Foreign Exchange

Chapter 7:Getting acquainted

"Everything look clear on your end?" Shavo asked his new partner as he walked up to her. She laid prone on the ledge of the building, looking through the scope of her Crescent Rose at the streets below.

"I only see at least ten Clickers in the street up ahead, past that about five or four." She answered as she stood back up. Shavo looked down her side of the street and saw she was dead right. "How about your end? Did you see that group that passed by you earlier?"

"No sign of them." Shavo told her as he switched his rifle back into gun form. "How about let's try not to use our gun functions. I really want to keep the confrontations to a minimum."

Ruby gave him a sideways glance of confusion. "But Clickers don't have ears, they wouldn't be able to hear the gun shots."

Shavo took that piece of info into mind, but went on anyways as he turned to the ladder.

"Yeah, but it's not Clickers I'm worried about. Those are only a few that we know of. What I'm worried about is the ones we don't see."

"Aw come on, they aren't that much of a problem." Ruby 'psh-awed' him with a friendly wave of her hand. "Clickers may be fast, but they don't take much to put down. And I'm sure if anything more shows up, we can just outrun them."

"That may be the case for you, Ruby, but I'm not the greatest runner." Shavo admitted with a grimace as he waited for her to come to the ladder as well. "Sorry."

"O-Oh, it's fine." Ruby tried to tell him, not wanting to make her partner look foolish in the first half an hour of their career. "Come on, let's just go kill some Grimm."

Shavo gestured for her to go first, which she did. He followed not shortly after. By the time he had reached the ground, Ruby had already gotten to the corner on the other side of the road and was waiting for him.

'Come on, don't hold the poor girl back.' He chastised himself as he darted across the street to her. He looked over her shoulder and saw the ten wandering the road aimlessly were still there.

"Alright, I'll take the three up front," He began to formulate a plan as he pulled his blade out. "by that time, you should alrea-"

Shavo looked back up from his blade to see that he was talking to thin air.

Looking back over the corner, he saw Ruby quickly dispatching eight of the Grimm she called Clickers with ease.

"Or not, that's cool too I guess." Shavo deadpanned before sighing and charging around the corner.

Two Clickers turned away from the sight of their brethren getting torn apart to see another human charging at them, blade held out to his side. They jerked around to him and began to run at him. Except it was a hard thing to classify as running, due to all of the jerking and twitching they did.

Shavo quickly came to a stop and swung his blade in an upwards stroke, severing a claw off from one of the clicker's hands. Some sort of grayish-red liquid flew from the monster's stump, Shavo guessing it was the thing's blood, but it hardly noticed it as it used its other claw to swing at him.

He ducked the swipe and kicked out at the thing's knee, the sound of broken bone sounding out as it crumpled to the ground, it's leg now bent at an awkward and painful looking angle. But again, it did not notice it's wound as it just opted to crawl towards him quickly.

Shavo took a few steps back and switched his attention to the other clicker, now closing the distance as it raised both claws up and tried to skewer him. He quickly rolled out of the way of the strike and into the side of a deserted car. With his back pressed against it, the Clicker came in for another attack and tried to jab at his stomach. It missed again, it arm going through the car door instead as Shavo strifed to the left. he then reached up, one handed, and grabbed the thing by it's head before slamming it in through the glass window of the car, shards flying as well as sticking into it's face. He pulled it back to see one especially large shard sticking out of it's left eye and blood pouring down it's face.

He was pretty sure he had just killed his very first Grimm.

'Rule Number Two.' He thought to himself as he brought his sword up and slit the monster's throat. 'Double Tap.'

Dropping the corpse, he turned his attention back to the remaining Clicker, still trying to shakily claw it's way to him. He briskly walked up to it before kicking it onto it's back. It looked up at him with it's large, blank white eyes as he brought his boot up over it's head.

"Eat shit." He growled out, then stomped down on the monster's head. It caved in like an overripe watermelon, blood painting the concrete grayish-red.

Shavo stood there for a second and admired his handiwork, having killed two nightmarish monsters without a single scratch.

'Not bad for a kid from Iowa.' He thought smugly to himself as he reached into his pocket and took a hit from his vape pen.

"Hey, Shavo!"

Said teen looked up from his pen and nearly choked as he saw his partner Ruby with her scythe hefted over one shoulder.

