Yo!

Another week, another chapter! Not much to say, other than that I am again sorry for the cliffhanger last week! That was particularly brutal.

Now, to un-cliffhanger the cliffhanger!

Chapter 30

His throat was barren of any moisture as Jaune continued to stare at him, with that look in his eye like he had the situation entirely figured out.

Of course… he didn't know what Mercury was, but…

He swallowed down bile once more, and turned back to Jaune.

…Surely… surely he could…

"C'mon, man." Mercury shook his head, trying for an easygoing smile. "You're trying to say Mint is, what, this Neo girl that works with Torchwick? How the hell do you figure that, anyway? I mean–"

"Please, Merc." Jaune cut him off, his expression melancholic. "You're the one who let it slip way back when. I just put the pieces together. This Neopolitan woman was supposed to be short. Like criminally so. So is 'Mint'. 'Mint' Can't speak. Either her voice would give her away, or she's telling the truth and she can't at all. Neopolitan hasn't either, according to RWBY. Roman did all the talking for the both of them. Of course, that one's pretty inconsequential, but… Mint's eyes change color when she blinks. Blake said that Neo's did the same thing."

Mercury just felt cold.

"Added onto that your little slip-up, and…"

Mercury's chest was the continent of Solitas, entirely frozen over, buried within a foot of ice.

It was…

It was his fault.

Jaune was going to die. Mercury was going to kill him.

And it was his fault.

He'd let the secret slip. His fuck-up was the reason that the man standing before him would be…

He took a breath, then, and tried to weigh his options.

Some of the more pragmatic pieces of Mercury pointed out that in terms of options, he had very few. His options were, basically, get caught, have their entire plan foiled, and get sent to prison to rot away for the rest of his life – if not killed – And…

And the other option was to make Jaune, and his theory, disappear.

It was obvious which Mercury would have to pick, and that was only making things more difficult. Because desperately, desperately, Mercury wanted to find some other way.

But how could he… how could he reasonably…

There was a part of him then that sounded like his father. That told him exactly what he had to do. Broke down the visceral details for him. He'd need to kill Jaune quickly and quietly, so as to not alert anyone to his presence. He'd contact Cinder while temporarily hiding Jaune's body, get her in here, and have her burn it into ash. They'd dispose of that, and…

And Jaune Arc would simply be a missing person. They might think he'd wandered off into the Emerald Forest. In fact, Cinder would likely spin it that way. Perhaps she'd place his sword and shield somewhere near the cliffs, make it seem like the Grimm had gotten to him just before he could make it back.

…

In that moment, Mercury found himself flashing back to that trip he'd taken to Domremy. He found himself flashing back to the numerous faces of the Arc family. Jaune's mother, his father, his younger and older sisters. The lights he'd hung up upon his wall, and–

"You're no killer."

The air was practically sapped from Mercury's lungs in that moment. One moment he'd been able to breathe, and the next, his entire body wanted to convulse, wanted to curl into a tiny ball and try and sort itself out.

But that wasn't an option, and so instead, it simply forced him to hear the rest of it.

"What?"

"I'm saying that in my line of work, I've had the unfortunate chance to meet an awful lot of I've killers in my day. People who enjoyed it. That killed for the sake of it. You don't strike me as one."

"The only thing I see in your eyes, Mercury… is indecision. Indecision, and guilt."

…

Mercury had not been blind to the way that his teammates were changing around him. He'd have had to be a fool not to notice it. The way that Cinder was kinder, almost gentle some days with her remarks. The way that Emerald smiled more, the way that said smiles reached her eyes, that she seemed almost contented. The way that, when Cinder left some nights and came back hours later, it was always with this fulfilled look on her face.

No. Mercury had noticed. But they hadn't. at least, Mercury had been fairly certain they hadn't.

For they acted as if nothing had changed. As if things were the same as they'd always been. He wouldn't have been surprised if each one of them had been pretending that nothing had changed for the sake of maintaining appearances.

But Mercury… he had thought himself exempt.

