Author's Notes:
-Hello my dear readers. I see we have another Halloween chapter. And one year later, the Mistralian Huntsman Massacre still continues! What are the odds that we'd still be here? Oh, and Happy Halloween everyone! (And Happy Birthday, Ruby!) Hope you enjoy all the candy you want and try not to get too spooked out!
Now, let's get this murder-train going!
Watts smirked as he walked through the streets of Mistral City, looking for his next target.
Alright, Cascade Rhodes is gone. And with VV continuing to advance his music career, he is still irrelevant. Maybe I should take irrelevant targets off the list... Then again, Queen Salem could easily change her mind and ask me to kill them.
He looked at the new list of Mistral city huntsmen and huntresses.
Li, Midori (returned from Search and Rescue mission)
Page, Orion
Rivas, Aoi (still irrelevant until told otherwise)
Shields, Heather (still on multi-week rescue mission)
Silver, Stark (Solo Vytal Festival Tournament Champion, still assigned to village security in Zephyros)
Vaccaro, Farrow
Varga, Viola (see Aoi)
Wan, Shiro (assigned to a search and destroy mission on the outskirts of Argus)
He heard something and turned around, but there was nothing there.
Come on Watts, you don't have time to hallucinate or second-guess yourself. The last two kills may have been easy, but whatever good luck you have right now won't last forever. Now time for the other target- Orion Page.
The scene transitioned to a brick house with a front stone porch. Watts used an unfolded paper clip to pick the lock and entered Mr. Page's house. He soon found his target in the dining room, eating smoked lamb and pepper kabobs over rice. Orion Page had dark skin and hair with hazel eyes. He was wearing a white Greek tunic and had a bow and arrow set over his back. The huntsman tore into his dinner, but as Watts reached for his gun, he looked up and found the intruder standing there.
Mr. Page swallowed his food and Watts fired his gun at him, only for the huntsman to project a red aura shield to protect himself from the bullets. He gave the intruder an indignant frown. "Can't a huntsman enjoy his dinner in peace?!"
Watts chuckled. "Afraid not."
He fired five more shots at him, missing the huntsman's head and hitting the walls, shattering glass and destroying the table, causing holes to form in the wooden piece of furniture.
Twelve shots left.
Orion growled and he fired a few arrows at Watts, most of them missing, except for one arrow that landed on his coat and pinned him to the wall. The huntsman fired three shots at Watt's head, only for him to duck his head down and catch the last arrow that had been fired at him.
The archer was about to fire more arrows, only to realize that he had run out. He cursed something Watts didn't pick up and made a haste to retrieve the arrows he had already fired. Watts pulled out the arrow keeping him pinned, broke it in half with his knee to render it useless and fired a shot at Mr. Page.
He saw it coming and swiftly ducked under it. Having retrieved all his arrows, he jumped back to give himself some distance from the gunman. He ran to the living room and began firing seven arrows at the Atlesian scientist, only for him to dodge them all. Watts fired a bullet at him, only for it to miss and hit a glass picture above his head. The glass went flying and thanks to aura, didn't injure the huntsman, but it did slow him down and nipped at his defenses.
Eleven.
Watts fired two more bullets, one at a china cabinet and the other at a framed picture of an unknown woman on the wall. Glass went flying everywhere and blew him forward into the line of fire. Watts fired again, trying to get his head, but Orion ducked down and tripped up Watts by encircling his legs and twisting them. As the scientist went down, he kept a firm grip on his weapon. Orion jumped up and fired at Watts, only for him to roll out of the line of fire multiple times. He got to one knee and found his head was spinning after dodging so many arrows, he found himself getting dizzy.
Dang it. And only eight bullets left. You need to be more careful!
The scientist's head spun as he tried to reorient himself. The huntsman, out of arrows again and seeing an opportunity to finish the intruder, charged towards him. Watts concentrated and aimed towards his head. Ultimately, he ended up shooting the huntsman in the neck, but it still did the job. Orion Page, now dead, fell to the ground.
"Close enough." Watts stated. "Seven bullets left."
Soon after, he crossed Orion Page off the list.
The scene transitioned to him fighting a huntress with forest green hair, grassy green eyes and fair skin. The huntress wore a jumpsuit matching her hair and fired her shotgun at the Altesian scientist. He dodged every shot and shot back at her.
Six bullets left. Watts thought.
After being shot in stomach from the bullet he just fired, Li was shot in the head. She fell to the ground and Watts crossed Li Midori off the list.
Make that five. Compared to Orion, that was way too easy.
Watts was shown in the bar, looking at an old list and a new list.
Alright, Aoi Rivas has been confirmed to be killed by Salem in Argus. Even if she was considered irrelevant...
Watts looked at the newly revised list.
