ground.
Shaking his left hand to dissipate the intense pain that had resulted from the gunshot – and gauging the aura loss at no more than a few percent of his total – Jaune glanced down in distaste at the firearm he was now holding.
Jaune didn't like guns. It was the martial snobbery that came from being part of a long line of famed swordsmen, but on a practical level, guns were also – in Jaune's view – less than useful. They were both too deadly and not deadly enough – fatal against civilians, but incapable of swiftly putting down huntsmen through their aura, in comparison to Anra steel.
Seeing no reason to keep the weapon for himself, Jaune began disassembling it.
Magazine; slide; follower; barrel; and frame – Jaune separated the pistol into its component parts, before tossing all of them away save for the frame, which he kept for now, so he could toss it away into a trash bin later.
"Gentlemen. It's been a pleasure making your acquaintance."
With the sarcasm gotten out of his system, Jaune took his leave, heading down the road towards his destination.
On the way, he discarded the pistol frame into an open trash bin, but beyond that, he faced no other interruptions, as he made his way to where his conspirator for the coming task awaited.
The headquarters of Faunus Justice Party was located in a dingy old shophouse – one of those buildings where the first floor was a shop, and where the second and third floors housed the owner's living quarters, or sometimes another business.
There were stairs leading up to the upper floors. Peering at the grimy nameplate by the stairwell, Jaune confirmed that he was in the right place, before making his way up.
The stairs creaked as he ascended, so much so it almost sounded like the whole structure was about to collapse under its own weight.
Coming to the second floor landing, Jaune knocked on the door he found there, before pushing his way in.
The office within was cramped; desks were everywhere, pushed up tight against one another, even as stacks of documents lay all around, taking up most of the space on the desks themselves.
It being a Saturday, no one was around – save for one man.
With light brown skin, a red hood, and a large bushy tail that wagged behind him, there was no mistaking his identity.
As Corsac Albain stood from his desk near the window, Jaune greeted him,
"Mr Albain, I presume. I'm Jaune Arc."
"Ah, yes. Mr Arc. Thank you for coming."
Jaune wound his way through the maze of desks and chairs, to reach the area near the window where Albain had his desk.
He offered his hand, and Albain took it, for a brief but firm handshake.
"Please, do sit, Mr Arc."
"Just Jaune is fine."
"Then I insist you call me Corsac as well."
"Corsac, then. Pleased to meet you."
"And you as well, Jaune. Please, take a seat; let's not stand on ceremony."
Corsac's voice was deep but soft; authoritative, yet unthreatening. It was pleasant to listen to, and with the man's politeness, made Jaune already inclined to like him –
– which was precisely why Jaune resisted the impulse, and instead resolved to treat Corsac with a healthy heaping distrust. Corsac Albain was a professional political operative, whose agenda did not necessarily align fully with Jaune's own convictions, for all that Jaune was sympathetic to the cause of faunus rights. Even without Watts's warning that Corsac and his brother had some known ties to the White Fang, Jaune would never have fully trusted the man now sitting placidly before him, his hands clasped and his eyes friendly.
As Jaune sat down on a rickety old chair across the table from Corsac, the man spoke, once more.
"You come highly-recommended from our mutual friend, the good doctor, but I would like to hear, from your own mouth – why are you helping us?"
Jaune nodded, before giving his reply.
"It's not complicated. I've always been sympathetic to the faunus in their fight for justice and equal rights; it's hard not to be, if you know what went on – what is going on – in the Atlesian dust mines. And now that I'm no longer a huntsman –"
Jaune let an edge enter his voice, to display the bitterness the public expected of him.
"– I have plenty of free time, and I don't mind lending a hand to people fighting for freedom and justice."
Corsac nodded understandingly.
"I see."
Jaune raised a palm, to forestall any interruptions; before they moved on to other matter, there was an important point he had to make sure Corsac Albain understood.
