The Second Step: Chapter 11
Birds of Prey: Part 1
A/N: Yes, I know, I should really get back to Team RWBY. They are after all the main characters. But please bear with me, I just have a few more characters to finish up with, then I'll give you your team.
On the plus side, the final few chapters will be focused on the Team, and have a special guest to liven things up. So please be patient, I haven't forgotten everyone's favorite rainbow girls.
Of course, no one is going to like the team I'm writing for here, so it all equals out in the end.
Classical music played lightly in the room, a slow and methodical soundtrack to the no holds barred beat down occurring inside. Sky Lark absentmindedly flipped though his book as Cardin and Dove beat the snot out of each other. On the far side of the room, Russell was video taping the whole fight, cackling gleefully whenever a particularly brutal blow fell.
In short, it was an average morning for the... energetic Team CDRL.
Cardin finally got the upper hand, and started delivering a series of vicious blows to Dove's back. Dove struggled under the consecutive blows, before finally collapsing in a groaning, pained heap. Cardin gave him a final kick in the ribs to... well, not do anything constructive. He just wanted to.
"And I am now, officially, the best fighter on the team. Ladies, welcome your leader, Cardin Winchester." Cardin struck a jaunty pose.
Sky and Russell glared at Cardin with the withering looks of annoyance, before setting aside their camera and book and jumped. Shocked, the jerk was promptly buried under the two and promptly beaten for the crime of calling them ladies. Dove even got up and joined in for a moment.
In the end, Cardin, Russell, Dove and Sky were all black and blue, their Aura's working to repair the inflicted damage.
It was into this lull in hostilities that a man with gray hair appeared on their window sill and said; "Is this Team CRDL's room?"
Team CRDL stared at him.
"...Who wants to know?" asked the bewildered leader of said team, looking like he was trying to figure out what law of causality had led this particular stranger to their particular room at this very moment.
The gray haired fellow pulled a cassette tape from a pocket. "My patron, for one. And another would be Roman Torchwick." And with that, the man tossed the tape on the ground, turned and jumped out the window, glad to be finally done with that.
Crawling along the outside of a building was never fun, as he could attest.
The team of jerks stared at the cassette tape like it was a live bomb, the words "Roman Torchwick" running through their heads like rabid dogs.
Cardin finally screwed up enough courage to stand up and, his Aura still working to heal his wounds, picked the tape off of the beige carpet. The cassette was quickly slipped into Sky Lark's personal cassette player (replacing Snow White's Spectrum Album, if you wanted to know) and without an inch of trepidation, it was played.
"Hello Team CRDL, yes, we know who you are. Suffice to say you've brought a significant amount of attention to our organization, and recent activities have necessitated more men to my employ. As your ruthlessness and ability has been pronounced, I have decided to come forward and offer this vacancy to you. Your reply is expected Thursday evening, 11:00 PM, on the west elevated terrace of the student dorms. If you accept this proposition, your payments will triple your annual allowance."
The four stared at the tape as it finished playing, then at each other. The looks that crossed their faces ranged from shock (Russell), horror (Dove), curiosity (Cardin) and beguilement (Sky).
These faces lasted only a moment, for at their end came the dawning realization of what the four were about to get into.
Russell flipped his trench spikes from one finger to the next as the advanced Dust class went on. Goodwitch and Isaac were droning on about how only people with Aura could use Dust, which was honestly bull, because everyone who knew about Aura knew about that. Well, maybe not the Freak ("Velvet", a voice in his head whispered.) or the Bitch ("Pyrrha", his conscience reminded him again.), but then again, one was so stupid she probably couldn't understand the class, and the other was so high and mighty that she probably thought it beneath her.
Ah, ignorance was bliss, wasn't it?
"May Russell Thrush please step forward?"
Russell dropped his spike, but quickly recovered and descended the stairs. Isaac looked at him disapprovingly, along with Glynda and the whole of the class.
Glares, all around him. Again. Russell fought down the lump in his throat.
Of course, a person with an unbiased view of the room would have seen some students watching him impassively, while others looked genuinely engaged in the class for once. But Russell didn't see that, just a load of hateful and oppressive glares.
As such, Russell could barely focus as Isaac asked him to demonstrate his Formic semblance, and once he saw that he could only use it as armor, dismissed him to his desk. For once, Russell was happy to oblige the teacher and returned to his seat.
