I started playing Nocturne recently.
It was going well, easier than I expected...
And then Matador.
I was only level 13, and I didn't expect a boss to appear right in the middle of a corridor so I didn't have my demon team prepared. Needless to say, he kicked my ass.
Thankfully, the rematch went much better.
Also, I've added Cinder to the tags. I decided that while she wasn't going to be present much for the first part of the fic, she was going to become a major part of the fic, so giving her a tag felt appropriate. Still trying to think if there's a fourth character that should be added to the tags.
Reader 451: Ah.. right. I didn't remember what she was listening, just that it was only music without lyrics. I put a random music related word as a placeholder and was planning to verify later, but then I forgot and somehow didn't notice while proofreading the chapter. Oops? I went and fixed it as soon as I read your comment, thanks for pointing out the mistake.
As for Salem... I'm going to be playing devil advocate here and point out that Salem's control over the Grimm may be limited in distance, otherwise Cinder wouldn't have needed to cause a tragedy and mistrust to get the Grimm to attack, Salem could have just ordered it at any moment. If her control of the Grimm does has a limit in how far it works, which is the case for this fic's story, then such a kingdom would not only be limited in size, but she would also lose it as soon as she moved elsewhere, like joining the battlefield to ensure her victory. Much easier and more pratical to recruit a silver eyes warrior, cause a huge Grimm attack on a kingdom, and then have that silver eyes warrior 'save' said kingdom with her power, resulting in said silver eyes warrior being idolized by the populace which can be used to install that silver eyes warrior on the throne, thus ruling that kingdom by proxy. The secret kingdom, if Salem had one, would also not be able to reach the four kingdoms either if Salem does have a limit on how far she can control the Grimm, as they would get killed on the way unless Salem went with them, which, again, would result in the kingdom itself being wiped out by Grimm.
In the case of having thousands of cultist infiltrate the four kingdom, the more people are involded in that the more likely they will be found out, destroying her advantage of being an unknow to the kingdoms' governments and populace. Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead and all that. And again, a single silver eyes warrior can be more useful to take over a kingdom than a thousand spies. There's a reason why Ozpin is so wary of letting Salem get her hands on Ruby.
Also, Salem is so old that her answer to any idea you might have would likely be: ''Been there, done that.''
And a lot of Salem seeming incompetant in Gemini's eyes is because he think that Salem's endgoal is to reunite the relics and gets the brother gods to kill everyone, herself included. But apparently, official sources says that her goal is to rule Mankind as its Goddess-Queen. I guess RT just made a really shit job at communicating it in the show. Or they couldn't make up their mind and changed it mid show.
But it makes sense, Ozpin was the one who was tasked to get the relics. And the hesitation he showed when he and Salem where conquring the world was because he wasn't sure it was the best way to unite Mankind together before uniting the relics. And after he told everything to Salem about the mission the GOL gave him, she was the one who wasn't happy at the idea of making the gods come back and apparently her ''Why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be?'' was supposed to be interpreted as her wanting to take the role of the gods and rule Humanity? The problem with that sentence is that 'they' isn't clear on who it's talking about. Is 'they' the humans? In that case, what is 'replace them' supposed to mean? The closest thing to 'replacing them' that's possible is for their magic kids to marry amongst the humans and eventually spread magic amongst humanity, making humans magic again (and making them all Salem's and Ozpin's descendants by the same occasion), but that's just going to happen naturally as their kids grow up, marry someone and have kids themselves. That's not really 'replacing them' and more 're-introducing magic back into the gene pool'. But in that case, what the sentence meant was ''Why spend our lives trying to makes the humans better than they are when we could be making them better than they are?'' Which doesn't makes a lick of sense.
But if Salem's goal is to rule Mankind as its divine guide, then the 'them' in 'replace them' would be talking about the gods, while the first part could be about... I don't know! It's the shittiest line written in the entire show, no matter how you try to interpret that part, it doesn't makes sense.
Anyway, I could rant for hours about the mess that V6E3 was, so let's just go on instead.
Disclaimer: RWBY was the creation of Monty Oum (R.I.P. I never knew the guy, nor even heard of him before he died, but I still miss him, is that normal? Probably not.) and is currently the property of Rooster Teeth, not that RT seems to know what to do with it. It doesn't belong to me, I'm just borrowing the world and its character instead of a having a life.
Also, trigger warning: In this chapter, Gemini says something that could be interpreted as racist. Well, if you're an idiot who doesn't know the definition of the word.
Racism: The belief that one race is superior of inferior to another.
What Gemini says in this chapter is that humans and Faunus are the same. The opposite of the definition of racism, but the standard for what is considered racist has become so low nowadays that I'm not taking any chance and clearing up this detail before it becomes a problem.
For God's fucking sake, it's come to the point where people get called racist for not judging people based on their race. WTF?
But yeah, this chapter talk about the White Fang, so it approach the subject of racism. A touchy subject for many.
No offense or insult was meant toward any real life demographics.
Oh, and I almost forgot, in previous chapter, I used /-/ to separate between scenes. In this chapters the separation of scenes is this: /STONKS/
"...So once the cards are delivered here, all you have to do is put them on display. You don't have to put them in alphabetical order, that'd be too much of a chore, but do at least put copies of the same cards together." I said to my prospective employee.
Flax Phala, a young 15 year old civilian with light brown hair, almost blond, cyan eyes and a pair of slender, lyre-shaped horn marking him as an impala faunus. I think, I didn't know what other animals might have horns like that. He seemed a bit on the thin side, and his clothes were pretty worn-out, through not to the point of being called rags. He was an orphan, and apparently the man who owned the orphanage blamed him being a faunus for his orphanage not receiving as much funding as the other ones, hence why he was fed small portions and given old clothes. This was also why he was trying to find a job, and was willing to try one for a new shop, at the risk of losing it if said shop went under. At least he didn't look underfed to the point of being considered malnourished.