Shields, Heather (still on multi-week rescue mission)
Silver, Stark (Solo Vytal Festival Tournament Champion, still assigned to village security in Zephyros)
Vaccaro, Farrow
Varga, Viola (irrelevant due to musical tour)
Wan, Shiro (assigned to a search and destroy mission on the outskirts of Argus)
The scientist pondered to himself. Five targets who primarily live in Mistral left. Four if you don't count Viola Varga, aka VV the musician who left the city for his musical tour. So really there's four targets left. I need to make sure all four of these targets are eliminated or otherwise out of Mistral City. Shiro Wan is most likely to die due to the circumstances surrounding Argus. Heather Shields is absent, but Lady Salem has yet to determine where she was assigned to. Stark Silver is still doing village security in Zephyros, which is located to the far south of Mistral, right on the border between Mistral proper and Anima. I'll need to restock on bullets. Once that is done, it looks like my next target is... Farrow Vaccaro.
Later that evening, as the sky began to darken, Sienna was shown in the forest, tears falling down her face. She dried her tears and not a moment too soon, a knife was thrown at her. She ducked down as the knife landed in the bark of tree. She turned and found the woman who threw the knife.
The huntress had tanned skin and orange eyes. Her ginger hair was short and spiked upwards like a flame in the wind. She was wearing a red and orange dress with a v-neck and skirt with the hem cut to resemble a roaring fire. She wore a necklace of pearls and a pearl pinky ring on her left hand.
Sienna groaned, "Aw crap. Who's this joker?"
"The name's Mae Levine." she answered. "Look upon this face, bitch, for it will be the last one you ever see!"
Sienna simply scowled as Mae threw her several knives, one after another, in her direction. They pierced the tree from earlier and Sienna avoided them easily. The tigress glared at her opponent as she threw another knife at her. Taking the chain whip that was wrapped around her right wrist, she unfurled it and swung it at the huntress. Mae ducked her head back, and kept it craned down as she dodged each swing. She saw the whip going right towards her and quickly fell to the ground trying to dodge it.
Mae dashed up and backwards, dodging the whip again. She got out two knives and threw them both at her, and while the tigress was distracted by dodging those knives, the huntress quickly retrieved the knives she threw earlier, and started throwing three of them at a time. Sienna swung her whip upwards and blocked her weapons by knocking them back in her direction. Mae managed to dodge two of knives deflected back, but one of them got her in the arm.
The huntress bit her tongue and removed the knife, thankful for her aura, and looked up to see Sienna punching her in the face. Knocked back into a tree, she grabbed another knife, threw the knife she pulled out of her arm towards the tigress and ran forth in rage. Mae attempted to stab Sienna in the skull, only for the tigress to grab her right wrist and pin her to the tree. She jabbed Mae in the gut and knocked her back first into another tree.
Mae felt her head spin as she saw Sienna come towards her again. The tigress aimed her whip towards her neck, only to wrap around her right arm. Mae reached for a knife with her left hand but Sienna quickly used her Cerberus Whip to toss her upside down into a tree. Her aura broke in a flash of orange and Sienna's semblance soon activated.
Sienna glowed with red energy as Mae's aura continually broke. She gasped in horror and froze in fear. In her panic, the tigress wrapped her chain whip around Mae's neck and began suffocating her. The huntress soon lost all the air in her lungs and fell down. As she released her grip on the now-dead huntress, the tiger-eared faunus screamed to the sky.
Unbeknownst to her, Salem was watching the entire duel unfold in a crystal ball. She smirked as Sienna continued to break down.
Mae Levine from Shion has fallen. Excellent. She's also taken out Nova Carrillo and Venus Hale from Kunchinashi and Wind Path respectively. There's not many huntsmen and huntresses left now. Sienna's played her part exceedingly well.
"Are all humans the same?!" Sienna angrily asked the empty air. "Do they always assume all faunus are guilty?!"
There was a fire in her eyes and she lashed out her anger by ripping off a tree branch with her whip, bringing it down.
"Hey you! Stop right there!" a male voice exclaimed.
Sienna turned to find two huntsmen, Dee and Dudley standing there. She roared in rage and the two shook in their boots.
"Oh crud." Dee muttered.
Meanwhile, Tyrian had finally arrived at Omega. It was sunset and the scorpion faunus used the shadows of the day to hide himself and blend in, avoiding the crowd as much as he could. He made his way to the ticket vendor.
"Hello, can I help you?"
"I'm looking for this girl." He showed a printed photograph of Ruby Rose. "Have you seen her?"
Realizing his predatory nature, he took to a defense. "What do you want with her?"
"Answer the question!"
"I... I don't know!" he hesitantly answered.
"It seems you're not understanding what I want." Tyrian glared at the ticket vendor. "Where is she?!"
