XXIII - Kerf
~~~(XXIII)~~~
Oxon quickly arrived at the designated rendezvous spot. He'd checked over his shoulder constantly to make sure Blake and the others hadn't followed him. Why today? Of all the brothers' damned days for them to be looking into the crime group, why did it have to be on the day he was meeting with them?
Once he got close he covered the lower half of his face in a white bandana. Even if the White Fang and Roman were working with Cinder, he didn't like the idea of these guys seeing his face. He checked behind him one last time before turning the final corner.
Luckily it seemed like he wasn't followed. He was getting a little out of breath by the time he walked around to the entrance. There were a few faunus outside a warehouse in casual and street clothes.
They gave him a dirty look as he approached them. He saw the glints of more than a few hidden weapons. He regretted listening to Torchwick and coming unarmed.
"What do you want, human?" Right, racial supremacists. He might have been sympathetic to their cause if they weren't such assholes to him every time he was called in. He raised his hand to signal his wish for peace.
"I'm here for Torchwick, he's expecting me?" Yeah, really regretting not having a gun.
"Is that right? Can you prove it?"
Oh for the love of…
"I met your lieutenant a few months back. Big guy, shaved head?" It seemed like he wasn't convincing them at all. . "Oh for brothers sake, I'm here about the damn death bot!"
Finally he got the right reaction from them. The two tougher looking ones nodded at each other and moved out of the doorway. With his path finally unimpeded he made his way into the building complex in a search for the "master" thief. After questioning a few of the terrorists, he found the ginger bastard back behind a makeshift stage.
"Ah! You made it!" The thief seemed in good spirits, his psycho partner was present as well and sitting on a chair eating ice cream. "Glad you could finally make it, I've been over your notes to practice on the fang-mobile here. Quite a fun toy."
"Yeah, cool, glad to be of service. We have some issues." Oxon quickly explained to the two that he'd seen half of teams RWBY and SSSN heading into vale with the goal of finding them. Neo smirked at the thought while Roman groaned into his hand. Clearly he was annoyed at the thought of a redo of the docks.
"Great, so who is it? Red, princess, kitty cat, goldilocks?" Torchwick was lighting a cigar as he asked his questions. "Who the hell is SSSN? Monkey boy one of em?"
"Yeah, he's the leader of his own team out of Mistral, he is pretty good. The two I saw were Blake and Yang… Kitty and Goldie." Oxon had to clarify when he got a raised eyebrow at the girls' real names. "Sun is the faunus and his partner has blue hair and goggles."
"Yeesh, and I thought you had a bad fashion sense." Rude, not everyone wanted to rock mascara and a stupid hat. "We'll need to keep an eye out tonight, more than we anticipated. Well, time to get ready, I got your outfit all nice a
And done for tonight."
Oxon was led to a private room with a bag on a couch. Whatever outfit he was being given must have been in there. That or a horse head. "I see what you were trying for with that white cloth on your face, but you really just look like a gang banger from the one lien store. If we do any more work together, try wearing this instead." Torchwick then closed the door so Oxon could get changed in privacy.
Oxon opened it up and took a good look at it before putting it on. It wasn't his idea of fashion. But Roman was in charge tonight. Once finished, he looked at himself in the reflection of a large pane of glass.
Rich black pants were held up by a shiny black belt with a few different pouches around his waist. Kneepads went on his legs to protect the joints on his legs for some reason. He'd kept his boots since Roman didn't provide any, and they were really comfortable. He had a dark gray button up undershirt that fit surprisingly well, did Roman figure out his measurements?
Over that shirt was a rich dark brown vest with embroidered vines going upwards. There was a tie, but Oxon tossed that off to the side, he hated the things. To hide his face, there was some kind of metallic mask that fit over his jaw and up to the peak of his nose. The inside was surprisingly comfortable and breathable, so it wasn't that uncomfortable to keep on. There was also a pair of dark goggles and a hat for the final touches.
A bowler hat…
Oxon exited the room to a grinning Torchwick. Oxon held the goggles and hat in one hand. He tossed them to Torchwick who seemed disgruntled at the lack of headwear.
