The Name of the Game
a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.
Arc 2: Hard Contact
Chapter 5: Fairy Tales and Rhapsodies
"It's been a while," Hei Xiong grumbled out, looking the Eldest Deadly Sister over for a moment. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sun glasses at the moment—which had to be because he thought they made him look cool, since it was dark out—but I recognized the look on his face easily enough. I'd worn it myself more than once, after all.
Hesitantly, Joan nodded. "It has."
Apparently, this was awkward for the both of them and I had no idea what to do here—Joan was going out on a limb for me and, from what I understood, that meant reaching out to someone she had something of a past with but had apparently broken off contact from. I couldn't interrupt as that could cause problems later, and I needed this to go smoothly… Even if some part of my hind-brain had gone hackles-up the moment he laid eyes on her. Jun, thankfully, had no such compunctions. "Looking kind of grizzly there, man-bear."
That seemed to break the veritable ice berg worth of ice between the two as Joan cracked a smile and Hei chuckled, rubbing at his beard. "Little lady, you just haven't learned to appreciate a properly manly beard yet. Isn't that right?" he asked, eyes shifting to me as he held out a hand to shake. "We've never been properly introduced, but your sister spoke well of you. I'm Hei, but you can call me 'Junior.'"
"Jaune," I smiled, shaking the paw he called a hand and idly wondering if I could crush it if I dumped all my points into STR right this second. Nah, wasn't worth the trouble it would cause. Personal feelings aside, Junior—despite being a criminal—was a petty criminal from my understanding. Just a guy trying to make a living. That living was made partly through illegal means, but I couldn't complain since that's exactly what I came here hoping to find—an 'in,' a place to start. I needed an origin that wouldn't draw questions if someone started digging, once I started moving in opposition to the other forces gathered on the board. Inevitably, someone would connect 'Jaune Arc' to everything I was going to do—I wasn't willing to gamble that I was clever enough to outwit the likes of Ozpin and the resources he could bring to bear. It was a safer bet to plan for the eventuality that I would be found out eventually. I was going to make that as difficult as possible of course, but I also needed a logical explanation for why 'Jaune Arc,' not even a first year Beacon student, would bother getting involved in the first place—and in order to do that, I figured a good place to start would be building a sort of underworld identity for myself. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but it was what I had—and it would obscure the fact that I had knowledge I couldn't possibly possess. When someone did finally confront me on why I was even involved, I could now point to my 'shady past' and say I learned it then—or now, rather.
No, my problem with Hei was somewhat irrational possessiveness towards the Eldest Deadly Sister. This… assclown had likely had his paws on Joan at one point. I was unsure whether that was familial loyalty acting up, or something else entirely. I… was fond of her, yes, I could admit that much. Maybe it was just 'new girl syndrome,' something I'd noticed about myself years ago—it was a weakness I'd yet to overcome. The idea of him being overly familiar with her made me want to introduce him to my fists and spells. Either way, I stowed it to deal with later and put on a friendly face. It was irrational and I was a rational person. "And he's right, Jun. Real men have beards. Pretty boys aren't men."
Jun hummed, turning to consider me for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm not sure I'd like onii-chan with a beard. I think it'd be scratchy."
I face-palmed and Junior laughed. "I got a new game system in the office. Why don't you go do me a favor and unlock a few tracks for me?" Junior suggested, and Jun immediately perked up before running past him and into the building, confirming for me that she had been here more than once if she knew her way around that well and telling me that she was relatively safe. If Hei knew Joan as well as I suspected, he likely knew she would level the building if so much as a hair was out of place on her youngest sibling's head by the time the night was over. So, the question was, why would Joan be willing to bring our youngest sibling here, but not me—or Jaune, rather? Did she not trust him, or was she just that overprotective? Was she hiding something? Or maybe she just didn't want Jaune and her ex-boyfriend or whatever he was to her meeting? Which would imply that she had suspected that I, or Jaune at least, may react how I wanted to… The woman's mind was a closed book to me—I didn't have the experience yet to know one way or the other.
As Jun vanished in a streak of red hair, Hei stepped out of the doorway and waved us inside. I exchanged looks with Joan before gesturing her to go first, then closing the door behind me and following after. Hei lead us into the club, around the side of the large dance floor to an empty booth in the back. As I took a seat beside the elder blonde, Junior said, "Your sister tells me you're looking for work to pay for your weapons."
That was the cover story, anyway—well, one of them. I was running under the premise of Operational Security and levels of separation of information. Joan knew I wanted an 'in' to the criminal elements of the city but the only answer to the 'why' I'd given her was not wanting to be a burden where the cost of my weapons were concerned. She knew that was bullshit since our parents could afford to pay for them and were likely willing, but she was willing to overlook it for some reason. Hei, on the other hand, just knew I was looking to drum up money to buy the gear I'd need and that I was going to be going to Beacon—since this was obviously Joan's source of papers. When I nodded, there was curiosity in his voice as he asked, "She also said you might have something to sell?"
"Yeah. What do you think something like this goes for?" I asked, reaching down to a pouch I'd equipped on my belt specifically to hold the potions I wanted evaluated so that I wouldn't have to dig them out of my inventory and un-bag that particular cat. Putting the rounded flask on the table, I pushed it forward and Junior picked it up to have a look. Opening the stopper, he sniffed at it a moment before gesturing towards the bar. A moment later, a scantily-clad waitress joined us at the table. "Get me an empty shot glass, would you?"
"Yes, sir," the waitress agreed, scurrying off and returning a moment later with the request item, before going back to her rounds at Junior's dismissal.
"Let's see what this does," he murmured, measuring a shot's worth out and downing it. "Tastes like cherry," he admitted, smacking his lips at the aftertaste before whistling in mild awe. "Well, it's legit. My hangover's gone. This is a genuine healing potion—and they're rare. The formula to make them, along with most of the people involved in the process, was lost a few years back in a grimm attack out near Mistral. These will heal things Aura alone won't, so long as the wound is fresh. Hell, I've heard tale of people reattaching limbs after downing one of these—but those are old stories. These days, you'd be lucky to find one outside of some rich collector's hoard, and if you do it's on the black market. In fact, let me check…"
I blinked in confusion when Junior pulled out his scroll and brought up an app of some kind before typing and swiping in a few things. "Yeah, a single cup of this stuff goes for 10k a pop, which is what those flasks there are."
That was… surprising. Still, I had to ask, "So, there's an app for that?"
Laughing, Junior nodded and held out his hand. "Gimme your scroll a second."
Frowning, I looked at Joan before saying, "I left it in the car."
The blonde sighed, digging out the keys from her purse and handing them over, crystal-blue eyes meeting mine in warning. "Hurry back, and do not go for a joy ride."
"Just for that, I'm going to leave it parked funny," I threatened, slipping out of the booth and hurrying back the way we'd come in. Once outside and out of view of anyone, I opened my inventory and dug out my scroll before slipping it into my pants pocket. Eying the car, I considered carrying out my threat before dismissing the idea and heading back inside. As I neared the table, I dug out the scroll and handed it over, retaking my seat and handing Joan the keys back.
As he went through my scroll and added the app in question, Junior told me, "This should take care of everything you need. I'd hire you on, but your sister would kill me. This is the next best thing. With the Underworld app, you can buy, sell, and trade all sorts of goods. There's also an employment section with a variety of jobs that pay pretty decent coin—things the company needs done to keep running, mostly, like package delivery. You can't send some of this stuff through the regular mail, so they hire runners locally to move goods around quick and avoid the cops. You'll be a freelancer and get to choose your own jobs, appropriate to your comfort level. You don't really interact with most of these people face to face, which makes it safer than working for a gang or something. Word of warning, though: if you take a job, complete it or return the goods. If you keep the goods or the cash, well… these people don't play around. They hire assassins to run down people who think it's a good idea."
