Chapter 17: Relative Morality
She was back on the train.
Not like how she had been on the train every night for the past week in her nightmares, vividly reliving each terrifying moment, remembering each scrape of nevermore talon against metal and glass around her in the darkness.
She was actually - that is to say physically - back on the train, on her way back to Kuchinashi. She looked out the window at the setting sun, the lights of the city behind her somewhere. The safety of the city behind her. She scratched the back of her hand nervously until she noticed what she was doing, then pulled her hand away from the other. Red marks marred her skin now. If I had aura, it'd probably heal instantly, she imagined.
Cammy Obscura did not have aura, though. As much as she may have fancied how much easier it would make certain aspects of everyday life, she had never been desperate enough to unlock hers. Oh, sure, it would keep her skin nicer without product, and of course there were the defensive aspects of aura once you trained with it, she knew all that.
She also knew the downsides: the expectations associated with having such power. The whispered rumour that having aura unlocked made you a bigger target to grimm. Most of all, the terrifying lottery of semblances. Working for the Mistral news station, she had been privy to more than a few stories about people with aura getting themselves killed, hurt, or imprisoned.
Some were people trying to discover their aura, hungry for glory or power: letting themselves be struck by lightning by standing on rooftops. Trying to fly by jumping off buildings. Hurting themselves in the hopes of finding out that they had a combat-related semblance that would earn them the respect of their peers or let them protect their loved ones from the threats faced by humanity; in essence people looking for a shortcut to being strong without having to put in the years of training by getting an overpowered semblance.
Then there were the stories of people with semblances that hindered their day-to-day lives. A woman with intermittent invisibility getting hit by a car, now in a wheelchair. A man said to have bad breath so bad it could corrode metal, forever single. Even less noticeable semblances, like the famous Qrow Branwen's bad luck semblance.
Finally you had the scum, the criminals, who let the power they found in their semblance fuel their egos. Hypnotists, deceivers, thieves. Those who used their power to harm society, weaken it against the constant onslaught of the grimm for their own perverse pleasure. It made a person wonder if character traits determine your semblance, or vice versa - especially where vice is concerned!
Cammy Obscura did not have aura, and she didn't want it. She was happy the way she was. Still, she envied the huntresses for their flawless bodies. The lives of adventure they led. The lack of fear they had when faced with the dangers of Remnant. Here she was, trembling and nervously itching herself raw just by being on a train. She pulled her hand away from the other again, reminding herself to trim her nails.
Pathetic, she thought of herself. She drew in a deep breath. It would still be another half hour or so until the train docked in Kuchinashi, at which point she would be responsible for securing lodging for herself and her quickly assembled news team for the next few days while she did the report the station manager had tasked her with putting together. "The military report has the facts, Cammy, but the people on the street want to know the heart. I know it's a big ask, but you're the employee with the most experience there, since it's your hometown. Can you go back to Kuchinashi and do a full video report for this coming weekend special?" Her mind had reeled when he had asked her. There was no way she was willing to leave the safety of the city after what had happened. Kuchinashi might be safe, but how could she be assured that there were not still a host of grimm lingering along the railway? "I'll offer you triple pay for it..." Plus, her story would be the highlight of the coveted weekend special slot! It was her chance to finally get some recognition at work.
Damn my weak will! Damn my ambition! She should have refused. She could have refused! He would have understood. He probably wouldn't have held it against her in the future, considering that her panicked call and his subsequent call to his friends in the military had both saved Kuchinashi and given him all the credit. He'd even been invited twice to meet with the Crown Prince in the time since she had gotten back to the city, and he owed his opulent new theatre box to her!
Cammy spent a moment jealously thinking that it should have been her spending time with the nobility at the theatre in the upper city. Eating finely prepared meals: the names of which she would have had trouble pronouncing. Croquembouche? Things she had only seen as tantalizing pictures on glossy magazine covers at the convenience store checkout. That was the goal, wasn't it? The goal of anyone in Mistral not at the top. Make enough lien to buy your way up the ladder. The conceptual social ladder physically represented in the shape of the mountain's two peaks - two ways to the top: be a rich, cultured noble or attend Haven Academy. Speaking of which...
Cammy stole a glance at the seats behind her.
She had to give her station credit for not sending her out here alone; they had even sprung to buy her a nice outfit to be on camera in. Behind her lounged a pair of huntsmen-in-training, her assigned bodyguards, a bit more reputable than mercenaries but still doing the job for lien at the end of the day. One, Scarlet David, wore a white outfit with a heavy red jacket. The other, Sage Ayana, probably had distinctive clothes as well but Cammy hadn't been able to see much more than his gorgeous yellow eyes and firm exposed chest.
Those abs, she thought without drooling even a little, quickly cowering back down into her seat. Neither one had been paying attention to her, so she had not been noticed. Each of the boys was looking out the windows, alert for signs of danger. Not like her camera operator, a rather husky, greasy fellow who had spent the entire ride so far completely engrossed in the checking and re-checking of his lenses and other associated equipment.
Apparently the editing staff thought it necessary to have a trained cameraman with her this time, as if her headline-making photo of the alpha nevermore's defeat hadn't demonstrated her proficiency. Although if the lighting had been better my argument that it wasn't Raven Branwen might have had more traction. The bosses hadn't given her much credit when she testified that whoever had torn through the rear car had been male, not female. "You were in shock, Cammy" they had said, "let us take it from here," they had said. Cammy had no idea why they had moved so fast for the Raven Branwen angle - as if the butcher-bitch of Shion needed good publicity. It was a mystery that Cammy might have wanted to get to the bottom of if it didn't mean risking her job, which in this economy... Plus, they'd paid her a week's wage for that single photo. That combined with the pay for this job would easily pay for a remodelled en suite bathroom for her apartment.
She could have refused this job, but she really wanted that jacuzzi hot tub. Fifteen jets! Fifteen. Jets. Like a personal spa. She had two combat-experienced guards with her, and would be on her home turf. Easiest lien I'll have ever made, Cammy thought, trying to feel smug about her life choices. She also hoped that, if she did a good enough job on this beat, the bosses would remember that later when they were considering who should get promoted.
She was climbing the ladder!
Cammy peered at the front of the car, where a handful of other passengers traveling to Kuchinashi sat quietly in their seats. Some prospectors, with mining tools. They had been boisterous earlier but had finally calmed down. A rugged looking fellow who openly wore a pair of thin, curved blue-dust infused blades that she took to be a huntsman similar to David and Ayana behind her - though the guy seemed like he had a few years on them, or maybe he just hadn't been taking care of himself as well as they had been. A pair of men in matching cheap suits, likely on a business trip to check in on their Kuchinashi investments or branch of business now that the military had deemed the area secure.
The past few days Cammy had spent up at Haven Academy. Trying to interview staff and guards, but her mind hadn't really been there for it. The boss sending her out here could be his way of trying to shake her out of her post-traumatic funk, or maybe he hadn't liked her - admittedly negative - reports that the staff were doubting the capacity of the newly appointed Headmaster Beige to restore the school to its former glory. She had also managed to write a rather damning report of Lionheart, berating the deceased teacher for apparently taking extraordinary efforts to conceal from the public the increasing scarcity of huntsmen in the Kingdom's territory and subsequent diminishment of available instructors for the school and its feeder locations, which was followed up by a thorough investigation of Beige's credentials. Rather, she should say she followed it with a description of his utter lack of credentials. He'd never taught a day in his life, had never operated in any industry associated with huntsmen or defense, from what she could tell Beige was little more than the Empress' favoured yes-man who had been rewarded for his sycophantic ways with a cushy desk job in the most prestigious school in the Kingdom, now that that position was up-for-grabs and the appointment not controlled by the headmaster of Beacon in Vale. If Cammy knew a lot of her coworkers working the politics beat were talking a lot about the move being a power-play that could let the Empress' rule be unopposed, like it was before the Great War.
Nobody was writing much about that, though.
The boss has been spending an awful lot of time with the Crown Prince... maybe that's not just because he warned the military about the situation of Kuchinashi?
Cammy looked at the pseudo-huntsmen behind her again. What if the boss doesn't want me to come back from this? I don't know much about these two. They look nice, but maybe that's just an act. What if the folks at the top don't want me to reveal how bad the situation at Haven is? It wasn't uncommon for reporters to be silenced in the city, either with lien or threats, but Cammy had never had to deal with that herself. She was a small fish. Had she accidentally swum into the deep end of the pool? What had the Crown Prince brought her boss up the mountain for to talk about? Had they talked about her?
Note to self: revise reports on Headmaster Beige to include more praise of the Empress, make more optimistic.
She'd be fine. She hadn't ruffled any feathers, yet, and if she kept her wits about her and didn't make any sensational claims, nobody would pay her any undue attention. She would just be a reporter living comfortably in the mid-city, enjoying her fifteen jet jacuzzi in peace.
"I'm sorry miss, I've plum gone and done forgot your name already," the camera man addressed her suddenly as he finished fiddling with his gear.
Startled and shaken from her reverie, she stared blankly at him for a moment before nodding and smiling, "oh, that's okay. My name's Cammy, Cammy Obscura. Five years with the station. Your name was Mr. Bolette?"
"Just Bole, ma'am." Bole said slowly and clearly, with a strong lower-city accent. "Rufous Bole. A year and a half with the station. I must say, I'm excited for this gig. I reckon I do a good job getting shots here, the higher-ups might consider me for the full-time theatre beat! Gosh I'd love that..."