He seemed like an honest guy, so I was willing to try him for the job. It was a simple one that didn't required much in the way of skills, I just needed him to have a decent memory to remember the instructions.
I called bullshit on the orphanage owner's excuse, though. Orphans were much more common on Remnant than on Earth, so they received more public attention and thus, more funding as well. And Vale, unlike Mistral, wasn't know to discriminate while funding them, faunus or not. My guess was that he did receive the money to take care of Flax's needs properly, but kept some of it for himself and lied.
Unfortunately, because of how many orphans there was, investigating all orphanages was quite the hefty task, so people like that could go unchecked for years before the law caught up to them. That wasn't going to change unless Grimm stopped attacking people, which was to say never.
In any cases, the production of the cards happened in a factory back in Vale and was being taken care of by Illusion Industry, so all I needed from him in the shop was to keep inventory and sell the products.
Technically, this shop opening in Patch was also their property, but they agreed to let me try my hand at being the manager, since I owned the intellectual property of Yu-Gi-Oh. So I was getting a manager's salary on top of a cut of all Yu-Gi-Oh related profits.
There were other shops that were being open in Vale, of course, but the one on Patch was the only one I had under my responsability.
We couldn't sell booster packs, though, because Vale cracked down on gambling a lot more than the countries on Earth. Casinos and bets between adults were still legal, but not things like loot boxes (thanks God) or booster packs. I could still make starter decks, as customers knew every single cards inside and were guaranteed to get them. But that meant I had to sell the rest of the cards as singles, which was perfectly fine by me considering even the lowest-value cards sold for a slight profit, or at least broke even.
And bidding was still legal, so I could always sells a really rare card to the higgest bidder and fetch a high price, like, I dunno, a ghost rare Ultimate Blue-eyes Dragon? Some people would pay ten of thousands of Lien for something like that. I remembered seeing some cards on Earth that were sold at around 2 000 dollars. That was a pricy piece of colored cardboard. Well, that was still nothing compared to how much pokemon cards could cost.
I would like to thank Illusion Industry, for being good business partners and giving me the opportunity to do this. And my father, who teached me how to do paperwork, although teaching me how to embezzle Lien was neither needed nor asked for.
I had to have an ID in order to have an official job as a manager, though, but since keeping contact with distant settlements was pratically impossible for Vale, anyone could just show up at the door of the kingdom and introduce themselves to receive an ID. This made it very easy for anyone to show up and get a 'legal' fake identity, but with the nature of a civilization surrounded by Grimm, there wasn't much that could be done about this bureaucratic flaw, to the joy of criminals.
So I could easily have gone with 'Gemini Lampwick' as my 'real' identity for the rest of my life, but if it was found out I would be done for. Whatever problems that will arise from my last name, I'd rather deal with them as they come, one by one, than have it blow up in my face at the same time. It was much better to be suspected of malicious intentions because of my name and have plausible deniability than it was to hide that name and make it seems as if the malicious intent was confirmed once the fraud was revealed.
"What do I do if I catch a customer stealing?" Flax asked. Unlike the last potential employee I interviewed, he didn't show poorly repressed greed, so I guessed he was actually asking honestly rather than looking for an opportunity to steal without it being noticed. Suffice to say, I didn't hire that last one.
"Nothing. You never know when a criminal might turn violent, don't endanger yourself for cardboard, it's not worth it. We also have cameras, so they can be identified so long as they don't hide their face. If you see someone walk in with their face hidden, politely remind them that it's against the shop's rules. If they refuse to show their face after being told so, assume they're here to commit a crime and call the police as soon as possible without endangering yourself."
So far I already had the Yugi and the Kaiba Starter decks, along with the cards from first three booster pack sets such as Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon, Metal Raider and Spell Ruler. I was also planning to release the rest of the 2002 sets' cards before the end of the current arc (Battle City was already a few episodes in), along with the Joey and Pegasus Starter decks soon after it ended.
This might have seemed like I was releasing all this a bit too fast, but I just wanted to give a decent starting selection for the customers. The release of new sets was going to slow down after that, I didn't want to power creep the game as fast as Konami did.
I didn't knew the various sets by heart or anything but I had those I've seen the cards list once, so the internet pages were in the Archive. For the rest, I had all the cards, that existed back when I quit Earth, on Duelingbook. Sure, the online game itself was unplayable due to being the only existing copy, but I could still enter the site and look at the cards as reference.
Well, I just needed to release the older cards first and slow down the lightning fast power creep Konami did. I toyed with the idea of modifying some of the modern overpowered cards to reduce the power creep, but I wasn't convinced in my ability to not mess this up. I'll figure something out. Eventually.
I just didn't want to see Trap Cards become useless again. You knew the balance of a game was bad when an entire mechanic got power creeped out of it. Especially one as iconic as Trap Cards.
I also put several tables in the corner of the shop, for people to play the card game here. It'll probably be used for small local events or something like that. But that was for later.
"Alright, and for the pay?"
"Well, you're an inexperienced employee hired for an entry-level job that doesn't require much qualifications, so that's going to be 1 160 Lien per hour, the minimum wage. Of course, raises are expected as you learn and become better at the job." The maximum a job like this could bring was 1 700 Lien per hour, but that was the best one could gain if they were really good at the job, around 1 300 or 1 400 would be a more realistic goal for him, unless he planned to work here for a decade.
This was only a retail job after all.
"That's fair. I'm fine with that wage." Flax said.
"Great. There's just one issue however. I can't have you work here while looking like this." I continued.
Flax's eyes looked upward, toward his horns. Yeah, no, that wasn't what I was talking about. I didn't care about that. I took out 20 000 Lien from my wallet and gave it to him.
"I can't have an employee show up to work wearing rags. Take this, we don't have an uniform or anything, but you should at least come to work with clean clothes."