As well as twenty or so dead Clickers behind her.

"You ready to go?" She asked innocently as she walked up to him. He didn't respond, only looked at her, then to the dead bodies, and back to her.

"Yeah." He mumbled out after a while, pocketing his vape pen. "Yeah, I guess."

Ruby just grinned brightly at him before turning around and practically skipped ahead. Shavo lingered back for a second, mouth still hung agape as he looked at the itty-bitty pieces left behind by Ruby's Scythe.

"Rule number eight." He said to himself. "Get a kick-ass partner."

He then sighed before going after Ruby.

"So what are we going to be looking for, exactly?" Ruby asked curiously from beside Shavo as they continued to walk down the streets, the sun now getting closer to the horizon as the day began to come to an end and paint the town in shades of orange.

"Ozpin said 'Artifacts', but I'm betting on something we probably wouldn't expect." Shavo put in his two cents, doubting that the artifacts were still chess pieces.

Everything else was changing, why not that too?

Up ahead, the two spotted a large pileup of old, burnt out cars in the middle of the road that were about ten feet high.

"Oh boy, a wall is blocking our path." Shavo deadpanned with a blank voice. "What ever shall we do?"

"I don't know," Ruby played along as she held her hands up and shrugged. "Climbing it is far too obvious. We may just have to dig under it."

"Darn, I forgot my shovel at home." Shavo snapped his fingers before looking over to Ruby. They both managed to hold a straight face for about three seconds before laughing.

Once they stopped, Shavo shook his head before climbing up a car and holding his hand out to help his friend up. They climbed up to the edge of the top easily, but Shavo held a hand out to stop her as he crouched down.

"Something wrong?" Ruby whispered. Shavo didn't respond, just looked at the edge.

"Wait." He said. "Do you hear that?"

Ruby craned her head and tried to listen for some sort of foreign noise, but shook her head after a while.

"I don't hear anything." She relented. Shavo finally looked back at her and nodded.

"That's the point."

He then slowly pulled out his megachete and crept up to the edge. Then, he poked his head over to look.

And immediately brought it back down, eyes wide and face losing all of it's color.

"Nope." He whispered as he shook his head from side to side. "Nope, nope, nope, I'm out."

"Shavo?" Ruby questioned with concern. "What's wrong?"

Shavo opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out as he looked at her. He then shook his head and pointed. She looked at him, then to the edge before doing as he did and poked her head over the edge slightly.

What she saw made her want to cry in annoyance.

For about eighty feet, the road was absolutely packed with Grimm. She saw Surface Creeps crawling over cars, Clickers shuffling around, Mongrels sniffing around and two fighting over a bone.

There was probably over a hundred and eighty, maybe even two hundred Grimm not even three feet in front of them.

Now she knew why Shavo was a little scared.

She ducked back down and quickly went back over to Shavo's side, eyeing the edge with a new bit of fear.

"So now we've got about over two hundred Grimm right in front of us." Shavo whispered.

"Do you think we can go around them?" Ruby proposed. Shavo seemed to think about it before shaking his head.

"Maybe. That could take a while, though." He said as he looked back at the edge, fear now replaced with a thoughtful look. He was still white in the face, though. "Maybe we could use noise, get them away from the road somehow."

"Clickers don't have ears, remember?" Ruby reminded him.

"Yeah, but if they see the others moving, they might just follow." Shavo said as he began to creep back up to the edge slowly.

"What do you think we should do?" Ruby asked, not wanting to go back up to the edge, but followed him anyways.

He was silent as he looked at the buildings peeking over the edge, thinking about something. He then looked back to her, but eyes trailed over to something behind her and focused on that. She turned around and saw a open doorway to a large building, something of what once looked like a museum with a long hallway going to the right, half of it being cut off from view by the wall. She turned back and saw Shavo looking over the edge again, and panicked. She reached up and grabbed him by his collar before yanking him back.

"What are you doing!?"She whispered angrily at him. He didn't seem to notice, though, as he still had that thoughtful look on his face.

"That building has another entrance that comes out just a bit behind the group." He told her as he pulled out his megachete and unfurled it out into its gun form, looking down at it as he checked the clip.

"So?" Ruby asked him. He looked back up to her with that frown back on his face, the same one he had when they were about to get launched.