Of course he wants to work the theatre beat: it's the cherriest job in the business other than owning the station, Cammy thought to herself wryly. Who wouldn't want to be constantly surrounded by the height of Mistral culture? Fancy food, dress, people, everything. The only ones better off than the reporters covering the Mistral elites at their cultural occasions were the elites themselves. "What jobs were you on before this one?"
"Just short-term assignments, mostly in the lower levels. Before the attack on the school I was following Josh Carpet as his camera for his expose on how dirty the faunus slums are. With the White Fang's involvement in the attacks, and the other stuff since, that project was put on hold."
Of course it was, she thought. Boss didn't want to publish a piece about the mistreatment of faunus in the depths while Belladonna was doing photo-ops with the Crown Prince. Sort of a mixed message there. Cammy took a small amount of joy knowing that Josh's little pet-project had been frozen. Her rival reporter was a known jerk, and had made more than one pass at her after she had told him she was not curious to investigate deeper into the 'real story in my pants, girl'.
"City boy?"
"Born and raised, just trying to work to keep my family fed," he replied, then continued as she opened her mouth with the obvious follow-up question, "my Ma and Pa, two younger brothers, a sister-in-law and nephew because my little bro forgot to take a rubber with him to a school dance last year."
"Tough break." Cammy consoled, though the cameraman's tone implied he didn't dislike his extended family. Maybe he liked having a nephew?
"How about you, Miss Obscura?"
"Kuchinashi, as fate would have it."
Bole's face furrowed in deep thought for several seconds, then his eyes widened. "Hey, that's the name of that there place what where we're headed!"
Cammy began to feel concern that the boss may have unloaded a dud on her. She hoped that the man's professional skills with that camera were disproportionate to his city slum-school smarts.
"That'll really help us out! You'll know where everything's at!"
"It's why they sent me," Cammy agreed. "Assuming everything is still where it was last time I was here..."
Another long pause as the man ruminated the meaning of her words, then, "oh, oh no! The attack! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or nothing! I hope nobody you knew died!"
Cammy stifled a groan. This guy was going to make her earn her lien for this job. "The military report said that casualties were minimal... mostly non-severe injuries. My family is alive, though I'm not sure if they're unscathed. The military mailbag they brought back to the city didn't have much room for extended letters from residents." Cammy thought of the attack again and she had to consciously stop herself from scratching at her hand again. "The train seemed to be the primary target for the grimm swarm... which I had the terror of witnessing first hand."
"Your boss mentioned that," a voice came from behind her, "he said you were the first one to get a message to the city that Kuchinashi was under attack."
The voice's companion, Scarlet, joined in as well, the two of them suddenly paying as much attention to Cammy as to the whirl of dark trees and bushes along the route. "He also said you'd be the one who took that picture of, erm, that killer bandit lass saving the train from the nevermore."
Cammy blushed a little, "well, yes, that was me. I was on the train as it left Kuchinashi and used my scroll to contact my manager once I got in range. I was in the back car of the train and used my scroll to take a picture of the person who killed the alpha."
"Raven Branwen," Sage offered, since Scarlet seemed to have forgotten the name, "the bandit lass, as he said, that was here on the train and fought off the grimm."
"Whoever it was," Cammy said. "It was dark, there was a lot of noise, I just took the picture and made the call."
"So you don't know who it was in the picture you took?"
"I know it was a dead alpha nevermore!" Cammy said shrilly. Was she on trial here? She had done a good job. She had the lien to prove it!
"But you aren't sure about the person with the sword." Sage shot Scarlet a look, like they were in on some sort of private joke. The two of them were getting on her nerves now. Just because she wasn't some over-glamorized huntress didn't mean she didn't contribute to society! That she didn't work hard!
"Well..." Cammy started and stopped. She reminded herself of her earlier concern. Little fish, she urged, shallow water is safe. "The tech department cleared up my picture and they said it was Raven Branwen. I think we're all better off trusting their judgment over the frazzled mind of little old me after I'd been tossed around in a cargo car of a speeding train for an hour while being attacked by grimm."
"I saw the original of that picture in the lab," Bole said, "it was pretty bad."
Well thanks for your support, Bole. "They sent you with me for a reason, I guess."
"Even being on a moving vehicle, the image was especially blurry from motion and off-centered." He continued, not sparing her professional pride in her picture whatsoever, before beginning into a detailed and technical explanation of why her picture was bad and why his recordings and shots of her would be much better, claiming that he'd be able to make sure her good side came out on the camera.
Bitch please, I'm all good side! She thought defensively, before thinking about the pimple on her neck and her lack of skill with eyeliner. All the huntresses she saw in pictures and on screen seemed to have some supernatural ability to have amazing eyes, even after fighting grimm for hours.
Cammy turned her back to them and peered out the window at the gloomy scenery. "We should arrive in a few minutes. There's a motel near the station we can crash at."
I'll see my grandparents in the morning, since there's no chance in hell Pop-Pop would let me bring three boys home. What would they even do with them if she did? Have them all sleep in a heap on the couch like gerbils?
NEPTUNE
Neptune spared a glance sideways and was rewarded with a dazzling view of the Mistralian countryside visible from the peak-top patio. Across the way, on the twin peak, gleamed Haven Academy. Safe, no thanks to him and his team save Sun, but safe.
"It's been too long since we've had a chance to spend time with one another, Neppy. It feels like the good old days now, like before school and work got grabbed us up and consumed us." His cousin's voice was accompanied by the movement of a game piece and the flipping of a card.
"You're right, Piter. When was the last time the family had a chance to just relax, chat, and watch me stomp you at boardgames?"
"I haven't lost to you at Remnant: The Game since you started attending Haven, at least." Despite the fact that Neptune was much better at the game, it was still their favourite pastime. A seamless mix of cards into a miniature war game. Neptune's other cousins were even worse at the game, which might explain why Jupiter had set up the game. Tony had given up several turns before Piter's wife June had bowed out, leaving just the two of them left standing. Well, sitting.
"That's too long," Neptune grinned. "I bet in that time you've gotten some of your dignity back, maybe even started thinking you might have a chance at - dare I say it - winning a game?"
"There's no way you've got a chance against my conscript armies and that mass of grimm at your border, cuz." Dice were rolled, and it was Neptune's turn again.
"Maybe that's just what I want you to think!" Neptune bluffed. His armies were in complete disarray and a sandstorm had negated most of his recon work. He would have to turtle up and hope for a lucky break for the time being; relying on luck rather than his ability to strategize made him very nervous. "Though you have been getting some lucky draws so far. So how has the past week been for you, since the whole Haven attack and Kuchinashi thing?" They had kept the conversation to topics about Mistralian culture and the extended family's health while the other two had been at the table, but now that it was just the two of them they could freely talk about more political topics without boring or insulting someone.
Piter dragged his fingers through his short-cropped hair, twisting at the dark blue tips nervously. He still has a few of the old tells, Neptune noticed.
"I don't think I've had to work as much in a month as I have in the past week," he complained, "but it's good work and visibly helping the people, and it's not like I get a choice to do it or not."
"Yeah, duty and style." Neptune paraphrased their grandmother's lessons ingrained on them from childhood.
Piter adopted a higher-pitched tone, imitating the woman, "'Mistral Magnificent', boys, and don't you forget!"
Neptune laughed, and Piter joined in.
"At least the worst of it seems to be coming to an end, now that everything is getting back to normal."
"I hope you're right about that. Things have been off-kilter since Beacon..." Neptune said as he played a card from his hand and drew a new one from the deck, trying not to let it show on his face that the new addition would not save him. Best to let Piter think he had a winning plan in the wings for now.
"Not moving any of your units?"
"They're fine where they are," Neptune lied. They were all scattered, supply lines cut off by grimm or in range of blue airship units. However, there wasn't really any better arrangement for them that Neptune could see them getting to.
"What about in real life?" Piter inquired, a devious smirk on his face that told Neptune that his team's recent activities were far from secret. "My sources say your team is looking to ditch Mistral for Vacuo. Does grandmother know?"
"Does grandmother need to know?" Neptune's eyes pleaded. Grandmother probably did know already. The woman seemed to be omniscient at times. If she somehow didn't know, then Neptune wanted to be the one to tell her himself once Sun had arranged travel west to Vacuo. It would still be some time before the four of them would be able to get together enough lien from odd-jobs to afford to travel, even if they planned to do more jobs as they moved, like Ruby had mentioned her group had done while traversing the continents.
"She probably already does."
Shit. Neptune suspected that his 'sources' were Grandmother's lips.
"But I'm not the one who told her, nor will I be if you don't want me to."
Neptune wasn't even surprised at how he was being cornered by the conversation.
"So what else have you been up to? I guess you've been spending a lot of time with that faunus brat from Vacuo that Lionheart made your team leader? He was off gallivanting in Menagerie with the Belladonnas, right?"
"He's a cool guy, Pit. I'm even starting to look forward to seeing Vacuo, he says it has 'a totally different vibe' than any other Kingdom."
"Yeah, every Kingdom has a... unique situation." Piter drew a card from the deck and smirked. "You went to Vale: they're not much like us, either."
Neptune had to figure out a way to distract Jupiter from the game enough for himself to make a comeback. He decided his best option was a shot at local power institutions. "Well, we do share the fact that neither one of us has a functioning huntsman academy."
That earned him a small frown from Pit. "I'm sure that Headmaster Beige will have Haven up and running again in no time. He will pull some folks down from Sanctum to fill out the staff, recall a few older sentries from the hinterlands..."
"Leaving those areas undefended," Neptune countered. "I heard that bandits and grimm are tearing up the countryside and we don't even have a way to hear about it until weeks later."
