Volume 2 Part 1 Tempest's Bud
"So what do you think?" Julie asked, as she shook Cyril awake and held a photo out in front of him with her soft childlike smile. She took the photo the day before the second semester began. It was a rather professional looking picture of the two standing together on the main avenue leading into Beacon Academy in their casual attire. Cyril stood over Julie and closer to the foreground with what barely registered as a smile. Julie stood further back with her trademarked big smile.
"It's nice," He replied with a sleepy smile, and a chuckle as if he stared into a different universe. Oblivious to the end of class and horde of students headed for the door, for a couple seconds Cyril just stared at the photo like a moron, with no awareness of the flood heading for the door.
"Anything else," Julie slyly asked, dragging out the end to try and point him in the right direction. There was another awkward pause.
"Hmm, Nope," Cyril confidently announced with a moronic smile, slamming his face back into his desk immediately with a thud.
"I'll have Pyrrha beat you up for that," Julie replied in a facetious anger, giving Cyril a playful shove.
"You can't just threaten me with 'I'll have Pyrrha beat you up' it gets old after a while," Cyril mumbled with a terrible impression of Julie, trying to go back to sleep, his face still planted in the desk.
"You just know she'll win. Hey get up class is over, let's get back to our dorm. Our new team members will be assigned tomorrow and we need to clean up," Julie replied, her tone changing from happy to serious as she walked backwards to the door of the class hastily. With an eye raised from the table Cyril saw her gesture for him to get up and leave.
"I'm fairly confident my ass wouldn't get beat by her," Cyril asserted with a grin as he picked his head up, and leaned back in his chair before grabbing his bag and putting on his belt with his weapons on after grabbing it from under his desk.
"No, I don't think so," Julie countered with a faux intellectual voice as Cyril walked to the door, his hands in his pockets.
"What kind of argument is that?" Cyril asked with a befuddled face, as the pair weaved into the heavy traffic in the hallways that came at the end of every school day.
"The correct one," Julie declared, trying to say it like she was a super smart scientist in a childish manner.
"Y'know I'm surprised how you turned from a depressed 40 year old to an annoying toddler over the span of a few months," Cyril said, turning to her to see her rolling her eyes.
"You said that all last semester, pick up new material," Julie replied looking back in a face that practically said you are a complete moron.
"I guess, but that doesn't excuse the turn around," Cyril countered, with a face that said you are even more of a moron.
Julie retaliated with"A girl can't have an outer shell? plus you're one to talk, you didn't talk through most of the initiation either,".
"I um…" Cyril instinctually replied thinking of a comeback, failing to disprove the moron allegations. As the two continued down the halls, Cyril kept trying to stall for time and think for something.
"You know I'm right!" Julie exclaimed after a few seconds, believing her victory was in hand, creating a small scene in the hallway which had thinned out. Cyril shook his head in denial. Before the battle was able to resume the two were stopped by Yang and Blake. "Hi Yang, hi Blake," Julie said joyfully with a big smile.
"Hey Julie," Yang happily replied with a smile and a wave, completely different from the serious face beforehand.
"Excuse us, can we talk to Cyril, alone, please?" Blake asked in her typical quiet but firm voice, looking at Cyril with a certain ire.
"Eh, sure," Cyril answered after taking a deep sleepy breath. "I'll meet you back at the dorm," Cyril told Julie with a soft smile, and after a nod she went off down the hall.
"Follow us," Blake said in her usual emotionless tone, leading Cyril through the school. It was the first day of second semester, and most people hurried back to their dorms leaving typically habited areas of the school empty, such as behind the cafeteria where Blake was leading to through the decadent campus.
The orange sky shot through the cafeteria windows as Blake made it back behind the cafeteria. Once Cyril had reached the middle of their arena Blake turned slowly and his brow furrowed. He slowly looked over his shoulder to see Yang standing behind him and slowly looked back. His metallic right hand slid down onto the handguard of his saber, breaking the friction that kept it in its place. His blazing stare matched Blakes and they battled for dominance for a few moments.
"We know what you did at the docks," Blake said firmly, her emotionless voice hardening with resolve. Seconds passed, which seemed to turn into minutes and all Cyril did was stand there, and say nothing.
"You are a terrorist who attacked a Schnee Dust Company affiliated dock," Blake stated, doubling down. Cyril for a moment stayed unchanged.
"What do you want?" Cyril replied in a voice filled with veiled anger, the fire in his eyes burning brighter and brighter.
