Chapter 11: Educated Horses

"Your angst might not kill you, but the cringe certainly will."

— 21 —

"She's not okay, you know," Ruby said.

Jaune tracked her down behind the main campus, near the little school farm Beacon maintained as part of the curriculum for teachers like Professor Peach. The animals and plants here were an eclectic mix. Some from Vale, others needing special greenhouses and barns to represent Solitas or the Vacuan outback. Huntsmen could range for days anywhere in the world; it was important to know how to forage anywhere you went.

But Ruby just liked to come here sometimes to feed the chickens. Two of them were a breed from the southern Mistrali islands with black meat and bones. A lot of students liked to spend time with the animals after missions. They were encouraged to. Ruby was fairly sure the therapy angle was half of the real reason they were here.

"I do," Jaune said, looking more serious than usual. The chicken clucking by his boots seemed to irritate him, which you could only really tell by the way he was very consciously ignoring them.

She smiled sadly at him and tossed some feed onto the grass for the chickens. "Don't make that face with me. You look silly."

Jaune pulled at the corners of his lips. "Thish better?"

Ruby snorted. "Nah, now you're overdoing it. Mood's dead. You're supposed to tell me everything's fine and play dumb."

He made a rolling gesture with one hand. "Awful hard to play dumb when it's about your friends like this."

Ruby sat on a bench, watching the birds. "I know," she sighed. "I think a lot of people don't do good inside. Most of the smiles back at Signal Academy were real. Too many smiles I see here—especially the older students—just feel fake."

Jaune sat beside her. "They're not smiles, mija. They're rows of human bones growing from a jaw."

She peered up at him curiously. "So, what are we gonna do about Coco? I think she's one of those people who deflect when you start poking at things that bother her. Her sunglasses are just one layer of defense. Trying to go out partying on some information field trip is total bogus and no one is fooled."

"We could pretend we're fooled."

Ruby scowled. "No."

"I mean, if we just went all reality TV intervention on her, pretty sure she'd shut down hard," he said. "I mean more like, don't press it directly. Poke at the edges. Water against a rock, y'know? Whatever's eating her up, she has to say it herself. Has to want to say it."

"I think she does," Ruby said. "She just doesn't know how to say it. She knows how to fight better than almost anyone, keep on her feet, and fake a smile, but I think the one thing she doesn't know how to do is say it."

"We saw some pretty screwed up shit down beneath that city, in the darkness," he said.

"Yeah. But it's not just her. You saw it too. You're still functioning." She paused. "Well, you're still limping along. I don't think you've ever functioned right. You just sort of stumble from disaster to disaster, but you don't fall down. You're too dumb to know when to quit."

"I choose to believe that's a compliment."

She smiled. "It's not! Your therapist must be a very rich man."

"It's a woman, actually," Jaune said, looking away. He compressed a breath. "We'll bring it out tonight. Don't be aggressive, but… she's gotta know we won't think less of her. She's our friend. And she's being stupid. Should probably try to get her to open up to her team about it. I don't reckon she is. Rather, she's hanging with us losers."

"Speak for yourself. My team is top of the class. Where's Team BASS on the ratings?"

"Above CRDL," he said evasively.

Ruby looked at her feet, watching the chickens cluck up curiously at her. "Y'know these aren't real chickens, right?" she said after a long pause. "Well, no, they're real, but they're not the kind people eat. These ones can walk around. They know what the sun is. Real meat birds don't have that. They're raised in huge coops without sunlight, bred so that they're too fat and meat-y to even be able to walk."

He simply regarded her, not saying anything. Letting her air her thoughts.

"Hormones are a myth. Those have always been illegal in food," she went on, picking up one of the hens. It clucked thoughtfully in her lap. "The chickens they serve to us don't get to go outside. Gravity itself is enough to crush their little legs if they try to walk more than a few steps. Sometimes when people go into the barns to check on them, they're so scared they try to run and their hearts literally explode because of how they're bred, raised, and fed. Their organs can't support what we've created when they're all stressed out."

She held the bird up to Jaune. "But you wouldn't know that when it's frozen in the store. A uniform product long since dead. Perfectly sized slabs of meat you eat on the cheap. You don't really know how much it suffered to get there. You don't know it was never a functional creature. All we see is the deep-fried end-product, because that's all people want, and we think that's fine."

Jaune just stared. He didn't move.

"Sometimes," she said, letting the chicken go, "I think that's us. You, me, Coco, all of our friends. That's Huntsmen."

"Do you regret becoming one?" he asked softly.

Ruby tucked some of her bangs away from her eyes, smiling sadly. "No. Not once. Not ever. Meat used to be a luxury only the rich could ever afford. Industrial farming meant everyone could have some. What kind of world would we live in if only the strong and powerful could afford and raise Hunters?"

"The chicken still dies in either case."

She cast her eyes towards the birds as they strutted around the yard. "The least we can give them in the meantime is a good life with friends, don't you think?"

Jaune sucked on his lips. He let out a breath and reached for a pocket, pulling out a cigarette. "Sometimes, I like to think I preferred it when you and I was enemies; you didn't get all philosophical on me."

She grabbed his tattooed left arm before he could touch cigarette to ignition patch. There were so many inky symbols she didn't understand drawn into his flesh. For a moment he looked like he might fight her. She stared up at him, holding his wrist. Jaune put the smoke back.

"I've been cutting back. Spare me the one," he sighed.

"They're bad for you!" she said with a heavy frown.

"It's just the flesh."

"Flesh I care for! Just because we're trying to figure out how to help Coco doesn't mean I give up on my other pet projects."

Jaune gave her a sidelong smile. "I've graduated from househusband to pet, now?"

"Don't make this weird, Jaune."

"Too late!" he said.

Ruby pushed him away. "Jaune, get out of here. Go get your nice jacket and help me handle Coco, okay?"

"So long as you help me likewise."

"Deal."

He left somewhat reluctantly. Which left her alone with the animals, who'd lost all interest in her after she'd run out of feed. She pulled out her scroll and watched footage from Montluçon, Teams CVFY and BASS fighting through the streets, high explosives, and the Valean military. Looking especially at Coco and her expressions in them. She didn't mask them well without her sunglasses.