He had thought that, while this place, with its kindness and openness and friendships and the weak, terrible things that would grab and pray upon one's reflexes and skills, had gotten to Emerald, had even ensnared Cinder, he alone was immune. That he would walk on, as he always had, unphased.

But it was only really now that Mercury found himself accepting how much that was complete horseshit.

No. A year ago, he'd not have hesitated. He would've taken the first moment that Jaune offered him any weakness. He would've brought the boy into a chokehold, drained the life from him, and gone about his day.

Perhaps he wouldn't have been happy about doing so, but he wouldn't have been bothered, really. He'd have been, just…

Just fine. It wouldn't have stuck with him for long.

Or, that was what Mercury had thought.

And then that man… Jaune's father, he had come in and mucked up that sense of security. That sense that, even if Mercury did what he had to, he was immune to it. He was immune because like his legs, his heart had been replaced as well. He was steel; cold, and unfeeling.

No, he wasn't. He was flesh, that had had steel grafted onto it. Steel that reflected what he'd been raised to be; a weapon that his father could hone and use against anything that he wanted Mercury to kill.

He'd have been a simple tool.

And had Mercury not given his own answer to that question already? Had he not, when faced with that ultimatum, struck his father down, murdered him in cold blood, and set his home ablaze? Had he not, in his own way…

In his own way, had he not already concluded that he would never be anything like that man?

No. Mercury… Mercury was no killer.

And he was going to fight to prove it.

He turned to look at Jaune, and he spoke words that had the man's eyes widening.

"You're right. Mint is Neopolitan."

Jaune didn't seem to know what to do with that information. Not at all. He was taken aback, that was for sure, and Mercury, from a more objective perspective, could see why.

Even if he'd had his suspicions, Jaune probably hadn't expected Mercury to come out and confirm them.

"That's… then… did you know?"

Mercury nodded his head.

"Then if you knew… why didn't you turn her in?"

And now, here was Mercury's gambit.

"Because Neo isn't working with Torchwick of her own accord."

That had Jaune's eyes widening, and Mercury was glad for it, given that Jaune had, for a moment there, looked like he was about to question what exactly Mercury's role was in all of this. And that…

That was a particular can of worms that needed to remain unopened.

Cinder, or Emerald, or hell, even Neo herself likely would've been better at this sort of thing. At lying and faking. Mercury… he'd been brought in as muscle. Not really for his skills in espionage. He had some, of course, because Cinder wouldn't accept any of her agents being entirely useless when it came to skulking around, but…

Acting was definitely not his specialty. Nor was lying.

But he had to try.

"Neo, she… Like Emerald, she grew up on the streets." Mercury fabricated, not knowing a thing about Neo's story in truth, but bullshitting his way into a story he could use. "Only she was a lot less successful than Emerald. Unlike Em, she couldn't roll on her own. You can see why, right? She's small in stature and in strength. A tough little minx now, but she wasn't them. But… she had a… a crew. These people, they used Neo for her semblance, forced her to do their dirty work. And eventually… those same people were swallowed up by Torchwick and his goons."

This description certainly made Torchwick out to be the big bad of the equation – and wow, wasn't that thought a little humorous, given everything – But frankly, it wasn't like the man's input was ever going to be relevant to Mercury himself. Throwing him under the bus served their purposes anyhow.

Or, well, perhaps it served Mercury's. That was neither here, nor there, however.

"So… what happened?"

"Torchwick took a shine to her abilities, saw just how useful they could be. And… well, Neo owed him. He gave her a roof over her head. He made her his right-hand man. Her semblance is that powerful."

"What is it, exactly?" Jaune asked, and Mercury knew he had to measure his words a bit on this.

"An illusion semblance." Which was half true. "It lets her camouflage herself into anyone she's ever seen. It's strikingly powerful, especially for the small-time hits that Roman used to be so famous for. Go into a shop as the owner's wife, head to the back, pop the safe, and walk on out all casual. No one notices a thing until hours later, and by then?"