"I'm going to draw them away."

Ruby's reaction was instantaneous: She grabbed him by the shoulders with wide eyes.

"Are you crazy!?" She barely kept herself from yelling, but clamped a hand over her mouth nonetheless. They remained silent for a few moments, but nothing changed.

"Ruby, it's easy." He told her, "I'll run over there, grab there attention, then run ahead until they lose sight of me. Once that happens, i'll duck into a building or something and wait for them to pass. Then we can both pass safely."

Ruby looked at him disbelievingly.

"Then why can't we just walk past them, if that's the case!?" She asked.

"Because it's no man's land for about thirty feet, they will see us if we do that." Shavo told her.

"No." Was all she said.

"Ruby, for god's sakes, what else are we-" Shavo began to say, but was interrupted.

"Let me do it instead."

This time, it was Shavo who gave her a disbelieving look.

"And you really think I'm going to let you do that why?" He asked hotly.

"You see how fast I am." Ruby tried to convince him. "I could easily draw them off and lose them. And like you said, they're dumb enough to think I kept on going that way."

"Ruby, you know I can't let you do that." Shavo said with a frown.

"Now you know how I feel." Ruby shot back.

Shavo kept up the frown at her until he sighed and ran a hand down his face.

"Well it looks like we're at a cross-roads here." He said.

"Shavo, please." Ruby begged him. "I appreciate the fact that you're concerned, but you and I both know that I'm much faster. I can do this."

Shavo looked at her for a few seconds as he thought it over in his mind. He looked at the ridge for a few moments before relenting.

"Your realise your sister will kill me if something happens, right?" He asked. "Heck, if she even finds out that I let you do this?"

"Then I'll just not let anything happen." Ruby said back. She saw he was on the verge of the breaking point, and decided she really needed to pull out the big guns to push him over the breaking point.

So she pouted out her lip, widened her eyes, and gave him the saddest puppy dog eyes Shavo had ever seen.

Shavo looked at that face for three seconds. For three valiant, noble seconds, he held his own against a face that had proven victory for the crimsonette time and time again.

And then he broke down.

"Okay, okay, holy crap, fine." He said as he held his hands up in surrender and looked away. Ruby slowly fistpumped in triumph as she let out a 'yeeeesss'. "Just be careful."

She gave him a salute as she smiled brightly at him.

"Careful's my middle name."

With that said, she then sped around over to the entrance and through it in the blink of an eye. Shavo climbed back up to the ledge and slowly stuck the top of his head over to get a look.

For a second, there was no change as the small horde shambled around and kept on doing as they did. Then, he saw Ruby poke her head out from the doorway and looked right at him. It was hard to see her face, but he could just see the grin and thumbs up she flashed him before she ran into the middle of the street and fired at the crowd with her Crescent Rose. The bullet tore through about nine of them before it struck a armored vehicle.

"Hey, look over here!" Ruby yelled at the group as she waved her arms around, "Fresh meat!"

The crowd took onto the bait instantaneously, a lone tall creature rising up from the group. It was still hunched over, but was around nine feet tall with long arms and legs that had claws on their ends. It then threw it's head back and let out a ungodly screech that made Shavo want to throw his hands over his ears.

Something about that thing made him feel very uncomfortable.

And with that, the horde began to move.

He could have sworn he just barely heard Ruby go "Uh-oh" before turning around and speeding off. The Grimm began to give chase, some sprinting after her and other shambling jerkily like something from a sick-man's nightmare.

But his plan was working.

As Ruby disappeared from view around a corner a few blocks up ahead, the horde still ran after her. He had to wait a few minutes, but by then most of the Grimm had rounded the corner and disappeared as well.

Now he just had to wait for Ruby to come back.

Gun drawn, Shavo leaped over the edge and landed in a crouch before sweeping the area with his weapon in AK form. Like he had seen, they were all gone. He walked up to the armored truck and climbed atop of it to get a better view and watch for Ruby to come.

After about five minutes, he began to get worried.

"Come on, Ruby." He said to himself as he shifted around on top of the truck's back. Five minutes turned to eight, and eight turned to nine.

He was now going from worried to scared.

'Hey, this is Ruby we're talking about.' Shavo thoguht to himself. 'Something as simple as a few Grimm won't take her down. She's too good for that.'