It's why she'd bought her another pair as a gift.

Ruby sighed.

Time to get ready.

— 22 —

There's a certain out of bodyness you can only feel when doing the perfectly mundane. Alternate universe with superpowers? You'll manage. Team leader of monster-hunters? Par for the course. Stuck as a composite chimera of souls with an eldritch, mind-flaying horror tagging along for the ride inside you? Whatever.

Sitting shotgun in a car down the highway going towards Vale to go clubbing?

The fuck sort of insane situation led me here?

I felt like I should be saying more. Have some witty comments. Get into some sort of spat with our driver, Coco, or the bouncy Ruby in the backseat. But I felt like some weird third wheel. Like I was here, yeah, but I didn't really belong. This was Coco's show. I was here because Ruby and I were conspiring against her.

It was Coco's car, which she apparently had. Stored in the garage at the base of campus, down the elevators from the airship docks. Right next to that gas station or whatever I used to go to for drinks and smokes. Yang's motorcycle was parked there too, as Ruby was very keen to point out.

I let out a long breath. My blood pressure felt high, and I couldn't really settle it down or explain why it was. All I really could do was press my face to the window, ignoring the girls, and marvel at the neon lights that dominated Vale as we drove into the city along highways I wasn't sure had a concept of "speed limits" or "use your fucking blinker, Coco!"

Coco elbowed me. Her outfit was showing enough skin I was afraid she'd slip out of it if she moved around too quickly. "Quit it."

"Yeah, stop!" Ruby echoed.

I compressed a noise in my throat. "No. I'm busy doing that noir thing where I just think really dramatic thoughts."

"Thinkin' of girls in the club, then?" Coco asked. "Going for the brooding Huntsman look? I'm sure someone will fall for it."

"That only works in frontier bars or places in Catchfire," Ruby said. "That's what my uncle tells me. He'd know."

"It's not exactly far from Catchfire, this place," Coco said conversationally. "It's the fun part of town. And looks like Jaune already had his angle of attack planned out."

I ran a hand through my hair. "No, it's more like…"

My eyes went to the city around us. A sea of bright colors that turned islands of night into a 1980's Miami night. I'd imagined Vale would be more green, but the neon preferred bright purple that cut sharply through the light pollution to add its own caustic din to the mix. So many advertisements I doubted I could buy half of them if I had all the money in the world.

None of it was exactly new to me. I'd seen forms of it in some way or other, most of them from the distance atop Beacon; the constant lights of the city. I'd even looked up some details. Studied some maps while I was bored on shift in the CCTS tower with the soldiers. But it was a different experience in person.

An airship with a moving sign for the hottest album from some pop star. Billboards advertising restaurants and bars. Propaganda from the government reminding people to follow orders given by soldiers on the street. Signs showing expected travel times to various parts of the city, with exit and bypass lanes organized in a system I couldn't parse. There was even a two-story hologram of a heavily-armored woman, circled by text giving information on Beacon itself.

Many are called, few will answer. Beacon Academy. Ex Tenebris Lux.

It was pure disco.

"I don't think I've really been out on Vale since coming here," I eventually said. "Went out one night with my team. Nearly got arrested for it. But that was near… Eishundo street, if I recall rightly. It wasn't so noisy, visually I mean."

Coco gave me a thin smile. "How long have you been in Vale now?"

"Four-ish months, half a year?" I said. "It's fuzzy."

"He lived in Patch before," Ruby supplied. "There isn't much of a nightlife in Patch. Except maybe down by the docks in Five Wives whenever sailors show up, but, ew, sailors."

Coco reached out and slapped me on the back. "Oh then are you in for a treat. All the best places in town, I know 'em. We're going to the best place to hang out on a long weekend. Maybe we'll stop by some places open late-night for food after, y'know, if you don't have some company." She poked my shoulder playfully.

All I could do was give her a strange look. "I'm our DD and I don't drink. My full time job tonight is field research for the dance, followed by ensuring neither of you two walk away with STDs. Last thing I want is to have to explain to Qrow Branwen how his niece got enthusiastic double-gonorrhea."

Ruby snorted, but she looked vaguely uncomfortable. "No way, that's not a real thing, right?"

"Ask your uncle," I said. "Just trust me, Ruby, you do not want 'enthusiastic double-gonorrhea'."

"He's screwing with you, kid," Coco said, looking into the rearview mirror. "But I'll look out for you in case anyone starts creepin' on you."

"I think anyone who gets too interested in a girl her age would automatically be considered a creep," I said.

Ruby frowned. "Probably. But I'm a married woman, so it's okay. I'm just here for the dancing."

Coco shot me a funny look. "Are you saying I accidentally got third-wheeled into your date-night?"

I kept watching the lightshow out of the window. "Ignore everything Ruby says. She is a font of lies and tax evasion."

"Taxation is theft!" Ruby hissed. "They'll never take away my earnings!"

"What earnings?" I asked.

"Huntsman jobs!" she said, sticking her nose into the air. "My team actually got a payday for helping the General out. Y'know, before he was run out of town and we ended up on the brink of war and everyone online blamed me and my team somehow."

Despite her attempt at enthusiasm, something about the comment made us all look around at each other. Something was vaguely uncomfortable in it.

"Well," Coco tried, "use that Huntsman pay to buy me a drink. Only fair since I'm driving you and this is my mission. Me and Jaune's, of course."

She pulled off an exit ramp. The light pollution wasn't any better here below the raised highway. Eventually she found a lone spot beside a sidewalk and used her scroll to register her parking location with some kind of electronic parking meter system like the kind they have all across DC back home.

All three of us got out and stretched our legs. I found myself thunderstruck.

Picture a grid map of a city, blown up to some large size and projected on a wall. If you know what to look for, you can determine a lot about the city. Which streets were designed organically and which were planned by committee. Large swaths of green punctuating a concrete gray nightmare indicating the more ritzy areas. Perhaps you can determine where the traffic's going to be heaviest. Maybe even signs of old damage or some natural disaster and newer construction materials to replace it.

