Chapter 5

Vale's underground was interesting compared to other kingdoms. Sure, most people today knew of the triads and clans in Mistral or the Corsairs that were once all around Vacuo's coastline, but few truly knew of the Cosa Nostra that existed in Vale for centuries. Not that they weren't present, but the issue was that they tended to be integrated into regular society well, as in, they did not have any significant ways to distinguish themselves from ordinary people. Only those in the various famiglia knew how to distinguish one another through various means, and all of that resulted in an air of mystery regarding them. Needless to say, the media regarding them tended to be on the more…fantastical side of what was actually true.

Today, however, the era in which they warred against each other on the streets of Vale openly was over, and instead their troubles and disputes truly went underground. The idea was that if they took their disputes underground and didn't disturb the civilian populace, then the council and other authorities may find that going after them was a waste of time. They owned casinos, brothels, legitimate businesses, restaurants and so much more. Chances were that if someone lived in Vale long enough, they were eventually going to go into an establishment owned by a famiglia without realising it. Pizza was popular after all.

Ruby was currently walking toward one such place right now. Hei Xiong was an interesting case, as he was descended from the Black Bear triad in Mistral, but somehow made his way to Vale and took over an existing famiglia. That was all she knew, however, and his past did not interest her whatsoever. A line had already formed right outside the entrance to his nightclub, but that didn't matter to her.

Walking up to the bouncer, she was noticed by him very quickly. Nodding at her, he opened the door for her to enter. "Good to see ya kid, you looking for the twins?"

"Just Junior."

"Alright, he's at the bar, as usual."

Despite the cries of those still in the line, Ruby was allowed in without any hassle. This wasn't the first time she went to Junior's nightclub, and if her family found out she guaranteed that they were going to flip. They meant well, but when she mentioned that she wanted to get a tongue piercing some months back her father gave her a one-hour lecture on the potential 'dangers' that could happen to her. Really, if they didn't want her to get they should have just said so directly.

Walking further into the club, the corridors were empty save for the occasional staff member clearing up for the opening. At this point, she was somewhat of a regular there, usually appearing well before opening time. A few of them even gave casual waves, and Ruby acknowledged it by waving back.

Now in the main area, Junior's muscle and other staff were making final preparations for opening tonight. Despite him being the 'boss', Junior oddly remained manning the bar, she thought that he may have been better suited in the backrooms instead, but apparently, it was 'boring' doing that; according to him anyways. From the club's large bar, Junior paused from wiping down a beer mug when he noticed her.

"Well, if it ain't my most inconsistent smuggler, don't have any work for you if that's what you're here for, not that you'd take it anyways."

"If you actually smuggled things that wouldn't land me in juvenile, then perhaps I may take more of your jobs."

Their relationship actually started before Ruby got her job at Molly's cafe, a poster asking for a courier was on the town board on Patch, then one thing led to another and she found herself unwittingly responsible for smuggling a shipment of counterfeit microwaves into Vale. The smuggler was under the impression that she was actually a smuggling crew, with a whole ship and everything. That latter part was correct, not the former, and so from the entire time from pickup all the way to delivery at one of Junior's warehouses, the original smuggler did not know that his product was actually smuggled by a fifteen-year-old girl in high school.

The odd thing about Kansen was that they could 'shrink' cargo as long as they were packed into maritime shipping containers, which were then stored in their hull's storage areas. Usually that was used for fast resupply during combat situations or by dedicated transport Kansen. She didn't know how it worked, but the entire container was shrunk to the size of her palm and delivered that way. Once in the warehouse, she resized it without anyone noticing. Truly, the skill violated the laws of physics to the extreme, many a physicist were to go insane trying to figure out how Kansen did it back in Ironblood lands.

Not that Ruby complained, the proceeds went nicely towards her secret funds to buy a car or something, she couldn't decide between that or a new reconnaissance plane for her ship. Unlike her various shells and the like, planes did not regenerate over time, and so she was stuck with only one plane, for now, that is.

"Yeah, and that's the least profitable part of smuggling. All the risks, and with the least reward compared to the other stuff. I still don't know how you do it with that weird semblance of yours, but I ain't-"

"I am here to use my favour."

