Chapter 51. Beacon Days 32


One random Friday, the Docks

Jaune took a turn at the corner to enter a little alley between two warehouses. Right away, he spotted the reason he's here.

Yang Xiao-Long and her mane of golden blonde hair practically glowed, the brightest thing around but for the shattered moon. She didn't see him at first as she played a game on her scroll; her head came up when she heard the sound of his footsteps. Recognizing him, a wide teasing grin blossomed forth.

"Ooooh, looking nice, Jaune. Got a hot date?" She gave a faux-flirty wink. Jaune shrugged, and told the truth.

"Was gonna, until you insisted I come down here. Steer clear of Xiong territories for the foreseeable future, you might literally get murdered." He thought over it. "Will. Will literally get murdered."

Yang searched his face in hope of a sign that he was joking. Finding none, her grin faded.

"Heh. Heheheh. Crap. I'm guessing it won't help if I tell those two I'm sorry."

"With your history? Doubtful."

"That's going to liven up my mall trips," the other blonde mumbled, then grew sheepish. "I didn't put you in trouble, did I?"

"Nah. They'd hate you for it, but I'm on the side of angels in their eyes for 'showing honor' and 'running to my people's aid'." Catching the befuddled expression, he explained, "It's a whole thing for them. They like seeing it. Anyways, let's get this over with; I've got wonderful places to be. Who are we killing?"

Taken in by his light tone, delivered the way a person would talk of the weather, Yang went to reply. Smile suppressed, Jaune let her talk as he counted the seconds it took for the words to register in full. At the 6-second mark, her cheery mood transformed to consternation, and she balked.

"Nobody! We're killing nobody, so chill, Jaune!"

"Oh." He let the silence linger overlong, before retorting. "Well, don't look at me like I'm the problem. You were the one who called a Yakuza out to the Docks after dark. That sort of thing carries implications! This is, like, prime dumping ground for the criminal underworld. Why, just over there—"

"NOPE! I don't wanna know!" Yang slapped her hands over her ears.

"It's nowhere near what you're thinking. I was hardly involved—"

"La-la-la-la-la!" She continued to sing until he shut his mouth, something he acquiesced to as it had become difficult to speak without bursting into laughter. "Can we get on with it? Please? Without the sordid details?" Satisfied with his small spot of payback, he mimed a zipping motion to Yang's relief. "Thank you."

"Welcome~"

That earned him a suspicious glance. Soon, though, the girl resumed the conversation.

"Okay, so it's like this. I'm sure you remember the super-awesome Dustmas present I sent you…" She prompted him with a leading look. He rolled his eyes, but obliged.

"A hand-wrapped gift of hand wraps. Uncle Hei thought it was a hoot."

Yang made to speak, paused, and raised a finger. "That was not my intention then, but I'm totally going to own it now. Nice pun."

"Looks like I owe Melanie money. She betted on it being unintentional," he said. At the back of his mind, he began dredging up names of people who owed him money. Time to perpetuate the vicious cycle of collecting on a debt to pay a debt. "Erm, aside from your bad joke, I remember there was a flyer… ahhh. The fighting tournament."

"Exactly! It's happening further in, and they should still be accepting entrants at the moment. We're entering, of course."

"Of course," Jaune parroted, nodding absentmindedly as he scanned Yang from head to toe. Sliding back a step, he fell into a wary half-stance. "So, is today the day, then?"

He did not mean the tournament. Yang understood. A spark of eagerness blazed in lilac eyes, and she gave every indication of wanting to shout an affirmation.

Yet, as time went on, a change overtook her demeanor, a note of uncertainty clouding what was once a sure gaze. The fistfighter ever-ready for a battle hesitated a beat too long, and ultimately shook her head.

"Someday," she said in a wistful tone. "Tonight, though, is a doubles tournament. It's the kind of fight that will suit you; they disqualify weapons, but most other stuff is fair game. I figured, since we made a pretty good team in that brawl with Vacuo, we could do well here and split the prize."