I myself had a new outfit, as well. It consisted of a black blazer and an orange vest over a white button shirt, a pair of tan pants, navy blue formal shoes and a black top hat. I changed back to the old outfit when I went hunting Grimm, though. I'd rather not cover this one with mud if I could help it.
"Ah... Thank you, I don't know what to say."
I smiled. "It's fine, I consider it to be an investment. If you want to thank me, just make sure I don't regret it. Oh, and do bring the bill back, I need it to put the Lien into the company's business expenses." Actually, I was only manager, so I didn't have the authority to give the company's Lien without a legitimate reason, which as far as tax paperwork went, this wasn't. So this came from my own pocket, which meant I couldn't fill it under business expense. The real reason I wanted the bill that proved he used the Lien I gave him for clothes was so I could make sure he didn't waste it on other things.
I didn't want to tell him that, though. That might make it seems as if he was distrusted, and I didn't want to create a working environment that made him think he was unwelcome. The kid needed positive support.
Otherwise it could affect how much Lien he managed to bring in for me.
"Then, am I hired?" He asked, hopeful.
"Yep, we just need to see which hours you're available so we can decide on your schedule, and sign the employment contract."
I foresaw lots of Lien in my future.
Cinder defeated Amber, she defeated the White Fang, she defeated Ozpin, she defeated Pyrrha... But could she defeat Capitalism?
/STONKS/
Yang was strong. Neo was stronger. I knew this. I remembered the fight they had, would have, in that train. My sister completely outmatched Yang. No contest.
I knew this, but Ruby didn't.
Ruby was telling me about her day at school while we were playing video games. There were regular spars at Signal, which took place in the school's courtyard. Today, Ruby apparently watched Yang's class sparing, through the window of her classroom, instead of focusing on her own classes.
She told me all about how her sister was the strongest student in the school and crushed everyone she spared against, and even claimed her sister was pratically invincible.
"Nah, my sister is stronger. She could beat Yang anytime." I said. Yang might have won every spar at school, but if she was a cut above her classmate, then sis was a cut above Yang.
Ruby gave me an offended look. "No she wouldn't. Yang's the best, she's the one who would win."
The poor, delusional girl actually thought her sister could defeat Neo.
"Nonsense, there's no way a fight between them ends in anything other than a total beatdown."
"That's ridiculous! You saw my sister train with dad, she can beat anyone short of a full-fledged huntsman." She insisted.
"And she'd still lose against my sister." I said, again.
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-uh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-uh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-uh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-uh!"
"Yuh-uh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"See? I'm glad you finally came to your senses." Ruby said with a grin.
Uh?... Oh! You devious little brat. I gave her a glare, but she just revelled in it.
Was this how she had always been or was I a terrible influence on her? Either way, her clever little trick didn't change reality.
"Fine, then how about settling this with a bet?" I proposed.
"Uh?" She looked at me with quizzical eyes.
I smirked. "A fight, your sister against mine. That way we'll see who's really better."
"Alright, Yang can kick butts anytime. You said it was a bet, right? What are we betting?"
That was a good question. What could we bet? I didn't think it'd be a good idea to bet money, as she didn't have an income and her father might not like it if his 13 years old daughter put herself in debt by gambling. Yeah, Mr Xiao-Long would definitely not like that. Couldn't be objects either, she had nothing that interested me and if I asked for something she didn't have then we went back to the same problem with money... Honestly, there was only one thing that'd be worth betting.
"How about the loser owes a favour to the winner?" I asked.
"You're on!" Ruby accepted, grinning. "When do we do this?"
Oh Ruby, you poor fool. Haven't you seen all these stories where owing a favor comes back to bite the protagonist in... Wait, no, she hadn't. For a moment I forgot how Remnant's overly strict censorship restrained the creativity of fictionnal stories. Even Yu-Gi-Oh had caused some outrage in the news a few times. The last time was with the 65th episode, the one where Marik mind-controlled a guy to challenge Yugi. That was apparently too spicy for Remnant's standard and Illusion Industry had to defend the anime in court. They barely won and were allowed to continue the production and publication of the show but they only managed to win because the 'fights' in Yu-Gi-Oh were done through playing cards. I still had a hard time believing that an anime for teenagers on Earth could cause that big of a fuss on Remnant.
On the bright side, people were still interested in good content, regardless of how much politicians whined about how it was 'dangerous', 'subverted moral values' or 'attracted the Grimm'. So the citizens of Remnant had gotten used to take the political outrage against a work of fiction as a recommendation and the free advertising made Yu-Gi-Oh quadrupled in popularity. Gotta love the streisand effect.
"I'll have to ask my sister when she could come to Patch, or if she's even interested in fighting Yang." I grabbed my scroll and texted Neo.
'Hi sis! A friend of mine is arguing that her big sister is stronger than you. Want to prove her wrong?' A second after I sent it, there was a loud ping behind us.
Ruby and I looked at where the sound came from. Glass shards broke off in the air as Neo dismissed her semblance, visibly annoyed at being discovered because of her scroll.
How long had she been following me?
"Wha... W-who? Gem, is she your sister?" Ruby, now up on her feets, asked.
"Yes," I nodded, deciding to just roll woth it, "Ruby, this is Neopolitan, my sister. Neo, this is Ruby."
"Hi, happy to meet you." Ruby offered her hand to my sister, but Neo ignored it and waved at her instead.
Ruby's smile turned uncomfortable and awkward. Not wanting things to derail, I spoke up, focusing on why I had texted Neo in the first place.
"So, about that fight? We could do this today if you want, I think Yang is in her room."
She gave me a bored look, indicating her lack of interest.
"... I'll give you ice cream." That picked her attention and she raised an eyebrow, inviting me to continue. "... Froyo?"
Neo nodded with a smile.
"Why doesn't she say anything?"
"She's mute."
"Oh, s-sorry." Ruby winced and looked away, as Neo rolled her eyes before walking out of the room.
"It looks like she doesn't like me." Ruby said with a pained expression.
