Chapter 16: Not Paying Fare


DOMINIC

Balancing the tavern-provided spoon on his finger over the empty bowl that had contained his breakfast, Dominic kept an eye through the dingy window of the establishment on the street. The proprietor of the place had retreated back into the kitchen to chat up what sounded like a timid chef about mundane intrapersonal gossip. While his ears picked up most of the conversation, it lacked anything that piqued his interest. What had managed to obtain that interest was Bedlam's choice in attire.

"It should have fit," Dominic complained.

"I'm just lucky Brazen managed to not wreck his clothes," Bedlam replied, examining Adam Taurus' original outfit that he had taken out from the room where his clone had stashed the precious well-fitting clothes. "Maybe he'll like the clothes you bought more than I did."

You're the same person, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he won't, Dominic thought glumly as his lack of fashion sense was assailed over and over again by himself. It was disconcerting. Then again, we did order differently for breakfast so maybe our tastes have already diverged, he spared a glance at Bedlam's salad.

"Well if he gets Neo working for us then I guess she can make the exchange." With his hands, he then signed [I guess if we have a style, it is being dressed up like a doll by girls].

"Does he like her?"

Dominic shrugged. "Probably? She is pretty - for a human - and pretty powerful. She caught you, right?"

"She ambushed me!"

"Hey, whatever works is power." Dominic tried scraping his bowl with the spoon in the hopes of finding some remnant of sustenance there, but his parfait had been fully consumed. [So what is the plan for the train?]

[I get on the train, you run distraction if necessary. Once I'm on, I'll stow away and wait for an opportune moment to get Blake for some valuable alone-time.]

What a solid plan. No holes in that!

"I keep getting interrupted when having a conversation with her," Dominic agreed, "by the distance between trains after she severed the cars, by that blonde partner of hers-"

"Yang Xiao Long," Bedlam reminded. He hadn't spent days spying on their enemies to not know names.

"-and then by the monkey and Ghira up top," Dominic concluded. "What kind of distraction do you think will be best?"

"Can't make a plan for that yet, just stick close with me until we have better intel on the area. So I guess the real plan is to scout out the travel hub and see what I'm up against." He shoved his spork into his bowl, still not finished his 2AM breakfast. They had lots of time before the late-morning train departure, as is proper when planning action against hostiles. Ghira always said that imprudent action costs more to remedy than inaction. While the pacifist and downright capitulatory attitude had been what had led Sienna and Adam to push him out of the leadership of the Fang, it still held true at times.

Dominic watched outside as nothing continued to happen; it was too early and too out-of-the-way to get any traffic. The light drizzle and resultant fog didn't do much for it either. I suppose the less people we encounter on our travel to the hub, the better. His disguise was top-rate, of course, but Bedlam's hood and blindfold would not do much if anyone recognized the outfit he wore from the now-famous video of his defeat at Haven. His twin had insisted on wearing the blindfold, though, as a kind of aura training. He hadn't tripped on the streets, so it must be going well. Still, Dominic would stick with the eyepatch and mask, for now.

"On the point of imprudent action..." Bedlam began, and Dominic again felt how strange it was to be in the presence of someone whose mind worked so similarly to his. "I asked Brazen this: do you think we used it too soon?" He flipped out his middle finger, the damage to his cuticle hidden by his glove. "What should we do with the last charge?"

"No. We did what we had to do. This is all going to work out, and I'm happy to have both of you with me. I know we all are thankful for someone trustworthy now more than ever." Dominic said with the sincerity one can only have with oneself, "as for the last charge, I say we save it for a sunny day. When we're all reunited."

Or when there's only one of us left, went unsaid. Both understood that it was always a possibility in their line of work. If ever the Relic should manifest on one of our hands, we'll know that the others have been killed. Dominic watched the rain splatter rhythmically on the street as he considered how he would react if that ever happened.

He felt like he might use the Relic's power to lash out spitefully at whoever was responsible for killing his mirror selves. He assumed himselves would act in a similar way if they found the ring on their fingers.

"Bedlam, can you do me a favour?" Dominic asked. Bedlam cocked his head to the side, then nodded slowly. "Keep a journal on your scroll. Nothing extensive or damning, just enough that if anything happened to you I could figure out what went down if I found your scroll. I think our scrolls might be connected: they don't have a shared aura like we do, but they still were created by the same magic we were. When our scrolls are on a shared network like the Mistral City grid, we can see our search histories and change the background image of our FlamingOS account."

"Yeah, that makes sense I guess. We only have the one account, so each scroll would link to that. Makes as much sense as anything, lately."

"Could be an advantage. When my aura shattered after your capture, Brazen and I were able to use the background photo to communicate that we were each alive. So we knew that it was you that was in trouble before we would have without the..." He stuck out his middle finger. "If the humans ever get the CCT working again, it would be an easy way of keeping in touch with one another."

Bedlam nodded. "Yeah, that would be nice. Otherwise I'll have a real task trying to track one of you down after I've gotten her back."

"Vale would be a good place to start that search, if you decide to haul her out my way." The pair left the warmth of the tavern, "oh, and speaking of being able to see your search history on our duplicate scrolls..."

Bedlam's face flushed.


The sobbing human's face grimaced one last time in pain as Dominic wrenched Wilt out of his guts. Bedlam threw a second body into a convenient dumpster in the damp alley. Dominic removed his hand from the man's mouth, no longer having to silence his victim. The human had bit down on the hand, but aura had let him ignore the pathetic attack.

"Ugh, this one is so much heavier," Bedlam moaned as he hefted the body into the bin, "fucking hell they sure feed them."

Dominic dragged his over to the dumpster. "Well, we learned what we needed." He stretched, then leaned over to lift the corpse into the garbage with its peers before the gushing blood pool spilled out of the alleyway and attracted undue attention. "Seventeen - sorry, sixteen - teams running patrols around the hub on security detail, on top of whatever normal security for the Mistral Central Station is." He lifted up the body and dumped it on top of the other two, where the combined weight of the three dead guys popped a garbage bag. Well, it's going to smell terrible anyways. Dominic wondered if he and Brazen were going to take any flak for murdering these guys rather than doing the job stealthily. He brandished one of the soldier's scrolls, "we should at least be able to avoid the military patrols by watching their movements on this." He connected his own scroll to it, telling one of the FlamingOS apps to take off the new scroll's location-tracking features. No reason why the other patrols should have an easy time knowing where their missing comrades' missing ordinance was in the city. It wasn't a long-term measure, but it wasn't like he was going to keep the scroll on him for longer than the operation ran – several hours, he expected.