In a way, he was right. Peope like her shouldn't be killed by something as simple as that.

But sometimes life found a way to work it's way out.

"Hiya!"

Shavo yelled out in alarm as he wheeled around and saw Ruby had snuck up on him and grinned at him happily. He tried to stop, but began to wheel backwards as he tried to keep his balance before losing it and falling off the truck onto the ground with a loud thud.

Ruby was over to the edge in an instant, her happy expression replaced with one of worry.

"Sorry!"

Shavo laid there for a few moments before slowly sticking his hand with a thumbs up to her.

"S'all good in the Hood." he said before jumping up to his feet. "What took you so long? Stopped to look at the trees?"

"Yeah, sorry about that." Ruby said as she scratched the back of her head. "That really big one followed me for a bit longer than the others. You know, the one the screeched really loud?"

Shavo nodded as he remembered that giant monster. He wasn't able to get a good look at it, but from the little he saw, it was scary as hell.

Maybe it was for the best that Ruby had taken the job.

"You don't have to apologize." He told her as they began to get back to walking. He looked around uncertainly, though. "Let's pick up the pace, though, just to be safe."

Ruby nodded in agreement, but looked troubled. They walked briskly down the road for a few minutes in silence before Shavo looked back over to the Crimsonette and saw the expression still present on her face.

"Something wrong?" he asked her. Ruby didn't look at him at first, biting her lower lip before looking up at him worriedly.

"You didn't recognize it either, did you?" She asked.

Shavo technically didn't recognize any of these Grimm, so he wasn't lying when he shook his head in the negative. But something about that tall monster that just plain was unsettling to look at. And unlike the Grimm, who had black fur and/or skin, this thing's skin was sort of brown, almost decayed.

Needless to say, these Grimm were a helluva lot more scarier than the ones in the show.

"It looked like a completely separate entity than the other Grimm." Shavo commented.

"But when it screeched, it was like it was telling them what to do, you know?" Ruby said back.

"Yeah, I see what your saying." Shavo agreed as they finally came out of the long streets and into what looked like the parking lot of a large mall. He brought out his compass to check if they hadn't had strayed off course at any point, but they were still going North.

"Let's just try our best to put as much distance between us and that… That thing before sundown." He went on. "I really don't want to be anywhere near that Freak Show in the dark."

"Yeah, same" Ruby shuddered before looking at the position of the sun. "We may want to start going a bit faster than before. Won't be too long before it's nighttime."

She then looked back to their path and pointed at the abandoned mall ahead of them.

"Want to cut through there?" She asked.

Shavo looked closely at the deserted mall, weeds waving with the wind that grew from the cracks in the ground from years of disregard. With the lighting the way it was, it was too dark to see much of the inside from here. Every horror movie he had ever watched had told him that Malls were one of the best go-to places.

But then again, a lot of those people die.

"It'd take awhile to walk around…" Shavo said as he looked to his left and right.

"Exactly!" Ruby said. "So we just cut through the mall and get to the artifacts quicker! Plain and simple. Am I right, or am I right?"

Shavo looked over at Ruby, seeing her smile at him as she held both hands up in the air, and just couldn't help but laugh.

"You make a good point, Ruby." Shavo relented as they both began to walk to the mall. "You'd make a helluva saleswoman."

"Ah!" Ruby waved her finger in his face. "Language!"

Shavo stopped right in place, his eyes going wide before he slowly turned his head to the younger girl.

"Your...Kidding, right?" he asked. Her response was to cross her arms over her chest and pout.

"Ahhhhh, crap." He groaned out, "That's gonna require a lot of heavy editing."

"Well, get used to it, bub." Ruby said as she elbowed him playfully in the ribs. Shavo just shook his head from side to side slowly.

"Fighting for my life in a monster infested city, and we got Lil' Red over here getting on me for my choice of words." He sighed. "Christ' sakes."

"Hey, I'm not little!" Ruby cried indignantly. "I drink milk!"

As they finally walked off of the parking lot and onto the mall's front walkway, Shavo laughed unexpectedly from the girl's famous line. Thinking he was laughing at her, Ruby puffed out her cheeks as she slapped him on the arm.

"Stop that!" She cried. 'It's not funny!"