You can boot up Google and do this anywhere. But even if you zoom in really closely, use a street view and look at all the buildings, all of the pinned locations, read the Yelp reviews for the local YMCA you pass, it doesn't really let you know it is like being there. It's all an intellectual exercise at best. Masturbation for the urban planner inside each and every one of us at best.

I heard maybe half a dozen languages from people walking the streets, most of them dressed in ways which matched myself and Coco. I could smell street food, some of it fried, some of it with spices I couldn't place but reminded me of cardamom and cinnamon, and the occasional colognes and perfumes of people passing by. So close to the highway above, with so many cars on the streets below, it occurred to me that the smell of combustion Dust exhaust didn't smell anything at all like gas fumes. It was like a more bitter version of the smell that comes out of the back of a washer-dryer combo that's running a little on the fritz.

Coco wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into taking a photo with her. Ruby dove into frame, making the peace sign.

"You look like a lost lamb, Jaune," Coco laughed.

I was still reeling. Trying to process some of the languages passing by. A couple of the signs and names by buildings and vendors had Kanji-looking subtitles besides their logos. One place had what looked like Cyrillic, but I could read Russian, and this looked somehow too sloppy to properly parse.

"There's a lot of people here," I said dumbly.

"That's the best part!" Ruby said. "I want to see how many of them get super impressed because I'm a Huntress. My goal tonight is to sign at least one autograph!"

"Maybe someone will ask you to sign their boobs," I said, following Coco as she tried to lead us.

"Ooh, I've never signed boobs before," Ruby said. "I tried practicing once in the mirror. But my reflection kept moving and also Dad yelled at me for using permanent marker on the mirror so I stopped doing that. I'm basically completely out of practice but I know I'll be a pro!"

Coco waved a hand, walking backwards to face us. "See, some of them might recognize me. I go here sometimes. Ruby, maybe. Jaune here is the only one who looks the part. You're actually armed."

Without thinking, I put my hand at my hip, feeling the holstered revolver tucked there under the jacket. "I'm not nearly as stupid enough to presume anything will go without a hitch," I said stiffly, "and my student Hunter license lets me open carry anywhere in Vale. It's a simple precaution."

Coco poked my nose and laughed before spinning back around. "You're lucky I'm going to get too drunk to be embarrassed by that."

"Yeah," I said, trailing off, looking back around me at the everything.

There was a certain sameness in urban life. Spend enough time in the concrete jungle and you'll pick up on it. Tucson, Washington, Minneapolis, New York, Tampa. The places I'd been all had a certain cadence. Flaunt and vaunt, buy and sell. Just the things people do when you put enough of us together in one place. Vale wasn't an exception in that way.

It was more a fact that there was more of it, gaudy and dolled up like a woman in her forties trying to look cool with the hip young crowd at some trendy bar. This deep into Vale, the sky no longer had a color beyond artificial lighting. I was reminded of a trip to New York, the shops and alleys filled with questionably legal vendors who all shut their doors the moment a cop walked onto the scene.

Holographic advertisements projected from ancient storefronts arrested my attention every few steps as I tried to work out what they were even selling. Other shops had boombox-like setups enticing people in with promises of cheap food or discount high fashion. A trio of uniformed soldiers were standing around an outdoor noodle bar, rifles slung over their shoulders as they fumbled with chopsticks. Cars kept pulling in and out of the curbsides, including one of those pricey air-taxis that landed to dispense a man. Occasionally heated air or even steam would pipe up from one of the street vents that aired out the metro lines beneath our feet.

There was almost every kind of ethnic makeup I could fathom, and a couple of human specimens with features I couldn't easily map to any group on Earth. Faunus of nearly every color and animal limb, too, though they were more rare than the human stock. I saw a man in a porcelain mask painted black haggling with a woman selling garments made of feathers. Once, I even thought I saw a girl who looked like Simone staring at me, but I lost her in the crowd Coco was navigating us through.

I nearly had to shield my eyes from the light as we rounded a corner. Spotlights and neon signs in front of the building. Junior's, the sign read, at least that was what I'm pretty sure it read after I blinked the blotches from my vision. Somehow I both was and wasn't surprised.

I expected there to be some sort of line. Clubs never really needed lines, but they created the illusion of scarcity, the fear of missing out, and made them look more appealing. This place had a bouncer, yes, but no sign of a line. I had to wonder if the place was empty, even on a Saturday night. But as I watched, people just came into the building without a hassle.

Maybe it was just a cultural thing here.

"Miss Coco," the big man out front said with a nod, peering to the side at Ruby and me. "Hunters, too?"

She pulled her shades down to wink. "You know it. They're cool."

The man gave me another once-over. He looked like he was going to say something gruff and tough about not causing trouble, but then decided he had better things to do. "If you see one of the twins, one of them owes me a drink."

"Miltia or Melanie?" Coco said without missing a beat.

He shrugged. "Do I look like I can tell them apart?"

Coco waved, walking past. "I'll send at least one of 'em your way as a favor."

The doors were automatic, opening with a smooth slide into a wide entrance hall before an even wider interior. If you ignored the loud music, the obnoxious lights, the press of bodies by the dance floor or the numerous bars, and the scent of cigarettes, you'd almost think this was some mid-century American Mall someone had redecorated for a rave.

I just stood there, not really sure what to do, where to go. It felt like just shadowing Coco like a lost puppy wouldn't be the done thing. There were the bars, but I didn't drink. Dance floor?

What the hell were you supposed to do in a place like this when you were the designated driver back home?

It was the complete mundanity that threw me off and I knew it. How exactly did I picture this going in my head in a way conducive to helping Coco through whatever she was refusing to talk and think about?

Ruby elbowed me. "I think I've been here before. I think my sister almost got arrested because she started a bar fight," she whispered conspiratorially. "If anyone asks, I don't know Yang. My name is, uh, Tanzanite. Tanzanite Sundew."

I blinked. "What?"

She shrugged simply. "Tanzanite is an obscure gem. Sundew is a carnivorous flower with a lovely name. It's a code name. Gem flower. Actually, no, Poundradite Morning Glory. Because it sounds more lewd and party-y."

