Chapter 18: Mute-Adore


BRAZEN

"She sure is eating a lot for someone who doesn't move," Dom called from where he sat at the desk, idly playing with his scroll, towards where Brazen occupied his time with push-ups in the middle of the warehouse. Keeping in perfect shape demanded a lot of attention, and both clones enjoyed exercise while bereft of better uses of their time. Bedlam's inexplicable combat prowess spurred them both to try harder.

"Or talk," Brazen added. "I can get dressed, run out for a grocery shopping trip."

"No!" exclaimed Dominic, suddenly bolting up out of his chair.

Brazen was alarmed at the sudden motion and, instinctively, rolled to the side towards where his weapon lay on the floor. Doing pushups with a metal sheath on the back was irritating.

"No need for you to trouble yourself like that," continued Dominic. "I can do it."

"I haven't been out in a while, I may as well..." Now that I think of it, I haven't left the warehouse since I saw Cinder. Hazel's lead on the information broker made me focus more on Neo than my core task. Brazen spared a moment to think about his burly associate: Hazel had been out of contact since then, too. Maybe he's still out of the city's network range; he still has information to collect about the wizard from the broker. Brazen felt a bit guilty about that last part: he could easily inform Hazel about his quarry's route. Well, I can tell him that next time he makes himself available to me, he reasoned.

"There's nothing interesting out there for us right now, anyways." Dom persuaded hastily, "you may as well just focus all of your attention on your little 'pet project'."

It was one way to refer to Neo. "Whatever."

"Although there might be something interesting out there for me," Dom said, now walking over towards where Brazen lay coiled on the floor like a deadly, muscled spring. "Sort of was putting it off, figured I would be out of the city by now-"

"Bah, nonsense, you've enjoyed your own company," Brazen interjected as he let his body relax from its ready stance.

"-and we spent a lot of time dealing with finding this place." Dominic waved his hand around the warehouse, dismal as it was. "I feel like I might get somewhere if I head back to the faunus district, scour the ground. There are a lot of our people there who might still side with me. Possibly willing to share information, resources, with their saviour."

Brazen cocked his eyebrow at his clone.

Dominic deflated a little. "I know, I know, I've not had great luck with my supporters in Mistral and the media has been running a... strong... campaign against me."

"There are several channels dedicated to running looped clips of me getting knocked to the ground by Blake, interspersed with our attempt to detonate the bombs, followed by the scene of us withdrawing into the woods." Brazen reminded, rolling over onto his back and sitting up. "After that fight in the throne room..."

"The throne room might have been a fluke. Maybe now that the dust has settled, my supporters-"

"The ones who weren't taken into police custody or slaughtered by grimm that the..." Brazen said, concluding by raising his middle finger to indicate the grimm-luring magnet he had attached to their selves.

Dominic halted, as they revisited the night of their division in their mind. The night of their latest in a number of recent betrayals by those they had thought they could depend on. "My supporters who remain in Mistral may have realized that I am their best option for power over the humans."

"Do you have anything to offer them?" Brazen asked, skeptical, as he rose to his feet, strapped his weapon onto his back and began walking over to the desk. "They don't support you, they support what the Fang offered them without anything required of them."

"Nothing other than being willing to stand aside and tacitly condone the justice I dispense upon humanity in their name!" Dominic began, following him over towards the desk. "I'm the one fighting for them! I just need to know where the faunus here stand on that. I can't afford another blunder like Menagerie's betrayal. If it's true that I've lost everything here in Mistral - of which I'm not entirely convinced, but I'm still willing to write this racist excuse of a Kingdom off anyways for the time being - then I need to figure out exactly what went wrong so that I can prepare for the repercussions to my reputation in Vale. I need to be ready to walk back into Vale with them knowing everything that happened here. I need to be ready to retain their loyalty regardless of what they've heard about Haven."

"You can't afford Ghira rallying the locals to fight alongside humanity, you mean. His new movement is a threat to your support base, and it seems he is already making some headway against the local racist institutions." Brazen said, voicing the obvious truth that the schism in the White Fang was greedily leeching the momentum Adam had worked towards for years, "Vale is the best option for us, since the humans there will be naturally inclined to give the faunus in their midst a greater amount of suspicion, creating a larger divide between them-"

"Which I will use to unite our people against the humans." Dominic finished the thought. "I bet your friend Salem will want to know that, too. She needs to know if the faunus are going to be an asset, a liability, or a non-factor in her war against the humans. I think the best we can hope for right now is the last option..."

"If the faunus are a liability, if they follow Ghira and Blake against her forces, our people will share the fate of humanity." Brazen stated darkly. "Even combined, humanity and faunus can't win against the collective mass of grimm that Salem has at her apparent beck and call. Even the Seer poses a significant tactical boon to Salem in a world without the CCT. Humanity has no means of communication. They have no means of safely transporting their troops to where they are needed. Dust had always been what kept humanity's pulse beating, but even that was a finite resource demanding they dig deeper and further for more."