A fair summation. The best place to stand when Yang starts throwing punches was behind her, he'd found, which coincided with her weakest point. Her wild offensive may be a formidable thing, but her mistakes mounted the longer a fight continued. In playing as her support, he shored up those shortcomings, while she created opportunities for him to punish. Their respective skillsets meshed together well in the right circumstances.

"This is a pretty well thought out scheme coming from you, unlike usual," Jaune praised. He motioned for Yang to lead the way and fell into pace with her as they walked down the alley.

"Awww, thank—hang on a sec, that doesn't sound like a compliment at all! Are you saying I'm normally stupid?"

"Signs point to yes."

"As if you're one to talk. Nyeh." Yang stuck out her tongue, pulling down an eyelid. Jaune responded in kind.

The two of them traded shots back and forth along their stroll. Occasionally, they'd skip around or hop over a puddle left by the recent rain. Even with Yang acting as a lamp, the high walls of the warehouses darkened the alley, though a distant light ahead cast a measure of visibility on the path. Getting closer to it, Jaune began to hear music, soft at first, quickly rising in volume and accompanied by a thumping bass that shook the air. It's a familiar ambiance. Familiar, yet…

Jaune sniffed in condescension. The Bear DJ can do better than whoever this was.

Once they exited into the wider clearing, he tutted at the state of security for the entrance. The bouncers hired for the night were a most unprofessional lot, members of a small-time gang he recognized by the colors if not the name. The venue, too, could use work. The outside veneer carried a rusted, abandoned look; very unwelcoming, in his opinion. Not to mention that carpet they laid down. Purple? Pffft.

Yang interrupted his posturing, hooking her arm around his elbow to march him inside the warehouse. "Excuse him. Competitive rivalry, you know how it is. Come along, you."

"Wait, wait, let me sneer at them one more time!"

"You get hung up on the strangest things. Let's try to not piss off our host before we even register, yeah?"

Says someone who had no understanding of the game. A certain level of grandstanding was expected—nay, required—on occasions where opposing groups (whether gangs or businesses) rubbed shoulders, paradoxically doing more to keep the peace than common courtesy ever could. Him behaving with meekness would reflect back on the Red Axes and The Club as weakness, inviting challenges to their holdings. He needed to assert dominance! For Xiong pride!

His protests, well-reasoned as they were, fell on deaf ears as Yang brought him in a vice grip over to the registration line. Ugh, blonds.

To while away the time as he waited in the queue, Jaune cast his eyes over the interior space. It hurts to admit, but they'd somewhat done a good job. A regular old coliseum situation up in here. Club lights shone down on a central arena, currently functioning as a dance floor. From it, bleachers spread out, co-opting the empty shelves of the warehouse to create scaffoldings that allowed them to build higher and higher until hitting the walls. Amongst the seats were wide platforms partitioned off to serve as bars, gambling tables, VIP decks, and the like, with a dozen or so food carts further interspersed throughout the stands.

All the usual types of nightlife revelers were present, but joining them were a rougher lot, criminals and toughs and men in suits with cigars between their teeth; he even spotted a cluster of white masks, whose owners he will be avoiding with care. The many, many minor gangs proudly flew their colors, coming out in force with as many members as can be gathered, so they could compare sizes against rivals.

Just as he watched them, many eyes locked on to Jaune in particular. He might not wear a speck of red, but it appeared that enough had heard of the blue tie and tinted sunglasses to pin down his identity. They glared at him with undisguised hostility. To them, Jaune returned a smirk, doing his best to project an attitude befitting the representative of Vale's biggest gang.

You're all beneath the Xiong, he strove to convey. By the deepening of scowls, the message has been delivered.

"You know what, Yang? I think I can grow to really like this place. I'm glad you invited me along."

Said person did not seem to agree, casting nervous glances around the room before hanging her head.

"This district isn't cursed, right? I'm not getting dragged into a fight for my life at the Docks for a third time, right? I think I need to find better friends."