Of course, the hard seats of the classroom did not do anything to help his mood. Neither did the elbow lodged painfully in his ribs, but then again, Sky never really did have a good sense of personal space. But on the other hand, maybe Sky had something he needed to say.
"What?" Russell whispered.
Sky Lark removed the offending elbow. "After we're done here, we should go to the forge and make some fresh ammunition. We're going to need it."
Russell shrugged and nodded in agreement. Sky acknowledged with a light smirk, his seemingly self-confident attitude buoying Russell's own. Working with his team was really all he could do. And he was stuck with them on one side of the law, or the other.
Why, you ask. Because they were his team, and he couldn't think of any other option then to work with them.
Not that that meant he couldn't enjoy himself a little. A few seats down sat a familiar rabbit Faunus, and a quick wadding of paper and an expertly timed through netted him a squeak out of the freak. The freak turned and said something along the lines of "Please stop," but a few more spit balls shut her up nicely.
Russell sat back, content with himself. 'And who says you can't have it all?'
The forge was hot from the radiating furnaces and loud from the gasps of air compressors and air blasts. And despite these conditions, it was also the safest place to put Dust, as most people avoided it unless it was necessary to go there, and Dust's makeup only allowed it to ignite when suffused with Aura.
As such, it made a perfect place for Sky and Russell to discuss the plan. Well...a plan. Russell wasn't quite sure what they were doing, just that he was stuck with his team. Sky however did seem to, initially, know what to do, which had been why he had followed his teammate to the forge on the first place.
Unfortunately, instead of filling his teammate, roommate, and marginal acquaintance in on the plan to deal with Torchwick, Sky had instead started measuring out grains of different sizes and types of Dust, and loading his shotgun rounds with them.
Russell busied himself with pulling out some knives and sharpening the edges, filling the trick knives with large and small flame Dust grains. A quick test of one yielded a sizable fire ball that his Formic Aura contained. That done, Russell picked out some raw sheet metal and after grabbing a smelting mask, started heating it in the furnace. As the metal turned red from the heat, he moved it under a press and stamped out knife blanks. The heat and the soft metal made for easy working, and soon Russell had nearly two dozen more grenade knives at his disposal.
However, he also had a fair amount of impatience for his friend. Sky's face gave nothing away as he filled and capped shotgun rounds over and over again, ignoring Russell and his frustration, seemingly content in the repetition of preparing his ammunition. Finally, after ten minutes of watching Sky measure and load his shell, Russell snapped.
"Damn it Sky, what do you want!?"
Sky Lark blinked an shrugged. "Russell, may you tell me how literal that question is?"
Russell stopped, actually taking a moment to marshal his thoughts back together. "Why are we here? As in, why are we here in the forge?"
Sky stared at Russell for a moment, and then another. The seconds started to drag. The air seemed to grow more oppressive...or maybe that was just Sky calling up his Aura. Perhaps as a gesture of peace, Sky set his shotgun and the bullets he had been loading to the side, and stood up. The Aura however, it never stopped pressing down on Russell.
"Russell, do you know why I'm on your team? Oh, I know you think it's because I'm just lucky enough to have found you in the Emerald Forest, but let's not kid ourselves. You see Russell, I knew, from the moment I saw Cardin and Dove, that they'd be brutes. Dove would be the sycophant, happy to bask in Cardin's glory and hide behind his back to avoid punishment. Cardin would try and look all heroic and strong, and happily trample anyone that got in his way... or anyone at all in fact. Frankly, he'd love to have some sick groupie backup."
Sky Lark started circling the form of Russell, who looked as if he'd had been carved from stone for all the movement he made. "The moment I saw them flying in the same direction, I knew they'd team up. So I simply recalled the next most cruel, racist and haughty person I could remember from the cliff, and made off to find miss Weiss Schnee. Finding you was just a happy accident."
Sky stopped circling, and leaned into Russell's personal space. Russell didn't quite recall when he had ended up there. "You see Russell, you're not a particularly nice boy. You treat everyone around you with contempt because they're either better than you, or worse than you. If Cardin or Dove or even I am in danger, you'd happily run off to save your own skin, simply because you don't care. And as for Faunus... Hahaha. You don't even think they warrant the same level of respect you'd give a Grimm in battle."