"But right at the outset, let's make one thing clear, Corsac. My help to you depends on your organization being genuinely peaceful; if I find out that any of your colleagues are White Fang –"
Jaune didn't get to finish his threat, but then again he didn't need to – for the mere mention of the terrorist organization's name made Corsac bring his arms up placatingly, and say,
"Not to worry, Jaune; none of us here are White Fang – on that you can depend."
"I sincerely hope so."
The warning wasn't just to keep the extremists out of the electoral campaign Jaune had agreed to help out with; it was also to prevent his public identity from being linked to his illegal, clandestine support for the White Fang.
What a disaster it'll be, if someone like Ilia ends up being one of the campaign volunteers; there's just too high a chance that she'll recognize me.
Seeking to drive home the point, Jaune warned,
"I'm deadly serious, Corsac. I'll know if they're Fang; aura never lies."
Ordinary civilians did not have their auras unlocked. The emotions of those with unlocked auras burned far brighter to the Grimm, and having civilians with aura only helped draw the dark monsters down upon a population centre – an unacceptable risk. It was, therefore, a basic norm of society – one more fundamental than almost any other – that those who could not contribute to the defence of a village or town or city when the Grimm attacked, also did not have the privilege of having a physical manifestation of their soul.
Even the selfish, who would be tempted to prioritize their own safety over the general good, respected this norm – not least because an unlocked aura alone did not protect a person from harm. Without proper training of the sort that huntsmen underwent, civilians could not project a defensive cloak out of their aura, and would not have any better chance of surviving, were they shot by a gangster or smashed into by a drunk driver.
And of course, trained or not, those with aura were legally treated like huntsmen, and liable for conscription in the event of a titan-class Grimm invasion – a chilling prospect, sufficient to deter even the most irresponsible from trying to get their aura unlocked.
All that meant that the ordinary man on the street lacked aura, and the only people beyond huntsmen who would have theirs unlocked were those involved in dangerous, illegal businesses – criminals, like the Axe Gang, or terrorists, like the White Fang.
Corsac himself, Jaune could sense, had his aura unlocked; the man had formerly been a huntsman in Menagerie, according to the information Watts had provided. If a good number of the people working in or volunteering for the Faunus Justice Party turned out to have their auras unlocked as well, however – that could not be explained away, and Jaune would know that they were Fang, in truth even if not in name.
Corsac, well aware of all this, seemed nonetheless unfazed.
"I understand, Jaune. When you get to meet my colleagues, you can tell for yourself; they are no soldiers of Sienna."
Corsac's confidence was reassuring; it appeared he had nothing to hide, and so Jaune gave him the benefit of the doubt.
"Thank you."
As he said that, Jaunce glanced to the side, at a framed photograph of a younger Corsac and his old huntsman team. His curiosity piqued, Jaune asked,
"Why did you leave Menagerie, Corsac? Surely life in the Kingdoms, even one as liberal as Vale, is much tougher, with far more daily discrimination to be endured."
Corsac's eyes roamed over to the photograph. Giving a fond smile as he looked upon himself, his brother and their other two teammates, he then moved to explain.
"Despite its idyllic, tourist-friendly beaches, Menagerie is no paradise; the economy is under-developed, poverty is rampant, and life is hard. But even if I could live a life of luxury back home, I would not do so – not while my brothers and sisters suffer in the four Kingdoms."
Corsac waved a hand, before launching into what was doubtlessly a well-trodden topic for him.
"Faunus everywhere are discriminated against. Even in liberal Vale, my people suffer. We get stopped and searched by the police on the streets, even when we've committed no crime – and how often have we seen these stops turn to tragedy, with my brothers shot senselessly? And we are arrested at higher rates, even for the victimless crime of possessing drugs. And we are punished harder, and sent to prison longer, compared to humans who have committed the same crime. Tell me – where is the justice in that?"
While recounting this litany of injustices, Corsac never raised his voice; but still, the anger he felt was clear, from the tenseness around his eyes and the tightness which he spoke.
As the silence continued, Jaune realized that Corsac was not being rhetorical; he was expecting an answer.
Easily, Jaune replied,
"None. So that's why you're here? To bring about political change, for the better?"
The fox faunus nodded, even as his tailed bobbed behind him.