"If this thing is so popular amongst the ne'er do 'ells, how come the police haven't caught on yet?" I asked, wondering if they were running some kind of sting operation. This… would require some adjustments to the plan. I'd hoped to get a job working with Junior or someone. Maybe this was better, though? It would give me freedom of movement and the ability to hand-wave some knowledge, maybe. With no real 'boss' or face to face meetings, I could avoid many of the potential pitfalls associated with this sort of thing. I'd at least hear Hei out on what it was and make a decision once I had more information. Still, the fact that there was an app for black market shopping on Remnant left me a bit dumbfounded. Though, really, I suppose it was something like Silk Road—if Silk Road hired people to deliver things to your door and skip the mail service.
"Mostly, it's a word of mouth thing. They don't advertise out in the open. They approach someone in charge of the local 'business' in a town, or an information broker like myself, and make their pitch—their only stipulation is that these people only tell people they can trust about it. Considering the app works and they're reliable, everyone they pitch it to winds up satisfied. Word spreads after that among lieutenants and underlings. The app also has a self-destruct feature tied to your lock code. If someone enters the wrong code three times, the program will delete itself and brick your scroll's OS—this is mostly how it has avoided falling into police hands. That, and a voice-activated duress pass phrase. You'll be asked to set up that phrase as soon as you make an account. Speak the phrase and it deletes itself and bricks your scroll. Word of advice, though—don't go giving it your real name. There are options there for anonymous transactions and such, and the company itself offers a sort of store bank account thing—you get paid, the money is deposited into your Underworld account, and from there you can either spend the money in the shop on goods or services, or you can cash out and have a runner deliver your funds."
I wanted to ask what was stopping police from simply going undercover, but I already suspected the answer: that the company had some kind of background check policy for those they distributed the app to. Namely, they made people like Junior responsible for those they told, and people like Junior were likely doing their own background checks and such on their own members, making sure any new hires weren't reporting to the police. Either that, or police in Remnant were either incompetent or operating at a deficiency of fucks to give. I was more willing to lean towards villain competency than police incompetency, as the first meant both were a threat while the second was just wishful thinking. Instead, I asked, "So, how do you know my sister?"
Hei shot Joan a look before shaking his head. "We went to school together. Dated a while…"
"And then reality caught up to us," Joan interrupted quickly, shooting the older man a small glare, her look causing his mouth to snap shut. It seemed she either really didn't want to talk about it, or didn't want to talk about it in front of me.
We were saved from awkward silence, as silent as a dance club blaring techno music gets at any rate, by a pair of girls walking up. My attention shifted from Junior to the girls—twins, one clad in a white dress, the other in red, both with black hair and green eyes. Above the white-themed girl's head were the words:
Snow White
Melanie Malachite
Level: 22
Melanie's red-themed sister, on the other hand, was labeled as:
Rose Red
Miltiades "Miltia" Malachite
Level: 22
And immediately following the pair joining us, I received a quest notification.
A quest has been updated!
Romancing Remnant: Twins, Basil. Twins! has been unlocked!
The Malachite twins have high standards in men and have yet to find someone capable of meeting them. Balancing each twin's desires, requirements, and personalities will be difficult, but rewarding—if you're up to the task. Prove yourself to be the man the Malachite twins have been waiting for.
Rewards: EXP to be determined, increased closeness to the Malachite twins, +2 love interests, twins. Failure: no twins.
Joan must have seen my twitch, or the tick in the muscles around my eye, because she burst out laughing. The distraction that provided was enough to dismiss the quest notification as the twins turned their focus on her. Hitting them both with Observe, I took note of a few things. The white-clad one was a typical tsundere, emphasis on the tsun. Her sister was the quiet type, but not what I'd call innocent—neither of them were, really, based on their descriptions. Their emotions matched too, for the most part: surprise, mild confusion, jealousy, inferiority, insecurity… Really, I could understand the last three. They were inferior to Joan, at least as far as stats and looks went. I was high enough level now to see Joan's own level of 63, and it seemed daunting even to me. It wasn't really a fair comparison, though. Joan was a grown woman and these two were teenagers still filling out, and without the benefit of having gone to a Hunter school. Not to mention, their boss seemed to be more interested in my blonde 'sister' than them.
"Who's the blonde bimbo?" Melanie asked archly, causing Joan's laughter to taper off as a smile began to spread across her lips—it was not a nice smile.
In his seat across from her, Junior began to sweat. Hesitantly, he answered, "An old friend—"
Joan interrupted, smile widening as she reached across the table and placed a hand atop Junior's. "Don't be modest, Hei—it doesn't suit you and it belittles what we had together, given how intimate we were."
My jaw clenched for a moment, but no one aside from Joan seemed to notice, and she was too busy taunting the twins to pay it much mind. The twins, on the other hand, looked positively murderous—well, Melanie did. Her twin merely looked upset. It seemed Hei had some tact, however, as he slowly pulled his hand out from under Joan's. Turning to take in the twins and I in the same look, he gestured towards the dance floor. "Why don't you three go get acquainted and give me and my friend some time to catch up? Go have fun."
It wasn't really a suggestion, and while I could have refused, as a fellow man who had been in similar situations with old exes meeting friends or new girlfriends I'd at least do him the courtesy of not causing a scene in his place of business—I owed him at least that much for the information alone, even as much as I loathed the idea of leaving him alone with Joan for more than five minutes. Maybe I was overreacting—I had no reason to be jealous or irritated, and yet… There was no denying I was.
I slid out of the booth and Hei passed my scroll back. Pocketing the device, I followed the twins as they turned and marched away towards the dance floor. Glancing back, I met Joan's eyes for a moment before she tore her gaze away and sent Hei an apologetic look. That annoyed me more than I liked to admit. Part of me knew I shouldn't really be reacting like this—she wasn't my girlfriend or anything, and there were a number of reasons why I shouldn't go that route. On the other hand, logic and feelings rarely travel the same path. I was only human—a flawed one, at that. I was used to that, though, so I put it aside to deal with later.
"You got a name?" Melanie asked, pulling me from my thoughts as I looked around and found they'd lead me to the middle of the dance floor.
'Looks like they mean to get a little payback, if only by proxy. That one, at least, is going to try and humiliate me in front of everyone here—I can tell already. Well, screw that. Let's see how I can screw with them,' I thought before answering. "Jaune Arc. And you ladies?"
"Melanie," the white-clad girl began, followed by her sister introducing herself as "Miltia," and the pair finishing together with, "Malachite." They had obviously rehearsed that, at some point.
"The name matches your eyes," I commented, putting my charisma score to work for me.
It seemed they'd heard that one before, however—that, or Melanie had a one track mind at the moment. The other possibility was that I'd rolled a one on that charisma roll, but I doubted it. Miltia, at least, seemed to appreciate the compliment. She would be the weak link, then. "Do you dance, Jaune Arc? Or do you just stand there and run your mouth?" Putting a finger to her lips in a pretense of thought, she continued, "Or could it be that you're the kind of person who hides behind his sisters' skirts?"
Yeah, she was pissed. I'd heard and delivered better insults, though. "Eh," I began, unsure as I thought it over. There was no point signing myself up for a battle I couldn't win and I hadn't, really, in my previous life…
Importing previous save data… Save data loaded successfully!
You have remembered the skill Dance!
