Yep, still alive. Seriously though I did not intent this to take so long, but damn does life got some hands. I've been putting out fires for months, then as soon as I got this 70% completed my laptop crapped out and had to wait a bit to afford a new one. Anyways, enjoy ya'll.
The Vale Council, the most powerful people in the kingdom, a collection of the best sent to represent the people with wisdom and conviction as determined by their peers. At least that had been the idea he'd been going for when he'd set up the idea of democracy Ozpin lamented from his council seat. In reality it was a mess of money, self-interest, and incompetent charismatic individuals, which would have been bad enough even if he didn't have to participate in it's inane games. Ignoring whatever meeting he was currently in at some gods-forsaken early hour, Ozpin did his best to remind himself of the benefits of his chosen system. As bad as it appeared, not to mention the amount of time it demanded from him, it wasn't so bad. No matter what incompetent gripes he saw on the cursed technology known as social media Ozpin knew it was better than anything else he'd set up.
In the past he'd spent many a lifetime holding the title of king, wielding absolute power. It had allowed him the ability to move humanity in lockstep against the grimm and Salem, with society answering his every call to arms and production. At first it been all he knew from his past and he'd deemed it adequate, but as lifetimes pasts his eyes began to open to it's evil and weakness. Get reincarnated as a child in the slums suffering under a cruel duke enough and you start to realize that the men and women who as king he'd appointed had a bad habit of having unchecked power corrupt individuals he's assumed beyond reproach. The hereditary nature had also been problematic, in theory it had him creating a family that understood the evils of Salem and unquestionably ready to support whatever person he reincarnated into. In practice it usually lasted about four generations before the relation was so distant that the current king started to question why the family was listening to some random person claiming to be a reincarnated relative. More than once he'd ended up executed by the crown and had to waste a few decades overthrowing his own wayward dynasty just to install his own blood again.
He'd tried a theology dedicated to installing his incarnations once. Being a religious figure controlling a population of fanatics dedicated to him had seemed sensible at the time. Too bad that almost as soon as he reincarnated about ten other pretenders appeared, he was pretty sure only one was actually on account of Salem. As a wise semi-immortal with centuries of experience of course he'd planned for that issue and had left instructions on how to identify him by his dedication and understanding of his own tenants on the religion. Unfortunately it turned out people had a bad habit of using religion to reinforce their own ambitions and bad behavior with charisma trumping the facts of his religion. Seriously, what part of love thy neighbor was so hard to understand? Apparently, his religion actually advocated for one of the bloodiest civil wars he'd ever seen. Who knew? His ex-wife was still laughing at him to this day over that one.
So, a long history of government systems later, with small tweaks and experiments throughout, Ozpin had landed on this republic/democracy system. While it currently led him to revisit some of his worst failures as humanities guardian rather than engage in a brain rotting discussion with politicians, it was the best he had for the moment. It was messy, corrupt, indecisive, self-serving, and plain stupid at times, but it really did benefit humanity.
In his time Ozpin had two problems when it came to organizing humanity. The first was that terrible, short-sighted, stupid, morally weak, self-serving people were just a fact of the human race, and they had a terrible habit of being drawn to power. Give it enough time and they ruined every civilization he'd made, and he couldn't be everywhere to stamp them out. Democracy, when it was working of course, damped this problem. With the idea that political power was born of the will of the people it put the responsibility and ability to stamp out despots on humanity as a whole, and that really took a load off him. At times he needed to nudge something in the right direction, but it really did limit the amount of times he needed to coup someone.
The second issue was, of course, Salem. Ozpin allowed himself a small chuckle as he realized he'd marked his genocidal, close to all powerful, crazy ex-wife as the secondary issue below politics. Not that she wasn't neck and neck with humanity on destroying civilizations and ending life by the numbers. As good as Ozpin liked to think he'd become at building those civilizations, Salem had become quite proficient at causing them to implode. She preferred her followers as limited in number as they were skillful and vicious, and he was sure she took pleasure in how little she had to exert herself and her grimm in bringing him ruin. Which is why he took his own silent pleasure in how well this society was doing.
In the past he'd made a consistent error in centralizing power. At first he'd favored the power of a humanity that at every level did as he asked with few moving parts to its operation. Now he realized the lack of sophistication and power commanded by few just allowed Salem juicy targets; a powerful bishop corrupted, a just prince assassinated, or a monolithic cultural identity hijacked was usually all it took for Salem to claim victory. Now with a more individualistic population and multiple cultures Salem was hard pressed to build her network in secret to a size that could actually make an impact. With power decentralized even when she corrupted a group its effect was negligible in the grand scheme of things.
With that thought Ozpin took note of the time and began to refocus on the reason he'd actually bother to come to this meeting instead of delegating this meeting to Glynda. Real life saver, that woman.
"That closes our vote on Vale's Mail Service petition to create a limited edition Valelean crest stamp. Four to Three the motions passes." The council speaker declared.
With a bored look Ozpin looked over to a board to see he'd actually voted for the measure. It was rubbish like this that had him toying with the idea of adding a "Don't care" vote option.
Emotionless the speaker moved on to the next order of business."Now for the motion by Councillor Steel to allow huntsmen into the Vale Police Department." The speaker motioned to the aforementioned member. "You have the floor."