"Yes. And that is not easy. We faunus can vote, but we are in the minority, and even then the humans seek to disenfranchise us at every turn. Have you heard of the term gerrymandering?"
Jaune nodded. He had prepared himself for the mission by reading up on the relevant issues, and wasn't a political neophyte besides. He had always paid attention to politics; and with some fondness, he could recall how it was his analysis of Beacon's political situation that persuaded Ozpin to let him participate in initiation. And of course, there were few things Weiss loved better, than to lecture him about politics – or rather, complain about it.
Thus, to Corsac's question, Jaune confidently replied –
"I understand what that is."
Corsac raised a hand, and gestured at Jaune.
"Please, do explain then."
"Is this a test?"
"Of a sort. Apologies, but even with the good doctor's recommendation, I need to know you are aware of the stakes – and that you are clever and knowledgeable enough to sway the person who needs to be swayed."
Jaune shrugged.
"Sure. Gerrymandering's the manipulation of an electoral district's boundaries, for unfair political gain. Splitting your opponent's voters across multiple districts, where they can't reach a majority to elect anyone... or packing them all into a single district, where for all their votes, they can only elect one assemblyman."
Corsac nodded approvingly, and Jaune took that as a sign to continue.
"So like, say, you have three residential districts, each one with about a hundred thousand people. Humans live in two of the districts, while faunus live in the last one. If you have three assembly seats, the natural way to portion them out is to give one to each residential district. This also produces a fair result, because two-thirds of the voters are human, getting two-thirds of the assembly seats; and one-third are faunus, getting one-third of the seats.
"But if you want to get an unfair advantage, you could do this – split off a third of the faunus district, then join them to another third of one of the human districts, along with another third of the last human district. This new artificial district is two-thirds human and one-third faunus, so obviously the human candidate wins the election, every time. Then you do the same for the other remaining two-thirds of the faunus district – so that even though faunus make up one-third of the overall population, they end up being a minority in each of the three new artificial districts, and getting zero assembly seats rather than one."
Jaune nodded, to signal the completion of his explanation.
Corsac himself inclined his head, before adding –
"Quite right. Cracking – that's one form of gerrymandering. And packing is the other – putting all the faunus into a single district, where they can only elect one assemblyman... even while the other human-majority districts, each with less people, get to collectively elect more representatives. This particular district, for this by-election? It's been packed to death; three hundred thousand people, most of them faunus, and only one assemblyman between them."
"I understand."
The reason Jaune was here was to carry out a second task from Watts – to help the Faunus Justice Party win this election, by persuading their desired candidate to stand. And while Jaune didn't quite understand why Watts was aiding Corsac and his FJP, Jaune was not averse to helping – for here was an injustice, ripe for the correcting.
And as for the candidate the FJP wanted...
Blake.
Watts believed, for good reason, that his teammate's very name and parentage would win her massive support amongst the faunus.
Not wanting to expose his teammate – one recently recovered from near fatal injuries, no less – to any further danger, Jaune sought to clarify what Corsac had planned for her.
"And what –"
! ! !
Jaune's aura sense prickled, and his words died in his mouth.
Danger.
Springing up, Jaune was about to dash for the door, to head off the four attackers he could sense storming up the stairwell –
– but then Corsac grabbed him, and hissed,
"No! Let me handle this."
Jaune hesitated, which decided matters in any case.
The door to the second floor was kicked off its hinges, and four huntsmen stormed in.
"Hands up!"
The leader, a wiry man armed with a sniper rifle, shouted the command even as his team – variously armed with a rocket launcher, a ludicrous mine-plated full suit of armour, and a shotgun – spread out across the room.
The police badges wrapped around the intruders' forearms made clear the identity of the institution they were contracted to, and under whose authority they were ostensibly acting.
Corsac obeyed, raising his hands and showing he was neither armed nor hostile.
Jaune, however –
Striding forward, and always making sure to keep himself between Corsac and the large-calibre sniper rifle, Jaune felt a frown deepen upon his face.