"Since when have you been a geologist, coming up on me with all these obscure rocks?"

"I went through a phase in combat school where I was thinking up really cool names for a daughter and I thought I'd continue my own theme."

"That's stupid; you're stupid," I said, needing to get increasingly louder to be heard over the music.

She tugged on her cape, scoffing. "Okay, Mr Yellow Mathematical Expression of Trajectory. Why don't you go on about how you have such a cool name and I don't."

Coco came up from behind and gave us both a shove forwards. "Both of you, stop it. I'm going over there to see if I can't get some idiot to buy me a drink. Let's meet over there in twenty. Gives me an excuse to ditch the first loser to get me something. Dip your feet in!"

"Me, dip? Pfft!" Ruby swatted her hand. "I slam dunk! Nothin' but net! Twenty minutes or bust!"

She immediately turned into a cloud of pedals and zoomed off to the dance floor, creating a visible wave of startled dancers centered in her appearance.

"Was… that a metaphor for getting laid, or something dumber?" Coco asked, exchanging a look with me. She snapped a photo of the sudden disarray with her scroll.

I touched my finger to my nose. "Not it. Not explaining to Yang how Ruby got pregnant."

Coco snapped a shot of me and quickly typed some caption on the picture before posting or sending it somewhere. "Too late. Yang follows me. You're to blame for anything that goes wrong as our sober friend."

"Wait, now hold on!"

She winked before spinning on her heels and going to one of the bars.

And I was alone. Destitute for company save myself until the twenty minute timer came up. I made for poor self-entertainment.

I stuck my mind into neutral and floated.

It was the best state of mind for going from one radical experience to another.

In terms of death or your knockoff Malaysian equivalent, if you're unfortunate enough to come back, your state of mind is pretty much the only thing that carries through. Speaking from personal experience, at least. I'd been in a bored, blasé sort of mindset the first time it happened. It made the transition smooth as butter, free from nagging doubts, existential dread, or the associated panic with having a new face.

The second time, I came through screaming. It's why I came so close to cutting off my current face. The last time—which I'm giving the same category, although some psychologist out there probably begs to differ—was that reality marble where the universe was all wrong. I'd come through drowning in liquid Grimm and came to sputtering and panicking on lungs that were as if I'd never picked up smoking. A complete continuity of hindbrain subconscious thought and emotion from one face to the other seamlessly.

This felt like that. The transition from warrior Huntsman to jackass kid who didn't know how to party or really have a good time sober anymore.

I stopped thinking. I burned Aura as lightly as it would go for the comfort. I picked a direction that just looked interesting; started walking. And found myself at another one of the manifold watering holes around the club. It felt like what someone normal would do. As long as I didn't second guess myself, it'd do.

Being a nondescript human being was easier when you weren't obsessing over how to look normal.

But I suddenly found myself wishing Blake was here. She wouldn't have run off. We could have been clueless idiots together. Not the first time I wondered about that night overlooking a burning city together.

I pushed those reveries to the side. Unproductive. Unhelpful.

A man with a headscarf and eyepatch got up from a seat at one of the bars. Despite looking about as uncomfortable as I felt, he still held out his hand to help up a faunus girl with a large, bushy tail.

"Thanks, Haroun," she said with a giggle.

"I can't take you anywhere, Marianne," he said with a friendly sigh.

"Hey, hey—this was my idea," she said, holding up a finger. "Only minor regrets so far! Wanna add dancing to that list of things we wish we didn't do tonight?"

He turned, still leading the girl, and nearly bumped into me. There was a moment where he stopped, his one eye widening as he looked directly at me. He glanced at my tattoos as if to confirm something, mouth tightening.

"This spot free?" I asked evenly, gesturing to where he'd been.

The man—Haroun—took a second before making himself relax. "Sure."

His girl tugged on his sleeve, and the rest of his tension faded to something a lot more exhausted. She pulled him away and they left.

I took his countertop chair and chose not to think about them. I was more bothered by the fact that the barman told me Shirley Temples weren't a thing here, which was about the only virgin mixed drink I knew outside of my morning combo of black coffee and creatine powder. I ended up with a water.

"A smidge early to be smashed enough to need water, brother," he said, pouring me a glass with a sympathetic look.

I made a non-committal noise. He let me be.

I watched the people around me. There was a girl with a plunging neckline enjoying a cigarette and drink down the line. From the smell of other brands in the air, I was reminded of a bar in Knoxville I'd been to once. A woman there had taught me how to hand-roll my own cigarettes. She'd known my father, somehow, and so was very friendly with me.

In the other direction, two men I instantly pegged as off-duty soldiers from their haircuts, sports watches, and what looked like Corcoran jump boots. One was faunus, laughing at his human counterpart for striking out with a girl. At a nearby table a trio of girls looking my age were trying to take a group photo.

Occasionally I could still see the commotion Ruby was causing on the dance floor. It didn't look like she was really dancing, so much as zipping around the place. Startling people and showering roses around the floor.

I took a pull of water and produced a cigarette. Rolling it in my fingers, I contemplated just lighting up to pass the time.

"Spare a light?" a girl asked, equal parts polite but somehow demanding.

She was standing at the edge of my personal bubble. Green eyes ringed with an artistic amount of red eyeshadow. Eurasian features. If I had any doubts she was someone important in a way, her strapless dress that looked like she'd sewn the words of some newspaper in it removed those. She was familiar, but it took me a moment to realize why.

It'd been a very long time since any half-remembered out-of-universe knowledge had come to me. It made my skin crawl. She was one of those, uh, Malachites? Malachite sisters. One of the twins the bouncer mentioned.

I flipped my pack around, offering her the ignition patch and said nothing.

She didn't move. "Man of few words?"

"Less I say, less odds you'll realize I'm stupid," I said. "Oldest trick in the book."

The ghost of a smile. She took one of my smokes and struck it against the patch. Instead of sitting, she leaned on the bar counter, looking out to the trouble Ruby was causing. With a light drag, she said, "If you're trying not to stand out, you're not doing the best job."

I watched the cloud of smoke drift lazily into the air, joining the exhaust of a dozen other mouths above. "You make me sound like a threat, Malachite."