"Better to be on the sidelines and deal with the victor." Dominic agreed.

"Alright, go on, do your thing out there."

"Not like you can stop me from going, anyway." Dominic smiled jovially, "we're far too evenly matched."

Another shrug from Brazen. "Don't get caught, and bring back more food on the way back I guess," he poked at Dom's scroll, "and keep in touch?"

The pair of them had, albeit briefly, spoken about the oddity that was their scroll background image. It's present image, taken by Bedlam and depicting his target planting a kiss on the blonde-haired Sun Wukong, had done little to stir their emotions. It had succeeded in reminding them of the anomaly which they had taken advantage of once prior: when trying to determine the cause of their aura collapse during Bedlam's capture by Neopolitan.

"You want me to test it out some more while I'm canvassing the faunus district?" Dom questioned, regarding his scroll.

"There are a lot of things we need to figure out about it..." Brazen began, holding up his hand and counting down with his fingers: "We can't call our own scroll and chat-"

They'd tried; it just resulted in a 'the device you are attempting to reach is currently busy, please try your call again later' mechanical tone.

"-but we can add or change the background picture."

"He did that while in the city's network range, at the train station. I did it..." Dominic thought back for a moment. "...In Lichen's bathroom, and you did it in the forest. Do you know if you were in the city's network range when you were in the forest?"

Brazen shook his head. "No, I do not know how far out I was when I sent that or how far out the city's network range extends to. I don't even know if the change happened immediately, or only took effect on your scrolls when I made it close enough back to be within range." In Brazen's defence, he had had more pressing concerns and a burly giant human companion too close by to spend valuable time experimenting with his scroll settings.

Brazen lowered a finger on his raised hand. "Secondly, we haven't tried to do much of anything but change the background picture yet. So we know we can add photos, but what else?"

"I know we can save text and photo files. Can we add voice recordings? Do our contacts get shared?" Dom listed. "I've already used the scroll to send messages to you by saving my text as a note."

Brazen continued, his fingers dropping down into his fist as he rattled off each additional query, "if someone sends me a message via scroll, will Bedlam be able to read it if he is on a different network? Would you be able to see my chats with Neopolitan if you are in Vacuo's network range or out of range entirely? I wish we had asked Dai about this when we were getting split."

Dominic shrugged. "She's pretty old and had been locked up for a while, maybe she hasn't encountered scroll technology before." He grabbed Neo's and Brazen's scrolls from the desk drawer and began typing on it. Odd, I thought I'd left that in my pants. Maybe Dom and Bedlam were testing out the anomaly with all three scrolls while I was asleep? Dominic sent the message and both of their scrolls hummed as they received the message simultaneously. Brazen leaned his chin on Dom's shoulder to watch as his twin typed into Neo's scroll and, as he sent the message, Brazen watched the text appear on their screens. Which all makes sense, I guess. Our scroll identity doesn't realize it is spread across separate devices now. Dom placed Neo's scroll back on the desk and gave Brazen one of their scrolls; evidently which one he'd given him didn't actually matter. Neo's scroll wasn't much use to them beyond letting them perform that test: since RWBY had left their safehouse, the camera feed had been pretty useless. They had seen a couple humans poking around in it - probably government agents re-bugging the place in case the team came back and required further covert surveillance - but nothing of any real interest. The humans had never even found their own spy camera. I wonder if they can trace the signal if they stumble upon it? Brazen thought. I should recover that camera at some point.

He looked at Dom, and his clone nodded. I think he's on the same page with that issue.

"All this magic stuff, it's all new to me. I wish we could get some clarification on the matter..." Brazen complained, then lowered his last finger: "assuming that this is part of the magic relic-y stuff."

"Well, we know of four beings who have some expertise in such matters. Lionheart was the best option," Dom started.

"Alas, he got himself killed 'somehow' during the fight at Haven." Brazen shook his head ruefully; Lionheart would have been a valuable and, most importantly, trustworthy ally. A faunus who had managed to deceive the highest echelons of humans for so long... truly a heroic figure in Adam Taurus' minds. "Then we have the wizard-thing of Beacon, now residing in the body of that human boy-child travelling with Blake."

"Maybe Bedlam can get some answers out of him?" Dominic looked at the background photo on the scroll again, and reconsidered. "Though I think he has more intimate concerns pressing upon his mind at present..."

"Salem, of course, could probably tell us everything pertinent to the issue. She must have some inkling of these things, or could at least greatly assist our research."

"Sadly, she'd probably kill us for withholding such a prize from her." I do suspect she was directly involved in the death of Lionheart. "Or somehow try to control us, subjugate us, to ensure that the Relic's power was used for her own designs."

Neither one of them were keen on that option.

"Which just leaves one option, which is also now out-of-reach because we would need Bedlam here in order to summon her. Plus, if we do that, I guess we'd have to create a fourth."