"Who told you that?" Piter asked calmly while he moved some of his pieces around on the board, put a card facedown that was probably another annoying trap which Nep's cards would force him to walk right into like the past two times, and looked back up smugly.
"Some of Sun and I's friends who came from that way. They said that Shion is gone."
Piter looked away. Is that shame? "It's your move to play." Neptune took that as confirmation of the message he had heard through the grapevine: Ruby had told Blake, who had mentioned it to Sun, who had told Scarlet, who had told Neptune. Neptune hadn't been sure how much truth to the story there had been after it had been filtered through Scarlet, but his cousin's reaction told him that there had not been any exaggeration to the tragedy.
Neptune played his turn, the deck not doing him any favours. He could play as smart as he wanted but it was like he was getting every bad or useless card in the deck. If he hadn't chosen to play as Vacuo, some of these cards would have been great. If he'd been playing Mantle like he usually preferred, he'd have won the game seventeen turns ago, easily.
"So, it's true?"
Piter nodded. "After Beacon, things got bad here. Not anywhere got as bad as in Vale, but we have so much more territory. My experts say we lost more from the Fall of Beacon than Vale did. Mistral hasn't been this weak since we lost the war."
When we lost the war, the victor was human enough to have mercy towards us. Neptune again wondered if things would have gone differently if, rather than helping Blake in Menagerie, Sun had instead come with the rest of -SSN and helped out in Mistral after the tragedy. I can't keep thinking like that. We kept a few towns along the northern coastline safe after we touched down, we did good and helped many people survive while we waited for Sun to resurface... It was poetic, in a sombre way. Neptune had known people in Shion, though. His childhood friends had gone hiking, camping out there. It had been considered safe, scenic even.
"We're not even sure if it was bandits or grimm. Maybe both." Piter added sourly, clearly distressed by the lack of communication in the Kingdom. Piter had been ignoring the scroll buzzing in his pocket, though, so perhaps the communications issues weren't wholly technical in Mistral.
"Bandits like the ones that Raven Branwen leads?" Neptune asked, "Raven, who was part of the attack on the school?"
"That wasn't in the papers..." Piter said with a grimace, "I'm guessing your sources are the Beacon kids who were at that fight?"
Neptune nodded, "but the papers say that Raven saved a train of civilians a few days later. What's going on, Pit?"
"It's complicated, and nothing that you need to worry yourself over. It's my life, not yours – your mother made sure of that when she moved to Argus. I'm dealing with it. With Haven under our control, things will be better here."
"If Taurus and Cinder and whatever other terrorists had succeeded at Haven-" Neptune started, wanting to share his personal suspicions about Sun's latest charity case from the transit hub.
Dominic.
Just like with Blake, Sun was always getting mixed up in the worst of it and dragged his team along with him whenever he could. "You should always get friends involved!" Sun had told team RWBY after barging into their dorm room - through their window like a total creep, Neptune would add - after convincing Neptune to climb up the building with him. "How else are the two of us going to get into the girls' dorm?" Sun had argued before their stunt – before the two of them had learned that the dorms were co-ed. That felt like it had happened years ago, when things were so different. When the world still thought it was at peace.
Piter cut in quickly, "Vale was merciful when they won the war. I doubt the animals would have been so kind if Haven was destroyed. The faunus here are just waiting for a sign that humanity is weak, that we're on the verge of making another mistake like at Fort Castle." Piter moved his forces forward, going on what seemed to be the final offensive, and ended his turn. "Grandmother thinks we've tolerated them living outside of Menagerie for just about long enough, and with the bold attack on the school, I'm inclined to agree..."
It was somewhat disconcerting to hear his cousin's racist perspective, while his public duties had him praising the faunus. Politics. This is why mom ran away to Argus. "You're wrong about the faunus. I've spent enough time with Sun to get that. I have nothing against migration to Menagerie, but Mistral can't just evict all those people. They're people, Piter! Good people, or as much as humans are. They're hardworking, intelligent, kind..."
"Don't forget what kind you are, dear cousin," Piter warned, "your mind is on elsewhere, when it should be centered on home." He prodded his own pieces, bravely defending blue Mistral on the game board.
He's right, a bit. My mind and team have been focused on Vacuo so much lately, even while we've been assisting here. He looked at his older cousin, the stocky, chiselled physique that just loved to be photographed. Neptune was handsome, certainly, but Piter was just... more so. He acted so mature, even though he was only several years the elder. Regal, one wouldn't be criticized for saying. All that Neptune could say that he had that his cousin didn't have more of was worldly experience: he'd traveled across Mistral and even as far as Vale, while Piter had remained here in the city with Grandmother.
Something clicked in Neptune's brain, an insight. When they'd met and decided to play Remnant, Piter had let Neptune choose what Kingdom he wanted to play as: normally they decided it randomly, or rolled to see who would get to choose first. Neptune had automatically chosen Vacuo, feeling like he may as well start getting in the wasteland mindset, despite his typical past preference for playing Solitas-based states. Did he know I was going to pick Vacuo? He's becoming more like Grandmother already.
"Grandmother's not always right about everything, and one day we're all going to have to learn to see the world for what it is on our own." Neptune exhaled deeply, then took the entire deck into his hands and shuffled it, despite the fact that they had not even gotten halfway through the deck. He kept his eyes locked on his opponent's as he did so. "Sometimes all you need to succeed is a little change of attitude."
As expected, Piter's eyes went wide for a moment as he watched what Neptune did. There was no rule against reshuffling the deck in the midst of the game before it ran out. There certainly were rules against stacking the deck in your favour before the outset of the game, but Neptune wasn't going to raise it now. He'd just accept the cheating - however Jupiter had managed to do it - as a handicap. He finished shuffling and moved his pieces out of his turtle-strategy, put down one of his useless cards and drew a new one from the fresh deck. He didn't hide his delight at seeing the card he had picked up. Some might say he even exaggerated it.
Piter saw his reaction and made a tiny little frown, imperceptible to anyone who had not known him for years, then pulled out his buzzing scroll. "As much fun as this has been, little cousin, duty calls. It seems like the chieftain is making preparations for departure at last, and it just wouldn't be proper to let him leave without proper fanfare. We can finish this game later, or just call it a draw? Unless you concede defeat..."
Neptune rolled his eyes, acting as best as he could as if his cousin was asking some huge favour of him, "I suppose we can call it a draw this time." The card he'd picked up would not have saved his butt from a loss - though it could have been the start of a nice turn-around, but his aggressive unit movement and trademark smirk had insinuated otherwise. Jupiter's scroll had been buzzing in his pocket for a while now, so his sudden interest in attending to that was no mere coincidence. Neptune would gladly take a draw and be on the lookout next time for similar dirty tricks from his relative. The real victory was his anyways: he'd stumbled into Piter's clever trap and gotten out with his no-loss streak unbroken.
Neptune stood up and opened his arms up and hugged his cousin tightly. "This has been nice. I'll see you again before I leave."
"Don't forget to tell Grandmother that you're going to Vacuo."
Neptune released his embrace and sighed. "I'll probably get a new version of the speech she gave me when she found out I was going to Vale for the Vytal Festival with just my teammates."
Crown Prince Jupiter nodded in agreement, then strode away to the palace door where a pair of his personal guards were silently waiting for him. "You could have taken some extra bodies for that, too. You could also make getting to Vacuo a bit safer and easier, too, if you would just..."
"Yeah, not yet. I'm still my mother's son." Neptune said, crossing his arms. "Now off you go, get back to your statecraft and make sure Belladonna leaves with a good impression of us, at least."
The Crown Prince left with his entourage, leaving Neptune alone to consider things for a moment alone. Neptune smiled and looked back over the valley, sunlight dazzling as it reflected off the nearby mountains and rivers to where he stood in the Royal Garden. He drank in the sight, wary of how homesick he would feel whenever Sun managed to drag him to Vacuo, before one of the palace servants came to escort him outside. If Dominic is who I suspect he is, I wonder if I should have mentioned to Piter...
Well, it was too late now anyways. The business of running the city had interrupted Neptune's opportunity to bring up the topic with his kin. Next time, perhaps. Just like with the deck, Neptune didn't want to make any accusations before he was certain of his correctness.
Besides, Adam Taurus was just a single man.
Neptune didn't need to bring the whole of Mistral's military down on a single man; it would be much better for SSSN for them to bring him in themselves. The bounty on Taurus' head would easily get them to Vacuo safely and – most importantly – dry.
CAMMY
Cammy wiped her brow before collapsing onto the motel bed. She and Bole had spent all day interviewing people on the streets, getting as much ground-level information as they could. Bole followed her through the door, laid the camera on one of the other beds, and stumbled into the bathroom. She had argued for separate rooms, but Bole had reminded her that the station was paying expenses and would review the spending. Sage had said that, as her bodyguard, it would be easier for him and Scarlet to protect a single room rather than two.
The bodyguards, having followed them around all day doing nothing to earn their lien, but still probably getting more than Cammy, played an impromptu game of rock-paper-scissors. Scarlet seemed to win. He leapt over to his bed and flumphed down on it with a smile. Catching sight of Cammy's confused stare, he explained: "easiest way to decide who takes first watch."
"First watch?" Cammy asked, more confused now.
"Can't have some shady folks getting the drop on us while we sleep, can we? Mistral's full of all sorts of shady folks – heck, after the school and the nobility, the power in this kingdom belongs to the criminals." Scarlet laughed wickedly.