"That will make our morning a lot easier on us, and at least they don't have anything other than foot-soldiers," Bedlam said while searching through the soldier's wallets, taking out lien and identification cards as he found them, "nothing like that Atlesian prison barge with aura-detecting wall-mounted turrets, mined floor panels and prototype spider droids."

"Yeah, that was an awful mission," Dominic recalled, "but hey, when we pulled off leading that one Sienna gave us command of the Vale branch. Wasn't that a silver lining."

"Oh yeah, I'm so happy with how that has all turned out for me. Blake disgusted with my methods, chucking bodies into a dumpster in the middle of a human city, talking to myself constantly..."

"Hey, I'm not crazy just because I'm talking to myself constantly!"

"That's what a crazy person would say, though."

"You're... not wrong."

The pair laughed, then closed the lid of the corpse-filled dumpster as quietly as they could. The sun was beginning to peek through the clouds on the horizon: dawn was upon them and they had much more work to do.

Dominic looked at the sunrise, feeling the warmth even in his branded eye underneath the stylish eyepatch. "With our disguises, we should be able to make it in without trouble so long as we don't cause a scene. We can sneak in through an employee entrance and lay low. I'll mull about in the passenger area until the train leaves. If anyone is on the lookout for you, I'll make sure they only find me."

"Hiding enough to appear to be hiding, but not enough to actually hide from anyone on lookout," Bedlam assessed, "but what if they come gunning for you?"

"In a crowd of civilians? I think they might try to limit damage that way. If they try to relocate the civvies, I'll just follow along. Otherwise I'll just be present enough to keep their eyes on me until the train leaves."

"Hey, if humans are good for one thing it is that they make good human shields." Bedlam seemed to be pretty upbeat, as far as Dom could tell. Maybe it was the fact that he was finally getting some momentum: chasing Blake out of her current safe haven - no pun intended - or getting away from Neo. Maybe he just liked the fact that the plan was coming along smoothly.

Within half an hour, Dominic found himself sitting on a bench in a brightly lit atrium as people strutted about without a care in the world beyond their means of transportation arriving on time. He spared a glance at the back of the reinforced train. Bedlam would have to get on that somehow, and Dom's job was to make sure nobody noticed him do it.

Team RWBY and their entourage came into the atrium, at the far end on the lower level. His fellow red-heads seemed like they had just eaten bags of sugar: Ruby bouncing around, freely using her semblance to zip around in public; Nora almost vibrating as her mouth ran non-stop to her companions. Ruby pointed at the hub's gift shop, and Weiss shook her head dismissively. Ruby stuck out her tongue and quickly left the protection of her herd, which proceeded to walk along until they found an empty set of benches where they parked their luggage.

Dom considered going off to pick on the solo huntress. That might make too much of a scene, he thought. It might even make them change their plans. No, he just had to make sure nobody saw Bedlam.

That might not be too hard, since even Dom had no idea where his doppelganger was hidden. He looked all through the room and saw no trace of him. If he misses the train, he can always catch the next one. Honestly that might be the safer option. Why didn't we discuss that option before? Why am I in such a rush to keep so close to Blake? Dom just had to assume it was the focus granted to him by the Relic that made Bedlam need to get on this train. That would make some amount of sense, since he really only cared about getting to Vale to reclaim his position of authority; his lackadaisical attitude towards his present situation was grounded in the cold truth that he was stuck in limbo waiting for intercontinental travel to arrive that he could board. He certainly cared nothing for pursuing Blake, so all that focus had to have gone somewhere.

The next train bound for distant Argus was not for a week... who knows what would happen to hinder Bedlam's plans in that time if he was not near enough to react? If Dom had the choice between taking a boat to Vale now, or waiting a few months for the heat to die down so that he could just fly there, he'd choose the earlier option, too. In the end, Dom trusted Bedlam to know what he was doing. It was a pretty easy choice to trust himself that much.

Ghira and his entourage emerged from one of the side hallways; Ghira was talking to the human attache that Bedlam suspected was responsible for bugging the huntresses' house. Ilia was walking behind him with Kali, in a clot of plain-clothes wearing faunus of the wretched Menagerie Militia. Race traitors! Dominic seethed at the sight of them. He was itching for a chance to make them pay for involving themselves in affairs they had officially stepped away from. Didn't they understand that I'm doing this for them? Don't they think, for a moment, that this peace with the humans won't last? The moment the humans feel like the White Fang or I am no longer a threat, nipping at their heels, they'll throw the lot of you in a cage or a hole and tell you to work like animals like they did in the past. The moment the humans feel like they're safe, they'll press their perceived advantage and strike first!

Because that's how humans are. Because that's how humans had always been. That's why Dominic had to crush them, subjugate them, brutally-

A hand came down and gripped Dom's shoulder, dangerously close to touching the handle of Wilt where it pressed along his spine, making him yelp in surprise - fuck, and here I was giving Bedlam shit for getting distracted and ambushed by Neo. He spun his head around to see who was accosting him and found himself staring into the perfectly toned abs of none other than Blake's new boy-toy, Sun Wukong.

"Hey, it is you! I thought I recognized that hat," Sun said with a nonchalant grin. Behind him stood Sage and two other boys Dominic vaguely recognized as the boy's teammates from their studies at Haven Academy.

Does anybody like school? Dominic considered, maybe these four would revere me for living out a fantasy of destroying the fetid institution that brainwashed them for their human masters?

"Yes, it is the man from the docks." Sage said. He turned to his fellows. "Scarlet, Neptune, this is the fellow I mentioned."

"You didn't say you met him at the docks. What were you...?" Neptune asked, his eyes narrowing.

Sun waved the question away with his hand, then looked at the sparsely populated departure schedule and continued, "so, what brings you to the station today? Reconsidering your plan to go to Vale? There's a lot of nice settlements along the coast that the train runs through, all the way to Argus it seems..."

Dominic put on the biggest, goofiest grin he could muster and tried to ignore how Sun had stressed the name of Blake's destination. Sun was clearly trying to bait him into reacting to that, some bit of recognition or interest in the town. Thankfully, he honestly didn't care at all about the train. "I was looking into other ways to Vale, and hanging out here is an easy way to keep an ear out for word about the incoming-"

"Yeah, yeah, that's great," Sun interrupted, his eyes widening as he realized that Dominic was about to say 'ship', or something similar.