Harshly, he snapped,
"What's the meaning of this?"
Jaune wasn't shot straight away, which was good, but there were still three barrels pointed at his face.
The leader, however, seemed taken aback, and his rifle seemed to lower an inch, as he muttered,
"Arc?"
Corsac chose that moment to interject.
"My friends, this must be a misunderstanding. Come, let us sit down and talk things out – peacefully."
It was as good a suggestion as any, but it went ignored; as the rest of his team continued to train their weapons on Jaune, the leader directed a question to Jaune –
"Jaune Arc. The Beacon student who got his teammate killed. Huh. What are you doing here, talking to a terrorist-lover?"
Having no patience for such outright prejudice, Jaune bit back,
"I don't see any terrorist-lovers here – only terrorists, pointing their weapons at two innocent people. We were having a peaceful chat like civilized people, until you barged in."
The jab made the huntsman team bristle, but the leader himself only stated, coldly,
"We're in here with probable cause, to investigate a suspicious gathering."
Ah.
The truth hit Jaune, and he laughed, derisively.
"You sensed two people with unlocked auras in here, and just from that thought that it had to be two White Fang members meeting each other?"
It was one thing to suspect the Faunus Justice Party of being linked with the White Fang, if a large number of its workers and volunteers had aura for no discernible reason; it was another thing altogether, to assume – with no further evidence – that the two aura-capable people meeting inside the party headquarters were terrorists. The latter was stupidity of the highest degree – and just plain bigotry.
"Peace, Jaune."
Corsac put a hand on Jaune's shoulder, while directing his next words to the huntsman team's leader.
"If you wish to bring me in for questioning, I will be happy to oblige. My young friend here, however, is surely beyond suspicion – unless you think a person who slaughtered the White Fang to save a Schnee is helping Sienna's merry band of terrorists?"
Jaune snorted – if only Corsac knew.
The huntsman leader, meanwhile, seemed to be in agreement with Corsac's words.
"You come with us, then, Albain. You, Arc – piss off."
Jaune did not move.
That made the huntsman team shift their weapons, and Jaune could feel violence being imminent; and despite knowing better, he welcomed it, in all its clarifying brutality.
Corsac, once more, tried to intercede.
"Jaune, this sort of low level harassment is nothing new to me. I will be fine. I have never broken the law, and so have nothing to fear."
Jaune glanced back at the red hooded man, and raised an eyebrow,
"Weren't you just telling me how faunus get unfairly treated by the justice system?"
Corsac smiled, thinly.
"Yes. But when you have lived an exemplary life, and have never done anything remotely criminal, they can't charge you with a crime – only waste your time with pointless police interviews and endless interrogations."
Jaune considered that, for a moment –
– before turning away.
"No."
The declaration came out, flat and cold. And to the wary huntsmen, he said,
"You came in thinking there were two White Fang members in here; well, as it turns out, you were wrong – it was just a famously anti-Fang human talking to a peaceful faunus leader. If you decide to drag Corsac Albain back with you to the police station anyway, and the public finds out, you'll be in trouble. The faunus – and quite a lot of fair-minded humans – will be upset. Even if you don't care for their outrage, it can affect the contracts your team will be allowed to take.
"And for what? Is this guy a threat?"
Jaune jerked a thumb at the unassuming, unthreatening fox faunus.
"No, he's not. If there were any evidence at all that he's involved in White Fang terrorism, he would already be in jail, not sitting in an office planning a political campaign."
"And besides –"
Jaune discarded all subtlety here.
"– to get to him, you'll have to get through me. So the –"
Jaune did not get to finish his question, before the huntsman team's leader made a contemptuous noise in his throat, and said,
"Big words from a small boy. You got expelled from Beacon, and that qualifies you to fight a professional huntsman team?"
Jaune nodded agreeably.
"Yes, I got expelled from Beacon. Why? Because Headmaster Ozpin holds me responsible for what happened in Rothenburg while I was off killing a Necrovalock. Think about that for a moment. He's treating me like someone whose strength is so immense, that my presence makes or breaks the village's defence. He thinks that I could have fought off the horde of Grimm; that I could have defeated the cultists – something a full team of professional huntsman had already tried and failed at.