"Well, um, if you're looking for her, I'm afraid there's bad news..." He laughed nervously. Tyrian was not amused. "Ruby and team JNPR left on the ship to Aslolis a few days ago."
His unamused look turned to anger. "What?! This can't be!"
"I'm afraid so. She took Matt Skye's place on the ship, becoming honorary first mate so that Ms. Skye could be treated for their illness, the ship could take off on time, and her friends buy the last room aboard."
Tyrian glared at him and threatened his with his armblade creeping towards his neck. "You're lying. Ruby wouldn't have the guts to do something like that."
"I'm telling the truth, I swear! Please don't kill me!"
The Scorpion sighed. "Well, killing the messenger isn't going to do me any good." He glared at the vendor. "Do you know where the first mate is?"
"No, and even if I did, why would I tell you?!"
Tyrian, patience running thin, grabbed him by the collar. "When's the next ship to Aslolis?!"
"It's... it's not coming back for another three to four months!"
"Four months?!" He groaned loudly. "Curses... This is a major setback." He sighed and released his grip. "Alright, you survive. For now..."
Tyrian laughed madly as he walked away and the ticket vendor fainted from shock. He walked along the pier silently, alone with his thoughts.
Oh boy, decision time... I could wait for the ship and pay for a ticket, but it would cost 500 Lien and over three months waiting time, which is not very optimal. Not to mention that the journey from Omega to Aslolis would take two months and by the time the ship came back, Ruby and her friends would already be far north of Anima. Hmm... I could buy a ship, hire a crew to take me to Aslolis, but it would cost a lot of money. Money that I don't have. Maybe I could rob a bank to get that money, but thievery isn't my specialty and if I get caught, it's over. There's also the matter of the first mate. I could manipulate and/or coerce her/them into working for me.
He sat down underneath a cherry tree and started making a list of his options.
Option 1- Wait and pay for a ticket to Aslolis (Not optimal)
Option 2- Acquire money to pay for a ship and crew (Could rob a bank, or... murder a rich person)
Option 3- Blackmail and coerce people to help you sail to Aslolis and/or steal a ship
Now how much would option two cost? He looked at the sky, which was beginning to show faint hints of dark blue. It's getting late. I should probably check in for the night and start crunching some numbers.
The scene transitioned to him in a cheap motel room doing calculations at a desk with pen, paper and a calculator.
The journey from here to Aslolis would take roughly two months, assuming nothing goes wrong. Oh boy, number crunching... if I've done these calculations correctly... The total cost should be...
He looked at the numbers written down and starting punching them in.
900 for a two month food supply (for yourself and up to four other people) and water should already be covered via varying systems. Add 7,043 Lien for each worker, assuming a maximum of four workers hired, that's 28,172 added to the 900 Lien. Add in about 50,000 for a cheap fishing ship with an overhead enclosed cabin aboard the ship, and altogether that would be... 79,072 Lien, or roughly 80,000 Lien. And that's the bare minimum. It could easily be more expensive. I currently have...
He emptied out his wallet.
"1,030 Lien. Nowhere near enough to even reach the bare minimum. Unless I can find someone extravagantly wealthy, I may as well forget about option two." He groaned. "I can't believe they got away! Curse that red-haired warrior!"
"Hey, keep it down! Some of us are trying to sleep!" a man complained from an adjacent room.
It seems these walls are very thin. Tyrian mentally noted. Looks like I must keep my thoughts to myself, lest I risk having someone overhear me and report me to the authorities. Okay then... Option 1 is out, and so is option 2. Option three... Now this will be fun! First things first, I need to steal a ship and claim it as my own. Once that's done, I'll assemble my crew.
Tyrian left his room, gently shut the door, and made his way from the upstairs open hallway to the ground.
Back in Mistral, Sienna was fighting against Dee and Dudley. The former swung his club at her, only for her to backflip and easily dodge his attack. Dudley then attempted to fire his rifle at her, only for the bullet to be dodged and blast through a tree trunk into another tree.
Sienna used her whip to take the gun out of his hands and fired it back at its owner.
"Aw come on!" Dudley complained.
He dodged the first few shots, but the last one got him in the shoulder, breaking his aura. As the yellow light disappeared, he groaned in pain.
Dee looked at his friend in horror. "Dudley!" He turned back to the tigress. "You're gonna pay for that!"
The huntsman charged towards her, and Sienna evaded his advance with no effort. She pressed the gun against his windpipe, kicked him into a tree and she fired, killing him instantly.
With a bloodlust in her eyes, she turned to the injured Dudley, who looked horrified. He was weaponless and too terrified to say anything. Rifle in her hands, Sienna fired at Dudley's head, finishing him off.
Salem watched the scene from afar in her crystal ball, a faint smile on her lips.