"Nah, It's not against you. Neo has trouble trusting anyone not part of our family." I tried to reassure her, even though I didn't believe it myself.
It was true that Neo didn't trust anyone other than our father, uncle Perry and I, and uncle Perry was only included after years of having proved himself to be reliable. But Neo knew how to appear polite, so normally she would have shook Ruby's hand even if she didn't mean it. That was something I'll have to ask her about later.
We suddenly heard a loud crashing noise coming from Yang's room, followed by angry swearing.
My eyes widened when I realized what was going on and I ran, Ruby following behind me.
"Neo, wait! You're supposed to fight outside."
/STONKS/
Once I stopped my sister and we calmed Yang down, we went outside and traced a sparring ring in the sand. Yang was pissed at Neo for attacking her and more than willing to punch her in the ring. Though if Neo was serious when she had assaulted Yang, then the latter would currently be in no condition to fight.
As they were waiting on opposite sides of the sparring ring, both exuding confidence, I held the handle of my cane as if it was a microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, raising my voice a bit, "welcome to the match of the year. In the blue corner; the golden beauty of Signal Academy, Yang Xiao-Long. In the red corner; the mute terror, Neopolitan. This is a clash between two older sisters, both a pillar of undefeated strength in the eyes of their respective sibling."
On my right, Ruby stared at the incoming fight. Her wide silver eyes giving their full attention to the two fighters.
"The rules are as follow: You win when your opponent has set foot outside the ring, has surrendered, is unconscious or their aura is depleted by three quarters. No outside interference nor killing is allowed."
Ruby gave me a weird look when she heard the last rule, but considering Neo's reaction was a disappointed pout, I'd dare claim that saying it was very much necessary. I'll be standing ready to jump in too, just in case she decided to ignore the rule.
Yes, I knew she was probably just joking, but better safe than sorry.
"Now, Are you ready to rrrrrrrrrumble!? In three... two... one... FIGHT!"
Yang immediately shot Ember Celica behind herself and the recoil of her gauntlets sent her flying toward Neo, fist raised and ready to punch her.
Neo dodged, turning around her opponent as she moved, letting Yang continue past her and go outside the ring.
Yang would have landed out of bound, but she used her weapons' recoil again to return inside the ring, aiming a flying kick at Neo.
Did she adapt on the fly, or was the first charge a feint? No, she probably planned it, if she usually fought by flinging herself like that she would have had her fair share of defeats at Signal.
Her flying kick failed to hit Neo though, and she landed in the center of the ring as my sister dodged the same way she did the first attack. Now behind Yang, Neo was perfectly positionned for a... counterattack.
A loud smacking sound reached the ears of everyone present as Neo slapped Yang's ass. There was a second of silence as Yang, along with both Ruby and I, registered what had just happened.
...Sis, what the heck?
Well, I supposed the provocation was effective given how Yang then swirled around with red eyes.
"You little shit!" Yang roared, before renewing her offensive against Neo with punches after punches.
Despite her anger, Yang's form didn't suffer, each of her punches remained well-praticed. She didn't overextend nor showed obvious openings to exploits. Mr Xiao-Long trained her well, I'll admit.
Yet Neo dodged every single punch with minimal movement, smirking smugly at Yang as she did so.
But as she dodged, Yang pushed her closer and closer to the edge of the ring until she didn't have room to step backward anymore.
Neo yawned in Yang's face, before the angry brawler reared her arm back and fired a wide explosion in front of her. For anyone else, their only options at that point would have been to either jump backward or be blasted away.
They'd be out in both cases.
"See? I told you Yang would win." Ruby said, too soon.
Yang didn't win.
I was the only one to pick up on the sound of shattered glass, because I was the only one who knew what to look out for.
To Ruby and Yang, the light and sound of the short range explosion covered the image of Neo breaking apart along with the signature sound of her semblance.
The tiny tri-colored girl appeared behind Yang, swept her off her feet with a low spinning kick and followed with an axe kick on her head while she was still falling, smashing Yang's face on the ground. Hard.
She didn't get back up, so I started counting.
"1... 2..."
Aura might have protected Yang from brain damage caused by the hit, but a well placed and hard enough hit to the head could still put someone unconscious even with the active protection of the soul. Kind of like choking someone, even if aura would protect the neck from being damaged, it wouldn't help the oxygen pass through.
Granted, knocking someone unconscious while they still had aura left wasn't easy, nor even reliable, but it was something my sister was good enough to pull off.
"... 7... 8..."
Ruby looked at her unmoving sister, shocked not only at Yang's defeat, but also at how fast and easy Neo made it look. "Yang... Yang lost?"
"... 10. Yang Xiao-Long is unconscious, Neopolitan won!" I called the match, before addressing Ruby. "And now you owe me a favor."
"Oh, right... What do you want?"
I shrugged. "Dunno, I'll tell you when I'll figure it out. Come on, let's go see if your sister's alright."
We ran to Yang, with Ruby grommeling something about how it was unfair that I just kept the favor for later.
Fortunately, Yang was alright. We all expected as much, but it was nice to have it confirmed a few minutes later when she woke up.
"Ugh, my head feels like a truck ran me over..." She complained, massaging her head.
"Nah, pretty sure you could have tanked a truck better than that," I laughed, before offering her a hand to help her get up, "come on, my sister and I are going to get ice cream at Froyo. Do you two want to come? I'm paying."
"Eh, sure, why not?" Yang shrugged before pointing at Neo. "But you and I are going to have a rematch one of these days and I'm going to kick your ass."
Neo laughed, clearly not believing her, before turning and walk toward the city. We followed suit, with me unable to stop the wide grin on my face.
I might not have planned for Yang and Neo meeting in advance but I was glad I seized the opportunity. If their fight led to Yang becoming extra motivated in her training and ended up with her being stronger than her canon counterpart, then that was going to pay dividends in the future.