"Not wearing the hat, Torchwick, I ain't you. Besides, didn't you just rag on one of the junior huntsmen for his goggles?" If Neptune couldn't rock it, then Oxon sure wouldn't be able to.
"Kid, I don't need to see the Blueberry to tell I have superior style. Besides, those have night vision in them. Can't have you be even more useless than you are."
"Still, not a fan of the bowler, I think I'll just go without." Oxon tossed the white suited man the dumb thing and tied up his hair in a simple tail using the hat band. He hadn't gotten a haircut in a while, so the pony tail went down a few centimeters past the base of his neck.
Roman seemed dissatisfied with his choice, and very much vocalized it. "No tie, no hat, and no thanks. Why do I even bother, I should have given you a black tracksuit."
"Yeah, well it's a bit too tight in some places below the belt, not an issue you have I bet." The thief gave him a flat stare while Neo silently chuckled.
"Cute, anyways, let's get going." The three walked near the edge of the stage to wait for some kind of cue.
"So back to the snoopy students. You think they'll manage to find us?"
"Well, they found us at the docks, remember? Kinda kicked your ass from what they told me." It did wonders for his mood to see Roman scowl like he was. "Aren't you like two for zero when it comes to robberies involving children?"
"I had three bullheads of chaff last time, not four fedora wearing gangsters. I distinctly remember you being on your feet for all of four seconds. Besides, that one ginger had some bullshit lasers." Torchwick had him there, unfortunately, one kid vs three and a half adults was an embarrassing loss. He didn't know about laser beams though. Was that the other girl with Ruby?
"Whatever, but do we have a plan for if they show up? What concerns me is where the other four are." He had yet to meet the other half of team SSSN, but if two of each team were scouting out the city, then the other four might come as well.
"Good point, Red's team is known to me since they were in the paper about the docks, but I only remember Abbs McMonkey vaguely. If you see them, you better tell me." He hadn't noticed it, but Neo had gotten behind him without his notice. The little devil was poking him with something sharp. "You've been in Beacon for a while, don't go getting attached now."
His neck felt warm from anxiety. Sure he got along with some of them, but he was not going to trade his life for theirs. "Don't worry, I know what I'm expected to do, Cinder is quite clear on the consequences of failure."
The blade's pressure on his spine vanished and suddenly the two crooks were all smiles again. "Good to hear it. Seems like it's almost time to perform. Let's break a leg, shall we?"
I wish I could break yours, what I wouldn't give to have Nora here. Ugh, I hope those huntsmen aren't able to find us. I don't want more deaths…
~~~(XXIII)~~~
Yang pulled hotly in front of The Club. Man, it had really been a while since she'd been here. She should have brought the team here for Blake's eighteenth, well there's always another reason to party sooner or later.
"C'mon, my friend's right in here!" She dismounted Bumblebee, leaving behind a mildly shaken up Neptune.
The bluenette shook himself back to normalcy. Yang had to wonder why he didn't put on the goggles on the ride here. Seriously, tonight was the time to use the things.
"And where exactly is… here?"
"It's a club that's run by some kinda lame gang. I came here once right before the first semester, it was awesome." Remembering her absolutely stunting on those guys put a smile on her face.
The duo approached the outer door to the building, it was guarded by two goons in red glasses. They were about to make the mistake of turning them around, but clearly they recognized her.
"Ah shit, not again!"
"Oh gods, oh fuck!"
The two ripped open the doors before sprinting inside. Neptune gave her a questioning look. Heh, he'll understand in a moment.
The two made their way into the building and through the halls just in time to see the doors to the bar slash dance floor shut. She could hear the muffled music thumping behind them.
Ohhh, if only that would work, LOL.
"Uh, is your "friend" open yet?"
"Don't worry about things like posted hours." Yang cracked her fingers and engaged Ember Celica. A quick shot of her gauntlets busted open the door, creating a bit of a haze in the process. Yang took pride in the confident strut she had when walking inside.
"Guess who's baaack~?"