"So I'll take first watch and make sure you sleep safely." Sage said, pulling out his giant sword and aiming it at the door playfully, spinning it in his hands playfully before resheathing it. "We did it last night after checking into the room, but you sort of went right to sleep without noticing our professionalism and dedication to your safety."
"But the door's locked," Cammy argued.
"You're a reporter and you've never picked a lock?" Scarlet mocked while folding his heavy red jacket over a nightstand, then his band and single glove, leaving him in his white pants and tank top with the bandana around his neck.
"I'm not a criminal!"
He chuckled. "Aw, sweet pretty Cammy, so blissfully innocent!" He laid down on the bed like he hadn't a care in the world, "never change, darling."
"Don't worry, Miss Obscura, I'll keep anything naughty away from you so you can have nice dreams until morning!" Sage comforted, then added slyly, "or, at least, until it's Scarlet's turn to take watch."
Cammy didn't feel safe at all! If anything, she felt less safe now that she had been reassured of their diligence against the previously unconsidered things that she had to be kept safe from.
Bole emerged from the bathroom as Cammy was pulling her pyjamas out of her duffel bag.
"Fair warning: you might want to let that fan have a go at the bathroom for a couple 'o minutes, folks," he said.
Cammy looked at her pyjamas. "Well, I need to change into my pyjamas so I guess I'll have to brave it..." She moved cautiously towards the closed door and opened it gingerly.
The huntsmen had another quick chuckle at her expense as she balked at the lingering odour, stepping back out of the room hastily. Sage covered his mouth with his hand when she looked at him sternly. When she turned the same gaze on Scarlet, it only made him guffaw louder. Well at least someone's having a good trip among the four of us.
"I warned ya," Bole said shamelessly.
"You did," said Scarlet, "I guess I'll take your warning for what it's worth." He pulled off his top in one smooth motion. Like his partner, he had well-defined abs. Pale. Shiny from walking around behind her all day in the sun... Cammy realized she was just standing in the bathroom doorway staring at the guy's gut.
"Scarlet!" Cammy shrieked in delayed alarm. She pointed at Bole, "he gave me warning, couldn't you do me the same favour?"
"I don't mind you looking," Scarlet purred while his hands moved up to the back of his chest to assault his bandana's tie, making his chest bulge with the stretched muscles. Cammy stole another peek before trying to avert her gaze.
"Be professional!"
Sage laughed, "which profession do you want him to be? You have your choice between clown and buffoon."
"Hey, I have actual skills!" Scarlet protested, though Cammy found little evidence from what she knew of him so far to support his claim.
"Screw this, do what you want – I'm not your bleeding mum," Cammy seethed. She forced her way back into the bathroom to change, muttering that she "wasn't being paid any extra to babysit". When she emerged - gasping for fresh air and regretting letting Bole try the local burrito menu - Scarlet had settled under his bed covers and was apparently reading a magazine about magazines; as if he needed to read about more ammunition, the man was already an arsenal.
Cammy thought about getting herself a weapon, but they were pricey and she'd need training...
Bole had settled into his own bed, the camera equipment carefully placed on the floor beside.
"I'll be back in five, just going to get a coffee from the lobby since I'm going to be up for a few more hours." Sage left, leaving the door closed but unlocked.
Now they've just got me feeling nervous, Cammy cursed. She kept her eye on the door, her mind creatively creating horribly plausible reasons for heavily armed criminals to burst in to threaten her group.
That story I wrote about industrial workplace accident victim remuneration rubbed someone the wrong way so they put a hit out on me! Bang, bang, Cammy dead in a motel room. Her grandparents weeping at her funeral, the boss regretting sending her out here so soon after her previous traumatic experience.
That interview I did with the playwright went too well; he shouldn't have mentioned his upcoming production being cancelled by the censorship bureau! Slice, chop, stab, Cammy should have gone to see her grandparents instead of working the story on the main street all day. She'd see them tomorrow - if she lived through the night! Sage and Scarlet were taking all of this way too seriously. The military had cleared Kuchinashi, everything here was safe, right?
Then why had the boss sent her here with two armed guards? Maybe that camera really was worth that much...
A knock came on the door, making Cammy scream in terror. Scarlet leapt out of his bed, pistol in hand. Seeing the pistol made Cammy even more afraid, and while the rational part of her brain told her mouth to close, the majority of the grey mush in her head sent the signal to scream louder.
Scarlet David laughed.
"Wow, yer a right wound up filly ain't ya?" He walked over to the door, "it's probably just Sage getting back. Did he lock his sorry arse out again?" He opened the door, shaking his head as he prepared a pitying speech for his keycard-forgetting teammate. "Oi. You're not Sage."
It wasn't the other member of team SSSN waiting on the other side of the threshold.
Instead, a small girl in a wrinkled dress stood there holding several cheap motel bath towels. Her wide eyes glistened in the light, contrasted against the gloaming sky behind her. Cammy's adrenaline-fuelled perception shot up and down the girl, seeking the weapon of assassination her troubled mind was certain it would find there. Instead of a length of piano wire or poisoned knives, Cammy could only discern that the girl seemed to be the motel-owner's daughter bringing towels for the room, her hand-written name tag barely legible (the 'h' in her name was written backwards) but readable as 'Rothy'.
And that the girl wore no shoes: cloven feet, a faunus.
Scarlet took the towels in one hand, keeping the hand holding the pistol hidden behind the door. "Thanks a peach, little one." He turned around and shrugged, "nothing to get all worked up about, boss lady." He turned back around and seemed surprised to see the faunus waif still there, "what else do you want?"
"...just wanted to know if everything else is to your satisfaction, mister!"
Cammy let out a long sigh of relief. She pulled out her scroll as her redhead bodyguard politely dismissed the child and closed the door, and set an alarm reminder to see her grandparents first thing in the morning. If she was lucky, she could ditch the weapon-toting lunatics who'd been assigned to 'protect' her.
It was a new sort of challenge, introducing her posse to her grandparents. Her shoddy attempts to explain how long they had known each other - "just the past couple days, professionally" - and why the SSSN boys were armed - "the situation in Kuchinashi was unclear to those in the city" - had raised her grandfather's eyebrow with concern. He didn't say anything, but Cammy knew he didn't like having any of her coworkers around. He'd probably have even more concerns if he knew that she was staying with the three boys at the C'Lovin Motel across town. Grandma just happily served tea and gossiped with Scarlet about the season's fashions in the city.
"So did the grimm make it this far into the city? Were you safe during the attack?" She had so many questions she would rather be asking them instead of answering their questions of her and her irregular companions.
"I heard that they scaled the walls and fought some of the defenders there, but they seemed to be intent on just running around the perimeter." Pop-pop said, "the guards said it was almost like target practice for them, if it weren't for the sheer improbability of it and the danger posed by that many critters. I recommend you go talk to them before they head out for patrols, or when they get back tonight, because gran and I were in the shelter through it all."
Cammy checked her scroll for the time; no chance I'd make it over to the barracks before they leave. "I suppose I'll have to hit them up for that scoop later. Until then I guess I can just collect some more interviews about how the citizens dealt with the attack within the walls. You know, get the personal character angle that the military report... lacks." Reading the military report, an outsider would be surprised to learn that Kuchinashi was a town with living people rather than a warehouse full of supplies; the way they constantly refer to 'local assets' and 'loss accounting' was so dry and borderline mechanical sometimes. The Mistral armed forces had retained a bit of the old Mantle mentality from the Great War, repressing emotion and human feeling amongst its ranks despite the kingdom's loss a century prior. Cammy couldn't complain about it too much, of course, since it gave her a job!
Pop-pop looked at Bole, specifically at the big camera, "do you want to interview us?"
"I wasn't planning to," Cammy admitted, "I just wanted to stop by, since I was back in town, to make sure you were doing well. If you want to be interviewed, I could..." She let the offer hang in the air for a moment.
"That would be just like when you were little, playing reporter!" Grandma said happily. Pop-pop didn't seem as enthusiastic.
"If you were in the bunker for the entirety of the attack," Cammy began, continuing to offer her retired grandfather an easy out.
"We really wouldn't have much that would be interesting to say to the city folks," he finished, taking the lifeline. "It was a tense, tightly packed concrete room where we tried to keep quiet and calm. Not much more to say. People were scared, but we're still here."
Bole lifted up the camera, "wow, that sounded really good actually. Could you say that again while I've got the camera running?"
The elder man scratched his head, "it was kinda spur-of-the-moment, friend. I don't think I could get the words again the same way..."
"It's fine, there'll be other people we'll see today with the same experience as you," Cammy interceded. "Speaking of which, no need to keep you two any longer so we may as well be on our way. Job to do and such. Thanks for the tea!"
Minutes later Cammy and her team were back on the streets heading to the main downtown stretch, as small as it was compared to the big city streets she had gotten used to, where there was the best chance of finding people loafing about with nothing better to do than talk to a camera.
"So you grew up there, hmm?" Sage inquired, "was a nice place. I've been here before – never for long."
"Yeah, my parents died when I was a little so my grandparents took me in."
"They're a sweet old couple," added Scarlet, "but they had no weapons in the house. They trust the local guards that much?"
"Not everyone trains to fight. Some of us have to work to keep others fed, entertained." Not all of us can walk through a town armed to the teeth and feel safer for it.
"I don't think I could aim a gun anywhere near as well as I aim my camera," Bole admitted, surprising Cammy by coming to her defense.
"Few people know until they have to try," Sage said darkly.
"Reflexes test! Catch!" Scarlet called out suddenly as he lobbed his pistol underhanded towards Bole.