"It's way too late." Jaune spoke, frowning. "So… Neo… doesn't use this power of her own accord."

"Nah," Mercury lied, once again. "I mean, you've seen her. She's a little bit of a pain in the ass, but she's not a bad person, right?"

"…Yeah, you're right."

Mercury was not right. Neo was, at the best of times, a vindictive little gremlin, and at the worst of times a barely-sane psychopath. Still, she had a few things she cared about in this world, and one of those things was Roman Torchwick, of all people.

None of them had ever figured out just when that had started, or what the nature of the connection was – Mercury had initially postulated 'fuck-buddies', but apparently Emerald had gathered it was closer to a brother-sister, father-daughter sort of thing – but they knew it was powerful.

Neo would kill, had killed, to keep it.

But, well… Jaune didn't need to know that.

"And because of that… Torchwick's got an awful lot of dirt on her. Enough to keep her employed with him for the time being. But… he's got a stipulation. She has to finish running this set of jobs. Gathering dust in Vale, and then she's out."

"Wait, like…"

"Yeah." Mercury spoke, nodding his head. "She's free."

Jaune looked a bit perturbed, and Mercury was glad for it, in the same way that he felt the smallest, tiniest, most absent feeling in his breast.

One that felt a bit like guilt.

"And so, she's doing this one last job. She's acting as his right-hand one final time." Mercury shook his head. "We… all knew about it. But because we know that Neo doesn't want to be doing this, we're backing her up. Once it's over, and she's free, she's agreed to take all that she knows to Ozpin. Of course, I doubt that Roman Torchwick will be sticking around the moment that Neo's gone."

"But… couldn't Neo just go to Ozpin now? What's stopping her?"

…Shit, Mercury hadn't thought of that.

He wasn't very good at this bullshitting a story thing.

…Still, he needed to say something.

"He has a friend of hers."

Jaune's eyes widened.

"Neo… her friend was a member of her old group. The only one to ever treat her as a real person. They've been inseparable since they were kids. She's his hostage. Until this job is done, she won't be released. Once she is, conversely, Roman is gone. Probably offloading the dust he's been stealing for as much as he can and then he's off to retire somewhere in Mistral or Vacuo, never to be seen again."

Jaune stared at him, and he stared hard. It was clear he was measuring the validity of Mercury's statements, whether or not he believed his story, and Mercury, idly, found the pace of his pulse quickening.

…Because if Jaune didn't believe him, then that was that.

He had to die. End of story.

It wasn't like Mercury could just pretend like the story he'd just made up was actually a lie, and really, actually, there was a total other reason that Neo was the way she was. No. This was it.

"I know that… I know it's a bit underhanded, and it doesn't feel right to let a criminal like Torchwick do whatever he wants, but Jaune, you have to understand that she's doing her best to get out from under Torchwick's thumb. She just needs more time. He's a crazy person, y'know. Has her on a tight leash. Threatens to hurt her friend if she even messes up on a job."

He kept inventing new variables, new things to say that made Torchwick sound worse, which, in theory, was great, but in actuality made more and more little bits and pieces of this lie that he had to keep track of.

This was, again, why he was not the master storyteller of the team.

It also occurred to Mercury just why it was he kept going on and on, attaching new addendums to the story that he felt he could at every moment.

Because he was afraid.

To say he'd never been afraid before would be a lie. He'd definitely been scared when he'd gone to Domremy all that time ago, when he'd touched down in that quiet little village in the dead of winter. Yes, now that it was over, he could admit how frightened he'd been.

But now was a different kind of fear.

Because now Mercury had something to lose.

Jaune looked right at him, stared into his eyes, and it was clear that at the very least, he was not dismissing Mercury's story out of hand. He believed him – although to what degree, Mercury didn't know – but…

Jaune looked agonized as he opened his lips.

"I… I understand that Neo's friend is in danger, but… if we alerted Ozpin in a stealthy way, don't you think he'd be able to get her out of whatever predicament she's in before it was too late?"