This was what Ozpin was forced to be here this morning. He locked his eyes onto the motions architect, Councillor and Vale's mayor, Arthur Steel, with quiet intensity. A slick political operative, running on a subtle anti-faunus, pro-police, Vale first campaign, Steel had been a thorn in his side once he'd been elected a few years ago. Not that Ozpin was particularly concerned, Steel wasn't particularly popular and was projected to lose reelection in a few months. It was just a matter of pulling a few political levers and fending off whatever absurd motions the Mayor pushed.
"Thank you speaker." Steel politely remarked. "Fellow esteemed members of the council, I'm introducing this motion in an attempt to help with the crime wave facing our city as of late. I'm sure we all have seen the headlines of the White Fang raiding our city with impunity and I know our constituents all feel the pain of the increased dust prices that have resulted. To date we have a volunteer program that allows hunters the ability to be included in police dispatch to answer calls as they deem necessary allowing them a small stipend for their gallant service. In addition I would also thank Headmaster Ozpin for his maintenance of a line to Beacon that allows my office and the police to request hunters in the event of emergencies and threats beyond the aura-less. With the establishment of a professional huntsman division. Sadly, this has been unreliable for the threats to eat at our great city, with hunters disincentivized to participate in the program with its negligible compensation. It also leaves our citizens without the best protection our kingdom could provide with poor coordination, staffing, and response times resulting from our current system. With this motion passing we can fix these problems by establishing a division within our virtuous police department that would allow for fully employed, fully instated, huntsman trained officers to better protect our city and give those huntsmen the compensation they deserve."
As Steel made his closing remarks, Ozpin watched a few present nod their heads and express subtle support for the notion. It did sound good, but it was a politician's job to sell terrible ideas with a shiny coating.
For all of Ozpin's praise of democracy it still robbed him of his ability to bring force swiftly when needed, months of debate didn't usually measure up to grimm invasions or Salem's manipulation. That was the genius of the hunters, an individual with the force of a small army apart from a small population pushed to be individualistic to an arguable fault. In the past Ozpin had made laws banning them from being under the command of Vale's police and its very small military. They were a force made specially for Salem, with no real command structure to corrupt and a trained culture of specifically opposing her grimm instead of getting wrapped up in the machinations of man. That was what made the hunters his most useful soldiers. What they lost in organization they made up for with their carefully curated loose dedications to their schools and morals they instilled paired with their ability to seize strategic initiative against Salem without orders.
Some would argue Atlas was an exception, but while the other three nations provided him countless varied tools that needed minimal control and logistics, sometimes one just needed a raw power for problems. The Atlas military was in essence his big stick that made up for the short falls of the hunters disorganization. A powerful tool that required much care on his part; many a life had been spent on it. Thank the gods James was running all that now, between the worst coffee Ozpin had ever been forced to stomach and meetings that made politics seem like high intellect he was happy to be rid of it for a while.
"Thank you, Councillor Steel. We will now hear any dissenting opinions." The Speaker informed.
As all proposals were pre-submitted and a paper outline of the plan with its finer details delivered to all councilors a week ago Ozpin had already reserved the initial dissenting speaking time, so he immediately stood to deliver. "Councilors, I would oppose the mayor's motion on a number of grounds. Firstly the notion of establishing hunters within a police force directly under the control of Mayor steel runs counter to their very ideal. The hunters have always stood as an apolitical organization held to the same judicial standards as any ordinary citizen reflects their statues as ordinary men and women answering the call of duty. To move them into a paramilitary organization that has been periodically plagued by scandal in their implementation of justice could potentially compromise the image of hunters at large. While this administration is surely fair and just." Integrally Ozpin suppressed an eye roll at his own words. "We must consider less scrupulous hands on the levers of society in the future. I shudder at the idea hunters used to suppress protests or potential wasted in acts of bureaucracy that takes bodies from the ever present struggle against the grimm. On the notion that the police are incapable of rooting out crime in the city I would encourage their leadership to have faith in his organization, while crime may seem exacerbated I would point to the historically low crime rate. It seems the annual yearly increase to the police budget wasn't entirely spent on legal battles." It pretty much was; the rest was spent on increased militarism. Crime was down mostly because of the bettering of living standards over the years. "Just this week the police subdued a major anti-faunus group that has plagued the city for years. I oppose the allocation of huntsman resources on a issue that is well within the bounds of the police to handle. Instead of this pricey motion I'd invite the mayor to allow me to form a group of huntsmen that I know to be quite competent in these matters and cross-coordinate with the police. An idea the mayor has declined three times since the White Fang has become active." With the initial barbs at Steel's expense Ozpin proceeded to outline the increased cost of the motion with paying competitive hunter rates full-time. Ideas were all well and good but politicians had a habit of being more motivated by the bottom dollar.
Finishing his dissenting speech Ozpin sat back down for another two councilors, who he knew to be of the same mind on the matter, give their own objections. He didn't really bother to head much more thought on the issue, confident in this matter being handled. Not for his speech, but because he knew how everyone would vote; backroom conversations and all those politics. The truth was that most saw this as a non-issue brought by a major who was doing his best to not be out the door.
So, an unbearable two hours later, filled with many speeches and cost charts the vote finally came down with a two-five victory in his favor. Instead of joy he continued to feel annoyed at wasting his morning on this rubbish. At the very least they could have the decency to be self serving enough to get some decent coffee for these meetings. Exiting the council chambers he choked it all up to just another day of being a timeless kingmaker and got on with his day without another thought on the matter.