/STONKS/
"Rumors of White Fang's violence coming true!?" I read the headline of the newspaper uncle Perry left on the kitchen's table while he was cooking his breakfeast, the smell of bacon filling the small house.
According to the article, Ghira Belladonna abdicated his position as leader of the White Fang to Sienna Khan a year ago. Since then, militarization of the organization has been observed, but no actual crimes from them had been confirmed until now. Sienna's ideas weren't exactly a secret, it was only a matter of time before things evolved to be more than rumors of drugstores burglaries and vandalism of small businesses.
I mean, the burglaries and vandalism had happened, but it was just that the White Fang weren't confirmed as the culprits.
A month ago, an atlesian convoy was ambushed. Footage had been destroyed by the perpetrators, but the people leading the convoy had been able to testify and give a description of their attackers, who wore the new White Fang uniforms and, more concerning, Grimm masks. Wearing Grimm mask to intimidate the opponent was an old tactic that the White Fang copied from ninja, like how some bandits did too. The damages on the security AK-130 were also a match for the weapons of Sienna Khan, Adam Taurus, Blake Belladonna and Fennec and Corsac Albain, along with a handful of other names I didn't recognize. That was the issue with everyone having an equally unique weapon, you were easily identifiable.
Nobody died, thankfully, but the terrorists successfully stole weapons and ammunitions that should have gone to a small mistralian border town of merely a quarter of a million people. People on Remnant had a different definition of what a 'small town' was, it came with how cramped everyone was and how huge the cities of Vale, Mistral, Mantle and Atlas were. Especially Vale. God Vale was unreasonably huge.
And since insurance companies didn't bother with most settlements outside of the kingdom's capitals due to how often those disappeared overnight, this town wasn't getting any replacements for the stolen weapons they had already paid for. That wasn't to say they didn't already have some weapons and supplies to repel the Grimm in the following months, but they were still going to feel the difference. Thousands of people were going to die where they otherwise should have lived, some amongst them were Faunus as well.
Also, Blake's name and face literally appeared in the newspaper. How did Weiss not recognize Blake at Beacon? She would have had to purposefully avoid reading and hearing anything about the organization trying to kill her and her family to not recognize Blake. I refused to believe she would be dumb enough for that. She was supposed to be the smart one, dammit.
Erm, anyway. It looked like the White Fang's radicalization happened later than I thought. Back on Earth, I thought it happened while Blake was still a child, probably nearing adolescence, but it was actually happening while she was... She should be 15 right now, right? So she had been a terrorist for two years before Beacon, two and a half if we take into account the months of preparation and more subtle operations.
Still, if the White Fang had yet to actually attack the SDC, then it might give me an opportunity I could exploit. Yes, an interesting idea sprouted in my mind. I was going to need to buy a body camera, preferably with sound and night vision on it. I could kill two birds with one stone.
All I needed was a little preparation and the guts to seize this opportunity.
/STON-
Actually, while I was on the subject of the White Fang and faunus, there was something I would like to ask my uncle.
"Uncle Perry, I was wondering. Have you faced a lot of racism because of being a Faunus?"
"Uh?" He looked at me curiously, probably wondering what brought this on before he looked at the newspaper I was reading. "Well, I can't say it never happened. You already know I grew up in the streets, without any kind of support. There's been somenpeople who threw racial insults at me, but most of the time it was hard to tell if the sneers and digust on people's faces were because of the dog ears or because I was a street urchin in rags. Ironically enough, I think I've received more racism from other Faunus."
"Wait, really?" My eyebrows creased in disbelief and uncle Perry nodded.
"Yeah. I've lost count of the number of times I've been called a 'pet' by other Faunus since I've started working for your father. The same people just plain refuses to get a job. "We're not slaves anymore, so why should we work for humans?", they say, then they complain that they're poor. If they're so insistent on being bums, then they can stay poor. Humans don't have a problem with being employed, so why can't they?"
"I-I see. But it can't be all poor Faunus who don't have a job that are like that right? Hasn't there been protests from the White Fang because people refused to employ Faunus? That's a bit hard to get a job if you can't get hired when you try." I didn't have a high opinion of people who just complained without being willing to do something about their problems, but fair was fair. If something outside of their control made it much harder to get hired, then it wasn't exactly their fault.
Uncle Perry pursed his lips. "Sure, but that was uncommon... before the White Fang started to protest against every business that hired faunus. Apparently, 'Faunus labor' is bad only on the basis of being Faunus labor and they never bothered with if said labour was employement in fair conditions and wages. Then they protested in the streets because business owners 'discriminated against Faunus' by refusing to hire them. And if that newspaper is true, they're now attacking those who hire Faunus. If those assholes wants to be a bunch of losers that much, then fine! It's their problem. But no, they just have to bring down everyone else with them."
Wow, that was pretty bad. It looked like Faunus were irrational hypocrites... I guessed they really were just like humans. Equality, yay.
That was why I only really cared about a very select number of people, because most people sucked regardless of race.
"So I guess that means you don't like the White Fang?"
Uncle Perry was silent for a bit, pensive, before letting out a tired sigh. "Well, I used to like them when I was a kid, they'd give me free soup. But after your father hired me and my life got better and more stable, I started gaining a wider perspective. Now I see that even back when they were peaceful, the White Fang would give free food to homeless Faunus but would turn away homeless humans without giving them anything while preaching their 'equality', before blaming the humans and calling them evil for not believing them."
I rested my chin in my hand, slouching a bit on the table. "Ghira Belladonna seemed honest, though."
"Mmh? Eh, yeah he was, at least as far as I can tell. I remember once when I was a child, he visited the local White Fang charity and scolded them for their racism against humans. Some of them quit right there on the spot, while the majority started giving to poor humans too, at least until Ghira left, then they started discriminating against humans again. I believe he genuinely wanted to change society for the better, but the more the Fang grew, the less he was able to control it. A shame."