Amused, Jaune retorted, "The Docks, The Club, the Beacon sewers. Way I see it, the common denominator in these incidents is you, Yang. If there's a curse, then it's clinging to your back. Or perhaps you're the protag—" He choked off the sentence, eyes shooting wide open as he stared at a booth set against the far wall. "I know that rabbit-headed idiot. Why are they here?"

True to his words, a certain masked emcee sat behind a table, female this time going by the Beacon girl's uniform they wore, a microphone sitting in front of them. They caught his stare, and waved an arm wildly to greet the pair of him and Yang.

"It is a pretty popular event for those tapped into the underground fighting circuits," his companion offered.

"Great. Well, who else from Beacon is in the crowd? Because it's a detention if Goodwitch gets a whiff of this."

That got Yang's attention. The perpetual captive of after-school detention had almost worked off her sentence. A week to go was what she told him.

"What do we do? What do we do!? I can't survive that hell much longer! This was a terrible idea!" Yang whisper-shouted, as if speaking too loud might summon the witch.

"Do you want to leave?"

Yang actually stopped to consider it, revealing the extent to which Goodwitch cowed her. Yet, her reluctance was clear for anyone to see in how she dithered and chewed on her lip. She had been looking forward to this.

Revising his stance in a heartbeat, Jaune gave a sharp clap of his hands to break the girl out of her thoughts. An excuse was ready on his lips. "Belay that. I just realize too many people will see us quit. I'm not taking that hit to my rep. I have the perfect set of skills to handle this sort of scenario, anyway." His eyes trailed a pair of masked individuals dipping outside the warehouse. "Hold my spot for a bit. I'll be back."

Minutes later, two strangers stood in place of the Beacon students, or near enough to provide plausible deniability.

Blue tie removed and the top few buttons of his shirt undone, Jaune mussed his hair to turn it to a mop, the bangs falling over his eyes. A sloppy appearance. But, as everyone from Beacon knew, 'sloppy' wasn't him.

By his side, Yang opted for the classic psychological ploy of diverting attention away from identifiable facial features. Which sounded clever, except all she did was shrugged off her jacket, thus ensuring no scrutiny or camera would ever wander above her chin. Her long hair was done up in twintails, a jarring departure to further distance herself from the norm.

Now, even with those changes, they were still recognizable as Jaune and Yang on the second glance. That's where the masks came in. Borrowed (wink wink, nudge nudge) from the White Fang grunts who thought a deserted alleyway was the place for a smoke, Jaune had chipped them down to simple domino masks, plain white in color with the eyeholes enlarged to allow proper vision.

Were the disguises fool-proof? Not in the least, but his misspent days as a waiter, fireman, nurse, plumber, and various other costumed ruses have established that people were less observant than they believed. It'd serve their purposes fine over the short term, and with Yang following his lead, they soon added their entry to the brackets under pseudonyms.

"Alright," Yang said, launching into the game plan, "even though this tournament is open for all comers, there's an understanding that it's for amateurs and newcomers to the scene only, meaning a ton of rubes will be present. You might think it's a cakewalk because of that, but winning first place would get one's name out for the bigger contests, so victory matters and the competition is stiff. Rumors say a good half of the fights start and end outside the arena. They're going to play mind games; maybe sabotage us behind our backs. We gotta stay focused. We gotta be alert to counter their interference. Don't let your guard drop for a nanosecond. Understand, Jaune? ...Jaune?"

Jaune was already partying it up at the bar. Booze lowered inhibitions; anonymity did, too, and there's a sense of liberation in the mask he wore, letting him chat and tell jokes with anybody who passed near his orbit. On this battlefield, he studied under the tutelage of twin experts, and it was hardly two minutes later that he bought the first round, with a second chasing on its heels. A third followed suit, accompanied by him—bottle in one hand, the other arm hooked around the neck of his new best friend, a wiry dude his age who joined every toast thus far—leading a cheer.

"WHOOO!"

In the background, Yang dropped her face into her hands.