Something changed in her eyes. She was reappraising me. "Three Huntsmen enter my club and I take notice."

"It that obvious?"

"You came in with Coco Adel and a girl who turned into roses," she said with a shrug. "Now you're silent, alone, and drinking water. You don't blend in very well. If you're here to cause problems for my boss, I'd consider it a favor if you said so now. Saves me the trouble of pretending to flirt to get it out of you."

Dimly, it occurred to me that something only found in internet urban legends was happening to me. A girl mistaking social awkwardness at a public event for being cool and aloof. If it wasn't happening here, I'd say it was just pure online cope.

I made a so-so gesture. "I'm just the designated driver."

"That so?"

"Hand to God," I said.

"Which one?"

"The left," I said, raising it.

That actually got a chuckle out of her.

"I take my responsibilities seriously," I said, then thought better of it. "Well, most of them. You always single out Huntsmen who come into this place?"

Almost absentmindedly, she rubbed her cheek. "We see enough of them from time to time. Most of them think they're hot stuff. I've learned to single out the ones who look like trouble."

"Well, I idn't."

She arched an eyebrow. "You're carrying a firearm."

"It's a therapy gun," I said evasively. "Helps with my anxiety."

"Most people just smoke for that," she said with a tiny smile, ashing her deathstick on a bartop ashtray.

"I have layers of emotional defense."

"Starting with a firearm?"

"Chambered in .500 magnum," I said agreeably. "Recommended by nine-out-of-ten doctors to treat night terrors."

"Hmm," she hummed, adjusting the little bow that acted as her belt. "And the tenth doctor?"

"David Tennant," I said without thinking.

She made a face. Paused to consider something. Then shook her head. "I'm Miltia," she said at length. "Not Militia. Miltia with only two Is."

Funny. I used to know a woman named Militia a lifetime and maybe half a year ago.

"Used to spelling that out for people?"

"It's more that people can't tell me and my sister Melanie apart, Jaune Arc."

I sat up just a little bit. "Am I supposed to be shocked or surprised you know my name?"

She frowned. "I was hoping."

"Did Coco give it to you?" I asked, gesturing vaguely to wherever Coco was.

Miltia took another drag. "Like I said, it pays to keep an eye on Huntsmen. They're a rare but persistent problem in this part of town. When three students who've already made the news walk in, I have to ensure there'll be no issue tonight."

"It's like I'm getting the VIP bouncer experience," I said, water in hand. "Speaking of, the guy at the door said you owed him a drink. You should do that."

"Eager to be rid of me, Jaune?"

"Like I said, the longer I jaw off, the higher the odds of you realizing I'm harmlessly stupid," I said. "We're getting dangerously close to that inevitability."

"Harmlessly stupid," she said dubiously but still brooding in a club, "yet accompanied by people like Coco, with a tattoo sleeve and more battle scars than I can count, all alone not long after cutting his way through a horde of Grimm bigger than—"

"Oh baby, work the shaft."

She blinked. "What?"

I shrugged a hand. "Oh, is that not what we're doing? It's just common courtesy to do a little dirty talk when someone is sucking my dick."

Miltia snorted, which was not the reaction I expected. "You've got balls, I'll give you that. You're making it hard for me to be intimidating just to make sure you're good."

I took a moment to think, mostly summoning the willpower to bite back the cringiest counter-flirts that kept springing to mind like a leaky faucet. It didn't work. "Don't be embarrassed. I make things hard for a lot of guys. They're not my type, but I appreciate the gesture all the same."

She laughed around her cigarette. A laugh I could grow to like. "Well, we have that in common, Jaune."

"Please," I said. "I dress like a stripper because it makes me feel pretty. What's your excuse?"

"I spent my formative years in a stuffy academy for girls," she said with a shrug. "Years later, I'm still in my rebellious phase."

"I think a rebellion lasting that long classifies as a revolution," I pointed out.

Miltia sighed, looking out over the club. "Yes, it certainly was revolting."

"And now you're hired muscle," I said, shrugging.

"If you've got it, flaunt it," she said, her eyes reading the quote from the King James Bible on my arm, which somehow embarrassed me. "I can take one look at you and know you feel the same way."

"I thought we said we weren't pretending to flirt with each other for info."

She ashed her cigarette. "I did, didn't I?"

Miltia eyed me for a little too long, and I suddenly felt like I didn't want to be here. It was hard not to think of Blake. A city burning behind us as I was powerless to stop her working up the nerve to kiss me. All of the regretful thoughts I'd had about that moment and everything that led to it and the fallout. The past felt like a pit thresher. The past gave me Miltia's surname of Malachite, and was how I knew who owned this club. My fingertips itched.

Stick it in neutral, Jaune.

For a moment, I considered disengaging. Abandoning conversation in favor of just waiting for Coco and Ruby. On the other hand, Miltia was almost a stranger. There weren't the implied long-term stakes of interacting with her like I'd subtly feel with Blake or Weiss, where my best behavior was important, and fucking up could have consequences lasting years. This was just talking to somebody for its own sake.

No matter how badly this went, it wasn't like it'd stick and haunt me, right?

I stood up slowly and gestured two fingers at her. She blinked and leaned forwards. I took the smoke from her lips and finished it in one long drag, sighing out the smoke. After so long without it, the nicotine felt like ecstasy. Smushing in in the ashtray, I tried not to think. Lose myself in the moment. Use this for the school dance research, which was Coco's excuse for being here.

I held my hand out to Miltia wordlessly.

She just gave me a look like she expected something more, and I wondered how badly I had miscalculated this. I felt something tight in my lungs that wasn't the smoke.

"I'm on the clock," she said.

"Same. Clock conmigo that-a-way. My friend is out there using her Semblance and causing a ruckus."

"Just your friend?"

"You saying you don't want to ruin the fun for Yang Xiao-Long's sister?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed sharply, posturing stiffening. A dozen questions bubbled through her eyes. Instead of asking them, she sucked on her lips and took my hand. "You make a compelling case."

"It's a bad habit of mine," I said.

"So long as you're not bad at dancing, I can excuse a habit or two."

