Chapter 2: Fiction and Fairy Tales
What is the point of your pointless bickering? You claim you want equality but don't exercise you supposed muscle. I don't care whether you are white, black, rich, poor, human, or otherwise you all die the same. You beg for mercy, you squirm beneath my feet, you fight back but you end up in the same place like all the others in my eyes. Who is left after this crusade of so called 'justice' is over? You ignore the plights of the slain, their bodies pile up on your lawn staining the roots of the grass and trees. Then when the trees are cut the seeds and saplings fall and grow into red stained trees that make your lands undesirable. These future trees will be your downfall when they fall and crush everything you stand for. But if you care for the current trees which are aging you set the example of what a gardener should be. I may not be the perfect human being but I know how to take care of those in need. Sincerely from the unbiased judge, jury, and executioner, The Welder.
A large field of grass was the only obstacle once we had gotten out of the forest. It flowed its golden tendrils as a breeze whipped through along with the sash that kept my trenchcoat closed. The girl named Faith looked up at me as we stopped pulling on my coat which made me look down.
"Well what are we waiting for?" I asked.
In the middle of the field was a road created by repetition and necessity rather than concrete and preference. The dead grass and tire tracks gave us a good path to walk along. By midday you could see the 'village' as she described. From a hill I used a function in my goggles to basically become binoculars. That 'village' she was talking about had good walls, defenses, guards, the whole nine yards plus another yard. You could probably live there and be fine for a few good years before a kingdom gets angry at you. It was late by the time we arrived at the front gate which was a large door, very proper in carving style. A guardsman stopped me as the girl was behind me in case of trouble.
"Halt there sir," he demanded, "what's your business?"
From his voice you could tell he was young, maybe early twenties, and young people are easy to scare. So shifting the device in my box while pretending to cough I replied with my distorted, "I seek asylum."
"I'm sorry sir, I can't let you in, we've been receiving threats."
I walked closer so I was right in front of the kid who was growing more nervous by the second, you could hear the lance-gun combo weapon starting to shake, "I never told you who the asylum was for," as the brought the girl to my side.
The guard eyes grew wide and quickly knocked on the door. "Open up!" He yelled, "we've got another survivor!"
The door slowly creaked and groaned opened until they stopped to let the two of us in along with the guard who ran past us. For it being the night there was still a large group of people walking around the streets. The people stopped what they were doing, dead in their tracks, just staring at me and then the girl as she grabbed my coat. An old woman slowly walked from the street with the door guard at her side and two middle aged men. The main thing I noticed about this village was that they were all faunus, I haven't seen a single regular human from the group shown to m.
"He's the one I talked about," the guard pointed out with his finger pointed at me.
The old woman looked at me for quite some time, her hands behind her back as her back was slumped by years of living. Her head going up and down with her eyes growing more quizzical with each cycle. Then she looked at the girl who by now was dead tired and leaning on my leg. She sighed and shook her head, "Well what do you want, Welder?"
"How surprising," I responded, "my reputation precedes me. I just want to return the girl, no funny business."
"Now why would you want to do that? I'm familiar on who you are the ways you extort people only to kill them later. You're nothing but a cold blooded murderer," she stated, her tone of voice made me feel like I was being preached to.
As much as I like to hear people talk about my work, I was pretty tired, I hadn't gotten a good night's rest in three days. I may be The Welder but I'm still a human. "You know what," I snarked, "there is something I need. Answers, explain to me why this girl was left in a broken and dilapidated building for the Grimm to get her? So if you could get me that then maybe, just maybe, I won't burn down this village like the last one."
Now here is something about me that is really important to know from here on out: I have no filter when it comes to what I say so what you get is the uncensored version. Now add in the fact that I'm dealing with an old woman and you can see the issues with the absence of my filter.
"Come with me and bring Faith with you," she told me as she turned and walked down the path she came.
The people who were on the street stepped back with every step I walked past them as Faith stumbled being pulled by my hand. We eventually caught up to the old woman with one of the middled aged men at her side whispering in her ear.
"I will take Faith from your hands, Harold will take her to her my house," she said motioning to the middled aged man.
The man named Harold walked over and after thirty seconds of me staring at him, almost reluctantly, I handed him Faith who was so tired she couldn't even tell what was going on. They walked away with her in his arms probably already asleep. I then turned to the old woman who was in, I guess, her natural state. Slouched, arms behind her back with nothing but an empty stare and a frozen frown. She lead me down to a private little clearing behind the village where you could see a different forest if the darkness of night didn't enshroud it.