Almost instantly, at least a dozen guns were pointed at her face. What was worse was the record playing was skipping all over the place. Her grand entrance was not going as planned, she gave a glare to the DJ, who then stopped the horrible sound.
"Yeah, so could you define "friend" for me?"
Before she could retort, the big bad boss made his way through his grunts.
"Stop, stop! Nobody. Shoot." Junior clearly looked nervous, hopefully he remembers just why he should be nice to her. Blondie, you're here! Why?"
"You still owe me a drink." She grabbed the larger man by the arm and dragged him to the bar. Soon enough Neptune joined her while the mob boss made her a Strawberry Sunrise, with the umbrella.
"If this was just for a drink, why not come by during our open hours? Or is this about something else?" He wasn't a strong fighter, but he was sharp, Yang'd give him that.
"We're here about Torchwick, from what my sister tells me, he had a few guys in outfits that match those of your boys. So, if you have any info on our favorite crook, I'd love to know."
"Well, there's the fact he's been seen with the White Fang, he's been using them as muscle for his latest heists." She knew that, but she needed a lot more.
"That's great and all, but half of Remnant knows that. It was in the paper. Let's talk about the men you gave him.
"I gave him some of my guys on two occasions, yet both batches are no longer here."
That was interesting, she knew of the night Ruby trounced them. Hopefully this would lead her to the thief. She pressed him for information while Neptune sent a wink at the twins.
Bro, come on…
"So, where could one find these fine employees of yours?" If they still worked for Roman, she could ideally pressure Junior to have the goons give up his location. "Do you know where they, and Roman, are?"
"I should have learned after the first time, but in both cases, he took my guys and I haven't seen a single one since. It was supposed to be temporary too, yet they're long gone. So no, I have no clue where they are."
That had to be bullshit, how does an information broker not know where his own guys are? "What about Torchwick!?"
The bear of a man slammed down the glass he was cleaning and massaging his head with the other hand. "I. Don't. Know."
"How can you not know!?" Two separate groups, and none were within reach? How useless was this guy?
"I haven't talked to him! I haven't even seen him since a few nights after you first came in here." Junior leaned in close and pointed at her accusingly. "He paid up front, I lent him my men, and none of them ever. Came. Back."
"So where did they go?" Neptune, poor, dumb Neptune. It's a good thing he's pretty.
Junior also seemed done with the guy. "What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back." He turned away from her tag-a-long and back to Yang. "Who is this guy?"
Ugh, what did Weiss see in this guy? She shoved him aside to get back on track. "Don't worry about him; worry about me if I don't find out what I want!"
"I already told you everything! Torchwick hired my boys, and I guess he wasn't happy with them, which is something I can relate to!"
Ugh, it looks like this was a bust. Those hired guns must have been as useless with Torchwick as Ruby said. "Come on, Neptune." She just knew that if Weiss had better luck, she wouldn't hear the end of it.
"We get everything we need?"
Well, we got everything we can. Hopefully the rest of the team is having better luck." The duo walked through the large doors but stopped in the hallway when they saw the twins.
"Blondie."
"Bluey."
"Oh great, tweedle red and tweedle white. Are you two looking for a rematch?" Well, she would be down to blow off some steam from her failed idea.
"Hmph, like, not a chance, you blonde gorilla."
"We just want to chat about a former employee of ours."
"We think we know something that you'd totally find helpful."
"But you'll need to do us a favor for it."
She and Neptune had to keep moving their heads to keep up with the twos talking style. But the content of the back and forth was promising.
"Well go on, whatcha got?" The twins crossed their arms in sync. The girl in white nodded to her red dressed sister before speaking.
"Fine, but you better not forget the conditions." When the two nodded in agreement, they continued.
"An employee of ours, who was like, fresh from outside the walls, was picked up by Torchwick, twice."
"He was here when you trashed our club, though he was outside for your rampage."
"Totally fixed your back, Mil."
"Totally called you by my name, Mel."
"He was also there when your sister botched Torchwick's first robbery."