"He's not even denying it," Yang triumphantly chuckled, her demeanor reassessing itself when Cyril's gaze turned back to her.
"I saw what you did, and I'm willing to make a deal, for now," Blake said her eire retaking Cyril's.
"What is it," Cyril asked, vitriol spitting from his voice as his thumb pushed his saber's handguard further forward.
"The White Fang are stealing dust and recruiting members in Vale, and you don't seem too fond of them. I have some ideas of how you can help us with this," Blake explained methodically and slowly.
"Those Fang were practically mercs, Khan believes in measured acts of violence. Either they're a rogue chapter or their commander is a piece of work," Cyril said, finally breaking through Blake's ironclad defense as she looked down and to the left for a moment.
"I…," Blake stuttered trying to regain herself, she felt as if someone had stared into her soul.
"We'll text you later tonight, just show up outside our dorm when you do. If you don't know where it is, ask Julie. We'll go from there," Yang barked, retaking the initiative.
"Understood," Cyril said, staring down Blake as she walked past before reuniting with Yang. As the two exited Cyril took his right hand off his belt and whipped away his serious face to reveal the relieved one underneath with his left. For a moment he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again before walking off.
Cyril's mind raced, as he slowly made his way through the opulent, almost inconceivable school to his dorm. As he moved through his building's door and up the stairs a sudden realization hit him. He cautiously walked down the hall on his floor and gently put his hand on the handle to his door. With a short breath Cyril swung the door open to an impatient Julie in their dirty room, happy to see him.
"So what'd they want to talk about?" Julie asked excitedly as she stood by the door, waiting for Cyril after she saw him walk into the building. Cyril's face softened.
"Eh, just wanted someone to watch their sparring later tonight and give them pointers. I'll prolly be out, don't know how long though they didn't say," Cyril explained with a soft smile as he walked through the door and closed it, dropping his messenger bag.
"This isn't just an excuse to leave me with the cleaning is it?" Julie asked, her face drooping in suspicion of Cyril's story, her eyes following him across the room.
"I rather clean than watch their sparring matches," Cyril said reassuring Julie as he threw his belt with all his weapons under his bed before slowly flopping onto his bed stomach first.
"So, you finally are starting to make friends?" Julie asked, her veiled excitement different than normal as she sat crisscrossed on the bed next to Cyril's.
"In a way I guess,"Cyril replied, his head practically shoved into his mattress, muffling his voice.
"It's nice to see you come out of your shell more with others," Julie said softly before pausing for a moment as Cyril turned his head towards her. "You always seemed indifferent, or even mean to everyone but me. But maybe now it'll be different, maybe now we can work with more than just each other." She continued in a soft, semi-scattered manner rising towards the end. "I'm happy to see you finally opening up to new stuff" Julie exclaimed softly, at first looking down but eventually staring hopefully into Cyril's Crimson eyes. Cyril's bed creaked as rolled over and sat up, smiling back at Julie.
"I'll keep working at it, I promise," Cyril sincerely promised, his smile wavering for a moment in an almost dismissable way. "Step one is cleaning up the room for our new team members," Cyril continued, standing up and offering Julie a hand up. Cyril pulled her up and the two started to collect the scattered trash in the room, but not before they both changed out of their school uniforms. After only 20 minutes though, their cleaning session was interrupted by the beep of Cyril's scroll which saw his trash bag hit the floor as he instantly reached for it, holding it at an awkward angle so that Julie couldn't see the message.
"Is it them?" Julie asked with veiled excitement, turning to him with a suppressed smile.
"Yeah, I'll head out," Cyril replied, putting the scroll in his pocket before squatting down to put the trash that had fallen out of the dropped bag back in.
"Break a leg," Julie said as he tied the trash bag shut and stood up, walking to his bed.
"Understood," Cyril replied in a happy voice as he reached under his bed, jamming his arm around before pulling his belt with his weapons out. He walked to the door, putting the belt on, and with a simple nod he left the dorm and walked into the hall.
After closing the door behind him Cyril stopped for a moment and took a deep breath before bringing back his furrowed brow and seriously walking down the hall and taking the stairs. He took a couple flights up and went about halfway down the hall to team RWBY's room. He stretched his shoulders and took one last deep breath before knocking on the door.