"We left the Kingdom of Vale many years ago when Faith's mother was just a teenager to venture into the dangerous wilderness," she began, "for many years after that we set up many places that we thought would be a great place until natural and monstrous forces led us to this place as our new home away from society's view of us. It wasn't until Faith's father eventually ridded this place of the Grimm, and in bravery the decided to create a second village, not far from this one. It worked for a while but then a hate group found out we existed and harassed us, giving us threats. We believed they were empty and told them to leave but they must've found out of my daughter's village. We didn't hear about it till we saw the first survivors telling us of the horrors that had happened. A group went down to see any more people were hiding, but we couldn't find any. I thank you for finding my granddaughter, but I don't believe you should stay here, if anyone in the kingdom were to find out we were harboring you we might face worse than an army, an entire world that would be against us."
I stood silent just looking out into the forest with a small breeze coming through making my scarf flow with the wind. "I see," I calmly bellowed, in somber a tone, "I at least need a place to rest for the night, I am still just a person after all. After that I will say goodbye to your granddaughter and never return."
She seemed perplexed at the very end request. "For a killer you definitely don't appear to be the type, did something happened to you?"
"I've just been reminded of someone from long ago," I replied staring into the dark abyss, "and a promise I need to keep.
She lead to a shed, not glamorous by any means, and said I could sleep there for the rest of the night. It looked like an old workshop abandoned years ago, with a large object underneath a white dusty old sheet. After removing it and letting the dust settle an old car revealed itself. It was sleek black with the cab all the way in the back with engine taking up the rest. If it could talk it would beg to be used once again, it seemed fate had an odd way of showing itself to me. Laying my back up against the wall I looked around at the holes in the roof leaking in the moonlight and closed my eyes letting the sleep deprivation get to me.
The morning light peered through the walls reminding myself I still walk the earth. After systematically cracking every bone in my body I walked through the door back into the village going about its daily business. The market was alive selling fruits, vegetables, and handcrafted goods that were incredibly overpriced. I took a good look around and grabbed a wooden carving of a chapel that was incredibly detailed, I've never been a man of religion but sometimes you have to wonder. Throughout the market parents were giving me sneers, children were pointing at me before parents hurried themselves away, and the ones who didn't look simply walked across from me even if it meant running into other people. I got to the gate where Faith and I arrived last night and took a nice long look at what was ahead for me. Before I was about to walk something hugged on my legs. When I looked behind I saw Faith which made me crack a smile; I put my hand on her head and turned to her while getting eye level.
"What's wrong kiddo? I asked patting her head.
"You're leaving, but you just got here?" She asked putting her head down.
Her grandmother came up beside her. "Ah, don't worry, I'm like the common cold; if you get rid of me one way, I'll just come back a bit different."
I stood back up and nodded to the old woman before walking back into the plain from whence I came. The trip was much longer than I remembered, maybe it was Faith's constant nagging of: "are why there yet?", that was missing. The forest from where the Grimm had attacked in the night was soon the only I could see walking through it. Nothing but broken trees and thoughts surrounded me as I trekked through. It was the beginning of dusk as the sky was tinted orange just as I heard the sound of engines. I quickly ran into the foliage and peered through the leaves as four ATVs zipped across with people, mostly males by the sounds, hooting and hollering chanting something that was incomprehensible over the sounds of the engines. Once they had left I walked out with my hands in my coat pockets just staring, thinking what the hell they were doing. Then I remembered what the guard told me: "...we've been receiving threats...". My heart and mind went to a straight conclusion: the monsters had returned. I began to run with the tracks they had left out of the forest and back to the village. Looks like Faith would see me again after all.
Night had fallen by the time I had gotten close to the village. Fires were lit at the entrance with the ATVs in a circle with what seemed like a demonstration. Without letting myself being noticed I got close enough to hear.
"You damn animals!" The one who was doing most of the talking yelled at the villagers who were assembled at the front, "You think you could run from us! Well you're just as dumb as the !#$%^&* animals you are then! *begins to laugh*"
The whole group began to laugh with him. As much as I don't agree with the White Fang, the types of scum who are just as worse need to either be erased or eradicated. Taking a deep breath then calmly exhaling I saw my arms, legs, and hands slowly disappear blending into the night. I was pretty used to that seeing as how it was my Semblance, will admit I think I let my invisibility go to waste sometimes but hey what can one man do. I grabbed a stone and took a good look at the opposition. Throwing it once and catching to get a sense of its weight I launched it at an unsuspecting extremists. It was like an on-off switch, just bam, they hit the ground almost like in a cartoon from this distance. The leader shut up as the whole multitude of people jumped up as the man fell unconscious. The head blabber mouth motioned two others to go check it out. The poor sons of ! #$%^ had to try and stop me when I was invisible, I almost felt sorry for them. As they got closer you could hear them start to talk.
"Well do you see anything?" One of the grunts asked.
"If I saw something, I would say so," the other snarked in response.