Dance: Level 70. Active, passive. You've remembered how to Dance, something Jaune was taught by and practiced with his seven sisters. Effect: Increases dance ability by 10% per level: currently 700% improvement. Dance passively increases your DEX by 1% every other level: currently 35% improvement. Dance situationally increases CHA by 1% every other level when in use, currently 35%. Dance has Synergy with skills such as Tumble and certain styles of combat.
Yeah, I knew how to dance—every year since Jaune could walk, his sisters had either spent teaching him how, or later practicing with him partly to keep up their own skills but mostly because they enjoyed it. And I didn't just know the basics or a summary of events, I remembered being Jaune, as though I had lived those events. Every toe stepped on, every suit they forced me into because they wanted a human-sized dress up doll, every school dance and 'date'… It was disconcerting, slightly, because in addition to the skills and memories of learning them, I got information about and insights into Jaune's sisters.
Maybe, when I had time, I could try and see if I could unlock more of Jaune's memories. I wasn't sure I wanted to, though—assuming they were there. Shaking my head, I focused on the present and the challenge being issued. Melanie wanted to humiliate me and I was entirely too old for the antics and drama of teenagers, especially teenage girls. 'Challenge accepted.'
"So, that's a no?" she huffed.
A quest has been created!
Dance, Dance Rebellion
The Malachite Twins are looking to get even with their boss and the Eldest Deadly Sister, and you are their target. You've been challenged and your pride as a man is on the line.
Rewards: 1000 EXP, increased closeness with the Malachite Twins, ?, your pride remains undamaged. Failure: decreased closeness with the Malachite Twins, humiliation, emasculation, shame, total annihilation of your pride as a man.
I put on my best innocent expression as I glanced between the two of them. "Well, there are two of you, that doesn't seem fair…"
Melanie snorted. "Yeah, you don't look like you could handle us both at the same time."
"We could take turns, if you like?" Miltia suggested, apparently trying to play the peacemaker, even if she had knowingly fed her sister's innuendo.
Sending the red-clad twin an appreciative smile, I shook my head. "That won't be necessary," I denied, turning my focus back to the bitchy sister. "I meant as in 'there are only two of you,' so it wouldn't be fair to you. Sorry for the confusion."
Melanie's eyes narrowed before she pointed a gloved finger at me. "You. Stay right there."
Miltia stepped closer as her sister stormed off towards the DJ's raised platform. "Now you've gone and gotten her stirred up. I won't hear the end of this for a week."
"Sorry, sweetie," I apologized, "but there's only one way to deal with women like that. Meet them head on and refuse to back down the entire way, or they'll wind up walking all over you. Question is, is your sister the kind of girl to accept and acknowledge when she's been beaten, or the kind of girl who will continue shit-testing someone looking for excuses to fight?"
"I don't honestly know," Miltia admitted. "No one's ever really beaten us when it mattered. Are you sure you can?"
Nodding, I watched the other twin arguing with the DJ before eventually raising one of her feet and slamming a heel down dangerously near one of his own feet—and considering she wore bladed footwear, I wasn't surprised when he quickly complied as opposed to risking losing a toe. "I can. Are you okay with that?"
Shifting from my side, she moved to stand in front of me, locking eyes with my own as the music changed to something I didn't recognize while her sister moved to rejoin her. "I think I would like that. I hope you're ready for us."
I answered with a smirk, wondering if she was doing the innuendo thing on purpose. "I've been ready."
Melanie huffed out a breath in annoyance as she approached. "I hope you can keep up."
"Oh, sweetie, this isn't a race. I intend to take my time and enjoy every second of this. That's the problem with kids these days—no patience for the slow build up, no appreciation for anticipation. It's all about seeing who gets there first," I taunted. In a game of double entendres, I had the upper hand by sheer volume of experience. Judging by her narrowing eyes, she got the message. Shooting a glance at the booth where Junior was still catching up with Joan only reinforced her desire to see me crushed beneath her heel, however. That same glance only reminded me of my own irritation and frustration at the whole 'Joan' situation. I suppose Melanie wasn't the only one here looking to vent their frustration on someone else. We met eyes and, without another word, hostilities commenced.
Individually, each of the Malachite sisters was good—together, their teamwork made them damn near unstoppable. Their moves flowed together into well-practiced forms, showing that they took complete advantage of the club's dance floor whenever they could. Their base physical stats also either met or exceeded mine, especially DEX. I could tell they were also using their Auras, so I knew they'd be getting the bonus from that. However, the thing was, I'd never dropped my buffs. I'd had them up since Joan met me under that tree. And with the new passive and active score modifiers from Dance, combined with Aura's passive and active bonuses, Reinforcement, Reflex, and Haste… I matched them every step of the way—both of them, making sure I split my efforts between them equally.
The first song didn't so much as end as it bled into the next, and the next, and the next… I quickly realized I'd walked into a dance battle of attrition. After a while, the floor began to slowly clear as the pace became too much for the normal clubgoers, people moving off the dance floor and either going to the bar or slowly heading for the exit as the beats per minute steadily increased. It got bad enough that Hei finally realized what had happened and left his seat, and looking absolutely furious, marched up to the DJ for a hushed conversation. From the young man's suddenly pale expression, I could guess the content of the conversation.
People went to a club to drink and dance, and maybe hook up with someone if they were lucky. Club owners made all their money off either the cover or the drinks. It was a DJ's job to manage the flow of the music in such a way as to keep people on the dance floor long enough to get sweaty and thirsty, then give them time to cool down and get drinks… And if no one was dancing, soon no one would be buying drinks and the club lost money. Not just that but if it was bad enough, word of mouth could hurt profits for weeks, potentially months past the original incident. Melanie must have realized this about the time the current song transitioned into something about half the speed, as she turned to glare at the DJ, only to be met with Junior's furious stare—he'd even taken his sun glasses off just to meet her eyes. He didn't need to say anything, his look said it all: 'you're costing me money.'
The white-clad girl slowed, then stopped, before turning to where I was still matching pace with Miltia. Looking between the two of us, she closed her eyes and breathed a short sigh before nodding. Stalking forward, she grabbed both our arms and proceeded to drag us away from the dance floor and I watched a couple of alerts pop up telling me I'd gained a point each in STR and DEX. I would have to check my stats later to see if I met the prerequisites for some of those scrolls yet. When we got far enough from the music to speak without shouting, she finally said, "Okay, I'll acknowledge that you might have some skill."
"Melanie," Miltia deadpanned, elbowing her sister even as we kept walking. "Be nice. He passed."
"Fine," the other twin sighed. "If you're sure?"
Looking over, the shorter girl met my eye before sending me a small smile. "I am."
"So, where are we going anyway?" I asked, looking around. We had wandered into the back, past the storage areas and restrooms, up a flight of stairs and back into the private area. We passed Hei's office and I glanced inside through the window, spotting Jun currently playing what I swear looked like a MarioKart clone. If her expression was anything to go by, she was winning.
"Somewhere quieter, where we can talk," Miltia answered and I raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
We approached a room at the end of the hall and Miltia opened the door, walking in and turning on a lamp near the door instead of the overhead lights. Pausing at the threshold, I found what looked like a typical teenage girl's bedroom, if that girl were preferred red, black, and white to pink. I say 'girl,' singular, because there was only one bed. Apparently, the twins shared. "You live here?" I asked as a small hand met the middle of my back and pushed me across the threshold and further into the room. Melanie shut and locked the door behind her and I noticed that the room seemed to be soundproofed. It made sense, if they were sleeping here during club hours. The beat from below could still be felt through the floor, but the noise was reduced to barely noticeable. The only real area with no soundproofing was the open bedroom window, letting in a cool breeze that stirred the curtains and allowed in the sounds of traffic and the music pounding through the walls from outside.