"A waste of the power, really," Dominic agreed. "Sort of a shame that the other relic is already used up. I wonder how long we'd have to wait before it recharges? Maybe Bedlam can deal with Blake and bring us the soul-parasite and the relic they're fleeing with before reaching Solitas?"

Brazen put his face into his hands and exhaled forcefully. "Maybe if we are able to communicate with him to do so? It's a longshot."

"Ah, cheer up. We might not have anyone around willing to safely dispense the answers, but you can still test out some of the ideas with me." He typed into his scroll for a couple seconds, then said, "here, I'll put in a voice recording. Scrolltest. Scrolltest. Saving it as 'scrolltest'", Dominic muttered. "Oh, there's already..."

"What is 'journal'?" Brazen asked, opening the file.

~Train ride is smooth, gravity buffer instead of wheels. Safely stowed away in a cabin, elderly human occupant agreeable, easily bribed into complacency with presence. Several days until Argus.~

"I guess he took my advice," Dominic said softly, "I asked Bedlam to keep a journal. Looks like he did. I also see the files on Cinder's group you must have gotten from the school."

"Is he in range of Mistral's tower?" Brazen asked excitedly, "when did he make this? Where was he?"

"Hard to say... the file says it was last updated several seconds ago, since we opened it up."

"Dammit," the pair of them exclaimed in unison, which drew a wry chuckle.

"Well, at least he's submitting the entries. If he does another one at the end of today, he'd certainly be outside of Haven's scroll network..."

"Unless he is already on his way back," Brazen suggested, "maybe getting to Blake on the train happened to be easier than anticipated?"

"I guess we'll see next time he logs an entry..." Dominic admitted. "Alright, do you see the scrolltest file?"

Brazen nodded as he found the audio file on his own scroll.

The mechanical tone of the scroll cried out from his speakers, "Scrolltest. Scrolltest."

"Well I guess we can send audio, text, and images to one another so long as we're on the same network, at any rate." Brazen said, "and you can always just call me on this," he added, taking the scroll they had captured from Neopolitan up from the desk.

"Excellent," agreed Dominic, "yet another advantage to all this magic stuff." He moved over to his heap of clothes and disguise and quickly began donning them while Brazen continued searching through his scroll settings.

"I shouldn't be gone too long," Dominic said, sheathing his sword along his spine, concealed from damning casual view.

"Alright. I guess I'll just stay here, tending to my human pet project..." Brazen slipped his scroll into the side of his shoe and stood up, using his now-empty hand to reach out to snag the last pudding from the desk. He wiggled it, "don't forget to pick up food..."

"Yeah, yeah..." Dominic sighed, "I'll grab the camera from the huntresses' empty house, too, since it isn't doing anything for us there anymore."

Having the same brain sure saves time! He took Neo's scroll and shoved it into the opposite shoe to have it close by, since watching Dominic sneak into the empty house could be fun to do later on. Besides that, it was sometimes fun to try to bribe Neo to speak by offering her the sight of her scroll. 'Come on, human! Say "please" and maybe I can let you have it!' Sadly, while fun to see her scowl at his offer, it had borne no more fruit than any other attempt to get the human to utter anything beyond grunts and wheezing.

"Hey," Brazen said suddenly, staring down at his own near-nudity, "should I get more dressed for these interrogation-slash-recuperation sessions with Neo?"

Dominic paled, the reaction mostly hidden by his hat shadowing his features, before stammering out his response; "n-no, you're fine like that. In fact, it is probably beneficial to wear as little as possible. She has a thing for our smokin' hot bod, right? Use that to our advantage. If she can be convinced to work with us in return for... visual gratification, then why not?"

Brazen nodded.

"As long as you're okay with it, too, I mean," Dominic added on quickly.

"I guess I am?" He paused to consider the question. "I'm not saying I'm into humans like that or anything, but there isn't anything unattractive about her, right?" Brazen wasn't sure why he was even bothering to ask. If I find her attractive, so would Dominic. We're the same person, and we're not constantly thinking about Blake like a certain Adam I could name... "I also do need her semblance in order to get in contact with that information broker. Maybe I should just ignore that for the time being and do more legwork on my own, keep hitting the streets myself and hope to chance upon Cinder again like before? Maybe if I do a stake-out at the school-"

"No!" Yelled Dominic, "no, no, no," he said, his volume slightly lowered after the initial outburst, "it's dangerous out there and there is no need for the risk...your plan to use Neo is the soundest strategy. Focus on that for now."

"Is that supposed to make me feel more confident in your plan to traipse about through the place where our enemies would most likely expect to find me hiding in the city?" Brazen asked.

"Yes, looking for you," Dominic nodded, his shadowed countenance exuding wisdom. "Don't forget: my disguise is much better than yours. I'll be hiding in plain sight."

"Right." Brazen remembered something else they needed to discuss: how they were going to deal with the eventual necessity of releasing the human into their midst.