"So, what's the plan today?" Jaune asked as he walked into his living room, sliding his new iron into a leather holster on his hip. It was a new day, and he was ready to get to it.
"I don't know." Cardin replied as he sipped his morning coffee.
"Any leads on bounties?"
"Everyone is laying low with all the police raids."
Jaune started to pour his own coffee as he continued talking. "Any clients."
"We are still completely unknown to anyone." Cardin deadpanned as he took another sip.
"Uggghh, still?" Jaune groaned. "Haven't we done a bunch of work that would make our firm look good in the last few."
"Yeaaaaaaah," The other PI sarcastically enunciated. "I don't think our local crime lord is leaving good reviews for us."
"We just wiped out a major gang, that's gotta mean something."
"Don't think the police are advertising that."
"Velvet?" Jaune tried. "Maybe some good word of mouth at Beacon?"
"I don't exactly think broke students capable of leveling buildings are exactly our customer base." Cardin replied as he started to lazily scroll through his phone.
"So, basically the only people willing to give us work right now are just the illegal kind."
"Pretty much." Cardin confirmed nonchalantly.. He didn't like it just as much as Jaune did, but it was just the situation right now. Honestly he was ok with taking a day off, they had enough money from the last job to keep the lights on for a bit. Looking over as Jaune sat down on their small more-than-slightly used couch with his own coffee, Cardin watching him pull his scroll out and start to thumb through his contacts list. "Seriously?" He asked, annoyed.
"What?" Jaune questioned feigning innocence.
"Are you really about to ask Junior if he has worked for us?"
"Uhhh, Dan actually." Jaune admitted, a bit embarrassed at being caught.
"Are you so bored that you're about to ask the devil if he wants to make more deals?" Cardin groaned in frustration. He appreciated that Jaune had been so eager to work, but this was ridiculous. There was motivation and there was burying yourself in work. Most thought Cardin a simple minded guy, and he considered that true to a point, but he wasn't stupid enough to not see what Jaune was doing. His friend hadn't exactly had the best record of success in most things in his life, and now that he had found something he was good at, Jaune seemed hellbent on doing just that. "Why don't you call up that crazy lady of yours?" He suggested. Sure it would probably mean more property damage, but Jaune really needed to relax.
Jaune shrugged. "I think that was kinda a one night kinda thing."
"She seemed interested." And then some, Cardin thought to himself. Seriously, the thing he had heard. He failed to suppress a shudder as unpleasant memories entered his mind.
"I think I'm going to keep that as a one night kinda thing." Jaune explained as he shuddered a bit too. "Honestly, she scares the crap out of me. The only reason we hooked up was because I was drunk and thought she was gonna beat the crap out of me."
"And she was smoking hot." Cardin added.
"Yeah." Jaune admitted with a stupid grin.
At some level Cardin would admit it was kinda an asshole move to encourage his buddy to stick his dick in crazy to get himself some peace. In his defense Jaune really needed to cool it; life wasn't all danger and fighting.
A ring on Jaune's scroll brought his attention back to the screen. Watching his partner read the notification,Cardin had a bad feeling as Jaune broke into a smile.
"Junior wants us at a meeting."
"No."
"What?"
"You need a break." Cardin stated flatly.
Jaune frowned. "We need the work."
"It's just a meeting right?"
"Yeah, says it's some kind of meeting for a job. Nothing crazy, just some open call for some work from a third party. We can just go and check it out." Jaune explained.
For a minute Cardin weighed the idea. It was just a proposal, but he knew the kind of people that proposed offers to crime lords weren't exactly looking to get their fences painted.
"As you said nobody knows who we are. More exposure could really help." Jaune pushed.
Damn, he really wasn't gonna let this go, Cardin realized."Fine." He relented with an annoyed groan.
"Awsome, we'll-"
"But," Cardin interrupted. "Only I'm going."
"Hell, no." Jaune protested.
"You said it yourself, it's just a meeting about a trust me to make the call right?" He questioned with one eyebrow raised.
"Yeah, but-"
"No buts! We'll do the job together if it's on the up."
"Fine." Jaune relented. "But if you think there's gonna be any action, you call me." He demanded.
"Deal.'. Internally, Cardin tried not to dwell on his partner describing life threatening and possibly illegal danger as action. "Seriously though, just take it easy today."
Take it easy. Jaune could do that. He had spent most of his life doing that, he figured. The one time in his life he could even do anything and Cardin was suddenly on his case. A few weeks ago he'd been beating on him for his lack of initiative in Beacon, and now he was trying to ground him from the job. The hell was the guy's problem?
However, back to his point of taking it easy, which he was sure he could do, Juane was infuriatingly drawing a blank. At first the gym seemed like the move, but aching muscles and thoughts of a certain terrifying silent huntress had him rethinking that activity. Just relaxing at the apartment was actually driving him insane though, as he found himself manically tapping his leg in anticipation for literally anything else to do. For a moment he eyed the warrant board app on his scroll. Maybe somebody was out there, a quick call to Hei and he was sure he could get a location.
He almost opened it. At least until his partner's challenge of relaxation was remembered. He wasn't going to give Cardin the satisfaction of being right. As much as he considered him an actual friend now he'd be damned if he had to see his old bully's smug face again.
So here he was, pacing around his apartment, brainstorming some way to relax as hard as any case he'd been on. Totally normal stuff.
