Here we go.
Cover Art: Mystery White Flame
Chapter 36
There was no keeping an incident like this one hidden. There had been deaths – actual, civilian deaths – and it was right before festival, too. The city was in uproar. Thankfully, his involvement was as a victim and not an agent of another country, but less thankfully, he'd been stabbed. It hurt a lot.
"You're lucky," said Beacon's doctor, Tsune, a faunus who seemed far too willing to prod around his wound in search of pain. He gave her plenty of reactions when she found it.
"I don't feel lucky, doctor."
"The wound is clumsy and relatively shallow. You must have reacted immediately with your aura to stop it going any deeper, and from tearing a chunk of flesh on the way out. Also, she had a gun from what I'm told. You could have taken a bullet to the back of the skull rather than a knife to the stomach."
"Hngh," he groaned. The wound had been stitched shut after a lot of nasty messing around, which included her having to fish out scraps of his own shirt with a pair of tweezers. The topical anaesthetic meant it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should, but the fact it did hurt only went to show how bad it really was. "W – Why didn't she just shoot me? Would have been easier. Ow. Can you not!?"
"I expect that the perpetrator wanted you to be aware of who they were and what they were doing," said Tsune, ignoring his other request. "Assumably, they did not want you to have an immediate death. They wanted you to feel helpless, and to die slow and painfully." The woman glanced up at him, her brown eyes crinkling happily. "You've made yourselves an enemy, young man. Congratulations."
"That's… not a good thing…"
"Isn't it? I thought men were always going on about how you're defined by your enemies or some such nonsense. Isn't it a badge of pride? No? Well, at least you'll have a horrific scar from this for the rest of your life."
Jaune stared.
"Wait, that's not a badge of honour, either?" The doctor clinked her tongue. "I really am behind the youth nowadays."
"Perhaps you should spend less time on the internet forums where such silly ideas are shared," said Glynda Goodwitch, waiting by the doorway. His team obviously hadn't been able to get him back to Beacon as he was, which meant they'd been picked up by the ambulances and police, then taken to a hospital, and finally picked up there by Professor Goodwitch once he was cleared to leave.
The hospital, that was. The police still wanted to interview him as a witness, but they knew where he lived and could do that once they'd finished trying to hunt the bitch who did this down. Jaune wasn't confident they'd find her since he knew she was one of Torchwick's allies. They hadn't caught Torchwick before, so he doubted they'd catch his protégé now.
"How are you feeling, Mr Arc?" asked Glynda.
"Sore. Tired. Angry. Still tipsy, but not nearly as much as I'd like."
"Yes. I've been told nearly being murdered puts a damper on a night out." She didn't smile. "But are you in good enough condition to recount the events to me?"
"Hasn't my team already?"
"They did not realise anything was wrong until the first gunshot."
"Right." They'd been having fun and chatting, so it wasn't a big surprise. "Okay, so, I went to the bar for a last round. It was quieter than before, but still a bit of a crowd. I got to the front and ordered and was on my way out when she bumped into me. Pink hair, but also some brown as well. Two, maybe even three-tone. Really distinctive. Short, too. Maybe shorter than even Ruby."
"I'll refrain from informing Miss Rose you're using her height as a reference point."
Jaune laughed. It was a mistake, and he leaned forward, groaning. He tried to cup his stomach but the doctor swatted his hands away. "Do not touch the stitches. I'm going to bandage them so you can't."
"R – Right. Sorry. Where was I? Uh. I apologised for bumping into her, and I think that's when she recognised me. I was stabbed before I could think, but then I threw my aura out. Stopped her stabbing me a few more times. That's when the gun came out." He shook his head. "That's blurry. I know she hit me most of the time but there were a few misses, or ricochets off my aura, and people were screaming. I knew I couldn't start moving or she'd hit even more, so I stood there and tanked it until she ran out of ammo."
"And your team intervened?"
"Actually, I think it was the club's security. Two girls who were at the bar, and the guy behind it with a shotgun. She made a run for it at that point, back into the mass of people trying to get out. I told my team to see to the injured. Penny is our medic and everyone in Atlas is taught at least a little first aid."
"A good initiative," said Tsune. "Why am I not teaching ours the same?"
"Because we prefer teaching our students to prevent injuries rather than treat them, and because half the student body would walk if they found out you were hosting a class." It was a joke he wasn't privy to, but Tsune chuckled. "You did well enough, Mr Arc, given the circumstances. We can't expect immediate responses or a successful arrest from a team three sheets to the wind, unarmed, and on their free time."
Jaune shrugged. He kind of agreed, which was a big part of why he wasn't freaking out about this. That and the drugs and the pain, at least. If this was them being ambushed at any other time then he'd have been horrified at their poor response, but they'd all been drunk and relaxing in a place that was supposed to be safe. No one was going to have their best showing there.