"Good you showed up, wait outside," Blake said with a voice of vile surprise as she opened the door a crack before closing it shut once more. Cyril promptly leaned against the wall. He wanted to smoke, but resisted the urge for a couple minutes. After about 4 or 5 minutes team RWBY and two guys Cyril didn't recognize walked out of the room pumped up. Yang stopped in front of him with a stern face as the rest passed, all smiles.
"We're going to visit some 'old friends' for information, I just need you to act as my backup. Let's go," Yang ordered in an uncharacteristically cold tone. During lunch when he and Julie sat at their table she was very goofy, happy, unserious, and all around just a nice person. She walked down the hall with authoritative posture, and Cyril followed.
The pair descended through Beacon's arteries down into Vale, trying to appear inconspicuous. Yang was dressed differently, more formal Cyril guessed but he wasn't sure. They eventually emerged from the campus and continued onto a dirt road for a few minutes after in the pine forests of Vale. Suddenly as the two hugged the right side of the road Yang turned into the woods and for a moment Cyril stared before following. Once he'd caught up Cyril found himself in a small, poorly fenced lot, with an object covered in a tarp. Yang dramatically took off the tarp to reveal a motorbike. When Yang looked back instead of seeing a look of amazement she saw one of dampened childish excitement in his eyes, like Cyril had only ever ridden horses. With one eyebrow raised she got on and motioned Cyril to get on too, snapping him out of his trance.
"You'll probably want to hold on," Yang said, putting on a helmet that previously sat on the bike's handlebars as Cyril got on. She smirked as she revved the engine for a second and took off, but her expression died when Cyril did not in fact go flying off backwards, and was able to hold on perfectly fine using his false hand.
They pair sped through the forest, a slight smile came across Cyril's face. Eventually Yang drove onto a main road past the forest and into the agricultural outer rim of Vale, Farms as far as the eye could see. Cyril's smile grew a little. It changed back to its original state once they finally reached the industrial sector of Vale. Grey, and dingey unnaturally damp and masked in a horrid stench. A screech hounded as Yang stopped the bike in front of a gray industrial goliath, pipes erupting from within, and at the center of it all a corridor jutted out with empty metal doorframe. As the pair dismounted Cyril reached for his back pocket and paused for a second before grabbing his pack of cigarettes. He counted that he had 3 left before picking one out and sticking it in the right side of his mouth and putting the pack back. He followed it up by taking his metal lighter out and lighting up. Yang looked back to see the cigarette hanging in the bottom right corner of his mouth and just gave Cyril a confused and dirty stare before moving on.
"Lethal or no?" Cyril asked in a voice that screamed all business to the point it seemed playful, breathing out a large puff of smoke.
"I didn't know I had that option. Let's go with no," Yang said seriously, though her playful side had come out a little too. The pair walked to the descending stairs of the building they'd parked in front of and at the door sitting at the bottom of the stairs a guard in a black and red suit stood. Once he spotted Yang though, he ran inside in a complete panic. Yang smiled and led Cyril down the stairs and through the door to a long industrial hallway with two men closing a large steel blast door at the end. The pair tried to run for it but halfway there it was closed shut and they moseyed the rest of the way there.
"You want me to try cutting through it?" Cyril asked in a provocative manner while lightly knocking the door with his right hand, clearly teasing Yang with a stupid smile. He didn't enjoy the punch she threw at his left arm though, which he shook off.
"Stand back," Yang ordered with a sigh, before taking a stance. With a big grunt and smirk she punched through and broke the steel blast door. She was met by a lazy clap from Cyril who stopped after he saw her death stare and his face drooped with his cigarette moving to the middle of his mouth for a moment. When Yang turned back around she saw an arsenal pointed at her from inside the club.
"You're up!" Yang yelled back, her gauntlets expanding as Cyril Lunged past her into the crowd right fist first, the man he hit going down in one punch. That was followed up by Yang hitting the front line with a wave of shotgun pellets just above Cyril.
Cyril charged forward, putting his shoulder into a henchman's hip and alligator tackling him to get out of the way of the impending blast of enemy fire that would engulf the entrance, instead opting to get in the middle where he'd fight his way out. As he got up he threw a backhand punch with his right fist, electrocuting the men on his right, whilst dealing with the men on his left by taking their legs out from under them with his left leg in a 90 degree spin. Yang came down and took out the men on his left for the rest of the fight. The two stood back to back for a moment, ready for someone to break the tension, and the fight to resume.
