A/N: So...*scratches back of head*...remember how in the summary it says that there is a slight chance that some of the canon characters would show up?
Sarah: *slowly nods head* Yeah?
Soap: Well...they're going to show up, and become a major part of the coming story.
Sarah: *heavy sigh*
Soap: On the bright side, I actually know where I am going with this story...
Sarah: Really?
Soap: ... for the next 3 chapters.
Chapter 7: who love us
The next morning, now back at the church, Soap managed to get into contact with the only man in Vale that knew more about the White Fang than he did.
"Hello?" The man asked.
"Hello. I've been told that you're the man to go to for info regarding the WF." Soap said into his scroll.
The man on the other end chuckled and said, "Well that depends on who's asking. Might I ask to see who you are?"
"Sure," Soap replied, turning on his scroll's camera.
"Who is this?" the man asked, sounding somewhat confused, a few seconds after Soap's face appeared on the scroll.
Soap smiled, "Facial recognition software not working? Heh. That doesn't surprise me, considering that I've been dead for 13 years. But to answer your question, my name is Soap. Perhaps you've heard of me?" He asked.
"I've never heard of any Soap. What kind of name is Soap?" the man asked.
"Then perhaps you've heard of my other name? Demon?"
The man's face drained itself of any and all color, "The bounty hunter?" He asked.
"Yes Ozpin, the bounty hunter; Oh and don't worry, I'm not after you. I would never take a bounty on someone who has done nothing wrong." Soap said.
Ozpin visibly became very relaxed, "OK, good. What brings you to be calling me at this hour?"
"I need information."
"On?"
"The White Fang. I need to know why they're targeting Dust shops."
Hearing this, Ozpin was silent for a while, seemingly lost in thought. After a minute, he spoke again, "I do have info on the WF, but it will not be cheap."
"Name your price." Soap said.
Ozpin's face signified that he was, once again, lost in thought.
"Hmm. Actually, I have something else in mind." replied Ozpin.
"Do tell." Soap said, intrigued.
"I want you to attend my school's initiation and...spice things up."
"Seriously?" Soap asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, and I also ask that you bring your counterpart." Ozpin said with a very serious face.
"Sarah?" Soap asked, wondering how he knew about her.
"Yes. I already know about her and her past, so don't try to hide anything from me. She has taken a few high priority contracts from me in the past."
"Fair enough. I accept your terms." Soap said about to end the call. "But don't expect me to stick around after initiation."
"I don't expect you to. Who knows what will make you want to stay." Ozpin said as Soap ended the call.
What did he mean by that? Oh well. More things for me to figure out later. He thought to himself.
Soap made his way to the sanctuary from the roof, messaging Sarah on the way down for her to meet him there.
"Hey Soap." Sarah said, as Soap walked into the room.
"Hey Sarah." he paused, "What do you know about the WF and the dust robberies that have been happening recently?"
"Not much other than that Torchwick guy is apparently working with them." Sarah replied, "Why?"
"Because I just arranged a meeting with the Headmaster of Beacon for information on them and their motives. I need you to come with."
"Why do you need me?" Sarah asked.
"Because his price for the info I need, was for us to attend initiation and 'spice things up'."
"Why not?" She smiled, "It's been a while since I killed a Grimm anyways."
"Yes it has. Let's go have some fun. The next airship leaves in 20, at 9:30. I've got to grab something first though, so go on ahead of me." Soap said.
"Meet you there." Sarah said, vanishing from in front of him.
~Sarah P.O.V.
Sarah was leaning against the side of the airship waiting for Soap to show when a brutish looking boy with brown hair, by the looks of it 16 or 17, started walking up the ramp towards the airship. It looked to Sarah that he had a large mace as a weapon and was wearing heavy grey armor accented and outlined with a dull yellow color, in the center of the chest-piece was an bird insignia. Sarah had only seen the boy for nearly 30 seconds, but she could already tell that she didn't like him, however, she really didn't know why. Without giving it much thought as to why, she put her pink hood over her head in a way so that her light pink cat ears were hidden from him. As he drew closer, she prepared the larger of her pipes (the pipe that she used as a shotgun) in case he confronted her.