The butt of the pistol slammed hard into the guy's face with a brutal crunch: dedication to holding the precious camera overriding the instinct to catch the projectile, kept him standing firmly in place. Cammy shielded her body with her hands, expecting the pistol to fire off as it hit the ground.
"The job, Scarlet... we need to get paid for this, remember? Remember: protection?" Sage scolded, facepalming himself to cover his eyes from his partner's antics, while said partner broke out in a riot of laughter. He picked up the pistol then slapped Cammy on the back in what the man likely imagined were comforting pats. His hands are the size of my head!
"Ah, loosen up, Sage. It wasn't loaded, and it can't just fire because it falls on the ground," he told Cammy, "you really don't know anything about guns. Good thing you're entertaining!" He looked at Cammy with an unreadable look, maybe condescension, then turned around to deal with Sage as the dark-skinned boy tore a strip off him for hurting Bole. Cammy massaged her back, hoping that the man's walloping would not give her a bruise.
"Scarlet, most people can't take a hit like that. Not everyone is like whatever circus you grew up with, you have to learn that many people are a bit more... delicate."
Bole, paying little heed to the emasculating terms used to describe his strength, instead came up to her and asked, "are you okay, ma'am?"
Cammy nodded and returned with a query about his face. "It hit you square in the nose, are you alright?"
Bole carefully set the camera down and felt his face curiously, then looked back up with a simple expression. "I've still got my sniffer working, I should be okay." A stream of blood trailed out of one nostril, but he seemed to not notice.
"We should get some ice on that..." Cammy began, "you're bleeding."
"Nonsense, ma'am, I'd hate to impede your work." He wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt sleeve, picked up the camera and gave Cammy a thumbs-up. "We're on the clock, here, and nobody's going to see me on this side of the lens!"
Scarlet slid up to Bole and hooked his arm over Bole's shoulder, "aw, see Sage, you don't know what yer on about, he's a toughie! He knows it was all in fun!" Cammy had to give Bole some approval: the guy didn't flinch at Scarlet's sudden embrace. If that had been her, she'd probably be handling it a lot worse. I guess that makes me the weakest of the group. It was a terrific feeling that Cammy was getting used to. Weakest member of the group. Weakest student in the class. Newest reporter in the office.
Double rate, Cammy. You're doing this for double rate, don't forget. She just had to focus on what she could buy with that fat paycheque and ignore the nonsense she had to put up with in the meantime. Double rate meant more things, more things meant more status, more status meant better life.
"I'm sorry for that," Sage apologized, "I'm sure Scarlet didn't mean to injure you with his immature, poorly conceived japery." He held Bole's head and examined the blood for a moment.
"It's fine," Bole managed as the huntsmen swarmed over him, "it wasn't the worst I've had to endure on the job."
"The blood does seem to have stopped..." Sage stated, pulling away from the cameraguy. "Let's just move past this little incident, then."
Sage's eyes narrowed, and he kept his gaze on Scarlet and Bole. Scarlet seemed to notice, and released his ward from the long-past-awkward embrace.
"Hurry up – Bole's right. We're on the clock and we need to get these interviews filmed before people settle back into their lives too much to remember the moments of the attack." Cammy wasn't sure that was possible: she certainly wouldn't forget the emotions of that train ride, but it did put a fire under her crew and get them to release her apparently-no-longer-bleeding camera operator from their unwanted attention.
ROVER
The ice in the cup had melted. He wanted to drink it. He wanted to just let the day waste away in a haze like the one before, and the one before that. His head was already swimming from the two bottles he had already finished off. He reached across the bar and grabbed some of the assorted nuts from a bowl. At no point did he consider that the bar having an open bowl of nuts could be a health hazard to people with allergies, and it was obvious that the owner shared his lack of concern. He wanted to drink the rest of the alcohol in his cup, he wanted to be able to spend all the lien he'd made on his last job for the government on forgetting what he'd seen in those tunnels.
Faunus, women, men, children, torn apart by grimm.
He'd never hated faunus, he'd never loved faunus. He just was looking out for himself, doing his job on the frontier. Had to pay the bills, had to put his years at Haven to use. His huntsman license was like a lodestone, heavy in his backpocket. Weighing him down, tying him to others by ideals of responsibility and duty.
Leonardo Lionheart had been a faunus. Lionheart had told him and his graduating class that they were the front line against evil in the world. Lionheart had trained them to be protectors of civilization.
Now Lionheart was dead.
Adam Taurus had been a faunus, too. Taurus had been an evil in the world. Taurus had tried to destroy human civilization, everyone said.
Now Taurus was dead.
Rover had gotten well paid by the military to accompany them into the tunnels that had once been the White Fang headquarters. His semblance, which he called 'Nonscents' - a childish name that had just stuck - had made him the "perfect person for the job, Mr Rover". His semblance had confirmed their suspicions: Adam Taurus had come here after his defeat at Haven. His emotional mix of confusion and hatred had been like a neon sign for Rover to read. He'd followed Adam Taurus' trail into the deepest recesses of the complex, finding a garish throne room.
Finding more bodies, congealed blood. A severed throne.
He preferred fighting grimm. No mess. No guilt. Fighting grimm was so much easier than fighting flesh and blood people. He hated politics, and fighting people always involved politics. He'd only even bothered to be in the loathsome city to see Lionheart, having gotten a delayed message from over a month ago that Lionheart had an important huntsman task for him and needed him to come back to the city as soon as possible. Without the CCT, messages like that arrived slowly, if they arrived at all. He'd learned that Lionheart had been pulling huntsmen back for jobs from all over the hinterlands for a while.
He'd learned that he had missed many funerals. I guess we never thought about how cheap it would be to cater our twenty-fifth class reunion when we graduated.
When Rover had finally answered Lionheart's call, he found that he made it into the city just in time for his old professor's funeral. He'd stuck around for that out of respect, of course, though that had proven itself to have been a mistake. That had been where the military officers had cornered him, made him an offer he wouldn't refuse. He could have refused the lien. He lived simply enough, his family was taken care of. Naming a building at Haven after him, though? It was an honour he couldn't have conceived of having bestowed upon him. They had said that it was in recognition of his years of service to Mistral, and he could have tried to convince himself that it was true. He certainly deserved it after all this time! They were desperate to track down Taurus and put an end to him. He'd given them that end.
Nonscents told him that Adam Taurus had ended in that throne room.
Dogs could be trained to hunt a man by scent, but they could be fooled by running water or overpowering spices and other tricks. Rover's semblance let him attune himself to a person, to what he believed was their very character or being, and trace their steps. There were some of his peers who called him a psychic - not that he was some sort of mind-reader. Nonscents had never been fooled, but it took a lot of concentration and something tied to them by a strong emotional bond. If he was at a place where a person to whom he was attuned had been, he could sense where they had gone (and sometimes an inkling of why, which helped continue the chase). Needless to say, he'd always been jealous of his fellow students with more combat-oriented semblances. All he wanted to do in life was destroy the creatures of grimm, keep people safe.
The military had provided him with a disarmed explosive and one of the terrorist masks taken from one of the faunus captured by the police at Haven. It hadn't been quite enough for him. He'd needed more, or something stronger. He needed to connect to the core essence of Taurus for his semblance to work. They'd spoken with the faunus leader, Belladonna, and then came back to Rover with a can of tuna.
He'd sensed Taurus with those three items. He had joined the military as they raided the White Fang base, where they suspected Taurus was holed up, though it had already fallen to the creatures of grimm.
The ice in his cup was melted now, but he couldn't drink anymore. He wanted to focus on what the man beside him at the bar was saying.
"Say that again," he urged the also-intoxicated barfly, trying to keep his vision from blurring, trying to keep his wits about him despite the alcohol in his blood.
"So I'll be opening my mine back up any day now, any day, got word from my correspondent in the city that he's got some boys eager for mining work. I am going out to Kuchinashi to meet them, lead them back here to Ilhari, then out to the mine. Always work for a trained fighter, though the pay might be meager at first." The man blabbered.
"No, no no. Not about that. About the man you saw in here a couple days after Lionheart was killed. You said he had red hair?"
"Yeah, yeah. Yeah! Red hair, but he hid it under a hoodie. He was travelling with two others."
Rover looked to the barkeep to verify the man's claims, but the man shrugged noncommittally. "I served a few folks that day, but spent most of it taking care of this guy." He patted the bar affectionately, "Farsigan's been a good customer and friend for years now."
"Bah, you're just saying that because you know I'll be rich soon!" Farsigan accused, though there was no anger in his tone.
Rover broke up their interaction, insisting "the man: did the man wear a mask?"
"No, no. He wore a hood. One of his companions, an eyepatch. The other one was further down the bar, didn't see her face, but had a nice butt." Farsigan straightened himself up and looked sternly at the barkeep, and in an accusatory tone slurred, "you had a conversation with him about the mayor's plan to expand the palisade!"
"Hmmm." He looked at the ceiling for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I guess I did. He was asking a lot of questions about opportunities for faunus to move out here from the city. The grimm have been acting all strange-like, so it seems like as good a time as any to expand. Or, it did seem that way before Kuchinashi was attacked." The bartender leaned over and added, "I don't think that one furthest away from you was a lady, either, Fars. I think it was just a guy in drag."
"Kuchinashi's fine, I tol' ya, I've got boys coming out there that I've gotta meet to work in my mine. Grand re-opening! I'll be rich and a proper gentleman."
Rover stood up from the bar, leaving the pair to their argument.