A few minutes of his best attempt to burn a hole through his floor later, he still had nothing. Slumping into a chair he moaned in defeat. "Uggh, this shouldn't be so hard." He just wanted to get back to work. The adrenaline, drip fed to him nonstop for weeks, was something he missed. He was a ball of nerves now, coiled and ready to move; ready to strike.
Walking to his small kitchen he opened a cupbert and produced a bottle of whiskey and a red solo cup. It seemed if he was to be confined at least he could take the edge off. Mixing some cheap cola and ice from the fridge with the alcohol he took a sip. Still bored out of his mind he idly produced his new revolver and started to take it apart. While alcohol and firearms usually didn't mix well he did find his mind eased with the task of familiarizing himself with the new device. Considering his only experience with weapons amounted to a sharp piece of metal, the revolver, with pins, a rotating cylinder, and other mechanical parts was alien to him, but with another cup and a few WhyTube videos on his scroll later, he found it to actually be pretty simple to operate and maintain.
"Ruby would probably know all about this." He muttered.
For a second he considered reaching out before shaking his head. That would be a terrible idea. How would that even go? Hey Ruby. What have I been up to? Oh, you know, a bit of being homeless here, some violence here, just a touch crime throughout, you know the usual stuff . Yeah, that'd go over great. Even if that wasn't an issue he wasn't even sure if anyone from that life wanted to see him. It wasn't like he'd made a great impression back then with his lies and general weakness.
A buzzing noise prevented him from thinking about the idea any further. Probably for the best he mussed as he looked at his apartment's intercom. It was the kind that one had to ring to be let into the building, one of the older kind. "Hello?" He asked as he pressed the respond button.
"Arc and Winchester investigations?" A garbled unidentifiable voice questioned.
"Yes."
"I was hoping to hire you."
"Come up." He replied, giddy to hit the unlock button.
Bolting back to his living room/office he grabbed his gun and drink before hastily tossing them both into the sink. He and Cardin had timed how long it took to get from the front door to their office and it didn't leave much to get the place ready. Grasping his couch, he burned some aura to lift it into his room before replacing it with a professional looking desk and chair they keep in the corner. With the living room now resembling at least a semi- professional work environment he rushed into his room. A per-made outfit consisting of his typical PI get up hung up on his closet door. Shedding and donning cloths at break-a–neck speed, he silently thanked himself for his preparedness. It wouldn't exactly net them much business looking like two bachelors living at their place of work. A look at the mirror showed his black tie in place over a white button up with equally professional gray pants.
Nerves racing at the potential of his first office client he felt something was missing. Slowly his eyes crept to his fedora resting on his night stand. Cardin's words of it making him look like a weirdo who used the word m'lady came to mind.
To fedora or not to fedora?
The hat went onto his head. Honestly Cardin didn't know a thing about fashion.
Dilemma settled, he raced to open a window before sliding into his chair. Pulling out a drawer in his desk he produced a pack of smokes and an ash tray. They had debated if smoking in front of a client was ideal, but in the end they had settled on the thinking that the more they looked like grizzled PI's the better. Not that their only idea of what that looked like came from movies and TV was an issue either considered.
Speaking of, he shot back up to grab the bottle of whiskey and gun to place them back on the desk. Finally satisfied, he leaned back into his chair and lowered his hat to obscure his eyes to complete the picture of a hardboiled detective.
"Ok, showtime. Detective stuff, detective stuff, bad lighting, streets of neon, worse life choices." He repeated in an effort to get himself ready for his client. It wasn't enough to just look the part, he needed to act the part.
A knock on the door told him the client had arrived. A mystery client , he thought to himself. Someone who needed a guy like him. The kind of wretched sort willing to get dirty on the mean streets of vale to wrestle the truth from it, for the right price. It was days like this that a man had to ask if it was society's fault or if it was simply men's nature that required his work to exist.
Internally he checked off brooding monologue in his head. Before he could really pat himself on the back for how well this was going, another knock on the door reminded him he actually needed to invite his client in still.
"It's unlocked." He shouted, fighting off the feeling that maybe, in some slight way, he was being silly.
Back to his detectiving he watched his client enter, or he would have if the brim of his hat, still covering his eyes, didn't have him seeing only their feet. No matter, he needed to stay on point. The point being whatever had a dame, or potentially a crossdresser based on the women's footwear, entering his seedy establishment. The kind of dame that might as well had danger written all over her, again based on how every woman ended up being in those kinds of suriations in PI stories.
Head slowly raising to actually get his field of view in a place to see his client and get rid of that mystery part Juane was first greeted by legs. You know, the things usually above feet, but legs that he assumed would be described as going on for miles. Really he always kinda figured that that expression was based on height and not much on attractiveness as it seemed to be they were creamy legs that went on for miles, attached to dame that spelt danger for him. A dame that needed him to brave the filth once again for some len, possibly dirty as sin. Really though those legs were so creamy that he wondered if maybe she could do with some more sun for health reasons.
"Why are you staring at my legs?"
Crap, he'd looked too long. Eyes shooting up to meet his client's face he was disappointed to see it was just Blake. A familiar face with that familiar cocked eyebrow that still held her last question on it. "Uh, sorry detective trick." he mumbled in embarrassment .
"Ummm, ok." She responded in a tone that told him that she didn't really believe that, but wasn't sure enough to push it. Quickly her demeanor shifted to one of disgust. "Are you really smoking in your apartment?"