"Ok, enough of the back and forth nonsense. Just talk like regular humans." Seriously, Yang knew they wanted to mess with her, but come on…
They rolled their eyes, also in perfect sync. "Fine, I'll take over from here, Mel." The girl in white leaned against the wall while the red dressed one walked closer to the student duo.
"You want information on Torchwick and the boys we lent him, well there is good and meh news. The bad news is we don't know where Roman is. The meh news is we know the one guy still under his employ."
"So you have this mook give us the location of the thief? That sounds great, why didn't Junior tell us?" Miltia seemed annoyed by Yang's words for some reason.
The red girl actually "hmphed" her. "Junior didn't technically lie, Roman took some men, one of them twice, and he never saw the kid again. But he did come by recently, but like, not long enough for Junior to be aware of. He was pretty cagey about what he was working on, but he did say this: "it's like working in a zoo, except without any cages." So, like, take that as you will."
Working with animals, which seemed a little off color, could have meant many things, but since this guy was with Torchwick, it had to mean the Fang. "So, how can we get in contact with him?" Melanie chuckled a bit while Miltia seemed a bit frustrated.
"Well…" the girl in red started before her twin interrupted.
"We, or Mil specifically, never got his scroll number before he left." It seemed like that was a source of humor for the longer haired girl and a source of embarrassment for the other. "Maybe if he shows up again, she can ask for it and we can get it to you."
Yang raised an eyebrow at what she was told. Neptune was able to vocalize her frustrations. "So let me get this straight, you have no idea where this Torchwick guy is, and the one guy who you know that still works for the guy is unreachable since you don't have his number? And this was supposed to be helpful?"
The two girls shared a look between them. Yang wondered if maybe that twin telepathy nonsense was real? She was getting ready to just leave when Melanie got off the wall.
"These a bit more, but that comes after you listen to the conditions and accept them. Like, nothing illegal, so it should be easy."
Yang and Neptune looked at each other, the goggle boy shrugged, as if to say: "Why not?"
"Alright? What is it?"
"Like we said before, he's fresh from outside the walls and helped patch us up after you lost your shit."
"We know the type of people who tend to join our little group. This one is all kinds of not like that. He's totally naive, dumb, not really good in a fight, but not a bad person."
"He's a decent guy who shouldn't be walking the path he's been forced on. So if you go up against him, try to go easy on him.
"We'll forget about your shity existence if you do."
"So I'm supposed to let the guy walk if we run into each other? He's working for Torchwick and terrorists faunus." Seriously, the information so far has not been worth it.
"The last thing we'll tell you about our old coworker is this. He might be under Romans thumb, but he's closer than you think." With that, Melanie Malachite walked towards the club's main floor. Miltia stood back for a moment longer.
"He's not like us or Hei, he's a good guy, and he's not in control of his choices." With that last little tidbit, the crimson twin left as well. The two had been strange the whole time, and neither really knew what to think of it.
"Well that was cryptic as heck.."
"Couldn't have said it better myself, Nep."
~~~(XXIII)~~~
Things were going well at the rally so far. Torchwick had loaned Oxon a pair of hatchet gun combo things. Apparently the thief had nicked them when he robbed a weapon shop a few years back. Ovon liked them enough, they were able to combine into some sort of device that created a hard-light shield.
Why was he given something like that? He didn't know. He did wish he could keep them, but they were stolen and likely registered as such. So if he had them suddenly, a lot of questions would be asked.
He did feel bad for the new recruits, they had to listen to Roman do what he loves most. Talk. Seriously, the guy just kept going. Oxon was standing next to the machine on Romans orders. Something about scale or some other nonsense. He was starting to think that the folks from Beacon wouldn't actually show.
"Would all new recruits, please come forward!" That was just about it. The faunus not in uniform began to move forward and join the terrorist cell. He moved over to Roman who had been joined by Neo already. The two of them began to chat one-sidedly, that was, until they spotted something.
"Hey kid, those two look familiar to you?" He nodded his head ever so subtly in the direction of two stationary faunus in a sea of fresh recruits. They stood out so much since they were the only ones not moving forward. And once they had a closer look, it was obvious who they were.