A redheaded man in disguise heading away from the fallen White Fang base. Rover could have ignored the prospector's tale, gone back to his life protecting the frontier. Nonscents had never failed him before. Even so, his gut told him not to discount the man's words. Lionheart was dead, and Taurus had had a hand in it. Maybe he owed his professor's memory this much.
Rover canvassed the hamlet, asking the locals if they could add anything to Farsigan's story after the man passed out in the bar. Within hours, he'd heard enough to convince himself Adam Taurus may not be dead. Somehow, the faunus had managed to discover a means of fooling Nonscents. Rover found his pride and sense of duty compelling him to see his job through.
Also, healthy fear that if the government found out he'd been wrong, they'd think he'd lied to them. No way I want to label myself as aiding a terrorist escape their clutches.
Rover found himself driving back to Kuchinashi at blinding speed to retrace his quarry's path by conventional means; he'd have to do this without his semblance until he could find items that were emotionally powerful enough to connect to Taurus again. The people of Ilhari had said the covert faunus and his companions had ridden the train to Mistral via Kuchinashi. What if Adam had been somehow responsible for the attack on the settlement? Was it just a preamble to a larger attack against the city? Rover had to get back into network range. He'd tell the military what he'd found out as soon as possible; even if it had just been some White Fang deserters that had a masculine redhead or two in the group, he'd have his bases covered. Though it might tarnish his reputation a bit. He was willing to deal with that so long as they couldn't hold it against him if Taurus did turn up later on. I'll just tell them that I'm concerned that Taurus may have devised a way to evade my semblance. Nothing concrete. He just had to make sure he was the first one to break the news, lest he find himself in a cell or worse: a noose.
Everything will be fine, he assured himself right before his vehicle swerved off the road into the woods, the alcohol he'd guzzled earlier slowing his reflexes and perception on the dark road just enough that he didn't hug the sudden, hidden turn. He barely had time to choose a proper bit of profanity to shout before his car tumbled down into the ravine.
CAMMY
They'd gotten a solid four hours of taped interviews; that'd be enough for a solid ten minute segment after editing. Maybe a couple segments over a few days. I'm going to be on every scroll in the city! Cammy was feeling a lot better now, she was in her element. Reporting, investigating, compiling information and stories. Weaving the disparate narratives into a single thread, a tale that could be told to the masses of the city so that they understood what had happened here.
Sage had reminded her that the local militia should be back at their barracks, so she'd led the team over there. She knew the guy guarding the gate, they'd gone through school together. He let her and her crew in without any fuss. Procedures in outlying settlements were always so much more lax than city barracks when it came to allowing media in. She sat down with soldiers as they ate in their mess hall, talking with them about the night of the attack.
"Grimm flying around the walls, running around, heedless of our guns. A regular old turkey shoot it was. I haven't had so many kills in my entire career!"
"We made sport to see who could peg the most lancers once we realized they were not going to swarm down on us."
"It was eerie."
"Mitch over there, our medic, was pissing himself the whole time, worried about how he'd sent his faunus bitch and spawn to get on the train. Bugger went crazy when he saw the grimm all chasing after it rather than coming into the town... of course we're all happy the train made it to city safely, mind you..."
"It's nice to have all the city soldiers out of here. They had this entire place in lockdown, made us feel like we were prisoners who'd done something wrong."
"I built my own safe bunker under the apartment building I inherited from my aunt, tenants all hid down there. They're always complaining I charge them too much, I don't think I'll hear their whining for a few months."
"Yeah, especially with all our huntsmen scattered. Your tenants might get their lien's worth and we'll have to earn our pay!"
The camera rolling, Cammy listened to soldiers' thoughts on the attack, asking questions when necessary to keep the conversation on topic. They seemed to be in good spirits, overall, though many seemed concerned that any change was a harbinger of disaster. If attacks like this were going to become more regular, it could make their jobs a lot more difficult. The specter of the consequences of Beacon's fall loomed over everyone.
"What a fool I was, sending my wife with my daughter to board that train. Sure, it managed to make it but only just... if anything had happened to my daughter..."
"Or your wife," Cammy reminded him.
"My wife didn't get a place on board. Only enough room for little Rothy, they said, unable to turn away children, my wife was willing to do anything to get our precious little girl away safely, even if it meant sending her alone. Even if it meant staying behind." Mitch replied, "if I had lost her, I can't imagine what my life would be like. Do you have kids?"
"No, not yet."
"I have a nephew," Bole offered. "I love him like a younger brother..."
"I was on that train, there wasn't much room to stand." Cammy told him. The conductor did what he could, in desperate times...
"Of course he let you on. You're human. My wife, she's faunus. It's hard for them out here, people see them for their differences instead of who they are. They've got hearts, they've got love, just like any of us. She couldn't even get a job when she first came out here. I started seeing her, then convinced my parents to give her a job helping out at their motel. Now she runs the place since they passed. Smartest girl I know, great with numbers."
Things clicked into place for Cammy, her investigator's mind whirring to life. "Your family wouldn't happen to operate the C-Lovin' Motel would they?"
"Yeah, they do."
Cammy had never noted much who owned the place, since being a local - whose grandparents ensured she didn't hang out with any boys that might want to take her to the motel commonly referred to as the 'Cheap Loving Motel' - she had never stayed there before. Now she knew.
"Why do you ask?"
"Oh, we're actually staying there! While we do our assignment in town."
"Ah, thank you for your patronage!" She noted his eyes briefly slid away from her to regard the three men accompanying her, then refocused on Cammy.
The C-Lovin' Motel was the closest cheap place to sleep for travelers getting on or off at the train station, which Cammy explained to Mitch as the reason why she had settled for it to lodge at; it also answered why the faunus proprietress and her daughter had been close enough to beat the desperate throng of people for the youngster to get on board the train when grimm hit the walls.
Before Cammy could get the conversation back to the topic of the grimm attack, his scroll began to ring. "If you'll excuse me, it sounds like my wife is calling." He answered the call, "hi sweetie, how was your day?"
He made no effort to keep the call private, letting Cammy hear his wife's voice come through clearly. "Babe, a big guy just bought a room and has a really hurt fellow with him. He is all bandaged up, but he needs some sort of attention so I thought..."
"It's fine, dear, we just got back from our patrol exercises and were finishing up dinner here. I can drive on over in one of the ambulances now. See you soon." The call ended. "Hey, if you're done your interviews I can give you a ride in the back. Consider it thanks for your patronage of the motel?"
Cammy accepted enthusiastically: it sure beat forcing poor Bole to carry that camera back across the town. "Why would the guy bring a hurt person to the motel rather than here, or one of the clinics? Why didn't your wife call a clinic?"
Mitch shrugged as he donned his uniform and moved towards the garage, "the motel's closer to the south wall of town than the clinic, and the clinics aren't known for prioritizing calls from faunus." He shouted to one of the sergeants that he was taking one of the vehicles across town for a injured person, the sergeant gave him a thumbs-up gesture before going back to gawk perversely at a magazine he held sideways and would, in Cammy's opinion, be blurred if Bole's recording of him made it to air when this was all over. Disgusting, Cammy thought. Who reads that sort of filth? Who? Who writes it, even? Cammy felt a bit of pride, knowing that for all her faults, at least she would never stoop so low as to pose for such pictures or write such trash.
"Aw man, this month's issue is out already?" Scarlet whispered behind her, spotting the sergeant's illiterature as well, "they must print it locally..."
Double rate, she reminded herself. Sleeping in the same room as that unreasonably handsome pervert for double rate. She felt like she deserved that lien already.
One short ride later, they piled out into the motel parking lot. Mitch's wife, the familiar faunus manager, came out looking frazzled. "They're in room 104!" The daughter clung to the back of her mother's apron strings, watching the people emerging from the ambulance with wide doe eyes that almost matched her cloven feet. "Rothy, go sweep something with the broom. The parking lot. Sweep the lot, get all these expended shell casings swept into a pile. Watch out for any that still have any dust in them. Don't get in your father's way, he has work to do!" The pair of them went off to room 104.
"We going to see the injured guy, Cammy?" Asked Scarlet.
Instead of answering, Cammy watched the young hoofed faunus girl busy herself with the ragged straw broom, brushing the debris littered through that remained from the town's defenses being fired at grimm. She turned to Bole and ordered him, "hey, get a shot of the little girl cleaning up the mess. Focus on the empty dust shell casings from the fight." Cammy moved towards the girl. She wanted to talk to someone else who had been on the train. She needed to talk about the train with someone who understood what it had been like.
"Sure thing, boss!" Bole replied, hoisting up his heavy device and fiddling with it as it sprung to life.
Rothy looked up in confusion as Cammy's long evening shadow glided onto the ground she was ineffectively trying to clear; her skill with the oversized broom was lacking.
"Hey there, you're Rothy, right? Mitch's daughter?" Cammy waited until the little girl gave a shy nod. "I interviewed him for a big city news story, and he told me that you were really brave on the train to the city, the one that told the military about the grimm attack so that they could send help. Is that true?" Another shy nod. The girl gripped hard on the broom; Cammy realized she must have brought the memories of that day back to the forefront of the young girl's mind. "I know it was really scary - I was on the train, too. My grandparents raised me on the other side of town, I was on my way back to the city from a vacation to visit them on the train."
Rothy made eye contact with Cammy, her round-eyed stare unwavering. "I wasn't scared for me, I was scared for daddy. He was on the wall, which is really tall and I don't like heights..." she pointed to the nearby city wall from which the casings she had been instructed to sweep had flown down. "I was safe, but I saw all the monsters in the sky when my mommy was taking me to the train station." She put the broom up against a parked car that Cammy hadn't seen in the lot in the morning; the vehicle's windshield was horribly fractured and there were deep gouges along its sides, as if it had been thrown into a blender by accident at some point.