Dominic paused for a moment, as he recalled the difficulty Sun had in convincing one of his teammates to get on a boat. "The... um... previous travel arrangements which I had been investigating."

"Yup." Sun said and spun around to look at his teammates.

"You're heading to Vale? That's pretty expensive, especially these days. Trust me, I've been checking those prices and between that and the scarcity of pilots and carriers that want to leave Mistral, it is going to be a while before Sun manages to get us to Vacuo on our budget. We're here to see what our options are for getting to Vale by heading west, since that is a lot more of a land-route than the dangerous and unwarranted nautical eastern route," Neptune said quickly, his words spilling forth before anyone else had a chance to interrupt him. "Really expensive, actually, unless you were going to Vale via Vacuo by sea. And Sun said you were a outlying settlement civilian carpenter, so there wouldn't be much chance of you-"

"Rich family maybe, saved up lien over the years, who knows, why question it, let's move on to something else," Sun finally interjected before diverting the conversation by asking, "lousy weather lately, eh?"

Dominic shrugged, "it keeps the bugs at bay; mosquitoes are terrible most years."

"Yeah, that's the first thing that annoyed me when I moved to Mistral," Sun replied.

"Never go camping without bug spray in autumn, let me tell you," Scarlet said. Sage nodded in agreement.

"Cold weather is nature's insect repellent," Neptune said, "I've never seen it like this in all my years living here, though I have read several historical treatises that state..."

"Nerd," Sun chirped.

Neptune shot him a haughty look and replied, "I keep telling you, I'm an intellectual. You would be, too, if you paid more attention in classes rather than daydreaming or totally skipping..."

"Almost like the weather is unhappy that the school's shut down," Scarlet said.

"Oh yeah, sure, the weather is having a tantrum because we can't go to history class." Sun drolled.

Sage crossed his arms, "perhaps it is mourning the death of Headmaster Lionheart, respectful of his sacrifice defending the school against the enemies of civilization."

"Yeah, Lionheart was... he sure was a great guy." Sun's smiled faded for a moment as he said that. Dominic suspected that Blake had filled in her new boyfriend, and probably daddy Ghira, about Lionheart's secret allegiance to Salem. He had to wonder how they had taken that news when she broke it to them. He had no doubts that Blake knew about Lionheart, since her little girls' club had been in there fighting him and they were back to being peas in a pod with one another.

"So, you lot are all huntsmen?" Dominic feigned interest, "that's neat."

"In training." Sage said. Dominic's mind recalled the information he had gained about the opposition in Vale from Cinder, who for all her flaws had done a lot of valuable legwork assessing the strengths and abilities of the resident huntsmen and students. Large sword. Melee fighter. Unknown semblance, did not use during fighting tournament or not yet discovered. Sage hadn't really demonstrated much in the tournament fights, and he hadn't shown up early enough to partake in combat classes like Sun had, so he was sort of an unknown variable.

"In desperate need of more training," Sun chided, poking Scarlet in the gut. Collapsible gun-chucks. Melee and ranged capability. Semblance similar to Blake's, but more offensive. Adam had spent what he had deemed 'priority analysis' of Sun over the past few months, after hearing that the guy was with Blake in Menagerie. Dominic, now bereft of Bedlam's goals and mindset, would deem it to be closer to 'enraged stalking'. He knew a fair amount about Sun's fighting style and abilities. He knew desperately little about Sun's background.

"In desperate need of a leader who doesn't run off and leave things weird," Scarlet began, his face transforming into a scowl while he swatted away Sun's finger. Pistol and sword. Acrobatic.

"Come on man, let it go, water under the bridge-" Sun verbally defended himself.

"Water?" Neptune nearly shrieked, his attention coming back to the conversation after it had been redirected towards a pair of women walking past in colourful short dresses. Gun-spear. Hydrophobic. But most importantly, his family connections...

"-I'm back now and totally committed to you guys and training as a team to fight for the good times."

"So how's that treating you?" Dominic asked the assembled boy-band.

"Being a huntsman is going to be great," Neptune said, regaining his composure more quickly than he had lost it.

"Babes love a huntsman," Scarlet smiled, "when we walk into those hinterland villages, you know the ladies'll be lining up to hear about the stories we'll have to tell."

"To serve Mistral, to serve any of the kingdoms, is the greatest honour and responsibility to which we may aspire," Sage intoned.

"Sort of dangerous, though, isn't it? I've heard Atlas is moving towards more mechanized defences, expendable protective measures to avoid loss of life."

"Yeah, well, that sounds great in theory but we were all at Beacon when it fell," Scarlet said.

"We were competing in the Vytal Tournament," Sage added, as Dominic's face played dumb about their past heroics.

"All of Atlas' high-and-mighty robots turned on us. It'll be a long time before I trust my safety and that of my friends to a scroll with a gun attached to it." Neptune said, his face darkening as he remembered the night of Adam's greatest triumph.

"Yeah, you can't trust those Atlesians and their technology," Dominic said with sincerity, "I know I feel better knowing that huntsmen are on the job." For different reasons, perhaps, than yours, Dominic thought to himself. You like huntsmen because you don't trust machines. I like huntsmen because killing humans is so much more satisfying than tearing apart some droid. "So I'm here looking for ways to get to Vale, what brings you handsome heroes this way?"

"Sun's here to-" Scarlet began, before yelping out in pain. Did someone stomp on his foot? The green-haired one, Sage, seemed to have done something behind the bench, out of view.

"Just checking around to make our own travel plans," Sun completed.

"Hey, Sun, speaking of which, when did you say you wanted to go do that thing?" Neptune whispered, though his words were easily audible to Dominic's ears.

Sun flipped out his scroll and looked at the time. His face fell. What Adam had thought was a permanently-stuck smile on his face suddenly fading into a lovely state of shock and mounting dread.

"Oh no! I'm going to be late!" He grabbed Neptune, "come on!" He turned to the other two, "you two: do the other thing and keep my friend entertained with your company until I get back, alright?"

Scarlet and Sage stood up straight, like they were soldiers receiving an absolute order, looked at Dominic, and nodded.

"Not a problem," Sage said, "we are happy to brighten his day until you get back."