With absolute perfect timing, Soap appeared in front of Sarah, blocking her from view of the large boy. With catastrophe (no pun was originally intended, but take it for what it's worth) averted, she looked at Soap and noticed something different about him. His hood was down, which never happened in public, and his hair was light brown instead of it's usual white with a red and black streak. Wondering why he changed his hair color, she asked, "What did you do to your hair?"
He smiled, "Physically: nothing. Appearance wise: well...it is now light brown."
Sarah nodded. "I see that. But what did you do to make it that way?" She asked, while putting away here weapon without Soap noticing.
~Soap P.O.V.
"But what did you do to make it look that way?"
Soap held up an object that Sarah was unfamiliar with. Looking the object over for a minute, still unable to figure out what it was, she looked at him questioningly, "I built a disguise device." He said with a smile.
"For only your hair?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Did you not notice that the scars on my forehead, chin and right cheek (not his ass, ya pervs!) were gone as well?"
Looking over his face, she realized he was right. She glanced at her watch, noticing the time, she said, "We should probably board, they leave in 3 minutes."
"That we should. Let's go." Soap said, walking towards the entrance.
Once inside, Sarah asked Soap why he changed the appearance of his face. Soap's reply was that he had been a bounty hunter for over six years before he met Sarah, the best in the world. Because of this, Soap had made himself the unofficial most wanted bounty hunter in the world, meaning that many people wanted him dead.
"I'd just rather be safe than sorry on this one." He said.
Sarah gave a slight chuckle,"Fair enough." She looked around the airship for a second,"Well seeing that we are about to attend a school meant to train future Huntsman and Huntresses, we should probably look around and see who we're up against."
"I agree. No audible communication, it would be a tactical disadvantage if other people knew that we were working together." He said.
She nodded, "I take it we should split up?"
"Yup."
The couple split up, Soap taking the upper level, Sarah taking the lower.
Sarah's level was uneventful, so she just gathered any intel she could without looking suspicious.
Soap on the other hand ran into something, literally. Soap didn't see what he was running into until it was too late. What is with me running into people?
"Sorry about that." Soap said. Now on the floor, Soap noticed that someone was offering a hand to help him up, which he gladly accepted.
"Hey, don't worry about it." a friendly feminine voice said.
"Thanks for the he-" He started to say, stopping as he was stared down by eyes that were a color Soap hadn't seen in nearly five years.
Silver. Her eyes are silver. Could this be Summer's daughter? Soap thought to himself.
"Are you alright?" the girl asked, now feeling a little awkward.
Now out of his daze, Soap replied, "Oh, sorry about that. Your eyes reminded me of an old friend. And to answer your question: Yeah, I'm alright."
He stepped back to get a better look at the person he ran into. She was short. Well, short compared to Soap. She was wearing a black dress/skirt with red trimmings and over that she was had a red cloak with a hood. As he saw before, she had very prominent silver eyes underneath a head of black hair with dark red highlights on the tips.
Another girl approached them, however, this one her recognized as Summer's step-daughter: Yang Xiao Long. Yang asked him, "You sure?"
"Yes, I'm fine. But I have to go, bye." Soap said quickly, not wanting to give them anything that they could use to find out who he was, he used his semblance to vanish in to an empty seat on the other side of the room, that was unseen by the girls, but within earshot of Soap.
"Well, that was odd." said the younger of the two girls.
Now a safe distance away from them, Soap was thinking about the younger girl.
Could that really be Summer's daughter? It has to be. I've never seen anyone else that had such prominent silver eyes, plus I remember that her daughter did have eyes the same color. That's definitely her. What was her name again? Ruby, yeah Ruby, that's her name. Didn't she have a sister? Yeah, she did, her name was...Yang. Didn't she go by a different last name though? Ughh, so many questions that need answers.
