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It was heartbreakingly easy to leave them behind and set off for Sanus. If my father stuck to his patterns there would be a lab there near Vale, maybe even a fourth near Vacuo. I was going home. At least in part. I could never truly return but I was going to the place I had stayed the longest in all my waking life, asleep in a vat didn't count. That wasn't home.
But was Vale home if I wasn't going to Beacon? That's where I resided. The school was where I had lived. Not down in the city. I wonder how they were rebuilding. Communication would soon be up and running between the kingdoms again so I supposed I'd find out sometime between then and now.
I could return, it would seem. But I could never go back. And would I be going back at all if it was without my friends and loved ones? Without Pyrrha, Weiss, or Ruby? It didn't feel like I was going back, just that I was leaving. My responsibilities forced me to resign and run away like a coward.
I tried to temper myself with reminders that I would stay in touch and that it would only be temporary. It wasn't like last time. But the motion sickness gripped me in its tight clutches. I wasn't free. I was not my own man despite all my responsibilities. Anxiety rushed me and gave me a sense of vertigo as I waded through my past, present, and future.
Neo and I met up in Atlas, the city built into the rock with jagged towers of smooth glass. It was brilliant in the pink morning sun. She gave me a pretty wave and I gave her a tight but unflinching smile.
"I'm headed to Vale. Back to my home. I think my father will have another lab out near there. It's my job to find it. You wanna come?"
She leaned her umbrella against her shoulder and put a forefinger to her chin. She nodded.
"Great. Fantastic," it came out a touch melancholic. She must have heard it in my voice because she frowned curiously up at me.
'Whats eating you?' I heard.
"It's nothing. I'm tired," I tried.
She stamped her foot. 'Bullshit.' She could tell something was off with me. She knew me that well at least. She probably knew me almost better than anyone who hadn't been at Beacon. Hell, she was my first non-Beacon friend.
"Fine. I'm tired of leaving my friends and lovers behind and I only just started. I'm tired of fighting my Mother's presence. Her voice is always in my head. She nags at me all the time. She's such a bitch. But I have a responsibility to keep them safe and to shut down my father and probably to kill him, so that's a thing," I complained freely to my friend. I was allowed. "Anyways none of that is the point. We better get going before Ironwood finds out I'm going AWOL and abandoning my parole. He seems like a stickler for the rules. Plus you shouldn't be seen in broad daylight, should you?" She shifted into her disguise soundlessly and without complaint, the one I affectionately called Mint.
"Good. Just a couple of things and then we'll be off. I need marijuana and new paraphernalia. I'm not going to be able to get prescriptions for my antipsychotics while I'm on the road. Besides, THC and CBD work better anyways. Let me call Aurum."
We walked through the city streets together as I pulled out my scroll and the several story high houses seemed to press in on me with their blues, greys, and whites. They leaned over me judgmentally. I felt like prey. I felt small. I was small, of course. They leaned in on me and the people I passed on the street nodded about to one another in greeting. I maintained my morose silence and composure and pushed through.
"Aurum speaking. Is that you Cloud?"
The streets were regularly swept and clean and the light posts were turned off so the sun stretched beams of light unabated through the clear morning without anything artificial to block it. The city was beautiful. I could readily confess that. It was just a shame about it's hunchbacked twin they kept in the basement.
"It's me," I replied.
"Did you finally get that bitch and her friend?" Aurum asked. "I'm thinking you must have because all has been quiet on that front."
"I finally did, but I didn't get her friend," I agreed. I still didn't feel the roar of that victory in my head and in my heart. Instead I still felt strangely empty where rhapsodic joy and trumpeting vindication should have been. I felt nothing. Where was the pride in my hard fought vendetta turned to real action? I vacillated between nothingness and despair. I still had so much work ahead of me. Especially if I ever wanted to see my friends and lovers again. I had a lot to live up to in terms of Pyrrha's dreams for me as well. She would never have wanted this for me. She wouldn't have wanted any of this for me. I could only imagine her looking at me with pity in heart at the thing I had become and what I must do.
Watching over me, she must have been horrified a little, too. But I hope, just maybe, I had done her a little proud. I was a real hunter now. One of the strongest on the planet's ugly face. Would she be pleased with how far I had come?
"That's fantastic news. Her little friend was a small fry anyways. Sometimes they slip through the net. Say, I've got a bar down in Mantle. You should come celebrate with me. I rather insist, in fact."
"No can do. I'm leaving town. I do need something from you before I go, though."