Dominic said it first, though. "On that note, since you've taken to playing the part of the real Adam Taurus, and since Neo should eventually get better, we will eventually have to either introduce me to her or keep separated. If we do the former, we can do the same ruse we pulled at Lichen's, now that Bedlam isn't running the risk of showing up and begging the question 'how many long-lost brothers can one world-infamous faunus have'. If the latter, we can always keep in touch with this scroll weirdness."

"But if we choose the former, we could test out how our semblance works when two of us use it simultaneously," Brazen said, not needing to explicitly mention the manner by which they might go about charging their semblance for such a trial. Neither did he need mention what sort of position they would have to find themselves in to use their semblance in sync with one another. We're both thinking it anyways. "We know we can charge it up at a distance, we know we can charge it up by sparring, and we've unlocked Moonbright, but we've never charged it up and tried using it in tandem."

Dominic's eye widened, then he tried (unsuccessfully) to hide a rakish grin as he almost-calmly replied, "I think it would be best for Neo to not emerge from her entrapment to find Adam Taurus completely devoid of allies other than herself."

Brazen couldn't help but smile, knowing that there was no way that he would have refused that surprising but enticing offer. "Glad to have you onboard with my plan, brother." Brazen watched Dominic flash him the single-fingered salute with his left hand, then disappear through the door.


"Well," Brazen sighed to nobody, literally talking to himself like a mundane, non-cloned person would, "time to go check in with her I guess." He opened the door and began to step into the room, but years of combat instincts quickly asserted themselves over his cheerful disposition and somersaulted his body forward in a smooth roll, landing on his side. In so doing, he evaded the silenced thrust of the girl's sword - entirely removed from its noisy umbrella sheath - as it lunged at the door frame. The empty restraining table gave him some idea of who had tried to impale him so suddenly, though other questions remained.

"How did you get free?" he hissed, pulling his sword from its sheath along his spine as he rose back to his feet and spun about to regard his decidedly frazzled-looking opponent. Her hair was askew and she had light bruises on her wrists; she'd had time to put on her socks, pants, and her bra. "Why did it take you this long? What do you think to accomplish with attacking me?"

Neo made a wicked grin, and said nothing.

"So what now?" He asked, holding his sword up defensively. "Going to run for it? You'd probably be able to make it to the street..."

The girl shook her head, raising her blade and pointing it at him.

"Maybe you'd feel calmer after having something to eat?" He lobbed the pudding cup at her, which she sidestepped. The pudding smacked into the padded wall and bounced back, splattering on the tile between them. "What, suddenly you're against pudding?"

Neo continued her sidestep, turning it into a pace along the wall of the room, circling him and the table.

"You think you can win a straight fight? Against me?" He chuckled at the absurdity of it; "you're barely recovered from being sick for days."

She continued pacing around the room. The padded walls, combined with her natural grace and socked feet made her footfalls unnaturally silent on the tile. Brazen took in a deep breath of the room, but her long internment had left it entirely infused with her scent. As far as his nose was concerned, she was all over him. A mental picture that wants more focus than the current threat allows me. The entire room seemed design to stifle his natural faunus sensory superiority over humanity, which would make sense given what it had been used by the callous corporation to do to his people for the sake of profits.

"We're on the same side. If you want to spar, that's fine, but before we do that there's work we have to get progressing on. You know: finding Cinder? That thing we both want to do?"

He craned his neck as she got to the corner behind him. He turned around placidly, the empty table between them.

"So? What do you want?"

Neo stopped, and then mimed the act of opening and typing on a scroll, then gestured at the empty table that divided them. She wanted him to put her scroll on the table?

"I'm afraid I'll have to keep your scroll for the time being," Brazen said, sticking out his foot and tapping the slight protrusion of her scroll with the tip of Wilt before quickly resuming his defensive stance. "There's still only a thin sheet of trust between us: you haven't even told me how you got to Mistral from Vale. I know you weren't part of Cinder's plans to attack Haven, since (for whatever it was worth) I was. If I give you the scroll it'd be as good as letting you out of sight. I wouldn't be able to feel secure, on the off chance that you went and called in support. After what Cinder cost me, I can't really afford undue attention cast upon me in the city. Can't say I'm predisposed to trust human, either." Not to mention I need the scroll in case Dom calls me, or vice versa. Beyond that, he wasn't tech-savvy enough to know whether or not there had been some hidden recording function on the scroll. He'd hate for her to learn all that he'd gleaned from spying on team RWBY and friends - those secrets were much too juicy to give away to an uncertain ally like Neo.

"If you're intent on this, if you're having problems understanding how your new purpose is to serve me, then I guess I'll just have to reinforce that lesson."

She didn't like that at all, of course. Neo darted forward and jabbed at him with her sword. He stepped back to evade it, then swung at her with the flat of his blade with enough force to knock her over. It was a telegraphed attack, though, leaving her plenty of time to acrobatically duck underneath the red metal. He swung again, with similar results.