Junior perked up from sorting out various liquors he needed for tonight. "Really?"

"I wouldn't be asking you otherwise."

Junior looked Ruby dead in the eyes, trying to find any falsehood in those silver eyes of hers, he didn't find any.

"Fine, I still owe you for saving my boys at that pier. No promises, but I'll hear you out first-"

"Hey, hey!"

"Coming here without telling us? For shame, Ruby."

Melanie and Miltiades, the Malachite twins worked under Junior. Appearing behind Ruby, she was too engrossed in her conversation with him to notice them sneaking up behind her. A blunder, but thankfully not one that resulted in deadly consequences. Truth be told, she still had trouble telling them apart just based on looks, so she separated them by their personalities. The smarter and smugger one was Melanie, while the more easy-going one was Miltiades. That made it much easier for her to separate than anything else.

"Whatcha talkin' with Junior for?"

"Oh! Come here for another job? What do you even save all that money for anyways? You have more than enough-"

"Girls, please. Ruby here is cashing in her favour."

"Little red finally cashing in her favour?"

"Care to let us in on that secret? Promise we'll keep it a secret!"

Ruby slowly unbound their arms from wrapping around her neck, not that she disliked them, but right now she needed to talk with Junior. Ruby actually got along pretty well with them, where else could you find someone to wander Vale at night with while also able to kick the ass of anyone that may bother them? At times, Ruby felt like they were treating her like a little sister of sorts, probably because of her smaller stature. She was fifteen, not exactly her original height or size yet.

Using her free hand, she held it up and summoned her rigging. When it came to riggings, they were often as varied as the Kansen themselves. Different styles to even function could be seen depending on the Kansen. The 'traditional' kind was usually attached to the Kansen's actual body, these are the ones that are likely on Royal Navy or Eagle Union ships but even they sometimes have 'special' riggings. Ironblood however, tended to have 'autonomous' riggings that were not necessarily attached to their bodies. Case in point, a flash of blue light behind Ruby died down, revealing…

"Hey there, who's a good girl? You, yes, you!"

Miltiades patted the serpent-like rigging that Ruby summoned gleefully. For some reason, she showed no hostility to it, and the action was reciprocated as well. Junior, however, always felt unnerved by the massive metal serpent suddenly appearing before him.

"Goddamn-what did I say about using your semblance in here? Get him out-"

HISSS

As her rigging suddenly turned towards Junior with a low hiss coming from its metal jaws, his words suddenly got stuck in his throat. Melanie quickly rubbed the top part of her rigging's head, calming it down. "See Junior? We told you it was a girl, aren't ya?" It did seem to calm down after that, causing the crime family boss to loosen up his collar before talking again.

"Yeah, uh sorry. Do you mind taking her backstage? A lot of people are gonna get unnerved seeing… "

Ruby got what he meant, and gestured for her rigging to follow the twins.

"Hey wait a minute, you still haven't named her yet!"

"Didn't we tell you to do that already? No wait, we're gonna name her now, no backsies!"

She remembered that some Ironblood Kansen had named their riggings, a certain…Prinz Heinrich if memory serves named hers 'Eisen'. Her rigging didn't seem to mind it, however, as it floated along with them toward the backrooms of the club. Despite it being roughly the length of her nearly three times over, it still managed to avoid hitting anything on its way there.

"No offence, but seeing…it still gives me the creeps. Never heard of someone with a familiar semblance summoning anything that unnerving before though, you're probably a first."

Due to her not being enrolled into the preparatory academy, she had no weapon to call her own, if you didn't count her rigging that was. So, the one time she defended Junior's warehouse was also the time when her rigging was revealed to anyone. A quick, hasty explanation that it was her semblance seemed to cause them to understand and not suspect anything. She didn't even use the guns or energy blasts on her rigging, just simply the raw force and impact of it crashing into other gangsters did the trick. Semblances were as varied as weapons, so having a familiar-type semblance caused some attention on her, but not too much. Not even her own family knew about it, all they knew was that she had Aura, but nothing more.