"So the real question is – do you think you're more powerful than a Necrovalock? And do you think you're stronger than the monsters who killed Pyrrha Nikos?"
The silence stretched, as the unspoken threat lingered in the air.
The huntsman team, to the man, looked furious.
And, with growing clarity, Jaune could sense that his mix of threat and persuasion was failing – that anger was overtaking apprehension, and that the huntsmen were just about to toss Jaune's warning aside, and instead fight.
Jaune needed to stop that from happening; and so, on impulse, he stepped forward –
– and pressed his forehead into the barrel of the sniper rifle.
"What the fuck?"
The huntsman leader swore, but Jaune himself was nothing but calm.
"If you think you're stronger than me, take the shot."
"I'm not going to –"
"Do it."
"Are you fucking insane –"
"Do it."
The air was pregnant with the promise of violence –
– and then it was not, as the huntsman leader lowered his weapon.
With abhorrence, fear and confusion all warring upon his face, he snapped,
"Fuck this. Let's go, team. No reason to waste more time with this insane asshole.
The huntsman team followed their leader in lowering their weapons. And with similar emotions playing across their faces, they left – though not without gracelessly knocking chairs and desks aside, and making a mess with their exit.
Corsac sighed.
"You certainly have a unique way of solving problems, Jaune."
He sat down, once more, and Jaune joined him.
Corsac seemed to search for something to say, before appearing to finally decide on a particular notion. With that characteristically mild tone of his, he said,
"Do you see now, Jaune, what we are up against? A society that treats us like dirt; and heroes who are meant to protect us, but who only harm and harass."
Jaune shook his head.
"Those guys gave huntsmen a bad name."
Corsac bowed his head.
"Agreed. But this is why what we do here is paramount. We must use peaceful political action to build a better society, because every day this unjust status quo persists, more and more faunus are driven into the arms of the Fang."
Corsac paused; his next words seemed to catch in his throat. It was long seconds before he finally spoke once more, to say,
"I was part of the White Fang, once, back when it was still a peaceful organization. Everyone I knew, from High Leader Ghira Belladonna down to our youngest recruits, were all idealists. We believed in the innate goodness of humanity; we believed that peaceful protest and moral appeals could change minds, and give us faunus the rights we deserved. But –"
Corsac shook his head in sorrow.
"– we were wrong. We tried so long, and so hard, but failure was our only reward. The humans never gave us the time of day, and slowly, our people grew disillusioned. My brother and I are the only ones from the old guard still pursuing the path of peace; the others all gave up, and followed Sienna Khan as she led the way to war.
"And how can I blame them? Under Ghira Belladonna, we achieved nothing. Small wonder that, in the end, even his daughter chose Sienna and rejected him."
What?
Jaune jerked in surprise; the conversation had suddenly taken an unimaginable turn.
Daughter?
"Wait."
His voice suddenly hoarse, Jaune cut in.
"Are you saying that Blake Belladonna is part of Sienna Khan's White Fang?"
Corsac nodded, firmly.
"Yes, though she left last year, when Taurus's brutality got too much for her."
Jaune was well and truly speechless.
He didn't know what to think, or what to feel.
Anger seemed natural; the Fang had kidnapped Weiss, and tried to torture her.
And yet, on the other hand, worry presented itself too; concern, for his bedridden teammate and the prospect of her going to prison.
But eventually, beating out anger and worry both, was a sublime, horrified awe. He had been puzzling over how to persuade Blake to stand as a candidate for the election – and here he had his solution, and here he had his weapon, if only he would reach out to grasp it.
Ozpin wouldn't have hesitated.
And that gave Jaune pause.
He had no objection to ruthlessness – when it was necessary. To resort to it when it was merely expedient, however – that way lay tragedy.
Am I so far gone that I'll reach for this, before trying anything else? And is Ozpin who I want to be? A man who sees people as puppets, and weakness in mercy?
-(=RWBY=)-