Chapter 8: The Life of a Hunter
Blake found herself in a vast expanse of darkness. Her wrists were cuffed together, chains binding them tightly to something far above. Her legs were bound with leather straps, preventing her from standing. Covering her mouth and nose was a muzzle, preventing her from speaking. From out of the shadows walked a reflection of herself. Her mirror image crouched in front of her, a wide grin across her face and eyes sparkling with feral glee. Blake struggled against her bindings, looking for a weakness but finding none. Her mirror self grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to lock eyes with herself. Blake started to panic, beginning to whimper in fear, tears forming in her eyes. Her mirror image leaned in and licked the tears from her face. "You've kept me locked away for far too long." Her mirror imaged hissed. "Now it's your turn to be the one bound and helpless!"
Blake woke from her nightmare sweating bullets. She patted down her wrists and legs before running her hands across her face, checking for every sign that she was back in reality. Yang stirred in bed next to her.
"What's wrong kitty?" Yang yawned, wrapping her arm around Blake's waist.
"Nothing." Blake replied, lying back down. "Just another nightmare."
Drake and Ikari walked through the slum district of Atlas. As rich and advanced a city as Atlas was, even it had it's poor district. The pair had their sights set on a local club that was said to be a hotspot for all the criminal gossip of Atlas.
"Explain to me again why we're going to this dump?" Ikari asked for about the sixth time.
"There's a guy there who feeds me all the information that's been floating around on the streets." Drake explained.
"And how the hell does this get approved on the Committee budget?" Ikari asked, though this was a new question.
"It gets approved because Lupa is a genius when it comes to dealing with the bureaucracy. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be allowed half the liberties we have in doing our job." Drake explained.
"So, why did you want me to come along for this?" Ikari asked, this being another old question.
"These places tend not to appreciate Hunters snooping around. Things will be easier if they see there's more than one of us to deal with." Drake explained for the 9th time.
They took a turn down a back alley, approaching a metal door that had a rather large and imposing bald man in a tank top guarding it. The large man motioned for the pair to halt before speaking.
"We don't serve your kind here." the man said in a deep voice.
"Oh, we're not faunus if that's what you're wondering." Ikari said mockingly.
"Hunters." the man began to clarify. "We don't serve Hunters here."
"Awww, come on now." Drake whined sarcastically. "Don't make me go all the way back to headquarters for a warrant. Just let us in and we'll be out of your ha-... uhhh…" Drake cut himself off.
"Can I please just take this guy out so we can get this over with?" Ikari groaned at Drake's lack of negotiating skills.
"Whatever, not like it matters." Drake waved to his partner.
Ikari proceeded to deliver an uppercut under the chin of the tall bouncer, the force of which lifted him off his feet. His unconscious body slumped against the wall of the building. "That's how you negotiate." Ikari said, cracking her knuckles. She looked towards Drake for what to do next.
"Ladies first." Drake said back, waving casually towards the metal door, which Ikari proceeded to unhinge with a single kick. The thumping bass of a rave track rushed out to meet the pair as they entered the club. The pair blatantly ignored the fact that everybody in the club was now staring at them as they walked up to the bar and sat down.
Sitting next to them was a man in a fine tailored black suit. He had jet black hair and emerald green eyes, wearing a black fedora. An Ace of Spades and Queen of Hearts were tucked into the back left side of his hat.
"As classy an entrance as ever, I see." the man said to Drake, taking a sip of his whiskey.
"Glad to find you're keeping sober, Nero." Drake said sarcastically.
"I would ask what you're here for, but the streets have been abuzz about this new player in town. No doubt you want to know about him." Nero stated, getting straight to business.
"You know me so well." Drake taunted back.
"As much as I would love to help out the wonderful Atlesian government, this is one of the few times that you probably know more than I do." Nero paused to take another sip of whiskey and light up a cigarette. "Right now, I'd be more concerned with the fact that the club's owner is coming this way, and he definitely doesn't look happy."
"I don't think anything could possibly concern me more than the amount of firepower you wear on your hat." Drake said. "Ikari, you were wondering why I brought you along?" he said as he stood to face the club's owner. He was being followed by a good dozen goons.
"I was hoping I would get to kick some ass!" Ikari said, drawing her bastard sword from her back. She rushed forward and drop kicked the lead goon, sending him flying back into three of his comrades. Using her sword for leverage, she stopped her fall and flipped backwards before swinging her sword across horizontally, taking out four more of the goons. She split her sword into the twin powered one-handed blades, taking the remaining four goons out with a flurry of spinning blows. The club owner lifted a steel baseball bat, readying a downward strike onto Ikari, but she hit his hands with a high kick, forcing the man to drop the bat, before hopping onto the man's shoulder, spinning 180 degrees, trapping his neck between her legs, and doing a backflip, swinging the man through the air and slamming his head into the concrete floor of the club.
Nero whistled at the scene he had just watched. "Quite the backup you have there." he said, leaning in towards Drake. "Any way I can get her num-"
"No." Ikari stated simply, glaring at the informant as she put her sword away.
"Hey, doesn't hurt to ask, right?" Nero said quickly, raising his hands defensively. "Nice seeing you again, Drake. Come by my bar if you're ever in town."
"Can do." Drake responded. "Let's go Ikari, we're done here."