"Sun Wukong and Blake Belladonna." Oxon spoke in a ghostly whisper. It makes sense that the two faunus would be the ones to Infiltrate this meeting. "What do we do? They've seen the paladin."
"Obviously we need to capture them. They know about the southeast too." Roman threw down his half smoked cigar and made for the edge of the stage. "Kid, you tell the Fang about our "guests."
Before he could, Blake un-holstered her weapon and fired, suddenly the building was pitch black. There was a lot of yelling as he flipped the switch on his goggles, letting him see the scene. Blake and Sun were running and heading for a window while Roman went for the mech.
"Are you sure about that boss!?"
"Gotta stop them from finding our other operations. No more subtlety!" The hatch closed and the machine whirred to life. Seconds later Mecha Torchwick smashed through the crowd and out a wall.
His scroll rang and he was surprised to see it was Roman. He instantly answered it, hoping he could do something.
"What is it!? Is this about the controls? I just labeled them so it should be easy to figure out!" He still hated that he was the guinea pig.
"Not that, I need you and neo airborne now! I'm going to feed you a line to the audio and visual from the paladin! You've been in Beacon almost a month, tell me what you can about these runts."
The two ran to the back of the building and had one of the White Fang pilots get them in the sky. Now able to see, he put away his goggles.
Stupid ugly things.
Neo seemed quite excited to watch her partner commit violence with the large machine. Oxon should not have been surprised at the request. The whole point of him was to get useful info on troublesome people.
"Blake Belladonna, Faunus, former white fang and member of team RWBY. She uses some kind of gun sword and has a clone style semblance."
"That's old news kid, I already kicked her and her boy toys ass. Does monkey boy have a worrisome semblance?"
"Also clones, his move though, and explode." At this point the bullhead was flying above the mech as it chased the two towards the highway. From there, the chaos only got worse. "Hells bells Torchwick! Are you trying to smash into every vehicle on the road?!"
"They have mirrors, they can get out of my way!" From the open bullhead hatch, Oxon saw a familiar blonde mane and a familiar motorcycle. It seemed that Yang and Neptune had been a secondary duo and were en route to assist.
"Might want to look behind you, the blonde and the blue motor duo are catching up from the rear." Torchwick seemed to take his advice to a strange place and started crashing into more vehicles. "You really need to stop racking up the body count man!"
"Fuck off, um just hoping one of em hits the two." Many other cars were struck by the ones Roman sent flying, though Yang clearly had mastered her cycle and was weaving in and around them.
He was watching the insanity on the road below him and on his scroll when he got a text from Weiss. She was asking if he was still in Vale, and if he heard the noise.
"Yeah, Weiss, I'm here all right. I'm just giving a death bot combat information about your team so it can kill them easier."
"What the hell was that kid? Am I interrupting your love life? Ignore whoever that is and focus on the fight!" Ugh, he forgot he was still on the line with the mech.
"Ok, so Neptune Vasilias, he's got a gun with a polearm fi-" there was a string of curses from Roman and Oxon looked up from the screen and out at the highway. There he saw Neptune standing on the back of the mech. "Oh, well, he's stabbed you in the back now. I don't know his semblance, but his weapon is electric."
Sun seemed ready to help his partner, who Roman was trying to spin loose. His light clones hit twice but were unable to cause any real damage. The two were knocked off the freeway in a comical manner, leaving just the two girls. Though that didn't last for very long.
A new, even more colorful string of curses flowed through the mic and a sudden ice sheet appeared. Looking closely, he saw Weiss good down from the bridge to link up with the others.
Right after, he got another text.
Weiss: if you're anywhere near our ping! Please assist! We just lost Sun and Neptune!
He didn't have time to write out a reply, so he went with something simple.
Oxon: ?
Roman once again demanded what info he had. "Well, I don't think she's going to be a big issue. Small weapon with a focus on dust usage. Her semblance is glyphs, not really sure about what most of them do."
"Kid, I'm getting really tired of all the shitty information you've been telling me. Have you even tried figuring out more?"
