Wilt and Scatter
"Chipped it, huh?"
Ruby rocked on her heels while the blacksmith looked over Crescent Rose. The deployed scythe barely fit on the counter, but it had to be fully unfurled for the blacksmith to see the piece missing from one of the main blades on the front of its curved inside edge.
"We were up against a paladin," she admitted.
The blacksmith, a recent Beacon graduate named Nicole—if the shop's name, Nicole's Forge, was anything to go by—hummed while he leaned over to look at the attachments holding the blade to the frame. He had hair that softened to orange at its ends, eyes of the same color, freckles, and skin so pale that it either blended into his white collared shirt or stood out against his black overalls. He sure looked the part of a huntsman, albeit one that had chosen a different career in the end. "Didn't realize Beacon's budget got that big."
"It, uh, wasn't for class."
"Grimm are piloting mechs now?" He grinned at her. "Or was it some nefarious ne'er-do-well that needed putting down?"
Ruby recoiled. "He started it. We were just trying to stop him from hurting anyone else."
"Sure, sure." He rapped his knuckles against Crescent Rose. "This is one of the most insanely complicated weapons I've ever seen. Did you make it?"
"Yep, she's my baby. I just need the raw materials to fix her. Beacon's forge ran out of the steel I need."
"S7 shock-resisting steel, by the looks of it. Yeah, that's a rarer one. Fortunately for you, I have some in the back—enough to completely replace that blade."
"Do you have enough to replace both? I don't want them to wear out unevenly." If the one broke, it was only a matter of time until the other suffered its many sharpenings no longer.
"I've got you covered, don't you worry your pretty little head about it."
Ruby frowned at his blasé smile but decided to be the bigger person and not react more than that. Nicole's smile dimmed a degree but then he was disappearing into the back room to fetch the steel.
She retrieved and stowed Crescent Rose, then leaned against the counter to look out the front display window. At least, she started to do that—and then she remembered the weapon that had caught her eye while walking in, a double-bladed axe that appeared to be combined with some kind of rifle on proud display in front of that window. So it was less leaning against the counter and more rocking against it before shoving off it and going to that axe.
"375 caliber," she murmured, poking at the barrel. "Bolt action? No, semi-auto. Maybe it's bolt action when it's an axe?"
"Other way around," Nicole called from the counter. "Bit of an experiment with how much I could change the firing mechanism." He thunked two blocks of steel down and started ringing them up. "Got your metal. You know, you're pretty young for a Beacon student."
She was too busy examining the weapon. "How'd you manage it?"
"I didn't. Way too delicate, too many moving pieces under too much stress, so it kept breaking. It's got two separate mechanisms."
"Oh. That's why—"
"Yeah, the second axe head gave me some extra space to work with. Are you really a first year?"
Ruby leaned in a little closer to the weapon. If that pin, and that spring…then with that joint swinging that way so that barrel could—
A black and white blur surged past the window, so close to the glass that the creature's bony plates left scratches. Then the beowolf was gone.
She spun. "How much?"
"Thr—"
She read it on the cash register before he finished. In a blur of rose petals, she dumped the lien cards on the counter, swept up the metal, and rushed out the door after the Grimm. The bell over the entrance jingled with her exit.
A Grimm in the city? It must've slipped past the patrols; Nicole's shop was closer to the edge of town. At least it was late in the day so most of the crowds were all gone.
Gods, this beowolf was fast. She kept dipping in and out of her semblance to stay on it as it careened around corners and leaped over cars. She couldn't risk shooting it without putting a bystander in danger, which meant no wind or gravity Dust rounds to augment her speed.
Realizing it was being followed, it stopped and bared its teeth at her. Ruby grinned in response and deployed Crescent Rose. No need to worry about hitting anyone else when it was a scythe!
Seeing the weapon unfurling, the Grimm reevaluated its odds, ripped up a nearby lamppost, and batted Ruby into a nearby building with it. By the time she recovered, it had torn off down the street again. Shouting in frustration, she took off after it. Block after block they covered, the Grimm leaving claw marks in everything it touched, Ruby leaving a trail of petals.
She managed to keep it on the edge of town rather than chasing it farther in. They were just clearing the last of the residential buildings when the beast abandoned its path and careened over an unmarked van and through the front door of a decrepit apartment complex. Had it sensed negativity?
"Hey!"