Mercury wasn't quite sure if Ozpin would be able to rescue the fictitious 'friend' of Neopolitan in time or not. But, in this case, he knew he had something to fire back.

"And can you really do that?" Mercury asked, pretending to have a lot bigger of a heart than he did. "Can you really spill her secret, and put her friends life at risk, and then look her in the eye if something goes wrong, and it costs her?"

It was clear from the way that Jaune averted his gaze that he couldn't.

"Merc, I…" Jaune was struggling. "This is… isn't this bigger than…"

"Please, Jaune. Don't turn her in."

'Please, Jaune. Don't make me kill you.'

Jaune swallowed, his neck bulging briefly as he leant from side to side, balancing on one foot and then the other over and over again. It felt like an age passed before Jaune Arc spoke again, with a quiet but determined voice as he looked back up, and faced him.

"…Alright. Neo's secret is safe with me."

The proverbial hand that had been gripping his heart, strangling the life from out of it, finally released, and he let out a horrid gasp, one which felt so terribly unlike him.

"I trust you, Merc. You're my friend, and… and I know you wouldn't just lie to me." Mercury felt it again, that guilt from earlier, coursing through him. "Just… tell Neo from me that… she doesn't have to be afraid of that guy. She's got allies here. More than she knows."

Mercury doubted the girl would take the statement as kindly as Jaune probably intended it. Hell, Mercury doubted Jaune would live longer than perhaps thirty minutes after he told Neo said statement at all.

He swallowed grimly, trying not to consider that.

"I… Thank you for being honest with me." Jaune said again, rubbing at the back of his neck a tad awkwardly. "I know telling me can't have been easy."

"Well, I wanted to convince you to see her side of things, y'know?" Mercury lied again, finding it coming to him easier now. "It's not her choice. If she could, she'd have ditched his ass a long time ago."

Jaune nodded, and then he let out a breath as he looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Alright, it's late enough that I feel I should get back."

Mercury was honestly quite glad for that fact.

"Gotcha. Same for me, really." Mercury admitted, and for what felt like the first time in that particular conversation, Mercury was telling the truth. "This has all taken a lot out of me."

Jaune laughed.

"Same here."

"Oh, uh… don't mention this to Neo. She's… I don't want to claim she's high-strung or crazed or something, but I don't know how she'd react to someone else knowing her secret."

Jaune nodded, which was good. More than good, even.

And so it was that the two of them left the confines of that empty classroom. Mercury feeling a lot more alive than he had been a mere thirty minutes ago.

And Jaune infinitely more alive than Mercury had feared he'd have to make him.

/

It was only ten or so minutes later, as Mercury filtered back into the Chamomile dorm room, that he realized the true extent to which the lie he'd told Jaune now carried.

Because the moment he entered, three heads swung towards him. Normally, such a thing wouldn't have even elicited a response from Mercury. It was completely and utterly expected. Each of these three was the type to make sure that any who entered into a space they called their own wasn't a threat.

Mercury wasn't. They all knew that.

Except Mercury couldn't help the dryness of his throat as he waved casually towards them. As he tried to behave as if everything was exactly the same as it had always been.

And Cinder noticed, because of course she did.

"Mercury, is something the matter?" Cinder asked, looking up at him pensively. "You seem rather tense."

…It was in that moment that Mercury realized the extent of the lie he'd told to Jaune Arc. The extent of the decision he'd made by letting the boy survive.

Because it was not a singular lie he would be telling. Not a singular party who would need to remain fooled.

No.

"…Nah." He lied, forcing his usual smirk slip onto his face. "Just talkin' with the Juniper peeps. They were getting' on me for not hanging out with them enough. Nothin' really. Just tired from putting up with them."

"Really?" Cinder raised an eyebrow.

"Alright," He laughed with feigned mirth. "You caught me. I was actually hitting up some cuties out in the hall."

That seemed to be the set of magic words to say to diffuse the tension, for in the next moment, Someone else spoke up.