"I can dance long enough to be your cover to get close to Ruby."

"Leaving me so soon?" she said with a faux-pout.

"I'm only tolerable in limited doses," I said, winking. "This is for your benefit."

She sighed, shaking her head and giving my hand a squeeze. "Just make it memorable."

— 23 —

Ruby just sort of melted in her chair like a depressed, boneless blob. "I don't dance that bad."

I leaned against the wall beside her, closer to the entrance of the club, away from the dance floor. Occasionally I caught glimpses of Miltia's dress through the crowds. I told myself our long journey to Ruby was practicing for the school dance. For Blake, after a fashion. Confusing as that was.

"Did you have a partner?" I asked.

"Everyone kept running away from me!" she said, flopping her hands. "It's not my fault."

"It was less dancing, more repeated threats of bodily harm. I think you made that one deaf guy who only knows sign language cry in fear."

"It's avant-garde dancing!" she whined. Before scowling up at me, still flopping over at a weird angle that made her look like a petulant puppy. "They didn't have to call security on me. And you didn't have to help her, traitor."

"I was afraid for your life," I said simply. "I'm not sure you can handle prison, which is where you were going to end up."

She sat up sharply, pointing a finger towards me. "I know all about prison. My Dad was in one as part of a mission once. The first rule is find the biggest, strongest guy, look him dead in the eyes so he knows you're serious and a hardcore threat, then offer to give him sexual favors on the regular if he keeps you safe. Works every time."

I blinked. "You know, I did get that kind of vibe from your dad. But whose dick are you gonna suck in a women's prison?"

Ruby pounded a fist into her palm. "Drat. I didn't think that far ahead. Never mind, Jaune—I'm not cut out for jail."

"Technically prison and jail are two non-interchangeable entities, differentiated by the amount of maximum time you could stay there."

She gave me this just incredibly dull look. "Wow. Way to suck out all of the humor from a conversation. I'm actually impressed."

I sighed. "Yeah, well, dealing with Coco when she gets back here any moment isn't exactly going to be a funny thing. You just ran off on me instead of, I don't know, helping me stick with Coco."

Ruby winced, eyes going to one of the upper floors of the club you could see from here. "I… didn't want to make it obvious. You didn't object either so I thought, I don't know, it would be the thing to do. Let her get a drink and relax and then…" She spread her hands. "You're better at this talking to people stuff than me."

"Am I?"

"You convinced one of the very dangerous bouncer ladies to dance with you." She grabbed at the lip of the chair between her legs, idly kicking her feet. "You do a lot of talking."

I watched more people stream into the club from the neon hell outside. Taking stock of fashion choices, wondering how much was the chic of the day and how much was just personal quirkiness. Coco would probably know the answer.

"I don't think with my head. I do my best thinking from the gut," I said. "When I think things through, I tend to fuck up. Things don't go to plan. Planning is essential, but plans are useless once rubber meets the road. I'd rather go in with a feeling of what should be done and then just improvise."

She let out a breath. "And what are you feeling like we should do now?"

I didn't look at her for the longest moment. Just stood there, tapping my foot to the music. "Reckon we might could—"

Ruby quickly waved no hand. "No. Jaune, no. You're doing that thing where your accent gets way worse because you're uncomfortable. Next you'll be using your weird made up words."

"No cap?"

"I don't like to wear hats," she said, frowning.

"Coco does," I said. "She hides the scars under her hair, to quote an old song."

"And what are those scars?"

I paused again, remembering face-stealing Grimm, the White Fang, and the taste of Sun Wukong's severed fingers in my mouth. I shivered. "The scars are remembering."

"What do they remember?"

My expression soured. "It's not what, it's that you do. To remember is to bear the scars." I closed my eyes, picturing getting drunk before church, the face of a blonde with gray eyes, naked disgust in Blake's face aimed at me. I would have shuddered if the press of human bodies didn't make this building almost balmy.

"Sometimes it's not really memory," I said. "Sometimes it's something deeper. An experience so vivid that to recall it is to relive it. It's a feeling that's almost tactile."

"You…" She trailed off. "You have experience. Like how I feel when I remember my dad crying on Mom's birthday the first year after she was gone."

I tugged at my collar. "This is an awfully crowded place to be getting so deep into our feelings."

"You really think any of them are going to hear us over the music? Pay attention to us over all their hormones?"

I scoffed. "Didn't you just go through puberty, like, yesterday? What do you know about hormones, mija?"

She tucked a loose bang back. "I'm glad you asked! Let me tell you about the chemicals they put in the water."

I shook my hands at her. "No, no—please do literally anything but that."

Ruby pouted. "You asked!"

As fun and mind-rotting as every conversation with Ruby went, I still had that nagging feeling that it wasn't doing anything. I frowned, looking off into the distance. Ruby made a high pitched noise for my attention, a bit like a suddenly neglected puppy.

"I think Coco is late," I explained.

She checked her scroll. "Maybe? I don't know what time we got here. I was just kind of, y'know." She made a vague gesture that somehow managed to communicate her complete inability to dance.

I shook my head and snapped my fingers. She made a face at me, but jumped to her feet. Neither she nor I knew exactly where Coco had gone, just her direction after we split up. We supposed that would have to be enough.

Of course, the bar over there didn't have her. The bartender at this counter, a girl, just shrugged when we asked after a girl in a beret. Those around the bar were too sloshed or just hadn't seen her.

I rubbed my mouth, trying to think. Harder than one might imagine with this awful din. I looked at one of the stairs leading to a higher floor and thought maybe she wanted a view.

"What's this genre?" I asked, thumbing over my shoulder.

Ruby had put her hood up for some reason. "What, the music?"

"No, literary. What kind of book are we in?" I asked dryly.

She scowled in thought as she climbed the stairs. "A comedy of errors. For you, at least. I'm in an epic fantasy with magic and princes and probably a warlock somewhere. Gotta have a warlock."

I thought back to that cave beneath Montluçon where me and Coco's team had been melting alive. Magic. Sorcery. Shit was all real, and no one had still really processed it. Because realistically, what did you do with this information? Weiss and I talked about it and how we felt numb to it. What about Coco and her team?