"The VPD will be coming tomorrow to interview you," she said, "but they have agreed to let you rest first. You will be spending the night in the medical bay."
"How many died?"
"That's hardly your fault-"
"I know. I'm not…" Jaune smiled awkwardly. "I'm just asking, so I know how much she needs to be paid back for if I ever see her again. Or if – when – she comes after me."
Glynda crossed her arms. "You believe this a targeted assassination, then?"
"It didn't seem like a random attack. And the good doctor said the only reason for her to want to stab me instead of shoot me is because she wanted to watch me die slowly. Or see the look on my face. I don't know about you, ma'am, but that seems a little personal."
He'd have loved to say the connection was obvious because this was Roman's protégé out for revenge after they'd caused his death, but Jaune Arc, totally normal student from Atlas, wasn't supposed to know those kinds of things. He was sure Winter or Ironwood would find a way to pass the information on that wouldn't look so suspicious. Surely, she'd been seen with Torchwick before – at the very least by Team RWBY. Once the description of her was out, he was sure Ruby would tell Ozpin, and then they'd have their angle.
"We'll look into it," said Glynda. "And there were seven deaths. Many more injured, two critically, but one of those would absolutely be dead if not for Miss Polendina, and the other was caught in the doorway in a crush as people tried to flee." The woman sighed. "I'm going to have to ask you and your team to remain in Beacon for the immediate future. At the very least for this week."
Jaune offered her a tired thumbs up, which she seemed content to accept, and then laid back down as Tsune busied about the medical bay. He wished his team were there, but they'd probably been told to get some rest and see him in the morning. Alcohol and pain tugging at his mind, it took a blessedly short time after his head touched the pillow for him to fall into a deep sleep.
/-/
And to awake to a burst of gunfire.
Jaune lurched up in the bed as the burst – three rounds but repeated twice – echoed loudly in the corridor. He opened his mouth to shout, only to flinch as white blurred across his vision. His hand reached for a weapon that wasn't there before he noticed the bushy fox tail. Tsune, the doctor, grasped the door handle and ripped it open. "What is happening out there!?"
"Intruder, ma'am." Jaune caught the edge of an Atlesian soldier's helmet as he spoke to her. He heard another outside, footsteps moving slowly away. "Pink hair. We fired warning shots, and she fled. You know any students with hair like that?"
"Not off the top of my head. Please excuse me while I call Ozpin." Tsune closed the door and came back inside, noticed him and said, "Quite the exciting night, hm? It's a good job Winter Schnee forced those two on me. She seemed to think there was a risk someone might come and finish the job."
He was going to have to buy his superior a fruit basket for this, wasn't he? Good lord, he hadn't even imagined they might come and finish him off in the medical bay. And wasn't it a worrying thought that they could? It meant they knew where he was being kept and had access to Beacon, which also meant they knew where his team were.
"My team," he rasped out. "See if they're safe. Please."
Tsune nodded, scroll to her ear. "Ozpin, it's Tsune. We've just had a night-time visit. You heard the shots? Yes, they were warning shots. Pink hair, they seemed to think it might be the one from the attack. I do too, since I doubt a student would have felt the need to run away. You'll need to check the camera footage. Mr Arc also asks someone to check on his team. Yes. Thank you. And I wouldn't say no to a little extra protection if there's some to spare."
It turned out that Beacon took the safety of its foreign visitors very seriously, because the medical bay soon had a full team of fourth years stationed inside it, and another outside, along with the two soldiers, all while Professors Goodwitch and Port roamed the nearby corridors, and presumably Ozpin was going over security footage.
Not half an hour later, his teammates were brought in as well, dressed in a rush and with their hair sticking out at odd angles. Neon looked like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket, while Flynt clearly hadn't slept long enough to avoid a hangover. Penny looked fine, for obvious reasons, but the other two might as well have been zombies.
"Seriously, Jaune," murmured Neon. "You couldn't go one night? Is this going to be a thing?"
"They knew where I was. I figured they'd know where you were as well."
"It is wise for us to stay together and avoid known locations," said Penny. "Are you well, Jaune? How is your injury? Are you in pain?"
Okay, okay, and not much were the answers he gave off, before General Ironwood, somehow looking as smart as he always did, despite it being close to four in the morning, barged into the infirmary. He looked about, eyes settling on Jaune. His team saluted, and Jaune's hand twitched.
"Don't you dare salute, soldier," Ironwood snapped. "You are wounded."
"Sorry, sir."
"We've reviewed the footage and it's as good as a match. Unless there are multiple short females with hair coming in three colours, predominantly pink, running around Vale. We know for a fact there are none who ought to be in Beacon, so that narrows it down. How are you feeling?"
"Alive, sir. She didn't get close. Thank you for the guards outside."