"We stay here from time to time when our job requires it," Melanie answered from behind me in an almost friendly tone.
A confused expression crossing my face, I turned and met her eyes in question. To my surprise, she demurred, lowering her eyes as a blush lit her face. "Hey," Miltia breathed from right beside my ear, and I was surprised to find I hadn't noticed when she got that close. I turned back to look at her and her hand caught my face, fixing my head in place as she stood on her tiptoes and her lips met mine.
"Wha—" I began, only for the girl to shamelessly press her advantage, her tongue seeking mine out. I found myself responding out of reflex and dismissing a skill import window that told me I'd gained the skill Marital Arts—I knew a play on words when I saw one and I wouldn't give my Semblance the satisfaction of distracting me with a bad pun, even if the imported level was sufficiently high enough to draw my attention. It's kind of humbling to find your skill at all things related to sex reduced to a number—lower than Jaune's Dance skill, but if level 1 was considered an absolute beginner and level 100 was godlike if there was a level cap and it was around 100, then level 42 wasn't bad at all.
"You're sure?" Melanie asked, hitting a dimmer switch on the lamp before moving around to stand beside us, one hand moving up to her twin's shoulder.
"Yes, damnit. Are you going to help or stand there?" Miltia broke off long enough to answer, before picking up right where she left off. She tasted like cherry, I noted as I let my hands roam. At this point, on the one hand I was frustrated enough to take it out on both of them. On the other hand, it had been a while and I'd missed this sort of thing. The issue of my mental age verses my physical age came up momentarily, before I shrugged it off. The girls were old enough to make their own decisions and I had little to nothing to do with their decision making process. I could refuse, but I didn't want to, and as far as I knew they were legally able to consent on Remnant—though I made a note to look up the age of consent later, to be sure. I had a sneaking suspicion that with the human population slowly recovering, it was probably lower than I was used to—and likely another of those things vaguely alluded to in canon but never explicitly stated. Yang drinking at her age, for instance, was one of those little clues that 'canon' had been doctored in some way to be more palatable to a larger audience.
No, the thing that stood out most was that it was happening at all. Oh, sure, I realized that things like this happened all the time back on Earth… they just never happened to me. I wasn't a "love 'em and leave 'em" kind of guy, so one night stands had never interested me before. Then again, I was probably looking at it too hard. I assumed the twins weren't the kind of girls to pick up random men off the dance floor, but apparently I'd passed some sort of test of theirs. If they wanted to see where that went, maybe I should just stop thinking on it too much and go with the flow for once.
Melanie sighed, removing her gloves before finding the zipper at the back of Miltia's dress. "And here I thought I was the brash one."
"That is that and this is this," the other twin denied, kicking off her heels as she went after my hoodie and the shirt under it at the same time. "There can be no hesitation in love and war."
Now that I had a moment with my mouth unmolested, I decided to do the gentlemanly thing and give them a chance to back out. "So you're both okay with this? We've known each other an hour at most. You don't exactly strike me as the type to sleep with random guys you've just met."
Melanie snorted. "If we weren't, you wouldn't be here. You proved you could keep up with both of us without favoring one over the other and you didn't immediately hit on us or look at us like slabs of meat. The fact that it'll piss off Junior and your sister is just icing on the cake."
"What she meant to say," Miltia corrected, "was that you're the first decent guy we've seen in… ever and as much as we like Junior, we're not screwing him. So, we'd rather take our chances and see what happens than let the opportunity pass us by."
I knew all about missed opportunities—it seemed like my life was made entirely of them some days. Former life. Maybe, if I was stuck here anyway, I should start taking chances and stop passing up on opportunities. It hadn't worked out well for me the first time, after all. Issues with my age were going to have to be binned, though—otherwise, I'd always be fighting with myself over the subject. I had always said I wasn't the kind of guy to go in for one night stands, but… maybe it wouldn't hurt to bend that rule and see what I'd been missing. Besides, there was one pressing detail here I couldn't forget or pass up: twins. I was a man after all, and there are some things men just can't turn down and still call themselves men. Finally, I shrugged and sent them a smile. "Well then, let's not waste an opportunity."
"Where did you learn that thing with your tongue…?" one of the twins asked in the dim room.
I turned my head and leaned up enough to see over the twin on my left to their alarm clock, finding it to be after 2A.M.. Laying back down, I shrugged. "Skill book."
"Do what?" the other asked, and I looked over to identify which one—Miltia.
"Uh," I blinked, going back over what I'd said. I had given my default answer to questions about my skills when asked by Joan or Jun. Oops. There goes keeping my lies straight. 'Fuck.'
My hesitation was worse than simply laughing it off, as the twins smelled blood and moved in for the kill. "So, you're going to be a Hunter?"
"I never said that," I denied, quickly. Too quickly, apparently.
"But your sister is. In fact, you come from a family of Hunters," Melanie pointed out. "So, what's your Semblance?"
I wondered if I should just lie. Though, at this point, I wasn't sure it was possible. The twins were good at reading people and high charisma or not, they were used to sniffing out and sorting through bullshit. That, and they apparently knew who both me and my sisters were… Well, I did introduce myself as 'Jaune Arc.' Maybe the Arc family was a bit more well-known than I'd suspected. "It's hard to describe," I hedged.
"But it's something that lets you learn skills from books, and in a different way from simply studying given you specified a 'skill book,'" Miltia pointed out, rolling onto her side and pushing herself up onto an elbow to look into my eyes.
Melanie hummed, regarding me before shifting her gaze to her sister, mirroring Miltia's pose on my opposite side and giving me a view most men would have killed for. I was too busy dealing with the twins tearing apart my story to appreciate the view. "Knowledge based Semblance?"
"Maybe," the nicer twin allowed. "But saying it's 'hard to describe' sounds more like 'I could tell you, but you wouldn't believe me,' than 'I can't find the words to describe it.'"
I sighed before shaking my head. "Why's it so important?"
"So we can decide if you're worth keeping around as more than a good lay," Melanie deadpanned.
Miltiades sighed, burying her face in my side for a moment before speaking. "What my sister meant to say was that we can be useful for more than just a fling. Believe it or not, this was our first time, so it's not like we have any experience to judge by… but we would really, really like to continue having encounters like this in the future—perhaps more, if we all agree."
I blinked, parsing that for a moment before asking, "So, you're auditioning for the position of girlfriend?" Not like I expected anyone to, but to have someone come out and say they were… their situation must be a bit worse off than I had guessed, or they were getting lonely and desperate for human companionship not out to screw them as a novelty and leave them.
"No," Melanie denied, as Miltia confirmed, "Yes." The twins paused, regarded each other for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Maybe."
I opened my mouth to tell them exactly what was on my mind, that I was willing to see where things went but I wouldn't be forcing anyone to audition for anything, before Melanie cut me off. "It's not like we're looking for a commitment or anything."
"And we don't mind sharing, obviously," Miltia added quickly. "I mean, so long as everyone agrees…"
I face-palmed as they went further down the rabbit hole. "You're saying you don't mind if I date other women?"
"Well, we'll want to meet them, obviously," Melanie admitted, as though that should be common sense and a given. "To make sure they're good enough to join the group."
"'The group?'" I echoed. 'What? I don't even… It's like I've woken up to find myself in a bad harem anime. Well, I say 'bad,' but Tenchi was actually really good, and there are other good examples…'
"But no pressure or anything!" Miltia quickly assured. "We're not assuming we're automatically 'in.' As I said, we can be useful."