An hour passed, and the tournament was in full swing. The first two matches have concluded, and what savage fights they were; the staff just finished mopping up a puddle of blood and sweeping away the teeth. Now, another round prepared to commence as duo stared down duo from across a distance of ten yards. One of the pairs stood proud and confident, eager to enter the fray. The same cannot be said of the other, one person in despair as his partner swayed so much that a stiff breeze might send him end over end.

Yes, things did not look good for the wiry dude who's drunk as a skunk.

"Praise me." Jaune demanded. He held up a palm, and Yang high-fived it, wonder clear on her face.

"You sneaky fucker," she breathed out in awe. "You faked it for the last hour, didn't you? How?"

"Dark bottles. Low lights. Who's to say I drank a drop?" He threw out a peace sign. V for victory. "I learned from the best."

Above them, the speakers continued blaring the dulcet voice of the emcee, who was running through the intro segment and sounded positively delighted by the development in the ring.

"Uh-oh, what's this? By sheer, innocent coincidence, one contestant is already on his last legs! Sabotaged, you say? Show me the evidence! Otherwise, here's hoping he's a master of drunken kung fu. He and his partner will need it to face the almighty combo of Mysterious Blond Fighter Y and Mysterious Blond Fighter Jaune Arc!"

Smugness drained from Jaune's face. Aghast, he stared up at the announcer booth. "She just doxxed me. I put down 'X' on the form!"

The emcee waved to him.

"I'm going to kill that rabbit." He decided, but then paused and held his chin in thought. "Or maybe I'll frame it for a murder? Hmmm."

Whatever course he planned to take had to be put on temporary hold as a countdown began. One thing at a time, this fight bore greater urgency. Five…four…three…two…one…

The starting bell rang.

The drunkard flopped on the ground, passed out. At the same time, Jaune and Yang turned to the remaining guy, and showed mirrored smiles. The match concluded soon after.

Such trickery became rarer in subsequent rounds of the tournament, and far less spectacular in effect. Those who would fall for simple traps have already been eliminated. Meanwhile, the ones remaining learned their lesson to take precautions. Food and drinks, popular vectors of attack, got turned down. Anyone passing too near in a participant's personal space received the gimlet eyes. Some clever ploys sneaked through, like when a couple of competitors had allies flashing bright lights at their opponents' faces from outside the arena, though that later sparked a fight in the stands that exhausted them. More often than not, the attempts didn't change outcomes much, since there just wasn't enough downtime to set things up. So, as the night went forward, skill and physical prowess came to the fore.

That's where specialized education proved their worth. 'Beacon-trained' meant more than hot air, as did 'Malachite-tutored', and spending hours each week clashing with live opponents translated well to beating up randos in dodgy underground tournaments. The fundamentals have been established, and amateurish mistakes got smoothed out early on.

Case in point.

With a twist of his hips, Jaune roundhouse-kicked his foe, a woman older than him by a decade or so, to send her crashing to the floor.

"Arms up, arms up. What use is leading with your face?" The advice rather fell on deaf ears as the woman scrambled to her feet, snarling. She has a set of arms that he envied, muscles sculpted by the gods themselves. Unfortunately, she's also someone for whom a punchup was literal, relying on beating the other person into submission instead of getting bogged down by the technical aspects of it all.

Sure, his own stance left him wide open, but the vulnerability was a mere seeming. His hands were always ready to snap up in a block. Everything was calculated for effect. He certainly wouldn't put his chin out there for people to swing at, presenting a tempting target that begged for a heel to slam into it.

Which was exactly what he did here, followed by Yang stomping on her head. Aura pulsed a final time before shattering to a million motes of light, thus calling the match.

"And with a brutal finisher, the Mysterious Blond Fighters clinched the victory to earn themselves a spot in the FINALS!"

Basking in the roaring cheers of the crowd, Yang lit up the room with her happy grin. She was skipping by his side as they trotted off the stage, twintails swishing in lively motions.