Soap continued to recover more lost memories, the airship docking going unnoticed to him, until a hand grabbed his shoulder.
When Sarah found him, he was sitting in a seat next to a window and looked as if he had seen a ghost, which was almost true.
She grabbed his shoulder which effectively brought him back to reality. "You alright Soap?" She asked.
"Hmm, oh, yeah I'm fine. Though I just ran into the daughter of an old friend." Soap said.
"Don't tell me you're thinking about going after her." She said, seeing this as a chance to tease her boyfriend.
"Pftt. Please, there is no one in this world that rivals you." He said.
She smiled, "Good. We should probably get going." She said, taking a look around the airship noticing that it was nearly empty.
"Yeah." He said. Standing up, he took her hand and proceeded towards the exit.
While they were still inside the unusually hot airship waiting to exit, Sarah put down her hood to alleviate some of the excess heat. Once off the airship, she spotted a familiar face looking straight at her, immediately she wished that she left her hood on. The face noticed her, and gave an evil smile that made her shudder. The figure slowly made their way through the crowd towards her. Soap, noticing the shudder, stopped at the nearest bench to ask Sarah what was wrong. He didn't have to wait long for his answer.
The man approached Soap, who was standing in front of Sarah, and introduced himself as Cardin Winchester.
"Hello, my name's Soap. Before you ask, yes that is my real name."
"No problem. Do you know that piece of trash behind you?" Cardin asked, his words striking a chord with Soap.
"Who my girlfriend? Yes, I know her. Why?"
"Why are you dating a freak of nature?" Cardin asked, however, this only proceeded to make Soap mad.
"Let me ask you a question Cardin, do you know who I am?" Soap asked.
Cardin looked Soap over for a few seconds, "No, I've never seen or heard of you before in my life."
Soap turned off his disguise, which made Cardin slightly jump, but stood his ground, "How about now?"
"Nope." Cardin said.
"Let me give you a hint, who is the most infamous bounty hunter in all of Remnant?"
"That Demon guy, But you're not him. You don't look anything like him, his hair is supposed to be pure black, after all, there's a..." Soap cut him off.
"...a reason why they call him a Demon. Allow me to show you why they call me a demon." Soap's hair changed to pure black and his semblance flared giving him the appearance that he was on fire or, as others described him, a Demon.
"I am the one and only Demon." Soap said calmly, his voice not matching his appearance whatsoever, "But to answer your question Cardin, I date her because I love her."
Sarah started feeding him her semblance, giving Soap the look of being on fire and being electrocuted at the same time. Cardin froze with fear.
"If you do or say anything to Sarah that is discriminating towards her or her race, I will not hesitate to kill you." Soap said, his voice sounding demonic.
"Do you understand Cardin?" Soap said calmly.
No response. Cardin just stood there like an idiot.
Soap tried again, only this time much louder, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Cardin shook his head quickly up and down, indicating that he did.
"Good. Now get out of my sight. People like you disgust me." Soap said with malice in his voice.
After Cardin ran away, Soap got control of his aura and calmed down enough to where his hair changed back to it's usual white with the normal streak of red and black.
"Thank you Soap. I had a bad feeling about him when I saw him boarding the airship."
"No problem Sarah, that's what boyfriends are for, right?" Soap asked.
Sarah smiled and gave Soap a kiss.
"Let's go find out where we're going to sleep tonight." Soap said, reengaging his disguise.
Later in the day, after the opening ceremony, the couple found their way to the ballroom where all the first years were going to be staying during the first night. Naturally, Soap was uncomfortable being around so many people that he didn't trust, (Soap tends to trust fanus more readily than his own race which is cause of his past, however, he does trust authority hence why he trusts Ozpin) so they went to the roof where they could hopefully get some rest. However, they were being followed by a certain busty blonde.