"And what's that?"
"Drugs. THC and CBD. I'm willing to pay for it too."
"No, you my friend get it on the house. It's the least I can do for you and all you saved this city's underbelly from. Cinder Fall burned two of my most loyal men to death. I couldn't let that stand. She just burnt them right up in a pillar of flames."
"Hey, she burnt my friend up too," I muttered sadly.
"There a story to that?" He asked.
"That's pretty much it. She turned her to ashes. Wrong place, wrong time but she had to be there, I suppose."
"I don't quite know what you mean," Aurum's voice came clear through the speaker.
I sighed loud enough that I'm sure the microphone picked up on it. "I mean she could have run the fuck away. But she didn't. And the result would have been the same except she would have lived. I blame her for that sometimes. I wish she would have run away."
"It sure as shit saved my ass at the Den. Running. Sometimes that's what it takes and it's all you can do. Come down to my club. We'll chat in person and say goodbyes." He gave me an address. "Capisce? Chao."
"Bye," I cut the connection with a tap of my finger on the scroll that used to belong to Don Corneo. It had been a long time since then. I… I'd really gone on a tear. Murdering because I felt like it. Hurting people just because I could and they couldn't stop me. I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed of what Pyrrha might have seen me become as she watched over me. I was afraid of how far I had fallen, I could fall that far again. This time would be different. None of that indiscriminate torture and mayham. I'd be neat and tidy. I might still kill but I wouldn't find sadistic joy in it. That was my choice.
Or was it? We didn't choose the things we're afraid of. Do we get to choose what makes us happy? I didn't like what I thought were the answers to those questions. It implied that the things that scare us and make us happy aren't a part of us but they do control us. That scared me.
Neo was giving me a penetrating look and hoping to catch my eye. Something in my conversation with Aurum had piqued her curiosity or otherwise caught her attention. I didn't give eye contact to her deliberately. I refused. Instead I hopped in a gondola down to Mantle with a dozen other passengers. The grimy city beneath the other city. Good riddance to bad rubbish. All the smoke, and ash, and dust choked the place up and the floating city above stopped it from floating freely away. It choked on it. The mining operations corroded it. Smothered.
What a depressing shit hole. I felt strangely at home what with the uneasy feeling in my gut. I was doing the right thing. I felt strongly about that. I couldn't fight my Mother but that didn't mean that there was no good I could do.
I had to cling to that and hope and pray I had enough free will to do it. I had to hope I wasn't just a puppet and that all my emotions were real. I had to hope that there was more to a person than nature or nurture. It was in my nature to be a monster. And an alien goddess was nurturing my subconscious like plastic into what she wanted me to be. I had to hope for more. I had to hope for something beyond that or I would never hold Ruby or Weiss in my arms ever again. But what else was there? It seemed like a riddle with no answer.
I was pretty sure that I was just fucked. Cut clean and hung out to dry.
Neo tapped my shoulder. She had to reach way up to do it.
"What's up?" I asked her.
She gave me a mournful look. Her brow raised and her eyes suddenly mismatched and were wide. I saw myself in them like a bronze mirror. Polished in brown and pink.
"I don't know what you're asking me. Give me something a little more. Is it my bike? I decided to leave it here. Can't fit it in the airship and it was just temporary anyways. But then again what isn't?"
She shook her head and pointed at me. 'No, that.'
"That? I'm depressed. I'm leaving my loved ones behind. I've got to, though. And it's depressingly easy. It's so fucking easy that I'm scared that none of my emotions are really real. I'm worried that it's all fake pressure from my Mother somehow. I'm so fucking scared. Maybe that's just me, though. Maybe I'm just the sort of person that's scared all the time. Maybe that's the Cetra condition, too. Being scared. Existential dread. Maybe that's everybody and everything. Maybe everyone is scared and there is a horrible scream coursing through nature. The Grimm are certainly enough evidence for how bad things can get - at how bad things really are. Not to mention the whole world hates Atlas now. There's so much to do and so little I can do to help because of the limits I have to put on myself. That's what's bothering me. All of that. Got any advice."
She stared at me for a long time. She blinked and her eyes swapped colors. Then she shook her head slowly and minutely.
"I thought so. Not to blame you or anything. I'm just this side of 'too fucked.'"
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Aurum's secondary place was a low purple brick building with a small parking lot out front with a few sparse cars around it. There were small windows to the place and it had a low ceiling. It didn't stand out in Mantle besides the fact that the exterior had been power washed recently so the purple really came through.