"I wanna go watch daddy now!" Rothy said suddenly, her sombre mood suddenly lifting, abandoning her duties with the broom entirely and prancing towards room 104.
Cammy moved after her, trying to continue the conversation. "There sure were a lot of grimm chasing the train, though," Cammy offered. "It's okay to admit that that was scary."
The girl shook her head, "no, I was never in any danger once I got on the train. He made sure that nothing bad would happen to me." Rothy opened the door and rushed up to her father, who was busying himself with examining a grubby looking fellow wrapped in bandages made of what Cammy assessed were his own torn clothes. This girl must still be in that whole hero-worship phase for her father, Cammie thought as she heard the certainty in what Rothy said.
"You shouldn't be in here right now, Rothy." Mitch warned her, but he made no effort to remove her. Noises from the bathroom indicated that his wife was washing something off in the sink. Mitch began swabbing the numerous lacerations on the man's chest with a cloth that smelled of disinfectant.
Cammy slipped off her shoes at the doorway, since it was polite to do so when entering a room even if nobody else did. She could forgive Mitch for his lack of decorum, since his medical skills were more important than courtesy, but Cammy had no such excuse. Rothy and her mother work hard to keep these rooms clean!
"He said faunus have to protect each other, but since not all of us can he'll protect the ones who can't because he is strong enough to." Rothy continued, ignoring her father's meager attempt to shield her from one of life's harsh realities.
"Your daddy is big and strong," Cammie agreed, "but certainly he wants to protect you and your mom here most of all, not to mention he has an important job for Kuchinashi..."
Rothy giggled, "not daddy, silly miss. He wasn't my train seat-buddy. I knew he was a faunus, too, and I got to sit beside him because nobody else would."
"Don't call the nice lady silly, Rothy, she's a customer," Mitch said distractedly, his attention focused on his patient more than what his daughter was rambling about. "These wounds are already starting to heal, almost as if... sir, can you hear me? Do you have your aura unlocked?" The man on the bed mumbled something in response, though Cammy didn't hear what he said. She assumed he had confirmed the medic's suspicion, since he then said, "that'll make this all a tad easier."
Cammy heard Sage talking to someone outside; apparently the man who had purchased this room had returned and was wondering if everything was alright. Sage was explaining the general situation, "they're giving that fellow some medical attention." That seemed to be explanation enough, since Cammy heard footsteps moving away from the room outside, leaving Sage alone in the doorway, his attention divided between keeping an eye out and watching the bustle occurring around the wounded man. Scarlet was closer to Cammy, leaning against the clothes drawer as he tried to keep out of anybody's way.
Bole slowly lowered the camera, "they let a male faunus on a train of refugees?" He sounded incredulous, which bothered Cammy for some reason. Maybe it was his tone: she hadn't taken her cameraman to be anti-faunus. I guess I did just meet him, and it is not like it is an uncommon or unpopular opinion in Mistral.
"They couldn't get him off. He was already on and didn't want to give up his seat; nobody challenged it but a lot of the ladies complained. He smelled sort of bad so sitting next to him was the only space left when they let me on." Rothy smiled, "I knew he was a faunus but I thought his trait was a tail at first; he doesn't have a tail, though-"
"Not to interrupt boss, but is this part of the report's parameters? I think we've already got what your editors wanted from this trip, and I only have so much memory in this thing," Bole whined, probably tired from lugging the camera around all day. He lowered the camera so that it was hanging at his side, though the green lights indicated that it was still running. "This guy looks like he just got in a car crash, that's not really news-worthy..."
"-it turns out that he has neat black horns, instead." Rothy finished, peeking over her father's shoulder to watch what he was doing while she spoke. "I wish I had horns instead of these clunky feet." She tapped her hooves on the floor for emphasis.
"Give him some air, Rothy," Mitch requested, patting his daughter on the head, then gently shoving her back a step away from the bed where he worked. "I need the stretcher from the ambulance," he said, and looked at Scarlet. Scarlet moved past Sage, back out into the parking lot. "Back the ambulance's rear up to the door of this room; key's in the ignition," he added.
"Keep the camera running on this, Bole!" Cammy hissed under her breath, then turned back to Rothy and asked in as gentle a tone as she could muster, "did you see the person who fought the grimm on the train?"
The man on the bed howled in pain as Mitch poured antiseptic onto a large gash across his shoulder, distracting Rothy from the question.
"Rothy?" Cammy asked again.
"Yes?"
"Did you see the person who fought the grimm on the train?" Cammy repeated. They could fix that in editing later so that it played better, right? A man screaming in the background of this wasn't really news-appropriate. Not that this was really even for her job at this point: Cammy was just curious for her own sake. None of this would probably make it to air, Bole was probably right to want to cut the tape for the day, but Rothy had been on the train and that was important to Cammy.
"Of course I did," Rothy preened in the proud voice that only a prepubescent girl - who realizes that she knows more than an adult - can have, reveling in the attention she was being suddenly afforded, "he had to get over me to get out into the aisle. He punched the train steward when he got up, which I didn't like at the time, but when the steward kicked me out onto the streets it made me smile to remember even when it was cold and raining and I got wet in the alley puddles..."
"You slept in an alley?" Mitch's attention suddenly wavered from preparing a needle to stitch a gash in the man's forearm, he spared a couple seconds to take a glance at his daughter before turning back to his work.
A shrill voice came from the bathroom. "She slept in a what? The military convoy people told me she'd been staying at a faunus halfway house with some nice fox lady!"
"Only for a bit, momma." Rothy called out reassuringly, though Cammy doubted it reassured either of her parents to know. "I didn't get there until he found me again in the city and took me to the safe place where Miss Lichen lived. She has a big bathtub with warm water right from the tap, just like Maureen's house!"
"It doesn't matter, babe, all that matters is that she's back safe with us now," Mitch said towards the bathroom.
Scarlet came back with the stretcher, which he helped Mitch unfold before the medic began preparing the patient to be transferred onto it.
The man on the bed coughed, a wet rasping sound matched by his voice. "Your friend-" another fit of hacking coughs "girl, what was your friend's name?"
"He's my best friend! Forever!" Rothy corrected, since little girls of her age felt that distinction was relevant somehow, then continued, "because he protected me from the mean monsters with his big gun-sword and made sure I was fed and warm in a house!" She stuck her nose up in the air, "not like Maureen, who is a liar and a cheater! I don't want to go over to her house tomorrow for a playtime! She'll threaten to sell my feet to a glue factory and treat me bad, not like a real friend would. A real friend who tells me that being a faunus is nothing to be ashamed of, just like my mommy and daddy do. I love my mommy and daddy lots and lots, but I think-"
Time suddenly seemed to slow down.
"Adam Taurus is my hero!"
Cammy's mind raced in circles, reeling. The man on the train. The sword that destroyed the nevermore. The gunshots along the train before he had entered. Adam Taurus had been the one to save her, to save all of their lives – just like she'd thought. Why? Why would he have done it? What did he have to gain? Why was he on the train? The answer to the question she had desperately sought had just spawned dozens more, like some incredible riddle-hydra. She had thought more evidence of her savior's identity would bring her peace, comfort. It didn't.
Time started up again, now whizzing along as if to make up for the brief pause.
"He's so cool and strong and brave and nice and tall and..." the girl continued to gush, though the words began to distort into a buzzing background noise that Cammy couldn't concentrate on.
Mitch dropped the needle he had been using to suture the bedridden man's arm with. It tinkled against the wood floor. Bole gasped. Nobody moved.
"Did that child just say what I think heard her say?" Sage asked, turning his attention from outside to fully attend to the situation unfolding inside the motel room.
"Yeah." Scarlet answered, "she totally did."
"He's..." the man on the bed groaned, apparently not concerned that Mitch, in his state of shock at his daughter's revelation, had stopped sewing up one of his lacerations mid-stitch,"...alive..."
Save for Rothy noisily picking up her father's dropped sewing needle and dutifully placing it in a cup of sanitizer, and the echoing sound of someone's heavy footsteps moving swiftly away outside - the keyholder of the room who had been inquiring to Sage about the flurry of events within, Cammy assumed - the motel room was utterly quiet.
"Adam Taurus is in the city and she knows where he is." Bole said, breaking the silence. "Miss," he called toward the bathroom, "where did you say your daughter stayed in the city before the authorities brought her back here?"
Rothy's mother didn't answer, but Rothy did after sighing with disdain. "I told you, with Miss Lichen! She had a warm bathtub! She was so nice!"
"Tell me more about Lichen," Bole asked. Cammy felt usurped, as if her role as reporter had been suddenly taken by the cameraman.
"She has a nice house at the bottom of the city," she started.
"In the faunus district?" Bole asked.
"I wish we had so many faunus here in Kuchinashi, then I'd probably have more people to play with that didn't laugh at my feet! I wouldn't have to have playtime with Maureen ever again!"
Bole began backing away towards the door. "We need to get this to the city right now."
Cammy snapped back to her senses. "No."
"Ma'am? This is important. We'll get promotions for this. Bonuses. Accolades. I could afford to get my brother his own place..."
"I said no."
"She's right," Sage said. "If you take that recording to the authorities, they'll storm the faunus district. They'll tear it apart to find him with proof he's there like this."
"Wouldn't Belladonna and the militia have something to say about that?" Asked Scarlet.