With a quick flick of his finger the offending object swiftly sailed out his open window "Nope. So what's up Blake?" He unsubtly asked in an attempt to change the conversation. It wasn't like he'd put a lot of effort into this or anything. Would have been great if she had just said who she was and saved him from reorganizing his whole place in a few minutes.
At his question Blake stiffen; her familiar detached cynicism being replaced with demeanor of frustration. "I need some help."
Listening intently he waited a moment more for some explanation before he realized it wasn't coming. "I take it you need me to look into something." He inferred aloud, it wasn't like she would be in his office for help with homework.
"Yeah."
Feel free to explain, he internally eye-rolled, it wasn't like he could read minds. That was Blake though, the biggest closed book to away be nose deep in them. "So?" he probed.
She remained quiet for a moment more, as if she was debating if this wasn't a mistake."I need you to investigate the White Fang."
Jaune sucked in a breath. The Fang, the most violent terrorist group on the planet that routinely squared up on huntsmen and the Atlas military while leaving a trail of corpses behind them, not exactly a group he wanted to tussle with. Sure, he'd gotten into tussles with stuff above his weight class before, but it wasn't like he wanted to end up in a beheading video. Just his luck to bemoan having nothing to do and then have the world snake this on his desk.
Blake must have sensed his hesitancy, as he watched her sour and turn to leave. "Just forget it."
Ah hell naw, he did not rearrange the apartment for just that "Sit." He demanded.
"Excuse me?" She questioned with a deep glare, the one that had most in Beacon quickly looking away and back peddling, himself included.
"You come into my office, give me nothing except a request to look into one of the most dangerous groups on Remnant, and then turn tail as soon as I give you a look at that shit sandwich. As if I'm supposed to jump for joy. So stop being so cagey and sit down." He explained, his frustration at her antics on display.
They engaged in a glaring contest a bit longer. Just around the time that Jaune thought he may have made a mistake, Blake finally relented and took a seat in front of his desk. She continued to glare a bit more before relaxing with a sigh.
"Sorry." She mumbled in a slightly embarrassed manner. "I just don't know if this was a great idea to begin with."
"Yeah I get it," He scoffed. "It's Jaune, Beacons reject. Wouldn't be anyone's first option, but you're here so I'm gonna wager you're on last."
"Exactly." Blake answered flatly.
Ok, ouch. Don't put out what you don't want confirmed, he lamented. Still he was getting a bit sick of all his legit clients not having any faith in him. A bit hypocritical, considering he didn't exactly know if he could actually handle whatever this was, but it still was a bruise on his ego. "Ok, so what is this all about?" He asked, putting his personal issues aside.
"You've heard the news blaming the White Fang for the string of dust robberies?"
"Yeah, I don't think anyone doesn't know that."
"It's not true." She frimley proclaimed. "They say the Fang is working with a human criminal, Roman Torchwick, they would never do that. The Fang is about bettering the lives of faunus, not petty crime."
"Ok." He said, unsure. From how he heard it the Fang wasn't exactly above some crime, even if he could see how it was a bit below them, it wasn't like he couldn't imagine a terrorist group needing material that could be used to power almost anything while acting as ammo and simultaneously a high explosive. The positive slant on them from Blake wasn't lost on him either. The recent discovery of her being a faunus did provide some reason for it, but it didn't feel right to write it off as just shared racial element. Blake was here, out of options, trying to get him to clear the Fangs name. Not something a casual observer would be going out on a limb to do. On the other hand their shared experience with the radicals on the other end of the spectrum had been pretty traumatic."You sure?" he probed.
"I wouldn't be here otherwise." She defended. "It has to be someone else pretending to be the White Fang to throw suspicion or just the media trying to make faunus look bad."
"Alright, what exactly do you want me to do to confirm this?" At the very least it seemed he wouldn't actually be crossing terrorists. Maybe he could go over some media and police reports to find some discrepancies in the robberies. If it really was some local criminals then perhaps identifying the supposed Fang robbers as locals with criminal connections instead of foreign nationals would be an angle to work.
"We need to catch a robbery in the act."
Or that, he internally groaned. Well, he had wanted something to do today, he lamented. Cardin definitely considered him an idiot with little regard for his own well being at his insistence to work more, but it wasn't that. He liked this work, it let him be something besides a failure, but he'd been beaten and shot enough to know this world would leave him dead in a ditch if he bit off more than he could chew. This job looked like it could choke him real quick.
"So I'll need to find out where the next robbery is happening and bag somebody posing as a Fang member?" He questioned.
"It's the best way to get proof that people can't shrug off."
"That's a lot of leg work, not exactly cheap." Even if his rates were pretty low, an investigation on top of a guaranteed fight wasn't something that could be charged cheaply.
"Will you do it?" Blake asked tensely.
Even with good pay it still was a question for him. On the one hand he needed the work, it wouldn't exactly be great for his longevity to be taking majority illegal jobs and bagging low level bounties wasn't gonna pay the bills. On the other side of this a fight with the most prolific criminals in the city, not to mention the potential terrorist angle, wasn't good for his health either. He wasn't stupid enough to not realize he'd been getting by on luck and had barely made it by the skin of his teeth on the last job.
