"The Cult of Crimson Blood or just The Order of Crimson now, is an old self proclaimed group whose leader believes that through him the Brothers will return and grant him godhood. Then he will give his loyal followers the same godly powers he was given through them drinking his blood. Together, they will rule all of Remnant as godly kings. But to first summon the Gods there must be mass amounts of sacrifices. A grave amount of bloodshed. They've tried for generations, killing more and more only to get nowhere. It used to be just animals and house pets they would kidnap and slaughter, but now..." Verdatre trailed off.
He swallowed hard. "My great-great-great grandfather served among The Order and so did his son and his after, all the way down to me. I thought what we were doing was right. I thought unlimited power could be mine." He lowered his head. "But it seems like we were all being used by our Leader. We're all puppets in his game of murder and no one else sees it except for me."
He held out his hands towards Kagami and Cheyenne. "I can't ask anyone here for help. Word travels fast. Even secrets spread like wildfire in Vacuo. I can't trust the Huntsmen here. I can't trust anyone. But you're strangers. No one knows you. All anyone will think is a group of Huntresses from another Kingdom are in Vacuo taking out The Order. The others won't suspect me. They won't..." He trailed off. "I need you to stop them."
Cheyenne blinked a few times before slowly turning her head to look at Kagami with a raised eyebrow.
Kagami smiled while sliding her hands into her pockets. "So?" She raised her shoulders. "What do you think?"
"I think everyone in this Kingdom is out of their minds." She exhaled while letting her shoulders fall. "We should just focus on getting back to Vale."
"No, please!" Verdatre quickly stepped over while pulling out a piece of paper. "Just kill them! Tie them up and leave them for dead in the sun! Break their spines, I don't care!" He shoved the paper into Kagami's chest. "These are all their names just please!"
"I... I can't stop a cult alone. I told you that." The jadette eyed the paper and skimmed over the names. "And she's not interested so..."
"But-"
She handed him back the paper. "I'm sorry. Maybe you can find better Huntresses suited for the job. Not us. I'm sure there's plenty of older Huntsmen with a ton more experience."
"Listen," Cheyenne stepped over while gesturing with her hands, "it's been a long past few months, and you clearly have problems you need to work out, but my friends and I aren't the people for this job. I hope you can get this sorted out though. It... it sounds horrible." She gulped. "But we can't afford to do charity work right now." She eyed her leader before nodding and making her way out of the garden.
"Sorry, again. Maybe if things weren't so scattered for us at the moment then we would." Kagami flashed him a smile while backing up. "I wish you the best of luck. I hope you can find someone to help." She frowned. "I'm sorry. Genuinely."
"Yeah..." Verdatre sighed while lowering his head between his shoulders. "Me too."
"You sure we shouldn't help?" Kagami asked as she followed Cheyenne back to the bar.
"Kagami," the Faunus exhaled and placed a hand on her friend's shoulder, "I know you have this thing where you want to try and help everyone, but we can't do that right now. There's Sanguine and your Ancestor and everything else Remnant decides to throw at us." She sighed. "We can't."
"I know. That's why I asked for your opinion." She lowered her head and looked down at her feet. "I didn't want to drag us all into something that none of you wanted to be a part of in the first place. Not purposely at least." She flashed a smile.
Cheyenne softly scoffed back and nudged her. "That's good to know. Maybe someday we'll get our relaxing day by the beach after all."
"Yeah. Just don't let me plan it." She chuckled back.
The following morning, Kris slowly walked through the street with her arms loosely hanging in front of her. "Oh... my head hurts... real bad... I think I'm going to vomit..."
"You did down nearly four of those drinks before passing out on the floor." Cheyenne couldn't hold in a laugh. "I told you to stop but you wouldn't. I warned you."
"Shut uuuppp..." She groaned.
"Heh. Guess someone doesn't know her limits." Elise chuckled while placing her elbow on Kagami's shoulder.
"You do realize you tried to put your hair up in a ponytail with a sock this morning, right?" The jadette eyed her.
She flinched. "Yeah, well," she scoffed. "Whatever." She stepped away while swaying her arms. "Do you think Billy will give us a Grimm bounty today? I'm pumped and ready to kill some Grimm!"
"I'm not..." Kris sounded like she was about to cry.
With a sigh, Cheyenne stepped over and moved an arm around her. She pulled her close. "Come here. You got this, Christmas."
"No I don't!" She whined.
With a smile, Kagami rolled her eyes. She then blinked as she heard a commotion. She raised an eyebrow and eyed her friends before making her way over. Her friends followed after.
What she saw she wasn't expecting. Cheyenne wasn't expecting it either.
A crowd of people were all swarming around a building. Lodged into the front wall was a spear. Tied to that spear was a rope. And that rope wrapped around the neck of a man who had been beaten bloody. His features were barely even recognizable.