"Any friend of Sun's is a friend of team SSSN's," Scarlet quipped, making no difference between the pronunciation of his leader's name and his team name. Whoever thought that naming a huntsmen-in-training team the same thing as a member of that team was probably either short-sighted or possessed of a brilliant, subtle humour.

I guess Lionheart was responsible for giving them their team name... maybe he just wanted to reinforce how his fellow faunus Sun was the leader of the quartet? If true, Dominic had to give the guy credit: that was a big flex of his authority against the human elite.

The faunus and his blue-haired compatriot ran off towards where Blake and her team were milling about, Neptune chastising his leader for oversleeping and getting distracted as they scrambled off.

Dominic watched them go, and as he did had a clear view of the train and Blake, who was talking to the pathetically simpering Ilia - clearly willing to change her spots to whatever team Blake was on at any given moment - on a connecting walkway atop where Blake's team sat on their bench.

Then he saw Bedlam.

Bedlam calmly walked up to the staff entrance of the caboose and casually dropped something beside it, eliciting no concern from the nearby civilians who were more interested in their scrolls or travelling companions. A couple of rugged looking guys came out of the door a few seconds later - clearly huntsman trained, if Dominic's instincts and the way they strutted about with their weapons on full display were anything to rely on - and they went to chat with potential passengers who had begun to fill up benches similar to the one on which Dominic reclined awkwardly, squeezed between Scarlet and Sage. The sword running along his spine made sitting a difficult affair sometimes, but at least it didn't attract attention unless someone went and grabbed it by chance.

Whatever Bedlam had put beside the door fell over softly when it was pushed open by the huntsmen's exit. Once they had wandered off to shake down the waiting riders, Bedlam made his move and slipped through the door. Dominic shook his head, seeing that his twin had left it ajar. Would anyone think it suspicious that the door was open?

He returned his attention to the conversation between Sage and Scarlet, who were talking about their scheme to get to Vacuo.

"You nearly blew our entire operation there, Dominic," Sage said, "Neptune can't know that we have to go by boat."

"Would have cost us a week of planning if he had found out we were going about behind his back like that," Scarlet worried, "and would have left us with no viable means to get to Vacuo's Shade Academy to finish our training besides Neptune's plan to take a year going the long way around, through Vale. The scenic, safe route."

Despite his distaste for Mistral, the duo's story didn't add up. It lacked a motive. "I thought they had nearly finished rebuilding Haven, why not just wait until they re-open here?"

"Two reasons," Sage said. "First: the buildings might be fine, but there are very few huntsmen left in Mistral."

"And fewer huntresses," Scarlet added.

"Yes, and fewer huntresses, if that matters," Sage sighed.

"It does, it always does, and there are even fewer that are easy to look at during a lecture on grimm studies or history," Scarlet continued, "what I wouldn't give to have that Professor Goodwitch transfer out here..."

Scarlet's hands traced an idealized feminine figure in the air while he spoke.

"AS I WAS SAYING," Sage said louder, drowning out the detailed description of what Goodwitch could bring to Scarlet's personal education, "Few capable fighters left in this territory, and fewer still that are willing to teach or have the permission of the Crown to leave their posts defending the reaches of the Kingdom."

"I mean, how are they going to sustainably defend the Kingdom if they don't teach the next generation and lose more and more qualified fighters each year to attrition?" Scarlet grumbled in the background.

"And secondly, we have other reasons for wanting to go to Shade."

"Secret reasons," Scarlet said with a wink, nudging against Dominic knowingly. "Sexy reasons."

"Secret reasons?" Dominic asked, suddenly suspicious.

"A gentleman doesn't tell," Sage said, shooting a glance at Scarlet.

"Do I look like a gentleman?" Scarlet scoffed, "me and Dom, here, we're cut from the same cloth." Scarlet looked up and down Dominic, approvingly noting his fashion choice. "So during the Vytal Festival, we made a little wager with another team by the name of NDGO when we found out we were matched up against them. They were total babes, and really confident that they were going to take the top prize."

"You really shouldn't tell him... or anyone," Sage muttered, resigned to the story being told whether he permitted it or not.

"So you're going all the way to another continent to... collect a gambling debt?"

"That's one way to put it," Sage said, "and the best way to leave it."

"Hey, if you'd seen these girls, you'd be looking for a boat, too," Scarlet grinned. "Although, I guess you sort of already are?"

Scarlet's motivation, Dominic came to understand, was hormones. Given his own reason for being at the station, he could understand – even if he didn't agree – with the willingness to go around the world for a girl.

In the distance, Dominic saw Ruby rejoin her pack, a blur of red streaking through the hub, while Neptune and Sun raced over to chat with Blake and Ilia. They slowed down as they reached the top of the stairs, then began walking slowly and carefully to sneak up on the girls so as to pretend that they hadn't been running like they had a pseudo-speed semblance to get there moments before.

"Have you ever travelled by boat before, Dom?" Sage asked, changing the topic.

"Yes."

"How long a journey?"

"Several days," Dominic remembered the rickety boat Ghira and Sienna had chartered to get him and a few other faunus out of Solitas. "It was not the best experience, but it was also not the finest boat."

Sage and Scarlet nodded.

Remembering his cover identity, Dominic added, "the woodwork of the ship was atrocious, I knew that even as a young man."

"How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Hard to say for sure. Grew up an orphan, and records weren't well kept when it was a choice between keeping weapon supplies or a child's identity. I'm definitely at least twenty by now."

"Ouch," Scarlet said, "sorry for bringing it up, mate."

"It's not a sore point for me," Dom lied. "I have no parents. A lot of people I grew up with were, to keep the conversation topical, in the same boat."

Sage snorted, failing to contain his response to the dark humour. "Nice," he managed to say before regaining his stoic demeanour.

Well, at least my humour goes over well with these guys, Dominic thought. Maybe being stuck on a boat with them for weeks wouldn't be such a terrible thing, and he would relish the opportunity to learn how Sun had managed to assert his authority over them. In fact... "So how do you feel about Sun as your team leader?"

Scarlet shrugged, and Sage made a harrumph-sound.

"He makes sure we train, when he's around."

"Someone's must be in charge of our team, I suppose." Sage said, "though the team name would be the same if I was in charge."

"Or me," Scarlet reminded.

"Yes, but you'd be a worse leader than Sun. You're so careless at times I fear you'd lose your own shadow if it weren't attached to you."