As he mulled over the job in his head he ideally noticed Blake's typically detached demeanor slowly start to fray as the seconds he didn't give an answer ticked on; nervous tapping, a deepening frown, an increasing look of hopelessness in her eyes forming. As he continued eyeing Blake his thoughts moved from his calculations on the viability of this job and started to focus more on analyzing his potential client. A slight odor of the streets permeated from her, the kind he recognized on himself on his first night homeless, her hair was matted as if she hadn't showered in a day or two, and the get up she usually wore was a bit dirtier than a person staying inside would have been. "You come from Beacon today?" He probed.
"None of your business."
Shit, this really was Blake at her last resort. It seemed she had been on the streets looking for her own answers after he'd last seen her. "Your team's probably missing you after two days."
The mention of her team brought a quick glare to her face. "That's none of you're-" It seemed even Blake was getting sick of that line as her face fell into a look of pure exhaustion. "Can we just not talk about it?" She pleaded.
"Yeah, sorry." He apologized. As annoying as the stonewalling was, he'd never seen her so downtrodden before and he could respect wanting to keep crappy memories close to the chest.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm asking you to do something dangerous while not really explaining anything."
"You could say you're being pretty catty about it." He lamely joked. A single raised eyebrow paired with her signature look of mild disgust killed anything else he was gonna say.
After the appropriate amount of time facially scolding Jaune so he knew just how bad that joke was Blake reverted back to the task at hand. A part of her did appreciate the normality of Jaune's dorkiness. Sure she was pretty much screwed and her world was crashing around her but at least something was the same. She definitely wasn't gonna admit it though. "I haven't been back to Beacon since I went there after I left you and Cardin two days ago. I got into a fight with my team once they saw me scraped up. Weiss assumed it was the White Fang and we got into it."
"And you got offended because you used to be in the White Fang." Jaune stated a-matter-of-factly. At his words he saw Blake make a face between "Oh shit" and "WTF" before hastily looking around his office as if someone could be around.
"How did you know?" she frantically asked.
"I didn't, you just told me." Boom! Certified detectives move right there. He definitely had to give himself a internal round of applause for that little feat of detecting. His pride quickly disappeared though, as Blake suddenly looked extremely mad for some reason that wasn't coming to mind. Jaune may have mistook it as something else if it wasn't for her fingers literally digging into his desk.
Thankfully his brain supplied a plausible theory that maybe calling out someone's deepest secret was not a great, Boom, I'm so awesome moment. "Uh, I mean I didn't know, but I guessed it." He quickly backpedaled. "You know, like you're a faunus." Blake's finger dug deeper into his desk. "Not that I'm being racist." Was it just him or was it suddenly getting hot. "Just, ya gotta be a faunus to be in, so...yeah. Also you have been on the streets for two days looking for them. Kinda not something an unrelated person does." Taking a breath from his frantic explanation he noted his words seemed to be working, with Blake looking significantly less pissed. Probably would have been enough for him to shut his mouth. "And you told me you've killed in the past." Ah, shit, he hadn't meant to say that aloud.
At his words Blake looked like she'd been smacked in the face. "Well," She said after sucking in some air and taking a moment to conceal how shaken she was by his revelation. "I did want a detective, can't exactly fault you for being good at your job. At least I didn't admit my past like a complete idiot." She rationalized more to herself than him. With barely restrained hopelessness she stood. "I'll get out of here."
He was confused now."Why?"
"I'm a terrorist."
"Yeah?" Why was she looking at him like he was the idiot here?
"I've…done things. It's not right to ask you to risk yourself to handle my mess."
"Whatever," He dismissed with a hand-wave. "I hang out with Cardin. We both know that guy's done some terrible stuff."
"And I think he's terrible." Black shot back with offense at Jaune's implication that she somehow was cool with Cardin.
"Well, it's my job to fix people's messes," He sat straight in his chair and struck a professional tone. "Please miss, don't insult my professionalism in this matter." For a moment he watched the ghost of a smile appear on Blake's face at his silliness before she managed to murder it with the weight of her situation. A twinge of mirth was felt at that, something about making his cold former classmate had Jaune grinning. Emboldened, he pushed. "Blake, you used to be a terrorist, now you're a kickass huntress in training. You have a lot of guilt about your past, and I don't have to be a detective to know you're doing this to make amends. So, I'm not going to judge you on your past." A rare earnest smile came to Blake's face at his words that had him smiling right back. "Besides I've done a bunch of illegal stuff." Aaaaand the smiles were gone.
"Uuuuh, What?" Blake questioned.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, me and my big mouth. "Nothing." Ah, shit she was hitting him with the look again. "A lot of jaywalking." He supplied, it not being untrue.
"Right." She responded in a tone that told Jaune she actually was between him being the worst liar ever or he stupidly considered jaywalking on the same level of terrorism. He couldn't tell which was worse. "Sooooo, will you help me?" She asked, seemingly content to let his comment go.
"Honestly-" he began before he heard Blake mumble something with an uncharacteristic look of embarrassment. "Excuse me, I didn't catch that."
"I also, ummmm…" Blake didn't meet his eyes as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Don't have any money."
"Oh," That was a problem. He was still on the fence helping her even with the idea of a big pay on the table. Now though? He'd kinda have to be an idiot to do this.