"Dee and Dudley. I didn't have these guys on the list because of their incompetence, but she's done me a favor by getting rid of them."
The camera focused on Sienna as she threw the gun to the ground and breathed in and out a few times. She looked at the corpses of the huntsmen she had just killed.
Everyone is after me. I've lost my mind. Am I in the process of losing it? Or did I already lose it? I'm losing my grip on the Fang, and more importantly, my sanity. She sighed. All because of these dark powers and Salem... She thought to the image that appeared in her visions. If magic is real, and I have a small fragment of magic, is there a way to control it? She looked at the drawing of the symbol and felt a faint surge of hope. Maybe there is.
The crystal ball lost its signal on Sienna and blacked out. "Hmm... Looks like she's disappeared from my negative emotion radar. On the other hand, I must speak with Cinder. Something happened, and she hasn't told me about it."
She left the meeting room to retrieve Cinder.
Back in the forest, Sienna sat down and meditated, continuing to breathe.
Alright. I know I've been cursed with these dark powers. Likely a side effect of being put into a coma by the dark witch. She felt a pulsing energy through her, most of it in her head. I don't know how this is really even possible, but I just might be able to use them. She thought of her target- Athena Bruna. She slowly visualized every detail of Athena's appearance- her owl wings, her necklace, her short grey hair, the smirk on her face...
Show me where Athena Bruna is.
A vision occurred to her in real time; Athena was shown flying into the air, overlooking the city as night had completely fallen. She flew down in a spiral circles, and happily flew back up as if she didn't have a care in the world. She twirled herself around, the flap of her wings getting louder as she ascended. She flew over the rooftop of a tall building that resembled a hotel. She smiled contently, as if she didn't have a care in the world.
"You know you're being quite reckless." a voice spoke to her.
She looked down to see a woman with pale skin and blue scales over her body. She had an hourglass figure, perhaps even good enough to be a model. Her black wavy hair tumbled to her waist and covering her eyes was an owl-feathered mask with curvy blue lines meant to resemble waves. She wore a dark blue skirt long enough to cover her feet and a black calm-shell top exposing her midriff. Around her neck was a nautilus shell necklace held on a black chord.
Sienna vaguely recalled the girl's name; Aoi Morris.
"It's nighttime." Athena reminded her. "No one is going to see me. If I was reckless, I'd be flying around thoughtlessly in broad daylight." She looked closer at her subordinate. "I'm guessing you're here for another reason."
"I have found the files you asked for." Aoi told her. She got out a portfolio of papers. "It took a lot of digging around and slitting a few throats to get the files but I got them."
Aoi handed the owl-winged faunus the portfolio. She opened it and examined the contents, smiling upon seeing them.
The camera shifted to Athena's perspective. Sienna looked over the names, some of them she didn't recognize. There was also information about each person listed.
Isabelle Bluebell-
Sex: Female
Address: Mistral City, 6768 10th Street
Notes: Worked as a judge for ten years, recently appointed to Mistral Council two weeks ago, strongly hates the White Fang, also presided over the Maura vs Mistral case
Brianna Braith-
Sex: Female
Address: Mistral City, 970 9th Street
Notes: Council member for four years, strongly hates the White Fang
Kin Li-
Sex: Male
Address: Mistral City, 977 9th Street
Notes: Council member for three years, close friends with business members of Grand Industries, took up the role of CEO of said company after the death of Merle Nikos
Leonardo Lionheart-
Sex: Male
Address: Mistral City, Haven Academy- 310 Green Hill Road, Suite 190
Notes: Headmaster of Haven Academy, Council member for fifteen years, also a lion-tailed faunus
Aya Swaran-
Sex: Female
Address: Mistral City, 2009 Niagara Road
Notes: Council member for twenty years
Athena smiled and praised her subordinate. "Real done, Aoi."
"Thank you, my lady." Aoi bowed in reverence. "In addition, I have heard rumors that Mrs. Braith is going to Zephyros in a number of weeks for the city's upcoming flower festival."
"Hmm. How interesting." She spoke. "You've done very well. Now go get some rest. I must speak with Cola and Gilford to see who's best suited for the next part."
The blue scaled faunus looked at her mistress curiously. "And what is the next part?"
Athena chuckled. "You'll see..."
The owl-winged faunus walked away without further explanation, leaving Aoi hanging. Once she was far away enough, she simply smirked.
Everything's coming together. Athena thought. No authority, Mistralian or White Fang, will stop me!
The vision ended and Sienna quickly realized... "She's in Wind Path."
Sienna stood up, a fire beginning to rage inside her and she ran away from the scene. As she ran through the forest, she thought to herself, I don't know what Athena is planning to do to them, but I have to stop her before it's too late! Whatever she's planning can't be good!