I grunted. "We talkin' warlocks as in a male witch, or someone in general who made a pact with a demon?"

She rubbed her chin. "What if the warlock had a pact with a god and is its only follower, but he's super creepy and clingy, and unironically says uwu, but he's the god's only follower and so the god can't just kill him? I feel like that's kind of warlock I'd fight."

"Dude's made a waifu of his own god?"

"The waifus are restless," she said, shrugging over-the-top.

For a moment I wondered how she knew that term. But then, no, of course, I'd explained it to her a long time ago. As much as this world affected me, I was ruining it right back. Just look at the slang Blake had picked up from me.

There was something cathartic in it.

And for some reason, I tasted the ash from the smoke I shared with Miltia all the harsher. My fists balled.

Only to release as I saw Miltia standing not far away, leaning on the railing overlooking the main floor. Ruby made another face and followed me up to her.

"You seen Coco?"

Miltia turned to me, her eyes a lot harsher. Until it occurred to me she was wearing an entirely different outdoor. Strapless too, but white, with some animal's fur around her neck like an oversized pearl necklace. This wasn't Miltia. Ruby just pulled harder on her hood.

Scowling, she made a harrumph noise. "Do I know you?"

"If you got me an answer, you won't have to, no," I said. "You were watching us."

"Was I?" she asked evenly.

I held her gaze until, after what felt like forever, she dropped hers first. I got the sense she was composing herself, trying not to be frustrated.

"You don't get to make demands here, Mr. Arc," she said.

"Ah," I said, "my mistake, we're already acquainted. Where's Coco Adel gone? I'm here to ensure she doesn't cause problems."

She glanced to the side. In the distance, I could make out Miltia prowling the floor below us, although with the flashes lights she was little more than an occasionally distinct blur. Her expression compressed. She pointed in a direction and watched us with eyes like a copper-fire as we left her.

Melanie Malachite had gestured towards what I was surprised to find was a casino. The bottom floor was drinks and dancing. You drank to loosen up and get lucky. Up here, you drank to make bad choices on purpose. Some of the tables had games I think I recognized. Others were card games I couldn't place.

At least that was half of it. The other half of the floor were game machines. Arcade cabinets and their 1980s ilk, from games about shooting Grimm, to motorcycle racers with mock bikes, to skee ball. It was like a casino mixed with a Dave & Buster's, and I could honestly see people getting lost for hours in this place. The only vice this place was missing was prostitution and it'd be a den of everything. I didn't think casinos and arcades went together, but what did I know?

"She and her sister are mean," Ruby said beside me, eyeing the arcade machines.

"You fight giant monsters for a living. Why are well-dressed rude ladies where you draw the line?"

Ruby made a choking noise. "Grimm don't silently judge you, Jaune. They just try to kill you. Do you have any idea how much easier that is to deal with?"

After exploring the upstairs casino, trying not to pay attention to candidly-clad girls bringing drinks to tables, the suited thugs trying to pretend they were hot shit, or the random people cheering at a Dance Dance Revolution competition, we found Coco. Her beret was nearly falling off her head as she sat at a more classy bar, engaging in conversation and laughing with a man of all people. She touched his arm. He looked over twice her age, wearing a suit. He put money on the table and the barman exchanged it for another drink, which Coco took.

"Coco," I said with a whistle.

She spun around in her chair. "Oh, Jaune!" she said. "There you were. I wandered up here for better drinks. What's up?"

The man behind her blinked. "Friends of yours?"

Coco held up a finger to him. "No, go away. I'm bored of you now."

"Excuse me?"

She laughed. "He's more interesting than you, sorry. Shoo."

The man looked stunned. Before downing his shot glass and giving me a truly savage look. He tried to stare me down, looking like he was psyching himself up to make a scene.

I sighed, more at Coco than him. I dug into my Aura by the barest threads, the comforting warmth of the soul that always brought me. Not enough to do anything but affect my eyes. "No," I told him simply.

He paused, eyes wide at the glow of Aura, then quickly excused himself. Some incredibly juvenile part of me got a rush from scaring off another man from anything. The rest of me just felt more tired than anything. Like I really didn't want to be here.

Coco laughed. "Wow, way to bust out the big guns, Jaune."

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Like I said, they mix drinks better up here. And you can find more suckers to buy 'em for you. Guys up here are used to blowing huge amounts of money anyway."

I looked after the man as he just sort of skulked in the background. "Seemed like you were having fun."

"Him, nah," she said, waving a hand. She took a sip of her drink. "Super boring. I was about to kill myself rather than hear another of his jokes. Seriously, who says stuff like that and thinks they're actually funny?"

"That hurts vicariously," I said with a wince.

She blew air through her lips. "Please. It's a natural talent every girl has. Ruby!"

"Hmm?" Ruby asked, finally pulling her hood down now that there were no Malachites in sight.

"Pretend to be interested," Coco said, gesturing with her drink. "I'll let you have some of this whatever if you do. Jaune, ask her a question!"

"Oooh, I love being negatively influenced!" Ruby said, eyes practically sparkling.

"Coco," I said with a sigh, "I'm not—"

Ruby elbows me. "Don't ruin this for me!"

I rubbed my cheek, feeling the scar my father gave me. Some of the pressure in my shoulder sloughed off into nothing. I couldn't find the effort to fight this. "So, uh, Ruby?"

"Mm-hm!" she hummed eagerly.

"So one of my favorite books—one I think about an unhealthy amount due to how real and personal it feels to my life now—is about a science fiction world where people can be brought back from the dead and everyone's bodies are just, like, sleeves for their consciousness."

Her eyes were just so big. "You mean, like, people just don't die and live forever? That's so cool!"

I glanced nervously at Coco, who was just grinning. "I mean, people can die for real. It's just, killing the body doesn't do it. There's this part where the bad guys torture the hero in a virtual reality space, where in that world he's a woman, because it gives them more creative ways to brutally destroy him, and then bring him back, and do it again."

"Whoa, that sounds so brutal," she said, with that same girlish eagerness. "You've gotta have a really strong stomach to read that. How'd he survive?"

"This is getting weird," I said.