Focusing on that word, as it was the second time they had used it, I ignored their self-value issues and asked, "What do you mean by 'useful?'"
"We hear things," Melanie supplied. "People talk. People talk more when they're drunk. They talk a lot to a pretty face, and even more when they're seeing double—and not from the drink."
Miltia added, "We do most of Junior's information gathering locally. We're the primary enforcers for The Club, so we're just under Junior in the chain of command."
"But you want out," I surmised, getting a twin set of nods.
"We don't want to be stuck here our entire lives," Melanie sighed. "We had wanted to go to Hunter school, but that's just not in the cards—too expensive. Besides, our talents lie elsewhere, outside of just killing grimm for money."
"How does my Semblance play into this?" I asked, wondering how they'd gotten that notion into their heads.
Sharing a glance, Melanie nodded and Miltia answered, "We saw you take your scroll out of thin air after saying the word 'Inventory.' Our room is right over the parking lot and we were near the window when you came outside."
I glanced at the open window in question. Beyond it, I could see what looked like the street light in the middle of the rear parking lot. Humans, by nature, tend not to look up… Damn. So, they had planned this—all of it, from the moment they'd shown up, most likely. Getting me away from their boss and my sister, the innuendo and psychological wind-up, challenging me to focus me attention on them and 'test' me… 'No, hang on. Maybe I'm misinterpreting or overreacting. Let's hear them out before making a decision. Still, looks like a setup, smells like a setup, probably a setup…'
Melanie continued the explanation. "Then there was the flask of red stuff Junior was fondling like it was worth more than his junk."
"Ew," Miltia scrunched up her nose, and I had to agree. I did not want to think about Junior's junk while sandwiched between his nude, twin underlings. "Also, I saw you tap at the air when we showed up and your sister started laughing. Your eyes shifted focus from us to somewhere about here," she said, holding her hand out into the air in front of her to demonstrate. "And again, when I started kissing you."
"And what if I don't want to tell you?" I asked, for clarification sake. That would be the deal-breaker—if they demanded information now, it was definitely a setup. If not… well, they were definitely opportunistic, but not necessarily manipulative in a bad way.
The twins shared another of those looks before Melanie answered. Gesturing between the three of us, she shot me a flat look. "Trust has to start somewhere. We're not just playing you because we think we can use you. You… passed, as my sister said."
Well, at least they were aware of what it looked like. I couldn't give an answer right then and there, I would need time to think it over. I had followed this quest looking for contacts. I had thought Hei fit the bill, but honestly, the twins were a better fit… so long as I had their loyalty. That was a tricky proposition at best. It could be done, I just had to figure out how to go about doing it. If I decided to—and I hadn't yet. The twins were dangerous—at least as far as my secrets were concerned, if they were left as loose ends. It was just good to keep my options in mind. Finally, I shook my head. "I'm not saying 'no,' but I can't give you an answer right now. I need some time to think on it. Why don't we trade scroll numbers and I'll let you know something soon?"
"That's all we can ask for," Miltia agreed, rolling over and digging a scroll out of her dress while Melanie did likewise from the other side of the bed. I rolled off the bed and began pulling on my own clothes, taking out my scroll as I did and tossing it on the bed within easy reach. If only there were some way to re-equip clothes I'd removed, but there wasn't—once they were off my person, they were considered outside the inventory system and out of direct control of my Semblance. Besides, the twins were scary smart and I didn't want to give them any more evidence to use against me and formulate their own conclusions.
"Leaving already?" Melanie asked, an eyebrow raised in question. There was a note of worry there, hidden below the slowly returning tsun exterior—which kind of surprised me and lent credence to this being genuine on their part and not simply them playing me. I couldn't blame her if it was genuine, really—the twins seemed to be used to being seen as a novelty and I was the one who had passed their test, so to just screw and run would leave them feeling used and pretty much validate all their worries over the issue. However, I had an idea on defusing that particular bomb.
I smirked, deciding to tease her a bit, acting on the assumption that they weren't trying to screw me over and honestly wanted what they said they wanted. "Well, as much as I know you want to cuddle, if I don't get going soon Joan is going to come looking for me—at which point, I can't guarantee your safety. Or mine. Or that of the building."
"But cuddling is nice," Miltia whimpered, having already swapped our numbers and gone back under their covers. She sniffed the air once then lifted the sheets to her nose to sniff those. "Going to need fresh sheets."
Melanie tossed me my scroll back as I finished pulling on my second boot. "And a shower," she agreed.
I rolled my eyes at their antics. "It's not that bad."
Sticking out her tongue, Melanie waved towards the door. "Well, go on. Run along home, Jaune Arc."
"Trying to bait me into a rematch?" I asked, heading for the door.
"Yes," Miltia answered bluntly. "Good night."
"Good night, you two," I waved, closing the door behind me and heading down the hall. Passing the office, I found Jun sprawled out on Junior's couch, the video game running in the background as she drooled in her sleep. Quietly opening the door, I walked in and slowly scooped her up into my arms. Immediately, her arms went around my neck and she buried her head in my chest before mumbling something about food and drifting back off. It was an almost obscene level of adorableness, really. I'd never had sisters, but I think Jun was pretty much everything I'd ever want in a little sister—at least, what I'd seen of her so far.
I made my way downstairs, where the music had been turned down from its bone-rattling bass to tolerable and from techno to something approaching a noire jazz style. Slipping inside, I saw that last call had already been made and the last of the patrons at the bar were being directed towards the front door politely, but firmly. Walking across the floor, I found Hei and Joan sitting where I'd left them, plus a couple of drinks. "Joan, I think it's time we get the little one to bed," I said quietly as they looked up at my arrival.
Joan blinked, frowning at our sister in my arms as if she couldn't believe the other girl was already asleep. "What time is it?"
"About two-thirty," Hei answered, checking his watch. "He's right, you should get on home. Are you going to be okay to drive?"
Shrugging, Joan stood and grabbed her purse. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Hei nodded, getting up and showing us to the back door himself. "It was good seeing you again, Joan."
The eldest blonde sighed, closing her eyes and giving a quiet, mirthless chuckle. "You too, Hei."
Hei shut and locked the door behind us and we moved towards the car, Joan fumbling with the keys before finally getting the doors open. Putting Jun in a seat woke her up enough to get her own seatbelt on. The little redhead settled in and I moved past Joan and snagged the keys. "Hey, what do you think you're doing?" she asked, narrowing crystal blue eyes and sending me an annoyed look.
"Driving. You're drunk. I'll deal with any fallout over it myself." Of course, doing that would reveal that I could, but I'd rather that than put someone even mildly drunk behind the wheel. I'd made the mistake once in my previous life and didn't care to repeat it—broken bones tend to be a good deterrent against that sort of thing. I was lucky in that it had only been a low-speed impact.
Joan snorted, rolling her eyes. "I'm not drunk. Only about halfway there. Besides, you don't have a license."
"I have the skill and that's what matters. Are you coming, or not?" I asked, already seated behind the wheel and buckled in.
The Eldest Deadly Sister pouted before letting out a long sigh. "Fine, whatever," she relented.
Pulling up my map, I set a waypoint for the Arc family home and closed it, following the path laid out on the minimap. As it turned out, the moment I pulled onto the road I found my way highlighted by visible waypoints laid out on the street, meaning I wouldn't have to constantly look at my minimap. I turned on the radio and set it to the same station that had been playing in The Club with the DJ gone for the night—probably for good, given his screw up. We were barely out of the parking lot when Jun sniffed the air before asking, "What's that smell?"