There was a blue of red neon 'open' sign by the front door.
I walked in and there was a little chime. There was a man with a mustache and a large nose behind the bar washing a glass with a rag. He looked me over as I came in and I did the same. He had a pistol under his right breast.
The bar was cozy and small with a long bar and stools to the right and a bunch of tables to the left. At the far end of the room with some thugs standing over him at a regular table was Aurum.
We were the only people in this place. It was probably just a front for money laundering purposes. Mostly. Maybe it made a little cash on the side too but it was mostly for washing up drug money probably.
Soft music played in the mostly red and brown interior of the bar. The music was mostly jazzy brass instruments which played quietly enough that one could easily have a conversation, not like the Den where you had to shout to be heard over the din. On the whole it was nice and looked fairly clean.
"Cloud! Welcome! I know it's not as grand as the Den but it has its own charm all the same. I have your cookies right here, but sit with me first and have a drink. And something for Neo?"
I looked at Neo. She nodded. "Something sugary and girly," I ordered for her.
"Yes, but what about for Neo?" Aurum laughed and deliberately misinterpreted me. I paced over to him with a small smile. It was slightly more earnest and real than the fragile thing I'd handed to Neo earlier. Aurum ordered her drink and as I sat down he slid my jar of 'cookies' over to me.
"You mind if I smoke in here?" I asked.
"I would prefer not," he returned. "Keeps this place free of both tobacco and marijuana smell. No smoking; not even for me in this place. So tell me what happens now?"
"What happens now?" I wondered.
"Where are you going next? What's your plan? The women you were after are all dead now: Winter Schnee and Cinder Fall. So what happens next?"
"What happens now…" I trailed. I slammed back a shot of whiskey he had provided me. "I'm headed to Vale, Merlot might have another lab there waiting for me. Hopefully this time I'll catch him."
"The next name on your list. You've been slamming through names since you got here. Taking down one person after the other. From one to the next to the next. It'll be a shame to see you go."
Because I killed serial killers and murderers who were bad for business for damn near free of charge. That's why it's a shame for him to see me go. I was good for his occupation. But he might also be my friend. It was sad to leave him too. He was a friend too. Maybe I was bad at making friends or at least good at making bad friends. I might also swing by Seventh Heaven and say goodbye to them as well. They were sort of friends and who knows when I'll be seeing them again.
"Merlot is next for me. And we can be in touch soon. You may have heard of the General's secret project to get communications with the other kingdoms going again. Once that's done we'll be able to talk again. Especially if another name on my list comes through. Like Hazel Rainart."
"Or your mysterious mustached customer," Aurum agreed. "I'll keep my eyes open. I owe you that much at least."
It was also good for his line of work if the people on my list got their names crossed off of it.
I threw back another shot and Neo sucked through a straw on a shirley temple looking drink.
"It'll be good to be back in Vale though. I wonder how the rebuilding is going," I went on.
"There will probably be plenty of work for an upstanding hunter of society such as yourself," Aurum agreed without any sarcasm. "Someone has got to replace Torchwick. Could be you? If someone else hasn't already. Maybe the Hei family? Or even the Malachites?"
"You don't know?" I asked him. I was slightly surprised. It was his business to know these kinds of things. It should have been a priority to stay in the loop on what was happening in Vale and the other kingdoms for a crime lord like Aurum.
"Been cut off for quite some time. Ever since Beacon fell I really haven't heard much but once communication is reestablished we can get somewhere but for now I'm operating off of what I used to know and a handful of letters," he complained lightly in an explanatory fashion. "But letters are slow traveling and can be intercepted."
"I suppose I'll have to find out when I get there. I've done some business with the Malachites but it didn't end as friendly as it is with you. No fighting but it got intense,"
"Well, they might forgive and let live."
"They might. And it'll be good to see Beacon again. Especially if they've done some reconstruction. I attended school there before the attack."
"Really? I didn't know that about you," he sounded vaguely surprised.
"Well it's true. I had a partner, a team, the whole shebang."
"What happened?"
"Got fucked. Everyone died."
"Enlightening and in such good spirits."
"Yeah well blame my personality." And blame my shame. My glorious mortification. The mistakes I made hurt the people I cared about the most. It made me cringe to remember how I had been puppetted to attack those I proclaimed to love. Unless I could stop that that was it for me. I was utterly humiliated.
"I won't. You've been good to me here. Goodbye, Cloud."
"Later Aurum."
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-WG