"My favour?"

"Right, yeah. I'm mainly an information dealer, so if that's the kind of favour you want to trade in then go right ahead, just letting you know."

Ruby nodded. "I do need information. I need everything you have on the Von Rosen Ducal family of Mantle."

Junior raised an eyebrow at her. "Von Rosen, huh? Haven't heard that name in decades. Not sure why you want to find out about them, but just know it's not gonna be easy."

"...why?" She was surprised by his answer, but Ruby didn't show it on her face. The only reason why she came to Junior was because of his ability to find information that no one else could, so when he said that it was not going to be easy, it actually meant next to impossible.

"You're asking me? The better question would be to ask the Atlas Council. I've never seriously tried prodding into it, but the council keeps any information about them and a whole lot of other things under wraps tightly. That, coupled with their never-ending crusade against organized crime in Atlas itself means that finding anything from the council archives is gonna be next to impossible. I have next to no favours or contacts there, believe me, I've tried and I don't like it either."

Just as Ruby opened her mouth to ask a question, Junior gestured for her to stop. "Let me finish, it won't be impossible. You know how Mantle is transitioning to Atlas being its sole authority?"

"I do, they've been doing that for the past few years." Though Atlas was where all the power was now, it was officially still known as the Kingdom of Mantle. Recently however, there were talks of just renaming it entirely to the Kingdom of Atlas, needless to say, that itself caused a riot to break out in Mantle, thus putting that entire plan on hold, for now.

"Yeah, luckily for you the Von Rosen family's residence was in Mantle so I have a chance at finding something about them. I'm willing to bet someone in the local government has a whole file on them, just not transferred into the council archives yet."

"Will it be enough?"

Junior shrugged. "Who knows? Most of my influence is in Vale and Mistral, Atlas became one tough son of a bitch to get any business in ever since Ironwood took over the academy, but I guarantee we'll find something. But before I go any further, humour me a bit. Is this personal?"

She took a deep breath before replying. "What is it to you?"

"Familial?"

Ruby didn't answer, but her silence was taken as an affirmative. "If you are going to say something about personal matters, save your words for someone else."

" 家家有本难念的经。"

'Every family has its own issues.' was what Junior basically said. That caused Ruby to narrow her eyes at him in response.

"You have no right to question it. Will you help me, or not?"

Junior raised his hands up in faux surrender. "Never said I wouldn't, just make sure you don't get too mixed up in it you hear? There's a lot of skeletons in those Atlas council archives, make sure you don't join em' yourself."

"冇问题..." Ruby began walking away after her parting words, headed to the backrooms where her rigging was with the Malachite twins.

I know my family better than anyone.

Junior's advice, she thought, was wasted on someone like her.

"Serpy?"

"Ugh, what? That's so lame, even she agrees!"

Ruby walked into the backrooms of the club only to find her rigging curled up next to the twins. She didn't get a lot of chances to simply have her rigging out like this, so she made sure to savour it with what little time she had. The metal jaws of her rigging lifted slightly upon seeing her approach, causing Melanie to look at Ruby with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"So, we have a couple of names for you to try, wanna hear 'em?"

"Your names all suck."

"Didn't you just-"

Walking up to where they were, Ruby plopped down onto the empty area next to where their couch lay. Despite her rigging being huge by regular people's standards, the couch was even bigger which caused her to wonder how much it cost, and whether or not she could fit one into her room back at Patch. Or if that failed, install it onto the officer's lounge inside of her actual vessel. Her rigging fit almost perfectly right at the centre of the couch, and indeed, an opportunity like this usually didn't come very often.

"Alright! We've got our top three picks, first, we have Gorgone-"

"Rejected, a subspecies of snake Faunus go by that name." Ruby didn't want any awkward encounters, such as saying 'I own Gorgone' being taken out of context.

"Psssh, who cares? Anyways, how about Vritra? It sounds cool-"

"A species of Grimm in Vacuo. I don't want to cause any panic." They were aquatic snake-like Grimm that inhabited some of the shallower waters around Vacuo, often called the bane of any sailor as they usually struck quickly and without mercy as they neared port.