A shame, uh? I had to agree. Mr Belladonna created the White Fang to give the Faunus a voice, believing that said voice genuinely wanted peace and equality like he did, but it turned out that most Faunus didn't know what they wanted, just like most humans, and just got angry at what they perceived as the cause of their misery. I felt kinda sad for him now.
In the end, humans and Faunus were two species that occupied the same niche in nature. The laws of evolution were clear: Because of the scarcity of ressources, when two species occupying the same niche in nature shared the same area, then they will compete until one changed and filled a different niche, to the point of becoming unrecognizable, or was driven to extinction.
There was only one path that will not cause the end of either humans or Faunus, and it was the path that lead to the stars. Up there was enough space and ressources for our two species to never need to compete again.
But to have any hope of achieving such a goal, I first needed to survive Cinder. To do that, I needed to stack the Deck in my favor as much as possible. Weakening one of her future tool, the White Fang, could only benefit me in the long run. I had a plan for this, or, well, an idea for a plan. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to pull it off, but it was worth a shot. If it did work, then I will use Kuo Kuana to severely weaken the White Fang.
I suddenly smelt burnt bacon. Uncle Perry smelt it too, and he turned back to the stove in a panic.
"No, my bacon! Whyyy?"
Ah, sorry?
/STONKS/
Ruby entered the new shop and looked around. She saw cards. Lots of cards. Cards everywhere.
She watched some of the episodes when she happened to watch TV as it aired. Sure, it was technically rated 18+, but that went for all the good shows and she knew for a fact that everyone ignored the ratings anyway. So after the other students at school talked about the card shop, she got curious and came to take a look. She wasn't sure she was interested in actually playing the game, even if she kinda liked the show (Magical Maiden stayed her favorite), as the rules left her pretty confused.
The show itself did the opposite of helping with that.
She never really had much interest in huntsmen cards, as they were just collectibles that couldn't be used for anything other than trading or selling them. She had one of uncle Qrow, but she only kept it because it was her uncle on it.
But if there were cards with an actual game with it... She might try it if she could figure out what the actual rules were.
"Welcome," A Faunus behing the counter greeted her. He had... well, she had no idea what kind of horn those were, "may I help you?"
"Hi, and yes. I'd like to learn the rules before I buy anything." She answered with a smile. She didn't have a lot of pocket money, so she'd rather not waste it.
The Faunus employee motionned to a shelf full of deck boxes, card sleeves, playing mats, small books and even dices and coins. Oh, right. Some cards need those last two things for their effects, or something.
"We have rulebooks, they usually help for that" He said.
"Usually?" Shouldn't that be always?
The employee shrugged. "It helped me understand most of the basics, but to be honest, I'm still pretty confused."
That was encouraging...
Did she had to buy one to read it, or could she just read it and put it back?
She asked, and he told her the rulebooks could be read here without being bought, but that she probably would wanted her own if she wanted to play the game, if only to avoid forgetting a rule and have someone lie to her about it. At least they weren't very pricy.
She swore she saw cards that were sold at a higher price than the 100 Lien rulebooks. Well, she guessed it wasn't much of a surprise. She heard some huntsmen cards were sold at several dozen of thousands Lien.
After taking some time to read a rulebook, the rules did appear clearer. Though just as the employee - Flax, she learned - said, the extensive explanation still didn't cover everything. Those extra monster zone weren't in the cartoon, but at least the rulebook explained what it was, all it said on those pendulum zone on the left and right spell/trap zones was that it wouldn't be relevant before a long time and to treat them like normal spell/trap zones in the meantime.
And then there were things like effect chains and timings. If most rules weren't that complicated when taken individually, trying to understand them all in one sitting made her head swirl.
But she thought she had enough of a grasp of the basic ones to be able to play it, so she browsed the cards to see if she found interesting ones.
She wondered if Gem would be interested in this game.
He did like complicated games, he was a huge nerd like that, and this one made Remnant: The Game look simple. She could show it to him.
/STONKS/
There it was!
After three months of vigilance, I had finally found another of Salem's Seer.
Once again hidden behind a tree under Remnant's night, I took out the body camera I had bought and turned it on. But before I hung it on my hoodie, I used it to peek around the tree, making sure it took a good look at the Grimm. I had bought one with night vision for a reason after all.
This Seer had barbed tentacles, so it was actually a threat in combat, unlike the one I had killed the last time. But I was level 27 now, I could do this. Maybe.
I quickly threw two knives, one after another. The first one was thrown high, while the second one was thrown just a little lower, behind the first one. This Seer is much more dangerous, but hopefully the first knife will grab its attention, allowing the second one to reach its target.
A tentacle knocked the first knife away before it noticed the second one, but before the second knife could hit its target, another tentacle reacted just in time to stop it. It was to late to parry perfectly, though, and the knife hit the tentacle bellow its arrowhead-shaped bone, cutting that limb. But it still had five other tentacles left, while I only had 3 knives left. That wasn't good, but at least I weakened it a bit. Its tentacles moving much faster than the last one's was going to be a problem.
One of the tentacle suddenly flew toward my position. I dodged, moving behind the forest's shrubbery to remain hidden from Salem's view, but the barbed limb pierced through the large trunk of the tree I was hiding behind.
Dammit! That thing wasn't just a communication tool with the ability to defend itself, it actually had some real strength behind it. I thought I needed to stay hidden to avoid Salem seeing my face, but facing this Grimm in direct combat wasn't something I could afford either.
"Oh my, if this isn't not our little knife thrower." Salem's voice came from the Seer. "Forget it, your efforts are pointless, but I am willing to spare your life if you cooperate and help me find who I seek."
She decided to talk? Eh, that was reckless of you, Salem. You've now given me more than I was hoping for.
I moved away from my current position as the Seer's tentacle moved again, this time trying to catch me, and threw a smoke bomb at it at the same time. A tentacle hit it mid-air, but it did nothing to stop the smoke from engulfing the area. Now I could move with more leeway.
