Of all the things she'd expected to be doing, collecting taxes from settlements far off the beaten path was not it. Though, as she soon learned, 'settlements' was pushing it. Still, it was an important task, even if she suspected that the importance was more of a symbolic nature than a fiscal one. In more ways than one, no less. What had Ghira said as he laid it out for her?
"Can I trust you with my money?"
Riven wanted to live up to that trust. For one, the couple had helped her out considerably. Additionally, she liked them. In her mind, two good reasons to take a llama out into the desert and ride the hump from one dwelling to the next until her task was done.
The homesteads she'd encountered were interesting, to say the least. It spoke to how isolated and do-it-yourself Menagerie as a whole was. She'd heard a bit about the geo-political situation so far. Snippets, really. Allusions to a war, an exile of the Vastayans, or Faunus as they called them here, to this continent. When she saw the first dwelling on the side of a rockface, with only a ladder as an access point, she couldn't help but respect the grit of someone who'd chose their own destiny consequentially enough to burrow their way into a literal hoodoo and make their home several meters above ground level.
Curiously enough, it seemed to be the rule, rather than the exception, for people who lived alone or in small family groups. They'd pick a rock with a source of water nearby, build high and avoid most of the Grimm-fueled unpleasantness. She saw a few fish farms, a miner with a nearby claim and a broadcasting tower (at least, that's what her scroll told her the location was). The receptions had been varied, but generally better than what she'd experienced in Menagerie. From what she gathered, a fiercely independent streak coupled with views that might cause friction in the fairly anti-human Kuo Koana left some of, as one of them put it, the 'old crowd' striking out into the desert to seek their fortune there. Some of them even had big dreams.
The miner, for example, was a mole Faunus who hoped to strike a Dust vein large enough to make Menagerie as a whole energy independent. Then there was the fellow with the tech all over his yard, who was working on several energy sources as a whole. She barely understood a word the man had said when he went to explain. Riven had even regretted asking someone who apparently didn't get anyone to talk to for months on end. In the end, she'd picked up the vague notion that Dust was much like Hextech, where-as things she knew Piltover used to do, such as steam engines (which Noxus had also adopted), were something the man was tinkering with in the hopes of making viable alternatives out of them.
All in all, it seemed everything came back to Dust in the end. Dust paid the bills for the humans in other nations. Dust was dangerous to mine, so the poor and unfortunate, or the different, were the prime subjects to be employed to do so. Dust fueled weapons. Dust was used together with this Aura to produce magic-like effects. Dust was in her clothing. Dust was in her underwear.
To be perfectly honest, Riven kind of hated Dust right now. She was sure her ornery beast of burden did as well, what with a bag full behind her saddle, along with a few machine blueprints, a sack of dried fish and several strips of Lien.
The dust cloud in her path didn't help either. She was on her way back now, which meant it was coming from Kuo Koana proper. As the cloud drew closer, she noted it was a motorized vehicle. All of the occupants seemed to have very bright, reflective heads. In her mind, that translated to White Fang masks. She'd not asked about the Fang. She'd assumed they were common knowledge and that she should know, if she was from here. But she'd been able to infer enough. For one, that they didn't much like humans. Also, that they seemed to have some sort of issue with the Belladonnas. The old timers' reactions to her had made it all the more clear. The White Fang was where all the anti-human sentiment came from and oozed back to. It hadn't always been that way, apparently. But it was now, which was why a vehicle with a handful of Fang members headed in her direction was concerning, to say the least.
Still, out here in the desert, there was no real outrunning what, as it drew closer, turned out to be some kind of hovercraft. She could see the machine gun emplacement clearly. Riven noted it was aimed at herself. One brief squeeze of the trigger and it would all be over. But, given nothing came, she assumed they, like the rest of the town, assumed she had Aura.
Too many assumptions, for her taste.
Riven hopped off her Llama and slammed her blade into the ground, where she fastened the reins to its hilt. A few downward stomps later, and the animal was properly secured. Then, she waited with her arms crossed under her chest and her back straight. Her heart beating in her chest, she narrowed her amber eyes at the craft as it skidded to a halt. No wind spirits in this land. Nothing to latch on to, like Yasuo had taught her. Nothing easy. Just the magic in her sword. The magic fused with her very being through the scars all over her arms.
A large wave of sand and debris was sent in her direction as the craft stopped not two meters from her. She took stock of the people aboard. A large, somewhat familiar seeming fellow, perhaps unmistakeably hirsute, was manning the gun. Three more were within the vehicle. The driver remained behind the wheel, while the two others stepped out. Both were armed. The one with the boar teeth with a rifle of some kind, while the fellow with the scorpion's tail had his hands folded behind his back.
The four gave a brief pause as the debris didn't seem to so much as touch her. A brief bit of focus was all it took to have a clear line of sight. No dust in her eyes. Nothing that'd make her seem weak as the mess ran off her invisible shield of magic like water. Or was it ki? The energy of the spirits? She didn't even know. Riven was no scholar. Riven just knew how to fight.
"We'll be taking those bags, human.", her hairy friend from the Fang camp said. "And you can scamper right back off into the desert."
"Don't feel like it.", she replied gruffly. "Begone, before you get hurt."
"Ooooh, did she just threaten us? Did the itty bity human try to pick a fiiiight?", the pig man squealed obnoxiously, as something clicked from the direction of his gun.