"Stop fighting you morons!" A bearded man in a shirt and tie on the dancefloor just ahead screamed. Cyril spit out his cigarette onto one of the downed men, and slowly walked up to the man and forcefully grabbed him by his shirt. Yang came up next to Cyril and the two exchanged a look before looking back at him.
"You can put him down," Yang said in a confident, intimidating tone, and with that Cyril dropped the man. The man was flustered, and looked around for a moment before readjusting his tie. "Go wait by the door, I'll deal with him," Yang ordered Cyril in her more natural voice.
Cyril took one last look at the man before walking back to the busted open door. He grabbed another cigarette while Yang and the man talked, half zoned out watching them talk at the bar. Cyril lost track of time and his mind seemed like it was adventuring through space.
"Well that was basically pointless, let's go," Yang said in a frustrated voice, bringing Cyril back down to earth as she approached the entrance to the club. He followed when she passed by after spitting out his second cigarette and the pair emerged into the industrial zone once more. Just before hitting the curb Yang turned to Cyril.
"I didn't learn anything new from that, and we're no step closer to figuring out who's stealing dust. I feel bad for Julie for dragging you out here and leaving her alone to clean," Yang growled, looking down at the ground with a vile face in frustration. Her amethyst eye gleamed for a moment and Yang looked up and asked "Why did you attack the port?".
"The truth…" Cyril said with a snarled face, taking a moment to think before continuing with "I didn't leave Uktaria when I was 3, I was 13. Their security forces, with the help of Atlas, ran a wall at the edge of the petty kingdom. They locked the gates and kept us in there,". Cyril's face winced as he spoke, trying to avoid eye contact with Yang until the end. Yang was taken aback by what he said and stayed silent for a minute before Cyril started walking to her bike. As he got on he heard a faint beeping and when he looked up Yang was running to get on.
"We've gotta help Blake," Yang said, slightly panicked, as she hopped on and speeded away through the narrow, gray, industrial streets.
"What do you need me to do?" Cyril asked, locked in and focused as Yang made a sharp turn off an industrial street and onto a highway overpass.
"We need to take down that mech," Yang answered, pointing to a mech similar to the one he'd fought in the dock, though this one had a white fang symbol speeding down the highway, before driving off the overpass into the traffic below.
"Get me alongside it, I'll take care of it," Cyril replied, with Yang giving him a nod back and speeding in and out of traffic, eventually ending up next to the mech on its left. Cyril jumped onto it with his right hand and gave her a thumbs up with his left. He was hung on its left side and threw his body up with his right hand, his left drawing Perun, the blade not coming alive as it left its sheath, and cut off the mech's left arm. Preparing to strike once more before the mech could counter Cyril looked up and his eyes widened as he saw the highway ahead been covered in ice.
"Shit!" Cyril yelled with a crescendo in his voice as the mech slipped, throwing him off the highway with it. As he flipped in the air he managed to land on his right hand before chasing after the mech which took some time to recover from the fall. Sliding under it he freed the mech of its legs before climbing on its back and taking its right arm. Lastly Cyril climbed down to the front of the mech and ripped open the hatch to see a man with a broken and sideways nose. He paused for a second giving the man time to kick Cyril off the mech. As Cyril flew through the air with grace it seemed as if a lightbulb had lit up in his head before smashing upon hitting the floor. He pulled himself off the ground to find himself surrounded by the members of team RWBY and their two volunteers.
"Hey, can I kill this guy?" Cyril asked, a slight smirk crossing his face, slowly taking steps forward
"No, we need him alive!" Ruby yelled back in her high pitched voice.
Cyril simply nodded back with a now emotionless face. sheathed Perun, and sped up towards his target. The man with a broken nose made an opening move of trying to slash back Cyril with his cane. His face filled with fear when Cyril simply grabbed his cane with his right hand and the man's already disfigured face with his left and thrashed him into the ground. Cyril looked back to team RWBY but in their stead was met by a woman in brown and pink hair. He took a wide, backhanded swing with his right arm, which was dodged and Cyril was separated from the man when she swung her umbrella into his stomach, throwing him about 3 feet back. Cyril gave a labored breath and surged forward with a powerful punch, shattering her image on the ground.
"Damnit!" Cyril exclaimed as he breathed a few heavy breaths, staring at the shards on the ground before getting up.
"You did good Cyril," Yang comforted, putting her hand on his shoulder, Cyril's rage fading as he turned and looked at Yang before making a grumpy face and kicking one of the shards.
Author's Notes: This went through 3 rewrites and 9ish drafts. It was painful.