Mysterious Maniac

It was simple, really; Khiver Lybel would pay Doug a sum based on the value of the info given. The estimate was on a scale from vague to detailed, and regardless of where it landed on that spectrum the amount was gracious. However, Doug needed some kind of long-term solution to his current crisis. Upon hearing this, Khiver said he had an idea in that regard, but needed Doug's cooperation in their present deal as collateral of sorts. He had been offered a gamble, but after the options he'd run through his head before, this was one of the best he could probably make. It was either work for this Basket-case, or return to the under-appreciation of Junior's payroll. Even if this decision screwed him, it wasn't as if he could make his life much worse, could he?

Doug rattled off everything he knew about Roman Torchwick, Cinder Fall, and their plans to Khiver. That wasn't much; as all he really knew was that Roman had hired guys from Junior –Doug included –and that the man worked for Cinder, looting heaping loads of Dust from Vale regularly. This seemed to be all the info the stranger needed, for now. Either these vague facts meant more to him, or gave him something to look into.

Doug had recognized Khiver as the deranged lunatic that escaped from Sliverhang Asylum, but never expected him to be so... understandable. He was content, even if his teeth were creepy, and they had a perfectly normal conversation about who Doug was and who he worked for, what connections he had, etcetera. Doug only imparted what he knew out of fear that the psycho would snap his neck if he refused at first, but now that Doug had given away Junior's customer confidentiality he had destroyed his ties to the man even further –and Khiver had made his case reasonably enough to tempt such a betrayal. The nutcase rocked on his heels, trying to contain some kind of excitement. When he spoke, Doug wanted to correct the mix up of his name, but the sinister look on the man's face shut his trap.

"Okay, Dirk, here's the plan..."

Students. Students everywhere. The airship was jam packed with teenagers aspiring to be the next merciless killing machine everyone wanted, and then there was Doug near the back, holding his application for the esteemed position of 'Janitor'. How Khiver had cooked him up a new identity in a matter of hours was anyone's guess, but even this was an improvement. Just yesterday, he had been thinking something as mundane as this was barred to his lowlife self, and now it was more than an attainable job. He had been ecstatic, up until about a minute ago.

First, a hologram had appeared to announce their arrival, and that had been the Blonde Witch who nearly speared his face the other night. Fear crept up on his shoulders.

Second, the message had elicited some chat from the nearby students, one of which was none other than the Red Devil, whose presence was an unbelievably weird coincidence. If she so much as thought she recognized him, he could kiss his ass goodbye.

Fortunately, Doug's innate ability to never stand out kept him safe for the last few moments before the kids got off the airship. He was last, and he hadn't even set both feet on the ground yet before a mop was put into his hands. He looked up to see Miss Glynda Goodwitch, and it took everything in his power not to recoil from the dangerous woman.

"Mr. Dirk Brightsnap, correct? You're the new Janitor?"

He looked down at the tool already in his hands, and then back up. Another quality of his that mixed poorly with subservience reared its head; the uncontrollable urge to be a smartass when someone asked for it. "Unless you're bestowing me with a Huntsman model mop, I'd say so."

She squinted at him. "You may have noticed, but one of the students got motion sickness on the airship. That is your first task of the day... Maintenance is in the basement next to the east stairwell. I will be calling you to meet me in my office before the end of your shift."

Goodwitch turned on her heel and made for the assembly inside Beacon. Doug grimaced, and turned to clean up the first of many messes he would have to. Fortunately, it didn't seem like vomit boy had eaten much this morning, so Doug was through with this in no time and onto Academy grounds.

How Khiver had pulled off a fake ID and background behind it so fast for Doug was still a mystery, but his instructions in the use of it were easy to remember;

'Get in, do your job, keep your head down. Being the janitor, you'll get used to the school's layout quickly. After the first year students' initiation day, get into the headmaster's office –or one of the teachers like Miss Gumwatch –and piece together when and where Weiss Schnee's first mission takes place. I'll probably have some other tasks for you, but that's the numero uno. Any questions?'

He had only asked what the mysterious maniac's interest in the Heiress to Schnee Dust was, which he hadn't answered. Shmots, the one with the mask and goggles following Khiver around, had either tried to tell him something as well or get him to play Simon Says. Coming out of his reverie, Doug made his way down in the main building to where the boiler room and Maintenance office were. He found a detailed day planner for his time as the Janitor on day duty, since those at night didn't need to worry about between-class traffic or occupied rooms. Although today specifically, the freshmen were all having some kind of communal slumber party since no one had teams –thus, no assigned dorms –there were still precise hallways to mop, windows to wipe, and arenas to buff listed here. Doug got to work.

The place was extravagant and huge. At some point they expected him to do some upkeep outside like mowing the giant lawn, scrubbing the fountain and changing the water, sweeping and raking the entire courtyard –but that was for one of the days that most of the students vacated campus. The west wing of the Academy was his first stop; a few classrooms, the main hall, and one of the training gyms to be made spotless for when the initiation was over. Doug owned an apartment and kept it in pretty good condition, so it wasn't as if cleaning was foreign to him even on this kind of scale. He made quick work of the first classroom he came to and made to take another chunk of the hallways on the way to the next.

This is when he heard laughter outside the door, the laughter of a few people at least from the different tones mixing. The students of different years were still free to roam around, of course, though few of them were since classes weren't open today –this wasn't surprising. What was, on the other hand; there were cries of pain and the sound of scuffling.

From here he could see a handful of students, as he expected, across the hall from the door to the classroom he just finished. They were standing over a classmate, some brunette girl, and two of them were kicking her as she curled up to resist the blows. The other two students were pointing and laughing between remarks... The tall ears atop the brunette's head made it obvious as to the reasons why this was happening.