Blinking, Joan sniffed the air herself, before her eyes narrowed and her gaze sharpened to bore into the side of my head with laser intensity. If I didn't know better, I'd say she looked jealous. Well, good. Let her deal with confused feelings for a while—it was someone else's turn. Turnabout is fair play. "Yes, Jaune. What is that smell?"
I sniffed the air myself before I hummed, pretending to give it some thought. "That is the smell… of success."
"Oh, that was awful," Joan moaned, palming her face.
Jun sniffed again before countering with, "But onii-chan, why does 'success' smell like mama and mama and papa's room when they come back from hunting grimm?"
To my credit, the car only swerved a little as I broke down laughing. "Ask your sisters when you get older, sweetie."
"But it smells kind of like their rooms too!" she announced, effectively ratting out her elder sisters in the way of younger siblings everywhere. "Onee-sama's room smelled like that this morning, after I got out of the bath!"
After she got out of the bath. In other words, after I'd left Joan's room, since it had smelled normal when I'd been in there before that. I blinked, turning my head enough to keep an eye on the road and fix Joan with a knowing look. "I have no idea what she's talking about," the eldest sister denied. I almost believed her, except a passing street light gave lie to that as it washed over her blushing face.
"Really, now?" I asked, meeting Jun's eyes in the rearview mirror and getting an emphatic nod. "Well, I'll tell you what, if you find out why that is you let me know, okay?"
"Right!" the girl agreed as, beside me, Joan shot me a mock look of betrayal and mouthed 'traitor.'
The rest of the ride home passed mostly in silence, aside from the radio, as Jun slowly drifted back to sleep. I pulled into the driveway, parking the car in the garage without so much as a scratch. "Jun, why don't you go on up and go to bed?" Joan suggested as we got out, stretching from spending so long seated between Hei's club and the car ride back.
"Okay. Good night, onii-chan. Good night, onee-sama," she yawned, entering the house through the carport entrance.
Catching my eye, Joan nodded towards the yard. "Let's talk."
"It never ends well, any time a woman says that to a man," I commented, making sure the car was locked as I followed her from the garage, around the house, into the back yard.
"No, it tends not to," Joan agreed, and something in her tone gave me enough warning to get a Mana Shield up before her leg would have impacted my back. Instead, it hit the shield and sent me pinballing across the yard before coming to a sudden stop. The hit hadn't broken my shield, though. Considering our level difference, that meant either this was some spur of the moment training thing, or more likely, a test of some sort—either way, she hadn't been looking to hurt me, just knock me around a little. Still, I wouldn't just take it lying down. Holding my hand out, I cast two spells as fast as I could. "Create ID! AP Round!"
The first spell drew the two of us into an empty Illusion Barrier, which would prevent both potential damage to the house and the littlest sister from hearing. The second sent a trio of magical armor penetrating bullets down range at a speed designed to negate any sort of attempt to counter them in flight. Against an unsuspecting enemy, it would have been enough to make them seriously reconsider their life choices at this point. Against Joan, it turned out to be pretty much useless.
There was a bright flash as the trio of rounds splashed off a shield of some sort, temporarily flash-blinding me. I was already in motion, however, profiling to my right and spamming AP Round in a constant stream of attacks as fast as I could chant it. In between flashes of white, I caught sight of Joan and her technique, and realized why one of her titles labeled her as Divine Aegis. At the same time, I realized with a growing sense of irritation, that I recognized the technique. A seven-petaled flower made of iridescent pinkish-purple light stood between me and the Eldest Deadly Sister, completely unphased by my attacks. 'Rho Aias? Really? That just ain't fair.'
BGM Battle Theme – EMIYA – Unlocked!
And of course, as if to underscore the point, it would be that song. Well, fair or not, it was what it was. Maybe I could distract her long enough to come up with a plan. "So what's the game here, Joan?"
Her blouse and hair whipped violently in the power being put off by the technique, though if she even noticed, it didn't show. "Prove you're ready. Hit me."
"Are you drunk?!" I yelled, trying to provoke a reaction, but mostly in an attempt to buy a moment to formulate some sort of plan. I got a reaction, all right—just not one I wanted.
"A little," she admitted, shifting her hand and the center of the shield to track me as a pinprick of light swiftly enlarged into something the size of a softball at its center.
'Right, much as it may look like something from Earth, it's not. Okay, planning time's over! Improvise, damnit,' I thought frantically, taking in her stance and the attack. If it was a ranged attack and had anything less than the absolute speed AP Round possessed, then it could be evaded—I would just have to get the timing right. It was a bit like dealing with the twins—a perpetual dance, trying to stay one step ahead of each other… That idea in mind, I took off running as I began pulling up mana—running towards the crazy, drunken elder sister looking for a fight.
The first shot fired and I got an idea of its speed as it plowed into my hastily cast A.T. Field over top of my Mana Shield, exploding on contact and shattering the field. Casting it again, I began manually charging a Rasengan the moment I finished chanting for A.T. Field. Another ball of death blossomed from her shield, but this time I was ready, taking a Tumble to the left of it the moment her fist clenched—the only real tell for her firing the technique. The ball of death passed harmlessly by, grazing my Mana Shield as I kept running. If I could close the distance… "Inventory," I muttered, grabbing the window and dragging it to my left and out of my field of view with my free hand. There was only one thing I needed in there at the moment, and I knew exactly where it was stored.
Another Tumble got me past her third shot. The fourth was going to be too close to dodge, so I pulled the A.T. Field in close in case I screwed up. Our eyes met between our respective barriers, Joan's expression determined as she closed her fist a fifth time. At the same time, I closed my eyes and cast, "Spinning Mana Shield!" Her eyes went wide as I dumped the mana I'd been building up into the technique. This close, it was actually more of an attack than a defense as its energy tore against Joan's Rho Aias knockoff.
Somewhere in the middle, the attack she'd been building detonated. As the flash nearly blinded me even with my eyes closed, I knew she would likely be temporarily blinded at least for a few seconds—add in the fact that the explosion of sound hurt my ears bad enough that I thought it'd ruptured an eardrum before Gamer's Body kicked in and negated the pain, and there was a good chance she was also deafened. It wasn't good enough, though—I knew that. Joan was an experienced Huntress and it wouldn't take her more than a second or two to recover. That's why I'd come prepared.
"Rasengan!" I yelled, raising my hand and firing the technique… into the ground in front of her.
A wave of earth erupted, threatening to bury the Eldest Deadly Sister shield and all and I Tumbled left and forward around the edge of the Rho Aias clone, my left hand sliding into my inventory window and coming out with my practice sword held by its sheath. My right hand met the hilt and I flicked my thumb against the pommel, feeling the proper Iaido technique activate as I came in from her blind spot. There were three hits, one after another, in quick succession—my sword slammed into the barrier of her Aura over her right ass cheek hard enough to penetrate even as it shattered into wood splinters against her denim covered flesh, her right hand came around and flashed through my A.T. Field like it was wet tissue paper to impact against the side of my face, and my body hit the ground thirty yards away hard enough to leave a crater near the same tree where she had met me earlier that evening. My eyes tracked to my HP and MP bars and I laughed—it was a half-hysterical thing as I noticed my mana had just ticked up from zero to 91 and my HP went up from 507 to 547. One good hit had completely depleted my mana, dispelled all my buffs, and taken out a good 300 HP. Much more and I might have had to start making Fort saves or die…
Leaning up on my elbows, I regarded Joan as she dismissed what had to be her Semblance. It took me a minute to recognize the expression on her face as she strode towards me, one hand momentarily rubbing at the area my hit had landed—it was pride, and something else that seemed so out of place on her face I wanted to dismiss it outright. Except my teenaged body's hormone and adrenaline fueled haze knew exactly what it was, even if my older mind tried to deny it. My thoughts were cut short from making a call one way or the other on it when the look passed, replaced by a small smile as she leaned down and offered me a hand up. "You did good. I'm proud of you."