Despite her pleas, Shavo only began to laugh harder, having to stop as he doubled over and held his gut.

"For Oum's sakes, if that's not the most annoying laugh I've ever heard, then I don't know what is."

The two looked up in slight surprise from the new voice and saw two familiar people standing by the entrance, one with her spear held in sword form and hefted over her shoulder as she studied the only male present and the other twirling a piece of her long blond hair as she grinned happily.

"Hiya sis!" Ruby waved, her irritation forgotten upon spotting her sister. "Glad to run into you."

"Yeah, like we did have enough security with the girl who drinks milk." Shavo snorted before breaking back into laughter. Ruby gave another indignant cry as she started to punch him irritably.

"Ruby, stop hitting your partner." Yang laughed as she strutted up to the pair before looking at Shavo with a raised brow. "At least, I assume your partners?"

"Yeah, you could say we kind of ran into each other." Shavo grinned a she looked over at Ruby. She went from annoyed to embarrassed in an instant.

"...I said it was an accident…." She grumbled as she kicked some dirt on the ground.

"Oh my god, you actually ran into him!" Yang laughed as she patted her sister on the back. "Ruby, only you could do that three times in a row."

As the two sisters talked, Shavo looked over from their reunion to the other person standing by the side as she waved politely to him.

"Hey there." he nodded as he walked up and stuck his hand out. "Shavodan Odadjian. We met briefly yesterday."

"Yes, I remember." Pyrrha nodded to him respectively. "Pyrrha Nikos. It's very nice to meet you."

"Wait, you're the Pyrrha Nikos!?" Ruby screeched as she appeared next to Shavo. "Ohhh, It's so cool to meet you! I'm such a big fan!"

Pyrrha just smiled politely as she nodded to her. At that moment, Shavo got an idea in his head as he brought his hand back to his side.

"Aaaaah… Fan of what, exactly?" Shavo asked with a tilt of his head. Ruby turned around with a over-dramatic gasp as she looked at him.

"You don't know who Pyrrha Nikos is!?" She screeched. Shavo flinched a little from the volume, but wasn't to worried about Grimm hearing them. He now had Yang Xiao Long and Pyrrha Nikos with them.

'Uhhh, can't say I do." Shavo said as he faked ignorance before looking back at the subject of their conversation. "Why? I'm guessing if it's Ruby who's fangirling, then you're a fighter or something?"

"Oh, it's just a few tournaments, it's nothing too special." Pyrrha smiled at him

"Nothing too special!? She won the mistrial regional tournament for the past four years in a row! Graduated at the top of her class at mistrial! The amount of awesome that this girl has achieved is not even measurable!" Ruby geeked out.

"Sounds cool." Shavo nodded as he looked back to her before waving a hand out to their area, "Child's play then, I assume?"

"Oh, not at all." Pyrrha said as she rubbed her arm and looked away for a second. "Yang and I have run into a few difficult groups already. How about you?"

Shavo waved his hand dismissively.

"Pretty easy, to be honest." He admitted. "Ran into a small group of ten and fought them, but Ruby took care of most of that. I didn't really do much."

"Well I'm sure that you'll be fine." Pyrrha complimented him with a bright smile.

"Yeah, plus you had that idea to distract the Grimm horde we ran into earlier!" Ruby gave him credit. "Thanks to that, we saved a lot of time and trouble!"

"Well… I guess." Shavo said as he scratched the back of his head, not expecting to have the spotlight get turned on him.

"So you two are partners then?" Ruby asked her older sister as she looked between her and Pyrrha with awe in her eyes.

"Yeah, There were a few Berzerkers that I ran into when Pyrrha came along and helped me crush 'em." Yang said after blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. "No biggie."

Shavo didn't know what a Berzerker was, but it sounded big and it sounded scary.

With that, he looked to the inside of the mall with his relaxed expression gone and replaced by a more serious one as he turned to the sun, which was now hugging the horizon and painting everything in a deep orange with a few shades of purple.

"I hate to cut the reunion short, " Shavo said as he gained the other three's attention, "But it's going to be dark out pretty quick, and I'd rather not be outside when that happens. You two came in through that mall, is it safe?"

"We walked through it for about half an hour and we didn't see anything suspicious." Pyrrha told him.