Doug was hardly a henchman, much less a hero. Confrontation was never the first thing to come to his mind; quite the opposite, he was known for his cowardice which was really just reasonable self-preservation at work. The fact was, here he was part of the faculty, and he was supposed to be cleaning up this hall. Even if they were training to be warriors, he was their elder and in a position where action should still be taken. Already he wished that Glynda had just given him her number so he could make her do something about this... he opened the door, garnering attention for a moment, but they returned to what they were doing when a mop bucket rolled out of the room. Apparently, previous janitors turned a blind eye to this sort of thing.

"I could always just do you a favor and tear these things off. Nobody would know the difference, right?" One of the students, a brunette herself but of lighter shade and shorter length, tugged a bit on the rabbit ears atop the victim's head. The face on the Faunus girl was a mixture of displeasure and giving up, saying without words 'just get it over with already'. It was around now that Doug tapped the antagonist on the shoulder.

"Look, I gotta mop around here. Could you just leave her be and go someplace?" she sneered at him for a second, tilting her head at Doug.

"Get a load of this guy, huh?" One of her friends took her place for a second, clutching one of the rabbit ears to be certain the girl wouldn't escape while the human brunette gave her full attention to the older man. Smiling, she told him what to do with certain parts of himself to certain orifices of his own, and spat in his face.

As the girl turned her back on the janitor and flung another foot into the Faunus' chest, Doug wiped the saliva off his cheek, having to do so twice to get it out of his stubble. There were only so many things to do with the situation now; running off and getting a faculty member to tattle to was a good one. Instead, Doug chose the fun route now that he had probable cause –two three-litre jugs of floor cleaner were unscrewed of their caps, and Doug easily held them aloft over the mean girl's head, being much taller than her. She froze as the thick purple liquid coated her head, shoulders, and sapped down over the rest of her body until dripping off her skirt. Her friends seemed at odds with whether to stop the bullying session or laugh at their leader. They chose the latter.

She turned a one-eighty before he could react, slamming a fist into his gut and throwing him into the wall, and roared as she started pummelling the janitor for this transgression. Doug laughed heartily between each hit; she wasn't weak, but this was tickling compared to the Malachites' or Junior's punishments. "C'mon, you can do better than that! Put some backbone into it!"

Finally, much like the other women he had come to know, she resorted to bringing a knee up into his privates, at which point he coughed and bent over. He still laughed, but with a gasping difficulty, until stating; "I'm sure that made you feel better, but you should probably do something about yourself. Those chemicals are pretty strong..."

Only now did she look down, seeing her clothes beginning to tear where they were damp, as well as seeing some of her hair falling away. She screamed loud and horrified before rushing off, and with one last look at the worker and their targeted student, the other three chose to follow the fleeing brunette; it would seem she'd been the leader after all. Doug slid down against the wall, chuckling despite himself. The girl opposite of him that had been getting battered was in a sitting position too now, her eyes a near perfect match of her hair color. They stared at each other for a minute.

"Er... thanks, mister." She said halfheartedly, as it was obvious he didn't try too hard initially to save her from her fate.

"Uh-huh." He responded. There was another pause. He didn't want to get up because of the knot in his stomach from the groin injury, and she just didn't have the strength quite yet. "Are all the kids here so violent? I signed up for janitor duty so I could stop being a punching bag, to be honest..."

"Marissa's just spiteful... There are a few others, but she's one of the worst. I'm sure there'll be a freshman or two like that, but for the most part Beacon is... nice." She smirked. "Don't get discouraged."

Doug nodded. "Good to know. And uh, thanks..." He trailed off.

"It's Velvet."

"D-... uh, Dirk. That's me –Dirk." She giggled at him.

"Alright, Dirk. You've got a job to do, so I'll get out of your way." She got to her feet a little shakily, but seemed fine once at her full height, trotting away. Doug sighed with relief in not having given himself up on his first day, though dumping floor cleaner on a student was guaranteed to haunt him by the end of his shift. Primarily, he was relieved that Velvet had taken her leave.

Doug wasn't a coward, of that he was certain, but some things did scare him. Women in crimson dresses that could cook you alive scared him. Little red beasts with sniper-scythes scared him. Hot blondes that could create hailstorms of armor-piercing icicles scared him... but most of all, he was afraid of Faunus. Working with Junior's other goons, practically all of them were human and most were pretty full of themselves for being one of a group of thugs, and this led a lot of them to acting rashly, oftentimes against an easy target like a Faunus. This had pissed off the White Fang a good few times, and once or twice brought them to an altercation Junior had to sort out.

These little skirmishes had not been pleasant, but they had eventually developed into one big nasty brawl that he could never forget. A red-haired guy with horns and one of their Grimm masks had come after him with a vengeance amid the fight, wielding a red katana and gun-sheathe hybrid of some kind that had nearly taken Doug's head at least a dozen times that night. It had probably been sheer luck that kept his blood and guts inside his body the way this character had tried to eviscerate him, and ever since then Doug's fear of Faunus had been present whenever he was in the vicinity of one. That fear escalated every day with reports of the White Fang's notorious deeds.

So when Velvet had decided to come back when he wasn't looking, and get his attention when she wasn't too far from him, he almost jumped through the roof and scrambled a few feet from the girl. "Oh! H-hey there! Need something else? "

Velvet was taken aback by his reaction, and he calmed down quick so she could tell him what she wanted now. "Marissa won't take what you did lying down. She'll get you into some kind of trouble..." He figured that much already, but the rabbit seemed to have more to say. "I can vouch for you, if you need it. Call us even that way."

He hadn't even done much to deserve the help she offered, all things considered. His guard began to lessen some. "Sure thing. Thanks, Velvet."

She nodded and held up a hand in a hasty wave, taking herself elsewhere. Perhaps some Faunus weren't so bad...