"You'll notice-"

He swung at her wrist, trying to hit her hard enough to get her to at least drop her weapon. She twirled away, smiling cheekily.

"-that I'm-"

An overhead bash, one-handed, while his free hand tried to take advantage of the blade's more imminent threat to grab onto her hair. It slipped through his gloved fingers as she performed another neat spin to avoid Wilt. Her hair must be greasy since I only washed it with water, otherwise I'd have had her.

"-still playing nice!"

Gripping Wilt with both hands he heaved it around in a wide arc, going more for a quick area swoop rather than a precise strike. Not his usual style, but her agility was letting her toy with his prior attempts to land his nonlethal strikes. He found himself impressed as she doubled over backwards, letting Wilt pass by her face no more than a finger's width away. Having a scroll in each shoe is impeding my footwork; while not particularly delicate, I'd hate to accidentally snap either device.

"Don't make me-"

He pulled Blush off his back with his off-hand, snapping the leather belt that had kept it there, and held the two weapons in front of himself.

"- wonder how much you really need your arms."

Neo stuck her tongue out at him and wiggled her shoulders, as if to say 'come and get them, if you can!' She moved to the other side of the table, keeping it between them.

"The fire dust in Wilt would certainly cauterize the wounds easily enough," Brazen warned. "It wouldn't be that hard to make sure it healed, and I definitely have some experience in taking care of you."

A quick swipe over the table, falling far short of her.

"Even!"

Swipe again, just as useless.

"If you-"

He aimed Blush at her, but she took cover under the table.

"Didn't deserve such kindness!"

She popped back up from the table and resumed circling the table opposite of him, their eyes locked in a contest of concentration.

"Trust me, I've done it to people before." He remembered Blake's partner, at Beacon. "I hear they get used to it... eventually. I think they even have a charity fund in Atlas to provide my dismembered victims with shiny metal replacement limbs. Go ahead, ask Yang about it. I saw her sporting a cybernetic arm, and I don't think she got that from what's left of Vale's industrial district." Really that just went to go and show how much Atlas was willing to pay out to anyone who went up against their cruelly castigated child-chattel.

She continued to mirror his stride, nimbly keeping out of his grasp as he made several half-hearted swipes at her head with the flat of Wilt.

"What is your plan, Neo? Wearing me out? You've been sick for days. I'm at my prime. I can keep making attacks like this all day." As he spoke, he suddenly spun around and caught her by surprise, getting a clear shot at her. Seizing the opportunity, Brazen unleashed a flurry of swift strikes at her which she somehow managed to nimbly dodge, ducking and diving under the efforts of Wilt and Blush to knock her out, her body contorting at strange angles. She must be double-jointed... certainly flexible. Maybe she had used that flexibility to get off the table? While he had nothing but thanks to Bedlam for having the brilliant insight of putting her camera in Blake's presence, he sort of wished he had some way of seeing how his prisoner had gotten out of her restraints for future reference.

"You can't outlast me, pet." He sneered, "so just put down your little pin of a weapon and give this up."

Slowly, Neo shook her head. It irked Adam that she didn't even seem out of breath, despite the fact that she'd been dancing around his attempts to subdue her for a full minute now. He felt his own breathing getting faster from chasing her around in circles. He wasn't winded yet - far from it - but he wanted this to end. Now. The longer this spectacle persisted, the higher the odds of Dom coming back and having mockery material on him for the rest of his independent existence.

"If you have demands, I'm always willing to listen to them."

Neo's face dropped into a scowl.

"All this time and not a peep from you. How am I supposed to know how you feel about my offer, what you want from serving me, if you won't tell me anything? Even now that you're up, you still refuse to give me at least that courtesy."

He levied another, longer flurry of red afterimage-leaving swipes at his escaped prisoner. To his detriment, he found he was still unable to so much as touch her. If I wasn't using my blade flat for fear of slicing her, each one of these attacks would have hit. Still, without aura, all I need is one solid hit to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion. The room absorbed sound, making his own increasingly-laboured breathing the only thing he could hear. Blood pumping through his neck, pulsing past his ears.

"This has gone on long enough, Neo. It's not even funny anymore." He aimed Blush at her where she stood on the other side of the table, but didn't fire. I don't want to kill her, and I certainly don't feel like treating a bullet wound after wasting so much time on her cold. He'd have to just use Blush as a piece of final leverage for now, a last resort to finish the combat; until then it was little more than a bludgeon.

She didn't seem intimidated by the sight of Blush being pointed at her, at all. She had gone and called his bluff.