For a moment the quick reply of no was on his tongue. A nagging feeling in his head held it there though. Throughout Blake's time in his office she was the closest to a wreck he'd ever seen her. It unnerved him. If he was being honest, he always looked up to her. Not exactly a rare feeling, considering literally every person in Beacon was better than him in every way. But Blake was, well Blake; the one above everything back at Beacon. While everyone else participated in the usual antics of their age group, she always had seemed older, a kinda detached professionalism. It made sense now, given her past, but it just made her obvious pain and unhealthy determination hard to see. Was helping here dangerous? Hell yeah. But was he cold enough to leave her to the streets in her moment of pain? A part of him that was born on the streets told him he should be. The whole thing was a bad idea. But maybe it was because he looked up to her. Maybe he just couldn't say no to a pretty girl in need. Perhaps he was gonna do this job cause he was holding onto the delusion that he could still be some kind of hero. Wasn't out of the question that she was a dangerous dame with a mysterious past and legs for miles asking him to do a shady job that made this all textbook PI work. Shit, maybe he really was just that bored. Probably a bit of everything if he was being honest with himself.
All that didn't mean it wasn't ridiculously moronic taking a job outside of his league for free. He guessed that made him an idiot, but seeing how that seemed to be a prerequisite of this that worked for him. "I'll help you."
"Seriously?" Blake questioned once again asking if he was a moron with her tone. Didn't take away from her glowing smile that came to her face though. A part of him should have been pissed at her questioning, but screw it, condescending Blake questioning your competency was normal Blake.
"Nice to see someone else thinks this is as unintelligent as I do." He sassed with a mischievous grin.
"Ummm, n-no I just," She backpedaled and sputtered at his teasing. "I just was gonna say I had something to compensate you with." Blake finished with a red face, knowing he was plainly calling out her hypocrisy.
Jaune took a moment to savor the rare flustered look on the cold ex-terrorist's face as it was absolutely adorable. In his head he noted that when Blake wasn't making him feel like a moron or scaring the shit out of him she was rather cute. "Oh, what's that?" He continued in his teasing tone. Really whatever it was she was offering didn't matter, he'd agreed to take the job after all.
"Me."
Suddenly Jaune was very aware that Blake wasn't cute, she was very hot. "What?" He questioned as he internally smacked himself for his thoughts. Seriously, this wasn't some shitty porno.
"Physically." Blake explained.
Wow, that didn't help at all. "What?" he repeated with his voice noticeably cracking and mouth suddenly dry.
"Jaune, You're the worst fighter I've seen."
Mmmmm, nothing like a swift kick in the nads to bring you back to reality. Not that he really understood where this was going. Definitely understood that he sucked though.
"In Beacon." Blake explained as she watched Jaune take the visage of a kicked puppy. "You need help. Not just with the fighting either." Subtlety she hid a wince as Jaune looked like another kick had been delivered. "I just mean I have experience with stuff that you'd find useful with your work due to my background, and I'll help train you to fight."
"Oh." Now Jaune understood what was being proposed, if not also being reminded of Blake's blunt harshness. "That'd actually be awesome." He reasoned. In the past he'd been stupid enough to turn down Phyrra's help because of an immature need to do the impossible by himself; one of many pathetic moments that disgusted him. Thing was, being shot, stabbed, and beaten to a pulp had a way of reminding you that if you didn't want a repeat you took help where you could. "Looks like we are in business."
"Give us your scroll." A burly and gruff faunus man commanded.
"Why?" Cardin questioned.
"You want in the warehouse you give us your phone."
"Great." Cardin complained. The meeting set up by Hei was at some sketchy warehouse on the docks. Judging by the location, Hei being involved, and the guards this was probably something super illegal. Not an automatic fuck this, but it wasn't lookin like a gig he wanted to get involved with. Still, Jaune was gonna be annoying about him not even finding out what was going on. It wasn't like he couldn't sit through the meeting and flip the intel to one of the factions they worked with for something at least. Still he had something else to do. "Im'ma make a call and be back in a sec."
"Whatever. Call your mommy and get on with this."
"Yeah, I'll hurry up and call your mom." He snarked nonchalantly as he walked off.
Now far enough away for privacy he punched in a contact before the call was answered on the second ring. "Hey."
"Yeah I just wanted to call and say thanks for last night."
"I needed it. Talking about my family doesn't exactly come easy."
"Might be working tonight, We can get coffee tomorrow if you want though."
"Gotta be away from my scroll for awhile so I won't be texting for a bit."
"Yeah, tell the guys they suck."
"See you tomorrow, ten work?"
"Great, can't wait."
Finally ending his call with a smile on his face Cardin made his way back to the guard.
"Heh, thought you were just bitchin out." The guard growled.
With a bit of aura Cardin pushed his scroll into the fanus's chest sending him stumbling back. "Yeah, go fuck your face."
Regaining his balance the guard snarled while showing off savage claws. "Why you!"
Cardin grinned as he walked past and entered the warehouse with the guard not making a move. He knew how this kinda shit went; bunch of chest thumping at the end of the day. His time in his family's gang made moments like this just like breathing for him. Not a particularly healthy thing he'd come to realize, but useful at times nonetheless. He was glad he came alone, if Jaune had been in the same position he had no doubt he'd have just thumped the guy. Nothing wrong with ruthlessness here, but it smelt of a newbie with something to prove.