Blake and Yang walked through the port district of Atlas, approaching a large, seemingly abandoned warehouse.
"So, why are we here?" Yang asked, giving the dilapidated building a good lookover.
"Back when I was in the White Fang, we kept this place for members who weren't suited for combat. Since it's conveniently in view of the major docking zones for shipping freighters, the members stationed here would gather information on the cargo and routes of outgoing ships, allowing us to easily target the most important ones. I had heard that it had been raided before I left to join Beacon, but it may have been brought back into use sometime over the past few years." Blake explained.
"Guess it's worth a shot." Yang shrugged. "Either there's nobody here and we leave, or there's somebody here and we beat them up for information and leave."
The partners entered through the door of the warehouse. The lights were out, only a small bit of sunlight shone through the windows situated near the roof. Blake scanned the area with her faunus night vision, but couldn't see any sign of recent activity.
"Looks like nobody's home!" Yang shouted into the empty warehouse. She turned around, kicking her heel on the ground. "This is a dead end, le-"
"Yang wait." Blake cut her partner off suddenly. "Stomp on the ground right where you are." Yang stomped. "Did you hear that?"
"I didn't hear anything, Blake." Yang shrugged.
"Here, move." Blake urged, feeling along the ground where Yang was standing. After a couple of seconds of searching, she found a small indent and pulled up on it, revealing a hatch leading underground.
"I love those cute kitty ears of yours." Yang teased her partner. "After you, kitty cat." Yang motioned towards the newly revealed hole in the ground.
Blake stepped into the hole, landing gracefully about ten feet down. She immediately readied Gambol Shroud, scanning the tunnel with her night vision. Yang landed shortly after, with a much more audible thud, rolling forward and readying Ember Celica.
"Sadly, I don't have night vision like yours, Blake." Yang quipped, hardly able to see anything in the murky tunnel. "You got a light?"
"Yeah, give me a second." Blake reached for a pouch under her jacket, pulling out a small fire dust crystal and locking it into a socket on her offhand blade. She focused a bit of her aura on the blade, causing it to light up with flame and serving as a makeshift torch.
The two proceeded cautiously down the hallway. After a few minutes, they found their path forward blocked by a door. Blake nodded to Yang, retracting the main blade of her Gambol Shroud and steadying her aim on her left arm. Yang moved forward and bashed the door down with her shoulder, keeping Ember Celica ready for a fight. She quickly felt something hard come down across her head, causing her to tumble to the floor.
Blake was usually a calm person. Even in the most stressful of situations, she usually kept her cool. However, when she saw the large bear faunus emerge from beside the doorway and bring a chunk of concrete down onto her partner's head, she lost control. Without thinking, her body lunged forward, driving her still burning offhand blade deep into the bear faunus' back. She pushed the blade up along the man's spine, before breaking off and kicking the lifeless corpse down. Next in her sights was a young owl faunus male, who went wide eyed as she fired off half a dozen shots from Gambol Shroud into his head.
A snake faunus tried to blindside her from the right side with a dagger, but Blake reacted by swiftly cutting off the man's arm before shoving the blade up through his skull from below. The next unlucky victim was a young dog faunus charging with a makeshift club. He was met across the eyes with the rampaging Huntress' burning offhand blade, causing him to reel backward and leaving his neck open for a quick three shot burst from Gambol Shroud.
As the chaos settled, Blake spotted a figure at the far end of the room. A doe faunus stood with her back against the wall, shakily pointing a handgun in Blake's direction. "No." Blake shouted at herself mentally, but her body began to move forward, a grin finding its way to her face and a bloodthirsty gleam in her eyes. "NO." she shouted again in her head, forced to watch as her body moved against her will. "NO! NO! NO!" she thought frantically, her semblance activating as the terrified faunus fired. She reappear, shoving the offhand blade under the ribcage of the defenseless woman. "NO!" she screamed mentally as her body moved the gun of Gambol Shroud to the woman's forehead and pulled the trigger.
"What the hell happened back there?" Yang asked her partner in concern, removing her jacket and tossing it onto the dresser of her hotel room.
"I don't know." Blake said, following suit. "I saw you get hit and I just lost it." Blake's eyes snapped to Yang as her partner stretched and rubbed the back of her head, her tight sports bra and shorts leaving little to the imagination. Blake quickly started getting her boots of, trying to slow down her racing thoughts.
"Well whatever it was," Yang started, bending down to unlace her combat boots and catching Blake's eye again, "we'll keep what happened between us, alright?" Yang finished, kicking her boots off.
Blake hurriedly unzipped her vest and threw it off, leaving herself only in a lacy bra, skirt, and stockings. "Yang, I need you." Blake said, feeling herself starting to lose control again.
"Blake, wha-" Yang was cut off as Blake forcefully shoved her onto the bed of the hotel room.
"NOW." Blake growled at her partner, beginning to nip down Yang's jaw and neck, getting a few gasps as feedback. Yang decided not to argue, and instead indulge her lover's passion hoping it would ease some of the tension she was under. Blake bit down at the base of her partner's neck, getting a combination of a surprised yelp and a pleased moan in response. Blake started kissing down her partner's chest, before quickly removing the pesky piece of fabric that stood in her way, the pair losing themselves to desire for the night.