Ruby threw herself after it through the rain of splinters that had been the door. Her world narrowed to claustrophobic corridors and lights knocked askew. Then the Grimm burst through the door at the end of the hall. Shouting and gunshots came from inside.
No time: she angled Crescent Rose behind her, down the hallway she knew was empty, and fired three bullets in quick succession until her world was a blur. She spun her weapon around, angled its blade forward to a war scythe form, and speared the rearing Grimm clean through. Her momentum sent its body and her tumbling deep into the apartment until they thumked against the kitchen counter.
Adrenaline still racing, Ruby popped to her feet and glanced around at the stunned occupants. "Everyone okay?"
Her eyes landed on one occupant in particular. One with red hair, black horns, a black jacket, a very cool red sword, and…a white mask?
"Adam?"
He exhaled and slowly straightened, slowly sheathed his sword, just as slowly reached up and removed the mask, and yes, it was definitely Adam. "Ruby. What are you doing here?"
She nudged the last of the Grimm's disintegrating corpse with her foot. "Trying to stop this guy from hurting anyone. Which he can't anymore, so…mission accomplished?" She glanced around at all the armed faunus who looked like they weren't sure whether to stow their weapons or shoot her, and she was suddenly very aware that she was alone with a bunch of strangers.
A bunch of strangers and Adam, who'd been wearing a mask that looked a lot like what the White Fang wore. She bit her tongue to avoid voicing the question that would probably be a hammer to a Dust crate and asked instead, "What're you doing here?"
His eyes left her face and he gave the slightest shake of his head to someone over her shoulder. There was a distributed rustling as weapons were stowed and the faunus went back to what they'd been doing: packing up everything inside the apartment.
"Moving," he told her simply. "My friend doesn't think this place is safe for him anymore, so we're helping him leave. Apparently," he tipped his chin towards the place where the beowolf had crashed through, "he was right. I'm here to make sure they all stay safe." He tucked his mask into his coat, but Ruby couldn't look away from the slight bulge it left. "Ruby?"
"Are you with the White Fang?" In the sudden silence, she barely dared to breathe.
"What makes you ask that?"
"The mask."
"This?" He pulled it out. "It just protects my face when I'm fighting. My eye is…sensitive."
Her stomach twisted. She wanted to believe him, she did, but she couldn't. She'd seen that exact kind of mask before. Besides, the Grimm had been drawn here, and a normal move wouldn't engender negativity like that.
He sighed and pocketed the mask again. "Yes, I'm with the White Fang. Like I said, I'm here to keep these people safe. From Grimm and from anyone who would make living their lives difficult. That's all. What, did you think all White Fang members were terrorists?"
She stepped a little to the side so someone wheeling out a duffel bag stacked on a box could get to the door the Grimm had busted open.
"I—well, no, I-I just—you never mentioned it before." Did she call the police? And say what? "This guy I barely know is apparently in the White Fang." She'd never be able to look Blake in the eye again. Blake had even been the one insisting all this time that the White Fang under Torchwick was a perversion of the cause! Maybe Adam was just a member who wasn't under Torchwick's thumb.
Adam's lips twisted into a humorless smile. "It's not something I usually need to announce. The same as you not announcing you're a huntress."
"In training."
"Right."
Ruby chewed her lip. Adam flagged down one of his friends and muttered something to him that Ruby didn't catch, then caught his shoulder before he could carry on. "Drive safe, got it? Might be more Grimm running around."
The other man's eyes cut to Ruby and then back to Adam. "Yeah, 'course. I left the keys to here by the sink, though, uh…not sure if they'll help."
Considering the door was destroyed, probably not.
"Thanks. Get going, you've been delayed enough already. You know how your new landlord feels about being late."
The man swallowed and nodded. "Right."
When he left, accompanied by the other two faunus who'd been taping up boxes of their own, only Ruby and Adam were left in the apartment. He gestured towards the couch, one of the only pieces of furniture remaining. "Make yourself comfortable."
A little at a loss, Ruby sat with the compacted Crescent Rose laid across her lap. It would dig into her back if she kept it stowed there. Adam ventured into the kitchen area and returned with the keys. He then dropped into the only other piece of furniture: a couch kitty-corner to hers. Like her, he laid his weapon across his lap.
"So," he said.
"So. Um. I didn't mean to interrupt."