Scarlet stood up in outrage, "you take that back! I'm not careless, I just have a carefree spirit!"

"You wouldn't be able to manage to keep us all in check, you couldn't handle the responsibility."

"Well I say Lionheart made the better choice, appointing Sun as the leader rather than you. You're too quiet to lead, too patient. You would probably have made us wait until the second week of classes before going to one, just to hear what other students thought about them. We'd have been kicked out if you were in charge of the team."

"Which Sun's leadership never resulted in. So we're in agreement, then. Sun is the best leader we have, even if he did leave us at a very poor moment. Or do you favour Neptune as a candidate?"

Scarlet sputtered, confused at how the conversation had been turned into a trap. Dominic, sensing the undertones of their discussion and remembering the one he had seen at the docks, understood Scarlet to have been vocal about his disagreement with Sun's choice to follow Blake instead of remaining with his team. Scarlet deflated, slouched and sat back on the bench.

"Sun's the best bloke for the job," he said, defeated. "He's honest, at least."

In the distance, the two unknown older huntsmen who'd exited the train retreated from team RWBY after being challenged by Qrow to close the door to the caboose, before returning to harassing the passengers that weren't huntsmen. Neptune and Sun were engaging Ilia and Blake in their farewells.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly. The mission was a success: Bedlam was on the train and his quarry was none the wiser. If Sun knew who Dominic really was, which was a strong possibility despite his fantastic disguise, then he had left these two humans here to make sure that he didn't get on that train. If Sun didn't know Dom's true identity, then as far as he was concerned Taurus was running out in the woods.

Dom looked back and forth between the guys on either side of him and whispered conspiratorially, "alright, so how can I help you guys get Neptune on that boat?" The best way to avoid suspicion was to make oneself helpful.

"Not sure yet," Scarlet said.

"What's your scroll contact?" Sage asked.

"Ugh, I never remember it. I don't call my own scroll! Just give me yours and I'll add the two of you to mine." Dom pulled out his scroll and stood up, "want to go check out the gift shop? Maybe the food here isn't too overpriced..." He began moving away from the bench with the pair of them sticking closely behind him, but not closely enough to see the FlamingOS logo on his scroll's screen or the background image of his name and Brazen's written into the condensation on Lichen's bathroom mirror.

"Right now our best bet is to find some way of getting him on the boat while he's asleep, but he's not a particularly heavy sleeper." Scarlet said, "and it's not like we can get him to just take a bunch of sleeping pills for fun."

Dominic thought about how Bedlam had described his own involuntary relocation to Torchquik. "I don't want to sound sketchy, but what if I told you I might know someone in town with a way to knock a grown man out long enough to get him on a boat?"

"We talking about a semblance, or drugs?"

"I'll have to ask her," Dominic replied. The feminine pronoun seemed to pique Scarlet's interest; apparently he didn't feel as bad about a female drugging his friend.

"Hey, if it works, it works." Scarlet said, "trust me, he'll thank you for it when we get to Vacuo without wasting our youth getting there."

Dominic had doubts, but he also had few stakes in the issue beyond determining how much entertainment he would have during transit.

"It is really a shame he can't control his semblance," Sage lamented. "It would make the journey that much more... comfortable."

Dominic was about to inquire about what Neptune's semblance was, since that seemed like a good thing to know. In fact, I should try to learn about all of their semblances as soon as I can.

Before he could ask, Scarlet pulled out his scroll. "Alright, got your message and added you as a contact... hmmm."

Sage pulled out his own scroll and regarded it, "your handle is 'Night Striker'?"

Fucking hell, Bedlam! Dominic choked and stumbled, catching himself.

"Woah, watch your step there Night Striker," Scarlet said, his voice predatory as he moved in for Dominic's dignity's jugular.

Dominic quickly found his footing, and a defense for the ridiculous scroll handle, "yeah, it's my... gamer tag. That's the name I use in all of my scroll games, so it's what my Net friends know me by. It was a nickname I got at trade school, for working a lot of night shifts."

"Right..." Scarlet said, then "hey, while I've got my scroll out, you should check out our fight against team NDGO."

Dominic was inclined to agree. If they were actually sincere in not suspecting his true identity, then having them show him their combat videos would make it significantly less awkward to explain any later familiarity with their techniques. Or maybe they were just trying to intimidate him with a display of martial prowess? On the other hand, having participated in the tournament, they'd have done so with the understanding that their combat abilities would become public knowledge. Did they just want to reinforce his assumptions about their combat styles? Did they have secret moves? Either way, watching a recorded fight sounded more fun than talking about his scroll contact name any further, and shifted the focus of the conversation comfortably away from himself. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. I've not really got anywhere to get to in a hurry..."

"The damn censors in Vale blurred out the parts where you would be able to see up their skirts, but otherwise you can see everything that happened."

Sage shook his head, unappreciative of his teammate's open lechery. The video began to play.

"Oh don't be like that," Scarlet said to Sage, then turned back to whisper to Dom, "he's just still upset that he got tossed out of the ring right at the start."

The match continued on the scroll screen.

"You know, this wasn't really our best performance," Scarlet realized as he watched himself take a coconut to the groin while Sage and Dominic reflexively cringed at the sight of the man's masculine pain.

The video ended, and Dom looked at the pair of them. "So what's the take-away here for me? Neptune is your key member?"

"Like I said, not our best performance," Scarlet repeated.

"We were... unfortunate and ill-prepared for that combat. The ladies underestimated Neptune, but we may have underestimated them overall. Thankfully for us, Sun managed to get Neptune to contribute effectively."

"Alright, alright, I get it, he's a good leader and I'll stop complaining!" Scarlet said, putting his scroll away. They reached the gift shop and browsed the overpriced garbage on display. By the time Dominic had read the covers of all the destination postcards - though he doubted anyone ever wished they were in 'Scenic Mistral' - Sun and Neptune tracked them down.

"There you three are," Sun said with his easy smile, "thought you guys had run off or something."

"Would have been the smart play," the resigned voice of Neptune followed, "this guy's on about how great the Wastelands of Vacuo are."

"They are a spectacular ecosystem, full of a hardy beauty which some of you," he stared at each of his teammates knowingly, "would benefit from."

Dominic nearly said something about how he wasn't one to run away from anything, but he bit his tongue to keep silent. After Haven, it wasn't particularly true, and he didn't want to open up about how he felt about that to Sun – not now.