Absconding from the limited protection afforded her by interposing the table between them, Neo shifted backwards towards the open door. If she wanted to, she could just run through it and leave. I can't let her get out of this room, lest she get away and ruin a perfectly good hide-out. If she moves out, I'll have to use Blush. She hadn't left when the chance had presented itself earlier, though. What's her game? I can't understand what this stubborn human wants... Neo grabbed down, her gaze not leaving his, and found the handle of the cattle-prod. I guess she wanted to even the playing field, dual-wield just like I am. I guess that's fair. The cattle-prod isn't much good in a fight, and it's not like I'm using Blush to its full power if I'm not firing it.

She tapped her stocking-clad ankle with the prod, then lifted it back up and turned the dial before she hit the power switch, making a blue spark dance between the prongs of the device. With her sword, she pointed at the cattle-prod, then at him, then at the table. Brazen remembered Bedlam's detailed description of how the girl had tortured his clone on the table with the prod, tying it to him at low power to keep his aura broken. It was such a human thing to do, torment him based on his faunus trait. I'm not an animal! I'm a person! It made him a bit angry. Good thing she's doing this to me rather than to Bedlam. He'd lose his mind over this.

"That's... not funny at all." He said, his voice icy. "I've been exceptionally forgiving of what you did to... me... in light of our shared goals, miscommunication, and your skills. Put your weapons down, lie on the table, and I'll forgive this little outburst of yours, too. No harm done."

Neo moved away from the door, not dropping her weapons, warily getting into range of Wilt.

"Still thinking that you can capture me again? Maybe collect the bounty on my head, use that lien to join the pursuit of Cinder?" His voice felt so flat in the room, absorbed by the walls. I may as well be talking at a wall, for all the response I'm getting from this intransigent pest.

No response from Neo, who just moved around him more, orbiting him like a satellite, until she stood between him and her table. Despite being within reach, he chose not to strike out at her again. He chose to keep appealing to her sense of reason, whatever little of such a thing that might exist in her.

"I told you that's a moronic plan. I'm the only one in this city who will help you fight Cinder. Anyone else would let you do it on your own, and take whoever wins down afterwards. You think that they don't know who you are? You think your crimes with Torchwick will be forgotten, ignored, or forgiven by them?"

He slashed at Neo, who continued to weave through his strikes, the swaying motion of her hips and the inability of her bra to contain the veritable bounty hanging from her chest not distracting him whatsoever. She is extremely flexible...

"I'd certainly tell them all about that, if they get their hands on me," he threatened. "No loyalty for someone working against my goals. Cinder would do it with even less hesitation than I would. If she knew you were in the city, she'd probably do it just to deal with a loose end."

More slashes, he pursued her around the table, chasing her again, not interested at all in the way her torn pants hugged her tight ass as she fled, featherfooted steps the hallmark of a stealthy thief, away from his attempts to bring her to heel. Maybe it is for the best that the camera wasn't in here. This whole scene is one laugh-track short of making it to the local news' highlight reel.

"You know, during our entire time planning the attack on Haven, she didn't mention Torchwick once?" He jeered, "if you hadn't told me about it, I wouldn't have even known he was dead."

More blue sparks in the cattle-prod, which she now sent towards him. If that hits me at full power, it might be incapacitating. Is that her plan? He would have to make sure that didn't happen. It simply wouldn't do for Dom to get back from his chores to find the military or gangsters all over the warehouse, Brazen captured. I'm still at full aura, though. She'd have to hit me with that a lot to take me down.

"I guess Torchwick really wasn't that important, in the grand scheme of things." Given what Bedlam had told him about their sessions, her attachment to Torchwick should make her acutely susceptible to such remarks as these, tarnishing his name. He was right: suddenly and to his waning patience, an opening in her defence appeared. She'd lunged forward at him with the cattle-prod but hadn't withdrawn her missed attack in time to avoid letting him get in a quick sundering riposte. The weapon was stuck between his attack angle and the table: nowhere to go, she was badly positioned, and right in his line of fire.

His mouth transformed into a grin as, at full power, he swung at the cruel tool with Wilt's sharp side. No reason to keep it. Easier to just sunder it now. He could entertain no future scenario where he would even want for the device, so abhorrent to his person it was.

The padded walls absorbed the resounding screech of metal on metal, and he winced for a moment at the sensation of resistance as his sword blasted into the table. Full power! I don't have to use the flat of my blade on her weapons!

He opened his eyes quickly to survey the results, and was dismayed to see that somehow she'd managed to pull the weapon back at the last moment. There's no way she could have gotten away from that! All that he'd managed to accomplish was slicing through the cable that had once wound around her waist while she had lay trapped on the table. The severed halves of the cable now dropped down to the floor, and there was a solid seven centimetre gash hewn into the metal table itself.

He wrenched his blade out of the metal table. It would have been a suitable moment of weakness for Neo to launch her own offensive again, but instead she merely backed away further to the top end of the table. Recovering her stance, maybe, after nearly getting her off-hand improvised weapon destroyed. She had the combat training to know that she'd just made a huge error, and was probably struggling to get her emotions back in check so as to avoid a more fatal mistake.