Moving as fast as I could while staying silent, I circled around the Seer to face the opposite side of it.
"There should be a house made of wood in this forest. If you know of it, then all that I ask is that you lead me to it, nothing more." I listened to where her voice came from, pinpointing her current location a meter away from where she was before the smokescreen.
As if I'd obey you, but thanks for revealing where you moved.
I threw my third knife at the Seer's head. I wouldn't have been able to make that throw if she'd stayed silent.
But even with the smoke limiting her vision range, it wasn't enough to reach her and her tentacles countered the knife.
Two knives left. Tch!
"I am not an ingrate, you know. I will reward you for your help. Whatever your dream life is, I can give it to you."
I highly doubted that.
I, Gemini Torchwick, have a dream: to settle down in a peaceful home and have a big family.
It would be kind of hard to do if Salem won and eradicated all sapient life on Remnant.
I jumped above the Seer and threw my fourth knife downward before landing on the other side. That knife too was parried. This wasn't working, time for a change of tactic.
I took an explosive charge hidden in my clothes and kept my right hand in my pocket, on the detonator.
The sound of my landing signaled my position. I stepped aside to dodge the Seer's incoming tentacles, but one grabbed my leg and the others soon followed.
I was then held in the air, four tentacles each holding one of my limb and the fifth coiled around my neck.
I'd seen enough hentai to know where this was going and I didn't like it.
"What is it that your heart desire? Wealth? Status? A woman? Or women? All I want from you is to stop opposing me and lead me to the silver-eyed girl."
"Can you give me a cute robot waifu*?" What? Aigis and Lambda are best girls. Anyone who disagreed had shit taste. And yes, I knew I only saw the Blazblue anime and never got one of the games, but I stood by what I said anyway.
"...What?" Incomprehension filled Salem's voice, and I took advantage of her confusion to throw the explosive charge with a flick of my wrist, which my left hand still held, at the Seer before it could get close enough to look at my face despite the smoke.
Then I pressed the detonator and the blast, of which I was still inside its zone, projected me backward.
It dissipated the smoke, but the Seer's tentacles disappeared before I crashed on the ground and I could find no trace of the Grimm afterward.
It was defeated, and I had it all on video. Audio included.
Also, Ruby was my best friend. I wasn't sacrificing her. Go fuck yourself, Salem.
And the brother gods could go fuck themselves too.
Seriously, if they wanted a species to live in peace with itself, they should have created a world with unlimited ressources. With limited ressources accessible, Humanity will always come to a point where fighting each other was necessary for survival. Those two assholes gave a task to Mankind that they knew was impossible and threatened extermination as punishment for failure.
They were worse than Salem, we were better off without them. I was going to throw one of the relics into the Sun as soon as possible so nobody could ever bring them together.
/STONKS/
"HEREEEEETIC!"
"This is the last time I do this with Tyrian in the room." Salem decided.
She really should have learned her lesson the first time.
/STONKS/
I re-read the contract I obtained with great glee.
The sales of cards started well, so I had managed to have this contract with a programming team. Remnant already had holographic technology. The holograms shown in volume 2 might not have colors, but these were state-made holograms used for official announcement. Remnant's TV didn't have screens, but projected a holographic image with colors instead, showing that the tech for that was not only well-kown but also cheap enough to be in every common household.
Mecha-shift technology fit really well with it too. All that was needed was to program the card recognition system and the holograms themselves. I also made sure it was able to take cards with card sleeves, otherwise that would have been a pretty bad design flaw.
It was going to take some time to produce, but I couldn't wait to have a real life duel disk.
Alone in my office, I started giggling.
/STONKS/
I stared at the news on the TV, as Lisa delivered the news of the White Fang's assassination of a Schnee. The daughter of Nicholas Schnee's niece, Weiss'... aunt? There was one generation too much separating them for that, but I had no idea what it was called. Something auntie something removed, whatever.
So they were making their move... And what a dumbass move it was.
I was expecting them to start attacking the SDC at some point, Weiss in volume 1 had mentionned actual bloodshed between the White Fang and her family after all, but that woman was one of the most outspoken critic of Jacques that could be found in the Schnee family. If it wasn't for the White Fang claiming to be the perpetrator and celebrating the team that did it, it was led by some guy with bat wings, I'd suspect Jacques of getting rid of one of his detractor and using the Faunus terrorists as scapegoats.
Like, I wasn't advocating for murder or anything like that, but if you were going to assassine someone because you thought it was going to help you reach your goals then the least you could do was make sure that it helped you instead of your ennemy.
What a bunch of morons. I was almost more pissed at how stupid they were than I was at the obvious immorality of their actions. This was what Blake was stealing weapons and munitions for? At least my father had to be forced by Cinder to do it.
In any case, the Schnee family had around 20 members, including the in-laws. Considering the show only showed Weiss, her dad, her direct siblings and mentioned her mother; It was safe to expect that this wasn't going to be the only family member she was going to lose to the White Fang. I unfortunately couldn't do anything about it.
What I could do, however, was exploit the opportunity this offered me for my own ends.
/STONKS/
The news of the assassination made people worried about the SDC and the White. That worry, in turn, affected the perceived value of the company and the following weeks saw the SDC's market value plummet. That a decent amount of SDC stock was sold during that time didn't help.
Well, I say plummet, but it went from around 24.3 million Lien a share to around 21.7 million. That was a loss of 11.7%, a decently big one, sure, but the company was still worth a massive amount of money. That it managed to keep so much of it despite its security being called into question and a terrorist group basically declaring war on it was kind of impressive. Plus, it was only a temporary loss and its shares will go back up once people see the company's activities continue unperturbed. Or mostly unperturbed. Jacques Schnee had already announced a meeting with his investors to discuss the issues.
All investors were invited to the party if they wished to come, all that was needed was a share of the company.