I had to agree with the second one, if you're going to look for something why wouldn't you say something if you saw the thing you were looking for. I stood in the middle of the makeshift road as the two walked into me. The two freaked out and looked all around, scared beyond belief. As they turned around with one bringing his sword out I lodged my elbows into their hips. They stumbled to the side as my hands grabbed the sides of their heads and smacked them together. The two fell to the ground seemingly knocked out cold, they're kind of weaklings. I walked back to the village gate cracking my knuckles, still invisible mind you. The leader looked back towards the field expecting the two to return at any moment, but they didn't. You could tell he was frustrated just by his facial and bodily expressions. He grabbed a woman from the crowd and pinned her down and grabbed a gun.
"Whatever is going on, you will stop it now or I will shoot this piece of ! #$ faunus!" He shouted at the crowd holding the woman by the collar.
I wanted to see how desperate he was going to get and stood next to another one of the extremists with my arms crossed. Many minutes passed and he was now sweating profusely and breathing heavily with so much twitching involved I thought he would've accidently pulled the trigger by now.
"I'm going to give you three damn seconds! And if you're not out here with the rest of you faunus scum then I'll shoot!" He yelled, "One...Two…"
"Three!" I my now garbled voice interrupted as I grabbed the neck of the extremist next to me catching the attention of everyone.
To the regular person it looked like the man was being picked up by a ghost who had a really strong grip as I lifted him above the ground, being a bit over six and a half feet tall lets me do that. His arms flailing like a fish out of water trying to grasp my hand and pry it off. The choke-and-lift move is probably one of my favorite things to do to people because it's so menacing. When I grew bored of his flailing I turned to my right and slammed him into the hood of the ATV closest to us. With him out of my grip and lodge into the vehicle choking and coughing I let my invisibility disappear revealing myself. The group of extremists just looked at me in fear while the village had a look of hope, and by the looks of it they needed that hope. Instinctively my fingers twitched which to ordinary person would seem odd but my torches respond to certain combinations, think of it like typing in key commands. Once I 'typed' in the command I clenched my fists, think of it like the 'Enter' key, and from my torch a blue flame shot out from the torch's chamber. I charged the leader but a female extremist ran in and brought up a sword in defense, how quaint. I grabbed her hand that held the sword and brought the blade up to my torch. After two rotations the bent the sword on itself and punched her square in the nose now that there wasn't anything obstructing the path of my fist. With my other hand I let go and kneed her followed by a quick kick to the stomach. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two of them pull out guns. I ran behind the ATV that still had the extremist still moaning in pain after being shoved down it like a feeding tube. Multiple shots rang out just as I got behind it. Opening the door I began to melt the hinges and the brackets holding the door away like ice cream, I'm a little hungry now. Once enough had been melted away I ripped the door off and waited for them to reload their guns, I can't believe they were wasting that much ammo. Like a frisbee I chucked the door at the two which basically clotheslined them which gave a certain *thud* like sound when it hit their stomachs. The others weren't worth the effort, idiots who tried charging me, the classic three-on-one that ended with me winning and the three on the ground, and of course some guy trying to run me over with a car. Well the car was pretty cool as I cut wheel axle in two leading to crash into the wall. But at the end, was the leader cowering behind the only undamaged ATV, I found it quite surprising actually that one survived. I picked him up by his collar with my two hands so he was eye level with my goggles.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson, are you ready?" I growled at him stopping my torches.
*Gulp* "Y-y-y-yes," he sniffled.
I grabbed the back of his head and began to smash his face in between what I was saying, "This village...and every other village you think is vulnerable...is under my protection...The Welder's protection...so if I ever see you're cowering face again I will rip out your tongue and shove it through your eyeballs." I finished by whipping him across the ground, miraculously he stood back up and ran into the forest where monsters like him belong, maybe the Grimm would have a dissatisfying snack tonight.
When it was all said and done I saw the old woman who was smiling now and I walked towards her. "Told you, I'm like the common cold."
"Maybe, but a cold is a bad thing at my age," she sarcastically remarked, "but I guess it's a good thing so we can strengthen our immune systems. I guess the world will just have to deal with us letting you call this place home."
"Maybe, but I'm not ready to settle down yet, I still got things to do, but if you want to really help me…"
Three days later from that old shed came the roar of an engine as the long sleek back car that was once abandoned was given new life. From inside the car I waived to the villagers who I had earned the respect from and before I left the gates I saw Faith to see me off.
"Well, looks like you got your wish after all," I said to her.
"Thank you for coming back to save us."
"Oh he wasn't going to kill anybody. Did you see the look on his face? He hadn't fired a gun in his life."
"Really?"
"When you analyze people for your job you get to understand them, I'll teach you when I come back."
"When will that be?"
That made me pause for a minute but after a little hard thinking I made a good answer. "When the job's done."
After that I drove off, not really into the sunset but just off to where I called home. A small warehouse that was set up for a potential mining district in Vale that turned out to be a bust. If they didn't care about the place then why would they care about it now. When I get home I'm going to take a nap and worry about everything else in the morning...