"Captain Schnee's idea," he said, "but I'll be sure to congratulate her and them on a job well done. The police have been notified. It's clear now, if it wasn't abundantly so before, that this woman is after you. Headmaster Ozpin was able to cross-reference her with a description given by Yang Xiao-Long, of Team RWBY, and pinned her to an accomplice of Roman Torchwick's. We believe this to be an attempt by her at revenge."
He was being deliberately vague because of Tsune and the team from Beacon nearby. General Ironwood knew everything they'd accomplished through Warden, so he knew that they knew, but at least by getting it out like this he was giving them a good excuse to say it.
"Thank you for letting us know, sir. What do we do now? My team might not be safe."
"You have options, Mr Arc. The first – and one you should feel no shame in accepting – is to leave Vale and return to Atlas. Given you have faced two assassination attempts in one night, I highly doubt anyone would fault you for this."
Did General Ironwood want that? Was this an order? The man obviously gave nothing away with witnesses around, so Jaune figured he should delay and see what Warden or Winter passed onto him later. "I'll consider it, sir. Not in the best state to make any decisions right now."
"Of course. The other option is that we move you around within Beacon. A new dorm, or rotating dorms, and additional security provided by ourselves in cooperation with Beacon. I'll have to discuss further with Ozpin and Glynda on that, but, obviously, the last thing Beacon, Vale, or any of us want, is for someone to die in the school. It would be a huge incident."
"I don't want me to die either, sir," said Jaune, still a little out of it. "I happen to like me."
There was a snort and a laugh from the Beacon team, and a faint smile from General Ironwood as well. "That's good to hear. Winter will meet with you later to fill you in on anything we find out, and she will be accompanying you when the police arrive for their turn at an interview. You're welcome to try and get some sleep if you think you can. Team JCKP, you can take whatever beds here you can. I understand you're all functioning on less than two hours' sleep."
"Any chance we can get tomorrow off?" whined Flynt.
"He means today," moaned Neon. "Classes…"
"I'm sure allowances can be made given the situation you found yourselves in last night. Mr Arc certainly won't be attending classes, given the police interviews, but I'll need to speak with Glynda and Ozpin first. You certainly won't be returning to your dorm where this killer knows you sleep."
/-/
In the end, Jaune didn't sleep. None of them did. It was too crowded in the infirmary, and the sun was coming up as well which made it even harder. Their eyes were bloodshot and they had bags under them by the time morning came, and the officers sent to interview them even offered to come back the next day if they weren't feeling up to it.
He had a feeling they suspected their team traumatised by so much death.
They did the interview anyway, and it was more of telling them the same story he had before – though he could now mention the woman being Roman's accomplice thanks to General Ironwood. Apparently, they already had a name for her. Neo. It seemed that she'd been a known entity before from sightings of Torchwick, though her crimes had never been this bad. The girl had gone from theft, assault and breaking and entry to mass murder. Premeditated murder, too. Her face was being splashed across news channels already.
Beacon were good about it all, he had to say. He was met by Glynda again, and Ozpin, and they both apologised profusely for the danger he came under in their care. He told them it wasn't their faults, but both seemed convinced it was. Team JCKP were offered VIP rooms, all while, officially, they'd be staying at different ones. It was going to be a rotating thing where their belongings would be kept in a fake room, that they would pretend they used, while they would actually be staying somewhere different. Flynt had been over the moon at the idea of the VIP treatment, only to grumble that Beacon's VIP rooms were worse than their own back in Atlas.
It really wasn't a fair comparison.
With all the details out the way – including each of their team having panic buttons they could press to alert Beacon's teachers – they were finally allowed to sleep and be together alone sometime after noon, and they slept through the entire night until the next morning.
Class was awkward. The news hadn't specifically mentioned their team, but it had mentioned a team from Beacon and someone else had mentioned it was a transfer team, and Team JCKP were the only team that had been absent the day before. Completely unseen, in fact, even in the cafeteria. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together, and the fact that Ciel fussed over him all day, and that, if one looked closely, they might have noticed him favouring one side and touching his stomach… well, it wasn't hard to figure out which team had been involved.
The rumours were already flying, though thankfully no one had decided to corner them or accuse them of being responsible. Most teams had been for a night out at least once, and they must have been shocked to think it could have been them.
"It was you, right?" asked Yang, at dinner.
"Yang!" hissed Weiss, slapping her arm. "We told you not to ask."
"I tried. I'm weak." Yang leaned in. "So, was it you guys? There's no way you were all spontaneously sick yesterday."
Ciel scowled. "It's none of your business."
"It's fine," said Jaune. He knew Ciel was looking out for him, but denying it would just make things worse. "Yes, it was us. Me. Turns out it was that psycho you fought on the train, and she wanted to kill me – or all four of us – for what happened to Roman Torchwick."