Hat, hair dye, and eyepatch could only disguise him so well.

A train whistle blew in the distance, and there was a slight rumble in the ground as the Argus Unlimited left the station. Sun smiled and slouched. Dominic wondered if it was because Blake was gone, or if the simian was relaxed because he mistakenly believed he had waylaid Adam Taurus from pursuing her.

"He's saying we're all soft, and that the wastelands are a great place to toughen us up." Neptune translated.

"Isn't Vacuo just a big sunny oasis?" Dominic asked.

"Oh, it is so much more than that! It's a desert! It's a barren storm of sand! It's a testament to the folly of conflict and war!"

"The oasis was wrecked in the Great War, the place is a total dump now, is what he is trying to say," Neptune continued to translate, earning him a bonk on his head from Sun and an irate glower.

"We've got contact info for Dominic for you, oh great leader," Scarlet said. Sun looked at his human underling warily, unsure as to why there was no sarcasm dripping from his tongue.

"If you two don't mind sharing that with your boys here, I need to head back to my motel. One of my friends from the western settlements was planning on meeting me later today and I've gotten as much as I can from hanging out here all day - I don't want to make it seem like I'm living at the train station like a bum."

"Sure, I'd hate to keep you bogged down with these losers any longer than you need to be," Sun chirped, earning himself a playful punch on each shoulder from Scarlet and Neptune.

"Until we meet again, Night Striker," Sage said, flashing a sparkling smile at Dom. Dom walked away, leaving Sun and Neptune to ask for the backstory on that little embarrassment.

Dom walked slowly, with a measure of calmness and clarity that he had not felt in weeks. Bedlam was on his way. Now all that Dom had to deal with were his own problems and Brazen's inevitable fury for Bedlam's purloining of his shirt and pants - though if the ship to Vacuo got to the city soon enough, and Brazen kept himself cloistered away with Neo while practically nude for long enough, maybe Brazen wouldn't even notice his clothes were missing before Dominic was able to skip town, too.

All in all, it had been a good morning. It was all he could do to not laugh maniacally as he made his way back onto the street, Sun's concerned but confused gaze on his back the entire way. He threw the stolen military scroll he'd taken earlier into a trashcan. Mission complete.


BEDLAM

The train whisked effortlessly along the gravity-dust infused track which would take Blake's team to Argus.

Argus. Away from Sun Wukong, who did not board the train with them.

Argus. Away from Sun Wukong, who Blake had kissed.

He stared at his scroll with bile rising in his throat.

All of the years he had given to Blake. How he had groomed her into a fighter, a champion of their people. Of their cause.

It was never their cause. Never their people. Blake had only ever cared about herself. Never cared about others. Never noticed his growing affection for her. Never praised him for the sacrifices he made for her. Never rewarded him, never considered the pain he had been through, the pain he would put himself through to protect her from harm and for what he had thought they both wanted.

Change in the world. Freedom for the faunus.

He had gradually learned, one slave pen torn asunder by Wilt at a time, that humans would never stop seeing them as animals so long as they were free to choose. Dai was right, he realized, choice is a curse, a burden on humanity. The world would be better off with Dominic's vision. The humans needed to be ruled, brutally if need be, but somehow they must be ruled. Brought to heel, taught to obey. Oh, how he had tried to share his wisdom with Blake. Humans didn't deserve choice.

He stared at the scroll. At the image of the woman who had used him for years, played with his trust and his heart since the day he had met her in Menagerie. At the image of the woman who half an hour ago had displayed more affection to Sun Wukong than she would ever have given him.

When he had boarded the train through the staff door in the caboose, he had instantly drawn Wilt in case there were guards inside. Instead of guards, his drawn blade had only made it easier to spy on Blake as she said her farewell to Sun on the bridge overlooking the station's atrium. Easier to record for eternity her latest stinging betrayal with the zoom function of the scroll's camera application.

He almost regretted having taken off his blindfold; if he hadn't, maybe he wouldn't have seen it. His soul resonated with her proximity, though. He'd had to look!

Well, it's not like I'm a stranger to pain.

He pressed the touchscreen of the device several times and replaced the background image to that of Blake kissing Sun.

He wondered if Dominic had seen it from wherever he had found himself in the station. He wished he could thank Dom; he had been able to get on the train without arousing any notice from the staff or passengers. While he didn't know if Dom had actively had to help, until it was proven otherwise he would assume that Dom had done something. If nothing else, he had backed his play to kill those soldiers without hesitation. Fighting beside himself was ecstasy, but it reminded him of how well he had fought beside Blake - the only person who had ever rivalled himselves.

He had thought that his heart had broken when Blake abandoned him on the last train they had rode together, but now he realized it was truly torn asunder. How much more pain could she inflict on him? Had she been using him the entire time, dependent on him to shelter her after she fled her home? She must have seen no choice but to endear herself to me, for her own preservation. She could not leave him because she could not go home to her parents, the only two things she had ever known. Until she found her new, third option. She only saw me as a last resort. He had to face the possibility that there was no redeeming her, no bringing her back to his side. Her heart and mind beyond his reach.

She never kissed me.

Was she beyond saving? "Does Blake... have to die?" It was a bitter question that he whispered into the shadows, and he felt his heartbeat slow as a perplexing tranquility washed through him. A piece of him wished it wasn't so, that there was still hope. That he still had a choice. He wanted to just leap off the train and go back to the comforting, understanding arms of his clones. He couldn't do it, though. He had to see this through to the end. They were counting on him. I'm counting on me to take care of Blake, one way or another...

He looked again at the image on his scroll. At the image of Blake kissing Sun. One moment. Did it have to change everything? His mind felt like the eye of a hurricane. Everything was chaos, falling apart and breaking around him, everything he knew, all his dreams, crashing into a sea of despair around him.

She hurt you.

You love her.

She hurt me! Even when I went to her for comfort, she hurt me. Made me dependent on her, so much more than she ever depended on me.

Resolution of your past, or else you have no future.

There's always a tomorrow worth fighting for...

How can I live without tying up all these loose ends I have with Blake?

You gave her everything.

...we... needed... nothing... were already strong...

She gave me nothing.

Bide your time, for it will come.

Her time is coming to an end.