You have completed a challenge from the Eldest Deadly Sister!
You gain 8500 EXP!
Your level increases by 1!
I sighed, shaking my head as I dusted myself off, ignoring the notification for many skill point gains that flashed up after that and quickly disappeared. "What the hell was that about? Ready for what?"
A small, sad smile crossed her face momentarily as she answered, "Beacon. The rest of the world. At this point, you can learn what you need to and improvise the rest—you have the instinct for it. All you need is time."
"And you thought it was a good idea to test this two days after I got out of the hospital?" Was she insane? More drunk than I thought she was? Just plain stupid, maybe? No, I highly doubted that last one. Joan was canny. Odds were good she knew exactly what she was doing.
She rolled her eyes. "If nothing ever challenges you, you'll never learn what you're truly capable of. And we've already established that your Semblance is bullshit when it comes to physical damage—I don't believe you can be permanently hurt, short of death, any more. All of my attacks were concussive or bashing—non-lethal. Trust me, I know what I'm doing, little brother."
My patience snapped with an almost audible sound. "No, Joan, I don't believe you do." Seeing her curious look, I decided to open up with both barrels—one part of it genuine irritation at her, the other anger at myself for not having the heart to end the charade and tell her the truth. Instead, I did the closest thing I could. It would be close enough to the truth for my conscience, I hoped. "The Jaune you know is dead, and I don't know if he's ever coming back. You don't have any idea how I'll react, to anything, because I'm not the person you knew. I may as well be someone else entirely."
There. I had said it. It was the closest to the truth I could come without outright telling her I came from a place so far from Remnant that I was likely never getting back, and I honestly didn't think I had the capacity to care about that fact any more—and somewhere in the back of my mind it worried me. My thoughts on the matter came and went quickly, I'd noticed. Any time I worried too much about it, I found my focus wandering elsewhere…
That melancholy smile had returned. "You think I don't know that? I know everything about Jaune. I've loved you—him—since the day he was born. I knew him best, better than any of them, and I wasn't blind to his faults—I knew that one day, he would outgrow them and become a man we could be proud of. And you're wrong. There is something of my brother left in there—the best parts, all the parts I love, are still there. It doesn't matter if the rest comes back or not, so long as that stays the same."
So, because we were similar that was enough for her? No, there had to be more… Oh. Oh. I wasn't the only one versed in speaking in half-truths, it seemed. "Oh god, I get it now," I breathed aloud and she hummed in question. I couldn't help it as I answered. "You're fixated! You have a brother complex."
She flinched but instead of looking away she met my eyes, her expression some mixture of fear, resignation, and hope. "Maybe. Would it be so bad if I did?"
Reaching up, I moved straight past a face palm to grabbing a double fistful of my hair and pulling. "Only for my sanity," I admitted quietly. I removed my hands from my more messy than usual hair in time to see her roll her eyes at my supposed teen angst. "You have no idea, do you?"
Raising an eyebrow, she shot me a flat, knowing look. "Are you sure about that? What did I just say about knowing you best? Even this version of you."
My patience, already snapped, went up in flames as I narrowed my eyes at the slightly taller woman. I couldn't deny there was an attraction there—I had been fighting myself on the matter almost since the moment I saw her. I could blame the heat of the moment, or the adrenaline, but the truth was I was tired of lying to myself. Things with Hei had just brought my own internal strife over the matter to a head. My decision regarding the twins just helped things along. I was tired of denying myself everything I wanted for one reason or another, missing or outright ignoring opportunities and possibilities and winding up alone in the end. I was tired of fighting myself. I relented, no longer willing to roll that particular Will Save at the moment.
We were already standing only a pace apart. I closed the distance and grabbed her wrists, pulling her flush against me before pressing my lips to hers, her mouth opening almost reflexively to my probing tongue as she responded instinctively. I kissed her long and hard, more than a bit of my renewed frustration at the situation showing in the force of it—and yet, she offered no complaint, no protest, only acceptance. After a solid minute, I pulled away enough to look her in the eye in the faint, pale light spilling through the leaves of the tree above us from Remnant's mostly whole moon, slowly working its way through its cycle between full and mostly whole to shattered. She whimpered and I could almost see her self-restraint visibly break, like some great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. "I don't see you as a sister," I began, and she interrupted.
"Good."
"Not 'good!'" I denied loudly. She still didn't understand. No, I was beginning to suspect she didn't care. I liked her, yes, and yes, I was attracted to her—but I knew damn well it was wrong on so many levels. "Do you have any idea how absolutely fucked up this situation is?! How badly it fucks with my head? For my sanity, and yours apparently, I need to go. Somewhere, anywhere but here—before I do something one of us will regret."
Joan snorted, reaching out to play with my hair in a gesture I'd used on both her and Jun before. "No. You're mine. You have been since the first time I saw you. There is nothing you could do that I would regret."
"No, I'm not. And you would, because I would not," I protested, truthfully. If I didn't leave, I really would push this to its inevitable conclusion—because as I'd said, regardless of the body I was stuck in, my thirty-odd year old mind didn't see a sibling when I looked at her, only a beautiful young woman with an obvious interest, and it was damn difficult to resist that. This would be the last time I would try—if not for my sake then for hers.
Twisting her wrist still held in my hand and using the edge of her hand in a move I was familiar with, she removed my grip on her wrist with no visible effort whatsoever and brought her other hand back down to lock my own wrists in her hands. "You don't scare me, Jaune—you can't do anything to me that I wouldn't allow," she said, squeezing my wrists gently to illustrate her point. "You are mine. Especially after that. I don't mind sharing you, but you will always be mine first and foremost. I almost lost you once, I won't waste more time pretending I don't feel the way I do when I could lose you for good to the job. It's my condition for you becoming a Hunter. And after that, there's no going back for either of us any more. There's no putting the cat back in the bag."
I shot her a mild glare. "Firstly, you can't just decide something like that for yourself without my input considering I'm the other involved party. Secondly, since when do you get to dictate terms and conditions as to what I do and don't do?!"
She smirked, closing the distance between us slowly as I began backing away. After a few steps, my back pressed into the bark of the tree behind me and I knew I was trapped. "Since you forced my hand. You put everything out in the open, which means you get to accept responsibility for the consequences."
"Consequences, huh?" I asked, going over my options as whatever initial panic I'd had had long since fled, allowing me to think it through logically with a clear head. Frankly, I didn't have any options. As a matter of raw numbers, her stats were all better than mine. I could maybe dump points into INT and try casting Sleep, but I had to give Joan more credit than that. She could and would stop me moving a hand to adjust points or speak the moment it looked like I started really fighting back beyond a struggle for dominance between the two of us or token resistance for the sake of doing the 'gentlemanly' thing of offering an out—and this was a particularly volatile situation where her mental health was concerned, if my suspicions were correct…
She had finally gotten out something it seemed like she had been hiding for years. Worse, I appeared to accept that, even return those feelings and couldn't particularly deny that I did. It was just wrong on so many levels to me. If I rejected her now, it would be bad. And even if I did, I didn't know what sort of modifiers she had—Observe only gave me base stats at the moment, so her WIS or other scores could be damn near double what I could see, depending on how Aura leveled, if not more. 'Do I really want to stop her, anyway?' I asked myself, before coming back with a resounding 'no' in answer around the moment her lips met mine again.