"It seems I may have underestimated you, Neo. You're fast." He took a step back, "but I'm still faster, stronger, and healthier than you."

She waved the cattle-prod, pointing at it with the hand holding her sword, as if to show him evidence to the contrary.

"Honestly, if you are determined to be such a nuisance the moment you're out and about, maybe I need to reassess your value to me," Brazen huffed. "I can always ask Emerald to help, instead. Sure, it would make Cinder's bargaining position stronger to have her crony at her side, but she'd be just as invested in getting back to her boss' side as you are."

Neo pouted and shook her head with revulsion at the idea he had proffered.

"Different reasons for that, though. Oh, that's right. If I get Emerald back to Cinder - because they're separated right now - then that will just make it so much harder for you to get your little sword where you want it to go in her guts. Honestly, I doubt they care much about you. I didn't see you get an invite to their plans here in Mistral, at Haven, even though you played along with their destruction of Beacon so well. They left you behind, you're yesterday's news. Cinder and Emerald wouldn't mind, so really it comes down to my decision. My choice if you're still useful despite this little outburst... or if you deserve to die..."

Neo poked out at him with the cattle-prod again, her face setting into one of focused determination. The cattle-prod hovered above the top corner of the table now. If he had to guess, she wanted him to swing at it again in an attempt to break it, at which point she could jab at his arm or chest with her real weapon. A fair bargain for him, really: he wanted that cattle-prod broken, and he could easily manage to absorb whatever damage she could deal to him with his aura. She hadn't even hit him once, thus far, so his bar was full.

He was pretty used to taking a beating. Thanks, SDC!

He really was starting to get upset, now. The thought of how much time he'd already sunk into trying to convert Neo, the probability of having to live with Bedlam forever after laughing about how he was right, his disappointment in himself... and on top of everything, he would be right back to where he had started looking for Cinder. No, he had to make this work. So it wasn't really a choice between whether Neo should live or die. It was a choice between wearing her down or swapping to bloodier means of keeping her in check.

Fear is the greatest teacher. Once her semblance is back, she can always create the illusion of still having arms. Meanwhile, there would be no concern that she will use her scroll to call in any remaining friends of hers in Mistral. She would also probably need to rely on someone else's hands for more intimate purposes, which naturally helps out with the need to experiment with Moonbright. There is no downside!

Blake stayed out of fear. Fear of Ghira's disappointment, fear that she didn't have a home to return to. Fear didn't make that relationship work.

I don't want her to be afraid of me. I don't want her to fear the faunus - I need her to serve the faunus!

Just a means to an end. She is disposable, like any other human. Does she not owe the faunus an unfathomable blood-debt: just like any other member of her weak species?

She is weak, human. But that doesn't mean she is useless.

With her semblance onboard, I can move with impunity through the city. With her appearance, I can buy the information needed from the human criminals that infest the underbelly of the city.

She has avoided every attack sent at her so far this fight. She is too dangerous, too skilled to use half-measures against. Limit her limbs and make her easier to deal with.

She has avoided every attack sent at her so far this fight.

How'd she recover so quickly, to be able to move like that? A few hours ago she was still labouring to breathe through snot.

Epiphany.

He took a step backwards. She wiggled the cattle-prod over the table's corner, practically daring him to take the shot at it. If I have enough aura to take a hit or ten from either of her weapons, then there's nothing stopping me from doing this. He stooped down and took her scroll out from where it chafed against his ankle. He stood up and let it turn on, ignoring her increasingly frantic attempts to resume the scrimmage, to taunt him with exposed flesh and vulnerabilities in her defenses. "Hang on a second, Neo." He whispered lowly, finding that having spent the past few minutes talking loudly at her and chasing her around the room had left his mouth dry.

She softly moved away from him, towards the door; evidently trying to make a break for it now that he seemed unwilling to engage her. She poked her head out and looked around, taking stock of the situation her warehouse was in before moving out. Her scroll flared to life and he nodded. He moved over to the door and, despite her threatening stance with her sword as he approached, closed the portal between them with her outside and dropped Blush on the pile he had made of all her clothes while washing her. He walked back towards the empty table and spun the scroll around so that the aura-meter tied to her soul was visible to his prisoner.

1%

The illusion shattered, Neo's leg shooting up through the fragments of the image of the empty table that had concealed her, bending up to desperately try to snatch her scroll out of his hand with her toes. Mildly surprised as he was by her ability to bend her leg like that, he was able to keep his grip on it. He looked down at where she lay on the table, still tied by her arms though the cable around her midriff had been severed. If I had tried to break what I saw as the cattle-prod, I would have sheared through the arm restraint cable. Clever. She was baiting me with her semblance the whole time. He jabbed Wilt into a pile of cushions near his feet, then used both hands to pry her foot off his hand.

If I was Bedlam, that ruse might have worked. Luckily for him, she hadn't tortured him, personally, just him, sort of. When did having three bodies become so confusing?