"Good." Shavo nodded as he walked up to the stairs and looked into the building, the others close behind him. "It'd probably be our best choice to make camp here for the night."

"It's kinda big…" Ruby said as they began to walk in and look around. Shavo turned on the flashlight attached to the end of his barrel and shone it around.

"Gives us more options that way." Shavo explained, "We can find an upper level, cut it off, and make it defensible for the night."

That was when he realized he was making all the decisions for them. Him, a high schooler from Iowa, directing Pyrrha Nikos, Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao-Long. he turned around and tried to give an apologetic look.

"I mean… If that's okay with you guys." He said uncertainly.

"It sounds just fine to me." Pyrrha instantly nodded her head encouragingly for him. He then looked at Ruby, who just grinned.

"I don't see a problem with it." She said happily. He was then going to look to Yang, but she had already walked upto him before putting him in a headlock.

"Ohhh, Don't stop now!" She laughed before pulling him up, inches from her face as it was lighted by the flashlight now facing their direction. "I like it when a guy takes charge. Kinda hot, if you ask me."

"EWW, YANG, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Ruby screeched before throwing her hands over her mouth as it echoed throughout the mall.

They all stood their silence and waited for any sort of noise and stood completely still, Yang still holding Shavo close to her.

"Well, I think that proves this place is empty." Shavo commented before looking back to Yang and down to her hands.

That was when Pyrrha grabbed him by his hoodie and yanked him back.

"Ack!" He yelped out before turning around and rubbing his neck. "What was that for?"

"A-Ahh…" Pyrrha looked around uncertainly before pointing to where they were standing just a second ago. "I-I thought I saw a spider! Yeah, a big spider, about to jump on you!"

"HOLY SHIT, SPIDER, AAAAAGHHH!" Shavo screeched at an octave a little too high for a man before jumping into Pyrrha's arms. "RUN! RUN, RUN, RUN, DEAR GOD, JESUS, AND CHUCK NORRIS, HAUL ASS!"

They three girls gave Shavo a disbelieving look as they stood their in silence. He looked back at them and began to blush in embarrassment.

"What!?" He barked, "Those things are freakier than shit!" He said before jumping back down to the ground. Pyrrha looked a little disappointed for a second before looking back up. Shavo dusted himself off before clearing his throat and looking back up at them.

"Alright, let's get back to looking for a place to stay, huh?" He proposed as he puffed out his chest and tried to lower his voice an octave.

"Whatever you say, macho man." Yang laughed as she patted him on the back. As she walked away, she shook her head from side to side while laughing. "Yah big doofus."

He stood there until Ruby walked past him and slapped him hard on the arm. He hissed as he drew back his arm before Ruby stuck a finger in his face.

"Swear." Was all she said before going forward too. Shavo gave a sigh as he slumped his shoulders forward dejectedly.

"Way to go, idiot." He chastised himself as he thumped himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. He wasn't expecting a hand to be laid on his shoulder unexpectedly and jumped. His head whipped around to see Pyrrha giving him a encouraging smile.

"Come on, let's get back to searching." She proposed with a gesture to the others, now shining flashlights of their own over the empty storefronts and carts. Shavo gave her a bright grin, happy that he hadn't made a complete fool of himself to all of the girls.

"Sounds great." He gave her a bright smile as he straightened up with renewed vigor. The red headed amazonian watched him go with a small smile before sighing to herself.

"Darnit." She whispered to herself. "Should have found him sooner."

AN: AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA, SO MUCH PLOT, ALL THE FUBAR! ALL THE ARKOS FANS GONNA HATE!

REVIEWS:

eugenio4079: Well, if you didn't then we'd have a problem here, wouldn't we?

NakaruSoul: No, THANK YOUUUUUU.

Tell you what, I'll try to read it if I get the chance. Maybe While I sit down and listen to that System of a Down Demo Tape I found a few days ago with a nice cup of Monster.

NecrorexSparda Juubi-No-Kishin: No pair of testicles are safe.

Wear a chastity belt, that should spare you about fifteen percent of the pain.

Caesar the Son of War: HOLY SHIT, YOUR STILL ALIVE!?

I'm glad to see that I'm keeping you interested. Like I stated in the beginning of this fic, I didn't want this to be like other SI's.

I'll try my best.