On the roof, Sarah and Soap were on the edge of the building leaning against a wall and staring at the stars, all the while listening to the fail that was a golden brawler trying to sneak up the stairs. (just a side note, this happens after the fight Ruby has with Yang while they were talking with Blake in the ballroom)
Without so much as turning around Soap called out the wanna be ninja, knowing very well who it was, "Yang, you can stop trying to be sneaky now. You're failing at it horribly. If you want to talk, then come over, sit down, and let's talk."
Yang, surprised that they were able to hear her, accepted the invitation. Sitting down next to Soap, she opened her mouth to how they heard her when he cut her off, "The answer to the question that you are about to ask is that she," pointing to Sarah, "is a cat faunas and heard you as soon as you started walking up the staircase to follow us."
It made sense, so she asked another question, "I don't know your name, yet you know mine. How?" Yang said.
Now sitting straight up, Soap turned to Yang, "Her name," deciding to introduce Sarah first, "is Sarah. She is my girlfriend and my partner. My name...is Soap. And before you ask, yes, that really is my name."
"OK, that answers one of my questions, but I still don't know how you knew my name." Yang said.
Soap let out a heavy sigh, "Do I look at all familiar to you?" She looked him over for a second and shook her head no. Soap realized that he still had his disguise on and turned the machine off, holding it up where Yang could see it when he did. With the gadget now off, he asked her again, "Do I look familiar to you?"
"Yeah, you do actually. Though I don't remember where from or when."
Soap gave a soft chuckle, "Nor would I expect you to; after all, you were only 11 when I last saw you and it's been 6 years since then."
Yang looked surprised at this, "How old are you now?"
"18."
"So that would make you 12 when you last saw me, correct?"
"Spot on, do you remember me now?" Soap asked again.
"I sort of remember the first time we met, though I can't remember why."
Soap smiled softly but instantly saddened, "When I was only five, some...events happened that forced me to mature very quickly." Yang opened her mouth to ask what those events were, but was, again, quickly shut down by Soap, "Events that I do not want to relive nor retell anytime soon, but these events left me without a home and without a family. So, I headed to Vale, and purchased myself a home. I stayed there for the next six years, until I became exceedingly bored. So, at the age of 7, I became a bounty hunter. However, I knew Summer since I was six. Around the age of 11, I met you."
"How do I know your telling the truth that you knew my mom?" Yang said, not sure whether to believe Soap or not.
Soap recalled Summer's favorite poem, The Last Rose Of Summer, and recited a few lines around her favorite line, "Thus kindly I scatter, Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden, Lie scentless and dead." Yang looked stunned.
"Believe me now?"
"I believe you." Yang said, after she did, she realized something, "Earlier today, on the airship, when you told my sister that her eyes reminded you of an old friend, you were talking about Summer, weren't you?"
Soap nodded his head, "While that was the reason that I started staring in the first place, that wasn't the reason why I continued to stare."
"Then why did you?" Yang asked.
Soap seemed to become incredibly saddened by Yang asking this, as it brought up some unpleasant memories. Sarah sensed his discomfort and pulled him into a comforting hug, "You know you don't have to continue if you don't want to." Sarah reminded him.
Yang agreed with Sarah, saying, "Your girlfriend's right Soap. I can tell that this is rather painful for you to talk about. You don't have to continue if you don't want to."
Soap, slightly regaining his composure, pulled out of Sarah's hug and said, "No, Yang deserves to know. It was her mother after all." He turned to Yang, "Do you remember the day that Summer died?"
Yang nodded, "Yes. Very clearly actually."
"Well...I was with her when she passed." Soap said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I watched her die." Soap said forcefully, if not angrily.
To Yang and Soap, time seemed to slow to a stop. "If I had the knowledge and abilities that I have now, I would have been able to save her, however, I did not. She died in my arms while I was doing all I could to stop her from leaving life. Right before she passed, Summer made me promise her something."
Yang now on the verge of crying, yet managing not to, she asked, "What did she make you promise?"