He waved a hand. "You were hunting Grimm. It's what you do. I'm more interested in how we keep running into each other."
She let out a nervous laugh. "We really do."
"Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern." He tapped his sheath. "I'm responsible for protecting faunus, Ruby. Particularly from humans who wouldn't mind throwing us back in cages. You keep showing up without warning. Are you following me?"
"What? No! No, nothing like that. I swear, it's just coincidence. I was going to get some steel, this steel, actually," she pulled it out for a second before tucking it away again, "for my scythe blade and I saw that beowolf run by so I chased after it and then I kinda sorta just ended up here and again I'm really sorry for just bursting in here but I wanted to stop the Grimm before—"
He held up a hand. "Okay, okay. I get it." He let his hand and his shoulders fall while he leaned back in his seat. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "I'm…" He let out a long breath. "I'm sorry for accusing you."
"It's fine, really. Three times is pretty weird." When he didn't move, she started drumming her fingers on Crescent Rose. Thankfully, she'd cut her nails the other day, so it was pretty quiet. Weiss always snapped at her eventually if her tapping was too loud.
Adam was still composing himself, or whatever he was doing, so she took the opportunity to really look at him. It had only been a week since their last meeting in Forever Fall, but he looked…worse. Way worse. Not as bad as when he'd been enduring a migraine, but bad. The kind of bad that took a lot of sleepless nights to show. Dark circles under his eyes, greasy hair, a new dullness to his horns. Did those have to be polished to shine like they had before? It sure seemed like it.
"Are you," she said into the silence, and he cracked his right eye open, "are you okay? You look, um. Tired."
He stared at her a moment, expression stone cold, before a small, exhausted smile broke through. "I am tired."
"Are there other people who can help keep your friends safe? So you can take a break."
"No one who can do it like I can. Not anymore."
"Oh."
Outside, the van started up and drove away. It was only audible thanks to the Grimm's minor bulldozing efforts.
Adam shifted and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Staring down at his hands, he seemed to weigh his next words carefully. "The place my friend is moving to, down in the southeast. The landlord there isn't…good. She's even worse than what we had here."
"Then why move?"
"Sometimes you have the choice between two bad options. Bad now or bad later. If he stayed here, he would die when—when a beowolf came charging through his door. Any hour of every day, his life was at risk. By going to her building, he bought himself some time, even though it means she's getting his money and can use it to cause more trouble."
"Isn't there somewhere else he can go?"
"She's made sure there isn't."
"That's horrible. Who is it? Isn't there, like, somewhere you can report bad landlords?"
"Unfortunately," he spread his fingers and looked up at her, "the system is rather stacked against my people. The only one who can save us is us."
"I'll help," she said instantly, then stuttered over the qualification, "I-I mean, as much as I can. I'm not a full huntress, b-but I'm strong! And I can get the word out about this person and how she's hurting your friends. I'm sure even Professor Ozpin would step in if it was serious enough, probably."
Taken aback, he stared at her. "You'd do that. Really?"
"I want to make the world better however I can. Even if it means, well, punching a mean landlord in the face instead of a monster."
That got another tiny smile out of him. "Even monsters can wear human skin." He sobered and turned a far more thoughtful gaze on her. "I can't tell you more about her now—she has too many of my friends under her roof—but there's something else you can do for me."
"What?"
He held out his hand. "Let me add myself to your contacts. We should stay in touch."
She blinked. Add a White Fang member to her scroll?
Well, she already had Blake on her team. "Sure."
He took it and typed away. The one boon of the see-through screen as that she could confirm that he really was just adding himself as a contact. He handed back her scroll.
"Aiden?" she read. "I thought—"
He tapped the mask he'd brought out again. "I don't want to get you in trouble; there are eyes and ears everywhere. It's best no one knows we're in contact until either of us is able to act. Understand? This stays between us. If it doesn't, hundreds of faunus could die."
She looked back down at his contact entry. Just Aiden; no last name. No affiliation or notes, just Aiden and his number. She typed out a message and sent it.
His scroll, evidently in an inside pocket, buzzed. He pulled it—and all-black model she was immediately jealous of—out and checked it. He raised an eyebrow. "Likewise," he said, responding to her digital nice to meet you. "I need to figure out how I'm closing this place up. You don't need to stick around."
"Is the landlord for this place going to get mad?"
"The landlord is the White Fang, so…no."
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