"That bitch!" hissed Yang. "You be careful, yeah? She was good – too good. I was outclassed and, not to brag, but I'm not exactly a weak opponent."
Team RWBY were, individually, probably stronger than anyone on his team other than Penny, and yet they'd been put through the wringer. Yang was still bruised all over, while Blake had to have some hair on the left side of her head shaved away so they could stitch a nasty wound closed. She'd been able to sweep some hair down over it to hide it, which didn't look too bad, but it was painfully obvious she was self-conscious about it, because she kept adjusting it to make sure it was in place.
"I'm surprised she hasn't come after our team for our involvement in this as well," said Weiss.
"Maybe she plans to," said Ruby. "But we spent the weekend recovering in Beacon, and they went out into the city where she could get at them."
It was a dangerous possibility. Neo obviously wanted him dead, but he might just be the top name on a longer list. "You should talk to Ozpin about that," he said. "It might not be safe for you either, and if she can't find the new rooms we're staying at, then she might try yours instead."
"We'll be ready for her if she does," growled Yang.
He looked to Ruby desperately, who nodded. "We'll talk to Miss Goodwitch after dinner."
Thank goodness for that. Yang's bravado might have gotten her far, but Neo was dangerous. Deadly, in fact. This wasn't a competitor in the festival or a White Fang terrorist, but a stone-cold killer with skill far above their level. Maybe Penny could best her, but he didn't know for sure. Neo hadn't had to show off much to stab a drunk man and then shoot him a couple of times.
Worse still, there's that dark-haired huntress with the bow out there as well. Neo isn't even the only problem we might have after us now that we've interfered with their plans.
Things had been to their advantage when they were moving secretly and the White Fang didn't know who was striking at them, or that anyone even was, but now the tables had been turned, and it was their team in the dark and on the defensive.
/-/
"This isn't part of the plan, you fool girl!" hissed Cinder. Her fist was tangled in the collar of Mint's shirt, using it to pull her up. The girl's green eyes glared back at her defiantly. "They will die in time – they will die if you simply follow the plan!"
Neo mouthed `Roman` without a sound.
Cinder seethed, and stamped down on the urge to shout that Roman didn't matter. He obviously did – or had – to this girl, and they still needed Neo. They needed her hidden here in Beacon where she could be useful, and not running around trying to murder someone that she already knew was an enemy agent.
"They'll have him under strict guard now. Your opportunity is gone." Neo didn't look convinced. "And besides, he's nothing special. I fought him once and he's an amateur. He won't survive the coming storm."
Neo pointed to herself, and Cinder sighed.
"Yes, you can have him – but only if you complete your objective. Only then. Your petty revenge will not come before that. I will cut you off if I need to, Neo."
It would make their lives harder, but no worse than Neo risking absolutely discovery by going after one man. Roman had been an idiot anyway not to know this was coming. Atlas had interfered consistently in their efforts with the White Fang, so of course there would have been some interference here as well. It should have been a given.
Team RWBY spooking him from the other side, so he ran into them was less expected, but given that Team RWBY had been badly injured as well, she was certain it hadn't been planned. Just a lucky accident on their part. Roman still should have survived. He'd been trained for goodness' sake.
If four children could survive, some of whom had their aura drained from combat, then he should have been fine. That he wasn't… well, it only took one instance of you letting your guard down. That was how aura was. You were as good as invincible while you had it, but you could cut your own finger off cooking if you weren't careful. No one kept their aura up 24/7. That was unhealthy.
But when you're on a speeding train that you fully intend to hit Vale, then you ought to expect an impact. Damn it, Roman.
It was fortunate his capture had been more of a convenience than a necessity. They'd planned to have Neo free him so he could upload the virus, but, quite frankly, if Neo was already going up there then she could do it herself. Now, she just had to make sure to keep Neo under watch and loyal to the cause, before she decided she could better achieve her vengeance alone. She no longer had the implied threat of harming Roman to keep her in line.
Instead, Cinder brought the girl in and hugged her. "I know it hurts," she whispered into the girl's hair. Neo struggled, squirmed, but soon went slack, and Cinder felt dampness. Her hand came up to stroke her hair. "I know what it is like to lose someone you love dearly, Neo. He will pay. They all will. But it is Atlas who killed him. You know that. Let us destroy Atlas by taking over their machines and throwing them at Vale, and then you can hunt that boy and his team down one by one and take your time with them." Cinder crooned into Neo's hair. "How does that sound?"
He grieving girl nodded weakly into her chest.
"Good." Cinder smiled cruelly. "That's good. I shall look after you, Neo. I'm sure Roman would have wanted you to be safe."
The girl was lost, confused, and adrift.
Desperate for a new master.
Next Chapter: 1st July
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