But Kagami knew who he was.
Slowly, she backed up with wide eyes. "Chey..."
"Yeah..." The Faunus backed up with wide eyes as well.
It was Verdatre.
"...eh...?" Kris blinked, confused.
"Long story." Cheyenne bared her teeth while pulling the redhead away from the crowd and back into the side streets as others rushed by to see what was going on. "But not long." She eyed Kagami. "Do you remember those names?" Her eyes narrowed.
"I remember them well enough." She narrowed her eyes back.
"I'm... confused." Elise blinked. "Can someone explain?"
"Pula, Juhong, Juhwangsaeg, Ambra, Pynap, Malachi, Torqas, Jay Azur, Bendhimmel, Jamie Uva, Sekishi Shoku." Kagami groaned while hunched over the table at Jayde's place. She had a paper in front of her with the list of names. "I think that's the best I can do." She sighed and placed her forehead on the table.
"That's a shit hit list." Kasune teased as she passed by.
She groaned louder. "Shut up." She exhaled. "And it's not a hit list."
"It might end up being one though." She gave her a look before getting some cactus tea.
"Disregarding their fates," Jayde crossed her arms and leaned against a wall, "I'm curious about The Order. I've never heard of them. And that's very hard to make happen."
"Nor have I." Melony added. She was sitting on the couch watching a show on a holo screen. She still wanted to slit the throats of all four girls so she kept to herself. "Do you purposely look for trouble or does it just accidently find you?"
"It finds us." Cheyenne shakily exhaled while rubbing her arm. Maybe if she had said yes to helping Verdatre he would still be alive. She couldn't shake the thought. She could have saved his life if all she had done was say yes. The guilt was gnawing away at her insides.
"Do you think Kaito could help? Or Pithaya?" Elise asked.
"I don't know." Kagami propped her head up with her hand. "I don't know what to do at all!" She placed her hands over her face and leaned back in the chair.
Kasune resisted the urge to kick the chair over and watch her fall as she passed by again. "You could always do nothing. There's plenty of psychopathic groups in Vacuo. There's that one," she eyed Jayde and gestured with her hand, "The Crown I believe. They tried to convince Krimson to join." She shook her head and laughed. "The Order isn't something special."
"But if there's people out there kidnapping, torturing and killing people, wouldn't you want to go stop them?" The jadette eyed her.
She shrugged back. "Not my business if they leave me and the people I care about alone."
"Ugh!" She groaned before faceplanting on the table again.
"Okay, okay." Reaching over, Kris placed a finger on the list of names and pulled it over towards her. "Well, there's a few full names we have on here. Jay Azur, Jamie Uva, Sekishi Shoku." She glanced up at her friends. "Why don't we try to figure out where this Jay guy is first. I'm sure he'll have something that'll help lead us to the rest of his friends."
"Like a clue on him?" Cheyenne raised an eyebrow.
"Like a clue. Hah!" Elise smiled with a small laugh. "Just like in a mystery book where you track down one bad guy at a time and gain clues to find the next."
"Exactly!" The short redhead pointed towards her.
"I got you, don't worry." She finger gunned her back.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Melony shook her head.
"But it might actually work." Jayde pushed herself away from the wall and eyed the list of names again. "I'll see if I can bring up any information about the two others. You four look into Jay."
"You're not really helping them, are you?" Kasune gave her a side eye.
"I don't see what not." The emerald Huntress smiled behind her mask and shrugged. "We have plenty of lien right now. We don't need to do a big mission. And I'm interested."
"Ugh." She rolled her eyes and waved her hand. "Fine. Whatever. Go ahead. I'm going to take a bath."
"So," Elise blinked some, "our only other friends are Kaito and Pithaya."
"Then I guess we're asking them if they know who Jay Azur is." Kagami sighed while leaning back onto her hand. It would be easier to just walk away. It would be so much easier to just ignore all of this. But she couldn't get the image of Verdatre out of her mind.
His cheeks were puffy and eyes were swollen shut. His nose had been crushed and flattened against his face. He was missing numerous teeth and his fingers looked like they had been individually broken. There were countless more injuries and the thought of random people being picked up off the street and having that happen to them made her feel uneasy.
"Are we really doing this?" The jadette quietly asked.
"We are." Cheyenne quickly answered with narrowed eyes. She had the same uneasy feeling burning through her legs and the rest of her body.
"I'd prefer getting paid for knocking out criminals, but pummeling some real dicks into the ground sounds better." Kris exhaled. "I guess we could pick up smaller gigs here and there."
"Especially since you still haven't paid me for rent yet." Melony rudely chimed in. Everyone ignored her. But she was right.
"Alright. Team MACE vs The Order then." Elise smiled while holding her hand out and placing it in the middle of the table. "Let's do this."