"Watch out for the yellow one when she ignites, it's some kind of physical power boost. I've seen her do massive damage with it activated. She's close combat, so just stay out of range."
"That's kind of hard to accomplish when there's three other pests! Oh dammit! My arm!" The arm was a big loss, even worse than one of the main targeting sights. "Great, now I got this ape one!"
"Uhh, shit, shit, shit!" How was Roman doing so bad!? He was in a gods damn top of the line mech! "You gotta shake her off! She's at her best up close!"
Roman took that advice quickly and quickly bashed through two support pillars and struck against a third. Yang was knocked off him, and Roman took the opportunity to finish the destruction of the third pillar. By punching Yang through it.
"You think that will stop her?" I mean, if she's not unconscious now, she should realize that hopefully this can't be won. Through the video feed on his scroll, he saw that the downed girl had started to glow.
"Hey! Her semblance is active! Either knock her out or back up out of her range!" Even if she could still stand, her aura had to be running out after so much punishment.
"Nighty night, Blondie!" Roman threw a massive punch at the now standing Yang. They were both caught off guard when she caught the fist and stopped it dead.
"Get out of there!" The warning was moot as Yang obliterated the limb with a single punch. "Holy…"
Roman used his feet to knock her back to her three other teammates. "Neo! Might need some backup soon!"
The diminutive girl gave him a look that he didn't quite understand. "Uh, all I have are these, though they can make a shield." She grinned at that and got up to stand near him. Oxon did not like that, he was going to question her when Roman was suddenly coated in thick ice.
"Well, I guess they call her the "ice Queen of Beacon" for a reason?" If Roman had something to say, it was cut off when Yang came in again and annihilated the rest of the machine.
"Uh, definitely time to run away, right Neo? Neo?" The girl shattered into being next to him, handed him the axes to him in their barrier form, and pushed him out of the bullhead. "NEEEOOOOO!"
On his way down, he saw Yang fire a projectile at Torchwick, which was where he was about to land as well. "Oh you ice cream eating…" he flooded his body with aura to minimize damage on impact and activated the hard-light. A brilliant blue tower shield sprang to life just in time to block the blast.
Right after the flames dissipated, Neo dropped down next to him. Why she did what she did, he'd probably never know.
Roman patted Oxon on the back to stand between him and Neo. "Thanks for the help, kid, always knew you cared."
Oxon let out an angry growl and a rude gesture at the shitty mech pilot.
The sleazebag turned to the four girls who stood a little bit away. Oxon had his heart in his throat at the possibility of a confrontation. He nervously put away his weapons, and copied what he'd seen others do, and flashed a pair of finger guns.
"Ladies, ice queen, always a pleasure." Roman gave a sarcastic salute to the four. "Neo, if you would."
The girl gave a bow and Oxon heard shattering glass behind him, revealing the bullhead from earlier sitting ready to go. There was also a copy of the three criminals stuck in their poses. Romans smugness, Neos bow, and his dual finger guns.
The three quickly ran into the aircraft, and took off just as fast. Not a moment too soon, since Yang rushed forward and shattered the fake trio they had left. They quickly fled the scene and Oxon collapsed on the floor from the stress.
"Roman, next time you ask for help, I'm going to block your number." This had been one hell of a night. He was getting more texts from Weiss about how the "situation had been resolved" and he was no longer needed. He sent a quick text to see if they were ok. They looked fine at the end, but better to make sure.
"Are you actually texting the girl we just fought?" Roman was looking over his shoulder and at his scroll's screen. "Hah, they actually tried to have you back them up! That's hilarious!"
"I told you I saw them in Vale. I should probably go see them in person, it would be suspicious if I don't check in on them after all that." That was partially true, he also wanted out of this outfit and back in his bed. The sooner, the better.
"Well, we can pick up your stuff from the Fang and drop you off somewhere." Roman lit up a cigar, in a closed environment, the bastard. "Least we can do. Good luck with the next phase kid."
~~~(XXIII)~~~
Woooo! Mech fight! Mech fight!