"Ugh, you are insufferable." Emerald groaned from her bed.

"Hey, you're just mad that I have more sway with the ladies than you." He pounced upon the girl's easy annoyance, for it was a natural, normal thing.

And he needed that.

"In your fucking dreams, maybe." Emerald shot back, and Mercury grinned.

"Actually, no. In my 'fucking' dreams, I'm usually the one–"

A pillow hit him in the face in the following moment, and although Mercury played off the next few minutes with humor and jokes, as the tension which had been building rapidly cooled and fled the room…

He did not fully relax. Because he knew now the extent of those words.

He knew he'd done something unforgivable to Cinder and the rest of her group. He'd made a decision today that was going to come back to bite him. He'd spared a man who knew… not all of the truth, but enough to damn them, enough to ruin Cinder's plans, enough to ruin their place in Beacon…

Enough to get Mercury killed.

And he'd still done it knowing all of that. Would probably even make that same decision again, if pressed to.

He'd made a choice. He'd valued Jaune Arc's life above his own safety. The decision was something the more pragmatic parts of him, molded and sculpted by his father for years and years, raged against. An idiotic choice. A foolish one.

Mercury knew that.

And he also knew that, one day…

Mercury swallowed, though no spittle came to his mouth.

It was dry. Far too dry.

One day he was going to pay for it.

/

Jaune waited around twenty minutes, a long enough time that he was nearly certain Mercury wouldn't still be lurking about, to double back around to the empty classroom the two of them had been having their discussion within. His footsteps were measured, his breaths even.

…Despite the way that his pulse still quickened, not at all used to this sort of thing.

At the very least, however, he had gotten what he wanted, and he felt the need to say that as he entered into the space, turned to the supply closet at the back, and spoke.

"See, I told you. He didn't do a thing."

The closet at the back of the room creaked open, and from within came a young woman with black hair, yellow eyes, and a bow affixed upon the second set of ears adorning her head. She seemed perturbed somewhat, but resolute regardless.

"It was still the right idea, whether or not I end up looking a bit paranoid." Blake answered him, stepping out into the center of the room. "Just in case something was up, you made the right decision telling me."

Jaune nodded.

Telling Blake hadn't exactly been Jaune's first thought when he'd realized Mint's real identity. In fact, his first thought had been roughly 'oh shit, oh fuck'. Still, his second thought had been to wonder whether or not to tell his team what he'd learned. Whether or not to go straight to Ozpin with his hypothesis.

He'd ultimately concluded that such an action would be far too hasty.

But he still wanted a second opinion, and more than that, he wanted someone to have his back. He'd watched enough spy movies when he was a kid to know that a lone agent who'd come across valuable intel was about five minutes away from being dramatically killed on screen.

He did not much feel like being dramatically killed. On screen or otherwise. Thusly, he sought assistance.

He still hadn't wanted to get his team involved, though, because he also didn't want to get them dramatically killed…

But, well, he knew someone who he was fairly certain would want to get involved. Who would, hearing what Jaune had to say, actively seek out the potential danger he was threatening to place upon them.

One Blake Belladonna.

It helped that she had been a White Fang agent once upon a time. Jaune felt she could probably work with secrets, and be covert enough to assist him in both keeping them, and digging deeper as to the truth of them.

…And, really, teaching him how to go about being covert himself in the first place.

Gods, Jaune was lucky that Mercury had been so spooked himself by Jaune's words, otherwise the man certainly would've noticed how jumpy he'd been during their talk. Every time Mercury's eyes had glassed over, Jaune had briefly thought the man was going to jump at him and try and kill him.

Luckily, such an effort would've been short-lived, with Blake waiting in the wings. Still, it wasn't like Jaune wanted to have to deal with such a situation.

…Even if it made him feel just a bit like the Huntsman he'd always wanted to be, this situation.

Although his dad, or any of the huntsman he'd looked up to in his life, had never really sought to actually mention how downright terrifying it was. His hands shook even now.