"Shut up.", the hairy Faunus told him, before focusing back on her. "That your last word, human?"
She shrugged and thumbed open a pouch at her belt; one full of sharp, black metal shards, some of them with an odd green glow about them where the runes still lingered on their surfaces.
"Could say a lot of things.", she replied. Like, that Chief Belladonna wouldn't like this, that their deaths would not be quick or painless, or even ask who'd put them up to this ill-advised venture. "Don't much care to."
No further words were needed on her end. The first shard flew straight and true, right into the machine gunner's throat. Given she didn't even need to move her hand to move her blade anymore, a mere nudge of her will sent into her blade sufficed, the first thing his comrades saw of it was him slump over and the barrel go high into the sky, while his hulking form fell to his knees, clutching his throat.
This gave her time to dive out of the way of the shotgun blast that followed. Unfortunately, her llama was not so lucky and brayed its pain across the sands. Using the hovercraft's bulk as cover, she ran around the back, then pulled with her mind, sending the blade shard she'd took control of back in her direction; and the corpse of the Faunus through the windshield of the vehicle.
Riven ignored the driver's cries of dismay. She had bigger problems when she rounded the bend and ran full tilt into the scorpion Faunus. She took a fist to the gut. He took an elbow to the mask. His tail looped back, only for her to push her leg between his and spin on the other, sending him hurtling away. After coming back to his feet in an impressive somersault, the man cackled gleefully.
"Oh! You'll be SO much fun!"
Well, there always was one lunatic in every army.
Riven sent another few shards his way to keep him occupied, barely registering how he moved with a similar nimbleness to herself, outright pirouetting between them in the air. The shotgunner, meanwhile, could be heard stomping across the craft somewhere above her. Quieter on the sand, and with the noise the others were making to help, she scooted low and hopped on to vehicle behind him.
Time to make a statement.
Her fist connected into the man's back with all the strength it took to wield a blade literally the size of herself. He was out. He'd probably never walk again. But, that was his mistake to make, when engaging the former first blade of Noxus with barely any training to speak of. She took a fraction of a second to register the horrified expression on the driver's face as she pulled her fist out of the hole she'd made right through his comrade's spine, then let her gaze dart around quickly. Where was the scorpion?
Hooting and hollering as he somersaulted on top of the roof of the vehicle, apparently!
Riven had no words to spare. Not even when he tried to bait her with: "So where did the Schnee family hide you away all these years, I wonder?" Frankly, she was too busy dodging that stringer, while blocking several kicks with her arms. "You aren't good ol' Jack's secret lovechild are you?" A theatrical gasp, before the slippery man tried to hop down behind her. A mistake, in her estimate. It gave her time to send a brutal spinning roundhouse his way while he was in the air.
The impossible man dodged it! He just up and twisted his body to avoid the blow like some weird combat acrobat, with only his tail to counterbalance the motion! And that was gone in a split second, too!
She was starting to seethe now.
Had he just touched her outstretched shin? He could have struck. It baffled her as to why he'd do so. Though, he looked equally confused for a moment and started to weave backwards all of a sudden, going purely on the defensive.
"Oh ho ho! Now this IS interesting! The little Schnee-ling doesn't have any aura!", he cackled, while his own ensured his arms would stay whole as he took her blows with sideways blocks that avoided most, but not all, of the force behind them.
"The goddess will be SO pleased when I tell her!", he squealed, then abruptly let his stinger slam into the driver's seat to pin its still screaming occupant to the upholstery.
The man then hopped backwards and took off his mask, raising his hands in a gesture as if to cease the violence. Though with these types, Riven always knew it just meant 'for now' at best.
"Hold! Hold! Time out! Time out!", he bid her, with barely contained bloodlust in his voice. Clearly he'd rather keep on fighting and frankly, so would she. Riven had nothing to say to the man.
"You just killed your comrade. I have nothing to say to you." Her sword, however did. She took a handful of shards from her pouch now, weaving them in the air on gusts of raw magic, a Dust-free storm of metal starting to form in front of her. One the now unmasked man viewed with a genuine happiness, bizarrely enough. It was like he was completely fearless.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! No, really? Him? On my team? Nonono, you have it all wrong. I am here on my goddess' behest. The White Fang just thinks I am a member.", he told her, speaking quickly now. "I would like to extend an invitation to you. Do some research. Talk to some people. Realise the world isn't what it should be. That it could be SO much better with the right people in charge. And then...come to us. We can teach you how to use your gift…"
He licked his lips, then as if dropping the proverbial bomb, said:
"Your magic."
Riven's reaction was prompt and lethal. The metal storm was sent the man's way, leaving him to do his damndest to avoid a cloud of shrapnel that was hot on his tail. Unfortunately, her range was limited, giving her just enough to send him packing, before she had to recall them.
He gave one mocking bow atop a dune, then was gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
Pieces that included a scroll the man had dropped. She picked it up, just in case.
AN: So, that happened. I hope I did Tyrian justice.
In regards to when exactly the fic plays, it is correct to assume this is shortly before volume I. I'm assuming travel across Remnant takes some time, so I'm giving Riven a vague buffer of time to arrive in the thick of it. You can expect maybe 1-2 chapters in Menagerie. I might do a third from a local Faunus perspective for the fallout of all this.