"We made it! We're going to the last round! Ohhhh, this is perfect!" Giddy, she bounced on the balls of her feet, then tossed her hands in the air while giving a shout of joy. The exuberance was infectious, and Jaune found himself cracking a smile in turn. Overhead, a screen showcased replays of their best moments.

It…he enjoyed this mood. There's something about these kinds of lowdown places, a wild and freeing energy that spoke to him. Maybe because it lets him show the world all that he can do. The audience cheered for his dirty moves as much as they did Yang's performance. The Vytal Festival tournament won't give him that. He'd have to thank Yang for bringing him here.

With a long break ahead for the staff to ready the stage—and, more importantly, to let everyone place their bets—Jaune and Yang settled themselves at a food stand to eat some snacks. They've gone without the whole night, fearing that a competitor would attempt to remove them via food poisoning or laxatives. At this point, however, every facet of preparation mattered if they wanted to take the crown, and hunger can easily become their downfall if left neglected. Yang was still leery at first, but their fans (that is, the people who had money riding on their team) provided the solution, protecting their investme—ahem, heroes by forming a small cordon to clear a space around them. The stall owner, an enterprising college student, sweated under their scrutiny as she cooked, the pair watching her like hawks.

The spread that soon laid before them consisted of simple fares, fries and churros and the like. They savored it nonetheless.

Yang bit into a piece of chicken kebab. "Shooo gooood! You have to try it, Jaune!"

He did, and hummed appreciatively, "Pretty nice. It's not dry, flavor is full but not overwhelming…" Jaune considered the cook with a shrewd eye. "Ever thought of opening a stall at the Night Market?"

This will sell. Set it up next to one of the alcohol stands and he can see it turning into a real winner.

"Or maybe the Vytal Festival grounds. That's kicking off soon," he mused.

The stall owner grinned. "What do you think this is for? I'm going to make enough to cover permits and startup costs, then you'll see me at both. Capitalism, ho!"

""Capitalism, ho!"" The blonds echoed, before they burst out laughing. Jaune decided right then and there to make the offer. This person had the sort of personality that would liven up the Xiong's operations.

Leaning in, he said, "Would you be interested in a sponsor to smooth your way? I myself represent the Red Axes. We as good as own the Night Market, and managed to secure a good chunk of the festival space to run our stands. For a cut, there will be a spot waiting for you at either location."

"We~ell," Likewise, she leaned over the counter, "then I'd have to say: what are the terms?" Her grin grew shark-like. "Because I ain't no pushover, mister Yakuza."

"Didn't expect you to be." That would just take the fun out of the game. Haggling was a contest all of its own, and victory always tasted oh so sweet.

His gaze darted to one of the screens counting down the hour.

"Time is short tonight, but here's my contacts. I'll be in touch."

Their battle shall be glorious.

The meal proceeded from there in a lighter mood, customer and shopkeep each using the chance to get the other's measure ahead of their duel. About half an hour after they finished eating, a message played over the speakers to notify them of the final round commencing. Jaune and Yang bade farewell to the college student, and the duo reentered the arena.

"...Mysterious Blond Fighter Y and Mysterious Blond Fighter Jaune Arc!"

Knowing the futility of shouting at the emcee—they appear to crave such attention, in fact— he simply flipped them off and swore another hundred years of enmity on their line. Now was not yet the time to split his priorities; the last opponents for night stood just over yonder, and Jaune scanned them in search of the most minute of weaknesses.

He had observed the pair fighting their way up the other bracket. A hulking brute and a man that seemed short in comparison. They were formidable. The stoic demeanor they displayed spoke of singular focus and determination, of an unshakeable will against which no mere tricks can overcome—

"And facing them, here to make money for their long, loooong trek back to 'Mistral', iiiit's ADAM! And! SMASHER!"

"I told you, it's Mysterious Faunus Samurai A, you doxxing rabbit! I'll kill you!"

…Mood kindred?


Author's Notes: Next time, a clash. Humans vs. Faunus. Idiots vs. idiots. We're not so different after all.