Lighting a smoke in the warehouse he saw it mostly empty except for a bunch of chairs in front of a projector and screen. If he hadn't thought this was some criminal shit before then the mass of a dozen or so rough looking people in the chairs would have tipped him off. A few wore colors of gangs he recognized from his time on the street, some looked green, most looked harder than your typical foot soldier, but the only unifying feature beside hard looks was that everyone was armed with a variety of weapons. Guess whoever was behind this was more worried about someone leaking info than violence from them.
Taking an unoccupied seat he casually puffed on his cig. As the stick of tobacco burned down to half its length someone started the projector and a faunus stepped up to speak. Not that Cardin was really invested in what the guy was talking about. Sure he was getting the pertinent details as it went on. The gist of it was that someone with criminal connections had reached out to every criminal outfit they had on speed dial and asked for their best hitters for a kidnap job. Kinda neat that Hei considered him and Jaune his best, probably needed to tell the guy they weren't into this kinda stuff though. Judging by some varied looks of surprise and glee it seemed that everyone here wasn't clued into the angle of this job. Seemed reasonable that Hei didn't know much about this either.
At first Cardin wondered who rated this kinda heat, they revealed it was only one target by himself, and the amount of pro-killers brought in for this was some serious overkill. Hell he was pretty sure he saw a rogue hunter or two in the crowd. However, as the presentation went on he started to get it. Some badass who smoked whole crews for breakfast apparently; kinda dude who chewed nails and spit napalm, Beacon trained at that. A few gangsters chimed in with stories on top of what the presenter knew. Turned out the guy was putting his feet up with some syndicate that had been on the ropes recently and that was enough to make the turf radioactive for outfits that even Cardin's father refused to tangle with. Nobody knew his business, one day he was bagging random thugs, another he was building an empire out of the turf everyone accepted he was controlling as some kind of shadow mastermind, then he'd torn a long established gang in a day. Cardin had to let out a whistle at him supposedly controlling the entire Vale police department.
"Fuck this." A muscled, heavily scarred, man with a machete exclaimed as he stood up. "I'm gonna live to see tomorrow."
A guard stepped up to him, shotgun aimed at his torso. "Nobody leaves till the job's over. You and any other pussies will stay here till we bag this guy tonight."
Resigned to his fate, the man sat back down.
Well that could be a problem, Cardin thought. He couldn't leave to warn anyone about this without getting into a scuffle, but on the other hand he could just wait this out. Judging by the target he kinda figured someone like that might have been better off dead. Sure they said kidnapping and had stressed not to kill the guy, but that just meant slow death by torture. That was assuming these guys had a shot at actually pulling this off.
As he mulled over his options something at the corner of his vision caught his attention. As the guard with the shotgun lowered his gun his coat opened a bit to reveal a white mask stashed inside. Cardin only got a quick glimpse, but he'd seen White Fang masks before. That, and the fact that every guard and the presenter were faunus, made pretty quick guess work of who was making the call on all this. With that in mind his decision on how to handle this solidly went to fuck this territory. Gangs were one thing, international terrorists that gave the Atlas military a run for their money were squarely out of his league.
Decision made up he settled in and prepared to wait this out and leave after. Seeing as he was stuck here anyway he figured he'd keep listening to the information on their target. Not that much was really being said except increasingly wild boogeyman stories at this point among the criminals.
Bored, he started another cig and thanked his luck Jaune hadn't come. Solid he was, but not exactly one to stay away from stupid situations. Thankfully Juane's most suicidal moment was thus far to save his sorry ass, so he kinda felt like a dick complaining. However he just knew Jaune would make them try to sort this out somehow, probably without any pay going their way. There was doing the right thing and there was stupidity. Well that wasn't fair. He was just bitchin cause Jaune had annoyed him this morning. He was eager, not dumb enough to tangle with the Fang or take a job for free. 100%, Jaune won't do that.
"This guy sounds intense." A woman sitting next to him with a mohawk and absolutely covered in an assortment of knives commented.
Pulled from his thoughts Cardin tried to suppress any theories on the bloody potato peeler adorned on a necklace around the woman's neck. "Probably the most intense dude I've heard of on these streets." He agreed politely.
Seriously, dude sounded like a menace. If this crew didn't have him after this he'd have to warn Jaune about this guy. Like come on, the guy just needed a harem and he'd be a real life ridiculous overpowered self insert in some bad crime story. Definitely didn't want to meet that guy in a dark alley though….
….Wait a minute…. Beacon, police, in a shitty gang turf, broke up a gang recently. Why did that feel familiar to Cardin?
As 2+2 turned into 4 Cardin's face lost all expression."Shit, it's Jaune isn't it. It's gonna be Jaune."
He didn't need to look when the final slide suddenly popped up.
"Beacon's Bastard." The presenter announced. "Alias; Jaune Arc. Your target."
Another reason this took so damn long was i rewrote the scenes with Jaune in them five separate time, not including a near full redo with the crash. Just couldn't seem to get it right, always got to serious or too ridiculous. One draft had Blake and Jaune getting drunk together and another ended in a full on fist fight between the two. I actually have a lot of cut or alternate scenes form this story, (one involved Jaune fighting basically Tony Montna)maybe after this is over i'll post a chapter with them. In rearguards to this chapter the info-dump on Vale politics was a bit different and might seem out of place, but it's important to understand events in the future. On a side note i find it funny imaging Ozpin playing a real life crusader kings game with his early life. As always thanks to all the awesome people that have enjoyed this so far, always appreciate everyone's input and support.