Ruby giggled, fluttering her eyelashes. "Weird? Oh, boy—let me show you weird." It was almost sultry.

I swallowed. "Please stop."

She stepped up towards me. "Your consent is meaningless to me, boywife."

I pushed her back. "Coco, call me Scooby 'cause I doo not want to be here anymore. What the hell are you doing?"

Ruby beamed. "Were you fooled?"

"You threatened me!"

She smiled like an angel. Coco laughed and offered her her little martini glass, which Ruby gingerly accepted, only to break out in a coughing fit.

"What is this fruity, girly drink?" Ruby demanded.

Coco nearly doubled over, laughing. "Okay. Wow. I am so glad you're going for the cute and innocent aesthetic and not the evil seductress."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "It's not an aesthetic!"

I just stood there, with no idea what the hell was going on.

Coco fixed her beret, shades already lowered on her face that made me wonder how she was seeing anything at all. "See? Any girl can pull that trick. Boys are dumb. Girls can be dense as hell, but boys are dumb."

My lips tightened. I got that feeling about Coco that Ruby and I had been getting for weeks now. Coco was being Coco, but more. Like she was a caricature of herself. Hot Girl Summer taken to its logical extreme. I wondered if it made her feel like she was in control, and nearly asked her directly until I thought better of it.

Ruby pinched her nose to drink what was left of Coco's martini. She caught my expression and froze. I doubted the slight flush on her cheeks was purely the alcohol.

"Are you okay, Coco?" Ruby asked, sloppily.

Coco leaned back, stretching her body as it to show it off. There was a lot more to look at in that outfit. "Never better. This is some great field research for a school dance. I got a feel for the best music. Ruby knows not to literally do anything she was doing on the dance floor and public. And I think I saw Jaune with a real cutie out there." She winked.

I waved dismissively. "Club security. Nothing more."

She squinted speculatively, jostling her leg to the beat of the music. "Oh, right, because she's a girl, right? And you're just so super straight you wouldn't touch one."

I let out a breath. "That's a stupid joke and I'm not feeling like making it here."

"Huh. What's got you in a mood, Jauney boy?" she asked, adjusting her sunglasses. For a moment she actually looked concerned, and I couldn't tell if she meant or was faking it. She'd just made a point of being able to fake stuff.

"Vibes are off," I said. "I'm sensitive to that kinda thing."

Coco tilted her head, and I felt any semblance of control I had over this conversation somehow fading. "You, sensitive? Maybe to the changing price of protein powder. You just keep on pushing."

"I have friends I can't let down," I said, and for some reason it came out evasively. I made the left-handed gesture asking the goddess Celiphie for forgiveness, something I'd learned from Shamrock, as if it could actually give me some layer of spiritual protection here.

Coco very carefully adjusted her sunglasses up to her eyes, just so that she could pull them down and give me a skeptical look. "Friends like me and Ruby, I take it?"

"You two? Nah." My smile felt hollow. "I've reached the point where your opinions about me don't matter because we just click so well."

Ruby seemed to sense something. "It's true. We're all like toy building blocks that are supposed to build a model starship, but we combined all the wrong parts and now the starship has huge biceps and is wearing a dress."

"I thought you said you were wearing a combat skirt," Coco asked.

Ruby shook her head. "This is a regular skirt. Because we're at a party. You don't wear combat gear to a party unless you're just weird."

"What's the difference?"

"I'll get back to you on that when I come up with a convincing lie."

Coco lazily stood up. "Good idea. You two get back to me on that. I'm going to lie and do whatever somewhere over there to see if I can't get a girl to buy me a drink."

"That's not going to work," I said.

She put a hand on my shoulder, sighing. "Yeah, I know. Sorta the problem with places like this. Girls can be dense. You can be like, 'Wow, your ass looks great, sit on my face' and she'll go, 'Thanks, it's the jeans. Fifty percent off right now at Tommy le Homme'. At least dudes will buy you drinks and hope."

And there it was again. This wasn't the Coco I had met harassing me in the gym because I had punched Cardin. This was the same Coco I had shared spit and nicotine with in a dark cave beneath the earth as she tried to act tough or something and suggested trying to disrobe Weiss. I couldn't shake the image that she was becoming a parody of herself.

"No, I mean, trying to escape from us," I said.

Coco shot me a curious expression. "You're my designated driver on the way back. I couldn't escape from you if I wanted to."

"I know. We have you trapped. All part of our master plan."

Ruby shot me a nervous look.

"Your plan sucks. I want a better plan," Coco said.

"Why you acting so weirdly?" I just asked, unable to keep dancing around it. Going for the jugular and staring her down. "It's like you're wearing Coco Adel as a mask, instead of being yourself."

The pause between us was pregnant. Its womb was nothing but leeches. I held my gaze. Coco didn't see me able to. She looked at Ruby for support, but didn't seem to find it. Instead, she took a step back, slightly wobbling.

"Oookay, Jaune. I'm going to finesse a drink out of someone else. Ruby, c'mon, I'll show you how to do it. Jaune here can just stand here and act super intense until he calms down."

"And leave me with my whole death of a bachelor schtick?" I asked with a single, almost derisive laugh.

"I'm… sure you'll manage?" she said, stepping past me. I didn't move. Not even when she put a hand on my shoulder, only to pull back like some delayed pain reaction. "C'mon, Ruby."

Ruby looked to me as if for permission. I nodded once. With this uncomfortable expression, she followed after Coco. Until I stopped her with a hand.

Leaning in close to her, "We're not doing a good job here. Just try to reach Coco and keep her sane."

Her face said it all. She had no idea how to. Ruby was as confused and out of her depth here as I was. High-minded hopes draining like blood in a sink. Still, she nodded, before needing to practically jog to catch up to Coco.

I just rubbed my eyes and breathed.

Shot and a miss. But then, what did I expect? Ruby and I talked and knew doing it this way likely wouldn't bear fruit. I just didn't know what else to do. Here I was in this club without any progress to show for my work. And I got the sense that if we didn't sort this problem out with Coco, it'd fester like a rotting wound until she split like a ripe melon.

I didn't have enough nicotine for this.