"She made me promise that I would do all that I could to keep Ruby safe in the coming war with the darkness. Since she no longer could. I told her that I would. She said 'I know you will' and then she stopped breathing." He stopped for a second to wipe the tears from his eyes, "I fully intend to keep that promise. Though I could never figure out what she meant by 'the coming war with the darkness'."
"That's just like her, giving people riddles in dire situations and never giving an answer." Yang said. "Do you know who buried her? My family could never figure that out, along with who carved her favorite line of her favorite poem into her tombstone."
"I do. In fact, you could say that he was very close friend of mine. Though I haven't seen him nor heard from him since she died."
"Well who is it? My family would like to thank him."
"I'll leave that to you to figure out. However, since I know you are going to pout and won't leave me alone until I tell you something, I will tell you this: he was a true friend to both Summer and myself, always finding a way to cheer us up when we were down. And it was because of him that Summer and I became friends."
Try as she might, Yang couldn't get any more info from Soap, who argued that Yang had a long day ahead of her and that she should get some sleep. Realizing that he was right, Yang gave up and headed to bed.
5 minutes after Yang left, Sarah broke the silence. "Soap?" She asked.
"Hmm?"
"When did you plan on telling me?"
"Tell you what?"
"What your real name was?" Sarah asked him. "I know that you didn't always go by Soap. I also know that you were talking about yourself when you said 'it was because of him that Summer and I became friends.' I'm not stupid, so don't even try to say it wasn't you."
He smiled, "To be fair, I was wondering how long it would be till you found out. As for my name, Summer's the one who gave me the name 'Soap'. Summer was more than just a friend to me, she became family to me, so I decided to honor her like family. I was the one who buried Summer and who carved her favorite line of her favorite poem into her headstone. It was the last thing I could do for her." Soap began to laugh, "It's funny. Bucky's the only one who might still be able to remember my real name, but I doubt that he does."
"What about Yang and Ruby?" Sarah asked.
"What about them?"
"Do they know what your real name is?"
"Yang for sure has heard my name, though she might not remember it. The first time I met her, I introduced myself with my real name. However, Summer told her to call me Soap and the name stuck. Ruby only ever knew me as Soap, so she doesn't know."
"One more thing," Soap looked to her, "what do you think Summer meant by 'the war with the darkness'?"
"To be honest, I don't really know. All I hope, though, is that my fears aren't realized."
"What are your fears?"
"I say fears, plural, but to be honest, it's my only fear. It's not dying if you were wondering."
"You're not afraid to die?" Sarah said, raising an eyebrow.
Soap gave a soft laugh, "Nah. I know it's stupid to not be afraid of dying, but after happened when I was five, I was no longer afraid of dying. Now, I will willingly attack death head on if it means others will live." Sarah looked concerned, he gave her a comforting hug, "The only thing I fear, is losing the ones I love. Especially if it was for a reason that I could have done something about. I'm afraid of losing Drake, Bucky, and Sam. But above everybody, I'm afraid of losing you." Soap said, pulling her in for a kiss. Pulling his lips away from hers, Soap yawned and leaned back against the wall, "Get comfy, cause we need to get some sleep and I'm NOT going back down stairs." They got up and found a corner that they could sleep in without rolling off the roof. Once they settled, they soon fell asleep.
With the things that Ozpin had in store for them, they needed every bit of rest they could get. Even then, that still might not be enough.
A/N: *looks at time* Damn! I cranked that one out pretty quick.
Sarah: Well, it helps when you actually plan your chapters in advance, as opposed to just sitting down and typing what ever comes to mind.
Soap: Hey! Look how well chapter 1 came out.
Sarah: Whatever.
Soap: If you guys have any ideas or any questions about the story and where it's heading, please leave a review with said question, I love to hear feedback about my story, good or bad. See you guys next time.
Edit: 10-20-14; Removed unnecessary details and added in others. Fixed grammar and made it a little longer.