The first couple minutes of it came to mind. Not to mention many moments since.

"Well that was a quick trick, and I have to say: I nearly fell for it." He tried to remember more about Bedlam's experience with her semblance. "So your plan to escape was to have me break you out. Probably would have helped if you gave me less time to think about how quiet you were. I have to wonder: how much concentration did it take to make your bra jiggle so realistically?" He ran his right index finger up along her neck, up her cheek, until she snapped at it with her teeth. "Oh, you're a naughty little thing." He walked back over to the door and grabbed the real cattle-prod. "You seem to have really missed this, though."

Neo's eyes widened. It was at that moment Neo knew: she'd fucked up. She began shaking her head, flailing out with her feet as he slowly strode back towards her.

"Can't say I've ever used one of these things before. I hope I don't make a mistake. Is '1' the highest or lowest power setting? The numbers on the dial are sort of worn out and hard to read, especially with my one-eye and all..."

Neo bent her legs up over her head, grasping at her restraints with her toes and frantically trying to pull against them with all her weakness. In so doing, she left her butt pointed straight upwards.

Smack!

Brazen gently spanked her with the cattle-prod, making her gasp out in panic. She toppled further back over herself, falling backwards off the top of the table to which she was attached by her arms. She got as much of her petite body under the table as she could, and he heard her feet kicking at the table. He crouched down and peered at what she was doing.

"Oh, you're trying to open up that control panel with your dainty little toes?" Well, that could be a problem. He moved around to the front of the table, reached underneath and yanked her out. She didn't weigh much, but she squirmed and fought against his touch like an eel out of water: it didn't help that her body was slick with remnant fever-sweat. Regardless of those issues, he flipped her back over and slammed her back down on the table, taking the air out of her. "I guess the cable that went around your middle is unsalvageable."

He threw the cattle-prod over towards Blush, but didn't let his eyes leave Neo's mismatched pair to see where it landed.

"Your semblance is back, you're getting better." He stated, holding her down with his hand firmly on her belly button. "So tell me, Neopolitan. Do you want to help me find Cinder? Do you accept my terms: you'll serve me, you'll do what I say, and when we find Cinder, you'll stay your blade until I say otherwise?"

Neo held his gaze and bit her lip.

He bent down and picked up Torchwick's hat, where it lay beside the table. He put it on her head. "He'd agree that it's the smart play to play the long game."

At the sight of the hat, small tears began to form in her eyes.

"Last chance, Neo: are you out?" His hand drifted down her body, smoothly slipping along the last bit of her abdomen, "or are you in?" A gloved finger laid a glancing swipe along her femininity. As he did, she let out a breathier gasp, then nodded, breaking her return of his gaze as she closed her eyelids.

"Still not willing to talk?" He pressed his finger more firmly into her, eliciting a slight moan from her. With his other hand, he grabbed Wilt out of the pillow and raised it over his head. "So be it."

He brought Wilt's sharp edge down in a blur of red.


ADAM TAURUS

What is a 'scroll'?

Adam stoked his hairless chin. He was definitely no technician, was not qualified to explain how scrolls or the CCT system worked. "They are machines, powered by dust - I think - that humans designed to let themselves talk, take pictures, play games. They monitor aura, too."

Dai continued to stare at the floating circle, her brow furrowed in concentration as she gave the various Adams new scrutiny as they typed, swiped, and otherwise used their handheld devices.

"Most scrolls run the SDC's proprietary software, like you'd see on Neopolitan's. My scroll runs the Flaming Operating System, or FlamingOS, because I guess the guy who designed it felt it was a good personal joke about his avian traits merged with the Fang's goal of being a fire of revolution." Adam continued, trying to list anything else he knew about scrolls. "They connect to the local tower in cities, which in turn connects to the towers in other cities. Or, at least, they did before Cinder and I destroyed the tower in Vale. For some reason that disrupted the other three, so now the towers just connect the scrolls within their own range without being able to communicate with their siblings. I have no idea why that is."

There were FOUR towers?

In the couple of weeks that he had been constantly in the company of the daemon, Adam had begun to gain a sense of her moods. Right now, he got the sense that she was furious.

"There were..." he began, cautiously, "one in each of the Kingdoms: Vale, Atlas, Mistral and Vacuo. There are also numerous support towers scattered around, to relay the network to smaller outlying settlements, but if those go offline it does not take down the entire system. I should know, I've blown up a fair share of them when raiding the SDC's labs and mines."

He picked up the bucket of popcorn, which was somehow perpetually full, and took a handful as he stretched back to watch Brazen enter Neo's prison. The popcorn and Dai's mood were forgotten as Brazen dodged the first swipe Neo sent at him. Dai seemed distracted, watching Dominic go through a list of local faunus contacts in Mistral on his scroll rather than the unfolding drama at the warehouse. Adam rushed over and grabbed ahold of Brazen's ring, diving into the more exciting scene.