Russell reached into his pockets for a moment and pulled out a long handled trench spike. Using the very tip of the blade, he pushed Sky away from him the same way he'd prod a kitten away. Sky stepped back and cocked an eyebrow. Incidentally, he had stepped closer to one of the blasting furnaces, and his form dissolved into an outline of gray smoke and red flames. All that remained visible in the searing darkness were his Aura infused eyes.
Russell took a moment to ponder whether or not he liked this new view of Sky more or less then the old one. "Sky, we need to get you to see a therapist."
Sky chuckled, the sound accompanied by a blast of air into the furnace. "Trust me Russell, you are not the first person to tell me that. Now, be honest, didn't you ever wonder why a team was formed from the singularly biggest assholes in the entire school?"
Russell gulped. "Shut up."
Sky shrugged slightly, and stepped out of the red and black shadows the furnace cast. "I'm not here for the money like you, or the glory like Dove or Cardin. I'm just here for the ride." And with that, Sky sat back down, picked up his shotgun shells, and continued loading them.
Russell tried not to stare at the possible madman who was his teammate. "You...you don't mean that, do you?"
Sky looked up from his work, and smiled. The furnace surged again, and illuminated his ace with blood reds and blinding whites. "What do you think?"
Dove sneezed. This wasn't too abnormal, as the room was dusty and he was cleaning it. Cleaning tended to kick up a fair amount of dust, and irritate the nasal passages. Thus, Dove sneezed because he was kicking up dust.
He told himself this furiously to distract from the fact that he was sweating bullets. 'Oh, wait...ah nuts.'
Dove stopped sweeping the floor of team CRDL's room and took a seat on his bed. The broom creaked slightly as it settled against the bedpost, but aside from this, he heard nothing. Cardin was still in class (some remedial tactics class or something) and with classes over for the day for the rest of the team, until he got back Dove didn't have anything to do except clean and think.
Dove didn't like thinking for himself. When he did, he messed up, and people would blame him. If people like Cardin were around, he'd give orders and Dove would follow them. Then, when people told him he had messed up, he'd just point them at Cardin, smile, and say "take it up with him."
That always worked, and it probably always would.
Dove rested his head in his palms and groaned into them. It wasn't that he didn't like thinking or planning, it was just that letting Cardin do all the work and thought would let him focus on being awesome in battle. Was being awesome in battle too much to ask?
None the less, Dove really was getting worried for Cardin. Ever since Jaune had decided to grow a backbone, the Team's leader had been prone to sudden bursts of anger at his subordinates, even challenging them all to fights and hitting them more violently then normal, and worst of all, sometimes telling Dove to figure it out for himself.
It was scary to see Cardin like this.
Dove made a fist and coughed into it, knocking loose some mucus in his throat. 'This room's too dusty. Yeah, I should clean it.'
Dove stood up and contemplated the window. He could open it, but if he did, the room would get cold from the evening air, and then his team would complain and it would be all his fault. But if he didn't, the room would still be dusty, and his team would complain about that, and it would still be all his fault.
Dove internally debated the merits of either plan, perfectly forgetting that Sky and Russell had gone to one of the schools many forges, and thus would probably welcome the fresh night air when they got back. Finally, and with many little issues with his own plan, Dove took the bottom of the window and pulled it open.
Cool evening air began to trickle into the room of the school bullies. Dove nodded to himself and picked the broom back up. With a little flourish, he knocked some dirt loose from the end and started sweeping. It was only then did a thought cross his mind:
'Wait, why am I sweeping carpet?'
Dove stopped and pondered this. His room had a carpet floor...and he was sweeping it. With a flush of anger, Dove tossed the broom aside again, and got back to sitting on his bed.
Really, as much as he didn't want to do it, if his team chose to go with Roman Torchwick, he'd really have no choice but to stick with them. Dove didn't have many combat skills, and if his team left without him, he'd probably be shunted on to another team, probably one where the leader wouldn't be so prepared to take responsibility for him when he tried cheating again or having some fun tormenting some Faunus.
That being said, he knew that Cardin wasn't exactly the brightest or most considerate bulb in the room. If Cardin decided that the infamy of working with Torchwick outweighed the fame of being a huntsmen, well, there wasn't much Dove could do about it. Cardin would either force him along (which would end up putting a big bounty on their heads, but they'd be able to train with powerful criminals and beat up random people) or he'd decide that a weak link wouldn't and shouldn't be allowed to exist, in which case Cardin would probably kill him.