And that was the opportunity I was hoping for.
Unfortunately, Remnant didn't have the internet, at least not like how Earth did. The wi-fi here was only used for TV channels, news, online multiplayer and scroll calls, mails and texts. There were no online forum, blogs, or platforms for independent creators like youtube. Websites, and unfortunately, online money transfers, weren't really a thing that developped. It was interesting how Remnant's technology could be so in advance of Earth's in certain aspect, but a good century behind on other things.
Heck, in medical sciences alone, they could make better prosthetics than anything one could hope for on Earth but, due to only having limited husbandry and thus a lack of mortal plagues in Remnant's past, this world's knowledge in pathology was... somewhat lacking.
So while there was an app to keep track of the stock market in real-time, there sadly was no online brokerage, which meant I'd have to do it by phone, pre-internet Earth style.
"Hello, welcome to Vale's Market Center. How may I help you?" A woman's voice answered with praticed politeness.
"I'd like to buy a share of the SDC."
I waited for a moment as the lady hesitated. "Very well, given how young you are, I assume this is your first time?"
"Yes."
"Very well, then I'll need your name, house adresse, and scroll number."
I gave her the informations she asked for. She was surprised when she heard my last name and hesitated a little before asking me to repeat.
"Gemini Torchwick. Yes, my father breaks the law on a regular basis, but I haven't. All the Lien I possess has been acquired by myself within the confines of the law."
...What? I got that often.
"R-right. Are you sure you want to buy a SDC share, though? I can't believe a child having that much Lien, legally or not."
And yet I had it. I kinda wanted to cry at how much cash this was taking from me, but I had it.
And worse come to worse, I was going to take most of it back once I was done with this hare-brained scheme of mine. With any luck, I'll at least break even.
"It's a good thing then that whether you believe it or not doesn't change that I have it. I assume I have to send it by mail? When should I received the stock certificate?"
"... It will be sent by mail the day we receive the money. If you send it today, you should receive it in between seven to twenty days."
I grimaced. The formal event was in twelve days. I must have it before then if I wanted to meddle.
"Could it be possible to have it sooner?" I aksed, nervous that my whole plan depended on the answer.
"Well, you could bring the money directly to one of our office. We have one in Patch, if you're interested I can forward the information so that the trade will be ready to be completed by the time you arrive. You'll only need to give your name and the Lien."
I acquiested and thanked her for the help, and she gave me the building's address.
It was filled with people moving in a hurry, financial expert who breathed numbers all day long trying to predict the market, businessmen buying and selling shares of various companies and clerks busing with inhuman amounts of paperwork.
I waited a little in line at the entrance for an employee of the brokerage firm to find which agent received the information and redirect me to their office.
I arrived in front of a middle-aged woman, who pursed her lips and glared at me when she read my name.
"You're at the right place. If you have the Lien to pay for the share and the commission, it's yours." She said, looking like she sucked a lemon.
I don't think she liked me.
"How much is the commission?"
"1 085 000 Lien."
I frowned. That wasn't right.
"I thought the comission was supposed to be 2.5% of the traded shares? That's definitely more than that." Around double what I should pay, if I wasn't wrong.
"So? There's no way that someone like you obtained that money legally. It might as well go to an honest citizen."
Was that her excuse to extort money from me?
"That's a baseless accusation. Even if it wasn't, that would be ground to call the police, not... This, whatever it is you think you're doing."
"Justice. But if you refuse to pay, I can just call security to throw you out."
In normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect the security guard to side with such obvious bullcrap, but if they were as prejudiced toward me as she was then I couldn't take that risk. I needed to get to the Schnee's formal event.
"Tch. Fine, I'll pay." I conceded, and gave her the Lien she asked for. It wasn't about the money, after all.
"Good, and with any luck, you'll get yourself arrested for whatever is it you're trying to pull. Be a dear and do make sure it's something you'll be executed for. That's the best your kind can do for the kingdom." She sneered as she gave her last remark.
Forgive my language, but what a cunt.
I flipped her off before walking out of there with my SDC stock certificate in hand, taking satisfaction in the indignant gasp she made.
At least, with this, the doors of the Schnee Manor were open to me.
STONKS
If you think I exaggerated how dumb the White Fang is. Keep in mind that irl, BLM, during the violent riots against police racism toward black people, killed more innocent and unarmed black people during each day of their riots than the police do in an entire year. Also, antifa joined the party and, in the name of helping black people, burned down black neighborhoods and black owned small business... Sometimes reality is more unrealistic than fiction.
But yeah, most fics approaches the racism and White Fang subplot as along the lines of 'Atlas bad. SDC bad. White Fang goal good but execution bad.' and then proceeds to have the character act as if it was the default for two different species who needs the same ressources to lives to be able to live together and sing kumbaya but the formerly mentionned were the ones to ruin it for everyone. That was done over and over again to the point of becoming boring, so I'm going for a grayer and spicier take to write a different White Fang subplot.
Individual human might be able to live with Faunus, individual Faunus might be able to live with humans, but the entirety of humans and Faunus species? Impossible in the long term.
Even rabbits, in the competition for ressources, have driven several other species extinct despite how weak and harmless they are. But you think the murder monkeys can make this work? Humans and Faunus can't live together in peace. Not because they're too different, but because they're too similar.
Of course, if you think the chapter was too one-sided against Faunus, keep in mind that Perry's and Gemini's discussion was very Vale centric (they live in the kingdom of Vale after all). Other kingdoms might have different racism issues than Vale, who never seemed to be the most racist place against Faunus in the show, unlike Atlas and Mistral. But yes, in the human-Faunus conflict, both have a share of the fault, as real conflicts often do as well.
Next chapter, Counter-Strike, will be out on November 28th.
Please, let me know in the comments what you thought of this chapter. Last chapter was a little dry on comments.
And yeah, I'm somewhat expecting this chapter to be a bit controversial. Touchy subject and all that.