"So," Jaune began, clearing his throat a bit pensively. "…Do you think Mercury's the same as her? That he's working with Torchwick?"

Blake seemed torn on an answer to that.

"…I don't know." Blake admitted, muttering under her breath, and sighing out. "That story was all… messy, and jumbled, but… more than anything, I hope he's not. Mercury… he didn't have the countenance for it. For that kind of life. That was what I felt. He had the same eyes as me, but he was… like me. At least that was what I saw."

Blake got a sort of faraway look in her eyes, then, and Jaune, briefly, found himself wondering about just what it was the girl had seen. About the things those eyes had had to bear witness to.

He was glad his own remained unburdened.

"At the very least, he didn't try and escalate the situation into violence, and definitely seemed to want a peaceful solution. If anything, it seemed like he cared an awful lot about Neo. Wanted to protect her, and her friend, from Torchwick's cruelty."

Speaking of potential escalation, Jaune was so, so terribly glad that the man hadn't. Not just for his own safety, either…

But because it meant that Mercury wasn't some horrible person working under Roman Torchwick.

And it seemed Neo, or Mint, wasn't either.

At least to him. Blake appeared to still have some doubts.

"So… you're saying you don't know. Did his story not convince you, or…?"

"I…" Blake let out a sigh. "His story… there are pieces and parts of it that I believe. But there are holes. The thing with Ozpin that you pointed out was good, because it was the obvious question to ask. And in answer, to me, at least, Mercury seemed awfully set on not coming up with a solution that didn't involve Neo, or Mint, I suppose we should continue to call her, since her secret coming out might be…"

"Bad?"

"Bad works." Blake nodded. "As I was saying, did it not seem that Mercury avoided any solution, saying only that we should do nothing, and trust her to handle the situation on her own?"

He had, and now that Jaune thought about it, that had been a bit odd. It wasn't like Torchwick would know that Ozpin had been told, and having someone like him to help out getting Neo's friend to safety couldn't hurt.

Then again, it was entirely possible Mercury just wanted to protect Neo's friend at any cost. Jaune could respect that. He had, after all, saved Jaune from Cardin's bullying, and from the fight with that Ursa Major that had directly resulted. In his eyes, Mercury was a friend, and a damned good one.

He wanted to trust him.

But…

"So… are you saying we shouldn't trust him?"

Blake, once again, looked torn, and Jaune was about to ask her a follow-up question before she interrupted him, and spoke.

"…Maybe we should. Perhaps I'm not the best judgement of character here, given I've been told that I am someone who likes to stick my nose where it doesn't belong."

Jaune let out an awkward laugh. "Yeah, I eh… I've heard that."

Blake glared his way, but Jaune just held his hands up meekly. "Hey, it wasn't me who said it."

"I know." Blake said with a sigh. "I'll be having a… conversation with Yang later."

He nodded, even as he found himself frowning.

"So… what do we do?"

"For now… nothing, I suppose." Blake sounded unsatisfied, despite her own admission. "We monitor Mercury and Mint's behavior, and make sure that the two of them are acting as we'd expect them to. I'd also suggest, just in case, that the two of us travel together if we can."

Jaune nodded. Just in case, it made sense to be prepared. Plus, Team's RWBY and JNPR were on great terms, so it wouldn't seem overly odd for the two of them to suddenly strike up a friendship.

"And… what if we find some evidence? What if we… y'know…"

"…Then we go to Ozpin." Blake said, though there was a harsh note in her voice, something Jaune had never heard before. "And in the meantime, as we allow Mercury and Mint to wander around Beacon, completely free…"

"We hope that we're not making a massive mistake."

End Chapter 30

Hey, look. Blake's back.

Not a ton to say this week. I finished After Happily Ever After, which I ended up enjoying writing quite a bit. I may be moving Cinderella back to weekly sometime in the near future because of that being done, but we'll have to see. I do like having free time to focus on coding/writing for the game I'm trying to make.

We'll see.

Anyways, see you all next week!