"Well, it doesn't sound like a girl's name…"

"Yeah? And Serpy is?"

"You bitch!"

"The last one, please?" Ruby was getting tired of it, and at this point, she just wanted to go home. Any later and she may have to sail back to Patch herself.

"Ehhhh, we didn't like this one, but we feel like Schwarz could also work. It's high Mantellian for black, right?"

Her rigging perked up when Miltiades said 'Schwarz', Ruby noticed this as well. Placing her hand onto her rigging's forehead, she asked her a question. "Well, how do you like Schwarz? A good, strong name?" Judging by her bladed tail rattling at the question, Ruby took it as a sign that she liked it. "Sehr gut. From now on, you are Schwarz."

HISS

Schwarz hissed again, but this time it was one of joy. To those unfamiliar, the hisses were a sign of danger, but to Ruby, it was a sign of happiness.

"Aw, come on! It doesn't even fit…"

"I dunno, Schwarz kinda works…"

"Course you'd say that, you mentioned it first."

"That's cause I'm smarter than you."

With a name established, the topic moved on to various things. Junior's latest power plays in Vale's underworld, the newest catalogue for Gothic World United and the like. Not a lot of people shared Ruby's taste in fashion, after all, the style was 'out of date' or whatever that meant, normies basically if you will. During this time, faint, rumbling music emanated from outside the lounge room they were in right now, indicating that Junior had finally opened the club.

"Hah! Never heard of anyone being chewed out by their Dad for a career quiz before. You're full of firsts, aren't ya?"

"Yep." Ruby opened an energy drink and began downing it. Thanks to her physiology, the extra caffeine didn't really do much for her, not that she was ever quite human now. A poor infant Beowulf found that out the hard way two weeks ago when she left for work in the morning. She gave it some credit, it was a good ambush that could have taken someone out if they were unprepared, unfortunately, when it bit onto her arm, it only served to shatter its teeth completely. Needless to say, what happened next was not very nice. Still, she wasn't going to fight against some of the more powerful Grimm just because she could, Kansen were strong, but they weren't invincible, and she had no reason to test those limits.

Anyways, looking up at the clock, it was time to leave. She promised her father she'd be back sometime around ten, and the last time she missed that deadline-

Crash

"Woah, you hear that?"

"It came from outside, someone's messing with the club!"

The twins got up and began walking outside, back into the main area with Ruby calling out after them. "In that case, I shall take my leave."

They didn't respond, instead waving goodbye to her with a hand wave, backs still facing her. She didn't think much of it, probably some unruly patron or guest throwing punches, as these establishments often see regardless. Patting Schwarz on her head once more, she let her rigging fade back into blue motes of light before making her way out in the back exit. While waiting for the ferry back to Patch, she ran into her sister, Yang with her motorcycle, an odd coincidence, but one that she didn't really care about.

AN:

Ammunition transport ships in the game presumably can do the same thing Ruby did with the cargo, just on a larger scale. Kashino for example, carries around a disassembled Yamato-class turret with her in miniature form, so by extending that same logic, small cargo can definitely be carried around as well. There's also Ting An who carries a food basket which I guess is how she transports goods. Most battleships, or just warships in general have a crane they can use to lift things onto their vessel for resupply. Or in other words, don't think too hard about it.

Note about the Chinese spoken by Junior and Ruby:

They are speaking in Cantonese, or well, Remnant's version of it. Other languages in Remnant do exist based on the Chinese and Japanese names of people from Mistral, as do German and French names for those from Atlas/Mantle. The idiom I used that Junior says isn't quite accurate to what Ruby explains but is deliberately simplified.

I don't get where people get this from, but even without rigging summoned, Kansen still have superhuman abilities. San Diego resisted the jaws of a very large shark in the anime, and North Carolina sent a golf cart flying without her rigging as well in an official comic. Maybe if they somehow lose their ship and are left with themselves then they'll be regular human girls, but until then, just because their rigging isn't summoned, it doesn't mean you'll be able to 'easily kill them'. I get this comment sometimes in my fics so I wanna address that here.

Be civil in the comments below.