Everything in his life was in disarray, falling apart and cracking around him, but his path forward through it was clear. Bedlam turned off his scroll and sheathed Wilt on his back, then skulked to the double-door between the caboose and the rest of the train. The caboose was comprised of crew sleeping quarters, which presently were only in use by a man Bedlam presumed was the next shift's conductor. What he needed now was a way to stow away discreetly. He considered trying to impersonate the conductor, but thought that position a bit too high-profile for him to properly fill for the long trip to Argus. He needed a way to lie low for a week or so, depending on how long they stopped over at each coastal town and what sort of barriers luck would throw his way.

"What do you mean you have to confiscate them?" Bedlam heard loudly exclaimed from the other side of the door. Through the transparent windows he saw what appeared to be a very elderly human woman with eye implants, her ire directed to a cowering steward, "well what do you expect to have me eat on this bucket of bolts?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but those foods aren't allowed because of allergies among our clients: we offer a service that is comfortable for everyone." Bedlam's sensitive faunus ears picked up, since reading lips wasn't one of his skills. "We do have a fully stocked kitchen in car four, with a variety of meals for-"

"Allergies? Allergies!" The woman yelled, "I'm the only one in the cabin, aren't I? Who's going to worry about allergies?"

"Ma'am, it's just train policy. For all we know, you could be allergic to cashews or nuts-"

"Preposterous!"

"-and have an allergic reaction that would put undue strain on our already tight schedule in order to-"

"Well that's just great," the old woman seethed, ending the conversation by going into the cabin and slamming the door across behind her. The staff member, looking relieved for the interaction to have ended, approached the caboose carrying a lumpy brown bag with black letters on its side. Bedlam crouched down in the corner by the door.

The staff member unlocked the door, then rushed by, completely heedless of the faunus terrorist's presence he passed as he went into the caboose with the contraband.

Well, I can't very well stay in the caboose now, with all the staff coming and going, he thought. He needed something better. I could ram Wilt into the undercarriage and hang on. It wasn't a terrible idea, but it wouldn't be easy, either. A week spent dangling on the underside of a speeding train? He would do it if it was the only way to fulfill his promise to Blake. He would do it if there wasn't an alternative.

An alternative solution may be right here.

Bedlam hid himself again as the staff member came back through the accordion-like connector area. He snuck into the crew quarters, careful not to disturb the sleeping conductor, and found the contraband chest. Prying it open, he retrieved the brown bag. As a wanted terrorist, Adam Taurus had long ago learned the value of a well-placed bribe.

With his blindfold completing his disguise, Bedlam opened the recently-slammed-shut door and sat himself down on the nearest surface which was, to his disgust, the lower bunk of a bunk bed. I hate bunk beds, he complained internally, remembering the darkness of the SDC mines and the cramped sleeping quarters anytime he saw them. The pitiful cries of his fellow slaves as they tried to escape to a world of dreams where the ever-present lashes of the taskmasters were blissfully absent. Technically bunk hammocks, but still. If he had his choice of sleeping place, he'd go for a nice, spacious bedroom of his own that didn't cram other people in with him. Certainly not cat-eared cowards that kissed Sun!

"Who're you?" the cranky old woman demanded.

"I'm your cabin-mate." Bedlam lied easily.

The woman's mechanical teal eyes squinted at him, which might indicate suspicion if they didn't then start spinning, prompting her to start slapping her own head comically several times until her implants seemed to resume regular functionality.

"No luggage?" she snapped, her tone still sharp despite having just had to pummel herself.

"Not my way of travelling."

"Where are you heading?"

"All the way to Argus."

"My name is Maria Calavera. If you're on your way to Argus we would be seeing a lot of each other, since I'm heading up that way, too, but the train company must have made some mistake, or you've gotten into the wrong cabin. This is a private cabin. Mine."

"I can't say I care about rules like that, Ms Calavera," Bedlam admitted. I can't say I care about any human rules, really. "In fact, you could say I'm a little bit of a rebel." Bedlam looked over his shoulder slowly, then over the other in the same, slow manner through the door window, before looking at his new potential-hostage-if-anything-goes-wrong and smiled before whispering conspiratorially, "if you promise not to tell the staff..." He reached into his cloak and pulled out the lumpy nut bag she had just lost. "My name's Bedlam."

Maria's lenses squinted, then widened along with her mouth as she smiled. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Bedlam," she said as she reached eagerly for the bounty. "Having such reasonable company will be nice on this long trip."

Bedlam hopped nimbly up into the bed's top mattress and stretched out, his mind going back to the time he spent asleep at Lichen's house. Sleeping on the floor at TorchQuik, on branches in the forest, it really made a guy appreciate these small creature comforts.

"You got an unlocked aura or something? How'd you do that wearing a blindfold?"

"How well do you see through those eyes of yours?" he asked, suddenly curious but also defensive.

"When they're maintained I can see as well as I did when I had real ones. Minus most colours, mind you. Old Mantle tech, from the Great War... they thought that if the lower class couldn't see colour and beauty, they would be... calmer. Unlike the original wearer, I didn't have to lose anything when they were installed. They'd been gathering dust in a Mantle chop shop for decades..."

Bedlam nodded glumly as she explained her implants; all too often the elites had used his people as fodder for their hair-brained schemes, their tests. His brand itched under the blindfold, and he was almost thankful that he only had a scar, rather than having had his eyes removed.

"...so I bought 'em real cheap after I lost my old eyes!" Maria said cheerfully, almost in a deranged way that made Bedlam wonder if age wasn't catching up with her mind.

Well, if she can't see colour at least she might not be able to identify me as Adam Taurus... He may have lucked out, stumbling upon this cabin. "Yeah, I had my aura unlocked when I was young. Did some... mining work, dangerous, so it... helped."

"You're a faunus, aren't you?" Maria cooed, her voice suddenly softer. "Don't worry, that never mattered to me at all, but I know all too well how faunus are treated by the dust trade. Sad to admit that we need the dust so badly we discard our souls to get it. What's the point of protecting a society that is so harsh? I've heard that many times, but I think there's an answer out there somewhere."

The train glided along the coast, and the sea-clad horizon to the east sparkled in the sunlight.

"I always liked to think it was hope. Hope that things will keep changing, keep getting better."

Bedlam grunted. That sounded like something that Brazen or Dominic would think about.