"I am going to the special hell for this," I breathed as our lips parted for breath. "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me…"
Her lips formed a smirk I could feel against mine from their place just barely brushing against my own. "Then I'll be right there beside you."
I shook my head slightly, still not quite sure whether this was real life or just fantasy. A thought occurred, however—something I'd need an answer to, one way or another, if anything of my conscience was to be salvaged if I allowed this to continue. "And what about you? Are you going to blame this on the alcohol?"
She shook her head. "No. I'm a grown woman, I can take responsibility for my own actions, alcohol or no. I want this. I want you—I always have. That won't ever change."
Well, if I was already headed for the special hell, then I wasn't going to be an inactive partner here—in for a penny and all that. Shifting my body, I moved my right foot behind her own and pushed my back against the tree as I pulled with my foot and pushed with my hands and upper body. Gravity and leverage took care of the rest as we fell and I landed on top of her, my knee finding its way into the apex of her legs, her body hot against my knee even through our clothes. What started as another kiss devolved into a battle for dominance I was quickly losing—my experience and skill trumped by her own, coupled with her greater strength and sheer determination to have what she'd wanted for so long. She rolled us over and straddled me, pushing me down as she had her way with me. Kisses became interspersed with nips and outright bites and, sure that she had me where she wanted me, she released my hands to roam while hers did the same.
"So tell me, were the twins good?" she murmured against my lips, grinding her pelvis down against me in a slow, easy rhythm.
I smirked, asking, "Are you jealous?"
"Absolutely," she admitted. "Those harlots got to you first. I wanted to pop your cherry, damnit. Remind me to properly discipline them the next time I see them."
I refrained from mentioning that I'd lost that years ago, at least in another life. Technically, she was correct—which was the best kind of correct. A thought occurred, however. "That's what brought this on, isn't it?"
With a shrug, she admitted, "Maybe. So? Were they?"
"They were good," I confirmed. "Enthusiasm makes up for lack of experience in their case. And, you know, twins."
"What would you know about experience?" she laughed quietly before blinking, a confused look crossing her pretty face. "You mean they aren't fucking Hei?"
"Joan," I deadpanned, getting her attention. "Please don't talk about your exes while molesting me. It's awkward."
"Ex, singular," she clarified. "Are you jealous of Hei?"
I rolled my eyes. I wasn't rising to that bait. "Yes," I admitted, rising to the bait anyway.
Her face looked entirely too smug for comfort, and I couldn't help think she had been trying to make me jealous. At this point, I wouldn't have put it past her to have planned all of this—or at least planned parts of it, improvised the rest, and decided to see where things went. It's how I would have done it. Maybe we were a bit more alike than I had suspected… Of course, there was also the fact that I was pretty sure she absolutely knew I had a quest just for her and hadn't said anything—it may explain Jun's tattling on her eldest sister about the smell in Joan's bedroom, too. Yeah, evidence and hindsight were leaning further towards the 'planned most of it' option. "Admit it, I'm better than both of them."
I looked her up and down, my hands running from her thighs, up her sides, to cup her large breasts through her blouse and she practically purred at the attention as her eyes went half-lidded. "Yeah…"
And a bag full of cats crazier, too. I would have to be careful with this one—if not handled carefully, there was every chance that she would take rejection poorly to say the least. She was, if not broken, then damaged in some way and I had no idea what could have done it—distorted, even. Maybe it was just the pressure their parents had put on them—it had broken Jaune, after all. She may have fixated on Jaune at a young age and determined not to let him break from the pressure that had forged her and the other Arc daughters into the Seven Deadly Sisters, and she had failed. You didn't get a title for nothing, after all, and you didn't get a secondary title for anything short of extraordinary. The only way to really tell would be to look at the others and see if they were damaged in similar ways since Jun was too young to really tell with.
Or maybe not—maybe this was just how she functioned. Either way, right now was the most dangerous time for that, but once she felt she had 'won' that danger would likely settle down a bit. However, I had a feeling that danger would come right back if she ever felt her position was threatened. I don't think she would ever intentionally hurt me, but the things she might do 'for my own good' worried me. If 'tsundere' was a proven thing here, then it stood to reason that 'yandere' was as well—and the Eldest Deadly Sister fit the profile for prime yandere candidacy if not handled carefully. Then again, she as much as outright said she was willing to let me go and do the Hunter thing, so long as I came back to her.
It was disturbingly similar to the twins' argument, in a way. I had my suspicions on the matter, but the short of it was that it probably boiled down to a high-competition environment. Women where I was from were used to having their pick of any man they wanted in some cases, or at least the pick of those within their ability to attract. A woman could walk into any bar and ask if anyone wanted to fuck and she'd have half the patrons volunteering—she would have to be pretty ugly not to get at least a few takers.
Men, on the other hand… well, that was a good way to get kicked out of a bar. The vast majority of women wanted a man with good looks and money, and would put up with a lot of bullshit to keep a man with one or both around—and I'd learned that even the ones who swore they weren't like that were exactly like that. The concept of loyalty seemed to mean absolutely nothing to so many where I was from. Here, though, with the six-to-one ratio in effect it appeared they were a lot more willing to work for a mate than attempt to convince a man to work for them when he could just as easily decide she wasn't worth the hassle and choose someone else. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if those same self-centered women where I was from had been all but bred out here, out of sheer necessity.
And while she said the whole multi-partner relationship thing wasn't uncommon any more, I was willing to put good money on there being strict rules on that sort of thing—probably something along the lines of mutual agreements, probably similar to what the twins had asked for. I could almost be certain that cheating simply didn't happen, because any woman who did could and likely would be tossed aside as she deserved and earn a reputation as a cheater—which would have much further-reaching consequences here than it ever did where I was from. A cheater here was likely to be blackballed—that is, word would spread around and she would be shunned by men and women alike. There was probably some method of control to ensure men weren't just screwing every woman willing to spread her legs as well, but I was at a loss as to what that could be. I'd have to do research, but this didn't seem like the sort of thing that went into educational books. However, there was another kind of material I could check… A society's entertainment tended to reflect on that society, if you could sort through the embellishment and occasional bullshit. I had already started, though, with volume one of Ninjas of Love—it could act as a sort of societal guide for Remnant, so long as I had someone to help clarify things…
Movement brought me back to the present as Joan ceased her slow frottage from where she had straddled me in order to hop off. I had a moment to wonder what she was up to as I lay there watching, the thought of escaping having long since stopped being an option. It was wrong, in so many ways, but I would not—could not—back down at this point. As wrong as it may have been, I wanted her more than I'd ever wanted another woman before—in either life. I was, as I'd pointed out, only human—and a lonely one at that. She unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them, kicking off her boots and the jeans before straddling me again. This time, her hands went to work on my belt and zipper. "I don't see a condom anywhere," I pointed out.
She refused to answer as she freed me from my boxers and scooted up to position herself where she wanted, then slid her panties to the side. Leaning forward, Joan met my eyes and shot me a devious smile. And then my hands on her hips tightened almost against my will as she lowered herself, both of us letting out a mutual sigh at the sensation of oneness "No, you don't. And you never will."
The expression that crossed my face must have been pretty amusing as she laughed, the crazy thing. Well, I couldn't complain as it was doing very interesting things below the waist for both of us. Her laugh tapered off into a satisfied hum and our eyes met again as she shifted slowly, savoring her long-awaited victory. Her words, low and full of emotion as they were, were still a reminder that she had had her heart broken before… and that she could break me with a thought if I crossed her. She had caught my little reference earlier, apparently.
"Just don't think you can love me and leave me to die."