"No, he wouldn't. They wouldn't." Sage stated, "because they won't be there."
"So they won't be around to stop us from catching Taurus!" Bole crowed, "the only reason our police haven't caught that monster yet is because Belladonna interfered with his uninvited Menagerie invasion force."
"That's not true," Scarlet said, though he sounded uncertain. "They weren't an invasion force, anyways."
Cammy was uncertain, herself, about the government's actions. If the government had known Adam had been in the city, wouldn't they have pulled out all the stops to catch him? Unless they didn't know he was in town, but she'd given them a photo of the faunus on the train back into town. What reason did they have to want to keep the situation distorted? Why would they lie?
"It is! I worked the faunus slums with Josh Carpet, it's a powderkeg. Josh couldn't get any of them to be cooperative, and he's a great reporter! They hate humans down there, they'd hide Adam! If Adam's down there, the military will have to clean house." He seemed to view the prospect with glee. He really is racist against faunus, Cammy realized. "Belladonna wouldn't let that happen, but if he's gone this video is all the justification the soldiers would need!"
"When did Belladonna leave?" Scarlet asked Sage.
"He was only staying in the city because of his daughter. She left on the train, so he planned to leave shortly thereafter. Neptune told me, he found out from someone he knows." Sage explained.
"Man, do you ever get the sense that we're terrible gossips?" Scarlet complained.
"I need to get this man to the nearest clinic..." Mitch said, remembering himself and his present task. "Help me get him on the stretcher." Scarlet moved over to help Mitch, and the two of them were able to gently lift and roll the mass of bandages and stitched flesh onto the wheeled stretcher. Mitch began rolling it out of the room towards his ambulance.
"You can't take that recording back to the city," Cammy repeated. "Not until we get all the facts." Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her anymore.
"Agree... with her..." the immobile man on the stretcher managed to say as he wheeled by her, gurgling fluids in his throat as he struggled to produce the statement in his condition. He sagged into the mobile bed, his energy expended. Well, at least someone is paying attention to me. As far as supporters go, the semi-unconscious man left a lot to be desired.
"I don't think Taurus is worth tearing up a whole neighborhood," Scarlet said, following Mitch out into the parking lot. Bole went out the door, too. "Surely the government wouldn't do anything rash just because of one lone faunus renegade in their midst."
"I don't think I'm a gossip," Sage retorted, following his partner.
"Oh yeah? What about that time you told Sun that I was going on a date instead of studying for that midterm?" Scarlet replied, "or that time you told Neptune that Sun was ditching class to go to the carnival early and didn't have 'faunus flu'?"
Sage's eyes flashed with anger. "Like you're one to talk! What about that time you went and told the carnival staff who puked in the bathroom after you convinced me to try a rollercoaster?" He helped Mitch load the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. The medic went in and began buckling in the stretcher so that it wouldn't roll around during the drive. His voice became a parody of Scarlet's, though a bit higher pitched, "don't worry, Sage, if the rollercoaster flies off the rails I can just glide us to safety with my semblance!"
"Well, someone had to tell them!"
Cammy crossed her arms and shook her head.
"Or that time that you tattled to Sun about that rash I told you about, in strictest confidence? Or the fact that most of our conversations are about people we know?"
The two continued to bicker betwixt themselves, while Cammy tried to get their attention back onto the present and Mitch finished strapping in his patient.
"I think this fellow might be a huntsman: these wounds are clearing up supernaturally fast." Mitch said loudly to nobody in particular.
Cammy tried to arrange her thoughts into some sort of order. Everything had suddenly started happening, and she'd already had a long day. It had been a long day for her entire team, they need to take a break and sleep... she counted the nearby bodies. Mitch. Injured guy. Sage. Scarlet. Little girl faunus. "Hey!" Cammy shouted suddenly as she finished her count, "where'd Bole go?"
The huntsmen paid neither her nor the cameraman's disappearance any heed, choosing instead to continue tearing into each other for past slights. Rothy's mother had come out of the bathroom, clutching a bloody bedsheet dripping crimson water and several red-splattered wet towels in one hand, and gripped Rothy's shoulder tightly with the other to keep the girl beside her.
"Bole?" She shouted again, with the same result. I guess it's up to me? Cammy wondered glumly. She grabbed her shoes and began putting them on, but in her state of half-shock and haste, she kept fumbling with the laces. She abandoned the attempt and just strode out the door with the shoes not laced up, which she instantly regretted as she tripped in the parking lot, scraping her knees and elbows as she fell onto the asphalt. "Dammit!" She swore, tears beginning in her eyes from the pain, but then looked up as everything dimmed: she found herself suddenly in the looming shadow of a giant man.
"That fellow with the camera told me he is a friend of the injured man I found," the gigantic man said in a low, even tone. If it wasn't for the comically thick sunglasses, pronounced nose and large moustache, she would have thought he looked a lot like Hazel Rainart from the city's many wanted posters. He held a cup of coffee from the motel office's dispenser, steaming hot. "He said he would take the car back to the man's house and contact a garage to fix it."
Cammy looked across the parking lot at the damaged car just as it stuttered to life and jutted forward, Rothy's broom falling underneath its rear tire and splitting in half. Bole clearly wasn't the best driver, but he had enough skill to squeal out of the parking lot in a hurry, black rubber marks now marring the pavement where he had floored the accelerator pedal.
"I'm starting to think that wasn't true." The giant said, his tone lacking any real concern. He took a sip from his coffee.
Cammy watched the somehow-functional vehicle turn the corner and zoom out of view towards the gate towards the big city.
"No, no no!" Cammy cried, beating her fist into the ground, "he has the camera, he has the camera!"
The man looked at her for a moment, then lifted her up with his free hand and set her back down on her feet, demonstrating his strength and size. He smelled like the woods, like he hadn't showered for a while, but that was not uncommon out this far from the city.
"If Rover lives, tell him he should drive with more care in the future. He must treat the gift of his life with more reverence. I have to get back to the city, so I will not be around to say it myself." He tipped his hat towards her, then walked out of the parking lot, down the road and towards the gate.
Scarlet and Sage came over to her. "Hey, where'd Bole go?"
"Are you alright?" Sage added with a note of concern as he saw her scraped shins and elbows.
"He got away. He drove away!" She screamed as loudly and angrily as she could manage, "he took my story and he took the camera and he got away!"
"Oh." They said, backing away from her a step each.
Oh no, I'm not letting them off the hook for this. "You were supposed to be my bodyguards! But you were too busy acting like children!"
"Technically, we were as much responsible for protecting Bole as we were you..." Sage started.
She punched him in his exposed abs, which hurt as much as her fall to the ground had. His aura flared, and her knuckles would soon bruise. "Argh!"
"Hey, careful!" Scarlet warned, moving back in to latch onto her arm, restraining her.
"Let me go!" She screamed, kicking out at him. He didn't bring up his aura, thankfully, but he was still combat-trained enough to ignore the attack. "Let me go! We have to chase Bole!"
"In what?" Sage asked, "he took the car. We can't keep up to him on foot. Especially you."
Cammy's eye moved to the ambulance.
"Doesn't he need that to get the guy in there to the clinic?"
Cammy didn't bother responding; she walked towards the ambulance.
"That's not our ambulance, isn't that stealing or something?"
Borrowing, Cammy thought. She opened the door and slid into the driver's seat. "Mitch, the guy has aura, right?"
"Yes," the medic responded, "what's going on out there?"
"If he has aura, does he even need to go to the clinic?"
"Well, it would probably be best, and we would find out what happened to him..."
But he'd survive a chase scene, is what you're saying, Cammy thought. "Your wife wanted to talk to you." He married a faunus, so he'll probably forgive me for trying to stymie this story from getting out...
Mitch nodded, his face revealing that he was struggling to make sense of everything going on while also performing his job, and he slid out the back door. Cammy closed the driver-side door.
"Scarlet, she's doing it. Get in with her!" The boys leapt onto the vehicle as she began driving it out of the lot, Sage managing to leap on the hood early enough to crawl around to get into the passenger-side door while Scarlet clung to the siren on the top.
"Tell her not to turn on these sirens!" She heard him yell through the roof.
A big button on the dashboard indicated that it could be used to turn the sirens on or off. But I'm in a hurry! The pervert deserved to get his eardrums blown out, anyways.
Hazel watched impassively as the ambulance blurred by him through the town gates chasing after the car he had found Rover in on his way back from visiting the White Fang headquarters. The redheaded man clinging to the top of the ambulance, his legs flailing behind him and his hands gripping the lights as if he was flying like some comic-book superhero, whatever protests he made drowned out by the blare of the sirens.
A man in local militia uniform ran by on foot, shouting and waving pathetically at the ambulance, before giving up and walking back to the motel dejectedly. Hazel had not been aware Kuchinashi had such a problem with vehicular theft.
Hazel took another sip of the coffee.
He had a long walk back to the city, but that was fine. He had a lot to think about, concerning everything he'd seen out past Ilhari at the White Fang base Adam had invited him to long ago. People said Adam was dead. People said Adam was alive. Something was wrong with the faunus' aura.
It helped give him something to think about other than the fact he had let Ozpin get away.
Ozpin.
Coffee gushed out of his fist and he regarded it with annoyance. He had crushed the cup by accident.
He had a long, thirsty walk back to the city.
Author Ramblings: Nep's mom and Jup's mom both have a kid named Jupiter. Only way I can make this story stay canon-adjacent after the book release.
Strange to have an entire chapter without any Adam perspective, but it's sort of necessary to lay some groundworks for the political structure of Mistral and introducing some new faces.