"My generation may have left the world in tatters, but the next generation has tomorrow." Maria finished, lying down in her bed and pulling out an ancient-looking book while she dug into the cashews, chomping away faster than an old woman should have been capable. With a mouthful of partially-eaten nut paste, she concluded, "and tomorrow can bring any number of wonders."


ADAM TAURUS

"So is that a point for you, then?" Adam asked, uncertain. "He may have ended up agreeing with your option for how to deal with Blake, but he's nowhere near the time to turn that choice into action."

Whatever passion was left in him for the girl has been completely turned to rage, Dai countered, I believe the chances of her redeeming herself in his eye unlikely. I declare that it is a point for me!

Adam crossed his arms in irritation and paced towards the thin mist that came into Dai's little bubble at the edge. It seeped into their refuge along the floor for a few hand-lengths before it dissipating - either evaporating or refusing to enter further - making the perimeter of Dai's prison somewhat blurry. He wondered what would happen if he tried to just run out into the mist. Was it solid out there at some point? Was anything out there in the Between Realms? If he tried to leave, would Dai try to stop him? It seemed strange to him that his first instinct upon being free in this place hadn't been to simply run out into the mist. In fact, he'd taken a lot of things for granted here. Is any of this even real? Maybe I died in my throne room and this is my personal tormenting afterlife. Adam had never given the afterlife much thought - too much going on in his life to warrant such whimsical thoughts. There's no reason for me to leave, though. No harm in sticking around and learning what I can from Dai.

He looked back at his host. Fellow prisoner?

She had maybe won the first point, according to the rules of her game. Best to concede for now, wait until it became more urgent to debate the matter. "I suppose it is. Typical for me and my people, to be behind from the get-go. But if he chooses not to kill her when the time comes, do you lose the point?"

I suppose I would, but you would not get the point, either, Dai pondered the idea before admitting. It would negate this decision? I think he will kill her, though. I would. From what you have told me, and from what I perceived while on your finger these past months, you were with her for a very long time. Or, at least, relatively long for your existence. Nothing compared to being shunted into a dungeon for a half-century, or in a cave for longer still.

"Or being in here for an eternity?" Adam prompted. Bedlam's thoughts while he and Dai had urged him to resolve what reaction he should have to Blake's latest betrayal had not been merciful. It was more than likely that Dai was right, and that his physical counterpart would attempt to simply kill Blake.

Ah ah ah! Dai scolded playfully, fluttering over to him and shrinking down so that she could light gracefully on his shoulder like the conscience she seemed to like playing the part of. You can ask for the truth behind that if you win!

It wasn't like Adam had much other to do in the Between Realms besides what Dai had said he was ostensibly here to do - monitor his selves so that his final, combined soul would face whatever came after life as a single entity; indulging Dai her game, which she called 'Dichotomy', was just a way to make it more interesting. The chance to learn more about her, why she had been put in here in the first place, motivated him to accept the risk of losing and what that would entail.

He didn't know why Dai wanted access to his selves' dreaming minds, nor why she could not simply grant herself access to those. Why would the Gods require that she win his consent? Adam shook his head - the whims of such beings were surely beyond his ken.

Of course, being the representative of the Relic of Choice, the reward for winning their game had to be a choice between two boons outlined at the game's outset. Adam could ask about Dai's past, her reasons for being here. Or he could choose to manifest alone to one of his real-world counterparts in a dream or in null-time - she had accepted the rewards he conceived of, having assisted him a little in determining what she could put on the table if he won, but warned him that if he chose that reward it would only be usable under certain conditions: when a clone was actively dreaming, or when a clone said her name while wearing the ring. Essentially he could win a chance to be the only voice in the clone's ear, without having to worry about Dai interfering.

Adam walked back over to the floating rings. One was dark, Bedlam's, as he slept in the train. He touched the ring curiously.

The important thing is that Bedlam is on his way, pursuing Blake. I was worried that he would get caught, but Dominic seemed to have kept attention off of him long enough for him to stow away successfully.

Dai wanted to know what Bedlam dreamed of, and needed Adam to permit her access. Why can't I permit myself access to my own dreams? Adam tried hard to remember having ever really dreamed. Really, most of his dreams were in his waking life: a dream of equality, a dream of revenge, a dream of being with Blake. He lived his dreams. Maybe the reason he couldn't access his sleeping mind was because he didn't dream, couldn't dream, while asleep.

This Maria woman seems quite mercenary. I like her.

"I do like her so far, I guess. She is alright for a human." Adam nodded. "She's far too old to be concerned about my plans for the future, too frail to stop them if she wanted to, and from what she's said she is too insignificant to bear too much responsibility for my people's suffering. If anything, she seems to be pro-faunus."

Dai made a sound of indignation, You should know that age does not affect us all so dearly. She looked back towards the floating rings, I would prefer it if he got out of those stuffy clothes while sleeping.

"Probably not the best idea," Adam said quickly, "I've had a bad run of luck with lecherous older ladies lately."

Dai hmphed in mock outrage and fluttered away, growing as she flew until she was the same size as him. I would not say you are the one not getting lucky in this situation.

Adam was reminded that Dai also had a choice of rewards for winning their game. He didn't much care for objectifying himself as a possible prize, but still: not like he had much else to do here to keep things interesting. And he would like the option of knowing more about Dai or conversing with one of his selves; having some sort of real effect on reality again rather than being trapped as a passive observer.

Dai flashed him a needle-toothed grin as she reclined back on the couch, making him involuntarily squirm.

He wondered if Dai even cared about getting access to his dreams; maybe that had just been an empty option to distract him from her true goal. It is possible I don't dream at all. The alternative may also be true: maybe she had just played up her carnal desire for him the entire time to get him to let his guard down? In any event, those teeth looked very sharp.

He hoped she had taken cues from how Neo had done it, because she seemed to find the entire action particularly novel. Clearly her species had focused on other ways of showing affection, if Adam had to make an educated guess. Not like I'm one to talk disparagingly about differing displays of affection...

Trying to take over the world was, in a manner of thinking, just a fancy way of telling Blake he liked her. No teeth or tongues involved, minus the ones his people bared and the wagging one in the mouths of Ghira and Cinder.

Adam kept watching the rings, hoping that the next choice he advocated for helped him even the score board. Dai had gotten first choice of what she would push Bedlam to decide because she had won at cards (so easily). Now, the next turn he would get first pick of which side to take.

I might be as good as dead in here, but I still don't want to lose my dick in that maw if she gets four points before I do.