That second choice was actually unlikely, as Cardin was a bully and a jackass, but not a murderer. Dove just didn't know that.
In the end though, what were his choices? Working with Roman Torchwick would make lots of money and be pretty awesome, but significantly shorten his life expectancy. On the other hand, he could stay, assuming his team stayed, and they could just keep on living the life they did.
Either option wasn't particularly appealing. Live fast and die young, or just go in living. The morality of the choices were of no consequence, and in the end either seemed justifiable, but Dove knew that if he went with Torchwick and his team, he'd have only signed the warrant for his arrest.
Dove rested his head in his palms and groaned into them. This was exactly why he hated trying to think. He'd always ended up going in circles.
Cardin watched the slowly sinking sun from his spot in his remedial tactics class. He only watched it because it managed to engage him more then the teacher going on and on about some city in the distant past during the Inferus civil war. 'This teacher really should be fired,' Cardin thought.
"And so, the settlers of the Northeastern Vytal region came to call the mining town the established Vin, and began to exploit the rich Dust deposits present. This city would eventually come to survive the Civil war, and was only destroyed comparatively recently, during the Faunus war. Why, the city rubble is actually where the Schnee Dust quarry and mine is located. Yes children, even after one hundred years of civilization extracting the resources of the territory, the Dust deposits remain thick enough for mining on a truly phenomenal scale."
Cardin blinked in surprise, before realizing that the teacher hadn't said anything he didn't already know, and went back to staring out the window in boredom. Really, this teacher was doing a terrible job. Cardin couldn't even remember his name, and he'd been taking the class for three months now.
Cardin kicked up his legs, leaned back in his chair, and sighed in disinterest. Why couldn't the teacher try doing something interesting like...shooting rockets at the students, and if they got a question right, he'd skip them. That would be better then this.
"Now, the native Faunus population objected to the human settlement, and when they produced papers of ownership, the settlers ignored them. Further attempts to evict the settlers involved calling upon the army of the province of Grand Hampton, however the soldiers sided with the settlers, claiming the bills of property had expired."
Cardin tore a page out of his textbook, wadded it up and when the teacher's head had turned to the blackboard, threw it at some guy with an elephant trunk. 'Freak,' he thought.
But even the thrill of a well-aimed paper ball to the head did little to abate his boredom. As his mind had been want to do since this morning, it turned to the letter he and his team had received.
Of all of the people that could have possibly received a letter from the Roman Torchwick, how had it been his. Granted, it was a great offer. Money, whatever they could take. Training, everything that Torchwick knew, and he knew a lot.
But there was one single hang up: Team CRDL would almost immediately be targeted for arrest. Not that Cardin particularly cared about what happened to his team (Russell was a jackass, Dove was probably gay, and Sky was...odd), but Cardin unfortunately happened to be a part of Team CRDL, so anything that happened to them happened to him.
More other though, he actually didn't want to leave Beacon.
"It was not long after the local population had been domesticated that tensions with other, nearby tribes erupted. Now, while most Faunus tribes had, for centuries, been at each other's throats, the recent colonization of Vytal had pushed the tribes into a confederacy against the colonials. Several tribes began using guerrilla tactics against the settlers."
Beacon was more or less the only place he could learn to fight the Grimm. Most people thought he had come to Beacon so he could get the glory of being a huntsmen, or the money associated with them. But Cardin really just wanted to learn how to kill Grimm. He didn't care if Roman Torchwick offered him oodles of cash or the whole city of Vale, he was here to kill monsters.
Getting to watch the Faunus here squirm when they saw him was just a bonus.
But that refusal led to the heart of the question: how was he going to tell Torchwick this. Roman Torchwick was a truly powerful gangster, and if he could get a message to them, who's to say he couldn't get an assassin.
"The most successful of these tactics was a simple bait and switch maneuver. The tribesmen would attack settlements and then throw the ensuing battle. Then, once captured, a secondary force would arrive, free their kinsmen, and resume the battle from the heart of the settlement."
Cardin jolted up from his seat. "What was that?"
A/N: Well, for a hiatus breaker, this wasn't much of one, but hey, we're moving again. As usual, I would like to thank my Betas, Ttran2323, Enderkiller77, Chas188, and everyone welcome our new, celebrity editor, Knives4Cash! They all helped improve this chapter, so please visit all of their pages and enjoy their stories.
Enjoy the ride!